to explain that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and ought to be
put aside, and peace made. But the lady was furious; she turned on me as
a mischief-maker and a meddlesome person for having dared to interfere.
She knew that what Miss Spindle meant was to cast slurs at her, and she
employed the mutton-bone as a subterfuge so as to avoid prosecution.
There it was, worse than ever. I was out with one. I went to Miss
Spindle. She was exasperated because Miss Shank had dared to believe that
what she had spoken about the mutton applied to her, and she broke into a
torrent of abuse of me for interfering in the matter.
There it was; I was out with the other.
As I retired disconsolately, I ran across Mary Trembath, and somehow, for
my heart was full, I told her of my ill success.
“Leave it to me,” said Mary.
What was my amazement next Sunday to see Miss Spindle and Miss Shank
embracing in the churchyard after service, and walking off arm-in-arm and
chatting affectionately together!
How had this transformation in the women, this change in the situation,
been brought about? Only with difficulty did I get at the bottom of
it. Mary, whilst selling a hank of coloured wool to Miss Spindle, had
contrived to hint to her that Farmer Shank, the widower, was terribly
concerned over the quarrel, as he was actually much enamoured of the fair
spinster who lived in the bower of laurels.
Then, Mary Trembath had gone to the farm of the Shanks, and had let out
in confidence that Miss Spindle’s conscience so pained her over the
mischief done, that she was sending for the lawyer to alter her will and
make over Laurel Cottage and her few hundreds in the Three per Cents. to
the woman she had so grievously injured.
When I learned this, I thought I would have it out with Mary. She pulled
a face as I reproached her.
“Please, sir, I didn’t say it was so; I merely hinted such a thing might
be. They jumped at the conclusion, and turned what might be into it is
so.”
“But, Mary, it was not true.”
“How do you know that, sir?—all things are possible.”
That was Mary Trembath’s secret way of making smooth water wherever she
went. She was not a deliberate liar, even for a good purpose; but she
managed somehow to create impressions that served to bring quarrels to an
end, to make people once indifferent to each other become fast friends,
and to dispel pretty nearly every cloud that hung over a parish in which
she peddled.
And now you will see how it is that, as I said, she provided me with
a problem only a casuist can solve. Of course, it is never right to
speak an untruth even for a good end. Mary was too conscientious to say
straight out what was false, but she had a clever, subtle manner of
bewildering people through her hints and suggestions, till she induced
them to deceive themselves, and that always with a good object in view.
She was a peacemaker, eminently a peacemaker, but was she justified in
the method she employed to make peace?
THE OLD POST-BOY
THE OLD POST-BOY
One of the most characteristic and interesting features of old English
life has passed away beyond recall—the post-boy. Whatever his age he was
always a boy, for he always wore the short jacket. His _confrère_ the
postillion has lasted on somewhat longer on the Continent, but he also is
nearly gone. He was a picturesque feature, very different from the dapper
English post-boy.
The latter figures in most old English romances. He took a part in all
elopements, and was concerned in the conveyance of Queen’s Messengers
with despatches; he was suspected of affording information to and
furnishing opportunities for highwaymen.
Who does not remember the flight of Jingle with Miss Rachel, in
“Pickwick,” and the pursuit by Mr. Wardle and Mr. Pickwick?
But the post-boy has taken more than a subsidiary part in a story, he is
the hero in Smollett’s “Humphry Clinker,” and he figures as a leading
part in the opera of “Le Postillon de Longjumeau.” His place now knows
him no more. He is as extinct an animal as the dodo or the great auk.
The last I knew was fallen from his old estate—a slim, grey-haired
man, who drove a hired carriage, but no longer mounted one of a pair of
post-horses. At weddings the post-boy made his final appearance, with a
white beaver hat, a yellow jacket and white breeches and top-boots, a
showy individual, and poor old George Spurle, whom I knew, had appeared
in his proper character on many such occasions before leaving the saddle
altogether to mount the box. His jacket was of a buttercup yellow, but
other colours were indulged in by these servants of the public. Humphry
Clinker wore “a narrow-brimmed hat with gold cording, a cut bob [wig],
a decent blue jacket, leather breeches, and a clean linen shirt, puffed
above the waistband.”
Old George, like every other post-boy I have known, loved his horses. In
his old age he loved them too well, spared them so much as to annoy those
whom he was conveying, and who proved impatient at his walking them up
the least hill, and at his frequent dismounting to ease his brute.
