The old and vulgar proverb--that misfortune makes us acquainted with
strange bedfellows, is true in more senses than in one; for it not
only brings us into contact with persons that we should never
otherwise have met, but it makes us seek companionships which nothing
else, perhaps, could have produced. To be recognised in such a tone,
in such a place, might at any other time have made Morley Ernstein
start with some surprise; but now he drew in his horse calmly and
deliberately, and turned towards the man who addressed him, very
little caring, to say the truth, who was the person, or what was his
trade. In the meanwhile the other approached, and the light of the
fire was sufficiently strong where they stood to shew Morley a
countenance that was familiar to him, but which, for a moment, he
could not connect in memory with any particular circumstance or
situation.
"Ay, you don't recollect me, sir," said the man; "and you saw me only
in a place which I should not think of mentioning anywhere else than
where we now stand--nor, indeed, for that matter, should I take the
liberty of claiming acquaintance with you here, only it can do you no
harm, and I wish to thank you for bringing back the babe."
While he had been speaking, the man's voice led Morley's mind back, by
the paths of remembrance, to the point in the past which referred to
their first meeting. "I recollect you, now, Mr. Martin," he said;
"but, to say the truth, we are at such a distance from the spot where
we last saw each other, that you took me by surprise. So this was your
child I found upon the common. How did it happen to stray so? The poor
thing might have perished in such a night as this."
"True, sir--true!" replied Harry Martin, for it was that bold, and
somewhat unscrupulous personage with whom Morley now stood face to
face. "True, sir--true, the boy might have perished, and with him my
only tie to life. No, not my only tie either, for there is my poor
girl, Mary, I must think of her a bit, too, though I often fancy she
would be better off if I were gone. She would have been better off,
sure enough, if she had never known me; but, however, she loves me,
and I love her, dear little soul; and though I know you gentle people
and others think that we in our way of life have little or no feelings
of any kind, but just to drink and smoke, and fight a main of cocks,
or something of that sort, yet it is not altogether so either, and we
can love our wife, or our sweetheart, or our child, just as much as
the best in the land. I know one thing, that if we had lost the babe,
it would have broke my heart outright, though I I can remember very
well the time when I did not care anything about children, and thought
they would only be a bother to one; but, somehow, since I had one of
my own, I have got very fond of it, and I don't know how it is that
fondness has made me think very differently of many other things too.
So you see, sir, I am very much obliged to you,--only there is one
favour I'll ask of you, which is not just to mention that you have
seen me here; for the beaks are after me for a little job I did some
time ago, and I think of taking a swim over the herring-pond as a
volunteer, for fear, as they say on board the ships, they should make
me work my passage to Heaven by pulling at a rope's-end."
"I will certainly not mention it, Martin," replied Morley; "but I
should like to hear something more of you. I asked that young woman,
who is, I suppose, your wife, and her companion, to give me shelter in
the cottage for this night, having got somewhat out of my way, and
being, I fancy, some sixteen or seventeen miles from Warmstone
Castle."
"Not so far as that, sir--not so far as that," said Harry Martin;
"but, nevertheless, you shall be welcome to stay if you like it. I
know I can trust you; but the women did not know who you were, and
they are in a sad fright about me, poor things! I had left them, for
an hour or two, to go and look out for news; but my poor wife could
not be satisfied, and as I did not come so soon as she expected, went
away to meet me, leaving the boy with his grandmother. The poor old
woman was so tired with all our dodging about for the last two or
three days, that she fell asleep by the fire, and the boy strayed away
after a will-o-the-wisp, or something of that kind, I suppose. But
come, Sir Morley, if you like to stay with us, we will do the best we
can for you, though what you call a cottage is but a hovel, and that
the two women must have. There are some pitmen's cottages, however,
two miles further up on the moor; but between you and I, bad as they
call me, you may rest more safely with me than with them."
"I will stay by your fire, Martin," said Morley, dismounting and
leading his horse back; and in a few minutes more, after some
formalities and introductions of a particular kind, he was seated in
what may be called Harry Martin's domestic circle, and in full
conversation with him, his wife, and mother-in-law.
