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[Illustration: Faithfully yours Charles Dickens]
PEARL-FISHING.
CHOICE STORIES,
FROM
Dickens’ Household Words.
SECOND SERIES.
AUBURN:
ALDEN, BEARDSLEY & CO.
ROCHESTER:
WANZER, BEARDSLEY & CO.
1854.
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by
ALDEN, BEARDSLEY & CO.,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Northern District of New York.
THOMAS B. SMITH,
STEREOTYPER AND ELECTROTYPER,
216 William Street, N. Y.
The Publisher’s Notice.
The large demand for the _First Series_ of this publication, has
confirmed the publishers in their opinion of its worth and its
adaptability to meet the wants and tastes of the reading public, and
induced them to issue, in rapid succession, the present volume, which
will be found not less interesting and worthy of attention.
The publishers also announce their intention of continuing this series,
which has been received with so much public favor.
June, 1854.
Contents.
PAGE
I.--THE YOUNG ADVOCATE 7
II.--THE LAST OF A LONG LINE 33
III.--THE GENTLEMAN BEGGAR 107
IV.--EVIL IS WROUGHT BY WANT OF THOUGHT 130
V.--BED 167
VI.--THE HOME OF WOODRUFFE THE GARDENER 184
VII.--THE WATER-DROPS 287
VIII.--AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY 325
I.
The Young Advocate.
Antoine de Chaulieu was the son of a poor gentleman of Normandy, with a
long genealogy, a short rent-roll, and a large family. Jacques Rollet
was the son of a brewer, who did not know who his grandfather was; but
he had a long purse and only two children. As these youths flourished in
the early days of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and were near
neighbors, they naturally hated each other. Their enmity commenced at
school, where the delicate and refined De Chaulieu being the only
gentilhomme among the scholars, was the favorite of the master (who was
a bit of an aristocrat in his heart) although he was about the worst
dressed boy in the establishment, and never had a sou to spend; while
Jacques Rollet, sturdy and rough, with smart clothes and plenty of
money, got flogged six days in the week, ostensibly for being stupid and
not learning his lessons--which, indeed, he did not--but, in reality,
for constantly quarrelling with and insulting De Chaulieu, who had not
strength to cope with him. When they left the academy, the feud
continued in all its vigor, and was fostered by a thousand little
circumstances arising out of the state of the times, till a separation
ensued in consequence of an aunt of Antoine de Chaulieu’s undertaking
the expense of sending him to Paris to study the law, and of maintaining
him there during the necessary period.
With the progress of events came some degree of reaction in favor of
birth and nobility, and then Antoine, who had passed for the bar, began
to hold up his head and endeavored to push his fortunes; but fate seemed
against him. He felt certain that if he possessed any gift in the world
it was that of eloquence, but he could get no cause to plead; and his
aunt dying inopportunely, first his resources failed, and then his
health. He had no sooner returned to his home, than, to complicate his
difficulties completely, he fell in love with Mademoiselle Natalie de
Bellefonds, who had just returned from Paris, where she had been
completing her education. To expiate on the perfections of Mademoiselle
Natalie, would be a waste of ink and paper; it is sufficient to say that
she really was a very charming girl, with a fortune which, though not
large, would have been a most desirable acquisition to De Chaulieu, who
had nothing. Neither was the fair Natalie indisposed to listen to his
addresses; but her father could not be expected to countenance the suit
of a gentleman, however well-born, who had not a ten-sous piece in the
world, and whose prospects were a blank.
While the ambitious and love-sick young barrister was thus pining in
unwelcome obscurity, his old acquaintance, Jacques Rollet, had been
acquiring an undesirable notoriety. There was nothing really bad in
Jacques’ disposition, but having been bred up a democrat, with a hatred
of the nobility, he could not easily accommodate his rough humor to
treat them with civility when it was no longer safe to insult them. The
liberties he allowed himself whenever circumstances brought him into
contact with the higher classes of society, had led him into many
scrapes, out of which his father’s money had one way or another released
him; but that source of safety had now failed. Old Rollet having been
too busy with the affairs of the nation to attend to his business, had
died insolvent, leaving his son with nothing but his own wits to help
him out of future difficulties, and it was not long before their
exercise was called for. Claudine Rollet, his sister, who was a very
pretty girl, had attracted the attention of Mademoiselle de Bellefonds’
brother, Alphonso; and as he paid her more attention than from such a
quarter was agreeable to Jacques, the young men had more than one
quarrel on the subject, on which occasions they had each,
characteristically, given vent to their enmity, the one in contemptuous
monosyllables, and the other in a volley of insulting words. But
Claudine had another lover more nearly of her own condition of life;
this was Claperon, the deputy-governor of the Rouen jail, with whom she
made acquaintance during one or two compulsory visits paid by her
brother to that functionary; but Claudine, who was a bit of a coquette,
though she did not altogether reject his suit, gave him little
encouragement, so that betwixt hopes, and fears, and doubts, and
jealousies, poor Claperon led a very uneasy kind of life.
