This state of things went on for a longer time than Horace himself was
aware of. He had no correspondence with Marchmain, nor indeed with any
one. For though he wrote once to Colonel Sutherland, he had no present
motive sufficient to keep up a correspondence with his uncle; and nearly
a year had passed over his head before he recollected this unrecorded
passage of time. At the end of this period, however, business brought a
visitor to Kenlisle, and to Mr. Pouncet's office, who was destined to
have a most serious part in Horace Scarsdale's future life.
This was Mr. Julius Stenhouse, the principal solicitor of an important
county town in Yorkshire--a man who had been bred in Mr. Pouncet's
office, had suddenly, to everybody's amazement, become his partner, and
who, as suddenly, a few years after had left Kenlisle for his present
residence. These events had all happened before Horace had any
cognizance of the news of the district, and were consequently unknown to
him until Mr. Stenhouse appeared. The stranger was a man of about fifty,
with what people called an "extremely open manner," and a frank wide
smile, which betrayed two rows of the soundest teeth in the world, and
gave a favourable impression to most people who had the honour of making
Mr. Stenhouse's acquaintance. This prepossession, however, as might be
ascertained on inquiry, was not apt to last--everybody liked, at first
sight, the candid lawyer; but he had few friends. Unlike the usual wont
of a country town, nobody appeared anxious to claim the recognition of
the new arrival. Far from being overwhelmed with hospitality, Mr.
Pouncet had so much difficulty in making up a tolerable number of people
to meet him at the one little dinner-party given in his honour, that
Horace Scarsdale, for the first time, though he had long assisted at
Mrs. Pouncet's "evenings," had the distinguished honour of an
invitation.
Before this time, however, various circumstances had concurred to
attract the attention of Horace towards Mr. Stenhouse. The extreme
difference between his manners and his reputation, the mixture of
repugnance and respect with which Mr. Pouncet treated him, the great
reluctance which he showed to enter upon any private business with his
visitor, and the mystery of the former partnership which had existed
between them, roused the young man's curiosity. Altogether, these new
circumstances brought Horace to himself; he remembered that he was still
only in an inferior position, with no avenue open as yet to fortune or
importance. Running over everything in his mind, he perceived that he
stood farther than ever from his father's secret, and that no other
means of advancing himself had as yet appeared; and with a certain
instinctive and sympathetic attraction, his thoughts turned to Mr.
Stenhouse. He bestowed his best attention upon him on every
opportunity--he sought all the information he could procure about him,
and about the connection subsisting between him and Mr. Pouncet. It
appeared they were joint-proprietors of some coal-mines in the
neighbourhood. What might a couple of attorneys have to do with
coal-pits? Horace scented a mystery afar off, with an instinctive
gratification. Did the mystery lie here?--and what was its importance,
could it be found out?
Without knowing anything whatever on the subject, except the sole fact
that Pouncet and Stenhouse were partners in this valuable piece of
property, Horace set out very early one spring morning to inspect the
ground, and see if anything could be discovered on the subject. It was,
as it happened, the morning of the day on which he was to dine at Mr.
Pouncet's. Horace had been late, very late, the previous night. This
early walk was of two uses--it restored his unsusceptible nerves to the
iron condition which was natural to them, and it gave him a chance of
finding out in his old fashion anything that there might be to find
out. Horace neither knew the extent nor the value of the land possessed
by Messrs. Pouncet and Stenhouse: he knew they drew very considerable
revenues from it, but did not know how they had acquired it, nor from
whom. He pushed briskly along the long country road, winding downwards
to a lower level than that of Kenlisle, where once more the hawthorn
hedges were greening, and the primrose-tufts unfolding at their feet.
The country looked cheerful and fresh in the early morning, with its few
clumps of early trees here and there, in the tender glory of their buds,
diversifying the deeper green of the fields. The smoke rose from the
cottages, and the labouring men came trudging out from their doors,
greeting one another as they passed with remarks upon the weather.
