The Post-boy and the Pot-boy.
After a few words of common observation upon Mr. Wittingham and his
proceedings when that excellent gentleman had left the room at the
little inn of Tarningham, Ned Hayward fell into a very unusual fit of
thought.
I do not mean in the least to say that it was unusual for Ned Hayward
to think, for probably he thought as much as other men, but there are
various ways of thinking. There are pondering, meditating, brown
studying, day dreaming, revolving, considering, contemplating, and
though many of these terms may at first sight seem synonymous, yet
upon close examination it will be found that there are shades of
difference between the meanings. Besides these ways or modes of
thinking, there are various other mental processes, such as
investigating, examining, disentangling, inquiring, but with these I
will not meddle, as my business is merely with the various operations
of the mind which require various degrees of rapidity. Now though Ned
Hayward, as I have said, probably thought as much as other men, his
sort of thought was generally of a very quick and active habit. He was
not fond of meditating, his mind's slowest pace was a canter, and when
he found an obstacle of any kind, hedge, gate, fence, or stone wall,
he took up his stirrups and went over it. Now, however, for once in
his life, he paused and pondered for full five minutes, and then
thinking perhaps it might seem a little rude if he treated his
new-found friend to nothing but meditation, he began to talk of other
things, still meditating over the former subject of his contemplations
all the while.
It must not be supposed, however, that he did not think of what he was
saying. Such a supposition might indeed be founded upon the old axiom
that men cannot do two things at once. But the axiom is false: there
never was a falser. We are always doing many things at once. There
would be very little use of our having hands and feet, tongues and
eyes, ears and nose, unless each of our organs with a little practice
could go on quite quietly in its little workshop, without disturbing
the others. Indeed it is very serviceable sometimes to give our more
volatile members something light to do, when we are employing others
upon more serious business, just to keep them out of the way, as we do
with noisy children. So also is it with the mind and its faculties,
and it is not only quite possible, depend upon it, dear reader, to
think of two subjects at once, but very common also.
Totally unacquainted with Mr. Beauchamp's habits and character, or
what topics he could converse upon, and what not, Ned Hayward
naturally chose one which seemed perfectly indifferent and perfectly
easy; but it led them soon to deeper considerations, as a very small
key will often open a very large door. It led to some political
discussions too; but let it be remarked, this is not a political
novel, that most wearisome and useless of all the illegitimate
offsprings of literature, and therefore if I give a few sentences of
their conversation, it is not to insinuate sneakingly my own opinions,
but merely to display my characters more fully.
"This seems a very pretty little town," said Ned Hayward, choosing the
first free subject at hand; "quite rural, and with all the
tranquillity of the country about it."
"It is indeed," answered Mr. Beauchamp; "but I should almost have
supposed that a gayer place would have pleased you more. Were you
never here before?"
"Never in my life," replied his companion; "but you are quite mistaken
about my tastes. London, indeed, is a very pleasant place for three
months or so; but one soon gets tired of it. It gets slow, devilish
slow after a while. One cannot go to the theatre every night. There is
little use of going to balls and parties, and risking falling in love
if one has not got money enough to marry. One gets weary of the faces
and the houses in St. James's-street. Morning visits are the greatest
bores in the world. Epsom and Ascot are good enough things in their
way, but they are soon over for one who does not bet and runs no
horses. The newspapers tire me to death--romances I abominate; and
though a good opera comes in twice a-week to lighten the load a
little, it gets desperate heavy on one's shoulders before the first of
July. Antiquaries, connoisseurs, lawyers, physicians, fiddlers, and
portrait-painters, with merchants, and all the bees of the hive, may
find London a very pleasant and profitable place. I am nothing but a
drone, and so I fly away in the country. Of all towns after the second
month, I hate London the most--except a manufacturing town indeed, and
that is always horrible, even to change horses in."
"And yet perhaps," answered Beauchamp, "a manufacturing town
offers subjects of deeper interest than any other spot of the
earth--especially at the present moment."
"Not in themselves, surely," said Ned Hayward; "the abstract idea of
broad cloth is to me very flat, cotton-spinning not particularly
exciting, iron ware is far too hard for me to handle, and as for the
production of soda and pearlash, I have no genius that way. But I
suppose," he continued, "you mean that the manufacturing towns are
interesting from their bearing upon the prosperity of the country; but
in that case it is your speculations regarding them that interest you,
not the places themselves."
