_Though short, would yet be found, could it be measured by time, nearly
fifteen years long. Colin Clink's boyhood and character. A trap is laid
for him by Mr. Longstaff, into which his mother lets him fall: with
other matters highly essential to be told._
Had not the days of omens and prognostications in great part passed
by at the enlightened period in which our story commences, it would
inevitably have been prophesied that the child, by whose very birth the
passions of jealousy and revenge had been so strongly excited, and
which had gone far to cloud the mind of the lady of Kiddal House, was
predestined to create no common stir when he became a man. In that
little vessel, it would have been contended, was contained a large
measure of latent importance; although, contrary to the most approved
and authentic cases of this nature, neither mark, spot, mole, nor even
pimple, was to be found upon him; no strawberry on his shoulder, no
cherry on his neck, no fairy's signet on his breast, by which the Fates
are sometimes so obliging as to signify to anxious mothers the future
eminence of their sons, or to stamp their identity. But, in the absence
of all or any of these, he was gifted with that which some people
consider of almost as much importance amongst the elements of future
greatness,--an amount of brain which would have rejoiced the late Dr.
Spurzheim, and put sweetness into the face of Gall himself.
During the earlier years of his childhood, Master Colin did not display
anything uncommon, if I except the extraordinary talent he developed in
the consumption of all kinds of edible commodities, whereby, I firmly
believe, he laid the foundation of that excellent figure in which he
appeared after arriving at the age of manhood. Sometimes, when his
mother was in a mood prospective and reflective, she would look upon him
with grief, and almost wish him appetiteless; but Colin stared defiance
in her face as he filled his mouth with potatoes, and drank up as much
milk as would have served a fatting calf.
Reinstated in the habitation where Colin was born, his mother eventually
established a little shop, containing nearly everything, in a small way,
that the inhabitants of such a locality could require. A bag of flour,
a tub of oatmeal, and half a barrel of red herrings, stood for show
directly opposite the door. A couple of cheeses, and a keg of butter,
adorned the diminutive counter. Candles, long and short, thick and
thin, dangled from the ceiling; half a dozen long brushes and mops stood
sentry in one corner; and in and about the window was displayed a varied
collection of pipes, penny loaves, tobacco, battledores, squares of
pictures twenty-four for a halfpenny, cotton-balls, whipcord, and red
worsted nightcaps. In this varied storehouse, with poor pale little
Fanny for his nurse, until he grew too big for her any longer to carry
him, did our hero Colin live and thrive. After he had found his own
legs, his nurse became his companion; and many a time, as he grew
older,--pitying her hungry looks, and solemn-looking eyes,--has he
stolen out with half his own meals in his pinafore, on purpose to give
them unseen to her who, he thought, wanted them more than he. But in
time the little shop was to be minded, and Fanny had grown up enough to
attend to it. Colin missed his companion in the fields, and therefore
he too stayed more at home; and never felt more happy than when,--his
mother's daily lessons being ended,--he hurried into the shop, and found
something that he could do to help Fanny in her service.
Possibly it might arise from the bitterness of her own reflections upon
the evils and the misery resulting from the insincerity and deception
so common amongst every class of society, that Mrs. Clink very early and
emphatically impressed upon the mind of her boy the necessity of being,
above all things, candid and truth-telling, regardless of whatever might
be the consequences. Disadvantages, she knew, must accompany so unusual
a style of behaviour; but then, she said to herself, “Let him but carry
it out through life, and, if no other good come of it but this, it will
far outbalance all the rest,--that, by him at least, no other young
heart will be destroyed, as mine has been. No lasting misery will by
him be entailed on the confiding and the helpless, under the promise of
protection: no hope of the best earthly happiness be raised in a
weak heart, only to be broken, amidst pain, and degradation, and
self-reproach, that has no end except with life. If I can bring up but
one such man, thus pure in heart and tongue, I shall die in the full
consciousness that, whatever my own errors may have been, I have left
behind me one in the world far better than any I have found there!”
