_Explains the last-recorded occurrence, and introduces Mistress Clink
to an individual whom she little expected to see. Scene in a hedge
alehouse, with a company of poachers. They are surprised by very
unwelcome visitors. A terrible conflict ensues, and its consequences
described._
At the time when Mrs. Clink, with little Fanny by her side, and Colin
snugly wrapped up, like a field-mouse in its winter's nest, in her arms,
was driven away from her humble home, as related in a previous chapter,
and forced to seek a retreat for the night wherever chance or Providence
might direct her, the hand of Bramleigh church clock pointed nigh upon
eleven. By and by she heard the monotonous bell toll, with a startling
sound, over the deserted fields and the sleeping village; while she,
divided between the stern resolution of an unconquered spirit, and
the yearnings of Nature to provide a pillow for the heads of the two
helpless creatures who could call no other soul but her their friend,
paced the road which led towards the highway from York to Leeds, in
painful irresolution as to the course most proper to pursue. To solicit
the charity of a night's protection from any of the villagers with whom
she was acquainted, appeared at once almost hopeless in itself, and
beneath the station which she had once held amongst them, when her word
of praise or of blame would have been decisive with him who held the
whole neighbourhood in a state almost approaching to serfdom. Those whom
she had served had nothing more to expect from the same hand; and one
half at least of the world's gratitude is paid, not so much in requital
of past, as in anticipation of future and additional favours. Amongst
such as had received nothing at her hands, she felt it would be a
bootless task to solicit assistance in her present condition.
With her thoughts thus occupied, the distance over which she had passed
seemed swallowed up; so that, somewhat to her surprise, an exclamation
from the lips of little Fanny unexpectedly reminded her of the fact that
they were now close upon the grounds adjoining the old hall of Kiddal.
Its groups of ornamented stone chimneys, and its high-pointed roofs,
stood black against the sky; while its lightless windows, and its
homestead hushed in death-like silence, which not even the bark of a dog
disturbed, appeared to present to her mind a gloomy, though a fitting,
picture of the residence of such a tenant.
“Here, at least,” thought she, “if I can find a barn open, or a bedding
of dry straw to place under the wall between some of the huge buttresses
of the house, we shall be secure from molestation; for should they even
find us in the morning, the master will scarcely deny, even to me, the
pitiable shelter of his walls for a creature that is indebted to him for
its existence.”
Thus thinking, she passed through the gateway adjoining the road, and
thence on to the lawn and garden in front of the house, intending to
make her way beyond the reach and hearing of the dogs, to a more remote
and unfrequented portion of the out-buildings; but, as she passed the
windows of the old wainscotted room before-mentioned, the sound of
voices within caught her ear. Was it not possible that the squire might
be speaking in some way or other of her?
We are ever jealous of those who have done us wrong; and never more so,
however little we may credit it, than when the sense of that wrong
lies most keenly upon us. Colin was soundly asleep in her arms; she had
nothing to fear. Leaving Fanny, therefore, under cover of a laurel-tree,
she stepped lightly but rapidly up, and placed herself close by the
window, about the same moment that, as previously described, Mr. Lupton
had entered the room. Of the conversation that passed she could only
catch occasional portions; and, in her endeavours to press still closer
to the casement, young Master Colin got squeezed against the projecting
moulding of the stone wall, in a manner which called forth that
instantaneous expression of complaint and resentment, by which Mrs.
Lupton and her friend had been so dreadfully alarmed. It was now no time
for Mrs. Clink to stay any longer in concealment there; she accordingly
smothered her baby's head in its clothes to stifle the sound; and having
again taken the hand of little Fanny, made the best of her way over
ditch and brier in the direction of the high road.