"So it is with everything," answered Mr. Beauchamp; "no single image
or impression gives us great pleasure. It is in their combination that
our engagement dwells. Single ideas are but straight lines, blank
plains, monotonous patches of colour. Associate them with other shapes
and hues, and you produce beauty and pleasure. Thus with the
manufacturing towns; if I only went to see a steam-engine work, a
shuttle play, or a spindle turn, I should soon be tired enough; but
when in all that I see there, I perceive a new development of man's
mind, a fresh course opened for his energies when old ones are
exhausted, when I behold the commencement of a great social change,
which shall convert the pursuits of tribes and nations from
agricultural to manufacturing--we rather shall throw the great mass of
human industry, for which its former sphere was too small, into
another and almost interminable channel, I feel that I am a spectator
of a great social phenomenon, as awful and as grand as the lightning
that rends the pine, or the earthquake that overthrows the mountain.
It is magnificent, yet terrible; beautiful, but still sad."
"Why sad?" demanded Ned Hayward. "I have considered the matter in the
same light a little, and have talked with various grave manufacturers
about it; but they all seem to see nothing in it but what is very fine
and pleasant. They have no apprehension for the result, or doubts
about its doing a great deal of good to every body in the end."
"The end!" said Beauchamp, "where is the end? What will the end be?
They see nothing but good; they augur nothing but good, because they
are actively employed in that one particular course, and buoyed up
with those sanguine expectations which active exertion always
produces. Neither do I doubt that the end will be good; but still ere
that end be reached, how much misery, how much strife, how much evil,
must be encountered. One needs but to set one's foot in a factory, ay,
or in a manufacturing town, to see that the evil not only will be, but
is; that we are wading into a dark stream which we must pass over, and
are already knee deep. I speak not of the evils inseparable from the
working of any great change in the relations of society or in its
objects. As we can never climb a hill without some fatigue, so we can
never reach a higher point in social advance without some suffering,
but that inevitable evil I look upon as light, compared with many
other things before us. I doubt not that in God's good providence new
resources will be ever opened before mankind for the employment of
human industry; but when I see even a temporary superfluity of labour,
I tremble to think of what vast power of grinding and oppressing that
very circumstance places in the hands of the employer. Combine that
power with the state of men's minds at present, and all the tendencies
of the age; remember that to accumulate wealth, to rival others in
luxury and display, to acquire at any price and by any means, is a
part not of the manufacturer's spirit, but of the spirit of the age,
and especially of this country, and then see to what purposes must and
will be applied that vast authority or command, which the existing
superabundance of labour, brought about by mechanical inventions and
the natural increase of population entrusts to those who have already
the power of wealth. Were it not for this spirit acting through this
power, should we see in our manufactories such squalid misery, such
enfeebled frames, such overtasked exertions, such want of moral and
religious culture, such recklessness, such vice, such infamy, such
famine?"
"Perhaps not," answered Ned Hayward, "but yet something is to be said
for the manufacturers too. You see, my good Sir, they have to compete
with all Europe. They are, as it were, running a race, and they must
win it, even if they break their horses' wind."
"If they do that, they will lose it," replied Beauchamp; "but yet I do
not blame them. I believe the spirit of the times we live in. They
only share it with other men; many of them are humane, kind, generous,
just, who do as much good and as little evil as the iron band of
circumstances will permit; and were all to strive in the same manner,
and to the same degree, that iron band would be broken, and all would
be wiser, happier, better--ay, even wealthier than they are; but,
alas! the example of the good have little influence on the rest on the
same level with themselves, and the example of the bad, immense
influence on every grade beneath them. The cupidity of the great
mill-owner is imitated and exceeded by those below him. He robs the
poor artizan of his labour, by allowing him as little out of the
wealth his exertions earn as the superfluity of industry compels the
artizan to take, and justifies himself with the cold axiom, that he is
not bound to pay more than other men; those below him rob the same
defenceless being of a great part of those poor wages themselves by a
more direct kind of plunder, and have their axiom too. One of the
great problems of the day is this: what proportion of the profits
accruing from the joint-operation of capital and labour is to be
assigned to each of those two elements? And the day will come ere
long, depend upon it, when that great problem must be solved--I
trust not in bloody characters. At present, there is no check to
secure a fair division; and so long as there is none, wealth will
always take advantage of poverty, and the competition for mere food
will induce necessity to submit to avarice, till the burden becomes
intolerable--and then--"
"What then?" asked Ned Hayward.
