WOODBURN GRANGE.

WOODBURN GRANGE.

A Story of English Country Life.

BY

WILLIAM HOWITT.


IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.


LONDON:
CHARLES W. WOOD, 13, TAVISTOCK ST., STRAND.
1867.

[ Right of Translation reserved. ]

LONDON:
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

CHAPTER I.

THE MURDER AT THE FERRY.

The circumstances related in our last chapter fearfully aggravated the state of things which had now continued two years: a year after the unfortunate visit of Miss Heritage to London, and nearly ten months after the embarkation of Dr. Leroy for India. The breach between Mr. Trant Drury and Mr. Leonard Woodburn, as well as that between different members of the community, had steadily grown wider and more irrevocable. The irritation of Mr. Woodburn against Mr. Drury had become thus more deeply intensified. As to Mr. Drury himself, [Pg 2] he would never seem to recognise any cause of offence between them. He would always accost Mr. Woodburn, when they met, in a somewhat brusque manner, intended to be friendly, though he seldom obtained more than a “good day” from him, and a steady passing on. These occasions of cursory speech, in fact, generally added some fresh touch of irritation to Mr. Woodburn. He regarded this nonchalant and unabashed manner of Mr. Drury’s, when he knew the many offences he had given him, as fresh offence, and proof of a hard and impudent character of mind. Yet, in truth, they were only the result of Mr. Drury’s peculiar temperament, who meant no offence, but only the assertion of what, to him, were unimpeachable truths, that people ought to accept, and, sooner or later, must accept. To Mr. Woodburn, however, the position of Mr. Drury, as a man in much intercourse with the class of gentry round who were so antagonistic [Pg 3] to all the political views of himself and most highly esteemed friends, added a deeper feeling to his dislike.

A more painful state of things cannot be conceived. To George Woodburn and Elizabeth Drury it was a state of perpetual torture. Mr. Woodburn wished George to take a house somewhere not far off, get married, and manage the paternal property. He named to him a handsome income, which he would appropriate to him; but George knew that at such a wedding his father would never meet Mr. Drury, and to such a scandal neither he nor Elizabeth would consent. George proposed to take a farm in some distant county, and to be married at some distant place quietly, but he saw that this caused his parents great pain, and though Mr. Drury was quite ready to acquiesce in this plan, George hesitated to take this only possible step for peace.

Such was the state of things when hay-harvest [Pg 4] came round again. Every one thought of that hay-field fête three years ago, at which Mrs. Heritage had foreseen such glooms. And greatly had these fallen. On Fair Manor itself they had fallen. Dr. Leroy had been enveloped by them, and was on the other side the globe, all his fair prospects blighted. Thorsby was away in the wilds of America. Letters to both Mr. Barnsdale and his wife had informed them that he had succeeded in putting his goods in New York into the hands of the house which apprised him of his agent’s elopement; a house with which he had had considerable and satisfactory transaction; that he was starting on the trail of the delinquent, who had gone away in company with a lady, and that he meant to pursue him to the utmost. Since then, only one or two letters had been received from him from the far interior, detailing his still hopeless pursuit, but undiminished determination to persevere to the [Pg 5] last. Letty was bravely working on with the business in Castleborough. Mrs. Thorsby was dead: and little Leonard, growing every day more interesting, was the great consolation of Letty’s life. Over Woodburn Grange lay a dark cloud of care and mortification, only relieved by the marriage of Ann and Sir Henry Clavering, which was at last fixed for the commencement of August, and was to be followed by a tour on the continent.

Once more July brought hay-time. The weather had been cloudy and still, and thus unfavourable to the drying of the hay. One morning Mr. Woodburn was with his work-people in the very hill-field in which the memorable hay-field fête had been held. He was standing, leaning on a rake, just above the hollow road leading down to the river ferry. The wild roses and eglantine flower-bunches were breathing sweetly from one of those luxuriant fences which Mr. Drury desired [Pg 6] to see cut down to a short and rigid ugliness. The hay-makers were driving the hay from beneath the large shadow of hedgerow trees up the side of the field, into the middle, to give it more air and sun, if the sun should look out. At this moment Mr. Drury himself came riding down the lane. “Ah! my friend,” he said; “now you see the nuisance of these tall hedges and trees. You cannot get an atom of sun or breeze to your hay, and you must, with much extra labour, force it into the centre of the field. Even there it will still feel the effect of these barriers against free circulation of air and light.”

Mr. Woodburn showed instantly his great irritation. The blood rushed into his face, and with a dark, stern expression he said, “Mr. Drury, this is insolence—this is intolerable. When I need your advice I will ask for it;” and with that he turned away. Mr. Drury rode on, only saying, with a sort of [Pg 7] half laugh of triumph, “Well, good morning, Woodburn.”

“Is there no good fortune,” said Mr. Woodburn, unguardedly, as he turned away, “which will turn up to rid this country of that nuisance of a man, of his cursed pride, and conceited meddling with everybody’s business?” He began working away with his rake, and it might be seen for a long time after that he was still thinking on this mal-à-propos salutation of Mr. Drury.

Four days later Mr. Woodburn returned home to tea. He had been across Wink’s Ferry, to his hay meadows on the other side the river, where he had many people at work. The weather had cleared up, and a more lovely evening never lay calmly shining over the summer earth. Mrs. Woodburn had the tea set out in the arbour in the garden, and she and her husband, George and Ann, were quietly enjoying it, and the sweetness of the garden around. The bees were [Pg 8] humming on the sunlit flowers, the sulphur and red butterflies were wavering here and there in the clear air; the roses and wallflowers, after the late shadowy weather and occasional showers, were pouring forth their delicious odours, which came wafted in at door and window of the summer-house.

George and his father were talking of the harvest, and of the arrangements for carrying the hay on the morrow, and the number of people who should be at work in the home fields, and the number in the meadows over the river, when, at once, came Betty Trapps, running like a maniac, from the house. Her face was a face of death in hue and terror. Her eyes seemed starting from her head.

“Mester! Mester! George!” she cried, wildly, shriekingly. “There’s Mester Drury’s horse gone up the village, all over wet and sludge, with his saddle turned, the reins under his feet; and there’s a cry Mr. Drury’s drowned!”

[Pg 9]

“Oh, Mercy!” exclaimed the ladies, starting up in horror. “Oh! God have mercy, and send it be not so!”

George ran headlong from the place, and Mr. Woodburn followed him, saying, “Be quiet, women! be quiet! it is only a fancy. I saw Mr. Drury but half an hour ago, at a distance, among his haymakers. He may be thrown, but not drowned.”

George meantime was out in front of the house, and saw several men trying to stop the horse, which was evidently much excited. “Stop him!” cried George. “Don’t let the horse run to the farm, it will cause the ladies such fright!”

He was glad to see that the men had succeeded in seizing the fallen reins. They patted and soothed the alarmed horse, and brought him back. George saw that he had evidently had a violent struggle in the river. He was covered with mud and gravel. The saddle was turned under his chest, and was [Pg 10] torn and scratched. The poor horse trembled with terror in every limb. George bade the man put it into the stable, and wash and clean it well; and he sent another man up the road to prevent anyone carrying the news to Bilts’ Farm till the reality was known. He then ran down to the Ferry. There were already several men and women there as well as Mr. Woodburn. The ferry-boat was drawn to this side of the river, but it betrayed no marks of any kind which could clear up the mystery. Mr. Drury was nowhere to be seen; but on searching down the bank to a little distance, the place was found where the horse had reached it, evidently from the river, and had struggled his way up it to the land.

“Did no one see what took place at the boat when Mr. Drury came over?” said Mr. Woodburn. “I came over myself only half an hour ago, and then Mr. Drury was with his people in the meadow on horseback.”

No one had seen it. The people present [Pg 11] were his own people, who had seen the horse come galloping up the lane by the hill-field from the ferry, and some had gone to stop the horse, and some ran down here. Soon there were many other people assembled. Those in the meadow had caught the rumour, and there was a general running to the ferry. The river was hunted down on both sides to some distance, but without effect. The ferry-boat was then loosed from the chain, poles were cut to steer it by, and a careful search was made down the stream, George Woodburn assisting most anxiously in the exploration, whilst the rest of the crowd accompanied the boat along each bank. Long was the search, but in vain; but, on pushing the boat up the stream again, and within five yards of the ferry, it struck on something soft, and, on looking into the clear water, it was seen to be the body of Mr. Drury. Great was the horror at the discovery. Several men jumped into the stream, [Pg 12] which was shallow, and drew forth the corpse, and laid it streaming on the boat. What a sight was that! The well-known tall figure of Mr. Drury, in his well-known blue lapelled coat, pale yellow waistcoat, kerseymere small-clothes, and smart top-boots. His riding-whip was still clenched in his right hand.

“Is it possible, then,” asked Mr. Woodburn, “that no one saw anything of this sad catastrophe? Was no one about when Mr. Drury came to the ferry?” Not a soul had seen him at the ferry; not a soul had been seen about it at the time. “They saw Mr. Woodburn go to the ferry,” the haymakers said, “and in awhile after, Mr. Drury ride towards the ferry, too. That was all that they knew.”

“It is very strange,” said Mr. Woodburn. “The question is, how it can have happened? Can the horse have taken alarm as Mr. Drury was pulling at the chain, and kicked him, or pushed him in by backing? A doctor must be fetched in all haste. He [Pg 13] cannot revive him, but he may throw some light on the mysterious occurrence. The body must not be moved till he comes, nor anything about him touched.”

A guard of trusty men was set over the body and boat, and George Woodburn went off to fetch the doctor. The character of the men set over the body on the boat, which was put off to midstream, and the number of spectators on each bank, was sufficient guarantee that no interference with the corpse would take place. Mr. Woodburn, therefore, slowly returned homewards. George, meantime, had ordered his horse, and, with a heart overwhelmed with grief and consternation, had gone to his mother and sister, who were in a condition not to be described.

“But,” said George, “there is a duty that some one must perform—a—a terrible duty; it is to break this awful event to the Drurys. I confess that I am unequal to it, and I must away for the doctor. You, [Pg 14] dear mother and sister, cannot bear it.” Both the ladies shook their heads and groaned in agony. “No, no,” said Ann, “impossible.” There was but one person whom George could think of to perform this awful duty, and it must be done at once, or it would reach Bilts’ Farm by a side way—it was Betty Trapps. But Betty at first stoutly refused; she was herself lost in tears and prayers, and said she would sooner be drowned too than carry such ill-tidings. But when she saw George’s distress she said, “Well, what must be, must be,” and at once put on her bonnet and shawl and set out. Betty walked on, wrapped up in her trouble, and making one long prayer the whole way; but how she did it and how she bore it she said afterwards she did not know, but one thing she did know, that nothing should ever induce her to do such an errand, and see such a stunning misery burst upon innocent, loving heads again.

[Pg 15]

The news of such an event flies fast, and when the doctor came with George from Castleborough, for there was none nearer, there was a great crowd of men, women, and children surrounding the ferry, and a hundred different speculations were passing from mouth to mouth as to the catastrophe George Woodburn’s horse showed, by his reeking skin and panting flanks, at what a rate he had ridden, and the doctor’s smoking horse at what a rate they had returned.

A solemn silence fell over the crowd as the doctor and George walked through it, and beckoning the boat to the shore, entered upon it, and then had it put back a little from the bank again. The doctor had the drowned man’s vest opened; no wound or bruise was apparent; he drew off his hat, which still, though battered down, was upon his head. A gush of congealing blood followed it, and the hair was matted with gore.

“There is the mischief,” said the surgeon. [Pg 16] He had a large basin of water brought, washed the head well, and examined it.

“By whatever done,” he said, “the blow is behind. Can it be a kick from his horse? I think not. It does not show the cut of the sharp edge of a horse-shoe, but looks like the blow of some blunt instrument, or of a cudgel. Can he have struck his head in falling on the edge of the boat?” He shook his head thoughtfully. “I think not: but let us examine his pockets; that may indicate whether there has been any robbery in the case.”

That the watch of the deceased had not been taken was evident to them all. It was still attached to its gold chain, and in the fob of his small-clothes waistband, as watches were then worn. From his coat pockets were produced his handkerchief, his spectacles, a knife of many blades, comb, and other things. There was found gold and silver untouched in his purse, and in the breast-pocket his [Pg 17] pocket-book, containing some bank-notes of high value, and two or three acceptances just coming due, as if he had put them in his pocket to go to the bank to receive their contents.

“Nothing here,” said the doctor, “warrants the suspicion of any robbery; the thing is a mystery which time and inquiry may clear up. The body must be conveyed to the Grey Goose public-house for the inspection of the inquest to-morrow; let an exact list of the articles found upon the body be made, and kept by Mr. George Woodburn, and I will produce these, the money, purse, pocket-book, watch, &c., to the coroner to-morrow.”

With that the doctor and George Woodburn returned to the village. The doctor took his leave, and the body, laid on a door and covered with a bed-quilt, was carried to the public-house, followed by the silent crowd.

It may be imagined what a sensation this event created, not only in Woodburn but in [Pg 18] the country far round, and also in Castleborough. Mr. Trant Drury had made himself a man of too much mark to pass out of the world in this sudden and mysterious manner without producing a great shock in the public mind, and the circumstances of his death were too peculiar not to excite the faculties of wonder and curiosity in an extreme degree.

The coroner and doctor duly appeared at the Grey Goose about eleven o’clock the next day. A jury was got together from amongst the neighbouring farmers, including Mr. Howell Crusoe, the schoolmaster, as a man of superior intelligence. All the circumstances already related were reviewed, the doctor produced the purse, watch, pocket-book, &c., and gave his view as to the wound on the back of the head not being made by a kick of the horse; a thorough examination of the corpse showed no other injury. The jury then adjourned to the ferry, examined the [Pg 19] boat, the bank where the horse had got out of the river, and had the spot pointed out to them where the body was found in it, which was still marked by a pole which one of the men thrust down at the time.

On the return to the Grey Goose, the evidence of Mr. Woodburn, of George Woodburn, and a number of the hay-makers, both from the hill-field and from beyond the river, was taken, all of which went only to show that nothing more was known than that Mr. Drury was seen alive and quite well in the hay-fields till about half an hour after Mr. Woodburn left the same meadow and passed over the same ferry. No one had witnessed the crossing, at least no one who could be found or heard of, and there were no evidences of any robbery having been perpetrated. The occurrence had taken place on a fine, bright, calm evening of July. The coroner asked whether any one was known to have any feud or had evinced any spirit [Pg 20] of resentment towards Mr. Drury. Perhaps not a man there who was of the neighbourhood into whose mind did not flash at that question the fact that Mr. Woodburn was known to have a great dislike to Mr. Drury, and the labourers in the hill-field thought of the words of Mr. Woodburn but four days previously, namely, querying why some good fortune did not remove that troublesome man from the neighbourhood, attended with expressions of great vexation; but that Mr. Woodburn, that man of ancient honour and quiet virtues, should have had any hand in such an atrocity was an idea too wild to be dwelt upon. All were silent on that head. The jury continued in discussion on the cause of Mr. Drury’s death, and yet, at length, swayed by the words used by the surgeon, came to a verdict of “Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.”

It is impossible for any pen to describe the deep and strange feeling which rested on the [Pg 21] people, both gentle and simple, in the country round and in Castleborough on this sad and mysterious event. The violent death of so strong and active a man as Mr. Trant Drury, in passing that quiet ferry, never before stained by any human blood or witness to any human crime, on one of the loveliest evenings of summer, in brightest sunshine, and within a few hundred yards of Woodburn village. It would be equally impossible to express the great distress which existed within Woodburn Grange—the still more agonising and horrified affliction of the wife and daughter of the deceased. Vast crowds assembled to witness the funeral of the man so lately in fullest life, and a strange shiver of mysterious awe and wonder seemed to hang over the whole assembly, and as these crowds dispersed, to fall more profoundly on Woodburn and its neighbouring fields. Immediately after the funeral, Elizabeth Drury and her mother left Bilts’ Farm, and went to [Pg 22] reside amongst their relatives in Yorkshire. Sad and silent was their departure. Elizabeth wrote short and most affecting notes of adieu to her dear friends—the Woodburns and the Heritages—saying that they could not bear to see any whom they loved so much. Yet George and Elizabeth had had a most heartrending interview, and he had begged earnestly and passionately that they would not give up the idea of some day, when their feelings were more calm, coming once more amongst them. He offered to overlook the farm, left in the hands of the bailiff, till they should determine ultimately what to do; and so it was left.

After this, a calm seemed to fall on the neighbourhood and over this event; but this calm was only apparent. The subject was discussed everywhere,—in the Grey Goose amongst its evening circle; in the fields and woods by the workmen; in the cottages amongst the women; at the smithy, at Job [Pg 23] Latter’s, where the patriarchs of the village often congregated to talk with him whilst he modelled a horse-shoe, or sharpened a ploughshare or a pick. But no inquiries, nor all the talk on the affair, had thrown, after many weeks, a single ray of light upon it. The doctor’s opinion that there had been foul play in the matter seemed to be finally that of every one, but no one had seen any person or persons about the ferry at that time. The subject was agitated in the neighbourhood, and a reward of two hundred pounds was offered by the family for the discovery of the supposed murderer or murderers. To this the Government, at the representation of the lord-lieutenant of the county, added another hundred. The constables, and many another person fond of gain, urged inquiries far and wide. Repeated visits to the ferry were made, and conjectures there thrown out of how the event might have happened accidentally or otherwise, but [Pg 24] they produced nothing like a ray of elucidation.

As these things and discussions went on, Mr. Woodburn began to manifest considerable uneasiness, and he suddenly said one day, as the matter was spoken of:—“You will see, they will say at last that it was I who did it.”

“Oh, God forbid!” exclaimed both Mrs. Woodburn and Ann. “What are you saying? For heaven’s sake do not utter so horrid, so ridiculous an idea.”

“Well, you will see,” continued Mr. Woodburn, “that they will lay the crime on me; and I would have you prepare for it. I was the last man who passed that way before Mr. Drury that evening; and not long before him; no mortal can be found to have witnessed how Mr. Drury came to his death; and as the public mind, following the doctor, insists on a murder—well then, I am the man who stands in closest proximity to the event.”

[Pg 25]

Mr. Woodburn might have added the unfortunate words which he used in the hayfield in the hearing of at least half a dozen men and women; but he would not add to the horror of the idea he had started to his wife and children. Their alarm was great, though they treated any imputation on such a man as their father and husband as the most impossible and ridiculous of suppositions. George said thoughtfully, but yet with a tone of melancholy, “Your character, dear father, is enough to protect you from a dozen of such charges. It will never be made; if it were, it can never be proved; because it is clear no mortal saw the transaction, and it is still more certain that you never did it.”

“Of course not,” said Mr. Woodburn; “I am not such a fool, if I were even such a villain.”

