"For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do."
ISAAC WATTS.
Peregrine went off in good spirits, promising a visit on his return
to London, of which he seemed to have no doubt; but no more was
heard of him for ten days. At the end of that time the Portsmouth
carrier conveyed the following note to Winchester:--
HONOURED AND REVEREND SIR--Seven years since your arguments and
intercession induced my father to consent to what I hoped had
been the rescue of me, body and soul. I know not whether to ask
of your goodness to make the same endeavour again. My father
declares that nothing shall induce him again to let me go abroad
with my uncle, and persists in declaring that the compact has
been broken by our visits to Papist lands, nor will aught that I
can say persuade him that the Muscovite abhors the Pope quite as
much as he can. He likewise deems that having unfortunately
become his heir, I must needs remain at home to thin the timber
and watch the ploughmen; and when I have besought him to let me
yield my place to Robert he replies that I am playing the part of
Esau. I have written to my uncle, who has been a true father to
me, and would be loth to part from me for his own sake as well as
mine but I know not whether he will be able to prevail; and I
entreat of you, reverend sir, to add your persuasions, for I well
know that it would be my perdition to remain bound where I am.
Commend me to Mrs. Woodford and Mistress Anne. I trust that the
former is in better health.--I remain, reverend sir, Your humble
servant to command, PEREGRINE OAKSHOTT.
Given at Oakwood House,
This 10th of October 1687.
This was very bad news, but Dr. Woodford knew not how to interfere;
moreover, being in course at the Cathedral, he could not absent
himself long enough for an expedition to Oakwood, through wintry
roads in short days. He could only write an encouraging letter to
the poor lad, and likewise one to Mr. Horncastle, who under the
Indulgence had a chapel of his own. The Doctor had kept up the
acquaintance formed by Peregrine's accident, and had come to regard
him with much esteem, and as likely to exercise a wholesome
influence upon his patron. Nothing more was heard for a week, and
then came another visitor to the Doctor's door, Sir Peregrine
himself, on his way down, at considerable inconvenience, to
endeavour to prevail with his brother to allow him to retain his
nephew in his suite.
"Surely," he said, "my brother had enough of camps in his youth to
understand that his son will be none the worse squire for having
gone a little beyond Hampshire bogs, and learnt what the world is
made of."
"I cannot tell," said Dr. Woodford; "I have my fears that he thinks
the less known of the world the better."
"That might answer with a heavy clod of a lad such as the poor youth
who is gone, and such as, for his own sake and my brother's, I trust
the younger one is, fruges consumere natus; but as for this boy,
dulness and vacancy are precisely what would be the ruin of him.
Let my brother keep Master Robert at home, and give him Oakwood; I
will provide for Perry as I always promised to do."
"If he is wise he will accept the offer," said Dr. Woodford; "but
'tis hard to be wise for others."
"Nothing harder, sir. I would that I had gone home with Perry, but
mine audience of his Majesty was fixed for the ensuing week, and my
brother's summons was peremptory."
"I trust your honour will prevail," said Mrs. Woodford gently. "You
have effected a mighty change in the poor boy, and I can well
believe that he is as a son to you."
"Well, madam, yes--as sons go," said the knight in a somewhat
disappointing tone.
She looked at him anxiously, and ventured to murmur a hope so very
like an inquiry, and so full of solicitous hope, that it actually
unlocked the envoy's reserve, and he said, "Ah, madam, you have been
the best mother that the poor youth has ever had! I will speak
freely to you, for should I fail in overcoming my brother's
prejudices, you will be able to do more for him than any one else,
and I know you will be absolutely secret."
Mrs. Woodford sighed, with forebodings of not long being able to aid
any one in this world, but still she listened with earnest interest
and sympathy.
"Yes, madam, you implanted in him that which yet may conquer his
strange nature. Your name is as it were a charm to conjure up his
better spirit."
"Of course," she said, "I never durst hope, that he could be tamed
and under control all at once, but--" and she paused.
