_Hopes in behalf of my mother: The arrival of the rector: I gain
his favour: Am adopted by him: And effect a family reconciliation.
Anecdotes of a school-fellow, and his sister: Grammatical and musical
studies: Causes of discontent between the Squire and the rector:
Tythes and law produce quarrels: The tragi-comic tale of the rats_
Six weeks had elapsed before my wounds, bruises, and black marks,
had totally disappeared; and the scar above my eye still retained a
red appearance. The alteration of my person however, aided as it was
by dress, was so remarkable as to excite surprise among my village
friends. The apothecary prided himself upon the change, persuading
himself that the rector would thank him for the present of so fine a
grandson. His art and care had wrought miracles, I was quite another
creature; the alteration was so prodigious since he had taken me that
he was sure there was not so fine a boy in all England.
In the mean time I had written to my mother, whose cottage was about
ten miles across the country, from the village where the apothecary
lived. He would not permit me to go to her, it might offend the
rector; but he agreed that, if she should by chance come to me, there
could be no harm in my speaking to my mother. He too understood
casuistry. She accordingly came to see me, and was overjoyed at what
had happened; it might lead to a general reconciliation: especially
now that my brother and sister were both dead. They had been carried
off by the small-pox; and she rightly enough conjectured that the
rector would not be the less prone to pardon her for being clear of
further incumbrance. She enjoined me to intercede in her behalf, and I
very sincerely promised to speak as soon as I dared.
The day at last came on which the rector was to pay his visit, and
examine how far I was fit to be his grandson. My terror by this time
had considerably abated: he having taken thus much notice of me, I
scarcely could believe myself in danger of being rejected. I was not
however without trepidation, and when the well known post chariot
drove up to the door my heart sunk within me.
The apothecary had two sons, one a year older, and the other some
months younger that I was. The eldest was deformed, and his brother
squinted abominably. Curiosity had brought them and the whole family
into the parlour, to be spectators of the interview. My grandfather
entered; I was dressed as genteelly as every effort of the village
taylor could contrive; an appearance so different from that of the
beaten, bruised, and wounded poor elf he first had seen, with clouted
shoes, torn stockings, and coarse coating, dripping with water, and
clotted with blood, was so great as scarcely to be credible. The
ugliness of my companions did but enhance the superiority of my look;
he could not be mistaken in which was his grandson, and the pleasure
my pre-eminence inspired excited a smile of no little approbation. For
my part I had conceived an affection for him; first I had saved his
life, then he had relieved me from distress, and now was come to own
me as his grandson. The change of my present situation from that in
which I had endured so much misery gave me ineffable pleasure. The
entrance of the rector, who had been the cause of this change, and the
smile with which he regarded me went to my heart. I kneeled, my eyes
flowing in tears, and begged his blessing. He gave it, bade me rise,
and thus made me one of the happiest creatures existing.
The rector stayed some time to settle accounts with the apothecary,
after which the postillion was called, leave was taken, and I found
myself seated beside my grandfather, in that fortunate post chariot
from which I had so happily extricated him.
How extreme are the vicissitudes of life! What a reverse of fortune
was here! From hard fare, severe labour, and a brutal tyrant, to
plenty, ease, and smiling felicity. No longer chained in poverty and
ignorance, I now had free access to the precious mines of knowledge.
Far from being restrained, I had every encouragement to pursue
inquiry; and the happiness of the change was at first so great as
almost to be incredible. But the youthful mind easily acquires new
habits, and my character varied with the accidents by which it was
influenced. Yet, to use my father's language, the case-hardening I
had received tempered my future life, and prepared me to endure those
misfortunes with fortitude which might otherwise have broken my
spirit.
From the day that I arrived at the rectory, I increased so fast in my
grandfather's favour that he scarcely knew how to deny me a request. I
was soon bold enough to petition for my mother; and though the pill at
first was bitter, my repeated importunities at length prevailed, and
the rector agreed that, when his daughter should have sufficiently
humbled herself, in terms suited to his dignity and her degradation,
she should be permitted to kneel at his footstool for pardon, instead
of perishing like an out-cast as she deserved.
