‘Tis but a single murder.--Lillo: Fatal Curiosity.
It was in a melancholy and thoughtful mood that I rode away from the
parsonage. Numerous and hearty were the maledictions I bestowed upon a
system of education which, while it was so ineffective with the many,
was so pernicious to the few. Miserable delusion (thought I), that
encourages the ruin of health and the perversion of intellect by studies
that are as unprofitable to the world as they are destructive to the
possessor--that incapacitate him for public, and unfit him for private
life--and that, while they expose him to the ridicule of strangers,
render him the victim of his wife, and the prey of his domestic.
Busied in such reflections, I rode quickly on till I found myself once
more on the heath. I looked anxiously round for the conspicuous equipage
of Lady Chester, but in vain--the ground was thin--nearly all the higher
orders had retired--the common people, grouped together, and clamouring
noisily, were withdrawing: and the shrill voices of the itinerant
hawkers of cards and bills had at length subsided into silence. I rode
over the ground, in the hope of finding some solitary straggler of
our party. Alas! there was not one; and, with much reluctance at, and
distaste to, my lonely retreat, I turned in a homeward direction from
the course.
The evening had already set in, but there was a moon in the cold grey
sky, that I could almost have thanked in a sonnet for a light which I
felt was never more welcomely dispensed, when I thought of the cross
roads and dreary country I had to pass before I reached the longed for
haven of Chester Park. After I had left the direct road, the wind, which
had before been piercingly keen, fell, and I perceived a dark cloud
behind, which began slowly to overtake my steps. I care little, in
general, for the discomfort of a shower; yet, as when we are in one
misfortune we always exaggerate the consequence of a new one, I looked
upon my dark pursuer with a very impatient and petulant frown, and set
my horse on a trot, much more suitable to my inclination than his own.
Indeed, he seemed fully alive to the cornless state of the parson’s
stable, and evinced his sense of the circumstance by a very languid mode
of progression, and a constant attempt, whenever his pace abated, and I
suffered the rein to slumber upon his neck, to crop the rank grass that
sprung up on either side of our road. I had proceeded about three miles
on my way, when I heard the clatter of hoofs behind me. My even pace
soon suffered me to be overtaken, and, as the stranger checked his horse
when he was nearly by my side, I turned towards him, and beheld Sir John
Tyrrell.
“Well,” said he, “this is really fortunate--for I began to fear I should
have my ride, this cold evening, entirely to myself.”
“I imagined that you had long reached Chester Park by this time,” said
I. “Did not you leave the course with our party?”
“No,” answered Tyrrell, “I had business, at Newmarket, with a rascally
fellow of the name of Dawson. He lost to me rather a considerable wager,
and asked me to come to the town with him after the race, in order to
pay me. As he said he lived on the direct road to Chester Park, and
would direct and even accompany me, through all the difficult part of
the ride, I the less regretted not joining Chester and his party; and
you know, Pelham, that when pleasure pulls one way, and money another,
it is all over with the first. Well--to return to my rascal--would you
believe, that when we got to Newmarket, he left me at the inn, in order,
he said, to fetch the money; and after having kept me in a cold
room, with a smoky chimney, for more than an hour, without making his
appearance, I sallied out into the town, and found Mr. Dawson quietly
seated in a hell with that scoundrel Thornton, whom I did not conceive,
till then, he was acquainted with. It seems that he was to win, at
hazard, sufficient to pay his wager. You may fancy my anger, and the
consequent increase to it, when he rose from the table, approached me,
expressed his sorrow, d--d his ill luck, and informed me that he could
not pay me for three months. You know that I could not ride home with
such a fellow--he might have robbed me by the way--so I returned to my
inn--dined--ordered my horse, set off--en cavalier seul--inquired my way
of every passenger I passed, and after innumerable misdirections--here I
am.”
“I cannot sympathise with you,” said I, “since I am benefitted by your
misfortunes. But do you think it very necessary to trot so fast? I fear
my horse can scarcely keep up with yours.”
Tyrrell cast an impatient glance at my panting steed. “It is cursed
unlucky you should be so badly mounted, and we shall have a pelting
shower presently.”