Beyond the boundary of Mr. Lupton's grounds she came upon a by-way,
originally intended, (as the blackthorn hedges on either side denoted,)
to be used as a kind of occupation lane, by the farmers who held the
fields adjacent; but which, from the abundant grass, with which it was
overgrown, save where, in the middle, a narrow path meandered, like a
packthread along a strip of green cloth, was evidently but little used,
except as a footway by the straggling bumpkins who so thinly populated
that remote territory. Mrs. Clink remembered, from the local features
of the place, that, at about a mile farther up this road, stood a small
hedge alehouse, of no very brilliant repute to be sure, amongst those to
whom such an accommodation was needless, but highly necessary and useful
to a certain class of persons whose convenience was best attained in
places beyond the immediate reach and inspection of all descriptions of
local and legal authorities. It stood upon a piece of ground just beyond
the domains of Squire Lupton, and, though generally known as the resort
of many lawless characters, was maintained by the proprietor of the
soil in pure spite to his neighbour, the squire, whom he hated with that
cordial degree of hatred not uncommonly existing between great landed
proprietors, and the jealous little freeholders who dwell upon their
skirts. Towards this house, then, Mrs. Clink, in her extremity, bent her
way; and after half an hour spent in stumbling over the irregularities
of a primitive road, winding amongst a range of low hills, studded with
thick plantations and close preserves for game, she arrived in sight of
the anticipated haven. It was not, however, without some degree of fear,
that, several times in the course of the journey, when she chanced to
cast her eyes back upon the way she had passed, the shadowy figure of a
human being, skulking along under cover of the hedgerows, and apparently
dodging her footsteps, had appeared to her; though under an aspect so
blended with the shadows of night as left it still doubtful whether or
not the whole was a creation of imagination and imperfect vision.
A small desolate-looking hut, with a publican's sign over the door, put
up more for pretence than use, now stood before her. At the same
moment the figure she had seen shot rapidly forward up a ditch by the
road-side, and disappeared behind the house.
As she approached, the sound of several boisterous voices reached her
ear; and then the distinct words of part of an old song, which one of
the company was singing:--
“As I and my dogs went out one night,
The moon and the stars did shine so bright,
To catch a fat buck we thought we might,
Fal de ral lu ra la!”
A rushing blast of wind bore away a verse or two of the narrative; but,
as she had by this time reached the door, she stood still a moment,
while the singer went on--
“He came all bleeding, and so lame,
He was not able to follow the game,
And sorry was I to see the same,
Fal de ral lu ra la!
“I 'll take my long staff in my han',
And range the woods to find that man,
And if that I do, his hide I 'll tan,
Fal de ral lu ra la!”
The singer stopped.
“Go on--go on!” cried several voices, “finish it, somehow; let's hear
th' end on't!”
“Dang it!” exclaimed the singer, in a sort of good-natured passion, I
don't remember it. This isn't the next verse, I know it isn't; but I 'll
try.
“!Next day we offer'd it for sale,
Fal de ral lu ra li to la!
Unto an old woman that did sell ale,
Fal de ral lu ra la!
“Next day we offer'd it for sale
Unto an old woman that did sell ale,
But she 'd liked to have put us all in gaol,
Fal de ral lu ra la!
“There!” he exclaimed again, “I know no more if you 'd fee me to sing it,
so good b'ye to that, and be dang'd to it! as th' saying goes.” At the
same time the sound of a huge pot, bounced upon the table, bore good
evidence that the speaker had not allowed his elegant sentiment to pass
without due honour.
Mrs. Clink scarcely felt heart enough to face such a company as this
without some previous notice. She accordingly knocked at the door
somewhat loudly, whereupon every voice suddenly became silent, and
a scrambling sound ensued, as of the gathering up of weapons; or, as
though the individuals within were striving, upon the instant, to put
themselves, from a state of disorder, into a condition fitted for the
reception of any kind of company as might at such an hour chance to do
them the honour of a visit.
“Who's there?” cried a sharp voice inside the door, which Colin's mother
recognised as that of the landlady of the house. She applied her mouth
near the keyhole, and replied, “It's only me, Mrs. Mallory--only Anne
Clink. I want a bed to-night, if you can let me have one.”
“A bed!” repeated Mrs. Mallory. “This time o' night, and a bed! Sure
there's nobody else?”
Mrs. Clink satisfied the inquiries of the landlady in this particular,
and gave her very full assurances that no treachery was intended; still
farther giving her to understand that Longstaff, the steward, had turned
her out of house and home, late as it was, not an hour before. The bolt
was undrawn, and Mrs. Clink walked in. The first greeting she
received was from a dogged-looking savage, in a thick old velveteen
shooting-jacket, who sat directly opposite the door.