It was not to be expected that my mother should object to the
conditions; the alternative was very simple, submit or starve. Beside
she had been too much accustomed to the display of the collective
authority, accumulated in the person of the rector, to think
of contest. His government was patriarchal, and his powers
plenipotentiary. He was the head of his family, the priest of the
parish, the justice of peace for the hundred, and the greatest man
of miles around. He had no rival, except the before-mentioned Squire
Mowbray, whom, if divines can hate, I certainly think he hated.
Of the claims of my late master over me, as his apprentice, I never
heard more. Perhaps there was no indenture, for I do not recollect
to have signed one; but if there were he certainly was too conscious
of his guilt to dare to enforce his right, now that he found me
acknowledged and protected by a man so powerful as my grandfather. It
is possible indeed that he should never have heard what became of me;
though I consider that as very improbable. While I was at Oxford, I
was informed that he died raving, with a fever in the brain.
I have mentioned the encouragement I received to pursue inquiry:
one of the first things the rector thought of was my education. Now
that he had owned I was indeed his grandson, it was fitting that
his grandson should be a gentleman. In the parish committed to his
pastoral guidance was a grammar school, that had been endowed, not
indeed by Squire Mowbray or his ancestors, but, by the family that
in times of yore had held the same estate. The pious founder had
vested the government not entirely in his own family, and its
representatives, but in that family and the rector for the time being.
This circumstance, and many others of a parochial nature, conduced to
a kind of partition of power, well calculated to excite contempt in
the wealthy Squire, who was likewise lord of the manor, and inflame
jealousy in heaven's holy vice-gerent, whose very office on earth is
to govern, and to detect, reprove, and rectify, the wanderings of us
silly sheep.
To this school I was immediately sent; and here, among other
competitors was the Squire's eldest son, Hector Mowbray. He was two
years older than I, and in the high exercise of that power to which he
was the redoubted heir. To insult the boys, seize their marbles, split
their tops, cuff them if they muttered, kick them if they complained
to the master, get them flogged if they kicked and cuffed in return,
and tyrannize over them to the very stretch of his invention, were
practices in which he daily made himself more and more expert. He was
the young Squire, and that was a receipt in full for all demands.
I soon came to understand that he was the son of a great man! a very
great man indeed! and that there was a prodigious difference between
flesh and blood of a squire's propagating, and that of ordinary breed.
But I heard it so often repeated, and saw it proved in such a variety
of instances, that I too was the grandson of a great man, ay so great
as openly to declare war against, or at least bid defiance to, the
giant power of Magog Mowbray (it was an epithet of my grandfather's
giving) I say, I was so fully convinced that I myself was the son
of somebody (pshaw! I mean the grandson) that no sooner did young
Hector begin to exercise his ingenuity upon me, than I found myself
exceedingly disposed to rebel. I had been bred in a hardy school.
At my first admission into this seminary, I did not immediately and
fully enter into the spirit and practice of the place; though I soon
became tolerably active. At robbing orchards, tying up latches,
lifting gates, breaking down hedges, and driving cattle astray, I
was by no means so great a proficient as Hector; nor had I any great
affection for swimming hedgehogs, hunting cats, or setting dogs at
boys and beggars; but at climbing trees, running, leaping, swimming,
and such like exercises, I was among the most alert.
My courage too was soon put to the proof, and my opponents found that
I entered on action with very tolerable alacrity; so that not to
mention sparrings and skirmishes, from which having begun I was never
the first to flinch, I had not been a year at school, before I had
been declared the conqueror in three set battles. The third was with
a butcher's boy, in defence of Hector, who for once instead of giving
had suffered insult, but who, though older and stronger than I was,
had not the courage to attack his hardy antagonist. My victory was
dearly earned, for the boy was considerably my superior in age and
strength, and bred to the sport. But this defence of him, and the fear
of having me for a foe, induced Hector to court my favour, and often
to invite me to Mowbray Hall.
