A WILD GALLOP.
Whilst these things were transpiring, and a pleasant intercourse of
friendship was progressing in and about Woodburn, things and feelings
of a very different character were laying the foundations of future
complications in the same, as yet, happy neighbourhood.
Mr. Degge had taken and furnished a cottage in Hillmartin, very
near his own house, for his mother. The yet hale and cheerful woman
of fifty, was much fonder of a house more resembling in size and
furnishing her former humble habitation by the Castleborough meadows,
than the large house of her son called Hillmartin Hall. She could
not here work and get up linen, but she could spin and look after
a little garden. She must have some employment: and Simon Degge
knew that his mother would feel much more happy in a house of her
own than in a great house, even though her son and daughter-in-law
showed her every honour and all affection. She could come in and
out as she pleased, and yet have a house to return to where she was
mistress, and felt that everything was her own. She had one little
maid-servant, and her cottage was as cheerful and pleasant as plenty
and a love of neatness and order could make it. She had her little
garden, and cultivated flowers, especially the old English flowers,
pinks, double-daisies, daffodils, wall-flowers, polyanthuses, and the
like. The roses and honeysuckles that covered her garden porch and
peeped in at her windows, saw the balm-of-Gilead and egg plants and
geraniums looking out at them and seeming to say, “we are all happy.”
Old Mrs. Degge, if old she could be called, had her cat and her
great green-baize covered bible, and she could do with such company
much better than some people can with whole crowds. Mrs. Degge—we
shall distinguish her daughter-in-law as Mrs. Simon Degge—had beyond
these things a source of satisfaction which, next to the happiness
and prosperity of her son and his family, was the grand satisfaction
of her life. Mrs. Degge was a Methodist, and was a most notable
acquisition to the society at Hillmartin. There were a considerable
number of Methodists in the village, but chiefly amongst the poorer
class. There was no appointed preacher at the chapel, but local
preachers, often working men at Castleborough, officiated there.
Sometimes there came a greater gun—a round-preacher, as he was
called—one appointed by Conference to preach at different places
within a certain round, or district. Besides these, there were
occasional amateur preachers—gentlemen, who felt it a duty to assist
in preaching the gospel.
To these different labourers in the great field, there had wanted a
comfortable hostel, as it were, or house where they could receive
such rest and refreshment as the outer man requires, however strong
and unwearied the inner man might be. Exactly such a pleasant,
home-like domicile could Mrs. Degge now offer them. There the
preachers could go direct, with the feeling of a welcome as sincere
as it was acceptable. The poor servant of the gospel who had to
foot it from the town, up the long hill, often in sweltering hot
weather, often amid the snow and storms of winter, there found always
a cheerful hearth, a ready cushioned arm-chair, a smiling, pious
face, and a heart always ready to give the sure tokens of welcome
and comfort. There they could dine and rest betwixt the morning and
evening services: there they could take tea, and enjoy the company
of one or other of the esteemed brethren who dropped in. There was
a chamber, clean, snug, and quiet, if there were need of stopping
the night. The richer brother who came on horseback knew that his
horse was as welcome and would be ministered to as cordially in the
stable of Mr. Degge, as he himself would be at his mother’s. Mr.
Degge had assured them himself of this, and often stepped in and had
a friendly chat with these apostles of the people. He told his mother
that she was not to spare any expense in making her house a resort
most agreeable to her friends; and Mrs. Degge, knowing that this
was as genuinely said as she herself could say it, made her house
the pleasant resort of the prophets of her community as much as the
Shunamite woman of old did her little room on the wall to Elisha.
A class met at Mrs. Degge’s house; and at any cottage in the village
where any members of the society lived, Mrs. Degge was a most
welcome visitor, always ready to carry help and comfort wherever
there was need, or sickness, or want of counsel. Mr. Degge not only
enabled her to do all that “she found in her heart to do,” but he
paid off an old debt on the chapel, for at that time of day, few
country chapels of the Wesleyans were without such a debt, whatever
they may now be; and he frequently contributed liberally, as well as
enabling his mother to contribute liberally, to the subscriptions
ever and anon called for.
But these favours to the religious friends of his mother were
fresh aggravations of his offences against the fixed prejudices
of the neighbouring squirearchy. Sir Roger Rockville had driven
the Methodists with a high hand out of his village and beyond
his domains, and here was this odious money-bag of Castleborough
fostering them to the utmost of his and his old washer-woman
mothers’ ability in Hillmartin almost under his nose. Every
neighbouring squire sympathised with Sir Roger, and afresh denounced
Simon Degge as a nuisance.