By-and-by he came in sight of the village, with its irregular line of
thatched and red-tiled houses, with the one blue-slated roof rising over
them, which marked the place where an enterprising publican had swung
his "Red Lion," in well-justified dependence upon the "pitmen's drouth."
Beyond, several tall shafts here and there scattered over the country
gave note of the presence of the pits and their necessary machinery.
Horace slackened his pace, and went sauntering through the village,
keeping a wary eye around him. He had not gone very far when he
perceived an old man limping out of a miserable little house near the
end of the village, with a poor little cripple of a boy limping after
him, in the direction of the coal-fields. Their lamps and the implements
they carried pointed out clearly enough their occupation; and a certain
dissatisfied, discontented look in the old man's face made him a likely
subject for Horace, who quickened his steps immediately to overtake the
wayfarers. It required no great exercise of speed. The querulous,
complaining jog with which the old man and his shadow went unsteadily
across the sunshine, told its own tale--the very miner's lamp, swinging
from his finger by its iron ring, swung disconsolately, and with a
grumble and crack, complaining audibly of the labour, which, to say the
truth, was sufficiently unsuitable for the two who trudged along
together, the crippled childhood and tottering age, to whose weakness
belonged a milder fate. The old man's face was contracted and small with
age--the nose and chin drawn together, the cheeks still ruddy from a
life of health, puckered up with wrinkles, and the very skull apparently
diminished in size from the efforts of time. On he went, with his feeble
limbs and stooping shoulders, the "Davy" suspended from his bony old
fingers, and a complaint in every footstep, with his shadow all bent and
crumpled up, an extraordinary spectrum moving before him along the sunny
road. Horace, who gave him the usual rural salutation of "A fine
morning," received only a half-articulate groan in reply. The old pitman
was not thinking of the fine morning, the sweet air, or the sunshine;
but only of his own troubles and weaknesses, and himself.
"To them as has the strength it's fine and fine enow," he mumbled at
last; "but an ould man as should be in his commforable bed--eugh-eugh!
Needcessity's sore upon the ould and frail."
"How is it that you have to get to work so early?--you're not a new
hand," said Horace, with the rough and plain-spoken curiosity which
often does instead of sympathy.
"A new hand!" groaned his querulous interlocutor; "an I was as I hev
been, my young spark, I'd gie you a lesson would larn you better than to
speak light to an ould man. I've bin about the pit, dash her, since ever
the first day she was begoud, and mought have broke my neck like the
rest if it hadn't a bin for good loock, and God A'mighty--eyeh, eyeh! I
was about the very ground, I was, when the first word was giv there was
coal there; but I'll never believe there was ought let on o' that to the
ould Squire."
"Eh!--the pits here are not old pits then, aren't they?" said Horace;
"who was it found the coal? I daresay the landlord made it worth his
while."
"The Lord make me quat of a parcel o' vain lads, that ken no more nor as
many coodies!" cried the old man; "haven't I as good as told you my
belief?--and will ye pretend ye ken better than me, that was born on
his very land?"
"That's a bad cough of yours," said Horace, who had good practice in the
means of extending information; "what do you say to a dram this sharp
morning, to warm you before you go underground?"
"Eyeh, eyeh, lad, we're owre near the border," said the old pitman,
shaking his head; "if ever there was a deevil incarnate on this earth
it's the whiskey, and makes nought but wickedness and misery, as I can
see; but to them as knows how to guide themselves," he added, slowly,
"it's a comfort now and again, specially of a morning, when a man has
the asthmatics, and finds the cowld on his stomach. If you're sure
you're able to afford it, sir, I've no objection, but I would not advise
a brisk lad like you, d'ye hear, to partake yoursel'. Ye haven't the
discretion to stop at the right time at your years, nor no needcessity,
as I see. Robbie, I'm a-gooin' on a bit with the gentleman--see you play
none on the road, nor put off your time, and say I'm coming. Eugh, eugh!
as if it wasn't a shame and a disgrace to them as has the blame, to see
the likes of me upon the road!"