He perceived that the elder woman looked at him hard from time to
time, and at length she said--"I was stupid not to know you, Sir
Morley, for you are so like your father. There is something of your
mother, too, about the eyes, but you are more like your father."
"I suppose you knew my father well, then?" answered Morley, looking at
her steadfastly, in order to see whether he could trace in her worn,
but still fine features, the countenance of any of the dependents of
his family whom he had known in youth. It was in vain that he did so,
however; the face of the old woman was quite unknown to him, as her
reply soon showed him that it must be.
"Ay, I did know him well," replied the old woman, "and a good man he
was. I wish I had always followed what he told me. It is now about
eighteen years since I saw him, and then he said, very truly, that
those who seek riches by wrong means, are sure to find poverty
straight on their road."
"I certainly am sorry that you did not take his advice," said Morley;
"but I trust you were led to do nothing very wrong in opposition to
his counsel."
"Tut, nonsense, granny!" cried Harry Martin; "you are doting with your
old stories. What wrong did you ever do, if it was not letting me
marry your daughter? You were as good an old body as ever lived, and
as thriving a one, too, after you came back from India, till both
mother and daughter, I believe, fell in love with a scapegrace like
myself."
"I did not fall in love with you, Harry," replied the old woman; "but
I thought you better than you seemed, and, to say the truth better
than you are. You were frank and free; I believed you would be kind to
my poor girl, and, to do you but justice, you have been so. But what I
am talking about is many years ago; she was then a babe, not so big as
little Harry here, and I was the wife of Serjeant More, a good man and
a kind, but somewhat too fond of money withal. Ay, it was a bad
business, that; but it is of no use thinking of it now. I have not
been in those parts, sir," she continued, "since I came back to
England, and I should like much to hear of all the people there. Your
father is dead, sir, I know; pray, how is your mother? She was a
beautiful creature!"
"Alas!" replied Morley, "she has been long dead, too."
"Well-a-day!" exclaimed the old woman, and then, after a pause, she
asked--"and Mr. Sanderstead's family, sir--how are they? He was just
married then."
"He has now eight or nine daughters, I believe," answered Morley; "I
know the room was full of them when I called there one morning."
"Ay," said the old woman, abstractedly, "and what has become of Lawyer
Carr and his wife?"
Morley shrunk, as if a rude hand had been laid upon a fresh wound, but
he replied, after a moment's hesitation--"The old man is still living,
but his wife has been dead, I find, for some years."
"Dead!--dead!" cried the old woman; "and is the child living--the
daughter?"
"Yes, she is," replied Morley, rising--"she is living--Martin, I think
I shall go on."
"Why, what's the matter, sir?" said Harry Martin, gazing on the young
Baronet's face; "a minute ago you were all for staying, and now you
must be gone."
"I am, perhaps, whimsical," replied Morley Ernstein; "I have become so
lately. However, before I go, let me speak a word or two with you on
your own affairs. You talk of going to America, if I understood you
rightly. I do not wish to hear why, or anything about it--I can guess,
perhaps; but two women and a child must be a burden to you under such
circumstances. If they like to come up to Warmstone, while you make
your escape, there is a vacant cottage, I hear from my agent, which
they can have, till they go to join you. Some furniture can be sent
down from the Castle, and if you think fit, I will give full orders
before I leave Warmstone, for I shall not be there more than a day."
Harry Martin had risen while Morley was speaking, and was gazing in
his face, with an expression in which doubt and suspicion seemed to
mingle with satisfaction. "I don't think you would play me a trick,
sir," he said, as Morley concluded, "and yet it's strange enough, your
starting up in that way the moment the old woman mentioned Lawyer
Carr!"
Morley returned his gaze with a look of unmixed surprise, "I don't
understand what you mean," he answered; "what have you to do with
Lawyer Carr? or Lawyer Carr to do with you?"
"Everything in the world," cried Harry Martin, knitting his brows, and
stamping his foot--"everything in the world--don't you know that?"
It was the old woman who now replied, for she seemed now the most
astonished of the party, and catching Martin by the arm, she
asked--"Is it old Carr, then, that you are afraid of? He had better
not touch a hair of your head!"