Of this feeling he had very soon a proof. In the churchyard at
Hillmartin was a large brick vault, which had belonged to the family
who had been years ago the owners of the house and land now purchased
by Simon Degge. As this family had long been extinct, and there was
ample space unoccupied in the vault, Mr. Degge proferred to purchase
this vault of the vicar. This gentleman did not reside at Hillmartin
but at Gotham, and preached once a week, that is, on the Sunday
afternoons, at Hillmartin. Mr. Degge made his proposal for the vault,
intending to arrange the leaden coffins of the old family at one end,
and build a wall across in front of them, so as to leave his portion
a complete vault of itself. The clergyman appeared quite willing, and
said he would consider what would be a fair price. But time went on,
and Mr. Degge received no answer. He applied again and again, but
the vicar had not come to a decision. At length he said, on being
pressed, that he was very agreeable to make over the vault to Mr.
Degge, but that he found there was a little difficulty in the matter.
This difficulty he did not explain, and the delay went on again for a
long time. When pressed as to where this difficulty lay, he said it
lay with the bishop.
Mr. Degge at once wrote to the bishop, begging for an explanation
of the difficulty, and received a note from the bishop saying that
he was himself quite favourable to his desire, but that there lay a
little difficulty elsewhere. Mr. Degge pressed to know where, and
at length learned from the bishop that it lay with the vicar. This
opened his eyes; and he ceased any further application, saying he was
very foolish for entering into negotiation for a vault while mother
earth was ready in a most friendly manner to receive the remains of
himself or of any one belonging to him. His friend, Thomas Clavering,
however, on hearing of this piece of poor equivocation, told him
he might build a vault, as large as he liked, in the churchyard at
Cotmanhaye any day.
Another circumstance greatly embittered the minds of the squires
against Mr. Degge. The difficulty which he found in procuring
the conviction of a person for any offence against his property,
or of defending any of his work-people or the villagers against
vexatious warrants issued by one or other of these gentlemen on the
suggestions of their bailiffs or keepers, induced him to desire to
be made a magistrate of the county as well as the town, which he
was. Sir Emanuel Clavering was willing at all times to give him
his support, but then he was only one opposed to half a-dozen, or,
if they chose to carry the matter to the sessions, many more. Sir
Emanuel strongly recommended this step, as although it would leave
him in a very slender minority, there were cases which they could
deal with on their united warrants, and their influence would be felt
altogether more effectual. This object was accomplished through the
intervention of Lord Netherland, the Recorder of Castleborough, but
to the infinite disgust of the squirearchy, of the stamp described,
all round. The epithets of “pauper” and “upstart” were heard once
more in every cadence of indignation. Here was this tradesman, this
unabashed, irrepressible plebeian, now not only planting himself
down in the very midst of them, but usurping their honourable
magisterial functions, and mounting the very bench hallowed by their
time-honoured dulnesses. Sir Roger Rockville was in a condition of
the most deplorable effervescence.
Scarcely had this odious apparition started up amongst them,
and desecrated the arena of their justiciary operations, when
a circumstance occurred which startled them with a proof of the
inconveniences which they had to apprehend.
A labourer and his son, a boy about ten years of age, was returning
from the fields towards Hillmartin village, and were following the
footpath through a copse, when the lad saw a thrush’s nest on one of
the lowest boughs of a spruce-fir, temptingly nestled close to the
stem, not more than a yard from the ground. Away he ran towards it,
his father stopping for him on the path. Arrived near the tree, the
lad as he ran struck his foot against something and fell, but jumping
up, said,
“Oh father, here is a great chain!”
He was stooping to lift it up, when the father cried out,
“Let it alone! let it alone! it is a man-trap!”
The boy stood terrified at the dreaded name of a man-trap. The
father advanced carefully, poking the ground, which was covered with
dead leaves, with a long pole which he picked up. When he came to the
spot where the boy stood, he saw part of a strong chain laid bare,
and lifting it up, discovered close to his feet a stout iron pin,
which was driven into the ground and thus confined the chain. Telling
the boy not to move, he gradually lifted the chain till he felt it
again fast.
“There,” he said, “is the trap.”