But not many weeks elapsed, before the worst fears of Mr. Woodburn were realised. [Pg 26] The “Castleborough Chronicle,” the conservative journal of the county, and in which the influence of the Bullockshed, Tenterhook, and Swagsides class, and that of a much higher and nobler, the influence of the best aristocracy of the county, prevailed, had a startling article. It observed that the continued absence of any evidence of the perpetration of the crime of murder at Wink’s Ferry, after much and vigorous inquiry, led them to revert to that mysterious fact, by which a man of much eminence and activity in the county had somehow lost his life. An event of so much importance to the security of society, demanded that it should not be suffered to drift away into oblivion, without the turning of every stone which might possibly elicit the hidden and gloomy truth: and however painful it might be to prosecute the inquiries on the subject into quarters otherwise most respectable, and, therefore, unlikely, impartial justice, and the dearest interests of the public, [Pg 27] made it imperative to endeavour to fathom the mystery, even though in the process some most estimable minds might be intensely pained.

After this preamble, the article went on to say that it was well known that the late Mr. Trant Drury, by his bold innovations and novel theories of agriculture, and it might be added, by an enthusiasm which led him sometimes to be a little too unceremonious to the long-cherished ideas of others, had made a number of enemies; or, if that term were too strong, of persons animated by no concealed resentment towards him. His introduction of machinery and other causes had made him unpopular amongst the class of agricultural labourers; but the inquiries of the police had resulted in the clearest and most positive demonstration that every man and woman of that class, for many miles round, could be shown to have been at some particular place at the hour of this catastrophe, [Pg 28] and nearly all of them at work in the presence of numerous others.

Now, this well ascertained fact compelled them to acquit this class of the community; and to look whether there might be any member or members of Mr. Drury’s own class who might have an ill-feeling towards him, or a motive to wish him out of the way. They were very sensible of the delicate ground on which they were entering; but the paramount interests of truth and humanity required that they should wave all considerations of delicacy or respect; and they were bound to declare that there was a gentleman and near neighbour of the late Mr. Drury, who had shown a strong antagonism to him, which was well known to have gone on strengthening through a lengthened period; and who, only a few days before this lamentable event took place, had publicly, and with signs of much feeling, expressed a wish that some cause could remove Mr. Drury from the [Pg 29] neighbourhood. The gentleman referred to was a man of wealth and position, a man of old family, of great classical attainments, it was said, and of a character against which, hitherto, not a shadow of a shade of suspicion of any kind could be brought. On the contrary, he had always borne the most honourable and admirable reputation. Yet such were the anomalies of life and human nature, that it was not impossible but that to such a man, some sudden contact and words of disagreement might have occurred, and that in a moment of sudden anger, he might have raised his hand and done, what even to himself an hour before, would have seemed utterly impossible.

They did not presume to say that any such thing had taken place; this gentleman, honoured and beloved as he was, must be regarded as innocent till he was fully proved to be otherwise; but they would submit that had any poor man lain under the same complication [Pg 30] of circumstances, had long entertained unfriendly feelings against the deceased—they did not yet say murdered gentleman—had he expressed an angry wish for the removal of the deceased only a few days previous, and were he the last person seen near the scene of the catastrophe, nothing could have prevented him long ago being summoned to a legal examination on that head. They thought the gentleman, if innocent, as they sincerely hoped he was, must himself desire such an inquiry for the vindication of his fair fame.

It may be imagined that the sensation created by this article was intense. What its effect was on the inhabitants of Woodburn Grange, lies not within the compass of human language. Terror, grief, distraction, astonishment, were blended into one crushing and prostrating feeling. It was now that Mrs. Woodburn and her daughters for the first time learned that Mr. Woodburn, in the hay-field, [Pg 31] had used those unfortunate words towards Mr. Drury in a moment of irritation. George had heard of them before, and they had lain on his heart with a deadly weight. Of his father’s incapability of committing such a crime, under any circumstances, he had the same assurance as he had of his own. He cast it away from him as ridiculous: but he foresaw that they would excite much prejudice, and occasion much trouble under the circumstances. He received a letter from Elizabeth Drury, expressing her horror and indignation at such a frightful imputation or even suspicion on his father. “Never! never! never! would she believe it. She would answer for Mr. Woodburn with her own existence; but the cruel aspersions, and the misery and trouble that must arise out of it, had,” she said, “added fresh poignancy to her former grief.”

Words of indignation and of tender sympathy poured in from friends all around, and [Pg 32] assurances of any aid that could in any way be given in defence against such a charge. Sir Henry Clavering came in haste to express his unbounded grief and resentment of such an impossible and unsupportable accusation. But instant steps, he said, must be taken to change the current of public opinion. He was on his way to secure an able refutation of the article in the paper of opposite politics. This article appeared the following week, and denounced so abominable a libel on the character of a man of the highest and most unimpeachable reputation for all that was good and kind, and against whom there was not a particle of evidence to support such a foul charge. Words of petty difference of opinion between gentlemen might, and did, frequently arise, but none but fools, considering the character of the speaker, would attach any serious import to them. Sir Henry did not wait for the issue of the paper, but that very day had the walls of the [Pg 33] town placarded by bills, expressing the same energetic sentiments in different words.

But the intention sufficiently manifested in the “Chronicle” article, was, notwithstanding, carried out, and in a few days afterwards a couple of constables presented themselves at Woodburn Grange, with a mission no less astounding than that of the apprehension of Mr. Leonard Woodburn, on a suspicion of murder; and amid a scene of distress only to be imagined, he was conveyed in his own carriage to the county court justice-room in Castleborough, to answer under warrant to this charge.

WHO DID IT?

If, on that memorable occasion at the hayfield fête, when Mrs. Heritage was impressed with a sense of impending calamities, she had gone a little further and asserted that within three years Sir Emanuel Clavering, then in full health and spirits, should be gathered to his fathers; that a severe dispensation should fall on the family at Fair Manor; that Dr. Leroy should suddenly abandon his practice and his native place, and go to the far East; that Thorsby should alternately turn reprobate, preacher, and again reprobate; that he should marry Letty Woodburn, doat on her and leave her; that one of the friends of the Woodburns should be killed in a [Pg 35] most mysterious manner at Wink’s Ferry; and that, as the climax of all, Mr. Leonard Woodburn should be charged with a wilful murder, and be put in jeopardy of a public and ignominious death,—the effect of her vaticinations would have been lost, and she would have been pronounced extravagantly insane. But now, as all these things had taken place, there was scarcely a person who was present on that occasion, who did not recall the fact with astonishment.

On the morning following the arrest of Mr. Woodburn, he was brought before the assembled bench of county magistrates. The throng collected showed the importance attached to the case. A number of men had been suddenly summoned from Woodburn, and brought up in post-chaises. George Woodburn, assisted by Sir Henry Clavering, had also collected a number of men and women who had been engaged in both hayfields at the time, and had also brought Mrs. [Pg 36] and Miss Woodburn, overwhelmed with grief as they were.

There was a formidable array of the Rockville, Bullockshed and Tenterhook section of the magistracy on the bench, for Sir Benjamin Bullockshed, whose steward Mr. Drury had become, had taken up the matter as a personal one, and had not hesitated to say amongst his particular friends, that he would make an example of Mr. Woodburn, who was a stiff, impracticable man, and a stout adherent of the Degge and pauper clique. Had this speech reached Sir Henry Clavering, he and Simon Degge would have insisted that Sir Benjamin should not occupy a place on the bench on this occasion. Able lawyers were engaged on each side. To make a short story of the proceedings, some of Mr. Woodburn’s own men were brought forward to prove that he had expressed a wish that Mr. Drury were removed from the neighbourhood, and that he was a nuisance. These men, who [Pg 37] had talked this matter, as they did every matter over at the Grey Goose public-house, without noticing a stranger amongst them, were astonished and confounded to be brought against their own respected master. At first they refused to speak, but they were assured that if they did not they would be sent to prison; and Mr. Woodburn, who had no wish to deny those imprudent words, told them he wished them to speak out all that they knew, and said that it was true that he had said such words, but of course, with no evil intent. The men, thus having their tongues loosed, gave evidence, but never having been in a witness-box before, and being badgered by the opposing lawyer and by the magistrates, made a confused mess of it. It was taken down, as admitted evidence on their part, that Mr. Woodburn had uttered words of the sort evincing a strong feeling against Mr. Drury.

Evidence was brought from the hay-makers [Pg 38] in the meadows to prove that Mr. Woodburn and Mr. Drury were in the meadows at the same time; that they both returned home by the ferry, Mr. Drury soon after Mr. Woodburn; that they had observed no other person about the ferry between the passing of Mr. Woodburn and Mr. Drury. It was also given in evidence by various persons summoned, amongst whom, to their inexpressible mortification, were Howell Crusoe and Job Latter, the blacksmith, that there was a sort of misunderstanding betwixt the two gentlemen. As for Crusoe and Latter, they added at the same time that they would sooner believe the moon would fall than that Mr. Woodburn would hurt a hair of any man alive.

On the other hand, evidence was brought on Mr. Woodburn’s side, that his having anything to do with the death of Mr. Drury was impossible, even if such a matter was in any way likely, because Mr. Woodburn was seen [Pg 39] to leave the meadows half an hour before Mr. Drury, and was seen coming up the hollow road from the ferry as immediately following his quitting the meadows as it was possible in time. It was not possible that he could have waited to waylay Mr. Drury. He was on foot, Mr. Drury on horseback. He was seen walking up the hollow road by a dozen people in the hill-field, in his usual quiet way, without any evidence of excitement about him. George Woodburn, Betty Trapps and the other maid-servants, gave evidence that Mr. Woodburn returned home just at six, in his ordinarily quiet manner. He took his tea with his family in the garden, showing no excitement, no exhaustion, not a single trace on his clothes or on his person, of any unusual disturbance of mind or exertion of body, which could not have been the case had a man of his piety, his benevolence, his feeling and whole character been engaged in a murder. The horse [Pg 40] of Mr. Drury was seen galloping up the village at half-past six, clearly under the effect of sudden fright. Whatever was the cause of Mr. Drury’s death, it had plainly taken place when Mr. Woodburn was tranquilly taking tea with his family in his garden.

But what produced the greatest sensation was to see Mrs. Woodburn and her daughter Ann successively appear and, though sinking under their grief, as a matter of social duty substantiate these latter facts. The evidence being closed, Mr. Woodburn was allowed to make a few observations. He said that such an accusation as this, and the situation in which he stood, appeared to him a dream,—seemed to his sober senses impossibilities. Yet, he so highly reverenced human life and those laws of his country which were established to protect it, that he did not object to stand there to answer to any charge of the nature which circumstances might make in [Pg 41] the least degree colourable against him. All that wounded him was that any man or men who had known his general character, tone of mind and life for half a century, should suppose him capable of lifting his hand, under any circumstances, against any human being. Now he was ready to confess that there was that in the manner and dogmatism of Mr. Drury which grated on his own feelings, and of late had held him at a distance from him, and he admitted that he had uttered a wish in the hearing of his workpeople, that some fortunate circumstance would take Mr. Drury out of the neighbourhood. “It was some fortunate circumstance, gentlemen, that I especially spoke of,” said Mr. Woodburn, “and sincerely wished, namely, that from Mr. Drury’s eminent abilities in agricultural science, knowledge of stock, and other things, he might obtain a stewardship from some nobleman or great landed gentleman at a distance, which would remove him out of my immediate [Pg 42] neighbourhood. But that I should have wished any evil, much less that I should personally attempt any evil against Mr. Drury, to whose only daughter my only son was engaged, or that I should wish, or try to enact evil against any human creature whatever, I am sure can never enter the mind of any one of my neighbours who know my character and habits. As the circumstances given in evidence show, moreover, that so far as I was concerned, the murder of Mr. Drury, if murder it shall be proved, was an absolute impossibility, I contend that there is no case against me. At the same time I trust that no exertions will be omitted to obtain some clue to the real causes and perpetrators, if such there be, of this, by me most deeply deplored event.”

Numbers of gentlemen, as well as neighbours of Mr. Woodburn, of different classes, came forward to bear testimony to the uniformly high moral character of Mr. Woodburn; amongst them Mr. Heritage, Mr. [Pg 43] William Fairfax, Mr. Simon Degge, the Rev. Thomas Clavering, &c.; whilst Sir Henry Clavering and Mr. Degge gave their opinion that there was not an atom of a case against him, and voted for his instant discharge. A long and warm discussion took place; the friends of Sir Benjamin Bullockshed were strong on the bench, and a majority was obtained for the committal of Mr. Woodburn for trial at the March Assizes. It was not a bailable offence, and Mr. Woodburn was committed to the felons’ side of the county prison. Sir Henry Clavering and Simon Degge, however, exerted their influence so far as to procure him comfortable apartments in the gaol, and the privilege of admittance to his immediate connections and intimate friends. The Rockville faction having so far obtained their desire for his incarceration and trial, were willing to make a grace of affording him all alleviations consistent with his security.

The sensation in Woodburn and the country [Pg 44] round on the news of this extraordinary fact exceeded anything known in the memory of man. Bins’ Farm, deserted by its afflicted inhabitants, was not so melancholy a place as Woodburn Grange, whence Mrs. and Miss Woodburn had fled to be near the beloved husband and father in Castleborough. George only was seen occasionally there, giving orders, and returning hastily to the town. Sir Henry Clavering was nearly as little at Cotmanhaye, but in turn occupied with all sorts of thoughts and plans for the comfort of Mr. Woodburn, for supporting the dreadfully oppressed minds of his family, and for prosecuting inquiries in the country if possible to catch some small thread, if it were only that of a gossamer, to lead to a solution of the mystery of Wink’s Ferry. He inclined to the belief in its being murder, and that some cause might yet lead to the detection of the murderer. The only thing which puzzled him and others was the absence of any evidence of robbery.

[Pg 45]

Poor Letty Thorsby! This frightful turn of affairs had once more broken down the few supports which she had found in her own prior affliction to her resolute determination to work for her husband’s reform. She fell into violent convulsions on the first news of the astounding charge, and, when admitted to see her father, she rushed to his neck with a wild cry and fainted in his arms. It was many days before she could rally in her that strong part of her soul which had borne her so bravely through so much before. The whole sorrowful family were at Letty’s, where also Sir Henry Clavering was almost always. Horrible fears assailed them lest, after all, the most terrible result might take place—the did condemnation of Mr. Woodburn. In vain Sir Henry scout any such idea, declaring that there was not a single iota of ground to go upon against Mr. Woodburn. That, independent of his character, there was no proof whatever of his or indeed, yet, of any one’s [Pg 46] participation in this catastrophe; but, on the contrary, he had positive proof against it. But the unhappy sufferers were haunted by cases of conviction under circumstantial evidence, and of persons suffering whose innocence was too late made manifest.

Sad and agonising were the days which passed over them—Sir Henry and other friends exerting all their ingenuity to inspire them with hope. It was only when they were with Mr. Woodburn that they forced themselves to appear cheerful and hopeful. For himself, he was calm and resigned. He would not believe that any sentence could be obtained against him upon such an utter absence of proof. He begged to have his favourite books, his Theocritus and Virgil, whose Idyls and Georgics carried him into the country; his Plato and Epictetus, whose philosophy and morals raised him above despondency; his Homer and Euripides, whose heroic narratives and dramatic life [Pg 47] made him forget his actual solitude. Above all, his Bible and his favourite religious authors. These were brought, and various articles of furniture to make his rooms more agreeable, or to accommodate his friends who came to cheer him. Amongst these were often Mr. and Mrs. Heritage, Mr. William Fairfax, and the different members of the Degge family. The gaoler, Mr. Wright, was a man noted for his intelligence and kindness, and stretched Mr. Woodburn’s privileges to the utmost limit of his own responsibility. He contrived to allow Mr. Woodburn the range of the prison-yard when the other prisoners were in their cells, so that he could enjoy sufficient exercise without being exposed to unwelcome notice.

So passed on that long and miserable autumn, that long and melancholy winter. During this time Letty received a letter from her husband, which informed her and Mr. [Pg 48] Barnsdale that he had followed on the trail of the flying miscreant, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and into Ohio. The man seemed possessed by a spirit of unrest, or of fear of pursuit, which kept him constantly in motion. Sometimes he had been on his very heels; sometimes he lost his trail for weeks. In his lonely journeys he had met with some strange occurrences, too numerous to detail; but everywhere he carried in his pocket-book the severe letter of Mrs. Heritage, and inflicted a proper penance on himself by looking at his past image in it, as in a glass. “Ah!” he said, “it is in these long, solitary journeys, through deep woods and through swampy jungles, or amid total strangers, that the brightness and beauty of his once heavenly but abused home came over him with a force which made him curse his now inconceivable folly. And yet,” added he, “that will-o’-the-wisp nature in me is not yet extinct. One day I came upon a great [Pg 49] camp-meeting in the midst of the woods, and after witnessing the strange scene for some time I was seized by a spirit of fire, and sprung up into a waggon, and poured forth a harangue on sin and its sorrow; on the strength of weakness in some souls carrying them like maniacs into the whirlwinds of crime and woe; on repentance and backsliding; on heaven and damnation, in such a rush and hurricane of passionate speech, such cries of despair and shouts of ‘Help! help!’ within me to God and Christ, as drew the scattered thousands around me, and flung them into the wildest commotion and shrieks and ejaculations; which seemed more like the riot of a raging ocean tempest than the tumult of human creatures. Suddenly I dropped down, and disappeared amongst the trees; but for days and weeks afterwards I heard of what they called ‘The Wild-fire Preacher,’ who came and went so mysteriously.”

Thorsby related that one evening having [Pg 50] made his camp for the night, and cut down boughs of the hemlock pine for his bed, an old Friend rode up, and asked leave to pass the night by his fire. He was a small, light man in sober home-spun clothes, who having hobbled out his horse, came and sat down, and drew from his wallet bread and dried venison, and invited Thorsby to partake. He said his name was Jesse Kersey, and that he was on a religious journey into the back settlements. After they had conversed till rather late, the stranger informed Thorsby that his father had left him a good property. Thorsby asked him in what it consisted,—in land? No. In houses? No. In money? No. In teaching him to live on a little. “He who has that fortune,” said Jesse Kersey, “can never want. I would give thee this as a safe rule of life—

‘Keep within compass, and thou wilt be sure
To shun many evils that others endure.’”

The old man having said this, tied his handkerchief [Pg 51] round his head for a nightcap, drew his rug over him, and saying, “Farewell, friend!” dropped instantly to sleep, and slept like a child till morning. Thorsby himself lay long, and thought on the truth of the old man’s simple philosophy. In the morning, as they rode on through the deep forests together, Jesse Kersey dropped gradually into a silence. Thorsby addressed to him some remark, but receiving no reply, he cast a glance at his companion, and observed that he was deep sunk in reverie. At length the old man said—

“Stranger and yet friend, I am drawn by that life which wells up in the heart like the spring in the desert, and the soft breeze on the solitary plain, in tenderness and loving concern towards thee. Of thy past life or outward circumstances I know nothing but what thou hast said, that thou art from the old country; I am, however, made inwardly sensible that there are two natures striving in thee [Pg 52] for the mastery. There is the spirit and life of good, and the spirit and life of vanity, and the word to thee which arises in me is—Be prayerful and bewareful. Oh, I see a fire in thee which might be that of which I have lately heard in the so-called ‘Wild-fire Preacher,’ Oh, it is a quick, leaping, overleaping, perilous fire, capable of causing thee to spring out of the cool soberness of peace and wisdom, as it were, into the very pit of perdition. Friend! beware! beware! beware! Put thy heart into the hand of Almighty God. Oh, pray Him fervently, most fervently to chastise it, and press it down, and crush out of it this high-leaping and unruly fire! And the answer in my spirit is—Yes. God shall so press down the life within thee; so crush and control thy spirit by severe labour and discipline, by passing the waters of affliction over thy had and by awaking deep searching thoughts in thy own solitary heart, that this [Pg 53] fire shall be extinguished, and the solid ground of peaceful wisdom shall be laid within thee, and thou shalt be made to experience the beauty of holiness and the thoughts of him whose heart is stayed on God.”