"Nay, God forbid," answered Beauchamp, "that the fears which will
sometimes arise should ever be verified. A thousand unforeseen events
may occur to waft away the dangers that seem to menace us; but I
cannot help thinking that in the meantime there are many duties
neglected by those who have the power to interfere; for surely, if any
foresight be wisdom, any human providence a virtue, they are the
foresight that perceives the future magnitude of evils yet in the bud,
and the providence that applies a remedy in time."
"Very true," answered Ned Hayward; "things do look rather badly; but I
dare say all will get right at last. I have not thought of such things
very deeply--not half so deeply as you have done, I know; but still I
have been sorry to see, in many of our great towns, the people so
wretched-looking; and sometimes I have thought that if better care
were taken of them--I mean both in mind and body--our judges at the
assizes would not have so much to do. Just as fevers spread through
whole countries from a great congregation of sickly people, so crimes
extend through a land from great congregations of vicious people. For
my part, if, like our good friend Abon Hassan, I could but be caliph
for a short time, I'd open out all the narrow streets, and drain all
the foul lands, and cultivate all ignorant minds, and try to purify
all the corrupt hearts by the only thing that can purify them. But I
am not caliph; and if I were, the task is above me I fancy: but still,
if it could be accomplished, even in part, I am quite sure that
jurymen would dine earlier, lawyers have less to do, courts would rise
at three o'clock, and the lord mayor and sheriffs eat their turtle
more in peace. But talking of that, do you know I have been thinking
all this while how we could get some insight into this affair of the
highway robbery; for I am determined I will not let the matter sleep.
Highway robberies are going quite out of fashion. I have not heard of
one for these four months. Hounslow Heath is almost as safe as
Berkeley-square, and Bagshot no more to be feared than Windsor Castle.
It is a pity to let such things revive; and there is something about
that old fellow Wittingham which strikes me as odd. Another thing too
was funny enough. Why should they pull the young lady out of the
chaise? She could just as well have handed her purse and her trinkets
out of the window!"
"That seemed strange to me also," answered Beauchamp. "But how do you
propose to proceed?"
"Why, I think the best way will be to frighten the post-boy," replied
Ned Hayward. "He's in league with the rogues, whoever they are, depend
upon it; and if he thinks his neck's in a noose, he'll peach."
"That is not improbable," said his companion; "but we had better
proceed cautiously, for if we frighten him into denying all knowledge
of the parties, he will adhere to his story for mere consistency's
sake."
"Oh, I'll manage him, I will manage him," answered Ned Hayward,
who had carried so many points in his life by his dashing
straightforwardness, that he had very little doubt of his own powers.
"Come along, and we will see. Let us saunter out into the yard, in a
quiet careless way, as if we were sentimental and loved moonlight. We
shall find him somewhere rubbing down his horses, or drinking a pint
on the bench."
The two gentlemen accordingly took their hats and issued forth, Ned
Hayward leading the way first out into the street through a
glass-door, and then round into the yard by an archway. This
man[oe]uvre was intended to elude the vigilant eyes of Mr. Groomber,
and was so far successful that the landlord, being one of that small
class of men who can take a hint, did not come out after them to offer
his services, though he saw the whole proceeding, and while he was
uncorking sherry, or portioning out tea, or making up a bill, kept one
eye--generally the right--turned towards a window that looked in the
direction of the stables. Before those stables the bright moon was
laying out her silver carpeting, though, truth to say, she might have
found a cleaner floor to spread it on; and there too paraded up and
down our friends, Ned Hayward and Mr. Beauchamp, looking for the
post-boy who had driven Mrs. Clifford and her daughter, but not
perceiving him in any direction. Ned Hayward began to suspect he had
reckoned without his host. The man was not rubbing down his horses, he
was not drinking a pint on the bench, he was not smoking a pipe at the
inn door.