And so Master Colin was tutored on all occasions to think as correctly
as he could, and then to say what he thought, without fear, or hope of
favour.
While Colin year after year thus continued to advance towards that
period when he should finally peck his way through the shell of his
childhood, and walk out unfledged into the world, his career did not
pass unmarked by that ancient enemy of his mother, Longstaff, the
steward. Wherever that worthy went, he was doomed, very frequently, to
hear the name of young Master Clink alluded to in terms which, in the
inner man of Mr. Longstaff, seemed to throw even the cleverest of his
own little Longstaffs at home totally in the rear. Colin was a daring
fellow, or a good-hearted fellow, or a comical lad, who promised to
turn out something more than common; while Master Chatham Bolinbroke
Longstaff, and Miss Æneasina Laxton Longstaff, the most promising
pair of the family, were no more talked about, save by himself, Mrs.
Longstaff, and the servants, than they would have been had they never
honoured society with their presence. The annoyance resulting to Mr.
Longstaff from this comparison was rendered more bitter in consequence
of the formerly alleged, but now universally disowned, relationship
between himself and our hero. He could not endure that the very child
whose mother had endeavoured to cast disgrace upon him, and whom he
hated on that account with intense hatred, should thus not only, as it
were, exalt poverty above riches, but overtop intellectually in their
native village as fine a family as any Suffolk grazier could wish to
see. Mr. Longstaff determined, at length, to use his utmost exertions in
order to rid the village of him; and, the better to effect his object,
he endeavoured, by descending to meannesses which would not have graced
anybody half so well as himself, to worm himself again into the good
opinion of Colin's mother, by pretending that the doctrine of forget and
forgive was not only eminently Christian and pious in itself, but that
also, if it were not to be continually acted upon, and practically
carried out, the various members of society might have nothing else to
do but to be at endless war with one another. Though he had at one time
certainly regarded Mrs. Clink as a very great enemy, he yet wished to
let by-gones be by-gones; and, as she had had such a misfortune, if he
could be of any benefit to her in putting the boy out when he was old
enough, he should not refuse his services. Now, although the spirit of
Mrs. Clink only despised this man for his conduct from first to
last, she yet reflected that the benefit of Colin was her highest
consideration; and that any help which might be extended to her for him
ought not to be refused, however much she might dislike the hand that
gave it.
An opening accordingly appeared to the prophetic eye of Mr. Longstaff,
not only for ridding the parish of one whose presence he could not
tolerate, but also of accommodating him with a situation where he would
have the satisfaction of reflecting that Colin would both sleep on
thorns, and wake to pass his days in no garden of roses. He would lower
his crest for him,--he would take the spirit out of him,--he would
contrive to place him where he should learn on the wrong side of his
mouth how to make himself the talk of a town, while the children of his
superiors were passed by as though they had neither wealth, quality, nor
talent to recommend them; and, in doing this, he should at the same time
be paying with compound interest the debt he owed to Colin's mother.
Such were the steward's reflections, when he found that the bait he
hung out had been taken by Mrs. Clink, and that he should, at the first
convenient opportunity, have it wholly in his power to dispose of Master
Colin Clink after the best fashion his laudable wish for vengeance might
suggest.
How Mr. Longstaff' planned and succeeded in his design, and what kind
of people Master Colin got amongst, together with certain curious
adventures which befel him in his new situation, will be related in the
ensuing chapter, as it is imperative upon me to conclude the present
with some reference to the proceedings of the parties whom we left in
trouble at the old hall of Kiddal.
When Dr. Rowel had fully attended to the wants of his unfortunate
patient, Miss Shirley seized the earliest opportunity to make an earnest
inquiry of him as to Mrs. Lupton's state, and the probabilities of her
speedy recovery.