Affairs had been for some time in this position, when, one fine morning,
Alphonse de Bellefonds was not to be found in his chamber when his
servant went to call him; neither had his bed been slept in. He had been
observed to go out rather late on the preceding evening, but whether or
not he had returned, nobody could tell. He had not appeared at supper,
but that was too ordinary an event to awaken suspicion; and little alarm
was excited till several hours had elapsed, when inquiries were
instituted and a search commenced, which terminated in the discovery of
his body, a good deal mangled, lying at the bottom of a pond which had
belonged to the old brewery. Before any investigations had been made,
every person had jumped to the conclusion that the young man had been
murdered, and that Jacques Rollet was the assassin. There was a strong
presumption in favor of that opinion, which further perquisitions tended
to confirm. Only the day before, Jacques had been heard to threaten M.
de Bellefonds with speedy vengeance. On the fatal evening, Alphonse and
Claudine had been seen together in the neighborhood of the now
dismantled brewery; and as Jacques, betwixt poverty and democracy, was
in bad odor with the prudent and respectable part of society, it was not
easy for him to bring witnesses to character, or prove an
unexceptionable alibi. As for the Bellefonds and De Chaulieus, and the
aristocracy in general, they entertained no doubt of his guilt; and
finally, the magistrates coming to the same opinion, Jacques Rollet was
committed for trial, and as a testimony of good will Antoine de
Chaulieu was selected by the injured family to conduct the prosecution.
Here, at last, was the opportunity he had sighed for! So interesting a
case, too, furnishing such ample occasion for passion, pathos,
indignation! And how eminently fortunate that the speech which he set
himself with ardor to prepare, would be delivered in the presence of the
father and brother of his mistress, and perhaps of the lady herself! The
evidence against Jacques, it is true, was altogether presumptive; there
was no proof whatever that he had committed the crime; and for his own
part he stoutly denied it. But Antoine de Chaulieu entertained no doubt
of his guilt, and his speech was certainly well calculated to carry
conviction into the bosom of others. It was of the highest importance to
his own reputation that he should procure a verdict, and he confidently
assured the afflicted and enraged family of the victim that their
vengeance should be satisfied. Under these circumstances could anything
be more unwelcome than a piece of intelligence that was privately
conveyed to him late on the evening before the trial was to come on,
which tended strongly to exculpate the prisoner, without indicating any
other person as the criminal. Here was an opportunity lost. The first
step of the ladder on which he was to rise to fame, fortune, and a wife,
was slipping from under his feet!
Of course, so interesting a trial was anticipated with great eagerness
by the public, and the court was crowded with all the beauty and fashion
of Rouen. Though Jacques Rollet persisted in asserting his innocence,
founding his defence chiefly on circumstances which were strongly
corroborated by the information that had reached De Chaulieu the
preceding evening,--he was convicted.
In spite of the very strong doubts he privately entertained respecting
the justice of the verdict, even De Chaulieu himself, in the first flush
of success, amid a crowd of congratulating friends, and the approving
smiles of his mistress, felt gratified and happy; his speech had, for
the time being, not only convinced others, but himself; warmed with his
own eloquence, he believed what he said. But when the glow was over, and
he found himself alone, he did not feel so comfortable. A latent doubt
of Rollet’s guilt now burnt strongly in his mind, and he felt that the
blood of the innocent would be on his head. It is true there was yet
time to save the life of the prisoner, but to admit Jacques innocent,
was to take the glory out of his own speech, and turn the sting of his
argument against himself. Besides, if he produced the witness who had
secretly given him the information, he should be self-condemned, for he
could not conceal that he had been aware of the circumstance before the
trial.
Matters having gone so far, therefore, it was necessary that Jacques
Rollet should die; so the affair took its course; and early one morning
the guillotine was erected in the court-yard of the jail, three
criminals ascended the scaffold, and three heads fell into the basket,
which were presently afterwards, with the trunks that had been attached
to them, buried in a corner of the cemetery.
Antoine de Chaulieu was now fairly started in his career, and his
success was as rapid as the first step towards it had been tardy. He
took a pretty apartment in the Hôtel de Marbœuf, Rue Grange-Batelière,
and in a short time was looked upon as one of the most rising young
advocates in Paris. His success in one line brought him success in
another; he was soon a favorite in society, and an object of interest to
speculating mothers; but his affections still adhered to his old love
Natalie de Bellefonds, whose family now gave their assent to the
match--at least, prospectively--a circumstance which furnished such an
additional incentive to his exertions, that in about two years from the
date of his first brilliant speech, he was in a sufficiently flourishing
condition to offer the young lady a suitable home. In anticipation of
the happy event, he engaged and furnished a suite of apartments in the
Rue du Helder; and as it was necessary that the bride should come to
Paris to provide her trousseau, it was agreed that the wedding should
take place there, instead of at Bellefonds, as had been first
projected; an arrangement the more desirable, that a press of business
rendered M. de Chaulieu’s absence from Paris inconvenient.
Brides and bridegrooms in France, except of the very high classes, are
not much in the habit of making those honeymoon excursions so universal
in this country. A day spent in visiting Versailles, or St. Cloud, or
even the public places of the city, is generally all that precedes the
settling down into the habits of daily life. In the present instance St.
