I renounce your defiance; if you parley so roughly I'll
barricade 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 MARCHMONT
'I rise from a sick-bed, my dearest Matilda, 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-rooted 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 Woodbourne, 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 cushions 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 aid-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 at once 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 trowsers, 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 of 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 grey horse," said the miscreant, "with the red
handkerchief bound about his brow."
'"Then be pleased to tell that gentleman that, if 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 grey 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 farther 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
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." Indeed,
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's-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.'