ALL WRONG AT WOODBURN.
Summer was once more shining and breathing its perfumes over
the country round Woodburn. The pleasant fields stood full of
flower-embroidered grass; of green corn waving and billowing in
the scented breeze. The trees shed their verdurous gloom beneath
them; the red wild rose, and the snowy discs of the elder flowers,
mingled their odours with the yellow-and-red honeysuckle blossoms
in the fresh hawthorn hedges. The larks carolled high in the blue
air; brooks ran glittering down to the river, and the river glided
on in stately beauty. All was beautiful and happy in nature as
ever, but over the Grange lay a stillness, within was a stillness.
Betty Trapps, pursuing her accustomed household duties, neither
sung that “very cutting” song—“Once I freedah engyed,” nor the
equally favourite hymn—“We are marching through Emmanuel’s land.”
Mr. Woodburn wore a grave and sad air; Mrs. Woodburn sat knitting in
deep thought, or watched her cheese-making, without any of her former
jollity. Ann was with Letty in Castleborough, and George was taking
his solitary rides over the farm, as if something lay on his heart
which had banished that cheerful countenance so natural to him. There
were no preparations for any festive gathering in the hayfield. “The
light of other days” had disappeared like a dream.
The conduct of Thorsby had verified all the instinctive prescience
in Betty Trapps’s nature. Letty, the loved and loving creature of
gladness, the sunshine of that once happy home; the flitting shape,
the ringing, singing voice of joy in it, was a deserted wife, and
the once jocose and sportive Thorsby, a disgraced and shameless
fugitive. Nor was that all; those shadows which Mrs. Heritage had
foreseen in the hayfield fête, had not only fallen on Woodburn
Grange, but on other spots around. Fair Manor itself had not escaped.
There was the only child there, then the hope and happiness of her
house, now a serious and nervous woman, who had passed through a
severe baptism, and now shrunk from intercourse beyond her own family
walls. Awaking from the impassioned dreams of her London visit, she
found that she had wounded another too deeply to leave peace in
her own bosom. She had candidly stated to Edmund Barrington, that
great as was her affection for him, she never could be happy in
the consciousness of the affliction she had occasioned to a most
worthy, faithful, and noble heart, nor under the sense of the deep
blame, which all those most dear to her, or most connected with the
attachments and the memories of her youth, awarded her. She had
resolved, therefore, to do the only penance which should mark her
sense of her wrong, and satisfy her innermost feeling of sacred
duty—never to marry; but to devote herself as soon as her health
should be restored, if indeed her shattered nerves should ever again
regain their healthy tone, to the works of the good Samaritan.
Her mother had, through Mrs. Barrington, explained to that family
the severe shock and shattering through which her daughter had gone,
and the sensitive state of her nervous system still. She returned to
Edmund Barrington the diamond-clasped bracelet which he had given
Millicent, and which under no circumstances could she wear, but she
entreated that all other little mutual gifts might be retained as
memorials of a friendship, which both she and her daughter trusted
would still and for ever remain unbroken.
It is only justice to say that these communications were received in
the most beautiful spirit. Both Edmund Barrington and his sisters
wrote to Millicent in the most kind and sympathizing terms. Edmund
declared himself willing to await the time when full health might
bring happier thoughts to Millicent, and his sisters expressed their
sincere sorrow that the tender conscience of Millicent had dissipated
to them so many pleasant hopes. They declared that they should never
cease to recollect with pleasure the happy time of her visit, or to
regret the prospect of losing her as a sister. No hope, however, was
held out by Millicent of a change in her present sentiments; and in
no very long time not only those amiable women, but their brother
too, had selected their partners for life, and were scattered into
their respective homes, amid all the solaces and distinctions of an
enormous affluence.