Denis was selected, from the circumstance of Natalie having a younger
sister at school there; and also because she had a particular desire to
see the Abbey.
The wedding was to take place on a Thursday; and on the Wednesday
evening, having spent some hours most agreeably with Natalie, Antoine de
Chaulieu returned to spend his last night in his bachelor apartments.
His wardrobe and other small possessions, had already been packed up and
sent to his future home; and there was nothing left in his room now, but
his new wedding suit, which he inspected with considerable satisfaction
before he undressed and lay down to sleep. Sleep, however, was somewhat
slow to visit him; and the clock had struck _one_ before he closed his
eyes. When he opened them again, it was broad day-light; and his first
thought was, had he overslept himself? He sat up in bed to look at the
clock which was exactly opposite, and as he did so, in the large mirror
over the fire-place, he perceived a figure standing behind him. As the
dilated eyes met his own, he saw it was the face of Jacques Rollet.
Overcome with horror he sunk back on his pillow, and it was some minutes
before he ventured to look again in that direction; when he did so, the
figure had disappeared.
The sudden revulsion of feeling such a vision was calculated to occasion
in a man elate with joy, may be conceived! For some time after the death
of his former foe, he had been visited by not unfrequent twinges of
conscience; but of late, borne along by success, and the hurry of
Parisian life, these unpleasant remembrances had grown rarer, till at
length they had faded away altogether. Nothing had been further from his
thoughts than Jacques Rollet, when he closed his eyes on the preceding
night, nor when he opened them to that sun which was to shine on what he
expected to be the happiest day of his life! Where were the high-strung
nerves now! The elastic frame! The bounding heart!
Heavily and slowly he arose from his bed, for it was time to do so; and
with a trembling hand and quivering knees, he went through the processes
of the toilet, gashing his cheek with the razor, and spilling the water
over his well-polished boots. When he was dressed, scarcely venturing to
cast a glance in the mirror as he passed it, he quitted the room and
descended the stairs, taking the key of the door with him for the
purpose of leaving it with the porter; the man, however, being absent,
he laid it on the table in his lodge, and with a relaxed and languid
step proceeded on his way to the church, where presently arrived the
fair Natalie and her friends. How difficult it was now to look happy
with that pallid face and extinguished eye!
“How pale you are! Has anything happened? You are surely ill?” were the
exclamations that met him on all sides. He tried to carry it off as well
as he could, but felt that the movements he would have wished to appear
alert were only convulsive; and that the smiles with which he attempted
to relax his features, were but distorted grimaces. However, the church
was not the place for further inquiries; and while Natalie gently
pressed his hand in token of sympathy, they advanced to the altar, and
the ceremony was performed; after which they stepped into the carriages
waiting at the door, and drove to the apartments of Madame de
Bellefonds, where an elegant _déjeuner_ was prepared.
“What ails you, my dear husband?” inquired Natalie, as soon as they were
alone.
“Nothing, love,” he replied; “nothing, I assure you, but a restless
night and a little overwork, in order that I might have to-day free to
enjoy my happiness!”
“Are you quite sure? Is there nothing else?”
“Nothing, indeed; and pray don’t take notice of it, it only makes me
worse!”
Natalie was not deceived, but she saw that what he said was true; notice
made him worse; so she contented herself with observing him quietly, and
saying nothing; but, as he _felt_ she was observing him, she might
almost better have spoken; words are often less embarrassing things than
too curious eyes.
When they reached Madame de Bellefonds’ he had the same sort of
questioning and scrutiny to undergo, till he grew quite impatient under
it, and betrayed a degree of temper altogether unusual with him. Then
everybody looked astonished; some whispered their remarks, and others
expressed them by their wondering eyes, till his brow knit, and his
pallid cheeks became flushed with anger. Neither could he divert
attention by eating; his parched mouth would not allow him to swallow
anything but liquids, of which, however, he indulged in copious
libations; and it was an exceeding relief to him when the carriage,
which was to convey them to St. Denis, being announced, furnished an
excuse for hastily leaving the table. Looking at his watch, he declared
it was late; and Natalie, who saw how eager he was to be gone, threw her
shawl over her shoulders, and bidding her friends _good morning_, they
hurried away.
It was a fine sunny day in June; and as they drove along the crowded
boulevards, and through the Porte St. Denis, the young bride and
bridegroom, to avoid each others eyes, affected to be gazing out of the
windows; but when they reached that part of the road where there was
nothing but trees on each side, they felt it necessary to draw in their
heads, and make an attempt at conversation, De Chaulieu put his arm
round his wife’s waist, and tried to rouse himself from his depression;
but it had by this time so reacted upon her, that she could not respond
to his efforts, and thus the conversation languished, till both felt
glad when they reached their destination, which would, at all events,
furnish them something to talk about.