There was a grey mare he was specially fond of, and one night the grey
got her halter twisted about her neck and was found strangled. George
Spurle sat down and fairly cried. The landlord seeing him so cut up
endeavoured to comfort him.
“George,” said he, “do not take on so. After all it is only a horse, and
that an old one. If you had lost a wife, that would have been a different
matter altogether, and there would have been some excuse for tears, but—a
horse—” “Ah, maister,” replied the post-boy, “wives!—one has but to hold
up the finger, and they’d come flying to you from all sides—more than
you can accommodate; but an ’oss—and such a mare as this—booh!” and he
burst into tears again. “Such a mare as this is not to be found again
in a hurry.” When a little subdued, he explained himself: “You see,
maister, ’osses cost money, good ’osses cost a power of money, but wimen
wifes—they don’t cost you a ha’penny piece.”
George Spurle kept a list of all the great persons he had ridden before,
and his list is before me as I write. Unhappily he has not dated his
several stages, and his spelling makes his MS. sometimes hard to unravel.
For instance, “Druv the Duck of Dangle’em” apparently means le Duc
d’Angoulême, and “the Count D. Parry” is le Comte de Paris. After a
long list beginning with royalty, he winds up, “Members of the American
legation and Van Amburgh’s lions and tigers in American vans. Lunatics
and hospital patients with fractured limbs, gold bullion, convicts in
vans, also naturalists and gaiests [_sic_] to be married, the junior of
springs [_sic_] two months old and an aged person living ninety-four
years, the oldest to the grave a hundred years and six months.
Adventurers, photographers, explorers of Mont Blanck [_sic_] and Africa.
Comercials [_sic_], astronomers and philosophers and popular auctioneers,
Canadian rifles, American merchants, racehorses in vans with gold caps.
Mackeral [_sic_] fish and several deans and bankers. Paupers to onions
[_sic_], some idjots and Sir H. Seale Hayne Bart.”
The old post-boy was never married. Before the days of railways he was
in constant request, but the whirligig of time brought about its changes
that touched George Spurle to the quick, and thrust him from his seat.
He had begun life as a little urchin perched on the back of the waggon
horse that had brought in the wheat at harvest, and this had so raised
his ambition that nothing would content the child but becoming a
post-boy. The scarlet of the Queen’s livery presented no attraction to
him, nor the blue jacket of the navy. Nothing would do but the stable
with the anticipation of wearing at some time the yellow jacket and white
beaver. When not in the stable, he was to be found in the bar, where he
told many a yarn. Here is one. “Gentlemen—I cannot tell you precisely
the year, but it was at the very beginning of the century that there was
a rather remarkable robbery of the mail, going from Exeter to Plymouth,
near Haldon. A party of fellows with black over their faces sprang out
of the bushes, and were all armed with pistols. They stayed the coach,
and they got the letter-bags and carried them off. Now I was here—some
fifteen miles away—and somehow I saw it all take place; I saw and counted
the men—that is, in my dream, for I was sleepin’ in the little chamber
over the stable; and I saw the men take the bags off to a quarry and
there they ripped ’em open, and searched and took away some of the
letters, and left the rest. I see’d it all distinct as daylight, though
it took place in the night. Well, when I came down in the mornin’ and
had washed at the pump, I went into the bar and I told Mary Foale about
it; she was maid there then, and I was a bit sweet upon her. She laughed
and thought nought on it. Then I went on and told the mistress of the
inn, but, bless you! she gave no heed. Well—gentlemen, you may believe
me or not, as you please; but it’s true enough, the mail had been robbed
during the night, on Haldon, just as I had described, and we didn’t hear
the news till the afternoon of the day—and I told all about it in the
morning early. But that is not all. The mail-bags were not found for ten
or twelve days, and they were in the old quarry just where I had seen the
chaps cutting them open. That is a coorious story, ain’t it?”
“Indeed it is, George. It almost looks as if you had been riding that
night and had been in it.”
“Ah! I’m not that sort of chap. Now there was a sequel to it.”
“What was that?”
“Why, a day or two arter I asked Mary Foale if she’d condescend to be
Mrs. Spurle.”
“‘No thank y’, George,’ sez she; ‘you see too much to make it comfortable
for me.’ And she didn’t take me, she took Jeremiah Ancker; and that just
shows she didn’t see enough, for he turned out a drunken lout as whacked
her.”