Millicent Heritage regained her former estimation amongst her
friends by a knowledge of this conscientious renunciation of all
selfish happiness for herself; and the sense of this did much to
renew her vigour of frame, though it did not banish the grave and
thoughtful expression from her face and manner. She was often seen
mounted on her favourite mare, May Dew, followed by Tom Boddily,
taking her way towards the Grange, where she was always received with
love by Mrs. Woodburn and by Ann, when at home, and by Mr. Woodburn
and George with much kindly regard. Many, too, were her visits
to Bilts’ Farm, and her long conversations with Elizabeth Drury,
which seemed always to fill her with a renewed spirit of peace and
satisfaction.
The only gleam of the past happy days seemed to be on the head of
the wise and loving Ann Woodburn. The effect of his father’s changed
views, revealed on his deathbed, had been on Sir Henry Clavering
such as she had hoped. He had thought deeply on this unexpected
confession. The peace with which he had seen his father depart had
made a deep impression on his mind through his affectionate nature.
He had arrived soon so far, that he felt that there was something
beyond the mere teachings of physical nature and the wisdom of
the schools which we need to enable us to push off our spiritual
bark into the unknown with confidence. He accepted, therefore,
like his father, the Saviour which the Gospel proclaims, though
ponderous difficulties lay betwixt his conceptions of this Saviour
as a messenger of God, and as God in Christ reconciling the world
to Himself. But Ann, filled now with the brightest hopes, helped
him along this valley of stumbling and of huge stones fallen from
the bald rocks of long past ages. She put into his hands Paley’s
“Evidences,” Butler’s “Analogy,” and other ably reasoned works of
her Church, and marked with deep satisfaction their gradual effect.
She no longer talked of leaving Sir Henry to his freedom of choice
for a wife. She found herself daily drawn into a nearer and more
kindred unity with him. All real obstacles to their marriage were,
in fact, surmounted, and that event was regarded as at hand, when
these unhappy circumstances connected with Letty’s fortunes, and
others yet to be related, made her beg that the marriage might be a
little delayed, that it might be celebrated under happier auspices,
if possible. Meantime, the political difficulties of the period, and
irritated condition of the people at large, and of the manufacturing
population in particular, kept Sir Henry actively engaged in his
magisterial duties. He generally looked in at the Grange in going
to and returning from Castleborough; and whilst Ann was there, at
Letty’s, he frequently went in and dined with them. Every day tended
to present the excellence of his heart and the clear solidity of his
mind more attractively to the whole Woodburn family. Ann only was
held back from the goal of her earthly happiness by the cloud that
lay on her most beloved ones.
The settlement of Mr. Trant Drury in their immediate neighbourhood
had not proved such a source of satisfaction as had been hoped for.
Those dictatorial and hurrying qualities in his character, which
farmer Barrowclouch had noticed, soon began to press themselves
unpleasantly on most of those around him. That he was a first-rate
agriculturist of a particular school there could be no question; but
it was a school essentially different from that which prevailed in
all that part of the country. It was a country naturally fertile,
varied in its features, and rendered extremely pleasant by the fine
and free-grown fences, the scattered hedge-row trees, and patches
of wood. With all these, Mr. Drury made war to the knife—no, to
the hatchet and the saw. He expressed his great surprise that any
agriculturists could yet be found who would sacrifice so much of
their valuable land to the mere growth of useless bushes and almost
worthless hedge-row trees. As to the woods and plantations, they
might remain, and be made profitable by liberal thinning; but as for
the hedges, he would have them all pared down to the shortest state
possible to be fences at all, and the hedge-row trees, he would
cut down every one of them. He would leave only here and there on
the land a spreading tree for shelter for the cattle from the sun
in summer; but as for hedges, they were useful only as a means of
separating fields, and these he would cut to the quick, and narrow
as much as possible; nay, he would cut down half of the hedges
altogether, and leave the fields—especially the tillage fields—four
of five times their present size. He calculated that nearly a tenth
of the superficies of the country might be thus brought into
profitable culture. As for the hedge-row trees, he said they were
so frequently lopped on their trunks as they grew, to prevent their
spreading too widely, that as timber they were a congeries of knots,
and of no use but for firewood. In fact, he would have reduced the
whole country to a condition as bare as the back of your hand; for
beauty or the picturesque had no organ in his brain,—their place was
engrossed by the organ of profit.