“It's well for you, missus, you aren't a gamekeeper, or I should have
put a leaden pill in your head afore this.” Saying which, he raised from
his side a short gun that had been held in readiness, and put it up the
sleeve of his coat,--to which its construction was especially adapted,
for security.
“Yes; we tell no tales here,” observed another: “a ditch in th' woods is
longer than th' longest tongue that ever spoke.”
“What, you think,” added the first speaker, “a crack on th' scull, and
two or three shovelfuls of dirt, soon stops a gabbler, do ye? Ay, by
Go'! you're right, lad, there; and so it does.”
An uncouth laugh, which went nearly round the company, at once evinced
their sense of the facetiousness of this remark, and showed the feeling
of indifference with which nearly all present regarded a remedy for
tale-telling of the kind here suggested; but, in the mean time, the
individual whose appearance in the house had elicited these remarks, had
been conducted, with her young charge, into a small inner room, where
we will leave her conversing with Mrs. Mallory, or preparing for very
needful rest, as the case may be. Scarcely, however, had she passed out
of hearing, before some inquiry was made by the ruffian who had first
spoken, and whose name, it may be observed, was David Shaw, as to the
family and genealogy of old Jerry Clink, “Because,” he observed, “this
woman called herself a Clink; and, as Jerry will be here to-night, I
thought they might be summut related.”
The explanation given by another of the company in reply, went on to
state that at the time when Jerry was doing well in business he had
two daughters, whom he brought up like two ladies: “But I thought there
would soon be an end of that,” continued the speaker, “and so there was.
The old man was getting on too fast by half; so that when his creditors
came on him, and he'd all this finery to pay for, he found he'd been
sailing in shallow water; and away he went off to prison. What became
of the gals I don't know exactly; but, if my memory be right, one of
'em died; and t' other was obliged to take up with a place in a
confectioner's shop. I don't know how true it is; but report said,
after that, that Mrs. Longstaff here, the steward's wife at th' hall,
persuaded her to go over as a sort of school-missis to her children;
though, if that had been the case, she could not have been coming to
such a house as this at twelve o'clock at night, and especially with two
of th' children along wi' her. Thou mun be mistaken, David, i' th' name,
I think.”
“Am I?” said David sourly; “then _I_ think not.”
A signal-sound near the door, in imitation of the crowing of a pheasant,
announced the arrival at this instant of old Jerry Clink. David drew the
bolt without stay or question, and the individual named walked in. Below
the middle height, and not remarkably elegant in shape, he still bore in
his features and carriage some traces of the phantom of a long-vanished
day of respectability. His habiliments, however, appeared, by their
condition, cut, and colour, to have been gathered at various periods
from as many corners of the empire, A huge snuff-coloured long coat,
originally made for a man as big again as himself, and which stood
round him like a sentry-box, matched very indifferently with a red plush
waistcoat adorned with blue glass buttons, which scarcely kissed the
band of his inexpressibles; while the latter, composed of broad-striped
corduroy, not unlike the impression of a rake on a garden-path,
hung upon his shrivelled legs in pleasing imitation of the hide of a
rhinoceros. Blue worsted stockings, and quarter-boots laced tightly
round his ankles with leathern thongs, completed the costume of the man.
Should the reader feel curious after a portrait of this gentleman,
we refer him to a profile which he will find prefixed to Conyers
Middleton's Life of Cicero, which bears no contemptible resemblance to
Jerry, save that it lacks the heavy weight of animal faculties in the
occipital region, which, in the head of our friend, seemed to toss the
scale of humanities in front up into the air.
“Well, how are you to-night,--all on you together?” asked Jerry, in
a tone of voice which Dr. Johnson himself might have envied, when he
brow-beat the very worst of his opponents, at the same time assisting
himself to about a drachm of snuff from a tin case drawn from his
coat-pocket, the contents of which he applied to his nasal organ by the
aid of a small ladle, turned out of a boar's tusk, much as a scavenger
might shovel dust into a cart. A general answer having been returned
that all were in good health.