Having quitted the carriage, and ordered a dinner at the Hôtel de
l’Abbaye, the young couple proceeded to visit Mademoiselle Hortense de
Bellefonds, who was overjoyed to see her sister and new brother-in-law,
and doubly so when she found that they had obtained permission to take
her out to spend the afternoon with them. As there is little to be seen
at St. Denis but the Abbey, on quitting that part of it devoted to
education, they proceeded to visit the church, with its various objects
of interest; and as De Chaulieu’s thoughts were now forced into another
direction, his cheerfulness began insensibly to return. Natalie looked
so beautiful, too, and the affection betwixt the two young sisters was
so pleasant to behold! And they spent a couple of hours wandering about
with Hortense, who was almost as well informed as the Suisse, till the
brazen doors were open which admitted them to the Royal vault.
Satisfied, at length, with what they had seen, they began to think of
returning to the inn, the more especially as De Chaulieu, who had not
eaten a morsel of food since the previous evening, owned to being
hungry; so they directed their steps to the door, lingering here and
there as they went, to inspect a monument or a painting, when, happening
to turn his head aside to see if his wife, who had stopt to take a last
look at the tomb of King Dagobert, was following, he beheld with horror
the face of Jacques Rollet appearing from behind a column! At the same
instant his wife joined him, and took his arm, inquiring if he was not
very much delighted with what he had seen. He attempted to say yes, but
the word would not be forced out; and staggering out of the door, he
alleged that a sudden faintness had overcome him.
They conducted him to the Hôtel, but Natalie now became seriously
alarmed; and well she might. His complexion looked ghastly, his limbs
shook, and his features bore an expression of indescribable horror and
anguish. What could be the meaning of so extraordinary a change in the
gay, witty, prosperous De Chaulieu, who, till that morning, seemed not
to have a care in the world? For, plead illness as he might, she felt
certain, from the expression of his features, that his sufferings were
not of the body but of the mind; and, unable to imagine any reason for
such extraordinary manifestations, of which she had never before seen a
symptom, but a sudden aversion to herself, and regret for the step he
had taken, her pride took the alarm, and, concealing the distress she
really felt, she began to assume a haughty and reserved manner towards
him, which he naturally interpreted into an evidence of anger and
contempt. The dinner was placed upon the table, but De Chaulieu’s
appetite, of which he had lately boasted, was quite gone, nor was his
wife better able to eat. The young sister alone did justice to the
repast; but although the bridegroom could not eat, he could swallow
champagne in such copious draughts, that ere long the terror and remorse
that the apparition of Jacques Rollet had awakened in his breast were
drowned in intoxication. Amazed and indignant, poor Natalie sat
silently observing this elect of her heart, till overcome with
disappointment and grief, she quitted the room with her sister, and
retired to another apartment, where she gave free vent to her feelings
in tears.
After passing a couple of hours in confidences and lamentations, they
recollected that the hours of liberty granted, as an especial favor, to
Mademoiselle Hortense, had expired; but ashamed to exhibit her husband
in his present condition to the eyes of strangers, Natalie prepared to
re-conduct her to the _Maison Royale_ herself. Looking into the
dining-room as they passed, they saw De Chaulieu lying on a sofa fast
asleep, in which state he continued when his wife returned. At length,
however, the driver of their carriage begged to know if Monsieur and
Madame were ready to return to Paris, and it became necessary to arouse
him. The transitory effects of the champagne had now subsided; but when
De Chaulieu recollected what had happened, nothing could exceed his
shame and mortification. So engrossing indeed were these sensations
that they quite overpowered his previous one, and, in his present
vexation, he, for the moment, forgot his fears. He knelt at his wife’s
feet, begged her pardon a thousand times, swore that he adored her, and
declared that the illness and the effect of the wine had been purely the
consequences of fasting and over-work. It was not the easiest thing in
the world to re-assure a woman whose pride, affection, and taste, had
been so severely wounded; but Natalie tried to believe, or to appear to
do so, and a sort of reconciliation ensued, not quite sincere on the
part of the wife, and very humbling on the part of the husband. Under
these circumstances it was impossible that he should recover his spirits
or facility of manner; his gaiety was forced, his tenderness
constrained; his heart was heavy within him; and ever and anon the
source whence all this disappointment and woe had sprung would recur to
his perplexed and tortured mind.
Thus mutually pained and distrustful, they returned to Paris, which they
reached about nine o’clock. In spite of her depression, Natalie, who
had not seen her new apartments, felt some curiosity about them, whilst
De Chaulieu anticipated a triumph in exhibiting the elegant home he had
prepared for her. With some alacrity, therefore, they stepped out of the
carriage, the gates of the Hôtel were thrown open, the _concierge_ rang
the bell which announced to the servants that their master and mistress
had arrived, and whilst these domestics appeared above, holding lights
over the balustrades, Natalie, followed by her husband, ascended the
stairs. But when they reached the landing-place of the first flight,
they saw the figure of a man standing in a corner as if to make way for
them; the flash from above fell upon his face, and again Antoine de
Chaulieu recognized the features of Jacques Rollet!