Nor did the whole of my fame end here; the first day I entered the
school I was allowed to be the best English scholar, excepting one
Turl, a youth noted for his talents, and who while he remained there
continually kept his place in every class, as head boy. But this was
no triumph over me, for beside having been so long at school, he had
three or four years the advantage of me in point of age. Neither
did my thirst of inquiry abate, and I had now not only books but
instructors; on the contrary, my eagerness increased, and my progress
both in Latin and Greek was rapid. The rector was astonished at it,
and was often embarrassed by the questions which my desire of learning
impelled me to put.
Among my other acquirements, I became a practical musician. The rector
could strum the bass tolerably, and his friend the lawyer could play
the violin, in which however he was excelled by the clerk of the
parish. I retained some remembrance of what I had formerly studied,
and felt a great desire to learn; the rector encouraged it, and as the
clerk is always the very humble servant and slave of the parson, he
was inducted my music master. I loved the art, so that in less than
twelve months I had made a sufficient progress to join in Corelli's
and even Handel's trios, and thus to strengthen the parsonage-house
band.
People who hate each other do yet visit and keep up an intercourse,
according to set forms, purposely to conceal their hatred, it being a
hideous and degrading vice, of which all men are more or less either
ashamed or afraid. To preserve these appearances, or perhaps from the
impulse of vanity, the rector admitted of my excursions to Mowbray
Hall. For my own part, I found a motive more alluring than the society
of Hector, that frequently occasioned me to repeat these visits. His
sister, Olivia, two years younger than myself, was usually one of our
parlour playmates. Born of the same mother, living in the same family,
accustomed to the same manners, it is difficult to account for the
very opposite propensities of this brother and sister. Every thing the
reverse of what has been recited of Hector was visible in Olivia. He
was boisterous, selfish, and brutal; she was compassionate, generous,
and gentle: his faculties were sluggish, obtuse, and confined; hers
were acute, discriminating, and capacious: his want of feeling made
him delight to inflict torture; her extreme sensibility made her
fly to administer relief. The company of Olivia soon became very
attractive, and the rambles that I have sometimes taken with her, hand
in hand over Mowbray Park, afforded no common delight. She too was a
musician, and already famous for her fine voice and execution on the
harpsichord. I accompanied her on the violin, and sang duets with her
so as to surprize and even charm the Squire, and throw the visitors at
Mowbray Hall into raptures.
This sweet intercourse however was terminated by the bickerings,
back-bitings, and smothered jealousies, between the Squire and my
grandfather, which at length burst into a flame. The Squire had
succeeded to his estate and manor by the death of a very distant
relation, and by this relation the rector had been presented to his
living: he therefore considered himself as under no kind of obligation
to the Squire; while the latter on the contrary, the advowson being
parcel and part of the manor, held the manor, and himself as owner of
the manor, to be the actual donor.
To all this was added another very serious cause of discontent, that
of tythes; a cause that disturbs half the villages in the kingdom,
and that frequently exhibits the man who is sent to preach peace, and
afford an example of mild forbearance and Christian humility, as a
litigious, quarrelsome and odious tyrant; much better qualified to
herd with wolves than to be the shepherd of his meek master. It is
sufficiently certain that neither Christ nor his apostles ever took
tythes; and the esquires, farmers, and landholders, of this christian
kingdom, would in general be better satisfied, if their successors
were to follow so disinterested and laudable an example.