Thorsby added that he himself had here broken down, and had wept like a child, wept long and silently as they travelled on, and he had prayed that every affliction might befall him which should arm him with this blessed strength. His heart had been drawn to this old Friend as to a father, and he had travelled on with him a fortnight, attended his meetings, and seen with daily increasing wonder the loving and single childlike simplicity and faith of this apostle of the woods. It was with a violent effort that he had torn himself away from him, and that he was now about to penetrate into the woods and hills of Indiana.

It may be imagined what a consolation this [Pg 54] letter was to Letty Thorsby amid the dark days now lowering over her and her whole family, and she, too, prayed that God would spare no correction to her husband which would leave him sobered and strengthened into permanent stability.

Spring was once more advancing, but to the afflicted family and the prisoner at Castleborough it came only with anxious fears and dreadfully depressed spirits. The Woodburns, collected together at Letty’s, were very very low in heart; and Mr. Woodburn himself, as time drew on, became very restless and desponding. He had borne up well, and said very little about his case, except that it would be all right. But as the time of trial approached and no new light whatever had been cast on the mystery of Mr. Drury’s death, he began to be very low too.

Sometimes, after sitting long in silence, he would suddenly seem to wake out of a reverie, and say, “It is strange, very strange [Pg 55] that nothing turns up.” His family would say, “Very strange, indeed; but we must trust in God.” And once or twice lately he had startled them by saying, as if angrily, “Yes, trust in God, that is always the word; but is there a God at all?”

The shock this gave them was dreadful. Ann exclaimed, “Oh, dear father, don’t, don’t let go your faith in God! Think what mercies He has shed on your whole life. Think on the love by which you are surrounded, on the influential friends ready to do everything possible for your defence.”

“If anything,” said Mr. Woodburn, “would make me doubt the truth of Christianity, it is those very ready, flourishing promises that it abounds in. ‘Whatever ye ask in my name, believing, ye shall receive.’ ‘Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened; ask, and it shall be given you.’ Now, have I not asked day after day, in the name of Christ, that the truth might be revealed [Pg 56] in this case? Have I not sought, and knocked, and asked, and all to no purpose?”

“But, dear father,” said Ann, in the greatest perturbation, “the time is not yet over and past. Our time is not God’s time. He may wish to try us all, and may solve the enigma even at the last moment.”

“It may be so,” said Mr. Woodburn, gloomily; “but what does it mean where it says that if any man lose houses or land or wife or children for Christ’s sake, he shall receive tenfold more in this world of houses, land, and the rest of it, and in the world to come life everlasting? Now, Ann, I have heard of thousands being ruined, and even burnt and killed for Christ’s sake, but I never yet heard of one who received tenfold property for what he lost. These things make one believe the whole to be a cunningly devised fable. If the Gospels are not true altogether, they may not be true at all.”

Ann sat and wept bitterly for a long [Pg 57] time; then getting up and throwing her arms round her father’s neck, and looking with her streaming eyes into his face, she said, “Oh, father, if you let go your faith in our dear Redeemer, you let go everything, and make us all miserable beyond words. Wait, wait a little, and I feel sure all will be well. For myself, I would rather lose life, liberty, fame, everything, than my trust in God.”

“But why should God,” added Mr. Woodburn, “treat his servants worse than the devil and the world treat theirs? I see continually those who neither think nor care about religion flourishing like green bay trees, and the good left to all sorts of troubles.”

“Oh, don’t talk in that manner!” exclaimed Ann. “Shall we expect an eternity of good, and shall we shrink from a trial for a few years? Shall we serve and trust in God only for selfish ends? Oh, no, indeed; we do need refining by fire. But, dear father, your mind and health are hurt [Pg 58] by this confinement and suspense. But, I say, and ever will say, ‘Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’ Remember God has an eternal recompense to offer for all our sorrows here, but the devil and the world have nothing to offer us after this little life.”

These moments of despair in Mr. Woodburn were the severest trial of all to his disconsolate family. But the March assizes were at hand, and the preparations which his friends were making for his defence tended to occupy his mind and relieve his spirits. Sir Henry Clavering never for a moment doubted of his instant and complete acquittal, and his steady, cheerful views and active exertions acted as a great solace to the Woodburns. He and George, assisted most zealously by Simon Degge, Mr. Heritage, and Mr. Fairfax, had arranged a considerable amount of evidence, which though it brought no nearer to the light the real perpetrator of [Pg 59] the murder, if it were one, showed, they thought, sufficiently that no suspicion could fall on Mr. Woodburn.

The assizes had at length arrived. Mr. Baron Garrow had arrived and opened his commission. Mr. Woodburn’s case, as it occurred immediately after the midsummer assizes, was the first on the calendar. Vast was the excitement connected with it. The singular mystery of the affair, the character and position of the prisoner, were circumstances sure to awake a most lively interest. The town was crowded by people from all parts of the country round, and the county court was filled in a few minutes to repletion. Most of the families of distinction of the county and town were in the galleries. We will not go at great length into the details of the trial. Mr. Sergeant Giffard was the counsel for the crown against Mr. Woodburn, and he was defended by his old friend, Mr. Balguy of Derbyshire. Sir Henry Clavering [Pg 60] had entreated him to have other and very celebrated counsel from London, but Mr. Woodburn steadily refused. He said, “No, he had perfect reliance on his friend Balguy; though he practised only as a provincial barrister, he was a man of the soundest judgment, one who had known him all his life, and could speak personally to his character. Besides, he would not have it imagined for a moment that his case required the subtle lights and arts of a brilliant oratory. He wanted merely a plain statement of plain facts.”

When Mr. Woodburn was brought in and placed in the dock, there was a silence like death throughout the court. The sensation was profound. He was attended by his son and Sir Henry Clavering, who were accommodated at each side of the dock; so that they could encourage him, and communicate for him with his counsel, seated just under him. Mr. Woodburn looked calm, but somewhat pale, and his intelligent, thoughtful, and [Pg 61] amiable aspect was anything but that of a murderer. “That man,” said many a lady to her friend near her, “never committed a murder.” “No,” some gentleman replied, “one would not think it; but one cannot tell what a growing animosity may stir a man to, in some unguarded moment.”

The case was opened, the indictment read, and Mr. Serjeant Giffard rose. He called first witnesses to show that there had been a considerable and, as he termed it, a bitter feud betwixt the prisoner and Mr. Drury; he proved the unguarded expressions of Mr. Woodburn in the hay-field, and that the prisoner was the last man seen coming from the ferry where Mr. Drury was found, as he said, in his blood. In his address, which followed, he dwelt on these proofs of an animus in Mr. Woodburn’s mind against Mr. Drury, and treated his words only four days before the catastrophe as words of menace, or at least of a wish to have Mr. Drury put [Pg 62] away. The catastrophe following on the immediate heels of these words, what could it be deemed but the direct result of them? Then the fact that no amount of inquiry, nor the offered reward of 300 l. , had been able to elicit a single atom of evidence implicating any other person, must be held, in his opinion, as most decisive. Why had no such evidence transpired? The answer in his own mind, said the counsel, was that no such evidence existed; and that the fair and damning inference was that the man, who was known to have a standing feud with the murdered man; who had uttered words of a vindictive and even minatory character; the man who was last seen coming from the fatal spot, and that only just before the discovery of the horrible circumstance, was the person guilty of that deadly crime. He had wished the country might be fortunately rid of the person so offensive to him, and there was the finale. He dwelt especially on the fact, that [Pg 63] no robbery had been committed; it was clearly a case of vengeance in a mind where money offered no temptation.

It was with a deep and breathless feeling that the spectators saw the counsel for the defence rise. He observed that his learned friend had galloped to a conclusion, for which there was not a single atom of foundation. He had talked of a murder, yet there was no proof of a murder. An unhappy accident in crossing the ferry; a fright on the part of the horse, and a kick on the head of the unfortunate owner as he stooped to pull the chain, would probably explain it all. Now he had known Mr. Woodburn all his life from his school-days, and he would pledge his whole character, conscience, and existence to the jury, that Mr. Woodburn was as incapable of a murder as he was of flying. No, he would not tread on a worm if he knew it. He would call evidence to show that it was as improbable as it was, in fact, impossible. [Pg 64] His learned friend had talked of a feud betwixt Mr. Woodburn and Mr. Drury. Why, this feud was of so mild a kind that the only son of Mr. Woodburn was on the point at the moment of the catastrophe of being married to the only daughter of Mr. Drury. His learned friend had left it to be inferred that Mr. Woodburn was the only man in the neighbourhood who felt any antagonism to Mr. Drury. He would bring forward proofs that Mr. Drury had made many bitter enemies, he would not say justly, but simply by the introduction of new machines, and new fashions of farming, and by his active, energetic, and, perhaps, somewhat peremptory and exacting character; he had made those enemies amongst the lower and more ignorant class, who were far more likely to commit an outrage in their revenge than a gentleman of Mr. Woodburn’s well-known character—than a gentleman whose family was on the very point of forming the [Pg 65] most intimate ties with the family of Mr. Drury. As to the question of crossing the ferry, he would show that it was impossible that Mr. Woodburn could have been present at the catastrophe, for he had witnesses to prove that Mr. Drury did not leave the hay-meadow beyond the river till nearly half an hour after Mr. Woodburn was seated quietly with his family at tea in his own garden.

This last assertion produced an instant and evident sensation throughout the whole place. The judge on the bench, with whom were seated several noblemen and gentlemen of the county, the counsel at the bar, the people throughout the court, were engaged in conversation on it. There was a general buzz and murmur of voices in the court, when the clerk of the arraigns called, “Silence!” and Mr. Balguy began with his witnesses. He produced a number of farmers of the neighbourhood, who declared that they had heard the severest language of hatred used by their [Pg 66] labourers against Mr. Drury, adding they would not be in his shoes for a trifle. They said this was not only on account of his using so much machinery, but on account of his timing them, and docking their wages, and his slave-driving way, as they called it. Many labourers were called who gave the same evidence. Mr. Balguy then called several haymakers to show that Mr. Woodburn’s words were, not that he wished something would fortunately rid the country of Mr. Drury, but that some fortunate circumstance would take him somewhere else. He next showed by the evidence of Mr. Drury’s own bailiff, who was in the meadows when Mr. Drury left, that it was half-past six o’clock by his watch, and then by the evidence of George Woodburn and Betty Trapps that Mr. Woodburn entered the house exactly as the old cuckoo clock in the hall struck six. That the time of the bailiff and of the clock at Woodburn Grange agreed, [Pg 67] was also proved by the people of both farms going to and returning from work at exactly the same hour, morning, noon and evening.

This evidence having been gone through, Mr. Balguy said that little more was required. He would only remark that it was shown that there were many persons in the neighbourhood hostile to Mr. Drury. That Mr. Woodburn’s words in the hay-field were meant by him to express a wish that some stewardship, such as his eminent agricultural talents warranted, might call Mr. Drury from a neighbourhood where his views were not favourably received. That was the “fortunate” circumstance which Mr. Woodburn alluded to. Then, as he had shown by a complete alibi that Mr. Woodburn could not possibly be at Wink’s Ferry when Mr. Drury lost his life, he contended first, that if that catastrophe were a murder, it could not have been perpetrated by Mr. Woodburn; and secondly, that it had yet to be shown that it [Pg 68] was a murder at all. He was, therefore, sure that the jury would acquit his client instantly and entirely.

The judge in summing up, came to the same conclusion. It was, he said, for the jury to decide, whether what had been shown to be impossible, if the respectable evidence of Mr. Drury’s own bailiff, and of the family of the prisoner as to time, was to be believed, could be possible: for his own part he did not believe in impossibilities. The jury consulted for a moment, and the foreman arose and declared the unanimous verdict to be— Not Guilty!

The effect of these words was an instant burst of uproarious applause throughout the court. Hats were waved violently; white handkerchiefs were waved as actively; the friends of the prisoner were shaking hands with one another, and rushing to shake hands with him, and all the time the judge was looking half-menacingly, half-laughingly, and [Pg 69] saying something that nobody could hear, and the clerk of arraigns was shouting “Order! order!” with all his might. Of course the judge was trying to tell the offenders that if they did not keep quiet he must order them into custody, which was such an excellent joke, the offenders being the whole assembly, except a few of the Rockville and Bullockshed clan, who looked dark and significant of dissent, that old Baron Garrow, who dearly loved a joke, enjoyed the uproar as much as any of them.

Sir Henry Clavering had slipped away by a private door from the court, and run to carry the news to the family of Mr. Woodburn, who were awaiting in direst anxiety the result of the trial. They were standing at the window ready to catch the first sign of an approaching messenger, when a triumphant wave of his hat made them aware that all was right, and he rushed into the house to find himself caught and embraced and [Pg 70] kissed and wet all over with tears of joy by every one there. Quickly came Sir Henry’s carriage, bringing Mr. Woodburn and George. We must leave the reader to imagine the scenes that followed. The husband and father stood amongst them once more, freed from every charge or shadow of suspicion of the odious crime imputed to him. That same evening a long train of carriages was seen driving from Mrs. Thorsby’s house out of the town, and taking the way towards Woodburn. There were those of Mr. Degge, of Mr. Heritage, Mr. Fairfax, Sir Henry Clavering, and the worthy Counsellor Balguy, as he was commonly called all through the Midland Counties. The bells were ringing in the steeples of Castleborough, and they were ringing at Cotmanhaye—Woodburn had no church—for Sir Henry Clavering had previously arranged all that in a most liberal manner, and that evening Mr. Woodburn stood once more under his own roof a free [Pg 71] and unblemished man. All through Woodburn flags and garlands of evergreens, and shouting men, and women all tears and smiles, had made the drive a triumph. When these accompanying friends had taken their leave, and the happy family were left to themselves as in some strange dream, Ann came and softly dropped on her knees by her father, and taking his hand said, amidst tears of gladness—“Well, dearest father, God’s time is come!”

Mr. Woodburn stooped and kissed her affectionately, and said, “True, dear child, true—let us forget the hour and the power of darkness. You are far wiser than I am.”

“No, dear father,” said Ann. “No—the truth is, you have been tried far more than I have. But thank God that all this is over!”

A WONDERFUL DREAM.

In the flush of happiness which immediately followed the acquittal of Mr. Woodburn, the long-deferred marriage of Ann Woodburn was celebrated. Sir Henry Clavering had proved himself a most noble and indefatigable friend through the whole dark season, and all were eager to confer on him his long and patiently sought prize, and to claim him as one of the family of the Grange. It was a pleasant morning in April when the wedding took place, the ceremony being performed by Sir Henry’s worthy uncle, Thomas Clavering, assisted by Mr. Markham, who, to his honour be it said, had most heartily protested against what he termed the atrocious [Pg 73] prosecution of Mr. Woodburn. Not only was the outward spring breaking forth with her buds and dews and violets, but the inner spring of peace and joy was come back to the lovely fields of Woodburn. We need not say that all Woodburn, many friends from Castleborough, Cotmanhaye Manor, and all round there, some even from Rockville, had flocked to this auspicious scene, and many a warm wish was sent after the happy pair as they dashed away after the breakfast at the Grange, in Sir Henry’s carriage, on their way towards Paris. God’s blessing go with them, was the fervent prayer of the crowd of felicitating friends, as it is ours.

When they were gone, and the friends too, and that silence and strange vacancy fell on the house, which is deep in proportion to the love for the fair inmate carried away, Letty, who had worn on that morning something of her former bloom and gaiety, dashed with [Pg 74] happy tears, said to her mother and father as they sat together in their old sitting-room, “None of us will ever forget the presentiment of Mrs. Heritage at our memorable May fête, for how strangely has it been realised? But perhaps you have forgotten that she pointed to an afterglow, and said that the days after the gloom should be more lovely and happy than before. As that dear, good woman spoke truth in one part of her prediction, I shall believe that she did in the other. Is not the present happy issue of that hideous, odious darkness a proof and a commencement of it? Is not this happy day another proof? And now I will read you a letter from my husband, which, though it may seem to you sad, is to me full of the happiest confidence.”

“What! have you at last heard from Thorsby again?” said her mother.

“Yes, dear mother; it is now seven months since I heard, and I began to have some [Pg 75] serious fears of what might have befallen him: but you shall hear:—

“Well,” said Mr. Woodburn, “God grant that he may be as completely sobered as he says. That big hammer is one of the best things for taming a man I ever heard of. If it has effected a cure, as we will hope it has, [Pg 84] Thorsby ought to have it emblazoned in his arms.”

“Yes, truly,” said Mrs. Woodburn; “and I pray that it may have done that good work with all my heart.”

“And you can still forgive him, Letty?” said Mr. Woodburn.

“My dear father,” said Letty, smiling, “do you think I never say the Lord’s Prayer?”

“Oh! as to that,” said Mr. Woodburn, “I know scores who say it every night and morning, and yet never forgive anybody. They hug their spites like dear babies, and remember a small offence ten or twenty years after as keenly as they felt it the moment it occurred.”

“I don’t understand such people,” said Letty.

“They don’t understand themselves,” said her father. “Many of these people think themselves admirable Christians.”

“But,” said Letty, “if I am required by my Redeemer to forgive a brother, not seven [Pg 85] times, but seventy times seven, how many times should I forgive a husband, whom I have sworn to take for better for worse? My notion is that so long as you can hope to reform and save a fellow-creature, you should not only forgive, but work hard for his restoration. If God permits me to reclaim an immortal being that He has thought it good to make, I don’t think I can be better employed.”

“Nor I, neither,” said Mr. Woodburn.

As time had worn on, after Mr. Woodburn’s acquittal, the first satisfaction of it had given way in his mind to deeper and deeper reflections on the brand which his neighbours had put upon him, in publicly accusing him of so atrocious a crime as murder. The more he pondered on it, the more it appeared like an ugly dream. No single trace of an explanation had yet shown itself of the real nature of the catastrophe. He knew that the Rockville faction still amongst themselves deemed [Pg 86] him guilty of the death of Mr. Drury, and denominated the result of the trial a lucky escape for him. These reflections were intolerable to him, and he became extremely low and depressed. He did not like to be seen in public. He spent much time in hoeing and weeding in his garden, where he was out of the way of observation. Whenever he took a ride it was down the hollow road and up the narrow hedge-embowered cart-road by the river to Cotmanhaye Mill, and so out into Sir Henry Clavering’s fields. He sat for whole days together over his old classical authors, and in the society of his family fell into long and deep silences. All noticed this state of things, and became anxious on account of its effect both on his mind and his health.