“Were you ever robbed on the road, George?”
“I’ve been stopped, but on that occasion things didn’t turn out as was
intended.”
“How so?”
“I’ll just tell y’, gentlemen. There was some bullion to be sent up to
London from India. It had been landed at Falmouth. Now the authorities
had some suspicion, and so they didn’t send it the way as was intended.
I had orders quite independent—I knowed nothing about it—to go to
Chudleigh; I reckon there was a gentleman there as wanted me to drive him
across the moors to Tavistock, and he knowed he could rely on me. He was
to start early in the morning, so I drove in the direction in the evening
before, with a close conveyance, as I knew there might be rough weather
and rain next day going over the moors.
“I hadn’t got half-way when I was stopped by a man on horseback with
his face blackened. He held a pistol and levelled it at my head; I had
no mind to be shot, so I pulled up. In a rough voice he asked me who
was in the chaise. ‘No one,’ said I. ‘But there is something,’ said he.
‘Nothing in the world but cushions,’ I replied. ‘Get down, you rascal,’
he ordered. ‘You hold my horse, whilst I search the chaise.’ ‘I’m at your
service,’ said I, and I took his horse by the bridle, and as I passed
my hand along I felt that there were saddle-bags. Well, that highwayman
opened the chaise door and went in to overhaul everything. I had made up
my mind what to do. So while he was thus engaged I undid the traces of my
’osses with one hand, holding the highwayman’s ’oss with the other.
“Presently he put his head out, and said, ‘There is nothing within—I
must search behind.’ ‘Search where you will,’ said I, ‘you’ve plenty o’
time at your disposal.’ And so saying I leaped into his saddle. Then I
shouted, ‘Gee up and along, Beauty and Jolly Boy!’ and struck spurs into
the flanks of the horse, and away I galloped on his steed with my two
chaise horses galloping after me; and we never stayed till we came to
Chudleigh.”
“And the saddle-bags?”
“There was a lot of money in them—but there’s my luck. That fellow had
robbed a serge-maker the same night, and this serge-maker came and
claimed it all.”
“But you were handsomely rewarded?”
“He gave me a guinea and the highwayman’s ’oss, and that same ’oss is the
old grey mare, gentlemen, as folks ha’ laughed at me for weeping over
when she were hanged. Now it is a coorious sarcumstance that so far as
I know that there highwayman went scot free to his grave, and the poor
innocent grey were hanged.”
George Spurle lived to an advanced age, but he was one of those men whose
age it is hard to determine: his face was always keen and his eye bright,
he had a ruddy cheek, was always closely shaven, and his grey hair cut
short. Till he died he drove a conveyance belonging to the inn; he could
not be induced to drive the ’bus to the station. To that, “No, sir!” he
said; “an old post-boy can’t go to that. There be stations and callin’s,
and the station and callin’ of a post-boy is one thing, and the station
and callin’ of a ’bus man is another. You can’t pass from the one to the
other.”
He fell ill very suddenly and died almost before any one in the
town—where he was well known—suspected that he was in danger.
But he had no doubt in his own mind that his sickness would end fatally,
and he asked to see the landlady of the inn.
“Beg pardon, ma’am!” he said from his bed, touching his forelock, “very
sorry I han’t shaved for two days and you should see me thus. But please,
ma’am, if it’s no offence, be you wantin’ that there yellow jacket any
more? It seems to me post-boys is gone out altogether.”
“No, George, I certainly do not want it.”
“Nor these?—you’ll understand me, ma’am, if I don’t mention ’em.”
“No, George; what can you require them for?”
“Nor that there old white beaver? I did my best, but it is a bit rubbed.”
“I certainly do not need it.”
“Thank y’, ma’am, then I make so bold might I be buried in ’em as the
last of the old post-boys?”
AUNTIE
AUNTIE
No one would suppose that Auntie had once been pretty. Yet Mrs. Estcourt,
the Squire’s wife, said that she was so at one time, and Mrs. Estcourt
had known her from a girl and ought to be an authority.
No one without a moment’s thought would suppose that she had once been
young. Of course, when you considered, you knew that in the order of
nature young she must have been; but her entire appearance and cut of
figure and dress seemed to proclaim that she had been born old, and had
remained at a standstill whilst the world moved on.