"Well," he said at length, "I will look into all the stables to see
after my horse. It is but right I should attend to his supper now I
have had my own, and perhaps we may find what we are looking for on
the road. Let us wait awhile, however, till that one-eyed ostler is
passed, or he will tell us where the horse is, and spoil our
man[oe]uvre." And, walking on, he pointed out to Beauchamp a peculiar
spot upon the moon's surface, and commented upon it with face upturned
till the inconvenient ostler had gone by.
At that moment, however, another figure appeared in the yard, which at
once brought light into Ned Hayward's mind. It was not a pretty
figure, nor had it a pretty face belonging to it. The back was bowed
and contorted in such a manner as to puzzle the tailor exceedingly to
fit it with a fustian jacket when it required a new one, which luckily
was not often; the legs were thin, and more like a bird's than a human
being's, and though the skull was large and not badly shaped, the
features that appeared below the tall forehead seemed all to be
squeezed together, so as to acquire a rat-like expression, not
uncommon in the deformed. The head, which was bare, was thatched with
thin yellow hair, but the eyes were black and clear, and the teeth
large and white, the garments which this poor creature wore, were
those of an inferior servant of an inn; and his peculiar function
seemed to be denoted by a tankard of beer, which he carried in his
hand from the door of the tap towards the stables.
"He is carrying our friend his drink," said Ned Hayward, in a whisper
to Beauchamp, "let us watch where the little pot-boy goes in, and I'll
take seven to one we find the man we want."
The pot-boy gave a shrewd glance at the two gentlemen as he passed
them, but hurried on towards one of the doors far down the yard, which
when it was opened displayed a light within; and as soon as he had
deposited his tankard and returned, those who had watched him followed
his course and threw back the same door without ceremony. There before
them, seated on a bench at a deal-table, was the post-boy of whom they
were in search. They had both marked him well by the evening light,
and there could be no doubt of his identity, though by this time he
had got his hat and jacket off, and was sitting with a mane-comb on
one hand and a curry-comb on the other, and the tankard of beer
between them. He was a dull, unpleasant, black-bearded sort of fellow
of fifty-five or six, with a peculiarly cunning gray eye, and a
peculiarly resolute slow mouth, and as soon as Ned Hayward beheld the
expression by the light of a tallow-candle in a high state of
perspiration, he muttered "We shall not make much of this specimen."
Nevertheless, he went on in his usual careless tone addressing the
lord of the posting-saddle, and saying, "Good night, my man; I want
you to tell me where I can find a gentleman I wish to see here
abouts."
The post-boy had risen, and pulled the lock of short black and white
hair upon his forehead, but without looking a bit more communicative
than at first, and he merely answered, "If I knows where he lives,
Sir. What's his name?"
"Why that's another matter," replied Ned Hayward; "perhaps he may not
much like his name mentioned; but I can tell you what people call him
sometimes. He goes by the name of Wolf occasionally."
The slightest possible twinkle of intelligence came into the man's
eyes for a moment, and then went out again, just as when clouds are
driving over the sky at night we sometimes see something sparkle for
an instant, and then disappear from the heavens, so faint while it is
present, and so soon gone, that we cannot tell whether it be a star or
not.
"Can't say I ever heard of such a gemman here, Sir," replied the
post-boy. "There's Jimmy Lamb, Sir, the mutton-pieman, but that's the
nearest name to Wolf we have in these parts."
"Why, my good friend, you saw him this very night," said Mr.
Beauchamp, "when the chaise was stopped that you were driving. He was
one of the principals in that affair."
"Likely, Sir," answered the other, "but they were all strangers to
me--never set eyes on one 'on 'em afore. But if you knows 'em, you'll
soon catch 'em; and that will be a good job, for it is very unpleasant
to be kept a waiting so. It's as bad as a 'pike."
"I've a notion," said Ned Hayward, "that you can find out my man for
me if you like; and if you do, you may earn a crown; but if you do not
you may get into trouble, for concealing felons renders you what is
called an accessory, and that is a capital crime. You know the law,
Sir," he continued, turning to Beauchamp, and speaking in an
authoritative tone, "and if I am not mistaken, this comes under the
statute of limitations as a clear case of misprision, which under the
old law was merely burning in the hand and transportation for life,
but is now hanging matter. You had better think over the business, my
man, and let me have an immediate answer with due deliberation, for
you are not a person I should think to put your head in a halter, and
if you were, I should not advise you to do so in this case."