My grandfather had accepted his rectory at the same commutation that
the former incumbent had enjoyed it; and, while the patron to whom
he owed the presentation was living, he contented himself with his
bargain as well as he could: but, soon after the accession of Squire
Mowbray, considering that tie as no longer a clog to his conscience,
he began to inquire very seriously into the real value of his first
fruits and tythes, personal, predial, and mixed: that is, his great
tythes and his small. The calculation inflamed his avarice, and he
purchased and read all the books on the subject of tythes he could
collect. Being fond of power, and having discovered (as he supposed)
that the man who knows the most quirks in law has the greatest
quantity of power over his simple and ignorant neighbours, he was
a tolerably laborious and successful student of these quirks. I
say, tolerably; for it seldom happens that the rector is the most
industrious person in the parish.
It was thus that, after having made the whole hundred tremble at his
authority, in the exercise of his office of justice of the peace, he
next hoped to conquer the Behemoth, Magog Mowbray himself. His own
fears of being vanquished and the advice of his friends had indeed,
for years, prevented him from proceeding to an open rupture with his
parish, and the Squire at its head: but his irritability had been
gradually increasing ever since the departure of my uncle Elford. The
progress of his avarice at first was slow; but it gained strength as
it proceeded, and there was now no one whose opinion had sufficient
weight with him to keep it longer quiet. His friend the lawyer, it is
true, might have had some such influence over him; but the lawyer had
been duly articled to the most famous, that is the most litigious,
attorney in the country, and was himself his very famous successor; a
practitioner of the first repute.
The Squire, by a trick he thought proper to play, contributed not
a little to kindle the smothering embers. My grandfather having
announced his intention of demanding a commutation of nearly double
the sum, or of being paid his tythes in kind--first his tythes _de
jure_, and next his tythes by custom; enumerating them all and each;
corn, hay, hops and hemp; fruits, roots, seeds and weeds; wool, milk,
chickens, ducklings, and goslings, or eggs; corn rakings and pond
drawings; not forgetting agistment and _subbois_, or _sylva caedua_;
with many many more of the sweets of our prolific mother earth, which
I would enumerate if I did but recollect them, and for which men so
often have been and still are impleaded in Court Christian--these
particulars, I say, being recapitulated and set forth in terrible
array, by the rector, excited in the whole parish so much dread of the
rapacious vulture, who was coming with such a swoop upon them, that
high and low, young and old, rich and poor, all began to tremble.
The Squire was the only man, at first, who durst bid defiance to the
general ravager. The rector's deviation from his original commutation
agreement threw him into a rage, and he panted for an opportunity of
shewing the contempt in which he held my grandfather and his threats.
Malicious chance favoured his wishes. It happened, while his passions
were in full force, that a rat-catcher arrived at Mowbray Hall; which
at that time was greatly infested by the large Norway rats. The man
had the art of taking them alive, and was accordingly employed by the
Squire. While he was preparing to perform his business, the gentle
Olivia, very innocently and without any foresight of consequences,
chanced to say--'I do not think, papa, that our good rector, who
considers all things as tytheable, would be much pleased to have his
tythe of rats'--The Squire no sooner heard this sentence uttered
than he began to dance and halloo, like a madman; swearing most
vociferously--'By G----, wench, he shall ha' um! He shall ha' um! He
shall ha' um!'
His boisterous joy at this rare thought, which was indeed far beyond
the discovery of his own brain, could not be appeased; nor could
Olivia, sorry for what she had done, prevent him from most resolutely
determining to put it in practice. The ratcatcher was immediately
ordered to entrap as many of his best friends as he possibly could;
and a carpenter was set to work to make a covered box, for the
rector's tythe-rats, with a lifting door. Hector Mowbray was consulted
on the whole progress; and the fancies of father and son were tickled
to excess, by the happy prank they were about to play.
The rats were caught, the box was made, and the ratcatcher commanded
to select the finest, fattest and largest of them, and enclose them
in their cage. In order to heighten and secure their enjoyment, the
Squire and Hector chose four of the stoutest servants, gave the cage
into their custody, and ordered the ratcatcher to attend. Away they
then went in turbulent procession. They even wanted Olivia to go with
them to see the sport; and young Hector, probably with malice prepense
against me, when she refused, was for using force; but she was a
favourite with the Squire, and being very determined was suffered to
remain at home.