She was short, carried little curls like beer barrels arranged on each
side of her forehead, had mild benevolent eyes of no particular colour,
wore an old-fashioned bonnet, and gowns still older in fashion, for they
were leg-of-mutton sleeved.
When tight sleeves came in, Auntie continued to wear her old-fashioned
full sleeves. “My dear,” she would say to one who objected that they were
antiquated, “my dear, leg-o’-muttons will come in again.”
Come in they have, but after Auntie had closed her eyes and could not
see her prediction verified. Her skirts, flounced and full, saw the
crinoline come in and go out, saw the tight straight skirt, and saw
fulness again become fashionable.
Auntie’s gowns were mostly of dark grey, but she had one for the evening
of good silk that was silver-grey, and in that, at night, Auntie looked
quite presentable. But Auntie rarely wore it. She could not dine out, as
she had no carriage or conveyance of any sort, and the risk of marring
her one silk evening dress, by going on foot in such an unsettled climate
as is ours in England to the house where the festive board was spread,
that was too serious to be undertaken. But she did, once, dine in it at
the Hall, without having been fetched. Then she had hired a farmer’s
butter-cart, that in which he sent some of the home produce to market.
It was without springs, it was without seats, and it was _sans_ steps.
The cob that drew it was white and ungroomed, brought in for the occasion
from the field in which it lay and rolled. Auntie’s maid had put a chair
in the cart and a chair beside the cart. By this means the old lady
mounted into it, without the necessity of scrambling up the spokes of the
wheel, or leaping on to the shaft, and thence somersaulting into the cart.
But this conveyance of two wheels so shook up Auntie internally that she
had no appetite for her dinner, and no enjoyment of the social evening.
Mrs. Estcourt, after that, sent the carriage for her, but Auntie could
rarely be prevailed on to accept it. She was poor in pocket and large in
heart, and she tipped the coachman on such occasions half-a-crown, and
half-a-crown to Auntie was a sum of money that she could ill afford to
miss.
No one in the parish, rich or poor, secular or clerical, thought of
calling the old lady by other name than “Auntie,” yet was she aunt to no
single person there, nor indeed remotely connected with any. Those who
wished to be respectful called her Miss Jane, or Miss Auntie. Yet was
there a tie, not of blood, that bound her to all and all to her, a tie
even stronger than that of blood—the tie of infinite charity.
Never was there a woman with a kinder, more unselfish heart than old
Auntie. Her mind was ever active, but occupied only with thought of
others.
Unhappily we know by experience that this world of ours is full of
selfishness, that among a hundred persons we meet, scarce one is
not infected with this vice; nevertheless there is a salt of fresh
unselfishness to be discovered. But among the many of these elect, the
very crown and acme of all was, I verily believe, Auntie.
The parish knew her story, yet no one ventured on an allusion to
it in her hearing, except possibly Mrs. Estcourt, who had been her
schoolfellow, and with whom she did sometimes speak of the past, and open
that old, but unwithered, heart.
The story was this.
When Auntie was young and pretty and little, for a little body she
had ever been, she had been engaged to a handsome young fellow in the
service of the East India Company. He had come to England for a holiday,
happened to see her, had been attracted by her, as well, perhaps, as by
the fact that she had some money of her own, and he proposed to her to
accept him and go out with him to India.
She certainly was greatly attached to Mr. Warnacre. She had never cared
for any man previously, never had gone into a gentle flirtation even.
Her younger sister was at school, finishing her education, but when the
day of the marriage was fixed, she was brought home that she might serve
as bridesmaid to her sister.
Emily—this schoolgirl—was far prettier than Jane who was to be married,
and what money there was, left by the mother, went equally in shares to
each sister.
The cares of trousseau weighed heavily on Miss Jane, and were undertaken
with that thoroughness that characterised all she did. So occupied was
she over the preliminaries, so necessarily occupied was she, as her
mother was dead and she had no elder sister, that she could not be as
much as she wished with her intended, and was constrained to leave him to
walk and talk and lounge about with Emily.
On the day before the marriage, bridegroom and sister had disappeared.
They had eloped together and were married before it was discovered
whither they had gone.
The blow was acutely felt, how acutely no one knew. Mrs. Estcourt, who
was not Mrs. Estcourt then, hastened to her friend to show sympathy and
love.
“My dear,” said Jane, with her eyes full, “it was only natural. I ought
not to have thought of keeping him. Emily is so beautiful. He naturally
only cared for me till he saw her. I hope, please God, they will be happy
together.”