Towards midsummer Sir Henry and Lady Clavering returned to Cotmanhaye Manor, and it was delightful to her family and friends to see her in her new home all brightness and happiness. A lovely home it was, [Pg 87] and Sir Henry seemed proud of it because it gave so much pleasure to his wife. A series of dinners and fêtes were given after the reception days, at which all their friends from town and country assembled, and not only Letty appeared there with much of her early gaiety, but Millicent Heritage was observed to be cheerful and soberly happy. At these fêtes, however, Mr. Woodburn was rarely seen, he preferred walking up and talking with Sir Henry, his daughter, and the Rector in quiet hours, when they were alone. It was clear that unless some light could be thrown on the tragedy of Wink’s Ferry, his spirits never again could regain their wonted buoyancy; he must be a retiring and melancholy man: which was a heavy weight on the hearts of his family.

One day, towards the end of July, a traveller dropped from the top of the Derby coach at the manufacturing village of Beeton, and took his way across the wide meadows in [Pg 88] the direction of Woodburn. The hay had been cleared, and numerous herds of cattle were grazing in them on the new-springing grass. The flowers of the meadow-sweet yet breathed out their fragrance as the traveller walked on by the long hedge sides, and along the dry footpath, with his eyes fixed on the distant heights of Woodburn and the woods of Rockville. He had evidently chosen this path that he might not be much seen; and as he observed some peasants coming along the footpath towards him, he crossed a gate, and sat down under the fence until they had passed. He then recrossed and pursued his way. This traveller was Henry Thorsby; but what a change! Instead of that bustling, mercurial air, he looked grave, and even sad. He was wondering, after all, notwithstanding Letty’s goodness, what sort of a reception he would meet with. He knew that he deserved nothing but reproach, and all the causes of such reproach rose up in his memory as he [Pg 89] walked on. He had learned, too, from Letty’s letters, and the English newspapers, the whole strange story of Mr. Woodburn’s arrest and trial. It seemed that he was drawing near to a very different Woodburn from that of past times; and on reaching the river he hesitated whether to cross and go boldly on to the Grange, or sit down and spend his time in the solitary fields till he could steal away unnoticed to his house in Castleborough. But he knew that Letty was at the Grange, where she spent most of her time in endeavouring to cheer the spirits of her father. He resolved, therefore, to go resolutely on. If he were coldly received by the family, he knew that he deserved it, and he was prepared to endure his just punishment.

At Wink’s Ferry he paused and looked round, revolving in his mind the strange occurrence of Mr. Drury’s death. All looked calm, and serenely smiling as ever. He [Pg 90] pulled himself over, and passing through the branches of a great old hazel-bush—a way well known to him and George Woodburn—entered the orchard, and so proceeded through the garden to the house. With a hesitating step and beating heart he entered the well-known sitting-room, and the next moment found himself with a wild cry of joy in the arms of his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn stood in silent surprise, and with feelings that it would be in vain to attempt to describe. Over that sacred scene of the Return of the Prodigal Son, and the forgiving hands that were extended to him, let us draw the veil of domesticity, and of silence.

For some time Thorsby remained at the Grange, and only ventured to take the secluded path in the dusk of evening towards Cotmanhaye Manor, where he was cordially received. The letters he had written to Letty, and the altered appearance of his person, where the solidity of middle age seemed to [Pg 91] reign, and the subdued tone of his mind, had produced a great revulsion in his favour. It was some weeks before Letty could inspirit him to face Castleborough and all the comments of his old townsmen, but at length even this was effected; and people saw with astonishment Thorsby going with sober steps from his house to his warehouse. The surprise of this re-appearance was extreme; and afforded subject for abundance of discussion. Thorsby sought no recognition from his old acquaintances; when he met them, spoke passingly to them; and when anyone offered him a hand he took it cordially; but there was a gravity about him that strangely impressed even those of the greatest levity. He looked like a man who had passed through some severe furnace of affliction, some profound trouble of which the shadow still haunted him. All thought he looked ten years older; and by degrees his steady devotion to business, and the assurances of Mr. [Pg 92] Barnesdale that he was a wonderfully changed man, began to give him a new status in public opinion. His wife seemed as happy as if no grief had ever passed over her, and she and her husband, with their now lovely flaxen-curled little boy between them, might be seen driving after business hours towards Woodburn. There it was that Thorsby seemed most at home, except in his own house. He felt deeply grateful for the kind reception he had met from every one of the family, and was very anxious to contribute all he could towards diverting that load of melancholy which weighed more and more on the spirits of Mr. Woodburn.

It was on a beautiful morning in August that Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn, George and Letty were sitting in the cool old house-place. Breakfast was just over, and Letty had nodded a loving greeting to her husband as he rode past the front garden on his way to business, holding up in her arms little Leonard, [Pg 93] to make his greetings with a pair of little chubby but active hands. George had taken down the Bible, for they had adopted the custom of the Friends of Fair Manor, of reading a chapter after breakfast. He had just commenced the reading of the twelfth chapter of St. Luke, and reached the second verse,—“For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.”

Mr. Woodburn did not wait for the conclusion of the reading, but said, “Ay, see there now! that is one of those promises which are so freely made in these Gospels, and that are not fulfilled. We know that too well.”

George paused, and was about to go on again, for such remarks were too frequent from Mr. Woodburn to be immediately replied to, when there came the postman’s rat-tat at the door, and Letty sprung up with all a woman’s eagerness for letters, opened [Pg 94] the door and took in a letter. She looked at it a moment, and said,

“For you, dear George. Bless me, a ship letter, and, as I live, from Dr. Leroy! Why, that is the first news of him that has reached England, so far as I know.”

She handed it to George, who began running it over to himself.

“He is well, I hope,” said two or three voices at once.

“But I have scarcely read a line,” said George. “How can I tell? You will hear all presently. It is dated from on board the Aurungzebe, in the Hoogly. Yes, he says he is quite well.” And George read on in silence again. Suddenly they saw a deeper interest expressed in his face. He read on with a sort of hurrying avidity.

“What is it? What is it?” asked the impatient Letty.

“What is it?” said George. “It is most extraordinary, and yet it is only a dream.”

[Pg 95]

“A dream? Oh, a dream only, and does that so astonish you George, as I see it does?” continued Letty.

“Listen then,” said George; “listen, father. It is the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of, though it is but a dream. One thing, however, I observe, the letter must have lain somewhere a good while, it is much out of date.”

“On board the ‘Aurungzebe’ in the Hoogly,
July 4th, 18—.

“ My Dear George Woodburn ,—I write to you the first line of a letter that I have sent to any one since leaving England; you will see why. We have had a long, but a prosperous voyage. We discharged part cargo at the Cape, and another at the Mauritius, and have just cast anchor here. I have not yet visited Calcutta, that city of palaces, for yesterday as we came to anchor I felt a most unaccountable and gloomy weight oh my spirits. Amid all the bustle of quitting [Pg 96] the ship by the passengers and saying good-bye to those who had become so familiar through a long voyage, this weight lay on me. In the night I dreamed a most frightful and extraordinary dream. Now you know that I am not superstitious; that my medical education has made me a firm believer in the invariable prevalence of law in God’s creation. Dreams, visions, stories of apparitions, are all to me furniture of the nursery; and yet how inconsistent I am! Twice in my life I have had dreams so vivid and life-like that, contrary to the ordinary run of my dreams, which I rarely remember, they have remained as clearly and firmly on my mind as actual broad-day facts, and, what is the more wonderful, they were found each to represent something which at the same moment was really passing in a distant place.

“God forbid that this should prove so, but it is exactly of the same kind, and I feel impelled to tell it you at the risk of being [Pg 97] laughed at. Certainly I do hope that you will be able to laugh at me. All I ask is that if it be not true, you keep my counsel.

“Well then, I seemed to be somewhere in the great meadows between Woodburn and Beeton. The hay was all abroad, and numbers of people were busily getting it up. It was a splendid, still, reposing evening. I saw Mr. Drury amongst his work-people on his well-remembered tall, roan horse.”

“Oh!” was ejaculated by every one present.

“How odd too,” said George, looking at the date, “and this dream occurred on the night following the death of Mr. Drury. But to proceed.”

“As I looked round I saw two men cross Wink’s Ferry into the meadows, one with a hay-fork in his hand. They seated themselves under the alder bushes near the ferry and on the banks of the river. One of these men I recognised at once. It was that [Pg 98] Nathan Hopcraft, who lives just below you, and whose powers of gormandising I have witnessed to my astonishment in your kitchen. His short, thick figure was exact. As usual in hot weather, his shirt-collar and bosom were open, displaying his red, sunburnt, and hairy chest, and his thick, muscular neck, which I remember him once speaking of in his stupid and cart-before-the-horse-way, saying, ‘I have a bull like a neck,’ meaning he had a neck like a bull. There he sat in his shirt sleeves, and with him a man I never saw before. He was a tall, muscular fellow of about thirty. At first view I thought him a keeper, for he had on leather leggings and a velveteen shooting-jacket, with ample skirts and pockets, capable of holding a hare each if necessary. He had black curly hair, and full black whiskers. His face was burnt brown with exposure, and on looking closer his expression was sullen and savage.”

“Oh, heavens!” exclaimed both Letty and [Pg 99] her brother together. “Scammel! Scammel to the life! How extraordinary!”

“I soon saw,” continued the letter, “that he was no keeper; but the man had the look of one who had been degraded from a keeper to a poacher and ruffian. His clothes were dirty and weather-beaten; his coat was sun-burnt, of a ruddy brown, his hat was battered and shapeless. As I again looked towards the hay-field, I saw Mr. Drury leaving the people and riding towards the ferry. As he did that the poacher-looking fellow slunk into the bushes and disappeared. Hopcraft went upon the boat and stood ready to pull it over. As Mr. Drury rode on to the boat he touched his hat, and Mr. Drury appeared to say something to him, and then rode towards the prow of the boat, and sat looking forward ready to issue to the shore. But at the very moment that the horse set his feet on the boat, the ugly fellow issued from the bushes armed with the hay-fork, a very heavy one—a [Pg 100] pitchfork for loading the hay on the waggons. He carried his shoes in his left hand, and set them down softly but quickly on the boat, and then, with the spring of a tiger, he darted forward, and struck Mr. Drury on the back of the head a furious blow. I shouted, as it seemed, as I saw the murderous intention; but the deed was done. Mr. Drury fell backward from his horse, dragging the saddle round after him, and would have gone overboard but that he was caught by the ruffianly looking fellow, and stretched on the deck of the boat. In the fright the horse reared, and, springing forward, fell into the river. For some time he seemed embarrassed by the saddle under his chest, and floundered about as if he would drown, but then he recovered himself, and got footing in the shallower part of the river.

“During this time, for I seemed to see both things at once, I saw the ruffian take Mr. Drury’s watch from his pocket and put it [Pg 101] back again. He then took out a pocket-book from the breast-pocket of his coat, opened it, looked at some papers, and put the book back. Then he felt in his small-clothes pockets and drew out what seemed to be a considerable roll of bank-notes. These he thrust into his coat-pocket, and seizing the dead man by the shoulders, and Hopcraft seizing him by the feet, they flung him into the river. The ruffian then hurriedly slipped on his shoes, whilst Hopcraft pulled the boat to land. As soon as they set foot on land the ruffian gave some part of his roll to Hopcraft, who went down the river bank towards his house, driving the horse further down before him.

“But whilst seeing all this, in some singular manner, I saw during the whole transaction, two old people, man and woman, occasionally peep forth from amongst the bushes near the entrance to the hollow road leading to the village. The man had the [Pg 102] look of a tramp with a sackcloth wallet on his back. The woman was in an old faded red cloak and battered black bonnet. Both walked with sticks.”

During this description the amazement of the listeners had momently increased, and their exclamations of surprise were continual. Now they said, “Oh! those are the Shalcrosses—exactly—to a hair! How wonderful!”

“But,” said Mr. Woodburn, “Dr. Leroy had heard, or read, in some newspaper of the affair.”

George looked forward in the letter, and said, “No; he says, he had not at the writing of this heard a syllable of news, or received a single letter, though he hoped for letters at Calcutta, but they could not possibly convey any such news. For you forget this dream occurred on the night immediately succeeding the catastrophe at the ferry.”

All sat in silent wonder. “Certainly,” [Pg 103] said Mr. Woodburn, at length, “it is the most amazing dream that ever occurred;—but go on, George.”

“As the ruffian approached the end of the hollow road, these two old people came out and confronted him. They pointed towards the ferry, as if telling him that they had seen all, and the man made violent gestures in return, clenching his fist and seeming to menace them. Then he took out his roll, gave them some part of it, and they then hasted along the river-side cart-track, and disappeared together in the wooded glen above on Mr. Woodburn’s estate. Whilst they were yet in sight, Mr. Drury’s horse galloped up the river-side and turned up the hollow road towards the village. In a few minutes more men appeared looking full of affright, went down to the ferry, and were evidently seeking Mr. Drury.

“That was my dream. I trust that it is but a dream. I cannot persuade myself that [Pg 104] any such horrible transaction has taken place: yet, shall I confess it? the distinctness as of life itself with which the whole of it was seen, and with which it remains, combined with my two former experiences of similar, though not so tragical a kind, makes me uneasy. Write to me, dear George, at the ship agents’, Calcutta, Messrs. Mac Campbell and Dimsdale; I shall get it, perhaps, as I come back, for Captain Andrews, of the Aurungzebe, is going to China with a cargo of opium, to reload there with tea for England, and has persuaded me to accompany him. He offers me great terms to accompany him home again, when he expects distinguished passengers, and as I have taken a great liking to him, perhaps I may,—who knows? Ah, if I had but one happy word from England, I would accept the invitation as the message of an angel. But England lies cold on my heart: and I have flattering prospects held out to me of a practice amongst the invalids in [Pg 105] the Nilgherry Hills. Well, time must decide.”

“There are messages of friendship to you all,” said George, “and to others; the rest we can read another time, but the surprising nature of this dream makes my head swim.”

“I believe every word of it,” said Letty, “is as true as gospel. The facts, as far as they are known, are as exact as if related by an eye-witness. Why should the rest not be equally exact? That Dr. Leroy should see in his dream Scammel and the Shalcrosses whom he does not know, is so extraordinary that it is to me a pledge of the truth. And did not the Gospel, at breakfast, say that whatever is hidden shall be revealed?”

“The coincidence,” said Mr. Woodburn, “is certainly very curious—the dream is very curious; but would to God that it were anything but a dream!”

“Father,” said George, “one thing is certain, [Pg 106] it has put us on a track that we can quickly follow out. We can set on foot a careful, well arranged inquiry after these people mentioned. I have not seen Scammel or the Shalcrosses for a long time. If Scammel be the murderer, he has good reason to avoid the neighbourhood, and to keep the Shalcrosses away. A fellow more likely to do such an act I do not know: and another thing strikes me. Hopcraft, who used to be so famous for his cabbage and potato-garden, his fat pigs and his hens—look at him now; he has, almost ever since the date of Mr. Drury’s death, been going back in the world. He killed his pigs at Christmas, but has not bought any fresh ones, though young pigs are plentiful and cheap. His hens are gone, and his garden is a chaos. He seems to have no heart to work it. He has, as you know, been on the parish these six months, and his wife looks more like a scarecrow than a woman. I asked him how all this has come about one [Pg 107] day lately, and he said he had no luck. That is true; he has no luck because his conscience, it is my firm conviction, is not at ease. But I will ride up to Sir Henry, and show him the letter, and if he thinks it warrants it, we will set about to sound these fellows.”

George ordered his horse, and rode off; in less than an hour he and Sir Henry came riding back together.

“Well,” said Sir Henry, “this is a very wonderful affair.”

“You believe it then?” said Mr. Woodburn, who was evidently getting into a state of great excitement.

“I believe every word of it, and so does Ann—by the by, she will be down here directly,” said Sir Henry. “My father would have been delighted with it. He had been so much in the East, that he had seen a great deal of the amazing powers of what are called magic, or the occult, which are exercised there by some of the most powerful chiefs. The last [Pg 108] thing that he would believe was in their fixed notion of the evil eye; but one day, in Greece, riding a most valuable and favourite horse, he saw a man sitting by the roadside, noted and dreaded for the possession of this evil power. On coming opposite, and the man looking hard at his horse, it dropped suddenly as if shot, under him, and was stone dead. A wonderful coincidence, at least, my father used to say.

“But now, for prosecuting this important inquiry. It must be cautiously and unobtrusively done. That Joe Scammel is a desperate fellow, and as wide awake as a hare in March. The slightest suspicion, and he would be gone far enough, for he ranges over a great extent of country. I was surprised to find him as well known to keepers of Staffordshire as he is here. I have an idea which George approves. This is to set Tom Boddily on this quest. He is the most knowing fellow I have come across anywhere round here. [Pg 109] He is an old soldier, and his living up and down in quarters has sharpened his wits. It was but yesterday that he came before us at the county hall in a very droll way. Our friend, Sylvanus Crook, was sent on Miss Millicent’s mare to Castleborough on an errand. It was a good distance from the town-house of the Heritages, where his errand lay. So instead of Sylvanus taking the mare to their own stable, he put her up for the time at the Spread Eagle. It was market-day, and the stables were crowded. When he went back for the mare, behold she was not there.

“‘Where is my mare?’ asked Sylvanus in great alarm.

“‘Mr. Heritage’s groom took her,’ said the hostler, ‘and said you must ride home this,’ pointing to a wretched animal not worth ten pounds. Sylvanus asked what sort of a man this groom was, and was told a man in a drab jockey coat with large buttons and top boots.

[Pg 110]

“‘That,’ said Sylvanus, ‘is no groom of ours; it is a hoax. Dear! dear! what will master, what will Millicent say? Man! man! thou hadst no business to let any person have my horse till I came.’

“Sylvanus hurried off to the bank. The theft and description of the horse and the thief were cried through the market; and handbills ordered to placard in all the towns round. You may imagine the consternation at Fair Manor, and the grief of Miss Heritage at the loss of her favourite May Dew. But about three o’clock next morning, Tom Boddily, who lives at a cottage on the green opposite to Fair Manor gates, sprung up in bed, saying,

“‘That’s May Dew.’

“‘You’re dreaming, Tom,’ said his wife.

“‘No,’ replied Tom; ‘I heard her neigh. I know that sharp, clear neigh well enough. And there it is again.’

“Tom slipped on his clothes; out and across [Pg 111] the green towards the place whence the sound came, when, to his amazement, he saw May Dew standing at Fair Manor gates, with her nose put through the bars, and a great fellow fast asleep on her back, and his head resting on her neck. Quick as lightning, Tom ran back; with a handful of gravel woke up Tim Bentley at the Grey Goose, and told him to come down in a moment. Tim was soon down, wondering what was on foot, when Tom took him, making motions to keep still, and showed him May Dew with the fellow on her back. Tom then took May Dew by the bridle, and led her gently to the door of the Grey Goose.

“‘Now, Bentley,’ he said, in a whisper, ‘you must have this fellow in; he has evidently drunk some drugged beer somewhere, and the mare has come home with him. You must have the fellow in, and let him lie on the squab till morning. I’ll put up the [Pg 112] mare and be back and get Latter, and we’ll secure the fellow.’

“Bentley then shook the fellow. ‘Heigh-ho!’ said he, ‘won’t you get down, stranger?’

“‘What is it?’ asked the fellow, drowsily.

“‘It is the Grey Goose public-house,’ said Bentley; ‘you’ll put up your horse, and have your nap out.’”

“‘Grey Goose?’ said the fellow. ‘Have you oats—have you good ale?’