“Well, well,” replied Jerry, “then tak' care to keep so, and mark I
clap that injunction on you. What the dickens should you go to make
yourselves badly for! Here, stand away.”
So saying, he pushed Mr. David Shaw on one side, and elbowed half a
dozen more on the other, as he strode forward towards the fire with the
sole but very important object of poking it. He then sat down upon a
seat that had purposely been vacated for him near the fire, and inquired
in the same surly tone, “What are you drinking?”
“Here's plenty of ale, Jerry,” replied David.
“Now, now,” objected Mr. Clink, “what are you going to insult me for?
Talk of ale!--you know I've tasted none now these thirteen year, and
shan't again, live as long as I will.--Mrs. Mallory, here, d 'ye hear!
bring me a glass of gin; and then, David,” giving that amiable character
a good-humoured poke under the right ribs, “you can pay for it if you
like.”
“Can I?” asked the person thus addressed, when he was suddenly cut short
by old Jerry.
“Nay, nay, now!--I shall appeal to the company,--I never asked you; so
don't go to say I did. Can you insure me four brace of birds and a few
good tench by to-morrow morning? 'Cause if you think you can, the sooner
you set about it, the sooner we shall get rid of you.”
“Well, I 'll try, Jerry, if you want 'em particular.”
“Particular or not particular, what's that to you? I give you an order,
and that, you'll admit, is the full extent of your business. Have
you been up to them woods close to the house since t'other night?” he
inquired; and, on being answered in the negative, thus continued,--“Then
go to-night; for I 've spread a report that 'll draw most of them that
you have to fear down into the valley; and there's plenty of time for
you to go, and to get home again before they find out the mistake.”
I need scarcely remind the reader that every part of this conversation
which related to the sports of the field, was carried on in a tone of
voice scarcely audible even half across the room, and also that the
door had been effectually secured, and the candles removed, some minutes
before the bell in Bramleigh tower struck twelve. For the accommodation,
however, of those who might have business to transact abroad after that
hour, there was a private outlet, known only to those in whom confidence
could be placed, at the back of the premises. By this door Mr. Shaw now
left, chanting, rather than singing, to himself as he left the room,
“We 'll hunt his game
Through field and brake;
His ponds we 'll net,
His fish we 'll take;
His woods we 'll scour
In nutting time;
And his mushrooms gather
At morning prime;
Since Nature gave--deny't who can--
These things in common to ev'ry man.”
“Ay, ay,” remarked old Jerry, as the man departed, “if every man
understood his trade as well as David does, there would be a good deal
more sport by night, and less by light, than there is: but every dog to
his varmint; he knows all the beasts of forest, beasts of chase, beasts
and fowls of warren, and the laws of them, as well as the best sportsman
in England that ever was, is, or will be.”
“But I 'll tell thee what he don't know,” remarked the same individual
who, prior to Mr. Clink's appearance, had given a brief sketch of the
last-named gentleman's previous career; “he don't know, any more nor
some o' the rest of us, whether or no there's any relations of yours
living up in this quarter?”
“Why, as to that,” replied Jerry, “if he 'd wanted to be informed
whether I had any relations here, and I had been in his company at the
time, I could have stated this here. My youngest daughter Anne, was sent
for by Mrs. Longstaff, wife to Squire Lupton's steward, considerably
above twelve months ago, to eddi-cate her children, and, to the best of
my knowledge, she's there yet. There is but one action of my life that
gives me anything like satisfaction to reflect on, and that is, I spared
neither expense nor trouble, when I had the means in my power, to fit
my children for something better in the world than I myself was born to.
And well it was I did so; or else, as things have come to this, and I'm
not quite so rich as I once was, I can't say what might have become
of them. What, wasn't it So-crates, the heathen philosopher, that
considered learning the best portion a man could bestow on his
children?”
“I don't know, I'm sure,” replied the other, “what he considered; but
if that's your daughter, and you don't know what's become of her, I can
tell you she _isn't_ at Mrs. Longstaff's now. Well, you may put your
pipe down, and look at me as hard as you like, but it will not alter the
truth. _I_ believe she's under this roof, in that back-room there, with
Mrs. Mallory, at this very minute.”