“Now, of what mortal use,” he would say to Mr. Woodburn, as he rode
over his farm, or through the neighbourhood with him,—“of what mortal
use are these little shapeless crofts and paddocks with their fences
running in all sorts of ways but straight lines,—these little,
often triangular plots, with their meandering huge hawthorn hedges,
actually turning and doubling on themselves? Sweep all these crooked,
scrambling fences away, and have some fine, large, shapely pastures
instead. And here is a brook now—do look at it. Would any one have
supposed, with the present value of land, that it should be allowed
to turn and twine about as it does, forming what the Scotch call
links, and as we may call them bows and loops, positively occupying
three times the ground which it would if reduced to a straight,
handsome course, as it soon might be?”
Mr. Woodburn replied “that in truth they might remove some of the
rambling fences, and enlarge those little plots to advantage, but
he should be sorry to see all those beautiful hawthorn hedges now
throwing out their odorous sprays of wild roses and eglantine, cut
close like the cropped bristly head of a parish pauper.”
“Beauty!” said Mr. Trant Drury,—“beauty! My dear sir, we cannot
live by beauty. We cannot pay rent by beauty. The interests of this
densely populated country cannot be maintained by empty notions of
beauty. When you want to go to market with your produce, see what
your crop of beauty will bring you. No, sir; as much corn, cattle,
hay, potatoes, and the like substantials, for which we labour,
and from which we must hope to live, as you please. The greatest
possible return for the greatest possible amount of labour and skill
expended;—that is my doctrine and my practice; and they are the only
principles that will in the long run make this country what it ought
to be.”
“But man cannot live by bread alone,” said Mr. Woodburn; “that is a
principle established by an authority which I hope, Mr. Drury, you
consider as of as much validity as your modern save-all doctrine.”
“I bow to the wisdom of our Lord,” said Mr. Drury; “but what He
undoubtedly meant was, not your visionary thing beauty, but divine
grace,—‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’”
“Very true,” said Mr. Woodburn; “and out of that divine mouth issued
these divine words: ‘Behold the lilies of the field, how they grow.’
He who made beauty as well as material food, and showered it on
the earth, and continues so to shower it, knew and knows that we
want food for every part of our nature. ‘Meats for the belly, and
the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both it and them.’ Now,
according to my notions, every part of us demands its proper food.
Food for the support of the body, grace for the life of the soul,
beauty for the imagination, love for the heart, and truth for the
intellect. To feed only the body, and to devote all our labours and
our lands only to this purpose, is, in my opinion, to make ourselves
no better than the beasts that perish.”
Mr. Drury smiled contemptuously. “That is all very well for you,
Mr. Woodburn, who live at ease on your own land; but that sort of
doctrine won’t do for tenant-farmers.”
Mr. Woodburn thought it as good for tenant-farmers as for anybody
else; and should be very sorry to see the tenant-farmers allowed to
follow such a system of agricultural economy, as would make the whole
country as bare as a drill-ground, and as ugly as sin. He had seen
this style of cultivation carried out in some parts of the country,
and he would sooner emigrate to the American forests than live in
such a featureless district. He thought, to cut down hedges almost to
the ground, and exterminate every tree, was by no means beneficial
to cattle or sheep, which in cold weather, and especially during the
sharp east winds of early spring, required shelter as well as food.
After one or two conversations of this kind Woodburn thought Mr.
Drury would say no more to him on this subject, but he was greatly
mistaken; for Mr. Trant Drury was one of those people that we now
and then come across, who carry their hobbies to a perfect monomania.
They are always on the same subject, in all places and with all
persons. Though they may have told you the same thing fifty times,
they never seem to recollect it, but treat it as perfectly new, and
go over the whole ground with merciless pertinacity. After a few
inflictions of the all-profit and threadbare country doctrine, Mr.