“‘Both,’ said Bentley, and with Tom’s help they got the stupified fellow down, and into the house. Then he looked about rather more wakefully, and said—

“‘It’s queer how I came here; there’s d—d hockley indyberries in this beer. Landlord, you’ve a good tap, eh?’

“‘First-rate!’ said Bentley, ‘no bacca nor hockley-indy in our beer.’ He fetched the man a pint, who drank it off at a breath, said, ‘You’ve a safe stable, eh?’ and being [Pg 113] assured of that, lay along on the squab, a sort of wooden sofa, and fell asleep again. Meantime, Tom Boddily led the mare to her own stable, and woke up Job Latter, who came with his handcuffs and a strap, and secured the fellow as he still slept in a stupid, drunken sleep. You may imagine the surprise and joy at Fair Manor in the morning; and I can assure you that Tom Boddily yesterday won great credit among the justices for his adroitness, when the case came before them.

“That really was very clever,” said Mr. Woodburn; “but what is Boddily to do? Had you not better take up Hopcraft on suspicion?”

“I doubt that,” said Sir Henry. “We must create no alarm. I would employ Tom to sound Hopcraft a little without exciting his alarm too much, and if he thinks him guilty, to set out to beat up Scammel before we arrest Hopcraft. We can keep an eye on [Pg 114] Hopcraft meantime, he is so stupid a fellow that it won’t be difficult.”

Sir Henry immediately went up to Fair Manor, and returned, saying, “Mrs. Heritage believed Dr. Leroy’s letter was the Lord’s work, and Boddily should be put at once and wholly at our service.”

Soon after Tom made his appearance, and the matter being explained to him in confidence, he said at once—

“That’s it! My word for it, gentlemen, you have hit it. There is something wrong about that Hopcraft. He is sunk into a wretched pauper, and have not you noticed he is always looking behind him, at any little noise, as if he were afraid of a constable after him. As to that Scammel, I have not seen him for many a month. There’s something in that. He used to come to the Grey Goose of an evening, every now and then. But I’ll hunt him up if he is in the land of the living.”

As Hopcraft was in the cornfield reaping [Pg 115] with other men, it was thought best not to say anything to him till evening, when he had gone home. In the meantime, Boddily went to prepare for his expedition after Scammel. In the course of the day he sent to the Grange a coarse brown linen bag to wait for him. In the evening he came hastily into the Grange, and being sent for into the parlour, where Sir Henry Clavering was again, he said, “It is a case! I have seen Hopcraft; I looked in as if in passing, and remarked that I thought he could not be well, his garden was so out of order. He said no, it was bad luck; he did not know how, but everything went wrong. I then asked where Scammel was now-a-days, I had not seen him for long. He was evidently alarmed at the mention of his name. He did not know, he said, and did not want to know; Scammel was a terrible fellow. ‘Do you think he had any hand in that murder at the ferry there?’ said I.

[Pg 116]

“‘Murder!’ said Hopcraft, ‘it was no murder—the horse kicked him.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘I’ve some queer thoughts about that, and you know, Hopcraft, there are 300 l. for any one who can find out who did that; a pretty sum. Suppose you and I were to go shares at that?’

“‘Don’t you meddle with it, Boddily,’ he said, evidently greatly frightened, ‘Scammel is a devil; he will be down on you like a shower of rain. Let him alone, I say, let him alone, in the devil’s name.’

“‘Then he must be somewhere near, to be so quickly down on one.’

“‘I know nothing about that; I say let him alone. Everybody says it was an accident.’

“‘On the contrary,’ said I, ‘a little bird has whispered something to me. There were two people who saw the whole thing.’

“‘What who?’ said Hopcraft, pale and trembling—‘who said so—them Shalcrosses?’

“‘No matter,’ said I, ‘only, Hopcraft, as [Pg 117] you live so near and may have seen something of the real fact, if you and I could bring it home to Scammel, that 300 l. would be a very nice thing.’

“Hopcraft was now thoroughly frightened. ‘Mind,’ said he, ‘I know nothing, and I’ve said nothing; so don’t you bring me in any way.’

“‘Well,’ said I, ‘how can I, when you know nothing, and have said nothing?’

“‘Well, then,’ said Hopcraft, ‘you won’t say that you have had any talk with me, eh’?—you won’t, Boddily?’

“‘Oh, make yourself easy, Hopcraft,’ I said. ‘As you know nothing, what is the use of mentioning you? But now I must go, our folks will be wondering where I am. But, Hopcraft, if ever you do hear anything, tell me first about it, and let us get the three hundred.’

“This seemed to quiet him, and he said, ‘You may trust to me, Boddily; only be snug, eh? You won’t say a word of this?’

[Pg 118]

“‘What would be the use?’ I said, ‘if we are some day to find out something. As you say, Snug’s the word.’ And with that I came away, Hopcraft uneasily watching me through his garden hedge. He’s got a fright, and it will be well to talk to him a little cheerfully in the cornfield, occasionally, to allay any suspicions.”

“At all events,” said Sir Henry, “we will have an eye on him, he won’t escape us. But his mentioning the Shalcrosses is a settler. We have the thing by the end now. I congratulate you, dear Mr. Woodburn; all will soon be cleared up, depend upon it.”

“God grant it,” said Mr. Woodburn; and all present.

“And when are you off, Boddily?” asked Sir Henry; but receiving no answer he looked round, and saw that Boddily had disappeared. “Where’s Boddily?” he asked.

“Here!” answered a dirty, grimy, limping, shabby fellow, coming down the back [Pg 119] stairs. All looked in astonishment: could that be Boddily? It was a regular lounging-looking tramp, in a ragged old surtout, and ragged drab trousers, worn off very much behind at the heel. A pair of very slip-shod shoes on, and great holes, or potatoes, according to Midland county phrase, in his stocking heels. A very old, battered hat on his head, and a canvas wallet on his back, tied up like a sack at the top, and suspended over his shoulders by very old cracked straps. “Can your worships bestow your charity on a poor fellow who has not tasted bit nor sup these three days?”

There was one general burst of laughter, for Tom had so completely metamorphosed himself that nobody knew him till he made this petition. Then, changing his tone, he said, “Gentlemen, now I am off—in my wallet I carry a suit of my ordinary clothes. You will hear from me every few days, and may God prosper us, for I mean to go to John [Pg 120] o’ Groat’s or the Land’s End, but I’ll have that Scammel.”

With that Tom made a grave bow, put on his hat, and with a shuffling, limping gait, left the house by the front door, and with a dirty, ugly stick, very much in keeping with his whole appearance, he went slowly up the road till he was out of sight.

“That is a most extraordinary fellow,” said Sir Henry. “I would bet anything on his success; so now we must wait in patience for news from him.” With that he shook hands heartily all round, mounted his horse, and rode home.

SCAMMEL’S DEATH.

Some days disappeared after Boddily’s departure without news from him. There came a letter to say he had explored the neighbourhoods of the Bullockshed, Tenterhook, Sheepshank, and Swagsides estates, where game abounded, and where Scammel was known to haunt; but he had disappeared from those places for some time. There was no trace of him. A week more, and Tom had been through Elvaston and Shipley woods, and on into the neighbourhood of the preserves of the Dukes of Devonshire and Rutland, on the borders of the Peak of Derbyshire, and no news of him of late. Then another like interval, and Tom had explored the vicinities [Pg 122] of the Lords Vernon, Bagot, Anson, and Gower, in Staffordshire, and still no news. Then he was bending his course towards Leicestershire. Amongst poachers, where Scammel was a great leader but a few years ago, he was now missed, and many thought him dead; but Boddily found nowhere any news of his death. In the lodging-houses of tramps, who came across all sorts of people accustomed to ply their daily or nocturnal arts amongst the farms and villages, no news. Tom was puzzled, but not disheartened. The man, he felt, had stepped out of his ordinary haunts for concealment. No such persons as the Shalcrosses were, or had been, seen for a good while in all the regions of trampdom. Wherever they lay perdu, they were, he felt sure, together.

During the time that Boddily was absent, Nathan Hopcraft had evidently grown more uneasy, and had gone over to Fair Manor one Sunday to inquire for him. Sylvanus Crook [Pg 123] told him Thomas Boddily was away about his master’s business. He would tell him when he came back that he, Nathan Hopcraft, had inquired after him. But as Sylvanus was in the secret of Tom’s absence, to allay Nathan’s fears he went on to the house, and brought him out a large piece of cold roast-beef, wrapped in a newspaper, to take home with him—a most savoury offering to Hopcraft’s gigantic appetite.

It was towards the end of September when Tom suddenly made his appearance at the Grange. He had discovered Scammel. Far away in a heathery glen in Charnwood Forest, in Leicestershire, he had come upon a gipsies’ camp. It was mid-day, and all the men and younger women were absent on their rounds; a few old crones only were there, and an old cur or two, which ran out to a distance to meet and bark at Boddily. But there was something in Tom’s tramp-like appearance, and his quiet welcoming of them that soon [Pg 124] silenced them, and they followed him and licked his hands caressingly. On coming up, Tom squatted down familiarly, and entered into talk with the old women. He asked them how far to the next village, and the houses best to call at. This information the old dames readily gave, and offered him some stew from their kettle on the fire, which sent out a savoury smell. But just as Tom was about to accept it, his eye casually fell on an open cabin, formed of sticks bent into hoop shape, and saw, lying on the straw there, fast asleep, no other than the man of his search. It was Scammel’s black head and sunburnt sullen face, and no mistake. Tom nodded familiarly towards him, and said, “The palla there looks tired.”

“Yes,” said one of the old women, with a significant smile; “out much at night—supplies the pot there.”

“Aha!” said Tom; “a good butty, that; don’t let us disturb him.”

[Pg 125]

“You can’t readily do that,” said another old woman: “when he does sleep a crack o’ thunner would not wake him.”

Tom despatched his stew, praised it highly, and then said he must make use of the day while it lasted, and visit some of the farms. He bade them good-day, and limped off. Tom had found his game, but he saw difficulties in taking it. Scammel had evidently allied himself with the gipsies to secure a retreat away from villages and lodging-houses, amongst which news circulates freely over the country; and with three hundred pound reward hanging over his head the fewer companions the better. He could turn out at night, forage amongst the hares and pheasants, and sleep quietly under watch of the old crones in the day. They had allowed Tom to approach, from his orthodoxly trampish look; but how was he to approach by day over that open heath with men sufficient to take the ruffian napping?

[Pg 126]

Tom pondered this point long and anxiously as he strode along. “How shall I bring Latter, and, say, Ralph Chaddick, Sir Henry’s powerful head-keeper, to this camp, without starting the game and seeing Scammel run for it into the next woods? If he were once up, he would put a couple of bullets from his double-barrel through any two of us as soon as look at us.” Tom sat on a hill and looked round. Every way were difficulties. They could not approach the camp in any direction without coming into full notice from it. Though to-day all the men were away, it might not be so every day. If any of these were there, the difficulty was greater. Reflecting on these matters, and putting them into all possible shapes, Tom reached the next village, and entered the Cat and Fiddle public-house, and sitting down, called for his pint. As a tramp he did not presume to enter into conversation with the two or three farmers who were chatting over their glasses [Pg 127] there. He soon learned that they had all got their harvests over, and were “taking their ease in their inn” a little, in a state of comfortable complacency over their good fortune. As Tom seemed to listen to their discourse with considerable interest, one of them said—

“Well, traveller, and have you got your harvest pretty well?”

“But middling, sir,” said Tom; “my fields lie rather wide asunder.”

“I reckon so,” said the farmer; “and a pretty good stock of gleaners in ’em.”

“True, sir,” said Tom.

“Yet you manage to get your bread, I daresay?”

“Well,” said Tom, “if I don’t get bread I manage to get cake, perhaps, or a piece of cold pudding. I never knew the want of bread, thank God, but once, and then I made a pretty good shift with pie-crust.”

“Oh, you did, eh?” said the man, brightening [Pg 128] up; for he saw Tom had something in him; and a bit of clever talk was rather a novelty down there. The place was much troubled with stagnation of ideas.

“You’re not unreasonable, at any rate,” said the farmer, all the rest kindling up considerably.

“No,” said Tom, “not quite as unreasonable as a neighbour of mine, who, when he went home to his dinner, asked his wife why she had not made a pudding. ‘Because,’ said the wife, ‘there was no flour in the house.’ ‘Then,’ said the husband, ‘why did not you make a bit of a dumpling?’”

“Bread of idleness, I reckon,” said another, “is sweeter to you, young fellow, than any other, whether white or brown, fine flour or seconds, with a glass of summat strong occasionally to scare the cold off your stomach.”

“Gentlemen,” said Tom, “it’s no idle affair, I can assure you, to shuffle from town to town with a lame leg;”—and Tom drew [Pg 129] his right foot in with an expression of well-affected pain in his face. “You’ve heard, no doubt, of the old man on his death-bed that his wife was giving a lot of messages to carry to her relations in the next world, when he interrupted her with, ‘Hold thy tongue, old woman; dost think I can go stumping all over heaven with my lame leg to carry thy gossip?’ That man knew, gentleman, what a burden a lame leg is.”

The farmers, who had evidently never heard of the stumping about heaven story before, laughed heartily.

“How did you get lamed, young man?” asked one.

“In service, sir.”

“What, you’ve bin a sodger, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ay, ay, that’s where you’ve picked up your knowledge. Now I see. I reckon you’ve learned th’ Eleventh Commandment?”

“No,” said Tom, “what’s that?”

[Pg 130]

“Not know that, an bin a sodger? Why, th’ Eleventh Commandment is—‘As new debts come on so fast, thou shalt not pay the old ’uns.’”

“Well, thank heaven,” said Tom, “I’ve no occasion for book-keeping. I’ve no credit to give, and I get as little. Blessed are those that have nothing, for they cannot lose it. Now, I reckon you gentlemen farmers find many slips betwixt the cup and lip. I can tell you of a funny thing as happened to an alderman of our town.”

“Where’s your town? I thought all towns were alike to your trade.”

“Well, that’s just it,” said Tom; “but Tag-town, in the land of Green Ginger, where the houses are built of black-puddings and thatched with pancakes, and with windows that used to be glazed with barley-sugar, but the lads have broken all the panes. That is my particular town; and there, as I was going to say, is a jolly alderman, a big, broadchested, [Pg 131] hearty, laughing man he is, and pokes his fingers in your sides when he tells you a good story. Well, he has a fine, large garden, and in the middle of it a fine, large lawn, and in the middle of the lawn is a fine, large oak-tree. Now, the grass of the lawn had become thin, and the alderman told his gardener to dig up his lawn, and sow it with barley for the fowls, and next year they would turf the lawn again. The gardener thought this an odd fancy, but said he to himself, aldermen arn’t farmers, nor yet gardeners.”

“He wor right there,” said the farmers.

“Nothing would serve our alderman, but the lawn must be dug up and sown with barley, and so it was at spring. The barley came up and grew finely, and the alderman said to the gardener, ‘Well, John, we shall have a fine crop here.’

“‘No, sir,’ said the gardener; ‘you’ll excuse me, but you’ll just have none at all.’”

[Pg 132]

“‘None at all; why not?’ said the alderman. ‘It looks very healthy.’

“‘It does so,’ said the gardener; ‘but mark my word—you won’t have no barley here.’

“‘Why, how is that?’ demanded the alderman.

“‘I can’t just say,’ said the gardener, ‘but that’s how it will be.’

“The alderman thought the gardener very stupid, and every time he went round his garden he looked particularly at the barley plot. It grew and flourished, and as summer came in it shot into ear, and the alderman said to the gardener, ‘You’re all wrong, John. You never saw a finer, healthier, more promising crop of barley in your life.’

“‘That’s quite true, sir,’ said the gardener; ‘but mark my word, sir, you’ll never get a bushel of barley out of this plot.’

“The alderman was quite exasperated with the gardener, and went away saying, ‘You’re [Pg 133] a fool, John, that’s all.’ The weather grew hot, and when the alderman went home on Saturday, the barley looked quite ripe, and he ordered John with much triumph to cut it on Monday.

“Now, the alderman, after his good dinner on Sunday, got an extra good Sunday nap in his arm-chair, and very cross was he to be woke up out of the sweetest sleep by somebody, and to see John, the gardener, standing in his Sunday suit before him, and with his hat in his hand.

“‘Hang it, John,’ said he, ‘you are getting more stupid than ever. Why do you come in and wake me up in this manner?’

“‘I beg your worship’s pardon,’ said John, ‘but I want you to come into the garden, and see a sight.’

“‘Be hanged to your sights!’ said the alderman; ‘what is it? Can’t you say what it is?’

“‘I can’t exactly say, sir,’ said John. ‘I’d [Pg 134] rather your worship saw it yourself. You don’t see such a sight in a barley-plot every day.’

“At the mention of the barley, up jumped the alderman with a very red face, and nearly fell on the floor, for his legs were asleep yet; but, when he got a little right, out he went.

“‘Come quietly,’ said John, ‘as quietly as possible;’ and he led him along a grass-walk, and begged him not to speak, nor even to cough, or he would spoil all. At last, from under cover of the trees, he points, and the alderman, to his astonishment and consternation, saw the oak tree in the middle of the barley plot as black as his hat, all over with rooks, and the barley under was as black as his hat too. There were thousands and thousands, and they were all as silent as so many undertakers at a funeral. The alderman could stand it no longer, but out he rushed and shouted—Shoo! and up went the rooks with such a sough, and a whistle of [Pg 135] wings, and a cacawing, that was enough to deafen a cataract itself.

“‘It is that cursed old crow,’ said the gardener, ‘that I seed perched on the tree yesterday morning at six o’clock when I came to my work. I knew he would go and tell all the crows round the country what a pretty barley-plot your worship had got here. I know them black gentlemen of old, and I’ve been expecting him some time.’

“‘Then why didn’t you shoot him?’ said the alderman in a great rage.

“‘Ha! shoot him!’ said the gardener. ‘I must cotch him first, and plug his nostrils up, for he can smell powder a mile off. But it is just what I said—it is all up with the barley.’

“‘Have done with your stupid nonsense,’ said the alderman. ‘Hire a dozen men, and have it all down in half an hour in the morning: but you had rather see those devils of crows eat it, eh? It would make your prophesying true.’

[Pg 136]

“‘Not a bit of it,’ said John; ‘I shall miss all this good barley in the winter for the fowls; but I knew how it would be.’

“The alderman went away very crusty: he had lost his nap, and a good deal of barley. Next morning comes John and three or four men, to mow and carry away the barley, to secure it from the crows, but the crows had been there for three hours before John came at six, and had not left a single ear on the stalks.”

“Well, seize me,” said one of the farmers, “but that’s a good story, and just like them rooks.”

“A deep old file that gardener,” said the others. “You know a thing or two, young fellow, we can see. Now I dare say as you go on through the country, you can put a bit of wire in your pocket and snickle a puss now and then. That makes a good supper at the lodging-house. There’s rare living there, I hear; jolly beggars all when you getten together.”

[Pg 137]

“There’s a deal of fun there often,” said Tom; “and if you farmers and the gentlemen landlords could but hear yourselves talked of by some witty rogues—taken off, as they call it—you’d hardly know yourselves again. But as to poaching, I can tell you the prettiest feat of that kind that ever came off, and done by a sort of a gentleman too.”