"At your time of life they ought to take better care of you," said
Horace; "see, here's a seat for you, and you shall have your dram. Why
don't your sons look to it, eh, and keep you at home? It doesn't take
very much, I daresay, to keep the pot boiling; why don't you tell them
their duty, or speak to the parson? You are surely old enough to rest at
your age!"
"Eugh, eugh! I haven't got no sons," said the old man, with a cough
which ran into a chorus of half-sobs, half-chokes. "The last on 'em was
lost i' the pit, two year come Michaelmas, and left little to his ould
father but that bit of a cripple lad, poor child, that will never make
his own salt. It's the masters, dash them! as I complain on. There they
bees, making their money out on it, as grand as lords; and the like of
huz as does it a' left to break our ould bones, and waste our ould
breath for a bit of bread, after serving of them for a matter of twenty
year. Eyeh, eyeh, lad, it's them, dash them! If it had been the ould
Squire, or ony o' the country gentlemen, an ould servant mought hev a
chance. No that I'm saying muckle for them, more nor the rest o' the
world--awl men is for their own interest in them days; but as for mercy
or bowels, ay, or justice nouther, it's ill looking for the like of them
things in a couple o' 'torneys, that are born and bred for cheating and
spoliation. I never had no houps of them mysel'--they'll sooner tak' the
bit o' bread out atween an ould body's teeth, than support the agit and
the orphant--ay, though it was their own wark and profit, dash them!
that took the bread from Robbie and me."
"Ah!" said Horace, "that's hard; so the pits here don't belong to the
Armitage property, nor any of the great landlords? But what have a
couple of attorneys to do with them--they manage the property for
somebody, I suppose?"
"My respects to you, sir," said the old pitman, smacking his thin lips
over the fiery spirit, which he swallowed undiluted; "and here's wishing
us awl more health and better days; but I wouldn't advise you, a young
lad, to have ony on't. There's guid ale here, very guid ale, far better
for a young man of a morning. You may weel ask what has the like o' them
to do concerning sich things; and there's few can tell like me, though I
say it as shouldn't. I was a likely man mysel' in them days--a cotter on
the ould Squire's land, and serving at Tinwood Farm, and had my own
kailyard, and awl things commforable. It's like, if you knaw this
country, you've heard speak of the ould Squire?"
"To be sure--old Musgrave, of the Grange," cried Horace, with a certain
malice and spite, of which he himself was scarcely aware; for Roger
Musgrave's honest simplicity, which he scorned, yet felt galled and
disconcerted by, had often humiliated and enraged the son of the
recluse, who could take no equality with the young relative of the
fox-hunting Squire. He listened more eagerly as this name came in--not
with a benevolent interest, certainly; but the mystery grew more and
more promising as it touched upon the history of a ruined man.
"About twenty year ago, I would say, as near as moight be, there was a
couple o' young chaps comed about here, for their holiday, as I aye
thought to mysel'. The wan o' them was uncommon outspoken in his manner,
wan of them lads that's friends with every stranger at the first word,
with a muckle mouth and teeth--dash em!--that would crunch a man's bones
like a cannibal. T'other he was some kind of a student, aye fiddling
about the grass and the rocks, and them kind o' nonsense pastimes. I
heard the haill business with my ain ears, so it's no mystery to me. I
was ploughing i' the lang park belonging to Tinwood then, with the two
o' them somegate about the ploughtail, having their own cracks, with now
and again a word to me--when all of a suddent the student, he stops, and
he says out loud, 'There's coal here!' I paid little attention till I
saw them baith get earnest and red in the face, and down on their knees
aprying into something I had turned up with my plough; and then I might
have clean forgot it--for what was I heeding, coal or no coal?--when the
t'other man, the lad with the muckle mouth, he came forrard, and says
he, 'Here's my friend and me, we've made a wager about this land, but
we'll ne'er be able to settle it unless awl's quiet, and you never let
on that you've heard what he said. He's awl wrong, and he'll have to
give in, and I'll be the winner, as you'll see; but hold you your peace,
neighbour, and here's a gold guinea to you for your pains.' Lord
preserve us, I never airned a goold guinea as easy in my life! I wush
there was mair on them coming a poor body's way. I held my whisht, and
the lads gaed their way; but eugh, eugh! eh, man, if I had but knawn! I
would ne'er have been tramping this day o'er the very grund I ploughed,
to work in that pit, dash her! and me aughty years of age and mair."