"Thank you, Sir," said the post-boy, "I won't; but I don't know the
gemmen as showed themselves such rum customers, nor him either as you
are a axing arter."
"It is in vain, I fear," said Beauchamp to his companion in a very low
voice, as their respondent made this very definite answer, "the
magistrates may perhaps obtain some further information from him when
he finds that the matter is serious, but we shall not."
The post-boy caught a few of the words apparently, and perhaps it was
intended that he should do so, but they were without effect; and when
at length they walked away baffled, he twisted the eyelids into a sort
of wreath round his left eye, observing with his tongue in his cheek,
"Ay, ay, my covies, no go!"
Ned Hayward opened the door somewhat suddenly, and as he went out, he
almost tumbled over the little humpbacked pot-boy. Now whether the
young gentleman--his years might be nineteen or twenty, though his
stature was that of a child of eight--came thither to replenish the
tankard he had previously brought, or whether he affected the
moonlight, or was fond of conversation in which he did not take a
part, Ned Hayward could not at the moment divine; but before he and
Beauchamp had taken a dozen steps up the yard, Hayward felt a gentle
pull at his coat-tail.
"What is it, my lad?" he said, looking down upon the pot-boy, and at
the same time stooping his head as if with a full impression that his
ears at their actual height could hear nothing that proceeded from a
point so much below as the deformed youth's mouth.
Instantly a small high-pitched but very musical voice replied, "I'll
come for your boots early to-morrow, Sir, and tell you all about it."
"Can't you tell me now?" asked the young gentleman, "I am going into
the stable to see my horse, and you can say your say there, my man."
"I daren't," answered the pot-boy, "there's Tim the Ostler, and Jack
Millman's groom, and Long Billy, the Taunton post-boy, all about.
I'll come to-morrow and fetch your boots."
At the same moment the landlord's voice exclaiming in sharp tones,
"Dicky! Dicky Lamb!--what the devil are you so long about?" was heard,
and the pot-boy ran off as fast as his long thin legs would carry him.
"Well this affair promises some amusement," said Ned Hayward, when
they had again reached the little parlour, which in his good-humoured
easy way he now looked upon as common to them both. "Upon my word I am
obliged to these highwaymen, or whatever the scoundrels may be, for
giving me something fresh to think of. Although at good Sir John
Slingsby's I shall have fishing enough, I dare say, yet one cannot
fish all day and every day, and sometimes one gets desperately bored
in an old country-house, unless fate strikes out something not quite
in the common way to occupy one."
"Did you ever try falling in love?" asked Beauchamp, with a quiet
smile, as he glanced his eyes over the fine form and handsome features
of his companion, "it is an excellent pastime, I am told."
"No!" answered Ned Hayward quickly and straightforwardly; "I never
did, and never shall. I am too poor, Mr. Beauchamp, to marry in my own
class of society, and maintain my wife in the state which that class
implies. I am too honest to make love without intending to marry; too
wise I trust to fall in love where nothing could be the result but
unhappiness to myself if not to another also." He spake these few
sentences very seriously; but then, resuming at once his gay rattling
manner, he went on: "Oh, I have drilled myself capitally, I assure
you. At twenty I was like a raw recruit, bungling at every step; found
myself saying all manner of sweet things to every pretty face I met;
felt my heart beating whenever, under the pretty face, I thought I
discovered something that would last longer. But I saw so much of love
in a cottage and its results, that, after calculating well what a
woman brought up in good society would have to sacrifice who married a
man with 600_l_. a-year, I voted it unfair to ask her, and made up my
mind to my conduct. As soon as ever I find that I wish to dance with
any dear girl twice in a night, and fall into reveries when I think of
her, and feel a sort of warm blood at my fingers' ends when my hand
touches hers, I am off like a hair-trigger, for if a man is bound to
act with honour to other men, who can make him if he does not
willingly, he is ten times more strongly bound to do so towards women,
who can neither defend nor avenge themselves."
With a sudden impulse Beauchamp held out his hand to him, and shook
his heartily, and that grasp seemed to say, "I know you now to the
heart. We are friends."
Ned Hayward was a little surprised at this enthusiastic burst of Mr.