“Let’s have it,” said the farmers, for they had not had such an entertaining fellow for a very long while to listen to. “Landlord, another pint for him, to wet his whistle, it mun get dry with so much talk.”

“Thank you, gentlemen,” said Tom; “but I never allow myself above a pint.”

“Then put this pint to our score, landlord,” said the farmer. “And this bit of poaching?”

“It was this,” said Tom. “In the town of C——ff, in South Wales, where I was once quartered with the regiment, there was a young fellow, a travelling portrait-painter. [Pg 138] He dressed like a gentleman, but rather, just a bit, seedily, and he wore fine light boots; but one day I heard him say, as a gentleman was taking him to his house to paint some young ladies, ‘I see my boots are burst at the side; I am ashamed to go into a good house, and into the presence of ladies; but the misfortune is, my feet are so tender I can’t wear good boots.’ Thinks I, certainly not, but the tenderness is, I guess, in the pocket. Well this young fellow painted little portraits for lockets of many of the young gentlemen and their sweethearts, but somehow he never seemed to get richer. He was well known by staying in the town some months, and one day, passing a game-dealer’s, he saw a wonderfully fine woodcock. He stopped, admired it, cheapened it, and bought it for four-and-sixpence. ‘I’ll call and pay you for it in a day or two, he said to the dealer, but I will take it and show it to a friend.’ So he carried it away with him, went straight [Pg 139] to one of the principal inns in the town, showed it to the landlord, and said, ‘See what I have brought you! It is the finest woodcock I ever saw, and fat too.’

“‘Oh, thank you,’ said the landlord; ‘you are very kind; you must come and partake of it to-morrow.’

“‘To-morrow—no, I can’t dine with you to-morrow, but I’ll stay and dine with you to-day instead, if you ask me; I don’t care myself for game.’

“Said and done. The artist knew that it was then exactly the landlord’s hour. They dined together, got very friendly over their wine; the landlord had the woodcock brought in to admire it afresh.

“‘By-the-by,’ said the painter; ‘it would be a shame to pluck that bird and not to take a portrait of it. Give me leave to carry it home, you shall have both it, and a good sketch of it, early in the morning.’

“‘You are very good,’ said the landlord; [Pg 140] and the young man carried off the woodcock when he went. The next day, at the same hour, he went to another inn, played the same game, got another dinner, carried back the bird to paint it, but instead of painting it, he now skinned it, had the bird nicely dressed, cooked, and eat it himself. Immediately after dinner he carried the skin to a bird-stuffer’s, ordered him to set it up in his best style, and send it to the museum of the town. He left written on a paper—‘Presented to the public Museum of C——ff, by J. D——, Esq.’

“All this was done. The two landlords wondered that the woodcock never came, the bird-stuffer delivered the stuffed bird, and the label with it, to the keeper of the museum; but when both he and the game-dealer called for their money, they found that J. D——, Esq., had left the town immediately after this transaction. He had made three dinners out of the bird, and had received a vote of thanks from the committee of the museum, without [Pg 141] its having cost him a farthing. The story is famous in C——ff, and the bird is conspicuous yet in the museum, and with the label of presentation attached, by J. D——, Esq.”

“My!” said the farmer; “that’s living by yer wits, and no doubt on’t. That wor a dead nap, that painter fellow. That woodcock wor worth keeping for a show.”

“Yes,” said Tom; “the painter made game of the game-dealer himself, and stuffed both himself, the landlords, and the bird-stuffer in first-rate style.”

“A pretty rogue, though,” said one of the farmers. “He wanted laying by the heels in the stocks for a few hours, and pelting wi’ mud.”

“Oh, trust him,” said Tom; “he’d get his deserts in the end. I never knew a dirty cur that went barking and nibbling horses’ heels, that did not get a clout on the head some day.”

As Tom said this, in came a countryman with a two-quart stone bottle, which he carried [Pg 142] by a string tied by the neck. The landlord took the man’s money without an observation.

“You see that,” said one of the farmers; “our squire’s keepers complain dreadful of the decrease of their game in the woods there on the forest.”

“Ay, that they do,” said another, “and the cause is plain as daylight. It’s them gipsies camped there.”

“It’s one gipsy, a huge, dare-devil looking fellow,” said the first; “who lies in the straw all day, and turns out only at night. They should look out for him and nab him.”

“Ay, faith, but how?”

“Nothing easier,” said the first farmer. “This woodman lives in the cottage on the edge of the wood, just behind the gipsy camp. He’s in league with them, as I know. Every afternoon he calls here for the man’s ale—that’s his weakness—and every evening, punctually at eight o’clock, the big black [Pg 143] fellow walks down there, and they empty that bottle together, and then it’s time for the poaching business.”

“Ay, how came you to find that out?” asked another.

“No matter,” said the first; “I know it, and any couple of good stout fellows who would watch for him at eight o’clock would be sure to find him.”

“Yes, but they must first know that he poaches, and be able to prove it on him.”

“Well, of course; but that’s soon done by a keeper that will have a quick eye upon him.”

Tom had now heard enough. His lingering and story-telling here had been no loss of time. He drank off his beer, made his bow to the farmers, and shuffled off. He followed the man with the bottle, saw him take a cart road through the woods, and, keeping within the trees, followed till he saw the cottage, and the man enter it. “Good,” said he; “now I know my lesson.” Tom lost no time in [Pg 144] changing his clothes, and washing his face in a pool. He then thrust his wallet, with the old ragged toggery, into a large gorse-bush, and, like a smart servant out of livery, and in a neat Glengarry cap instead of a hat, cut across the country to the great Leicester road, and by coach next day was at Hillmartin, where he got down and walked to Woodburn.

Great was the exultation at Tom’s success. It was soon arranged that Tom, with Job Latter, the constable blacksmith, Ralph Chaddick, Sir Henry’s keeper, and Luke Palin, Sir Henry’s groom,—Latter the strongest, and the two others the most active young fellows of the neighbourhood,—should set out before light in the morning; two in a spring cart, and two on horseback, and should make all speed to the place of Scammel’s retreat. It was calculated that they could reach the neighbourhood by evening, and, putting up their horses at a neighbouring village, be ready for the eight o’clock enterprise. All this they readily [Pg 145] accomplished, and so anxious were Sir Henry and George Woodburn that they rode thither themselves.

The proximity of the woods to the woodman’s house, rendered it easy to watch Scammel’s movements, and very little after the time named by the farmer they saw his well-known tall figure coming down the heath, and enter the house. “The first thing,” said Sir Henry, “on rushing into the house, look out for Scammel’s gun, and seize it if you can, or, if he have time, he will give one of you the charge.” It was now at the end of September, getting fast dark, and the four men, taking a little, cautious circuit, came up at the back of the house. The window-shutters were not closed, and, by the light of the fire, they saw Scammel seated facing the hearth, with his back towards them. His gun was laid on a table at his right hand. The woodman and his wife were seated by the chimney, to the left of Scammel, and had each a mug of [Pg 146] ale in their hands. At once there was a rush. Scammel started up, but only to be pinioned by Latter’s iron gripe; his gun, towards which he stretched out his hand, was adroitly drawn back by Luke Palin. In another moment there was a tremendous struggle. Scammel, who possessed enormous strength, twisted himself partly loose, by a violent effort, from Latter’s clutch, and came face to face, but it was only to be caught in a hug worthy of a great grizzly bear of the American forests, whilst Palin and Chaddick also closed upon him. The struggle was then furious. Scammel put forth his huge strength; he kicked, he bit, he foamed at the mouth, and swore terribly. But Latter held fast as a vice to him, and Chaddick drew a noose round his ankles, and forcing them together, prevented his ferocious kicks. It was, however, like four fierce beasts writhing and raging together; but at length Scammel was thrown, and Latter fell upon him, whilst Chaddick [Pg 147] and Palin bound faster round his legs their strong cords; and at length the savage ruffian, giving in as beaten, and lying stupid and speechless, they managed to roll him over, pinion his arms securely behind him, and thus had him at their mercy. During all this time the woodman and his wife stood helpless and trembling. The light spring cart was soon brought by Boddily and Palin through the wood and over the heath; Scammel was hoisted in, and Sir Henry Clavering and George Woodburn came and took a view of him. There the great strong fellow lay on the straw at the bottom of the cart with his eyes shut, and his features, rendered almost black with rage, wore a sullen air of dogged endurance. Having seen their criminal secured, Sir Henry and George rode away with great satisfaction.

Before leaving, inquiries were made after the Shalcrosses by Boddily and his companions, but either the woodman and his wife [Pg 148] knew nothing, or would say nothing, though offered money.

By the next afternoon the party had managed to reach Cotmanhaye Manor, where Simon Degge was ready to assist Sir Henry in hearing the charge against Scammel, for Hopcraft was now arrested, and, on hearing of Scammel’s being secured, was all eagerness to prove him the murderer. The magistrates had heard Hopcraft once this forenoon, who had sworn that Scammel had committed the murder at the Ferry, precisely as described in Dr. Leroy’s letter, and Hopcraft excused himself by saying that Scammel had taken him by surprise, and then swore to murder him too if he said anything. As for himself, he vowed that he had taken no part in the murder. He had only seen it in terror and fear of his own life.

“But,” said the magistrates, “you helped to throw Mr. Drury into the river, and you accepted part of the money.”

[Pg 149]

Hopcraft was dreadfully frightened to hear that this was known, and said, “But the man was dead when he was thrown into the river, and what could I do? He would have murdered me if I had refused either that, or to take some of the money.” Hopcraft was remanded till the arrival of Scammel, and he was now ordered up. The magistrates were seated in the library looking on to the lawn. As the afternoon was one of those so intensely hot about three o’clock in September, one of the French windows was left open. The prisoner, bound fast in all the coils of cords in which he had been enveloped on his capture, was carried in by two of the men and laid in the middle of the floor. Around stood Palin, Latter, Chaddick, and Boddily, all bearing obvious traces of their exertions for nearly two days and a night. Besides, there were several men-servants of the house.

The prisoner looked like some savage [Pg 150] bear borne down by force, or some demon captured and secured in magic cords. His face was nearly black with rage and hate, and casting a fierce glance at the magistrates, he said, “Is this the way you treat men before they are proved guilty of any crime. Take off the d—d ropes that are cutting me to the bone, and see the devil’s work your scoundrel men have done.”

“As to your crime,” said Mr. Degge, “we have full evidence of that on the oath of Nathan Hopcraft.”

“Ha!” said the writhing prisoner with a demon scowl, “that is the way the wind blows, eh? That is the dirty earth-worm that would swear away my life, eh? Release me. I will swear not to attempt to escape, as how could I?”—looking round—“Release me! let me stretch my limbs, and chafe them, or my heart will burst with rage. I will show you what that wretch is. I will show who is the murderer.”

[Pg 151]

“Show us that,” said Mr. Degge, “and then we will ease your cords.”

“Never!” said Scammel, with a voice full of fury, “never whilst I am thus tortured will I speak a word. Release me a few moments to make my limbs feel alive, and I will tell you all. I don’t want to save myself; I would rather die and have done with this hell of a world than not, but that crawling, creeping earth-worm—oh! I will give him his due.”

The magistrates consulted a moment and then told Palin and Chaddick to stand in the open window, and the other men to range themselves in file round the prisoner. They then bade Latter and Boddily to loose his cords. This they did promptly, the prisoner groaning as one after another gave way, the very loosening seeming to send each time a pang through him. As soon as he was at liberty, he reared himself up a figure so tall and stalwart as to make even the magistrates feel the imprudence of their concession.

[Pg 152]

“Put the handcuff on the prisoner’s right hand, and secure him to yourself, Latter,” said Sir Henry.

“Stop a bit,” said the prisoner, “let me first chafe my limbs a little,” and with that he threw off his coat, drew up his sleeves, and showed the deep and livid trenches which the cords had left in his flesh. He held them up and cried, “Is that British? Is that Christian treatment?” and with that he began to chafe his arms with his hands. Then he pulled off his leggings, and began chafing his legs. Then buttoning his shirt sleeves again, he said, “Now for that villain that says I did it!” He held out his right hand for Latter to clasp on the handcuff, but in the same instant he gave a spring forward, dashed his head into the chest of Luke Palin, who stood in the open window, sent him spinning to a distance out on the lawn, and was through the window like a shot.

“Hold him! seize him!” shouted Sir [Pg 153] Henry Clavering, at the same moment starting up and giving chase without his hat. Boddily, Chaddick, and several of the young men-servants rushed after him like a dash of enraged hornets from their hole. Scammel was already across the lawn, springing over the sunk fence into the park at a bound like that of a buck, and was in full career towards the other side of the park where there was a great mass of wood bounding it. The park descended rapidly on that side towards the river, which, more to the right, skirted its bottom. It was amazing with what speed Scammel flew down the hill, considering how his limbs had been corded and cramped for above twelve hours. But Sir Henry, who ran splendidly, was gaining fast upon him, spite of the proverb, that a stern chase is a long chase. Tom Boddily was close upon Sir Henry, and said, “For God’s sake, Sir Henry, don’t attempt to seize that fellow yourself, he has the strength of a giant and [Pg 154] the will of a devil. With one blow he would drop you as a butcher drops an ox.” Sir Henry made no reply, but still put out all his strength to overtake Scammel. Behind came half a dozen others, running with different speeds. On the lawn by the house, Simon Degge, Thomas Clavering, and the women servants were seen eagerly watching this extraordinary chase, and from an open window above, Lady Clavering might be seen, evidently in great agitation, watching it also.

All at once Scammel suddenly altered his course, and wheeling to the right, made for the river. There was a deep ditch and high park palings on the side towards which he had been running, and this had probably flashed on his mind. Boats lay at their moorings in the river; if he got one, he might yet give them a wild chase across the meadows or hide himself in some thicket, or amid the flags and weeds of one of the sluggish streams that crept rather than ran [Pg 155] through them. The sight of Scammel’s change of course changed instantly that of all the pursuers. Those behind seemed brought nearer to him by the change, his goal being different. But he was far enough ahead of even Sir Henry and Boddily to reach the river bank some distance before them, for he was in everyday training from his predatory and nocturnal habits.

There were two boats chained to their posts, but, to his mortification, the mooring-chains were fast locked. Catching up a large pebble, he began hammering desperately at one of the locks, and then plucking violently at the chain. It resisted all his efforts. The pursuers were at hand; he turned and plunged into the stream.

The next moment Sir Henry was at the boat, produced a key, and though with an agitated hand and panting for breath, unlocked the chain, and whilst he pushed off the boat, gave Tom Boddily the key to unlock [Pg 156] the other. Quickly they were both in the first boat, and were cutting the water after the fugitive. Sir Henry was a master in handling his oars, and sent the light skiff forward with an admirable speed. Tom offered to take an oar. “No, Boddily, take the boat-hook, and mind that the scoundrel does not come so near as to grapple us; if he do, we shall entirely be swamped, and must swim for it. If he attempt it, push him off, and don’t be afraid of pricking him with the spike. See! the fellow is a knowing one. He won’t battle with the current by cutting directly across; he is dropping down stream slantwise to the meadow shore; we must keep him off there at all costs.”

Away pulled Sir Henry, taking a course somewhat nearer to the meadow shore on their left hand; and now the other boat was rapidly advancing, with two rowers and two other strong men in her, and endeavouring to cut below the swimmer. With stupendous [Pg 157] strength and agility the daring haunter of woods and midnight fields ploughed his way through the water. His muscular arms sent back waves like a strong pair of oars, and that black, curly head of his rose at every vigorous stroke more visibly above the stream. As Sir Henry drew nearer to him, they could see the savage scowl of his dark eyes, and the seething wrath with which he blew the clear waves from his lips.

“He is a dangerous customer, Tom,” said Sir Henry; “we must give him a wide berth, always guarding against his escape to the shore, till the other boat is at hand. We must play with our fish, and exhaust him as much as possible, for, at all odds, he would do some mischief at close quarters.”

But now the sound of the oars of the other boat caught Scammel’s ear. He turned his head hastily that way, and then a darker hue came over his savage features. The whites of his eyes showed glaringly as he glanced [Pg 158] first at one shore and then at the other. Suddenly he changed his course, and struck further down the main current.

“That,” said Sir Henry, “is to ease himself. By throwing himself on the rapid current, he hopes to ride ahead of us, and then gain the shallows to the left, not far off, where he could run for it. But all in vain! The stream carries us with still more ease and velocity. See! he evidently flags. His strokes are less vigorous; his body is deeper in the water. He can only keep it out of his mouth and nostrils by blowing like a porpoise. Ha! he fails. See that yellow-black hue—that sullen, despairing expression of his face! And the other boat is just upon him: let us close in.”

At this moment they were in a rapid, whirling current, caused by the stream rushing round the projection of an island. At once the desperate poacher and murderer cast a furious glance on one boat and then on the [Pg 159] other, from which several hands were already straining to seize him; and throwing aloft his arms over his head, with a savage, half-drowned exclamation, “Damnation!” he went down perpendicularly like a stone. There was a burst of horror from all in the boats.

“Keep a sharp look-out!” cried Sir Henry; “steady your boats!—don’t let them drift, if you can help it!”

All eyes were strained to catch a sight of the black head again emerging, but it was nowhere to be seen.

“Mark something on the shore,” said Sir Henry, “to determine the spot he went down at.”

“I have done it,” said Boddily. “That ivied tree on the island.”

Still all were watching for a reappearance of Scammel. Seconds, minutes—five, ten minutes—went over, when Sir Henry said, “The wretch has escaped us and the gallows. [Pg 160] He will not rise again alive. He did not mean it when he went down. Go for the drags to the Hall. Remember, Boddily’s ivied tree. The corpse will be washed more or less downwards from that mark. The water here is very deep.”

There was an awed silence amongst the men in the other boat. The sudden violent death of a human being even of the worst and most ruffianly of our race, falls with a strange sensation on the mind. Sir Henry bade the other boat remain on the look-out. Boddily should put him on shore, and the drags should be quickly brought off.

By this time, every inhabitant of the Hall and parsonage, except Mr. Thomas Clavering, had made their way down to the bank of the river, at the bottom of the park, and some of the house and farm-servants had crossed to the island, and appeared on its shore, all in breathless inquiry. As the boat drew near the shore, Sir Henry saw Lady Clavering in [Pg 161] great anxiety and agitation, surrounded by her maids, and with his uncle and Mr. Degge.

“Have you got him?” inquired Mr. Degge.

“No,” replied Sir Henry.

“What! has he escaped, then?”

“Yes,” said Sir Henry; “beyond our pursuit. He is drowned.”

“Drowned!” exclaimed a score of voices; “drowned?”

“Yes,” said Sir Henry, as he stepped on shore; “he is drowned, sure enough; he preferred drowning to the gallows. I can understand his feelings.”

“Poor fellow!” said Lady Clavering, with tears starting to her eyes.

“Poor fellow!” said Sir Henry. “My dear Ann, do you recollect what he was?”

“Yes, yes!” said Lady Clavering; “but he was a man, and to know that he has rushed into eternity with all his crimes on his soul, one cannot help deeply feeling such a thing. But I know what a wretch he was.”

[Pg 162]

Sir Henry made no answer, but gave his arm to his wife; and they began their way homeward, talking of the singularity of this event as they ascended.