Woodburn began to wince visibly, and to say rather crustily, “Oh! Mr.
Drury, you have told us all that again and again.”
“But you don’t benefit by it,” Mr. Drury would say.
“No, nor ever shall, so far as I am concerned,” Mr. Woodburn would
reply.
To George Woodburn and Elizabeth Drury, who had become deeply
attached to each other, and with the mutual consent of parents on
both sides, this disagreement of tastes in their fathers was a
subject of the greatest concern and anxiety. George quietly begged
of Mr. Drury not to say anything to his father on agricultural
topics, for that nothing would induce him to adopt any new notions;
but then Mr. Trant Drury’s whole thought, feeling, taste, and
conversation were agricultural. New modes of tillage, new implements,
new manures, new kinds of vegetables for winter feed,—these made up
the furniture, stock, and staple of his mind. His imagination stood
as thickly planted with those ideas as his rick-yard with ricks, his
fold-yard with cattle, or his fields with crops. George Woodburn
listened patiently to his perpetual talk on these subjects, and
admitted to a certain extent the value of them: but as to cutting
down hawthorn hedges and hedge-row trees, he stood out as firmly as
his father. When Mr. Drury was riding his indefatigable hobby in
that direction, he remained quiet and let the stream flow over him.
His after-conversations with Elizabeth were a rich compensation
for this otherwise rather severe martyrdom. Every day showed
Elizabeth in a more loveable character. Her lively, cheerful manner,
combined with a beautifully intellectual and religious sentiment,
and great intelligence, made her the beloved friend of Ann and
Mrs. Woodburn; and Mr. Woodburn looked on her with pride as his
future daughter-in-law. He only regretted that such a woman should
be the daughter of what he began in his own house to term such an
unmitigated bore.
Mr. Trant Drury went to work vigorously on his own farm to exemplify
his peculiar code of agriculture, and, as he said, to set an example
to the benighted farmers around. His landlady, who lived in London,
readily granted him permission to pare down his fences and fell
hedge-row trees as he pleased. As the property was her own, but would
go, at her death, for want of direct issue, to another branch of the
family, she was at liberty to do this. The very first autumn and
winter, Mr. Drury had men cutting close the fences, and felling all
the trees but the oaks, which must stand till the proper season for
peeling, in spring. Part of this timber he was allowed to employ
in extending his outbuildings, and in making new gates, gateposts,
hurdles, &c. Part went to the wood-merchant, its proceeds to be
remitted to the landlady.
Mr. Woodburn saw with indignation the destruction of these hedges
and trees, the wide, bare gap in the general beauty of the landscape
thus created, and his feelings were partaken by many others of the
neighbouring country and town, who denounced Mr. Drury as a Goth,
and hoped there would be no imitators of this unloveable sort of
thrift. Mr. Woodburn could not restrain himself, on the next visit of
Elizabeth Drury, from speaking in a sarcastically jeering manner of
this frightful system, as he called it, of her father. Elizabeth,
to whose ideas of beauty it was as great an outrage as to Mr.
Woodburn’s, burst into tears; and Mrs. Woodburn intreated her husband
to desist, saying, that Miss Drury was not responsible for the acts
of her father, and did all in her power, by affectionate kindness,
to make Elizabeth forget it. Mr. Woodburn’s own natural goodness of
heart caused him to express his regret for having hurt her feelings,
and adding that certainly Elizabeth must as much regret it as he
did. But there was a poisoned arrow fixed into her sensitive heart,
which nothing could effectually extract. She had begged and entreated
that the but thinly scattered trees on the farm might be spared, but
in vain. She witnessed their fall with grief, which she could not
conceal, and had thus incurred a considerable degree of anger from
her father. She had heard the mortifying remarks of the Heritages
and other friends; but the ground of painful feeling and of comment
which it had laid in the mind of all the Woodburns, and especially
of Mr. Woodburn, was a source of real unhappiness. She felt afraid to
go to the Grange when Mr. Woodburn was in the house, and when she did
meet him there, or elsewhere, she thought he looked coldly on her.