Arrived at the parsonage-house, they entered the hall. The Squire
loudly called for the rector. The noise and vociferation of their
approach had rouzed his attention, and he was not long in coming.
The servants too were collected, some without the door and others of
more authority within it, to hear and see what all this could mean.
I likewise was one of the company.--'Here! here! Mr. Rector,' bawled
the Squire, 'we ha' brought you your due. I'll warrant, for once, you
sha'n't grumble that we do not pay you your tythes!'
My grandfather, hearing this address, seeing the covered cage, and
remarking the malicious grins of the Squire and his whole posse, knew
not what to think, and began to suspect there was mischief in the
wind--'By the waunds! mister tythe taker,' continued the Squire, 'but
you shall ha' your own! Here, lads, lift up the cage: put it on the
table; let his reverence see what we ha' brought'n! Come, raise the
door!'
The men, with each a broad grin upon his countenance, did as they were
bidden: they lifted up the box, raised the door, and out burst above
twenty of the largest wildest rats the well stocked barns of Mowbray
Hall could afford. Their numbers, their squealing, their ferocity,
their attempts to escape, and the bounds they gave from side to side
struck the whole parsonage house community with a panic. The women
screamed; the rector foamed; the squire hallooed; and the men seized
bellows, poker, tongs, and every other weapon or missile that was at
hand. The uproar was universal, and the Squire never before or after
felt himself so great a hero! The death of the fox itself was unequal
to it!
This was but the first act of the farce, the catastrophe of which
had something in it of a more tragical cast. Servants partake of the
prejudices of their masters, and the whole parsonage-house, young and
old, male and female, felt itself insulted. No sooner therefore were
the rats discomfited than the rector, summoning all his magisterial
and orthodox dignity, commanded the Squire and his troop to depart.
Despising the mandate, Magog Mowbray continued his exultations and
coarse sarcasms; and, Oh frailty of human nature! the man of God
forgot the peaceful precepts of his divine mission, and gave the
signal for a general assault. Nay he himself, so unruly are the hands
and feet even of a parson in a passion, was one of the most eager
combatants. Age itself could not bind his arms.
The battle raged, fierce and dreadful, for sometime in the hall: but
heroism soon found it wanted elbow-room, and the two armies by mutual
consent sallied forth. Numbers were in our favour, for the very maids,
armed with mop-handles, broomsticks, and rolling pins, acted like
Amazons. I was far from idle, for I had singled out my foe. Hector,
whose courage example had enflamed to a very unruly height, had even
dared to begin the attack; and I was no less alert in opposition. But
though he was Hector, I as it happened was Achilles, and bestowed my
wrath upon him most unsparingly. In fine, valour, victory, and right,
were for once united, and we very fairly put the Squire, his heir, his
ratcatcher, and his beef-eaters to flight.
The rector, dreading a second attack from the enemy, began to fortify
his castle, provide ammunition, and arrange his troops. I acted as his
aide-de-camp, burning to be myself commander in chief. But the caution
was superfluous: the Squire, like his son, was rather revengeful than
valorous, and returned no more to the field.
In the parish however the fortune of the day might be said to wear a
very different face, for there was not a farmer who did not triumph at
the tythe in kind, which had been paid to the rector; and it became a
general threat to sweep the parish of moles, weazles, stoats, polecats
and vermin of every species, and tenant the rectory with them, if any
thing more was heard on the subject of tythes. Neither did detraction
forget to remind the rector of his age, and how shameful it was for
a man with one foot in the grave to quarrel with and rob the poor
farmers, whom he was hired to guide, console, and love. The poor
farmers forgot that, in the eye of the law, the robbery was theirs;
and the rector forgot that in the eye of justice and common sense, he
had already more than enough. The framers of the law too forgot that
to hire a man to love a whole parish is but a blundering kind of a
mode. But such mistakes are daily made.