“One thing,” said Sir Henry; “I think the news of Scammel’s death should be kept from Hopcraft, or he may draw in his horns, when he knows there is no more fear of him. He seemed disposed otherwise to be communicative.”

“On the contrary,” said Mr. Degge, “his fear being gone, he may tell us all he knows of Scammel’s part of the murder, though he will take care to conceal his own.”

“Well,” said Sir Henry, “that is of less consequence; we have his full testimony on oath of Scammel committing the murder, and plundering the body. Now there is a curious incident come to light. On the trial of Mr. Woodburn, the suspicion was thrown with overwhelming force on him, because it was said that it was clear no robbery had [Pg 163] been contemplated. It must, therefore, have been a work of malice. Yet, here we have proof that robbery was committed. It is clear to me that Dr. Leroy’s dream is correct in this respect, and when he saw the murderer take out Mr. Drury’s watch, and then put it back again, and so by his pocket-book, it was because Scammel had the shrewdness to apprehend that these might somehow or other lead to his detection, if taken and made use of.”

“I see,” said Mr. Degge, “I see. Yes, that is very curious. Now could not this fact, of a separate amount of money in Mr. Drury’s pocket, be ascertained by an examination of his accounts?”

“Right! a good idea!” said Sir Henry. “George Woodburn can, I have no doubt, clear all that up. The accounts are all in Mr. Drury’s desk at Bilt’s Farm. I believe he kept most minute and accurate ones. I have very little question but his Bank pass-book [Pg 164] will, in connection with his day-book, show that perfectly. George must write to Miss Drury, and get permission to make the examination. Elizabeth will render every possible aid in working out the solution of this mystery.”

“Oh, it will be a great pleasure to George, and to us all,” said Lady Clavering, “to be able to clear our dear father in her eyes. She has always firmly and nobly declared that such a crime was impossible from such a quarter.”

“In the morning,” said Sir Henry, “we will, if convenient to you, Mr. Degge, bring up Hopcraft again. To-day I don’t feel as if I could go through anything more.”

“No,” said Mr. Degge, laughing; “after such a race, and such a catastrophe, you may well claim a rest. And what a race that was! As I stood and watched, I thought it was one of the finest things I had ever seen. That tall, black, brawny fellow making a desperate push for his life, [Pg 165] and going off the ground like a wild Indian; and you! ’pon my word, I could not have imagined that you could run so! The way you held out was splendid, and shows that your field sports have given you extraordinary stamina. And that Boddily; why, he seems up to anything. It was a neck-and-neck affair between yourself and him! Altogether the event is like a dream to me. I don’t know how I feel. I shall not be myself till I have slept upon it.”

“No!” said Lady Clavering, “a week won’t set me right again. I cannot describe the horror that seized me, when I saw Sir Henry following so closely on the heels of that desperado. ‘He will turn on him and kill him!’ I exclaimed, ‘Oh! that some good angel could warn him of his danger.’”

“Well then, my dear, you had your wish: a good angel did warn me, and that was Tom Boddily.”

[Pg 166]

“God reward him for it!” said Ann; “and I must reward him, too, somehow.”

“That man,” said Mr. Degge, “has his wits about him if any man has. He is a treasure. I don’t covet my neighbour’s goods, but I do envy Mr. Heritage the possession of such a servant.”

“Ay,” said Sir Henry, “look at the tact of Mrs. Heritage, who saw in a moment, in the poor, ragged haymaker, the trusty and clever fellow that he is.”

“True!” said Mr. Degge, with a merry smile, “the spirit moved her, no doubt.”

They were now at the Hall; and Mr. Degge, though pressed to stay dinner, took his horse and rode home. No doubt, he felt the strange desire there is in every mortal soul of spreading news. He wanted to tell them at home of this extraordinary occurrence. And he wanted to call at Woodburn Grange to tell it, for George Woodburn, though deeply interested in the examination of Scammel, had [Pg 167] felt so excessively wearied with his long ride in Leicestershire and loss of sleep, that he had gone home.

The men on the river continued their dragging till it was quite dark, but without any success. Already the news of this startling affair, the arrest and drowning of Scammel, had flown round the country, and to Castleborough, with a multitude of fabulous additions.

THE SKY BRIGHTENS.

In the morning at eleven o’clock Hopcraft was brought up in custody to Cotmanhaye Manor. He was brought in a covered cart belonging to Sir Henry Clavering to avoid observation, but the whole neighbourhood was astir. The events of yesterday were the topic of conversation throughout both Woodburn and Rockville. The village parliament, as it was called, at the Grey Goose in Woodburn, in the evening had been crowded, greatly to the profit of Tim Bentley, the landlord. The cleverness of Tom Boddily hunting up Scammel in the guise of a tramp had been loudly applauded. It was declared to be still grander than his taking the horse-thief asleep on the back of Miss Heritage’s stolen mare. He was [Pg 169] unitedly voted “a long-headed chap.” The desperate affair of Scammel’s attempt to escape out of the justice-room at Cotmanhaye Manor; the chase of magistrate and men after him; his swim for it in the river, and his going down rather than be taken—all was declared out of the common way, and a subject to be talked of for the next hundred years. “He was a plucky fellow, was that Joe Scammel,” said Howell Crusoe; “if he had had an education, he might have turned out something remarkable.”

“He could kick remarkable hard,” said Job Latter. “I’ve the marks of his clouted shoes on my shins yet, i’ aw’ th’ colours of the rainbow.”

“Ay, by Guy,” said Tim Bentley. “That must have been a tuzzle wi’ him when you got him in yer grip. It were worth a trifle to ha’ seen it.”

“I believe you,” said Latter; “it was better to look at than feel. I verily believe he has [Pg 170] spelched actchul pieces out of my shin bones. The doctor says he’s afeard they are gone green; and he need na’—any body can see that. They are green, and blue, and every mander of colour.”

“What the doctor meant,” said Crusoe, “was, he was afraid of gangrene—that is, mortification.”

“Nonsense!” said Latter, rather frightened though; “when a man’s legs martify they ta’en ’em off, and he’s not going, I can tell him, to tak’ my legs off. They’re a better pair o’ legs than th’ doctor’s got his sen, barrin’ these toothry brusses.”

“No,” said Crusoe, “he does not mean to take your legs off, but to caustic the mortified flesh, and get it away.”

“Oh,” said Latter, “if he canna mak a cure on ’em, I can. I’ll lay some of my green sauve on, such as I dresses hosses wi’. As for Scammel, poor devil, they canna hang him, anyhow; and I’m rather glad on’t, as I helped to catch him.”

[Pg 171]

With that followed many a story of Scammel’s exploits in the woods with the keepers, and wonders that he had not had his brains knocked out years ago.

“‘Twasn’t so easy,” said old Bobby Powell, the cobbler; “Scammel was more likely to have knocked out half-a-dozen other people’s. Bless you! he had a scull as hard as my lapstone; and as for legs—I’ve seen the paintings on the walls at my Lord Birron’s at Newstead, of the Red Shanks and Limners, but long as their legs were, Scammel’s would have outrun ’em.” And Powell had his story of one of Scammel’s skirmishes in the woods at Annesley, when Squire Musters, a desperate, strong, active man, and a dozen keepers, armed with swipples (flails), his favourite weapon with poachers, had to cut and run from Joe and a little knot of Selston boys.

Many were the speculations about Nathan Hopcraft. Some thought he was as guilty as Scammel. “He’s such a hog,” said one; [Pg 172] “he would murder his grandmother, I undertake to say, if he could get a groat by it.”

“No, no,” said another; “he is such a confounded coward; he’d as soon attack Farmer Chaffer’s bull, and he’s a savage un’, as attempt to kill a man.”

“Ay, coward he may be,” said the wheelwright; “but all cowards is mean, and he’d be ready enough to help a strong fellow like Scammel. My notion is, they’ll hang Hopcraft, and sarve him right too.”

On the morning before Hopcraft was taken to the hall, the news came that the body of Scammel had been brought up by the drags, and lay in the barn at Cotmanhaye mill, waiting for the coroner’s inquest. This added greatly to the excitement, and as the covered cart drove through the village to Woodburn, everybody was out of doors.

All said, though they could not see him, “that’s Hopcraft,” for Job Latter was seen sitting, and looking very solemn, near the [Pg 173] opening in front of the cart. Soon after, Sir Henry Clavering, who had been early to Castleborough, rode up on his way to the Hall, accompanied by Mr. Gethin Thorne, the clerk to the magistrates; and Sir Henry received the most reverential touches of the hat, and curtseys from the village women; for his chase after Scammel, and his foiling him in the river till he was obliged to let himself drown, or be taken and hanged, had made him very much of a hero in their eyes.

“A fine young fellow is Sir Henry,” said one to another; “and he’s a heart in him, and he can run too! By Guy! though, if Scammel had turned on him, I wonder how it would ha’ gone? I should na’ like to ha’ got a blow of his iron fist.”

“No; but you’re not so sure as he could have got a blow at Sir Henry. He’s got the use of his limbs, you may depend. Them young fellows at college, they practisen’ at what’s caw’d Jim Nasti-sticks—what that is [Pg 174] I know na; but they tell’n me it makes ’em wondrous strong and agile. They can jump aside and dodge, and catch a man out like a harlequin.”

Such was the village discourse while Hopcraft, safely handcuffed to Job Latter, descended from the cart, and was conducted into the smoking-room at the manor. There was no open window there for him to attempt an escape from, even if he had been a likely man for such an experiment. He looked very much frightened, and yet he stood in a peculiar position, for Scammel being dead, there was not a single witness against him; and Mr. Degge told him that he was not bound to criminate himself, but that anything he had to say they should take down, but it must be on his oath, and he must understand it would be brought forward at any future hearing in court. It was expected that Hopcraft would be very close; and as Scammel was gone, and could not come against him, would leave the [Pg 175] magistrates to find out anything they could; but the case was quite different. Hopcraft said, as he was now sure that Scammel could never again come down on him, he would tell all he knew. He said that Scammel came to him that afternoon at the ferry, and said he was just come out of prison, where Mr. Drury had put him, and he vowed vengeance on him. Hopcraft said he told him to mind what he did, and not to do anything there and then to bring him into trouble. When he saw Mr. Drury coming riding towards them, as they sat under the bushes, he said, “Well, Nathan, as you are such a cursed coward, give me your fork, go you and pull the fellow over, and then come back again; I’ve something more to say to you.” With that he skulked into the bushes; but when I was just beginning to pull the boat, out he jumped, and knocked down Mr. Drury in a twinkling. I could not cry out for fright; my voice stuck in my throat.”

[Pg 176]

“But you helped to throw the murdered man into the river?” said the justice’s clerk.

“Yes, sir,” said Hopcraft; “for he vowed to knock me on the head if I did not, and throw me after the other body.”

“And you took some of the money stolen from the murdered man?”

“That’s a true bill,” said Hopcraft. “But it was only two pounds; and Scammel swore that if I did not take it, and keep my tongue in my head, he would do for me in no time. And he would, too, your worships. He wor na a man to play with, worn’t Scammel. Oh, goodness gracious me! my life ever sin’ that has been a plague to me. He has been coming continjally o’ nights and threatening me to peach, and swear it was aw my doings, if I did not give him this, and that, and t’other. ‘For, Hopcraft,’ he said; ‘you’re in for it, you know; it’s all between me and you, and I can hang you any time.’”

“‘Nay,’ I’ve said; ‘there’s those Shalcrosses; [Pg 177] I seed them wi’ you at th’ lane-end.’

“‘Shalcrosses be d—d,’ he would say. ‘Where are they, Hopcraft—where are they? Tell me that.’

“And as nobody ever saw them after the murder I verily thought he’d murdered them too. God knows, may happen he has.”

“But he used to come to you of nights. What was that for?”

“I reckon,” said Hopcraft, “it was to see as all wor safe, and to threaten me afresh, and to squeeze something out of me. O gentlemen, everybody’s seen how things have gone wi’ me since th’ murder,—pigs, hens, cabbages, potatoes, everything; it was Scammel that came and fetched them. Oh, he was a leech, a blood-sucker! and he’d ha’ had my very heart’s blood out of me. Monny and monny a time my wife has said, ‘Go, Hopcraft, go and peach. It wor better to be hanged than live such a life as this. Aren’t [Pg 178] we all starving? neither me nor th’ childer have hardly a rag on us, and as for living, it is not living, we are awlis as holler as drums. Let us all be hanged rather than live o’ thissons.’”

“And why did not you follow your wife’s good advice?”

“Why? ‘Coss Scammel was somewhere—God knows where, and would have been down on me before I could get up to Rockville, and he’d ha’ murdered me in broad day-light. O gentlemen, you dunna know what a devil that fellow wor.”

It was very clear that Hopcraft had lived in an infatuation of terror of Scammel, and like a bird fascinated by a serpent dared not to move. There was no proof of his participating in the actual murder, but he joined in throwing the body into the river, had shared the spoil, and kept the murderer’s secret; and on those grounds the order for his committal was made out. No sooner, [Pg 179] however, was this done, than Sir Henry’s valet, who had entered some time before, announced that there was an old man and woman, tramps, well-known, named Shalcross, waiting and wanting a hearing in Scammel’s case.

“How odd,” said Sir Henry, “that they should turn up thus; for they have eluded all our inquiries after them, and all Boddily’s when out after Scammel. Let them come in.”

Presently entered the old couple, the woman first, her husband after her. The old man made his bow, the old woman her curtseys to the two gentlemen, one after the other, and a third to the clerk. They were placed in the centre of the room, in front of the table at which the gentlemen sat. They were as exactly like their description in Dr. Leroy’s dream as if they had this moment stepped out of it. The old man in his shabby, ragged, old blue surtout; his waistcoat tied with more strings than fastened with buttons, his [Pg 180] ragged trousers, and his pale, thin, feeble-looking face; short, thin, white beard, and grey hair combed—if it ever were combed—but, at all events, worn smooth, and hanging downwards from his nearly bald crown. Altogether, he was a picture of poverty, age, and feeble-mindedness. As for the old woman, she looked at least seventy. Short, rather stooping forward, and resting on her stick, which instead of a hook, had a straight crutch. Her old battered black bonnet, and dingy faded old red cloak, were just as described in the dream. Her face, however, was very different from that of her husband. It was brown and wrinkled, but was full of shrewdness. Her nose was clear and straight, and you saw that in her youth she must have had good features. Her eyes were grey and large, and looked out full of meaning, and keen observation.

“You are John and Jane Shalcross?” said the clerk.

“Yes, sir,” said the old woman.

[Pg 181]

“Let your husband speak, good woman,” said Gethin Thorne.

“Your service, sir,” said the old woman, with a deep curtsey.

“What has brought you here, Shalcross?” said Mr. Degge.

“It’s about this business, sir, of Joe Scammel.”

“What about it?”

“We hearn he’s dead, and we wanten to tell your worship what we know’d.”

“What’s that?”

“About the murder, sir,” said Shalcross.

“Well, did you know anything about the murder?”

“Yes, your worship, we seed it.”

“What! you saw it? You are rather late with your information, then, I must say. Don’t you know that your concealing it thus all this time makes you accessories?”

“Makes what?” said Shalcross, looking at his wife, as if she could help him.

[Pg 182]

“Makes you guilty, too, Shalcross.”

“God forbid, sir! but what could we do? Scammel swore to murder us if we said a syllable to any living soul; and he took us off wi’ him.”

“But,” said Mr. Degge, “you should have seized the very first opportunity to get away, and inform the magistrates of the murder.”

“Ay, sir,” said the woman, “that’s what ween done.”

“Let your husband speak first, Jenny,” said Gethin Thorne, the clerk, “you’re always so ready with your tongue.”

“Oh, let her speak, sir,” said the husband. “She can tell you about it better than I can. It is she as awlis does the talking for us; my poor head, ’specially since the murder, is just no where at all.”

“Well, Jenny, speak then,” said Sir Henry Clavering. “You say you have now come to tell us of the murder; but this is more than [Pg 183] a year after it took place. You must have had plenty of opportunities before.”

“No, your worship,” said the old woman; “no, as God knows, never! That Scammel has had us awlis wi’ him. We were never quite out of his sight. He trapesed us off after the murder, away, and away; travelling o’ nights, lying in woods and mosses by day. Oh! how he did hallecx us about the country; till we came to that Charnwood Forest where he was taken. There he watched us as a cat watches a mouse: and he said, savourly, if we ever made the least attempt to escape, he would just knock our foolish brains out; and he would, too. If ever the devil was in a man, he was in Scammel.”

“And how did you live all that time?”

“Live? Oh, we did not live so badly. Scammel had plenty o’ money: and wherever there were hares and pheasants, would not Scammel have his share? I rather guess he would. But our meat did us no good, nor [Pg 184] our bread neither, for we got good bread out of the villages.”

“Who fetched it?”

“We did, yer honour.”

“And could not you have escaped or informed then?”

“Ay, faith, just as th’ mouse can escape, when the cat lets it go a little, and lets it run a little, and then gives it a cuff wi’ its paw, as much as to say, ‘I’m here yet,’ Scammel awlis watched us. He went with us to the village, and lurked behind some hedge, and if I did not go into the baker’s, for he awlis sent me, and come direct out again with the bread, he would give a whistle as made my heart jump; for it meant, ‘Old woman, another minute, and I’ll murder you where you are.’ Well, as God would have it, he was taken, and we’ve followed, as fast as we could, to give information. This morning we got here, and heard as how the villain had drownded his sen, and so here we are.”

[Pg 185]

“Well,” said Mr. Degge, “I wish you had been here a year or more ago. You would then have merited well of the country, and would have got three hundred pounds reward. Now Hopcraft has confessed; and we must commit you both as accessories after the fact, as you have not come forward, and given information of the murder.”

“But how could we, Mr. Degge? I tell you God’s truth—we never could. We have been actchull prisoners to Scammel; ween lived under daily threats of murder, and many a night and many a day, in lonely places ween expected that he’d just kill and bury us. It warn’t in our power to escape from that almighty Sattan. And you’ll not go for to try to hang us for what we could no more help than we could fly or swim. We heard of the three hundred pound. Scammel said there were three hundred pound set on his head, and he reckoned we should try to get it; and so he must kill us off to make all [Pg 186] safe. Oh, to think of what ween gone through, and to hang us for it! No, your worships, don’t you think we’d ha’ got the three hundred pound, if we could? It stands to reason. And look at me here. I say it as knows it, that I am as honest a woman as walks in shoe-leather. Nine childer I have nursed and reared, sons and daughters, and not one of them has ever got hanged.”

A smile crossed the features of all present.

“Well, gentlemen, you may think it an easy matter to bring up nine childer, and none of them to get hanged. You’ve yer nurses, and school-masters, and school-misseses to teach ’em, and they’n plenty of pocket-money, and horses to ride, and coaches to sit in, and everything they wanten; but it’s different wi’ poor folks in these wicked times. There’s little or no schooling, and the childer gets in th’ streets, and hears and sees what they shouldna; and, oh! I’ve seen the troubles on troubles of some of my neighbours, and I’ve [Pg 187] seen as many as three young strong men strung up in Castleborough of a row, as I remembered as childer as innocent as th’ lambs i’ th’ meadows. Well, gentlemen, you may smile; but when I’ve seen such sights, I’ve blessed God, that not one of mine has ever got hanged.”