“Oh, she will soon be better--much better!” encouragingly exclaimed
the doctor. “A slight delirium of this kind is easily brought on by
excitement; but it is only temporary. There is no organic disease
whatever. We shall not have the least occasion to think of removing her
to _my establishment_,--not the least. Mrs. Lupton is constitutionally
very sensitive; but she is not a subject in any way predisposed to
mental affliction. The course of my practice has led me to make perhaps
a greater amount of observation on diseases of this peculiar description
than could be found amongst all the other medical men in England put
together. I do not hesitate at all to state that, because I _know it_
to be the fact; and I have invariably remarked, that amongst the
great majority of insane persons that have been under my care, and
no practitioner could have had more, there is a peculiarity,--a
difference,--an organic something or other, which,--I am as much
convinced of as of my own existence,--might have been perceptible to a
clever man at the period of their very earliest mental development, and
which marked them out, if I may so say, to become at one period or other
of their lives inmates of such establishments as this extensive one of
mine at Nabbfield. But the good lady of this house has nothing whatever
of that kind about her. I pronounce her to be one of the very last
persons who could require, for permanent mental affections, the care,
restraint, and assiduous attentions, only to be obtained in a retreat
where the medical adviser is himself a permanent resident. The course of
treatment I am adopting will soon bring her about again,--very soon. But
I must beg you will be so kind as to take care that she is kept quiet,
and--and prevent her as much as possible from conversing on painful or
exciting subjects,” concluded the doctor, smiling very sweetly as he
looked into Miss Shirley's eyes and profoundly bowed her a good night.
“That fellow is a quack,” thought Miss Shirley, as she returned to Mrs.
Lupton's chamber. “There is, as he says, _an organic something_ about
_him_ that renders him very repulsive to me; and, if nothing worse come
of him than we have had to-night, it will be a great deal more than his
appearance promises.”
Thus thinking, she threw herself into an easy-chair by her friend's
bedside, and remained watching her attentively through the night.
However much of a quack the doctor might be, his opinion respecting Mrs.
Lupton's recovery proved to be correct. In the course of a few weeks she
might have been seen, as formerly, for hours together, with slow steps,
and a deep-seated expression of melancholy, pacing the gardens and woods
of Kiddal, regardless almost of times and seasons. Though now perfectly
recovered, her recent illness formed a very plausible pretext on which
to found reasons for hastening her again away from her home; for that
she was an unwelcome tenant there will readily be believed from the
facts already related.
One day, after a private consultation with the squire, Dr. Rowel
suddenly discovered that it would prove materially beneficial to the
health of the lady of Kiddal were she to exchange for some time the
dull monotonous life of the gloomy old hall, for the more gay and
spirit-stirring society of some busy city. He therefore impressed upon
her, as a condition absolutely indispensable to a perfectly restored
tone of the mind, the necessity under which she lay of residing for a
while in or about the metropolis. Mrs. Lupton soon mentioned the subject
again to her friend Miss Shirley.
“It has been proposed to me,” said she, “to leave this place, and
reside a while in London. I know the reason well--I feel it in my heart
bitterly. I have been here too long, Mary. My picture on the wall is
quite enough--he does not want _me_; but it is of no use to complain: I
shall be as happy there as I am here, or here as I should be there. The
time that I spend here seems to me only like one long thought of the
hour, whether it come soon or late, when all that I endure shall be
at an end. The only thing I love here, Mary, is that sweet little
churchyard,--it looks _so_ peaceful! When I am away, my only wish is
that of returning, though why I should wish to return appears strange.
But I cannot help it,--I know not how it is; but while I am alive, Mary,
it seems as though I must haunt what ought to be my place, whether I
will or not. Welcome or unwelcome, loved or hated, I feel that I am
still a wife.”
Her unresisting spirit accordingly gave way to the proposed arrangement
without a murmur, and, with the exception of one or two brief visits
which she made during the summer season to her unhappy home, she
remained, for the time of which I have spoken, living apart, as though
formally separated from her husband, during a lengthened period of some
years. Under these circumstances, her friend Miss Shirley continued
almost constantly with her, diverting her mind as much as possible
from the subject which poisoned the happiness of her whole life, and
supporting her in sorrow, when to divert reflection was no longer
possible.