"How, then, did it happen?" cried Horace, eagerly.
"But I'll hev to be agooin," said the pitman, lifting himself up with
reluctance and difficulty--"the timekeeper yonder, he's a pertickler
man, and has nae consideration for an old body's infirmities: though I'm
wonderful comforted with the speerits, I'll no deny. Eyeh! eyeh! the old
Squire, he was a grand man, he was, as lang's he had it, and threw his
siller about like water, and was aye needing, aye needing, like them
sort o' men. Afore mony days, if ye'll believe me, there was word of his
own agent, that was Maister Pouncet, the 'torney in Kenlisle, buying
some land of him, awl to serve the Squire, as the fowks said; but when I
heard it was this land, 'Ho, ho!' says I to mysel', 'there's more nor
clear daylight in this job,' says I. So I held my whisht, and waited to
see; and sure enow, before long came down surveyors and engineers, and I
know not all what, and the same lad, with the muckle mouth, that was now
made partner to Mr. Pouncet; and that was the start o' the pit, dash
her! that's cost me twenty years o' my life and twa bonnie sons; and
them's the masters, blast them! that take their goold out o't year after
year, and wunna spare a penny-piece for the aged and frail. Eyeh, that's
them!--but it's my belief I'll see something happen to that lad with the
muckle mouth before I die."
"And what did your old Squire say, eh, when the land was found so
rich?" said Horace; "did he try to break the bargain, and take it back
again?"
"Him!" cried the decrepid old labourer, now once more halting along in
the fresh sunshine, with his shadow creeping before him, and his "Davy"
creaking from his bony finger--"him! a man that knawed neither care nor
prudence awl his born days; and to go again his own 'torney that had
done for him since ever he came to his fortin',--not him! He said it was
confoonded lucky for Pouncet, and laughed it off, as I hev heard say,
and thought shame to let see how little siller he got for that land. He
never had no time, nor siller nouther, to goo into lawsuits, and his own
agent, as I tell you; besides that he was a simple man, was the Squire,
and believed in luck more nor in cheating. Eyeh! eyeh! but I blamed aye
the chield with the muckle mouth. He was the deevil that put harm into
the t'other lawyer's head; for wan man may be mair wicked nor anither,
even amang 'torneys. It wasn't lang after till he left this country.
Eh, lad, yon man's the deevil for cunning. I wouldna trust him with his
own soul if he could cheat that--dash them a'! I mought have keeped on
my kailyard, and seen my lads at the tail of the plough, if, instead of
his pits and his vile siller, them fields had still been part o' Tinwood
Farm!"
And the poor old man relapsed out of the indignation and excitement into
which the questions of Horace, his own recollections, and, above all,
his "dram," had roused him, into the same querulous discontented murmurs
over his own condition which had first attracted the notice of his young
companion. Horace sauntered by him with a certain scornful humour to the
mouth of the pit--untouched by his misfortunes, only smiling at the
miserable skeleton, with his boasted wisdom, his scrap of important
unused knowledge, and his decrepid want and feebleness. _He_ set his
foot upon this new information with the confidence of a man who sees his
way clear, and with a strange, half-devilish smile looked after the poor
old patriarch, who had known it for twenty years and made nothing of
it. The idea amused him, and the contrast: for pity was not in Horace
Scarsdale's heart.