“Confound it!” exclaimed Jerry, rising and striding towards the door of
the room alluded to, “how is this? Foul play, my lads? By G! if there
is--” and, before the sentence was finished, he had walked in and closed
the door behind him. At that moment a faint shriek of surprise was heard
within, and a cry of--“Oh, father, father!”
The reader will perhaps readily see through the secret of all this
without my assistance. It may, nevertheless, not be without its use, if,
by way of summing up, I briefly state, that during the time the mother
of our hero was placed, as had been hinted in the previous conversation,
in a shop in the great manufacturing town of Leeds, her appearance had
attracted the attention of Mr. Lupton, when on his visits there in his
magisterial capacity, and that he had ingeniously contrived, with the
aid, counsel, and assistance of the complying Mr. Longstaff, to entice
her thence by the offer of a far better situation, in the capacity of
governess to the steward's children, than that of which she was already
in the enjoyment. When the consequences of the fatal error into which
she had been led became evident to herself, she instantly quitted Mr.
Longstaff's house; and, by the consent of Mr. Lupton, retired to a
cottage in the village. Here she maintained herself during some months
by the small profits of needlework, sent to her regularly from the hall;
and, in the vain hope of keeping secure the secret of her own bosom, she
had purposely forborne to acquaint any one of her friends of the cause
of the change which had taken place, or even of the change itself.
So far as the events of the night I am describing were concerned,
although Mrs. Mallory was perfectly well acquainted with all the
circumstances of the case, and also with the fact that the leading man
of the night-company who assembled during the season at her house was
Miss Clink's father, she had sufficient reasons, in the wish to keep
that unfortunate young woman's secret, to prevent her from discovering
to him any portion of her knowledge. The same feeling had caused
her also to conceal the fact from both father and daughter that
accident,--or misfortune rather,--had now brought them together under
the same roof.
After some time had elapsed, during which we may imagine the old man
was made fully acquainted with the situation in which his daughter was
placed, he re-entered the room where his companions were assembled.
“Lads!” said he, striking the table violently with his fist, while his
lips quivered as with an ague, and his eyes rolled with an expression of
unusual ferocity, “if I live to go to the gallows for it, old as I am, I
'll cool the blood of that man up at yonder hall for what he 's done to
me and mine! To go in there, and see that wench a mother before she is a
wife,--her character gone for ever,--ruined,--lost!--why, I say, sink
me to perdition this instant! if I don't redden his own hearthstone with
his own blood, though I wait for it to the last day of my life. As sure
as he sees the day, I'll make his children fatherless--I'll have my
knife in him!”
“Stop! stop! Mr. Clink!” cried Mrs. Mallory, laying her hand upon his
shoulder, “do cool yourself, and do not threaten so terribly.”
“Threaten!” he exclaimed; “I say you are as bad as them; and it is high
time somebody not only threatened, but did it.--What! isn't it enough
that I am ruined as a tradesman for ever, and compelled to this beggarly
night-work, in defiance of the laws, for the sake of a paltry existence,
not worth holding from one day to another? Isn't this, I say, enough,
but must our children be ruined, and shall we be degraded still lower
besides? What!--we are _poor_, are we?--and it does not matter because
a child is poor what becomes of her! Well, well, it may do for some of
_you_,--it may mix with your dastardly spirits very well; but _I_ am of
a different metal, lads. I never passed by an injury unrevenged yet;
and my memory has not yet got so bad as to let that man slip through it.
There's some men I should never forgive, if I lived a thousand years,
and some that I would lay my own life down to do five minutes' justice
on; but, above them, there is one shall never slip me, though I go the
world over after him!”
“Surrender! at the peril of your lives!” exclaimed a bluff coarse voice
behind them, while, to the almost speechless astonishment and dismay of
the company, the speaker advanced from a back doorway, discovering the
person of a giant-looking fellow, considerably above six feet in height,
clothed in a thick dress for the night air, armed with a long pistol in
each hand, and guarded by a ferocious mastiff at his side.
“Down with the lights, and defend yourselves, lads!” cried Jerry: “we
are betrayed!”