"Nonsense--nonsense, granny!" said the man; "you don't understand what
you are talking about. But I see Sir Morley has not heard of the job.
Sir, I'm very much obliged to you for your offer, and wont say No, but
will just talk to my wife about it after you are gone, if it would not
be too much trouble for you to give the orders upon the chance."
"I will not fail to have the place put in order," replied Morley; "and
you may be sure that if they do come, they shall be well taken care
of. As for yourself, Martin, I can offer you nothing, for your own
words have, of course, given me to suspect that you have placed
yourself in a situation which precludes me from affording you shelter,
or any sort of aid, except of a pecuniary kind. If, however, you are
in want of money, all that I have about me is at your service."
"Thank you, sir," said Martin, with a light, laugh at the double
meaning of that which was about to spring from his lips; "I am very
much obliged to you, but I do not want your money, or I would have
taken it, I can assure you.--Though that is not true either," he
added; "I might have taken a stranger's, but not yours, Sir Morley;
but the fact is, I don't want money."
"Of that I am very happy," answered Morley; "but I cannot help
expressing a regret, Martin, that you should adhere to a course so
dangerous as well as so evil. I thought, when first I saw you, and
think still, that you were intended for better things, and might
distinguish yourself, and raise yourself high in a good and honourable
course."
The man he spoke to cast down his eyes, and gazed musingly upon the
ground for several minutes, but he then replied--"Thank you, sir, for
your good opinion; but it's all nonsense talking or thinking of such
things now--it's too late in the day to mend. The worst of the laws of
this country, and of what people call society, is, that they never
allow any man to get better. A man may get worse in this world every
day, if he likes it; the bad road is always open before him, and
plenty there are to drive him on upon it. But if he tries to go back
again, sir, to the good road that he has left, there is sure to be
some one to bang the turnpike in his face, and stop him ere he has got
half a mile. I cannot help thinking, sir, that it is a pity those men
who set about making laws and customs, do not recollect that there is
such a thing as amending as well as punishing. I believe it would be
better for all of us if they did; for now, even a hardened scoundrel
like myself, as they would call me if I were in a prison tomorrow,
why, a very little thing would have made me a better man at one time,
and I don't believe it would take very much even now. It may be an odd
thing to say, for a man who does something wrong every day, that he
never does anything that is wrong without being sorry for it very soon
after it's done; but yet it is true; and, even now, a word or two of
encouragement, such as you spoke to me just this minute, makes me feel
quite vexed with myself that I have not gone in the right way instead
of the wrong."
"There is some truth in what you say," replied Morley, "that our laws
and our customs, in dealing both with man and woman, seem to lose
sight altogether of the great object of reformation. Terror is the
only instrument we use, and terror never yet reclaimed. Nevertheless,
though the path back, Martin, must always be more difficult and
laborious than the path onward, still I believe it may be trodden, if
a man have a strong heart and a good resolution; and I trust that,
when you have made your escape to another country, and are out of
danger altogether, you will think of what we have been saying tonight,
and will see whether, in a new world, you cannot live a new life.
"On my soul and honour I will, sir!" replied the man, eagerly. "I'll
do my best, at all events. I'll tell you what it is, Sir Morley
Ernstein--the thing that ruins half of us is want of hope. The least
little bit of hope would very often lead on a man to do much better,
but we don't get it, sir. Once we have done amiss, as the world goes
now, there's no object in stopping. However, sir, I have had some
encouragement, and, as I said just now, I'll do my best, if I can
contrive to get off this time."
"I trust you may do both," replied Morley--"I trust you may do both,
my good friend, for I believe that you are not without good feelings,
if they were well directed. But I will now go on, and before to-morrow
night the cottage shall be all ready for your wife and her mother."
"Stay a bit, sir," said Harry Martin; "I'll walk up with you beyond
the pitmen's hovels. They are somewhat of a wild set, and some of them
may be stirring yet."
Morley threw the rein of his horse over his arm, and walked on with
Harry Martin by his side. Most men would have considered it not the
safest sort of companionship in the world; but no idea of danger to
himself crossed the young Baronet's mind, and his thoughts, to say the
truth, were busy in a struggle which every one must have endured who
has felt for his fellow-creatures.