She was conscious that her very presence brought to his mind this
piece of Vandalism—the blot on the face of the country, as he termed
it. She heard of his by no means measured remarks upon it amongst his
neighbours; for though a quiet and courteous man, he was strong in
his feelings.
George never alluded to the subject in her company, and never omitted
one of his usual visits to the farm. He even sat and heard Mr.
Drury’s conversation on the subject, for nothing could prevent him
continually introducing it, and remained passive, and making but now
and then an incidental reply, endeavouring to divert the discussion
to something more agreeable to the ladies. But nothing could turn
Mr. Trant Drury long. He would say, “Well, I find my plans don’t
meet with the approbation of my neighbours, eh? They would like all
to live in a wood, and pay rent, where they do pay rent, for growing
their landlord’s timber. Ah! they shall see in a while! They shall
see by my rick-yards how the matter stands.”
To George, as to Elizabeth, this was a bitter drop which had fallen
into their cup. They saw that a strong antagonism would assuredly
grow up betwixt their fathers. All their ideas of rural economy
were so totally and irreconcileably opposed. Bitterly did Elizabeth
deplore their ever coming into such close and permanent contact;
bitterly did she repent having proposed their removal hither. By her
marriage with George, she would have come amongst her friends here
without one painful circumstance. But the change was made, and these
two faithful hearts resolved that no family dissension which might
arise should break or weaken the sacred tie of their own souls. They
endeavoured, each of them, so to arrange their visits to each other’s
house, as to come as little in the way of each other’s father as
possible, without seeming to make an actual coldness or breach. But
this was a most difficult plan of operations to manage. If Mr. Drury
did not see George for several days, he would say—
“Well, George Woodburn seems to avoid us. He is like his father, I
suppose. He takes part with him, and can’t forgive this ridding my
farm of its lumber and rubbish.”
“No, dear father,” Elizabeth would say, “George does not concern
himself about it; but he is very busy—and I wish, however, you would
not mention the subject so often to him. It looks as though you
wished to remind him of his father’s vexation. Oh, do, dear father,
let the matter be a tabooed subject. There is plenty to talk of
besides.”
“Plenty to talk of!—to be sure there is. But I have no notion of
people having such thin skins, such tender ears, that they can’t bear
to hear of a tree falling or of a hedge being lopped. And I am sure I
very seldom refer to the thing.”
“Only every time that George Woodburn is here, dear father. Though he
does not trouble himself about it, it must become tiresome to him.”
“So he finds my company tiresome, does he, eh? A nice young man!
Perhaps he’ll find yours tiresome soon, Elizabeth, if he be so
difficult to please. So that’s the way the wind blows, eh? Um—um!”—or
rather an indescribable noise made with his mouth shut and through
his nose.
At Woodburn Grange, Mr. Woodburn would say—
“Have you seen Miss Drury lately?”
“Yes; she was here this morning.”
“Oh, she was! She takes care that I don’t see her. I suppose she’s
not pleased with me because I don’t like the devastations of that
father of hers. I suppose she takes up the cudgels for him. Well, I
am sorry for it—I am sorry indeed that such a sweet, good creature
has such a father. As for poor Mrs. Drury, she does not seem to
have a soul of her own. She is just like a scared automaton, if an
automaton could be scared. She must have had a pretty life of it with
such a man.”
If George were in, he would quietly get up and go out, and then
Mrs. Woodburn, or Ann, if at home, would say, “Pray don’t make such
remarks, dear father—or husband—don’t you see how painful they are to
George; and as for Elizabeth Drury, she loves and honours you most
sincerely. Oh, what a misfortune that ever they came so near us!”