From the circumstance of his wife’s preceding him, the figure was not
observed by De Chaulieu till he was lifting his foot to place it on the
top stair: the sudden shock caused him to miss the step, and, without
uttering a sound, he fell back, and never stopped till he reached the
stones at the bottom. The screams of Natalie brought the concierge from
below and the maids from above, and an attempt was made to raise the
unfortunate man from the ground; but with cries of anguish he besought
them to desist.
“Let me,” he said, “die here! What a fearful vengeance is thine! Oh,
Natalie, Natalie!” he exclaimed to his wife, who was kneeling beside
him, “to win fame, and fortune, and yourself, I committed a dreadful
crime! With lying words I argued away the life of a fellow-creature,
whom, whilst I uttered them, I half believed to be innocent; and now,
when I have attained all I desired, and reached the summit of my hopes,
the Almighty has sent him back upon the earth to blast me with the
sight. Three times this day--three times this day! Again! again!”--and
as he spoke, his wild and dilated eyes fixed themselves on one of the
individuals that surrounded him.
“He is delirious,” said they.
“No,” said the stranger! “What he says is true enough,--at least in
part;” and bending over the expiring man, he added, “May Heaven forgive
you, Antoine de Chaulieu! I was not executed; one who well knew my
innocence saved my life. I may name him, for he is beyond the reach of
the law now,--it was Claperon, the jailor, who loved Claudine, and had
himself killed Alphonse de Bellefonds from jealousy. An unfortunate
wretch had been several years in the jail for a murder committed during
the frenzy of a fit of insanity. Long confinement had reduced him to
idiocy. To save my life Claperon substituted the senseless being for me,
on the scaffold, and he was executed in my stead. He has quitted the
country, and I have been a vagabond on the face of the earth ever since
that time. At length I obtained, through the assistance of my sister,
the situation of concierge in the Hôtel Marbœuf, in the Rue
Grange-Batelière. I entered on my new place yesterday evening, and was
desired to awaken the gentleman on the third floor at seven o’clock.
When I entered the room to do so, you were asleep, but before I had time
to speak you awoke, and I recognized your features in the glass.
Knowing that I could not vindicate my innocence if you chose to seize
me, I fled, and seeing an omnibus starting for St. Denis, I got on it
with a vague idea of getting on to Calais, and crossing the Channel to
England. But having only a franc or two in my pocket, or indeed in the
world, I did not know how to procure the means of going forward; and
whilst I was lounging about the place, forming first one plan and then
another, I saw you in the church, and concluding you were in pursuit of
me, I thought the best way of eluding your vigilance was to make my way
back to Paris as fast as I could; so I set off instantly, and walked all
the way; but having no money to pay my night’s lodging, I came here to
borrow a couple of livres of my sister Claudine, who lives in the fifth
story.”
“Thank Heaven!” exclaimed the dying man; “that sin is off my soul!
Natalie, dear wife, farewell! Forgive! forgive all!”
These were the last words he uttered; the priest, who had been summoned
in haste, held up the cross before his failing sight; a few strong
convulsions shook the poor bruised and mangled frame; and then all was
still.
And thus ended the Young Advocate’s Wedding Day.
II.
The Last of a Long Line.
Sir Roger Rockville of Rockville was the last of a very long line. It
extended from the Norman Conquest to the present century. His first
known ancestor came over with William, and must have been a man of some
mark, either of bone and sinew, or of brain, for he obtained what the
Americans would call a prime location. As his name does not occur in the
Roll of Battle Abbey, he was, of course, not of a very high Norman
extraction; but he had done enough, it seems, in the way of knocking
down Saxons, to place himself on a considerable eminence in this
kingdom. The centre of his domains was conspicuous far over the country,
through a high range of rock overhanging one of the sweetest rivers in
England. On one hand lay a vast tract of rich marsh land, capable, as
society advanced, of being converted into meadows; and on the other, as
extensive moorlands, finely undulating, and abounding with woods and
deer.
Here the original Sir Roger built his castle on the summit of the range
of rock, with huts for his followers; and became known directly all over
the country of Sir Roger de Rockville, or Sir Roger of the hamlet on the
Rock. Sir Roger, no doubt, was a mighty hunter before the lord of the
feudal district: it is certain that his descendants were. For
generations they led a jolly life at Rockville, and were always ready to
exchange the excitement of the chase for a bit of the civil war. Without
that the country would have grown dull, and ale and venison lost their
flavor. There was no gay London in those days, and a good brisk skirmish
with their neighbors in helm and hauberk was the way of spending their
season. It was their parliamentary debate, and was necessary to stir
their blood. Protection and Free Trade were as much the great topics of
interest as they are now, only they did not trouble themselves so much
about Corn-bills. Their bills were of good steel, and their protective
measures were arrows a cloth-yard long. Protection meant a good suit of
mail; and a castle with its duly prescribed moats, bastions,
portcullises, and donjon keep. Free Trade was a lively inroad into the
neighboring baron’s lands, and the importation thence of goodly herds
and flocks. Foreign cattle for home consumption was as _striking an
article_ in their markets as in ours, only the blows were expended on
one another’s heads, instead of the heads of foreign bullocks--that is,
bullocks from over the Welch or Scotch Marches, as from beyond the next
brook.