He looked round, and discovering a large stone, he fetched it, and
discharged it into the place where he supposed the centre of the
trap to be. At once with a horrid snap and clang, the jaws of the
huge trap sprung out of the concealing leaves and clashed together
with a direful shock. Father and son stood rooted fast with terror.
There was revealed the great iron engine in a half circle of at least
half a yard high, with its hideous iron teeth closed and grinning
terribly.
“There!” said the father—“take care, Tom, how you goon a bird-nesting
into woods. If this had caught you, it would have snapped you in the
very middle of your body, and these devil’s teeth would have a’most
met in your flesh. Nobody but the wretch of a keeper as set it could
have got you out, and if you had bin by yersen you mun ha’ died afore
anybody had fun ye.”
The man immediately, on reaching the village, asked permission to see
Mr. Degge, who heard the account with great indignation, and taking
another strong man with him, went to the place to see this truly
“infernal machine.” He found it within five yards of the footpath
through the copse, and expressing his astonishment and abhorrence of
an act then become as illegal as it was monstrous, he ordered the men
to take it and carry it to the village. There they deposited it by
the public stocks, and chained it, and made it fast by a padlock to
it,—fitting companions. The exhibition, and the place in which this
horrid engine was found, created a most indignant sensation against
Sir Roger Rockville and his keeper. Such were the diabolical machines
that used to be set in our game preserves half a century ago or more,
almost as commonly as the lesser trap is yet set for lesser animals.
Such is the wonderful effect of custom and of selfish interests,
that these dire engines of a demoniac cruelty could be planted
here and there in English woods, and which might catch and hold in
their hideous fangs human creatures, and keep them in inexpressible
tortures for perhaps twelve hours or more; whilst all the time the
gentlemen and the ladies on those estates were sleeping comfortably
in their beds. Such was the force of these man-traps, that they
required a man with an iron winch to open them by a mechanism
attached for the purpose.
These barbarous machines had now been made illegal by act of
parliament, yet Sir Roger and others continued to use them, as I
know, for I myself had long after this period a narrow escape, when
botanizing, of being caught in one in the woods of Strelley, near
Nottingham; and that within a few yards of a foot-road!
There was a great running from all parts of the village to see this
monument of the tender mercies of Sir Roger Rockville, and many were
the inverted blessings showered on his head. Very soon, however,
the keeper came in hot haste to reclaim his trap, and Mr. Degge
immediately apprehended him by warrant, and committed him to the
house of correction and hard labour for six months.
The sensation with which the news of this event was received by Sir
Roger, and amongst his confreres of the woods and the bench, it
would be impossible to describe. The audacity of Simon Degge had
reached a pitch which surpassed all their bounds of conception. Why,
he was daring to treat them as they had treated the humble villagers
for centuries. At first there was a great talk of Mr. Degge having
committed a robbery, of having carried off Sir Roger’s property from
his own ground. But soon his cautious clerk advised him that Mr.
Degge, as a magistrate, could seize an unlawful instrument anywhere.
The man-trap was accordingly secured to the public stocks by strong
rivets, and there it remained for many years. Whilst the event was
fresh, many gentlemen and ladies drove or rode to Hillmartin to have
a look at this relic of ancient savagery. On the Sunday following,
hundreds of the working people, men, women, and children, flocked
thither to see it, and as they returned by Rockville Hall gave very
hearty groans for Sir Roger.
There was a mighty consulting amongst this little group of the worst
kind of country squires; and it was resolved to sign unanimously,
of course, short of Mr. Degge and Sir Emanuel Clavering, an order
for the release of the keeper—but the cautious clerk of the bench
again advised against this. He represented that the man was legally
committed for a legal offence, and such was the spirit of Mr. Degge,
who was also now Mayor of Castleborough, that he would compel them
by mandamus to show cause for such release, and this would make the
affair still more widely commented upon. As it was, the liberal
newspapers far and wide had published the account, and made most
cutting criticisms upon it. They even called for the seizure of Sir
Roger by warrant, and his committal to the treadmill. Nothing for a
long time had excited such a paroxysm of public indignation.
