FIRST LOVE.
A NOVEL
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET.
1830.
LONDON:
IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY-STREET, STRAND.
All the mottoes annexed to the chapters of this work, have been
selected from the Author's dramatic and other poetical works, not yet
published.
FIRST LOVE.
CHAPTER I.
"No hut shelters Comala from the rain."
A family of travelling vagrants were overtaken on the high road
just leading out of Keswick, on the Penrith side, by a gentleman
on horseback. He had observed the same group begging during the
entertainments of the regatta which had concluded but the evening
before.
"Ho! ho! my good woman," he said, as he passed in a sling trot, "I am
glad to see your boy has found his second leg!"
The woman, who appeared to be young, and who would have been handsome,
had not dirt and impudence rendered her disgusting, looked behind her,
and perceived that a poor, sickly, ragged child, apparently about five
years old, who followed her, tired of his crutches, which pushed up his
little shoulders almost out of their sockets, had contrived to loosen
the bandage of his tied-up leg, and slip it down out of the dirty linen
bag, in which it usually hung on the double, and from which it was not
always released, even at night, as so doing necessarily incurred the
further trouble of tying it up again in the morning. She laid down her
bundle, and stood still with her arms a-kimbo, till, with hesitating
steps, and looks of suppressed terror, her victim came up; then
glancing round, to ascertain that the gentleman was out of sight, she
seized the child, snatched both the crutches from his trembling hands,
and grasping them in one of hers, she began to flog him without pity.
He seemed used to this, for he uttered no sound of complaint; silent
tears only rolled down his face.
"Ye villain!" said she at last, with a strong Cumberland accent, and
gasping for breath, "it's not the first time, is it? it's not the first
time I've beat you within an inch of your life for this. But I'll
do for you this time: that I will! You shan't be a burden to me any
longer, instead of a profit. If it wasn't for the miserable looks of
ye," she added, shaking him almost to atoms as she wheeled him round,
"that sometimes wrings a penny out of the folk, I'd ha' finished ye
long ago." Then, with her great foot, armed with an iron-rimmed wooden
shoe, she gave him a violent kick on the offending leg, continuing
thus:--"Its best break the shanks on ye at ance, ye whey-faced urchin
ye! and then ye'll tak te yeer crutches without biddin'!"
Finding, however, that though he had staggered and fallen forward on
both hands, he had yet risen again, and still contrived to stand, she
once more lifted her foot, to repeat the kick with increased force: for
she was as much intoxicated by drink as by rage, and really seemed to
intend to break the child's leg; but her husband, a sort of travelling
tinker, coming up at the moment, and uttering a violent curse, struck
her a blow that, poised as she just then was on one foot, brought her
to the ground.
During the scuffle which ensued, the poor little sufferer, who had
occasioned it all, crept through the hedge of a field by the road side,
and hid himself under some bushes. But the woman, soon after pursuing
in search of him, jumped the fence, and dropped among the very brambles
where he lay. She perceived him instantly, and shook her clenched hand,
which so paralysed him, that he did not dare to move, though she for
some time delayed seizing him. Finding that the inside of the hedge
was covered with clothes for bleaching, she thought it best, the first
thing she did, to secure a good bundle of so desirable a booty, and
fling it over to her husband. She was just in the act of so doing,
when the owner of the linen came into the field, and immediately set
up the halloo of "Thieves! thieves!" upon which, dropping what she had
collected, and giving up all thoughts of carrying the child with her,
she made the best of her way, and disappeared not only from the spot,
but from the neighbourhood.
About an hour after, when the poor boy, pressed by hunger, crept from
his hiding place, a girl, who was left to watch the clothes, spying
him, cried out, "Ha! you little spawn e--the devil! did she leave you
to bring her the bundle?" And so saying, she pursued and beat him, till
she drove him out of the field, and into the adjoining garden of an old
woman, who was standing at the moment with a long pole in her hand,
endeavouring to beat down, as well as her failing sight would permit,
the few remaining apples from the topmost branches of her single
apple-tree: the well laden lower boughs of which had been robbed of
their goodly winter store but the preceding night.
On seeing a boy scramble through her hedge, she concluded, of course,
that his errand was to possess himself of the said remaining apples,
and, accordingly, uttering a yell of execration, she converted her
fruit-pole into a weapon defensive and offensive, and hobbling towards
the poor child, drove him from her premises; over the boundary of
which, long after he had so far escaped, she continued to address to
him, at the very top of her voice, every opprobrious epithet of which
she was mistress: her shrill tones the while collecting, at the heels
of the fugitive, hooting boys, and barking curs innumerable. These,
however, did not follow him far; and when they returned to their homes
or their sports, he wandered about for the rest of the day, avoiding
houses and people, and fearing that every one he met would beat him.
At length, towards evening, he found himself on the borders of the lake
of Derwent, and seeing a boat fastened close to the land, he got into
it; partly with the idea of hiding himself, and partly with a vague
recollection of having often wished to be a sailor-boy, when begging
about with his mother in sea-port towns. He rolled himself up in an old
cloak which lay under one of the benches, where, exhausted by pain,
hunger, and fatigue, he fell asleep.
Shortly after our poor wanderer had chosen this refuge, in stepped
Master Henry St. Aubin, whose pleasure-boat it was, to take a sail
_alone_, contrary to reiterated commands, and for no other reason,
but because, for fear of accidents, he had been desired never to go
without a servant. He pushed from the land, and began to arrange his
canvass. He put up his main-sail, which filling immediately, bent his
little bark on one side, almost level with the water, and made it fly
across the lake in great style. When, however, it got under shade of
the high mountains on the Borrowdale coast, the breeze slackened, and
he determined to add his mizen and jib; but what was his surprise,
when, on attempting to remove the old cloak which lay near them, he
discovered within its folds the sleeping boy. Supposing him to be a spy
placed there to watch his movements, and report his disobedience, he
began to curse and swear, kicked at him under the bench, and ordered
him to pack out of his boat instantly. The poor child, but half awake,
gazed all round him, got up as well as his bruises would permit, and
was about to obey in silence; but, when, he saw how far they were from
land, he hesitated; upon which Henry took up a rope's end, and lashed
at him in the manner that sailors call starting, repeating at each
stroke, "Jump, spy! jump!"
Driven almost wild with the pain of the blows, the child at last did
jump; but, at the same moment, caught instinctively at the side of
the boat, to which he hung with both hands, and so kept his head above
water. Henry set up a loud laugh, and rowed out, towing him after him.
Then, willing to make sport for himself, by terrifying the beggar
brat, he attempted to push his fingers off the edge of the boat, but
they clung to it with all the tenacity of self preservation; when
the one hand was forced for a moment from its hold, the grasp of the
other became but the more convulsively strong; and when the second was
assailed by the united efforts of both of Henry's, the first returned
to its former position.
At length, tired of the jest himself, Master St. Aubin turned into
shallow water, leaped ashore, and suffering the half-drowned child to
land as he might, bade him scamper, ere he had well got footing. Then,
intent on pursuing his sweet, because forbidden amusement, he stepped
back into his boat, which with its white sails, contrasted with the
dark woods of the coast it glided silently beneath, soon became as
picturesque an object as though the urchin that guided it had been the
most noble and adventurous of romantic heroes.