Thus lived the Rockvilles for ages. In all the iron combats of those
iron times they took care to have their quota. Whether it was Stephen
against Matilda, or Richard against his father, or John against the
barons; whether it were York or Lancaster, or Tudor or Stuart. The
Rockvilles were to be found in the _mêlée_, and winning power and
lands. So long as it required only stalwart frames and stout blows, no
family cut a more conspicuous figure. The Rockvilles were at Bosworth
Field. The Rockvilles fought in Ireland under Elizabeth. The Rockvilles
were staunch defenders of the cause in the war of Charles I. with his
Parliament. The Rockvilles even fought for James II. at the Boyne, when
three-fourths of the most loyal of the English nobility and gentry had
deserted him in disgust and indignation. But from that hour they had
been less conspicuous.
The opposition to the successful party, that of William of Orange, of
course brought them into disgrace; and though they were never molested
on that account, they retired to their estate, and found it convenient
to be as unobtrusive as possible. Thenceforward you heard no more of the
Rockvilles in the national annals. They became only of consequence in
their own district. They acted as magistrates. They served as high
sheriffs. They were a substantial county family, and nothing more.
Education and civilization advanced; a wider and very different field of
action and ambition opened upon the aristocracy of England. Our fleets
and armies abroad, our legislature at home, law and the church,
presented brilliant paths to the ambition of those thirsting for
distinction, and the good things that follow it. But somehow the
Rockvilles did not expand with this expansion. So long as it required
only a figure of six feet high, broad shoulders, and a strong arm, they
were a great and conspicuous race. But when the head became the member
most in request, they ceased to go ahead. Younger sons, it is true,
served in army and in navy, and filled the family pulpit, but they
produced no generals, no admirals, no arch-bishops. The Rockvilles of
Rockville were very conservative, very exclusive, and very stereotype.
Other families grew poor, and enriched themselves again by marrying
plebeian heiresses. New families grew up out of plebeian blood into
greatness, and intermingled the vigor of their fresh earth with the
attenuated aristocratic soil. Men of family became great lawyers, great
statesmen, great prelates, and even great poets and philosophers. The
Rockvilles remained high, proud, bigoted, and _borné_.
The Rockvilles married Rockvilles, or their first cousins, the
Craigvilles, simply to prevent property going out of the family. They
kept the property together. They did not lose an acre, and they were a
fine, tall, solemn race--and nothing more. What ailed them?
If you saw Sir Roger Rockville,--for there was an eternal Sir
Roger--filling his office of high sheriff,--he had a very fine carriage,
and a very fine retinue in the most approved and splendid of antique
costumes;--if you saw him sitting on the bench at quarter sessions, he
was a tall, stately, and solemn man. If you saw Lady Rockville shopping,
in her handsome carriage, with very handsomely attired servants; saw her
at the county ball, or on the race-stand, she was a tall, aristocratic,
and stately lady. That was in the last generation--the present could
boast of no Lady Rockville.
Great outward respect was shown to the Rockvilles on account of the
length of their descent, and the breadth of their acres. They were
always, when any stranger asked about them, declared, with a serious and
important air, to be a very ancient, honorable, and substantial family.
“Oh! a great family are the Rockvilles, a very great family.”
But if you came to close quarters with the members of this great and
highly distinguished family, you soon found yourself fundamentally
astonished; you had a sensation come over you, as if you were trying,
like Moses, to draw water from a rock without his delegated power. There
was a goodly outside of things before you, but nothing came of it. You
talked, hoping to get talking in return, but you got little more than
“noes” and “yeses,” and “oh! indeeds!” and “reallys,” and sometimes not
even that, but a certain look of aristocratic dignity or dignification,
that was meant to serve for all answers. There was a sort of resting on
aristocratic oars or “sculls,” that were not to be too vulgarly
handled. There was a feeling impressed on you, that eight hundred years
of descent and ten thousand a-year in landed income did not trouble
themselves with the trifling things that gave distinction to lesser
people--such as literature, fine arts, politics, and general knowledge.
These were very well for those who had nothing else to pride themselves
on, but for the Rockvilles--oh! certainly they were by no means
requisite.
In fact, you found yourself, with a little variation, in the predicament
of Cowper’s people,
---- who spent their lives
In dropping buckets into empty wells,
And _growing tired_ of drawing nothing up.
Who hasn’t often come across these “dry wells” of society; solemn gulfs
out of which you can pump nothing up? You know them; they are at your
elbow every day in large and brilliant companies, and defy the best
sucking bucket ever invented to extract anything from them. But the
Rockvilles were each and all of this adust description. It was a family
feature, and they seemed, if either, rather proud of it. They must be
so; for proud they were, amazing proud; and they had nothing besides to
be proud of, except their acres, and their ancestors.