In the meantime, Mr. Trant Drury went on his way in his own way,
which was of unwavering, confident comfortableness in his assurance
that all which he thought and did was right. To him all adverse
criticism was ignorance, all opposition envy. He lamented the
benighted condition of his bucolic neighbours, and was certain that
he should show them all their deficiencies. Mr. Drury had, in the
north, been a high authority, and he soon let it be known that it was
the same Mr. Trant Drury, whose letters in the “Farmers’ Journal,”
and in the York and Doncaster newspapers, on all agricultural
topics were so well known. “Eh! so this is the great Mr. Drury of
Yorkshire,” said Sir Roger Rockville, and Sir Benjamin Bullockshed,
and Squire Swagsides, “that we have got among us: that is very
fortunate.” Mr. Drury soon took the opportunity to make the public
aware of this great fact still further, by some letters in the
Castleborough papers, containing remarks on the improvements which
might obviously be introduced into that part of the country. He was
very soon consulted by landowners on the nature of such improvements,
which they hoped would lead to an augmentation of rents. Mr. Drury
soon became much in request for valuations of stock and crops in
cases of farms passing from one tenant to another, in matters of
drainage and manures, and treatment of woods,—and in all these
departments he was really extremely skilful. He attended public
meetings in different counties of an agricultural character, and made
speeches which went through the newspapers far and wide.
It was soon made known by himself that he had been consulted by Sir
Roger Rockville, Sir Benjamin Bullockshed, Sir Timothy Sheepshanks,
Lord Rancliffe, the Earl Manvers, and others, on the condition of
their estates. Not one of them, however, we are well informed,
could be brought to listen to cropping all their fences close,
and knocking down all their hedge-row trees, except Sir Benjamin
Bullockshed, and one or two of his neighbours. In the rest, Mr. Drury
said, the old feudal notions of things were too strongly rooted
to allow of their ridding their lands of any trees. Mr. Woodburn,
when he heard that Mr. Drury had actually become the steward of Sir
Benjamin Bullockshed, and was going to display his science on his
farms, blessed his stars that that estate lay at some distance, and
that the odious disfigurement and stripping bare of nature would not
often offend his eyes.
In the meantime, Mr. Drury, in the late autumn, had certainly a
fine rick-yard and cattle-yard to show. His sheep were in fine
condition, and he had an ample supply of turnips and mangel wurzel
for winter feed. He had also sown several acres of carrots for his
horses and cattle, then a matter of wonder and curiosity to his
neighbours, as applied to that purpose, having before been thought
of only for culinary use. With the working-men, the labourers of the
neighbourhood, Mr. Drury was by no means in favour. He had brought
with him a great variety of machinery, thrashing and winnowing
machines, tedding and raking machines, which at that day, when such
machinery was little known, were looked upon as all intended to
supersede manual labour. They were beheld with an evil eye, and the
indignant labourers were heard to wish that the earth would open and
swallow up these godless and man-starving inventions. Besides this,
Mr. Drury kept a very sharp eye on every man who worked for him. He
had a bailiff, or headman, who timed all the men as they arrived in
the morning, and noted the exact minute down, and a half, or even
a quarter of an hour, on any day was deducted at the end of the
week. He was always riding about on that tall roan horse of his, and
so continually at their heels, or ready to drop upon them at any
minute. They nick-named him Drury the Fire-eater, and wondered what
they had done that the devil had sent him into their country.
The following spring a circumstance occurred which pre-eminently
delighted not only the labourers, but the farmers around, and in no
small degree Mr. Woodburn himself. Mr. Drury had written so much
on the necessity of cleaning, dressing your fields, of extirpating
to the utmost every species of couch-grass and weed, and that your
growing crops should be as free from them as your gardens; he had
made so many cutting remarks on the slovenliness of some of the
neighbouring farms, and characterised the style of cultivation
thereabout as lax, that it was with singular pleasure and merriment
that they observed several of his corn crops, and one six-acre
field in particular, as thickly mixed with docks as if the seed had
purposely been sown half-and-half. There was a going and riding
from all quarters to witness this wonderful sight. It was the talk
at market, and Mr. Drury was accosted with much country wit on the
occasion. “Is that,” asked farmers, “a part of your new plans, Mister
Drury? Are these a new sort of carrots of yourn?” Carrots being just
introduced by Mr. Drury, this was received with much laughter. Mr.