The breach betwixt the Rockville, Bullockshed and Tenterhook class
and that of Woodburn, Hillmartin and Cotmanhaye was enormously
widened. Simon Degge, Mayor of Castleborough, and county magistrate
of Hillmartin, was regarded as a pestilent demagogue of the first
rank: and all those who fraternized with him, as the Claverings,
Woodburns, Heritages, and indeed many of the more enlightened county
families, and the whole of the Castleborough population, were looked
on as a crooked generation, hostile to all the ancient institutions
of the country. In woods and kennels, and in several country halls,
Simon Degge and his friends were cursed before all the gods of
the game-laws; in town and village everywhere Simon Degge was the
hero of the people. All looked to him as their friend and powerful
protector. “One of ourselves,” they said, “he does not desert us, he
remains one of ourselves.” Whoever saw him, saw a man as little like
a restless mischievous demagogue as it was possible to conceive. For
a great part of the day he was in town, partly attending to his own
mercantile affairs, partly to the affairs of his office. When he got
to Hillmartin, he might be seen riding quietly over his farm, or at
home happy and gay as possible amidst three or four children, now
enlivening his house: or he was taking a quiet drive with his mother
and wife, as if he had no care on him, and no desire in him to do
battle with any one. Of the feeling abroad amongst the Nimrod class
and their followers, a circumstance soon occurred to make him more
deeply sensible.
On a fine summer evening, George and Letty Woodburn had ridden to
Hillmartin, and Simon Degge had mounted his horse and accompanied
them a few miles further on the road beyond Gotham. Letty was mounted
on a handsome light bay mare, which had been newly purchased for her.
She was delighted with it, and praised the easy paces of the creature.
“She is very handsome,” said Simon Degge, “but there is occasionally
a rather vicious look in her eye that I don’t like. I would advise
you to ride her with a martingale, and a curb-bit rather than with
that snaffle.”
“Do you think so?” said Letty, “she is very fresh, certainly, but I
think quite gentle and amiable,” and she patted her on the neck.
“She does sometimes cast side-glances with her eyes,” said George,
“that are a little suspicious, and she is rather hard-mouthed. I
shall adopt your advice, Mr. Degge, as safest.”
At this moment Letty found it rather hard work to hold her in. She
had a short, dancing, impatient action, and seemed to long to be off
at a smart rate. All at once there was a blow on the high hawthorn
hedge on the left hand of the road, and off went the mare. She took
the bit between her teeth, stretched out her neck as straight as a
dart, laid back her ears, and away! George and Mr. Degge endeavoured
to spring on before her and seize her by the bridle-rein, but this
only set her off more impetuously than before. In vain Letty pulled
her in with all her power, and endeavoured to pluck, by a sudden
jerk, the bit out of her teeth. She held it as fast as if in a vice,
and went off, spite of her efforts, at a furious rate. George and
Mr. Degge were in the utmost alarm. Any attempt to pursue her only
made the frantic animal dash on more madly. One thing appeared in
Letty’s favour; there was a long, ascending, though not very steep
hill, and her friends trusted that the mare would wind herself before
she got to the top, and so allow herself to be pulled in. George,
without daring to gallop after her at full speed, yet kept on at a
smart pace, taking the grassy borders of the road, so as not to let
the flying animal hear him more than he could help. Mr. Degge, who
stopped a moment to look over a gate into the field, to see whence
the alarm had come, was now galloping rapidly after. Letty kept her
seat like a capital horsewoman as she was; and George felt confident
that unless something caused the mare to start aside or to fall, she
would go on safely home with her. But there might be people coming
who might attempt to stop the mare, and cause her to swerve suddenly
aside, or she might dash madly against one of the two turnpike gates
and kill both herself and rider. The speed at which she flew on was
frightful. God’s providence could alone prevent some fatal disaster.
In one place there was a broken spot in the middle of the road, over
which she sprang with a tremendous leap, but Letty sate securely, and
away! away! they went like the wind: the two gentlemen in breathless
terror following as near as they dare approach.
Anon, the flying maniac steed came to a steep and considerable
descent. “If Letty keeps her seat there,” said or rather thought
George, “it will all be well.” He gazed with fixed eyes and suspended
breath as he himself sped along, expecting to see his sister lose in
that rapid, shaking descent, her equilibrium, and perhaps fly over
the horse’s head, but no,—unmoved, undaunted, as it would appear by
her steady figure and attitude, on she flew, a cloud of dust coming
driving thickly behind her.
