_Mr. Longstaff gets fuddled, and revenges himself upon Mrs. Clink;
together with some excellent discourse of his while in that pleasing
condition. The mother of our hero partially discloses a secret which the
reader has been anxious to know ever since he commenced this history._
While things were thus progressing elsewhere, the poor and destitute,
though erring, creature, over whose head the rod of petty tyranny now
hung so threateningly, had passed a solitary evening by the side of
her small fire, unnoticed even by the neighbours humble as herself;
for adversity, though it is said to make men friends, yet renders them
selfish also, and leaves in their bosoms but few feelings of charity for
others.
Little Fanny, transformed into a miniature washerwoman, and elevated
on two or three lumps of Yorkshire stone to lengthen her out, had been
employed since nightfall, by the hazy light of a candle scarcely thicker
than her own little finger, in washing some few things for the baby;
while young Colin himself, held up in his mother's arms, with his face
pressed close to her bosom, was silently engaged in fulfilling, as
Voltaire has it, one of the most abstruse laws of natural philosophy.
Having at length resolved this problem perfectly to his satisfaction,
Master Colin betook himself, with the utmost complacency, to sleep, just
as though his mother had had no trouble whatever in the world with him;
or, as though Mr. Longstaff, the steward, had been fast asleep in bed,
dreaming of felled timbers and unpaid arrears, and utterly regardless
of Colin's existence, instead of preparing, as he was--untimely and
heartlessly--to disturb that baby slumber, and to harass with additional
pains and fears the bosom of one who had already found too abundantly
that folly and vice mete out their own punishment.
The child had already been placed in the cradle, and little Fanny had
taken her seat on a small stool in the chimney-corner, with her supper
in her hand, consisting of a basin of milk and water, thickened with
cold potatoes; while the mother sat before the fire, alternately
knitting a ball of black worsted on the floor into a stocking, and
giving the cradle an additional push, as the impetus it had previously
received died away and left it again almost at rest. Everything was
silent, save one or two of those quiet homely sounds, which fall on the
ear with a sensation that appears to render even silence itself still
more silent. The solitary ticking of an old caseless Dutch clock on
the wall was interrupted only by the smothered rocking of the cradle,
wherein lay the yet unconscious cause of all I have told, or may yet
have to tell. As hand or foot was applied to keep it in motion, the
little charge within was tossed alternately against each blanketed side
of his wooden prison, and jolted into the utterance, every now and then,
of some slight sound of complaint, which as regularly sunk again to
nothing as the rocking was increased, and the mother's low voice cried--
“Hush, child! peace, peace! Sleep, barn, sleep!”
And then rounded off into a momentary chant of the old ditty, beginning,
“There was an old woman, good lack! good lack!”
But out of doors, as the rustic village had long ago been gone to rest,
everything was as silent as though the country had been depopulated.
Fatigued by the long day's exertion, Fanny had fallen asleep, with
half her supper uneaten in her lap; and Mistress Clink, unconsciously
overtaken in a similar manner, had instinctively covered her face
with her hand, and fallen into that imperfect state of rest in which
realities and dreamy fictions are fused together like things perfectly
akin,--when the sound of visionary tongues seemed to be about her.
“Go straight in,” said one. “Don't stand knocking.”
“Perhaps she's a-bed,” observed another.
“Then drag her out again, that 's all,” replied the same person that had
first spoken; “I 've sworn to kick her and her young 'un into th' street
to-night, and the devil's in it if I don't, dark as it is. It will not
be the first time she's lay i' th' hedge-bottom till daylight, I 'll
swear.”
Mrs. Clink started up, terrified. The door was pushed violently
open, and the village constable, an assistant, and Mr. Longstaff, the
steward,--in a state of considerable mental elevation, arising from the
combination of punch and revenge,--stood in the middle of the room.
“Now, missis!” bawled the steward, advancing, and clenching his fist
before his own face, while he stared at her through a pair of leaden
eyes, with much of the expression of an owl in the sun; “You see me,
don't you? You see me, I say? Mark that. Did you expect me, I say,
missis? No, no, I think not. You thought you were safe enough, but I've
got you! I've got you, I tell you, as sure as a gun; and now I'm going
to learn you how to put your whelps down i' th' parish books to my
account; I am, my lady. I 'll teach you how to touch a steward again,
you may 'pend on't!”
“Oh, sir!” began Mrs. Clink imploringly; but she was instantly stopped
by Mr. Longstaff.
“Ay, ay,--you may _oh, sir!_ as long as you like, but I'm not to be
_oh sir'd_, that way. Do you know aught about rent?--rent, I
say--rent?--last year?--t' other house?--d 'ye know you hav'n't paid it?
or are you going to swear _that_ to me, an' all?--'Cause if you are, I
wish you may die in a ditch, and your baby under you! Now, look you,
I'm going to show you a pretty trick;--about as pretty, missis, as you
showed me this morning. What d 'ye think of that, now, for a change? How
d 'ye like that, eh? I'm going to seize on you--”
[Illustration: 073]
No sooner did Mrs. Clink hear these words from the mouth of the
intoxicated Mr. Longstaff, than she screamed, and fell on her knees;
crying out in broken exclamations, “Oh, not to-night, sir--not to-night!
Tomorrow, if you please, sir,--to-morrow--tomorrow!”
But, though joined in this petition by the tears of little Fanny, and
the unintentional pleadings of Colin, who now began to scream lustily
in his cradle, the steward disregarded all, until, finding prayers and
entreaties vain, the voice of the woman sunk into suppressed sobbings,
or was only heard to utter repeatedly,
“What _will_ become of my poor baby!”