Beauchamp for he had set him down for what is generally called a very
gentlemanlike person, which means, in the common parlance of the
world, a man who has either used up every thing like warm feeling, or
has never possessed it, and who, not being troubled with any emotions,
suffers polite manners and conventional habits to rule him in and out.
With his usual rapid way of jumping at conclusions--which he often
found very convenient, though to say the truth he sometimes jumped
over the right ones--he said to himself at once, "Well, this is really
a good fellow, I do believe, and a man of some heart and soul."
But though Beauchamp's warm shake of the hand had led him to this
conviction, and he thought he began to understand him, yet Ned Hayward
was a little curious as to a question which his new friend had asked
him some time before. He had answered it, it is true, by telling him
that he took care not to fall in love; but he fancied that Mr.
Beauchamp had inquired in a peculiar tone, and that he must have had
some meaning more than the words implied, taken in their simple and
straightforward application.
"Come now, tell me, Beauchamp," he said, after just five seconds
consideration, "what made you ask if I had ever tried falling in love
by way of amusement? Did you ever hear any story of my being guilty of
such practices? If you have it was no true one--at least for six or
seven years past."
"Oh, no," replied Beauchamp laughing, "I have had no means of learning
your secret history. I only inquired because, if you have never tried
that pleasant amusement, you will soon have a capital opportunity. Sir
John Slingsby's daughter is one of the loveliest girls I ever saw."
"What, old Jack with a daughter!" exclaimed Ned Hayward, and then
added after a moment's thought, "By the way, so he had. I remember her
coming to see him when we were at Winchester. He was separated from
her mother, who was a saint, I recollect. Nobody could accuse old Jack
of that himself, and his daughter used to come and see him at times. A
pretty little girl she was; I think five or six years old. Let me see,
she must be about sixteen or seventeen now; for that is just ten years
ago, when I was an ensign."
"She is more than that," answered Beauchamp, "by two or three years;
and either it must be longer since you saw her, or--"
"Oh, no, it is just ten years ago," cried Mr. Hayward; "ten years next
month, for I was then seventeen myself."
"Well, then, she must have been older than you thought," replied his
companion.
"Very likely," said Mr. Hayward. "I never could tell girls' ages,
especially when they are children. But there is no fear of my falling
in love with her, if she is what you tell me. I never fell in love
with a beautiful woman in my life--I don't like them; they are always
either pert, or conceited, or vain, or haughty, or foolish. Sooner or
later they are sure to find some ass to tell them how beautiful they
are, and then they think that is quite sufficient for all the purposes
of life."
"Perhaps because they are first impressed with a wrong notion of the
purposes of life," answered Beauchamp; "but yet I never heard of a man
before who objected to a woman because she was pretty."
"No, no," answered Ned Hayward, "that is a very different thing. I
did not say pretty. I am very fond of what is pretty. Oh! the very
word is delightful. It gives one such a nice, good-humoured,
comfortable idea: it is full of health, and youth, and good spirits,
and light-heartedness--the word seems to smile and speak content; and
when it is the expression that is spoken of, and not the mere
features, it is very charming indeed. But a beautiful woman is a very
different thing. I would as soon marry the Venus de Medicis, pedestal
and all, as what is usually called a beautiful woman. But now let us
talk of this other affair. I wonder what will come of my mysterious
post-boy."
"Why, I doubt not you will obtain some information regarding the
gentleman calling himself Wolf," replied Beauchamp; "but if you do,
how do you intend to proceed?"
"Hunt him down as I would a wolf," answered Ned Hayward.
"Then pray let me share the sport," rejoined Beauchamp.
"Oh! certainly, certainly," said Ned Hayward; "I'll give the view
halloo as soon as I have found him; and so now, good night, for I am
somewhat sleepy."
"Goodnight, goodnight!" answered Beauchamp; and Ned Hayward rang for a
bed-candle, a boot-jack, a pair of slippers, and sundry other things
that he wanted, which were brought instantly, and with great good
will. Had he asked for a nightcap it would have been provided with
the same alacrity; for those were days in which nightcaps were
furnished by every host to every guest; though now (alas! for the good
old times) no landlord ever thinks that a guest will stay long enough
in his house to make it worth while to attend to his head-gear. But
Ned Hayward needed no nightcap, for he never wore one, and therefore
his demands did not at all overtax his host's stock.