"He has improved--vastly improved," said the uncle. "Indeed, when
first I took him with me, while he was still weak, and moreover much
overcome by sea-sickness, while all was strange to him, and he was
relieved by not finding himself treated as an outcast, I verily
thought him meeker than other urchins, and that the outcry against
him was unmerited. But no sooner had we got to Berlin, and while I
was as yet too busy to provide either masters or occupations for my
young gentleman, than he did indeed make me feel that I had charge
of a young imp, and that if I did not watch the better, it might be
a case of war with his Spanish Majesty. For would you believe it,
his envoy's gardens joined ours, and what must my young master do,
but sit atop of our wall, making grimaces at the dons and donnas as
they paced the walks, and pelting them from time to time with
walnuts. Well, I was mindful of your counsel, and did not flog him,
nor let my chaplain do so, though I know the good man's fingers
itched to be at him; but I reasoned with him on the harm he was
doing me, and would you believe it, the poor lad burst into tears,
and implored me to give him something to do, to save him from his
own spirit. I set him to write out and translate a long roll of
Latin despatches sent up by that pedant Court in Hungary, and I
declare to you I had no more trouble with him till next he was left
idle. I gave him tutors, and he studied with fervour, and made
progress at which they were amazed. He learnt the High Dutch faster
than any other of my people, and could soon jabber away in it with
the best of the Elector's folk, and I began to think I had a nephew
who would do me no small credit. I sent him to perfect his studies
at Leyden, but shall I confess it to you? it was to find that no
master nor discipline could keep him out of the riotings and
quarrels of the worse sort of students. Nay, I found him laid by
with a rapier thrust in the side from a duel, for no better cause
than biting his thumb at a Scots law student in chapel, his apology
being that to sit through a Dutch sermon drove him crazy. 'Tis not
that he is not trustworthy. Find employment for the restless demon
that is in him, and all is well with him; moreover, he is full of
wit and humour, and beguiles a long journey or tedious evening at an
inn better than any comrade I ever knew, extracting mirth from all
around, even the very discomforts, and searching to the quick all
that is to be seen. But if left to himself, the restless demon that
preys on him is sure to set him to something incalculable. At Turin
it set him to scraping acquaintance with a Capuchin friar, a dirty
rogue whom I would have kept on the opposite side of the street.
That was his graver mood; but what more must he do, but borrow or
steal, I know not how, the ghastly robes of the Confraternity of
Death--the white garb and peaked cap with two holes for the eyes,
wherewith men of all degrees disguise themselves while doing the
pious work of bearing the dead to the grave. None suspected him,
for the disguise is complete, and a duke may walk unknown beside a
water-carrier, bearing the corpse of a cobbler. All would have been
well, but that at the very brink of the grave the boy's fiend--'tis
his own word--impelled him to break forth into his wild "Ho! ho!
ho!" with an eldritch shriek, and slipping out of his cerements,
dash off headlong over the wall of the cemetery. He was not
followed. I believe the poor body belonged to a fellow whose
salvation was more than doubtful in spite of all the priests could
do, and that the bearers really took him for the foul fiend. It was
not till a week or two after that the ring of his voice and laugh
caused him to be recognised by one of the Duke of Savoy's gentlemen,
happily a prudent man, loth to cause a tumult against one of my
suite, and he told me all privately in warning. Ay, and when I
spoke to Peregrine, I found him thoroughly penitent at having
insulted the dead; he had been unhappy ever since, and had actually
bestowed his last pocket-piece on the widow. He made handsome
apologies in good Italian, which he had picked up as fast as the
German, to the gentleman, who promised that it should go no farther,
and kept his word. It was the solemnity, Peregrine assured me, that
brought back all the intolerableness of the preachings at home, and
awoke the same demon."
"How long ago was this, sir?"
"About eighteen months."
"And has all been well since?"
"Fairly well. He has had fuller and more responsible work to do for
me, his turn for languages making him a most valuable secretary; and
in the French Court, really the most perilous of all to a young
man's virtue, he behaved himself well. It is not debauchery that he
has a taste for, but he must be doing something, and if wholesome
occupations do not stay his appetite, he will be doing mischief. He
brought on himself a very serious rebuke from the Prince of Orange,
churlishly and roughly given, I allow, but fully merited, for making
grimaces at his acquaintance among the young officers at a military
inspection. Heaven help the lad if he be left with his father,
whose most lively notion of innocent sport is scratching the heads
of his hogs!"