In complaisance to Tyrrell, I endeavoured to accelerate my steed. The
roads were rough and stony, and I had scarcely got the tired animal into
a sharper trot, before--whether or no by some wrench among the deep ruts
and flinty causeway--he fell suddenly lame. The impetuosity of Tyrrell
broke out in oaths, and we both dismounted to examine the cause of my
horse’s hurt, in the hope that it might only be the intrusion of some
pebble between the shoe and the hoof. While we were yet investigating
the cause of our misfortune, two men on horseback overtook us. Tyrrell
looked up. “By Heaven,” said he, in a low tone, “it’s that dog Dawson,
and his worthy coadjutor, Tom Thornton.”
“What’s the matter, gentlemen?” cried the bluff voice of the latter.
“Can I be of any assistance?” and without waiting our reply, he
dismounted, and came up to us. He had no sooner felt the horse’s leg,
than he assured us it was a most severe strain, and that the utmost I
could effect would be to walk the brute gently home.
As Tyrrell broke out into impatient violence at this speech, the sharper
looked up at him with an expression of countenance I by no means liked;
but in a very civil, and even respectful tone, said, “If you want, Sir
John, to reach Chester Park sooner than Mr. Pelham can possibly do,
suppose you ride on with us, I will put you in the direct road before I
quit you.” (Good breeding, thought I, to propose leaving me to find my
own way through this labyrinth of ruts and stones!) However, Tyrrell,
who was in a vile humour, in no very courteous manner, refused the
offer, and added that he should continue with me as long as he could,
and did not doubt that when he left me he should be able to find his
own way. Thornton pressed the invitation still closer, and even offered,
sotto voce, to send Dawson on before, should the baronet object to his
company.
“Pray, Sir,” said Tyrrell, “leave me alone, and busy yourself about your
own affairs.” After so tart a reply, Thornton thought it useless to say
more; he remounted, and with a silent and swaggering nod of familiarity,
soon rode away with his companion.
“I am sorry,” said I, as we were slowly proceeding, “that you rejected
Thornton’s offer.”
“Why, to say truth,” answered Tyrrell, “I have so very bad an opinion
of him, that I was almost afraid to trust myself in his company on so
dreary a road. I have nearly (and he knows it), to the amount of two
thousand pounds about me; for I was very fortunate in my betting-book
today.”
“I know nothing about racing regulations,” said I; “but I thought one
never paid sums of that amount upon the ground?”
“Ah!” answered Tyrrell, “but I won this sum, which is L1,800., of a
country squire from Norfolk, who said he did not know when he should see
me again, and insisted on paying me on the spot: ‘faith I was not nice
in the matter. Thornton was standing by at the time, and I did not half
like the turn of his eye when he saw me put it up. Do you know, too,”
continued Tyrrell, after a pause, “that I have had a d--d fellow dodging
me all day, and yesterday too; wherever I go, I am sure to see him. He
seems constantly, though distantly, to follow me; and what is worse, he
wraps himself up so well, and keeps at so cautious a distance, that I
can never catch a glimpse of his face.”
I know not why, but at that moment the recollection of the muffled
figure I had seen upon the course, flashed upon me.
“Does he wear a long horseman’s cloak?” said I.
“He does,” answered Tyrrell, in surprise: “have you observed him?”
“I saw such a person on the race ground,” replied I; “but only for an
instant!”
Farther conversation was suspended by a few heavy drops which fell upon
us; the cloud had passed over the moon, and was hastening rapidly and
loweringly over our heads. Tyrrell was neither of an age, a frame, nor a
temper, to be so indifferent to a hearty wetting as myself.
“God!” he cried, “you must put on that beast of your’s--I can’t get wet,
for all the horses in the world.”
I was not much pleased with the dictatorial tone of this remark. “It is
impossible,” said I, “especially as the horse is not my own, and seems
considerably lamer than at first; but let me not detain you.”
“Well!” cried Tyrrell, in a raised and angry voice, which pleased me
still less than his former remark; “but how am I to find my way, if I
leave you?”
“Keep straight on,” said I, “for a mile farther, then a sign-post will
direct you to the left; after a short time, you will have a steep hill
to descend, at the bottom of which is a large pool, and a singularly
shaped tree; then keep straight on, till you pass a house belonging to
Mr. Dawson--”
“Come, come, Pelham, make haste!” exclaimed Tyrrell, impatiently, as the
rain began now to descend fast and heavy.
“When you have passed that house,” I resumed coolly, rather enjoying his
petulance, “you must bear to the right for six miles, and you will be at
Chester Park in less than an hour.”
