WHAT MUST COME AT LAST.
My father is a justice of the peace. Every body connected with one who
holds such an office knows what interest arises out of its transactions
to those who care about the joys and sorrows, the rights and liberties
of their neighbours. It was not my father’s custom to allow his family
to form a little court before which a culprit might tremble, or a
nervous witness be abashed. He received the parties who came to him on
business in a hall, where it was not possible for the young people to
peep from a door, or for the servants to listen from the stairs. My
brothers were sometimes present at examinations, that they might take a
lesson in what might at some future day become their duty; and we
generally heard after dinner what had passed; but there was no
gratification allowed to our curiosity in the presence of the parties.
On one occasion mine was very strongly excited, and I did long to gain
admittance to the justice hall. I came in, one fine summer morning, from
the garden, and passed through the hall, not being aware that any one
was there. But there stood Norton with a gloomy brow, and Hal Williams,
evidently in custody, looking the picture of shame and despair. He
turned half round as I entered, to avoid meeting my eye, and pretended
to brush his bare brown hat. My father appearing, I made my retreat, and
was obliged to wait till the afternoon for further satisfaction. If it
had not been too warm a day for walking, I should have learned the event
out of doors, for the whole village rang with it. Hal was committed for
sheep-stealing.
Nobody could be surprised at this, who observed how the unhappy man had
been going on for some time. My father had known him to have been guilty
of poaching to a great extent the winter before; but there was never
evidence enough to justify his being apprehended. The next step to
poaching is sheep-stealing; and this step Hal had taken. The evidence
was so clear, that it was useless to attempt any defence. Norton had
lost a lamb in the night. Search was made in Hal’s house; and three
quarters of lamb, not cut up by a butcher, were found under some straw
in his cottage; and the hide, bearing Norton’s mark, was dug up from
where it had been buried, behind the dwelling.—As soon as Hal went to
prison, his drooping wife, and idle unmanageable boys became chargeable
to the parish.
When Norton had finished the painful task of giving his evidence against
an old neighbour, he proceeded to Mr. Malton’s to do a thing more
painful still. He went to offer his little farm for sale, and to let his
labour where it would obtain a better reward than his two poor fields
could afford. It was a sore necessity; and long was it before he could
bring himself to entertain the thought. Even now, when he was quite
determined, he could with difficulty nerve himself for the interview
with Mr. Malton. He slackened his pace more and more as he drew near
Brooke Farm; and just as he was about to enter the chesnut avenue, he
remembered that he should be more likely to meet Mr. Malton if he went
by the lanes; so he turned back and approached by the path which I have
described as my chosen one. He stopped to watch a frog leaping across
the road till he saw it safe into the opposite ditch. He plucked some
wild flowers for his button-hole, but forgot to put them there, and
pulled them to pieces instead. He lingered to watch the rooks as they
sailed round the old elms: but their “caw, caw” which most people find
rather a soothing sound, made poor Norton fidgety to-day. He was going
to walk away when he heard the pacing of a horse’s feet in the dust of
the lane. He looked round and started to see Mr. Malton.
“Why, Norton, you are in a reverie,” said Mr. Malton, who observed the
start. “I suppose it is a holiday with you that you stand watching the
rooks with your hands in your pockets?”
“It is an odd sort of a——.” Norton choked at the word “holiday.”
Mr. Malton’s face was full of concern instantly. He dismounted and led
his horse by the bridle while Norton walked beside him. Both were silent
for some time.
“Have you anything to say to me?” inquired Mr. Malton at length. “You
trust in me, I hope, Norton, as a friend?”
“If I did not, sir, I should not be here now. If I thought you an enemy
or only indifferent, I would go into the workhouse before I would tell
you a syllable of what is in my mind. I came, sir, to say that I find I
must give up my farm; and I wish to know what you would advise me to do
with it.”
“I am glad it is no worse, Norton. I do not at all doubt that it is a
sad pinch to you to give up a plan from which you once hoped so much;
but you will be repaid for the effort, trust me. If you are steady in
your determination, the worst of your difficulties is over.”
“I don’t think I shall change my mind again, sir. It is a sad thing to
walk through my fields after crossing one of yours. One can scarcely get
a finger in between your wheat-stalks, I find; and mine rise as thin and
straggling as thorns in an ill-grown fence. There is nothing but ruin in
such harvests as mine are likely to be.—I should be glad to sell my
land, sir, and my stock, either to you or some one else, and to have
work under you again, if you have it still to give me.”
“I will take your land and stock on a fair valuation; and as for
employment, make your mind easy about that. One of my largest tenants is
looking out for a bailiff, and I should think the situation would just
suit you, Norton. I can answer for your being fit for it.”
Norton’s face crimsoned at the idea that he should not have to become a
labourer on the ground which he had possessed. He had a good deal of
pride left; and he was more obliged to his rich neighbour for his
tenderness to this weakness than if he had given him capital to carry on
his farm.
“If you obtain this situation,” continued Mr. Malton, who saw what was
in his mind, “your cottage goes with your land; and you will find you
have changed for the better, I assure you. My tenant gives his bailiff a
very comfortable dwelling; and when you find yourself under a whole
roof, with a mind free from dread and care, I think you will not repent
the step you have taken.”
“I believe it, sir; and I hope you will see that your kindness is not
lost upon me. Now I have felt the value of gentle treatment in
misfortune, I think I shall never be hard upon those under me. I am
quite ashamed, sir, to think of the strange things that I fancied I
might have to go through in giving up my farm. It all seems
straightforward enough now, if I can but get this appointment.”
When the mode of valuation, and the time when Mr. Malton should take the
land into his own hands, were settled, the good man mounted his horse
and trotted off with a kind “Good day to you.”
As soon as he was out of sight, Norton stretched himself as vigorously
as if he had been bent double for twenty-four hours. He returned home,
forgetting to quarrel with the rooks or to pull wild flowers to pieces
by the way.
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