Amongst all the pieces of casuistry which man puts to his own heart,
there is none more difficult, I might say more painful, to resolve,
than the question of where lenity should stop and just severity begin;
how far, in short, compassion for an offender may be extended, without
injustice to the innocent and to society. I must not say that Morley
felt a strong inclination to aid the man, Martin, in making his
escape, for that was not altogether the sensation which affected him;
but he did regret sincerely, that what he owed to the laws of his
country, prevented him from aiding, in the least degree, the flight of
one whom he believed to be formed for better things, and in whom he
saw, or thought he saw, a tendency to repentance, which would
certainly lead to a new course of life. Nevertheless, he felt that he
had no right to place his individual opinion, his hopes or
expectations, of the man's reformation in direct opposition to the law
of the land, and, consequently, he felt anxious to turn from the
subject as soon as possible, though he felt some difficulty in so
doing.
Harry Martin himself, however, soon relieved him by speaking
first--"Pray, Sir Morley," he said--"can you tell me what has become
of that young scamp, William Barham? I saw him after he escaped from
being drowned--which he never will be, if there's truth in the old
proverb--for he is as bad a youth as ever lived or died unhanged. He
partly put me up to this last job, and then, when it was done, sneaked
out of the way somewhere, and I never could get sight of him
afterwards."
The recollection of the last time he had seen William Barham was,
as the reader may suppose, agitating to Morley Ernstein; but he was
more upon his guard upon the present occasion, than when all the
painful circumstances of his fate had been suddenly recalled to his
mind, a few minutes before, by the questions of the old woman. He
paused for a moment, indeed, ere he replied; but he then answered
calmly enough--"Not many days ago, he was staying at the house of Mr.
Carr, at Yelverly."
"Ha!" replied his companion; "the young villain's betraying me: he is
fit to sell his own soul, though it is not worth buying if he did; but
he had better take care what he is about, or I will break his neck for
him."
"Do nothing rashly, Martin," replied Morley Ernstein; "he is, I
believe, bad enough; but I have a faint recollection of having heard
that some connexion or other has been discovered between him and Mr.
Carr--some relationship or friendship between their parents--I forget
what; but, certainly, it had no reference to you."
"I trust it has not," replied Martin, in the same stern tone with
which he had before spoken; but he still seemed dissatisfied, and
continued to walk by Morley's side in silence, till they had passed a
long row of low-built cottages, and had gone on for about half a mile
on the moor. At length he paused, and pointing on the road before him,
he said--"That is your way, sir. About a mile on you will find a
finger-post, with two roads separating to the right and left; take the
left-hand road, and follow it till you come to a village, where you
must get further directions. Good night, sir!"
Morley wished him good night, and was about to proceed, but he thought
he perceived a degree of hesitation in the man's manner, which made
him pause for a moment. "You seem to have something more to tell me,
Martin," he said; "speak without reserve, if you have."
"Why, there is a word or two, sir," replied Harry Martin, approaching
close to his horse's side, and speaking in a low tone. "If things go
right with me, and I get away, it's all well and good; but you know,
sir, matters may go another way, and then the game's up. As for dying,
I declare, I care no more about it, than about going to sleep; but you
see, sir, there's my poor wife--she is as good a girl as ever lived,
and I don't know how or why it is, but since we were married it has
made a great difference in me. I am not half so wild as I was before;
and I have got a sort of tenderness, if I may call it so, towards all
women for her sake. I believe it is, that I did no rightly know what a
good woman was before I married her; but it is very different now, and
that is the only thing that rests upon my mind. You see, sir, she has
never been used to hard work, but has been brought up as a sort of a
lady, and if I were gone, what would come of her? I think, if I knew
she would be well taken care of, I should not care for anything in
life."
"Make your mind easy," said Morley, "though I cannot exactly say what
I should be able to do for her under such circumstances; I will
promise you to see her established in some honest way of life--some
small school, or other thing, that does not imply any severe
exertion."
The man made no answer, but he grasped the young Baronet's hand tight,
in a way that was not to be mistaken, and thus they parted.