I renounce your defiance; if you parley so roughly I'll
barricado my gates against you.--Do you see yon bay
window? Storm,--I care not, serving the good Duke of
Norfolk.
Merry Devil of Edmonton.
JULIA MANNERING TO MATILDA MARCHMC)NT.
"I rise from a sick-bed, my dearest Matlida, to communicate the
strange and frightful scenes which have just passed. Alas! how
little we ought to jest with futurity! I closed my letter to you
in high spirits, with some flippant remarks on your taste for the
romantic and extraordinary in fictitious narrative. How little I
expected to have had such events to record in the course of a few
days! and to witness scenes of terror, or to contemplate them in
description, is as different, my dearest Matilda, as to bend over
the brink, of a precipice holding by the frail tenure of a
half-rotted shrub, or to admire the same precipice as represented
in the landscape of Salvator. But I will not anticipate my
narrative.
"The first part of my story is frightful enough, though it had
nothing to interest my feelings. You must know that this country
is particularly favourable to the commerce of a set of desperate
men from the Isle of Man, which is nearly opposite. These
smugglers are numerous, resolute, and formidable, and have at
different times become the dread of the neighbourhood when any one
has interfered with their contraband trade. The local magistrates,
from timidity or worse motives, have become shy of acting against
them, and impunity has rendered them equally daring and desperate.
With all this, my father, a stranger in the land, and invested with
no official authority, had, one would think, nothing to do. But it
must be owned, that, as he himself expresses it, he was born when
Mars was lord of his ascendant, and that strife and bloodshed find
him out in circumstances and situations the most retired and
pacific.
"About eleven o'clock on last Tuesday morning, while Hazlewood and
my father were proposing to walk to a little lake about three
miles' distance, for the purpose of shooting wild ducks, and while
Lucy and I were busied with arranging our plan of work and study
for the day, we were alarmed by the sound of horses' feet,
advancing very fast up the avenue. The ground was hardened by a
severe frost, which made the clatter of the hoofs sound yet louder
and sharper. In a moment, two or three men, armed, mounted, and
each leading a spare horse loaded with packages, appeared on the
lawn, and, without keeping upon the road, which makes a small
sweep, pushed right across for the door of the house. Their
appearance was in the utmost degree hurried and disordered, and
they frequently looked back like men who apprehended a close and
deadly pursuit. My father and Hazlewood hurried to the front door
to demand who they were, and what was their business. They were
revenue officers, they stated, who had seized these horses, loaded
with contraband articles, at a place about three miles off. But
the smugglers had been reinforced, and were now pursuing them with
the avowed purpose of recovering the goods, and putting to death
the officers who had presumed to do their duty. The men said that
their horses being loaded, and the pursuers gaining ground upon
them, they had fled to Woodboume, conceiving, that as my father had
served the king, he would not refuse to protect the servants of
government, when threatened to be murdered in the discharge of
their duty.
"My father, to whom, in his enthusiastic feelings of military
loyalty, even a dog would be of importance if he came in the king's
name, gave prompt orders for securing the goods in the hall, arming
the servants, and defending the house in case it should be
necessary. Hazlewood seconded him with great spirit, and even the
strange animal they call Sampson stalked out of his den, and seized
upon a fowling-piece, which my father had laid aside, to take what
they call a rifle-gun, with which they shoot tigers, etc., in the
east. The piece went off in the awkward hands of the poor parson,
and very nearly shot one' of the excisemen. At this unexpected and
involuntary explosion of his weapon, the Dominie (such is his
nickname) exclaimed, 'Prodigious!' which is his usual ejaculation
when astonished. But no power could force the man to part with his
discharged piece, so they were content to let him retain it, with
the precaution of trusting him with no ammunition. This (excepting
the alarm occasioned by the report) escaped my notice at the time,
you may easily believe; but in talking over the scene afterwards,
Hazlewood made us very merry with the Dominie's ignorant but
zealous valour.
"When my father had got everything into proper order for defence,
and his people stationed at the windows with their firearms, he
wanted to order us out of danger--into the cellar, I believe--but
we could not be prevailed upon to stir. Though terrified to death,
I have so much of his own spirit that I would look upon the peril
which. threatens us rather than hear it rage around me without
knowing its nature or its progress. Lucy, looking as pale as a
marble statue, and keeping her eyes fixed on Hazlewood, seemed not
even to hear the prayers with which he conjured her to leave the
front of the house. But, in truth, unless the hall-door should be
forced, we were in little danger; the windows being almost blocked
up with cushion's and pillows, and, what the Dominie most lamented,
with folio volumes. , brought hastily from the library, leaving
only spaces through which the defenders might fire upon the
assailants.
"My father had now made his dispositions, and we sat in breathless
expectation in the darkened apartment, the men remaining all silent
upon their posts, in anxious contemplation probably of the
approaching danger. My father, who was quite at home in such a
scene, walked from one to another, and reiterated his orders, that
no one should presume to fire until he gave the word. Hazlewood,
who seemed to catch courage from his eye, acted as his
aide-de-camp, and displayed the utmost alertness in bearing his
directions from one place to another, and seeing them properly
carried into execution. Our force, with the strangers included,
might amount to about twelve men.