Drury replied angrily, and in the words of Scripture, “An enemy hath
done this.”
But who was this enemy! It was certain that Mr. Drury had his enemies
in abundance amongst the labourers; but these men were too regularly
engaged in hard work to collect such a quantity of dock seed, and
to sow it so completely. There was a touch of ingenuity in it, too,
which seemed beyond their habitual dulness. The suspicion turned in
another direction.
In the autumn, on proceeding to get his potatoes, it was discovered
by the men that the rows had been extensively plundered, by the
potatoes being extracted from the sides of the rows, the tops being
left standing, and the earth at the sides carefully put back and
trampled hard. There was ingenuity there, too.
Mr. Drury not only set a man to watch at night, but he watched with
him, and they soon captured, in the fact, a sort of half-witted,
wandering vagabond fellow of Castleborough, named Ned King. This Ned
King, a thin shangling fellow, dirty and ragged, and seldom without
a pipe in his mouth, was reckoned only half-witted, but, at the same
time, he had a cunning about him of no ordinary calibre. He was
accustomed to ramble the streets, and early in the morning turn over
with his feet or his hands, as carefully as a hen scratching in the
chaff at a barn-door, the dust and scraps of paper swept out of the
shops. It was said that he had occasionally recovered thus one-pound
and even five-pound notes. It was certain that one day, in a main
street, he was seen to stoop down and pick up a half-guinea in gold.
A person close behind said, “That is mine!” “Oh!” said Ned, keeping
the piece in his closed hand, “is yours a straight or a crooked one?”
The man immediately imagined that it must be a crooked one, or so
stupid a fellow would not have thought of it. “A crooked one, to-be
sure,” said the man. “Then it is not yours,” added King, opening his
hand, “for this is straight;” and the claimant disappeared amid the
jeers of the people.
Ned being caught, begged hard to be let go, saying, he would make
Mr. Drury amends; but such was not Mr. Drury’s creed. He was for
the most summary punishment of all such depredators, and King was
carried before the magistrates, and thence to the House of Correction
for three months. The extraordinary crop of docks on Mr. Drury’s
farm was no sooner talked of, than many people recollected seeing
King here and there all round the country collecting, as he said,
bird-seeds of different sorts; but they noticed him particularly
gathering dock-seeds, which he said were for birds, but which nobody
had ever known collected for such a purpose. It was shown by some of
King’s neighbours that he had whole sack-bags of such seeds in his
possession during the winter. But his having collected such seeds,
and his having whole bags of them, did not prove that he had sown Mr.
Drury’s corn-fields with them. There was no moral doubt whatever that
he had done it; but it had been done so adroitly, that no one had
ever seen him about Mr. Drury’s farm at night. He must have done it
in midnights when every soul was fast asleep.
Mr. Drury had him up before the magistrates; and brought plenty of
evidence of his having collected dock-seed for six or seven miles
round, and of his having sacks full of it; but when the magistrates
called on him to show how he had disposed of it, Ned grinned, and
said, “How was he to know? He was always selling seeds and yarbs
(herbs) to all sorts of people, and he did not know their names.”
The old proverb of any fool taking a horse to water, and not all
England being able to make him drink, was verified in Ned’s case.
Nobody could convict him, and he was too shrewd to convict himself.
The magistrates were compelled to dismiss him with a threat, and
everybody said Mr. Drury had better have let Ned alone, he would
do him some other ill-turn. And this soon appeared to be the case,
for Mr. Drury’s field-gates were continually found wide open in a
morning, and cattle and sheep let in or let out, and the greatest
damage done. Sheep and cattle were found eating up and treading down
the corn crops, and his horses were gone off, and were discovered in
some neighbouring parish.
In this case the able and acute Mr. Trant Drury had found his match
in the half-witted Ned King, the fool of Castleborough, much to the
delectation of farmers and labourers all round Woodburn.