Tyrrell made no reply, but put spurs to his horse. The pattering rain
and the angry heavens soon drowned the last echoes of the receding
hoofclang.
For myself, I looked in vain for a tree; not even a shrub was to be
found; the fields lay bare on either side, with no other partition but
a dead hedge, and a deep dyke. “Patientia fit melius,” thought I, as
Horace said, and Vincent would say; and in order to divert my thoughts
from my situation, I turned them towards my diplomatic success with Lord
Chester. Presently, for I think scarcely five minutes had elapsed since
Tyrrell’s departure, a horseman passed me at a sharp pace; the moon was
hid by the dense cloud, and the night, though not wholly dark, was dim
and obscured, so that I could only catch the outline of the flitting
figure. A thrill of fear crept over me, when I saw that it was enveloped
in a horseman’s cloak. I soon rallied--“There are more cloaks in the
world than one,” said I to myself; “besides, even if it be Tyrrell’s
dodger, as he calls him, the baronet is better mounted than any
highwayman since the days of Du Val; and is, moreover, strong enough and
cunning enough to take admirable care of himself.” With this reflection
I dismissed the occurrence from my thoughts, and once more returned to
self-congratulations upon my own incomparable genius. “I shall now,”
I thought, “have well earned my seat in parliament; Dawton will
indisputably be, if not the prime, the principal minister in rank and
influence. He cannot fail to promote me for his own sake, as well as
mine; and when I have once fairly got my legs in St. Stephen’s, I shall
soon have my hands in office: ‘power,’ says some one, ‘is a snake that
when it once finds a hole into which it can introduce its head, soon
manages to wriggle in the rest of its body.’” With such meditations I
endeavoured to beguile the time and cheat myself into forgetfulness of
the lameness of my horse, and the dripping wetness of his rider. At last
the storm began sullenly to subside: one impetuous torrent, ten-fold
more violent than those that had preceded it, was followed by a
momentary stillness, which was again broken by a short relapse of a less
formidable severity, and the moment it ceased, the beautiful moon broke
out, the cloud rolled heavily away, and the sky shone forth, as fair and
smiling as Lady--at a ball, after she has been beating her husband at
home.
But at that instant, or perhaps a second before the storm ceased, I
thought I heard the sound of a human cry. I paused, and my heart stood
still--I could have heard a gnat hum: the sound was not repeated; my ear
caught nothing but the plashing of the rain drops from the dead hedges,
and the murmur of the swollen dykes, as the waters pent within them
rolled hurriedly on. By and by, an owl came suddenly from behind me, and
screamed as it flapped across my path; that, too, went rapidly away:
and with a smile, at what I deemed my own fancy, I renewed my journey.
I soon came to the precipitous descent I have before mentioned; I
dismounted, for safety, from my drooping and jaded horse, and led him
down the hill. At a distance beyond I saw something dark moving on the
grass which bordered the road; as I advanced, it started forth from the
shadow, and fled rapidly before me, in the moonshine--it was a riderless
horse. A chilling foreboding seized me: I looked round for some weapon,
such as the hedge might afford; and finding a strong stick of tolerable
weight and thickness, I proceeded more cautiously, but more fearlessly
than before. As I wound down the hill, the moonlight fell full upon the
remarkable and lonely tree I had observed in the morning. Bare, wan, and
giant-like, as it rose amidst the surrounding waste, it borrowed even
a more startling and ghostly appearance from the cold and lifeless
moonbeams which fell around and upon it like a shroud. The retreating
animal I had driven before me, paused by this tree. I hastened my steps,
as if by an involuntary impulse, as well as the enfeebled animal I was
leading would allow me, and discovered a horseman galloping across the
waste at full speed. The ground over which he passed was steeped in
the moonshine, and I saw the long and disguising cloak, in which he was
developed, as clearly as by the light of day. I paused: and as I was
following him with my looks, my eye fell upon some obscure object by
the left side of the pool. I threw my horse’s rein over the hedge, and
firmly grasping my stick, hastened to the spot. As I approached the
object, I perceived that it was a human figure; it was lying still and
motionless; the limbs were half immersed in the water--the face was
turned upwards--the side and throat were wet with a deep red stain--it
was of blood; the thin, dark hairs of the head, were clotted together
over a frightful and disfiguring contusion. I bent over the face in
a shuddering and freezing silence. It was the countenance of Sir John
Tyrrell!