Almost before these words had passed his lips, half a dozen shots
whizzed at the intruder, several of which lodged in Mrs. Mallory's bacon
and hams, that hung from the ceiling of the room. One of the men on the
far side of the table fell from the second shot of the head keeper of
Kiddal, for he it was; while the dog he had brought with him attacked
with the ferocity of a tiger old Jerry himself, who by this time
had drawn a knife nearly nine inches long from his pocket, and stood
prepared in the middle of the room for the reception of his four-footed
antagonist. Meanwhile, five or six other keepers rushed into the room
to aid their leader. Filled with smoke, as the place was, from the
discharge of fire-arms, it became almost impossible to distinguish
friends from foes. The lights were extinguished, the fire threw out only
a dull red light upon the objects immediately contiguous to it, and the
momentary glare of discharged guns and pistols alone enabled each party
to distinguish, as by a lightning flash, the objects of their mutual
enmity. At the same time the fierce howling of, the dog, mingled
with the terrific and thick-coming curses of old Jerry, as those two
combatants rolled together upon the floor in fearful contention for the
mastery, together with the shrieks of the two women on the stairs, made
up a chorus too dismal almost for the region of purgatory itself.
[Illustration: 137]
In the midst of this, succour arrived for the invaded party in the
person of no less a hero than Mr. David Shaw. In a state of exasperation
amounting almost to frenzy, that individual rushed into the house,
crying out as he impetuously advanced, “Where is she?--where is
she?”--the idea that Mrs. Clink had purposely betrayed them being alone
uppermost in his mind. Making his way, as if instinctively, towards
the stairs, he beheld something like the figure of a woman standing
three or four steps above him, for the light was not sufficient to
discover more. A plunge with his right hand, which grasped a common
pocket-knife, was the work of an instant, and the landlady of the
house--for he had mistaken his object--fell with a dead weight under
the blow. At the same instant the fingers of his right hand became fast
bound, and the blood ran down his arm in a bubbling stream. Instead of
doing the murder he intended, the knife blade had struck backwards, and
closed tightly upon the holder, so that three of his fingers and the
fleshy part of the thumb were gashed through to the bone. Regardless
of this, he extricated his hand, cast the knife fiercely amongst the
combatants, and fell to the attack in right good earnest.
Pope, if I recollect aright, very highly extols some of those similes
which Perrault describes as similes with a long tail, introduced by the
greatest of epic poets into his descriptions of the combats between
the Trojans and the Greeks, In humble imitation, then, of Homer, let me
proceed to say, that as a platoon of maggots on a cheese-plate contend
with violent writhings of the body for superiority, as they overrun each
other, and alternately gain the uppermost place, or roll ingloriously to
the bottom in the ambitious strife for mastery;--so did the preservers
and the destroyers of game in the parlour of the poacher's ken mingle
together in deadly strife, amidst the fall of tables and the wreck of
kegs.
Securely seated, after the struggles of an unequal war, old Jerry Clink
might now, by the aid of some friendly candle, have been seen reposing
himself between the legs of a round table, his countenance and hands
so deeply besmeared with blood as to give him all the grimness of a
red Indian squatting after the operation of scalping, the huge mastiff
stretched before him, with its head bruised until its features were not
discernible, and a gaping wound behind the left fore-leg, into which had
been introduced the weapon that had let out his life; while around lay
strewn in confusion the fragments and ribands of nearly every portion of
dress that Mr. Clink had previously worn. Nothing was left of his large
snuff-coloured coat, save the collar and a small portion of the upper
ends of the arms; his red waistcoat lay in twenty pieces around; and his
unmentionables hung about him like the shattered bark of some old
tree, that has been doomed to experience the lacerating power of a
lightning-stroke. Jerry could do no more. He saw David Shaw, after
a desperate struggle, worthy of a more noble cavalier, subdued, and
pinioned like a market-fowl across the back, without the power to make
even an effort in his favour; while of the remaining portion of his men
some had made their escape, and the rest, having exhausted their means
of defence, were surrendering at discretion.