Nothing could be said in answer save earnest wishes that the knight
might persuade his brother. Mrs. Woodford wished her brother-in-law
to go with him to add force to his remonstrance; but on the whole it
was thought better to leave the family to themselves, Dr. Woodford
only writing to Major Oakshott, as well as to the youth himself.
The result was anxiously watched for, and in another week, earlier
in the day than Mrs. Woodford was able to leave her room, Sir
Peregrine's horses stopped at the door, and as Anne ascertained by a
peep from the window, he was only accompanied by his servants.
"Yes," he said to the Doctor in his vexation, "one would really
think that by force of eating Southdown mutton my poor brother had
acquired the brains of one of his own rams! I declare 'tis a
piteous sight to see a man resolute on ruining his son and breaking
his own heart all for conscience sake!"
"Say you so, sir! I had hoped that the sight of what you have made
of your nephew might have had some effect."
"All the effect it has produced is to make him more determined to
take him from me. The Hampshire mind abhors foreign breeding, and
the old Cromwellian spirit thinks good manners sprung from the
world, and wit from the Evil One!"
"I can quite believe that Peregrine's courtly airs are not welcomed
here; I could see what our good neighbour, Sir Philip Archfield,
thought of them; but whereas no power on earth could make the young
gentleman a steady-going clownish youth after his father's heart,
methought he might prefer his present polish to impishness."
"So I told him, but I might as well have talked to the horse block.
It is his duty, quotha, to breed his heir up in godly simplicity!"
"Simplicity is all very well to begin with, but once flown, it
cannot be restored."
"And that is what my brother cannot see. Well, my poor boy must be
left to his fate. There is no help for it, and all I can hope is
that you, sir, and the ladies, will stand his friend, and do what
may lie in your power to make him patient and render his life less
intolerable."
"Indeed, sir, we will do what we can; I wish that I could hope that
it would be of much service."
"My brother has more respect for your advice than perhaps you
suppose; and to you, madam, the poor lad looks with earnest
gratitude. Nay, even his mother reaps the benefit of the respect
with which you have inspired him. Peregrine treats her with a
gentleness and attention such as she never knew before from her bear
cubs. Poor soul! I think she likes it, though it somewhat
perplexes her, and she thinks it all French manners. There is one
more favour, your reverence, which I scarce dare lay before you.
You have seen my black boy Hans?"
"He was with you at Oakwood seven years ago."
"Even so. I bought the poor fellow when a mere child from a Dutch
skipper who had used him scurvily, and he has grown up as faithful
as a very spaniel, and mightily useful too, not only as body
servant, but he can cook as well as any French maitre d'hotel, froth
chocolate, and make the best coffee I ever tasted; is as honest as
the day, and, I believe, would lay down his life for Peregrine or
me. I shall be cruelly at a loss without him, but a physician I met
in London tells me it would be no better than murder to take the
poor rogue to so cold a country as Muscovy. I would leave him to
wait on Perry, but they will not hear of it at Oakwood. My sister-
in-law wellnigh had a fit every time she looked at him when I was
there before, and I found, moreover, that even when I was at hand,
the servants jeered at the poor blackamoor, gave him his meals
apart, and only the refuse of their own, so that he would fare but
ill if I left him to their mercy. I had thought of offering him to
Mr. Evelyn of Says Court, who would no doubt use him well, but it
was Peregrine who suggested that if you of your goodness would
receive the poor fellow, they could sometimes meet, and that would
cheer his heart, and he really is far from a useless knave, but is
worth two of any serving-men I ever saw."
To take an additional man-servant was by no means such a great
proposal as it would be in most houses at present. Men swarmed in
much larger proportion than maids in all families of condition, and
the Doctor was wealthy enough for one--more or less--to make little
difference, but the question was asked as to what wages Hans should
receive.
The knight laughed. "Wages, poor lad, what should he do with them?
He is but a slave, I tell you. Meat, clothes, and fire, that is all
he needs, and I will so deal with him that he will serve you in all
faithfulness and obedience. He can speak English enough to know
what you bid him do, but not enough for chatter with the servants."
So the agreement was made, and poor Hans was to be sent down by the
Portsmouth coach together with Peregrine's luggage.