“Become of him?” exclaimed Longstaff, turning towards her as she yet
remained on her knees on the ground. “Why,--take and throw him into th'
horsepond, that's my advice. He 'll never be good for aught in this
world but to hang on th' work'us, and pull money out of other people's
pockets. Go on, Bill;--go on, my lad:--put 'em all down, stick and
stone; and away with 'em all to-night. There sha'n't be a single
thing of any sort left in this house for th' sun to shine on to-morrow
morning.”
The excitement produced by Mr. Longstaff's discourse upon his own
stomach and brain had the effect of rendering him, in this brief period
of time, apparently much more intoxicated than he was on first entering
the cottage, and he now sunk heavily upon a chair, as though unable to
remain upon his feet any longer.
“Have you put this chair down, Bill?” he asked, at the same time tapping
with his fingers the back of that upon which he was sitting, by way of
drawing attention to it.
The constable answered in the affirmative.
“That's right, my boy--that's right. And that clock, there, have you got
him? Bless his old pendulum! we 'll stop his ticking very soon:--we 'll
show him what o'clock it is,--won't we, missis?”
But this facetiousness passed unheeded by the poor woman to whom it was
addressed, unless one look of reproachful scorn, which she cast in the
stupid face of the steward, might be considered as an answer to it.
“Why, you 're looking quite pretty, tonight, _Miss_ Clink,” said
Mr. Longstaff in a more subdued tone:--“I don't wonder--though he is
married, and all that sort of thing,--I don't wonder at the squire, if
he did patronise you a little.”
The cheeks of our hero's mother blushed scarlet with indignation. She
rose from the cradle-side, on which she had been sitting, and with an
evident struggle to overcome the sobs that were rising in her throat, so
as to enable her to speak distinctly, she stood up before the astonished
steward, displaying a countenance and figure that would have graced many
a far fairer place, and thus addressed him:--
“I'm a poor helpless woman, Mr. Longstaff, and you know it; but such
men as you are always cowards. You may rob me of my few goods; you may
destroy my home, though it is almost too poor to be worth the trouble;
you may turn me out of my house, with that baby, without a roof to put
my head under, because you may have power to do it, and no humanity left
in you. But, I say, he is a mean contemptible man,--whether it be
you, or any one else,--who can thus insult me, bad as I am. I can bear
anything but that, and that I won't bear from any man. _Especially_--”
and she laid strong emphasis on her words, and pointed with her finger
emphatically to the person she addressed:--“Especially from such a man
as you: for you know that if it had not been for you and your wife--”
Longstaff began to lose his colour somewhat rapidly, and to look half a
dozen degrees more sober.
“--Yes, I repeat it, you and your wife,--I should not have been the
wretched creature that I am. And yet you seek to be revenged on me,--”
she continued, growing more passionate as she proceeded, “you have
_courage_ enough to set your foot on such a hovel as this, because it
shelters me, and crush it.”
It was clear beyond dispute, from Mr. Longstaff's manner, that he had
drawn down upon himself a retort which he never intended--especially in
the presence of two other persons. He leaned half over his chair-back,
with his dull eyes fixed, though evidently in utter absence of mind,
upon the ceiling; while a visible nervous quivering of his pale lips
and nostrils evinced the working of inward emotions, to which his tongue
either could not, or dared not, give utterance.
Meantime, Mrs. Clink had taken little Colin out of his cradle, and
wrapped him warmly round with all the clothes it contained. She then led
Fanny into the inner room, which was occupied as a bed-chamber.
“Come, Fanny,” said she; “if there be still less charity under a bare
sky than under this stripped roof, we cannot do much worse. Put on
all the clothes you have, child, for perhaps we may want them before
morning.”
And then she proceeded to select from her scantily stored drawers such
few trifles as she wished to retain; and afterwards, in accordance with
her own injunction, dressed herself as if for a long night-journey.
“Come, lads,” at length remarked Mr. Longstaff, after a long silence,
“hav'n't you done yet? You mustn't take any notice of this woman,
mind;--she's had her liquor, and hardly knows what she's talking about.”
“Won't to-morrow do, sir, to finish off with?” asked the holder of the
distress-war-rant: and at the same moment our hero's mother, with Colin
in her arms, and Fanny by her side, passed out of the door-way of the
inner room. Mr. Longstaff looked up, and, seeing them prepared for
leaving the place, observed, in a tone very different to that in which
he had before spoken, “We shall not remove anything now; so you may stay
to-night, if you like.”
“No, sir,” replied Mrs. Clink; “your master's charity is quite enough:
I want none of yours. But, before I go, let me tell you I know that Mr.
Lupton has never sanctioned this; and I doubt your right to do what you
are doing.”
Here again was something which appeared to throw another new light upon
the steward's mind; for, in reality, his passion had not allowed him for
a moment to consider what might be the squire's opinion about such an
off-hand and barbarous proceeding. He began to feel some misgivings as
to the legal consequences of his own act, and eventually even went so
far as to request that Mrs. Clink would remain in the house until the
morrow, when something more could be seen about it.
“No,” said she again, firmly, “whatever I may be now, I was not born to
be blown about by every fool's breath that might come across me. Once
done is not undone. Come, Fanny.”
In another minute, Mr. Longstaff, Bill the constable, and his assistant,
were the only living creatures beneath that roof, which, an hour before,
with all its poverty, seemed to offer as secure a home, as inviolable a
hearth stone, as the castle of the best lordling in the kingdom.