But the fact was, they could not help it. It was become organic. They
had acted the justice of peace, maintained the constitution against
upstarts and manufacturers, signed warrants, supported the church and
the house of correction, committed poachers, and then rested on the
dignity of their ancestors for so many generations, that their skulls,
brains, constitutions, and nervous systems, were all so completely
moulded into that shape and baked into that mould, that a Rockville
would be a Rockville to the end of time, if God and Nature would have
allowed it. But such things wear out. The American Indians and the
Australian nations wear out; they are not progressive, and as Nature
abhors a vacuum, she does not forget the vacuum wherever it may be,
whether in a hot desert, or in a cold and stately Rockville;--a very
ancient, honorable, and substantial family, that lies fallow till the
thinking faculty literally dies out.
For several generations there had been symptoms of decay about the
Rockville family. Not in its property, that was as large as ever; not in
their personal stature and physical aspect. The Rockvilles continued, as
they always had been, a tall and not bad-looking family. But they grew
gradually less prolific. For a hundred and fifty years past there had
seldom been more than two, or at most three, children. There had
generally been an heir to the estate, and another to the family pulpit,
and sometimes a daughter married to some neighboring squire. But Sir
Roger’s father had been an only child, and Sir Roger himself was an only
child. The danger of extinction to the family, apparent as it was, had
never induced Sir Roger to marry. At the time that we are turning our
attention upon him, he had reached the mature age of sixty. Nobody
believed that Sir Roger now would marry; he was the last, and likely to
be, of his line.
It is worth while here to take a glance at Sir Roger and his estate.
They bore a strange contrast. The one bore all the signs of progress,
the other of a stereotyped feudality. The estate which in the days of
the first Sir Roger de Rockville had been half morass and half
wilderness, was now cultivated to the pitch of British agricultural
science. The marshlands beyond the river were one splendid expanse of
richest meadows, yielding a rental of four solid pounds per acre. Over
hill and dale on this side for miles, where formerly ran wild deer, and
grew wild woodlands or furze-bushes, now lay excellent farms and
hamlets, and along the ridge of the ancient cliffs rose the most
magnificent woods. Woods, too, clothed the steep-hill sides, and swept
down to the noble river, their very boughs hanging far out over its
clear and rapid waters. In the midst of these fine woods stood Rockville
Hall, the family seat of the Rockvilles. It reared its old brick walls
above the towering mass of elms, and travellers at a distance recognized
it for what it was, the mansion of an ancient and wealthy family.
The progress of England in arts, science, commerce, and manufacture,
had carried Sir Roger’s estate along with it. It was full of active and
moneyed farmers, and flourished under modern influences. How lucky it
would have been for the Rockville family had it done the same.
But amid this estate there was Sir Roger solitary, and the last of the
line. He had grown well enough--there was nothing stunted about him, so
far as you could see on the surface. In stature, he exceeded six feet.
His colossal elms could not boast of a properer relative growth. He was
as large a landlord, and as tall a justice of the peace, as you could
desire; but, unfortunately, he was, after all, only the shell of a man.
Like many of his veteran elms, there was a very fine stem, only it was
hollow. There was a man, just with the rather awkward deficiency of a
soul.
And it were no difficult task to explain, either, how this had come
about. The Rockvilles saw plainly enough the necessity of manuring their
lands, but they scorned the very idea of manuring their family. What!
that most ancient, honorable, and substantial family, suffer any of the
common earth of humanity to gather about its roots! The Rockvilles were
so careful of their good blood, that they never allied it to any but
blood as pure and inane as their own. Their elms flourished in the
rotten earth of plebeian accumulations, and their acres produced large
crops of corn from the sewage of towns and fat sinks, but the Rockvilles
themselves took especial care that no vulgar vigor from the rich heap of
ordinary human nature should infuse a new force of intellect into their
race. The Rockvilles needed nothing; they had all that an ancient,
honorable, and substantial family could need. The Rockvilles had no need
to study at school--why should they? They did not want to get on. The
Rockvilles did not aspire to distinction for talent in the world--why
should they? They had a large estate. So the Rockville soul, unused from
generation to generation, grew--
Fine by degrees and _spiritually_ less,
till it tapered off into nothing.
Look at the last of a long line in the midst of his fine estate. Tall he
was, with a stoop in his shoulders, and a bowing of his head on one
side, as if he had been accustomed to stand under the low boughs of his
woods, and peer after intruders. And that was precisely the fact. His
features were thin and sharp; his nose prominent and keen in its
character; his eyes small, black, and peering like a mole’s, or a hungry
swine’s. Sir Roger was still oracular on the bench, after consulting his
clerk, a good lawyer,--and looked up to by the neighboring squires in
election matters, for he was an unswerving tory. You never heard of a
rational thing that he had said in the whole course of his life; but
that mattered little, he was a gentleman of solemn aspect, of stately
gait, and of a very ancient family.
With ten thousand a-year, and his rental rising, he was still, however,
a man of overwhelming cares. What mattered a fine estate if all the
world was against him? And Sir Roger firmly believed that he stood in
that predicament. He had grown up to regard the world as full of little
besides upstarts, radicals, manufacturers, and poachers. All were
banded, in his belief, against the landed interest. It demanded all the
energy of his very small faculties to defend himself and the world
against them.