“Well, if I could I would not leave you, lads,” thought Jerry, as he
witnessed the defeat of his companions,--“I've stood by you in good, and
I 'll stand by you in evil. Sooner than be guilty of a mean action like
that, I'd do as the great Cato did, and fall upon my own pocket-knife.
Here,” he cried in a loud voice, addressing himself to the head
gamekeeper, “here, you big brute! pick me up, will you? I'm going along
with all the rest.”
“I know that,” responded the individual thus addressed, with an allusion
to Mr. Clink's eyes, which would not have benefited them, if carried
into effect, quite so materially as might a pinch of Grimston's snuff;
“I'll take care of you soon enough, old chap, trust me for that.”
So saying, he cast a cord round Jerry's body, binding his arms to his
sides; an operation which the latter underwent with the most heroic
fortitude and good will. Not so, however, with the next proceeding;
for the gamekeeper, having by this time discovered the carcass of his
murdered dog under the table, seized hold of the loose end of the rope
with which Jerry was tied, and fell to belabouring him without mercy.
The remaining portion of his confederates being now secured in two
bunches of three and four respectively, the whole were marched off under
a strong escort of their conquerors, to a lock-up in the village, where
they remained under guard all night; two or three hours of this time
being expended in a hot dispute between Jerry and David Shaw, upon the
point whether Mrs. Anne Clink did, or did not, wilfully and maliciously
betray them into the hands of their enemies.
That individually she was innocent, the reader is fully aware; although,
in reality, she still had been the unconscious cause of all the
disasters that had occurred. No sooner had she left her house on this
eventful night, as described at the conclusion of a preceding chapter,
than Mr. Longstaff, being conscious that he had stretched his authority
too far, appointed his assistant, the constable, to steal out, and
trace her footsteps wherever she might go, until he found her in a
resting-place for the night; since, by this precaution, the steward
would be enabled, in case of need, to find her again at any moment he
might think proper. The constable discharged his commission so well,
that he carried back a great deal more than he went for; and not
only reported the lodging which Mistress Clink had taken up, but also
discovered that a number of poachers, as he believed, against whom he
had long held a warrant granted for offences against the game-laws, were
there and then assembled in mischievous cogitation, as he had actually
seen one of them emerge from a pigsty at the back of the premises. To be
able to detect the unfortunate woman whom he had deprived of a home, in
the very act of patronising a house of poachers upon the squire's manor,
was the very thing for Mr. Longstaff. He lost no time in informing
the guardians of the woods what a pretty garrison might be taken
by surprise; and they, in accordance with that information, and the
direction of the constable, accordingly advanced to the attack with the
success which has already been related.
The injury sustained by Mrs. Mallory when knocked down on the staircase
was not very material; nor did she feel it half so much as the
additional one inflicted on her by the magistrates, when she was, some
short time after, called up and fined ten pounds for the share she had
taken in this little business. Longstaff struggled hard to involve Mrs.
Clink in the same difficulty, on the plea that she had aided and abetted
Mrs. Mallory either in having game in her possession, or in eating
it. He failed, however, to make out a case; and as the squire entirely
disapproved of the step he had taken in breaking up Mrs. Clink's
house, the steward had the additional mortification of hearing himself
commanded not only to reinstate her therein, but also to make ample
restitution for the loss and misery he had occasioned to her.
In conclusion of this chapter, and of the events recorded therein, I may
briefly observe, that, early on the following morning, old Jerry Clink,
and seven of his associates, were conveyed to the castle at York; and
that, after soliloquizing there during some weeks, they underwent their
trial. Now, if any man can escape an infringement of the game-laws,
especially if accompanied by violence, he can escape anything--in
the items of burglary, manslaughter, and arson, he may be considered
invulnerable. They all were found guilty: and, while some of the lesser
offenders were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment at home, Mr.
David Shaw and Jerry Clink were accommodated with a fourteen years'
residence in New South Wales. This judgment served only to sharpen the
fangs of Jerry's resentment; but as revenge is a commodity which like
Thorn's Tally-Ho Sauce, may be warranted to keep in all climates with
equal freshness, Jerry not only carried his resentment out with him, and
preserved it while abroad, but likewise brought it back again, for the
purpose of making use of it after his return to his own country.