"At length the silence of this awful period of expectation was
broken by a sound, which, at a distance, was like the rushing of a
stream of water, but, as it approached, we distinguished the
thick-beating clang of a number of horses advancing very fast. I
had arranged a loophole for myself, from which I could see the
approach of the enemy. The noise increased and came nearer, and at
length thirty horsemen and more rushed upon the lawn. You never
saw such horrid wretches! Notwithstanding the severity of the
season, they were most of them stripped to their shirts and
trousers, with silk handkerchiefs knotted about their heads, and
all well armed with carbines, pistols, and cutlasses. I, who am a
soldier's daughter, and accustomed to see war from my infancy, was
never so terrified in my life as by the savage appearance of these
ruffians, their horses reeking with the speed at which they had
ridden, and their furious exclamations of rage and disappointment,
when they saw themselves baulked of their prey. They paused,
however, when they saw the preparations made to receive them, and
appeared to hold a moment's consultation among themselves. At
length, one of the party, his face blackened with gunpowder by way
of disguise, came forward with a white handkerchief on the end of
his carbine, and asked to speak with Colonel Mannering. My father,
to my infinite terror, threw open a window near which he was
posted, and demanded what he wanted. 'We want our goods, which we
have been robbed of by these sharks,' said the fellow; 'and our
lieutenant bids me say, that if they are delivered, we'll go off
for this bout without clearing scores with the rascals who took
them; but if not, we'll burn the house, and have the heart's blood
every one in it.'--a threat which he. repeated more than once,
graced by a fresh variety of imprecations, and the most horrid
denunciations that cruelty could suggest.
"'And which is your lieutenant?' said my father in reply.
"'That gentleman on the gray horse,' said the miscreant, I with the
red handkerchief bound about his brow.'
"'Then be pleased to tell that gentleman, that it he, and the
scoundrels who are with him, do not ride off the lawn this instant,
I will fire upon them without ceremony." So saying, my father shut
the window, and broke short the conference.
"The fellow no sooner regained his troop, than with a loud hurra,
or rather a savage yell, they fired a volley against our garrison.
The glass of the windows was shattered in every direction, but the
precautions already noticed saved the party within from suffering.
Three such volleys were fired without a shot being returned from
within. My father then observed them getting hatchets and crows,
probably to assail the hall-door, and called aloud, 'Let none fire
but Hazlewood and me--Hazlewood, mark the ambassador.' He himself
aimed at the man on the gray horse, who fell on receiving his
shot. Hazlewood was equally successful. He shot the spokesman,
who had dismounted, and was advancing with an axe in his hand.
Their fall discouraged the rest, who began to turn round their
horses; and a few shots fired at them soon sent them off, bearing
along with them their slain or wounded companions. We could not
observe that they suffered any further loss. Shortly after their
retreat a party of soldiers made their appearance, to my infinite
relief. These men were quartered at a village some miles distant,
and had marched on the first rumour of the skirmish. A part of
them escorted the terrified revenue officers and their seizure to a
neighbouring seaport as a place of safety, and at my earnest
request two or three files remained with us for that and the
following day, for the security of the house from the vengeance of
these banditti.
"Such, dearest Matilda, was my first alarm. I must not forget to
add, that the ruffians left, at a cottage on the roadside, the man
whose face was blackened with powder, apparently because he was
unable to bear transportation. He died in about half an hour
after. On examining the corpse, it proved to be that of a
profligate boor in the neighbourhood, a person notorious as a
poacher and--smuggler. We I received many messages of
congratulation from the neighbouring families, and it was generally
allowed that a few such instances of spirited resistance would
greatly check the presumption of these lawless men. My father
distributed rewards among his servants, and praised Hazlewood's
courage and coolness to the skies. Lucy and I came in for a share
of his applause, because we had stood fire with firmness, and had
not disturbed him with screams or expostulations. As for the
Dominie, my father took an opportunity of begging to exchange
snuff-boxes with him. The honest gentleman was much flattered with
the proposal, and extolled the beauty, of his new snuff-box
excessively. 'It looked,' he said, 'as well as if it were real gold
from Ophir. '--lndeed it would be odd if it should not, being
formed in fact of that very metal: but, to do this honest creature
justice, I believe the knowledge of its real value would not
enhance his sense of my father's kindness supposing it, as he does,
to be pinchbeck gilded. He has had a hard task replacing the
folios which were used in the barricade, smoothing out the creases
And dog-ears, and repairing the other disasters they have sustained
during their service in the Fortification. He brought us some
pieces of lead and bullets which these ponderous tomes had
intercepted during the action, and which he had extracted with
great care; and, were I in spirits, I could give you a comic
account of his astonishment at the apathy with which we heard of
the wounds and mutilation suffered by Thomas Aquinas, or the
venerable Chrysostom. But I am not in spirits, and I have yet
another and a more interesting incident to communicate. I feel,
however, so much fatigued with my present exertion, that I cannot
resume the pen till to-morrow. I will detain this letter
notwithstanding, that you may not feel any anxiety upon account of
your own
"JULIA MANNERING."