Unfortunately for his peace, a large manufacturing town had sprung up
within a couple of miles of him. He could see its red-brick walls, and
its red-tiled roofs, and its tall smoke-vomiting chimneys, growing and
extending over the slopes beyond the river. It was to him the most
irritating sight in the world; for what were all those swarming weavers
and spinners but arrant radicals, upstarts, sworn foes of the ancient
institutions and the landed interests of England? Sir Roger had passed
through many a desperate conflict with them for the return of members to
parliament. They brought forward men that were utter wormwood to all his
feelings, and they paid no more respect to him and his friends on such
occasions than they did to the meanest creature living. Reverence for
ancient blood did not exist in that plebeian and rapidly multiplying
tribe. There were master manufacturers there actually that looked and
talked as big as himself, and _entre nous_, a vast deal more cleverly.
The people talked of rights and franchises, and freedom of speech and of
conscience, in a way that was really frightful. Then they were given
most inveterately to running out in whole and everlasting crowds on
Sundays and holidays into the fields and woods; and as there was no part
of the neighborhood half so pleasant as the groves and river banks of
Rockville, they came swarming up there in crowds that were enough to
drive any man of acres frantic.
Unluckily, there were roads all about Rockville; foot roads, and high
roads, and bridle roads. There was a road up the river side, all the way
to Rockville woods, and when it reached them, it divided like a fork,
and one prong or footpath led straight up a magnificent grove of a mile
long, ending close to the hall; and another ran all along the river
side, under the hills and branches of the wood.
Oh, delicious were these woods! In the river there were islands, which
were covered in summer with the greenest grass, and the freshest of
willows, and the clear waters rushed around them in the most inviting
manner imaginable. And there were numbers of people extremely ready to
accept this delectable invitation of these waters. There they came in
fine weather, and as these islands were only separated from the
main-land by a little and very shallow stream, it was delightful for
lovers to get across--with laughter, and treading on stepping stones,
and slipping off the stepping-stones up to the ankles into the cool
brook, and pretty screams, and fresh laughter, and then landing on those
sunny, and to them really enchanted, islands. And then came fishermen,
solitary fishermen, and fishermen in rows; fishermen lying in the
flowery grass, with fragrant meadow-sweet and honey-breathing clover all
about their ears; and fishermen standing in file, as if they were
determined to clear all the river of fish in one day. And there were
other lovers, and troops of loiterers, and shouting roysterers, going
along under the boughs of the wood, and following the turns of that most
companionable of rivers. And there were boats going up and down; boats
full of young people, all holiday finery and mirth, and boats with
duck-hunters and other, to Sir Roger, detestable marauders, with guns
and dogs, and great bottles of beer. In the fine grove, on summer days,
there might be found hundreds of people. There were pic-nic parties,
fathers and mothers with whole families of children, and a grand
promenade of the delighted artisans and their wives or sweethearts.
In the times prior to the sudden growth of the neighboring town, Great
Stockington, and to the simultaneous development of the love-of-nature
principle in the Stockingtonians, nothing had been thought of all these
roads. The roads were well enough till they led to these inroads. Then
Sir Roger aroused himself. This must be changed. The roads must be
stopped. Nothing was easier to his fancy. His fellow-justices, Sir
Benjamin Bullockshed and Squire Sheepshank, had asked his aid to stop
the like nuisances, and it had been done at once. So Sir Roger put up
notices all about, that the roads were to be stopped by an Order of
Session, and these notices were signed, as required by law, by their
worships of Bullockshed and Sheepshank. But Sir Roger soon found that it
was one thing to stop a road leading from One-man-Town to Lonely Lodge,
and another to attempt to stop those from Great Stockington to
Rockville.
On the very first Sunday after the exhibition of those notice-boards,
there was a ferment in the grove of Rockville, as if all the bees in the
county were swarming there, with all the wasps and Hornets to boot.
Great crowds were collected before each of these obnoxious placards, and
the amount of curses vomited forth against them was really shocking for
any day, but more especially for a Sunday. Presently there was a rush at
them; they were torn down, and simultaneously pitched into the river.
There were great crowds swarming all about Rockville all that day, and
with looks so defiant that Sir Roger more than once contemplated
sending off for the Yeoman Cavalry to defend his house, which he
seriously thought in danger.
But so far from being intimidated from proceeding, this demonstration
only made Sir Roger the more determined. To have so desperate and
irreverent a population coming about his house and woods, now presented
itself in a much more formidable aspect than ever. So, next day, not
only were the placards once more hoisted, but rewards offered for the
discovery of the offenders, attended with all the maledictions of the
insulted majesty of the law. No notice was taken of this, but the whole
of Great Stockington was in a buzz and an agitation. There were posters
plastered all over the walls of the town, four times as large as Sir
Roger’s notices, in this style:--
“Englishmen! your dearest rights are menaced! The Woods of Rockville,
your ancient, rightful, and enchanting resorts, are to be closed to you.
Stockingtonians! the eyes of the world are upon you. ‘Awake! arise! or
be forever fallen!’ England expects every man to do his duty! And your
duty is to resist and defy the grasping soil-lords, to seize on your
ancient Patrimony!”