Again she dashed up another ascent, and now was on a long level
road—there! one of the toll-bars, but standing wide open. Through
dashed the horse and rider. Out rushed a woman—threw her arms aloft
over her head, and stood, as the two gentlemen rushed past, like
a picture of ghastly and petrified terror. On, away! away! the
next toll-bar, but this time the gate shut. George was all horror,
expecting, in chill desperation, a terrible tragedy. On went the
mare, without stop or stay, dashed against the gate, which flew
aside, and on they went, more frightfully than ever. “God send,”
said George in his soul, “that no waggon may be coming this way—the
furious beast would dash right upon it, and——”
But now the race was nearly at an end. Four miles were they distant
when the mare started off, and now they were flying down the sandy
road under the cliff towards Woodburn Grange. As their horses made
little noise in the deep sand of the road, George and Mr. Degge
spurred on, and saw, as they turned the bend of the road, the mare
dash right up to the gates of the stable-yard, and stop in an
instant. George expected to see Letty pitched right over the yard
gates, which were not higher than the horse’s shoulder. She was
thrown only on its neck, and there lay a moment as if stunned. By the
time George rode up, she had recovered herself, and had sprung to
the ground, where she stood, pale, still, and as in a dream. George
sprung from his horse, and catching her in his arms, said, “Thank God
that all is well.”
Letty made no answer, but broke into loud hysterical laughter, and
then fainted. Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn and the servants had all rushed
out as they saw the mare coming at mad speed, covered with foam and
dust, and Letty riding as if she had no fear, for she was silent,
and made no gesture of alarm. It was the courage of desperation;
one moment’s loss of self-control, and her destruction would have
been instant. Such had been the speed of that wild ride, that it had
occupied but a few minutes. George carried Letty in amid frantic
exclamations from the women that she was dead, was killed. But he
told them she was not hurt, and bade them be quiet. He laid her on
the sofa, and amid the bustle and the terror around her, there she
lay as in a trance, pale, fair, and beautiful as a spirit.
In awhile she revived, and said, smilingly, that by God’s blessing,
she was quite well, but as she attempted to rise, she exclaimed,
“Oh! my head! my head! how dizzy! all is swimming—going round!”
and she lay down again. This dizziness returned at any attempt to
lift her head. Mr. Degge had already ridden off for Dr. Leroy, and
soon came gallopping back with him. He had brought such remedies as
suggested themselves to him, and proceeded to bathe her temples and
forehead with ether, which Letty found delightfully cool. He gave
her some anodyne or other, and requested her to lie as quiet and as
tranquilly in mind as possible. He said that the violent strain on
the nervous system, and excitement of the brain, would show their
effects for some time; and so it proved. The dizziness continued
still on any motion, and during the night she awoke repeatedly in
great alarm, and with piercing cries, dreaming she was again riding
that fearful race, though during it she had shown nothing but the
most calm courage. For some weeks she continued to feel the effects
of the great terror and effort through which she had gone. In all the
rushing fury of the flight, she said she had only prayed for a clear
course, and that the horse might keep its footing.
The praises of her courageous bearing, and the indignation of
every one at the dastardly fellow who had occasioned the frightful
occurrence, were pretty equal. Mr. Degge, who had ridden to the place
immediately after and traced out the man, said he was a keeper of Mr.
Sheepshanks, and that he had no doubt the thing was purposely done;
though the fellow said he was only trying to start a rabbit, that
had gone into the hedge there. It was not long, however, before a
Hillmartin labourer, who had met the fellow in a public-house, heard
him say, that he thought it had been Mrs. Degge, and he had rather it
had been. As for that Miss Woodburn, however, he was glad she came
to no harm, for there was no woman in that county or the next that
could stick in a saddle like her. Mr. Degge and every member of the
Woodburn, and of hundreds of other families except Letty herself,
longed to be able to fix the charge of purposed mischief on him, but
it could not be done.
By the time that Letty was all right again, George had, by repeated
trials with a curb bridle and martingale, ascertained that the
mare was perfectly manageable. It was clear that so long as she
was prevented getting the full stretch of her neck and head, she
would make no attempt at running away with her rider. George rode
her daily, and tried her in all ways, and pronounced her safe as a
rocking-horse, or a rocking-chair. Letty ere long mounted her again,
though amid much nervous terror of all the women at the Grange, and
found her most obedient to the hand, and became much attached to her.
The incidents of this chapter had, however, shown that the feeling
of antagonism in the Rockville party to our friends of Hillmartin,
Woodburn, and one or two other houses, had intensified itself to a
dangerous degree.