Mr. Warnacre did not venture back to the village, but carried off his
wife at once to India.
After a while Auntie’s friend became Mrs. Estcourt, and then this latter
lady insisted on Jane taking a cottage on her husband’s estate, so as to
be near her. She desired to befriend her, and befriend her she did. But
the condition of life of a great country squire’s wife, the wife of a man
who aimed at becoming representative of his county in Parliament, and
that of a solitary lady with moderate means, in a cottage, and without
connections in the place, were so diverse, that much as Mrs. Estcourt
desired to see a great deal of her friend, she was not able to do so.
As time went on, and the Squire was elected, and a large part of
Mrs. Estcourt’s life was spent in town, the opportunities for social
intercourse with Auntie became less, and when the family was at the
Hall there were so many visitors, friends made in London, and political
allies and acquaintances, who crowded the house, who were there to dine,
and dance, and shoot, and attend political meetings, that even whilst
in the country, Mrs. Estcourt could not see much of her old school
friend. Moreover, when Jane did dine at the Hall, it was with persons
whom she did not understand, who belonged to another order of existence
to herself, persons with whom she had no common topics of conversation,
consequently she declined invitations and remained at home.
As yet she had not acquired the title of Auntie; that accrued to her in
this way.
Before many years had elapsed Mrs. Warnacre sent home her only child, a
little boy, to be brought up in England, as the Indian climate is fatal
to growing European children. And to whom else could she confide her
treasure but to Jane? She must have been an easy-going, shallow creature,
this Emily, unable to understand the wrong she had done to her sister,
and without an expression of regret, without a word of apology, sent her
the child; and easy-going, unscrupulous must Warnacre have been, for he
sent remittances for his son’s clothing and education but rarely, so that
the cost of the maintenance of the child fell on Jane. Then Emily died of
cholera, and after that no more money was sent, no inquiries were made;
she found herself burdened with this nephew—and then it was that the
title of Auntie attached itself to her never to be lost.
Young John Warnacre grew up under Auntie’s eye, and at her charge.
She was obliged then to deprive herself of many little comforts and
pleasures. Hitherto she had kept a pony-chaise, and a useful man who
attended to her cob and the garden. Now she did without, abandoned
the drives that once afforded her so much pleasure and had given such
a healthy glow to her cheek, and reduced her garden to a couple of
flower-beds that could be attended to by an occasional man.
As young John Warnacre grew up, he proved wayward, headstrong, and
selfish. She yielded to him too much, but it was in her nature to yield.
She had neither the moral nor physical strength to control a turbulent,
self-willed boy.
When he was too old and too ungovernable for her, he was sent to school,
and schooling, if good, is costly. Auntie was too conscientious not to
send the boy to a school for gentlemen, and one that was expensive, and
might therefore be supposed to furnish a thorough education.
So matters rubbed on. In his holidays John was with his aunt, tormenting
her cat and dog, running over her flowers, breaking her windows, making
for his aunt boobie-traps and apple-pie beds; in a word, leading her such
a life that she sighed for the holidays to come to an end, but was too
tender at heart to admit, even to herself, that she wished them over.
At last the Squire was obliged to complain. John had been laying snares
in his preserves, and was getting into association with some of the worst
characters in the place. After a struggle he was sent back to school for
the rest of the holiday, but he never arrived at the tutor’s: he ran
away, and was heard of no more. Many tears did Auntie shed over the
prodigal, and bitterly did she reproach herself for having been so severe
as to send him away.
It was ascertained at last that he had gone to sea, with the intention,
if possible, of getting to India to his father.
But, if he ever got to India, he did not find Mr. Warnacre there, for
this gentleman arrived at Auntie’s and quartered himself upon her. He had
left the service of John Company, as he saw no prospect of advancement,
and he believed he could better himself elsewhere, with his capacity for
business, his knowledge of the world, and his faculty of speaking several
languages.
Auntie was pleased rather than the contrary that Mr. Warnacre should come
to her. It showed that he had forgotten the past and bore her no grudge.
Alas! poor humble soul, it did not occur to her that it was _she_ who
should resent his conduct, not he hers, and that his throwing himself
upon her showed singular moral insensibility.
He was very desirous that his sister-in-law should see the Squire, who as
M.P. might be able to use influence to obtain him a post under Government.