“I see truth in what you say, Jenny Shalcross,” said Mr. Degge. “We, who are better off, don’t, I feel, allow weight enough to such facts. Where are your children now?”

“The wenches are aw married, and struggling on, just scratting their way through th’ world, some with poor, drunken, good-for-nothing husbands; and our sons are some here, some there, married and decent working-men, wi’ families like, and two on ’em are sogers, and have bled for their king and country.”

“Were they in the great war?”

“Oh, yes, your worship, they were to a sartainty. They both had wounds on the field of honour, as it is called; but where that great [Pg 188] field is, I dunna know. It is somewhere in France, I reckon, where Bony was; for one has awlis heerd on it, when he was talked of.”

“Well, Jenny,” said Mr. Simon Degge. “I am sorry to say that we shall be obliged to send you to the county jail, for not revealing this murder; but I don’t think you need be much afraid. It is pretty clear you could not help yourselves.”

“Well, then,” said Jenny, “pray, your worships, just let us go our ways till we are wanted. We’ll only tantle about i’ th’ neighbourhood here; we’ll come when wanted. But to shut us up within stone walls would kill us. Ween been used to wander and wander for these fifteen years. It’s second natur to us. We liken to sit and hear the lark singing over our heads on th’ open moors; and hear th’ wind i’ th’ trees, and th’ water running i’ th’ brucks; and to smell th’ smell o’ th’ woods and commons, and to lie [Pg 189] and sleep a bit under a tree i’ th’ pleasant summer dees. Shut us up, and you might as well hang us off at once. Our lives are of no use to nobody. They are going fast out, like the down as blows off the dandy-lion. So pray yer just let us daudle on.”

“I am sorry,” said Mr. Degge, “that the law does not allow us to do that. You must pass your time till the March assizes within the limits of the county jail; but there are airy, large court-yards there, and the jailer will make you comfortable.”

“Comfortable!” said the old woman, “and not a blade o’ grass to be seen, nor a green tree, nothing but stone, stone, stone! Well, what mun be, mun be. God give us patience, and send us well out of it.”

The old woman made her curtseys to the gentlemen, and the old man following her example, made his bows, and they were turning to go out.

“Latter will take them along with Hopcraft,” [Pg 190] said Mr. Degge. “He is waiting for that purpose.”

“Take us with Hopcraft!” said the old woman. “No, your worships, you won’t demean us so, as to take us as criminals. We’ll walk. We’ll just tantle down by the river side, and give ourselves up. It’s God’s truth, we shan’t try to get away; and where, indeed, could such poor owd creeturs get away to?”

Mr. Degge turned, and said something to Sir Henry, who nodded in reply. And Mr. Degge said:—“Well, Jenny, you shall have it as you like. You can go and take your time, so that you give yourselves up before four o’clock at the county jail, where Latter will take the warrant.”

“Thank your worships, kindly,” said the old woman, echoed by her feeble old husband, and out they toddled. A servant from the hall-farm was ordered to keep an eye on them from a distance, but not to let them perceive [Pg 191] him. The magistrates felt bound to this precaution to satisfy the law, though they had not any doubt of the old couple surrendering themselves. The young man, accordingly, went along the fields at a distance, as if engaged in looking after sheep, or the state of the fields, and saw the old couple slowly wander down to the river, and sit down, and remain for an hour. Then they went on again, and then staid in some pleasant nook, as if they were making the most of their liberty, and their beloved field-life. Thus they went on, till they came to the main ferry, which they crossed, without seeming to say anything to the ferryman. When over, instead of taking the direct way to the town, they struck away to the left into the great meadows, and in a direction towards a manufacturing suburb. The young man now began to have some fears that their intention was to cut across, and get into that suburb, and hide themselves. He prepared to be not far off, [Pg 192] and if they attempted this, to prevent it. But he soon found that they only went to a meadow stream, where the autumn flowers, the purple loosestrife, with its tall spikes, and the luscious meadow-sweet, and white water-ranunculuses were still blowing, and of which the old woman gathered a nosegay to carry with her into the prison.

Duly, at four o’clock, the old couple appeared at the prison-door, and surrendered themselves. They had gone to the house of some poor acquaintance, and had tea, and borrowed a mug to put their flowers into water; and now they had voluntarily entered the great and, to them, dreaded house of bondage. There we may leave them to their fate for the present, with this reflection, that if they had not the liberty of the fields and moorlands, they were, at least, relieved from the daily dread of the murderous hand of Scammel.

Whilst these events had been taking place, [Pg 193] George Woodburn had written to Elizabeth Drury, to let her know that the mystery of her father’s end was now cleared up, and to inform her of the fate of Scammel. He also asked her for the key of her father’s desk, with permission to examine his books, to discover whether it would show the absence and amount of the money taken by Scammel from her father’s pocket. In her reply, which came by return of post, she said:—

“Thank God, that the horrible mystery of that dreadful event is at length cleared up, and that dear Mr. Woodburn is fully cleared from that most insulting, most impossible accusation. Give my kindest love and warmest congratulations to him. And that horrid Scammel! How is it that I never saw that before? That man was the scourge of the woods of the Bullockshed estate, and of other game-preserving estates round. Nobody could take him, and my father came to the conclusion that the keepers did not dare to encounter [Pg 194] him. He, therefore, determined to accompany them, and watch with them. Many a dark wild night went he out in the woods with them. Oh, what dreadful nights of anxiety to us! The man conducted his operations with such silence and dexterity, that the game continued to decrease, and yet no trace of him could be discovered. There was no sound of discharge of guns, yet the pheasants went; no crash of hedge, or of forcing a way through bushes or underwood, yet the hares disappeared. It was clear that though they could not discover him, he saw them, for wherever they posted themselves, he was at work in a very different quarter. Did they quit that post, he was there the next night. Did they post watches in half a dozen places at once, he lay still; but as this could not be always done, he was only checked slightly; and even when this was the case, it was found that he was busy on some other property. Distance seemed nothing to him.

[Pg 195]

“At length my father, with three men, came suddenly face to face with this ogre of the night in a deep hollow of the woods, where he had been observed, by his shoe-prints, to cross from one pheasant copse to another. The villain instantly discharged his gun at my father, but fortunately missed; a rare thing with him; yet in this case owing, no doubt, to his sudden surprise. He was raising his piece again to his shoulder, when it was struck from his hands by a blow of the butt-end of the gun of one of the keepers, and then began a most terrible struggle. My father said it was like endeavouring to bind Proteus, or a Bengal tiger. Desperate and Herculean were the struggles of the man. But once down, all threw themselves upon him, and secured him, much as he must have been secured, at last, by your account. Then, they had to convey him to the hall in a cart, and all the way he uttered the most fearful oaths, and vows of vengeance against my father. He was condemned [Pg 196] to six months’ labour on the treadmill, and could only just have come out. Poor father, how often did we wish that he would not himself meddle with such fearfully depraved men!

“I have sent off the key, wrapped in paper to make a packet of sufficient size not to be easily lost, and dispatched a man with it to the great north road, to deliver it to the guard of the mail himself; to pay him handsomely, and to say that the guard who delivers it safely at Castleborough will be also handsomely paid, as it contains what is helpful to the full discovery of the circumstances of the ——, I cannot write the word, of Mr. Drury, late of Garnside. That alone would insure its safe delivery, for the indignation is great all round this country at the deed. The packet is addressed to Mr. Heritage at the bank.”

No sooner was George Woodburn in possession of the key than he set to work. He [Pg 197] found all Mr. Drury’s accounts in the nicest and most perfect order. His bill-book showed exactly that the three bills found in his pocket-book were all that he was in possession of. These bills had been presented by George Woodburn, soon after the perpetration of the murder, at the bank of Mr. Heritage, where they were payable, and they had been duly taken up, and credited to the account of the late Mr. Drury. The balance at the bank, which was large, agreed precisely with that in the pass-book; and on referring to the pay-book of Mr. Drury, he ascertained the time when the amount of his previous receipt at the bank had been exhausted; and that, besides the bank-notes in the pocket-book, which were of the several values of one hundred pounds, fifty pounds, and twenty pounds, he had received, at his visit to the bank, two days before, fifty pounds in one-pound notes, clearly for the payment of harvest workmen, had paid away ten pounds, and must consequently [Pg 198] have had in his pocket—for there was only some small change in his desk—forty pounds at the time of his death. This must have been the roll of notes carried off by Scammel. The one hundred and seventy pounds found in his pocket-book appeared to have been received that very day by Mr. Drury for sale of corn, and were apparently put there to carry to the bank on the following day when the three acceptances became due. Thus was the fact made completely manifest, that the crime committed was both murder and theft. Singularly enough, on examining Scammel’s body and clothes at the inquest, twenty pounds of these one-pound bank-notes were still found upon him in a large old, oblong, iron tobacco-box, so close-fitting that they were uninjured by the water, and their numbers clearly identifying them as part of the notes paid to Mr. Drury at Heritage’s bank on his last visit there. No combination of circumstances [Pg 199] could more perfectly determine the murder to be done by Scammel.

These particulars were duly forwarded to Miss Drury, and, by her order, the bank-notes, amounting to one hundred and seventy pounds, were paid in to the account of the late Mr. Drury, and the pass-book made up to that date. The bank-notes found on Scammel were retained by the coroner to be produced, if necessary, on the trial of Hopcraft. But another important document was found by George Woodburn in Mr. Drury’s desk—his will. By this he had left the whole of his real and personal property to his only daughter, and an annuity, payable out of it, of five hundred pounds a-year to his widow. There were, besides, several small bequests to relatives, and sixty pounds each to the two trustees, whom George, to his great surprise, found to be himself and Mr. Fairfax of Castleborough. The afflicted wife and daughter had never [Pg 200] had the heart to inquire after the will. They knew there was one, and believed it was all right. This document was now duly executed by the trustees, and George found himself the accredited manager of Bilts’ Farm for the leaseholder, Elizabeth Drury. Immediately on receiving this authority, George Woodburn made a formal claim on the coroner for the bank-notes found on Scammel, they being by their numbers clearly identified as the late Mr. Drury’s property, and received an engagement to deliver them up to him immediately after the March assizes.

The great mystery cleared up of Mr. Drury’s death, a cloud had passed from Woodburn Grange. Mr. Woodburn lost that depressing melancholy which had hung upon him, and made him shut himself up in gloomy moodiness. Once more he could mount his horse, and range over his farm, and enjoy a chat with his workmen as in past times. Once more he could meet and salute a neighbour [Pg 201] without thinking. “And that man can suspect me of so foul and beastly a crime as murder!” There were moments in which the very idea that it had been possible for any man who had ever known him in the least degree to believe such a thing of him, made his blood glow with indignation. But all the world now knew and acknowledged that he had been falsely accused, and thus most injuriously treated, and that gave him again the possession of equanimity and of a healthy enjoyment of life. He also reflected with emotion on the love of his own family, of the affectionate assiduity of his wife and daughters, on the tender and manly carefulness and management of George, on the decided and nobly asserted faith in him of Elizabeth Drury. He had a feeling that Mrs. Drury had not been so free from suspicion; “but she is a weak creature,” he said, “and so, no matter.” He thought proudly of the firm and generous truth of all [Pg 202] his friends, and especially of the devoted and untiring zeal of his new son-in-law, Sir Henry Clavering. Once more he saw Thorsby, solemn and quiet, pursuing a steady life of business, and fast regaining the esteem of his townsmen. Once more he could see his little flaxen-haired, curly-headed namesake and grandson climb his knee, ride round the room on his walking-stick, and come and look up in his face with a laughing archness that made him forget his least remaining touch of sadness.

Betty Trapps was once more herself again. Betty had been dreadfully tried by the suspicion cast on her master. That anybody should dare to think of such a thing of such a man as Mr. Woodburn—to even him down to common thieves and murderers—it was little short of blasphemy! “Such men,” she said, “would spit at the sun, and showed what was in their own nasty stomachs. As for that Hopcraft, to be concerned in murdering [Pg 203] a gentleman, and throwing the blame on a man like Mr. Woodburn, she’d have him hanged out and out.” “But,” said Sylvanus Crook one day, “Betty, if we expect mercy ourselves, we must be willing to wish mercy to others.”

“Mercy to Hopcraft!” said Betty; “a dirty grub him!—ay, as much mercy I’d give him, if I were judge and jury, as a gardener has on a snail—as a miller on a rat that charms [1] his flour-sacks, or a farmer on a mowdy-warp [2] in his best meadows—as a miser on a thief or a pickpocket, or a country squire on a fox on hunting day—as a cat on a mouse, though she plays with it awhile, as the squire does with the fox. Mercy!—ay, faith, shark’s mercy—hawk’s mercy—leech’s mercy—fire’s mercy, when it gets the mester on us—watter’s mercy, when [Pg 204] a man’s drowning—lawyer’s mercy—creditor’s mercy—death’s mercy! Oh! I’d give him mercy enough, I warrant ye, Mester Crook.”

“But,” said Sylvanus, “thou shouldst make allowances for Nathan Hopcraft; he is but a poor, ignorant, stupid sort of creature.”

“Stupid!” said Betty; “he stuffs himself till he is stupid. He’s no better than one of his own hogs, as used to be. Why, I’ve seen that man half empty the dish of beans and bacon, at dinner set before the hungry men, on to his own plate, and pitch it down his throat like pitching straw through the picking-hole o’ th’ barn. An’ then when I’ve said I’m afraid you men will run short, the owd porpoise would sit and blow and look as red as a lobster, and as stupid as a fish, and say, ‘Nobody wants any more, for I don’t.’ Odrot him! Hang all such, I say.”

[Pg 205]

“Oh, Betty, Betty!” said Sylvanus; “I am afraid thou art not much better than Sir Roger Rockville. The other day, Tom Baggully was taken before him on a charge of being drunk. ‘Set Baggully in the stocks,’ said Sir Roger, without waiting to hear anything at all. ‘But,’ said the clerk, ‘here are several respectable people ready to swear that he was not drunk.’ ‘No matter,’ said Sir Roger, ‘I fancy he poaches; so, right or wrong, set Baggully in the stocks.’”

“Thank you, Sylvanus, for your compliment,” said Betty.

Betty’s temper had been made none the better by the persecutions of a suitor, none other than Sam James, the Gotham carrier, who came that way to Castleborough every few days. This fellow was a close, miserly churl, who rented a little farm, and lived by himself. He thought Betty must have saved a good solid sum of money, and so began to be very gracious to her. But Betty gave him notice [Pg 206] to take himself off without more ado. Sam James came stealing slyly to the kitchen window evening after evening, and tapping gently when Betty was near it, to induce her to go out and speak to him. At first she was rather startled; but peering out into the dark, and catching a gleam of his face near the pane, she said, out before all the men, one night, “There’s that hugger-mugger fellow, Sam James, i’ th’ garden. Does he think I’ll go out to a chap that has na the pluck to come in and show his sen like a man? Run out, Tom,” to a young lad of seventeen, “and see how he’ll take to his heels!”

Tom was only too ready to enjoy the lark; out he ran, and away sprang James, leaped the garden-wall next the lane, and came down on the back of a cow, quietly chewing her cud under it. Up started the poor beast, in a great fright and with a great bellow, and James went tumbling down the slope to the [Pg 207] road. Great and continued was the laughter of the servants in the kitchen at this adventure, and Betty laughed as heartily as the rest.

“But,” said one of the men, “Sam James is rich, Betty; you might make a worse match.”

“Match!” said Betty, “with a passionate fool like that! Why, th’ other day he was gathering sticks in his close, where he had been trimming th’ hedges, and instead of putting them into his cart, he tried to stuff them into a sack-bag, and as one end sprung out as he forced another in, what did the demented norp but seize a hedge-stake and thresh th’ bag wi’ it like a madman, as he is.”

“But,” said the man again, “see what a pair of good horses he has!”

“Ay, and when he was in a passion wi’ one on ’em one day, he up with his billhook and gave th’ poor dumb creetur a chop! [Pg 208] A brute! I’ll set the dogs on him if he comes sneaking here again.”

Betty was delighted with putting James to flight; and the story of his tumbling over Tim Bunting’s cow, which often grazed in the lanes, was soon through the whole village, from that centre of intelligence—the Grey Goose; so that Sam James found it convenient to avoid the chaffing he got at Woodburn, and the kind inquiries of the women whether he got no hurt when he fell over the Grange garden-wall, by sending a substitute that way for a long time with his cart.

Old times seemed come back again at the Grange. There was frequent visiting betwixt it and Cotmanhaye Manor—a coming and going without ceremony, and full of pleasantness. George had made a journey to Yorkshire to give some account of his stewardship, and there were wise people who foresaw the return of Elizabeth Drury, at least some day, to Bilts’ Farm. Thorsby and his once more [Pg 209] joyous, handsome wife, and cherub-looking boy with them, were often driving over, and again commonly spending the Sundays there. Thorsby again made his little, familiar visits amongst the cottages of Woodburn Green, and talked over his travels in America with Howell Crusoe, the inquiring schoolmaster, who seemed half tempted to migrate thither himself some day.

“Well,” said Mr. Woodburn, as Thorsby mentioned this at dinner one day, “I should be sorry for Crusoe to leave us. He has his faults, but I don’t know where we should mend him. He has confessedly very warm Welsh blood, and though naturally amiable and humane, he has been given to thrashing his boys a little too freely. When I have reasoned with him, he always quoted Solomon as ungainsayable authority, ‘Spare the rod, and spoil the child.’ It was in vain that I told him I would rather spoil the rod and spare the child. He always used to tell the [Pg 210] boys, in the established language of the schoolmasters, that it hurt him much more to flog a boy than it hurt the boy. But one day, as he said this to a little boy, who sat sobbing and snorting, with his eyes, nose, and very red cheeks all dashed and drowned in tears, the poor lad cried out, ‘I only wish I could believe it’—at which the whole school burst into an uncontrollable shout of laughter. Enraged at this, and feeling the keen satire in the boy’s words, Howell dealt about him, in a regular Welsh tantrum of passion, with his cane on the heads and shoulders of the scholars. This settled the riot, except for an isolated burst-up of smothered merriment, here and there, which he visited with strokes of lightning.

“But what was the consequence? The lads who had caught the full fury of Crusoe’s angry blows, commenced a conspiracy which they cherished for a proper opportunity; and one Saturday afternoon, when Crusoe had [Pg 211] gone into Cotmanhaye woods to gather nuts, suddenly the whole school issued from a thicket, and surrounding him, gave him such a pounding with hazel cudgels, as inspired him with a wonderful agility in running through the wood, leaping the fence, and scouring homewards at a pace that vastly amused the troop of little rebels. It was necessary to send for the doctor, who, being a bit of a wag, carried the story as a rich morsel of news all round the country. He enlivened his narrative by making the boys cry, all the time they thrashed their domine, ‘Well, does it hurt you as much as it does us?’

“That is the reason, I suspect, that Crusoe thinks so much of America. I doubt, however, if he would find the children of Yankees more passive under his rhabdomancy than those of us Britishers. For my part, I wish all the boys in the universe would follow the example of the Woodburn lads. There would [Pg 212] then soon be an end of the villanous practice of a big fellow with a big stick seizing a little, tender, shrinking boy, who is but a linnet in the claws of an eagle, and misusing his brute strength to torture the poor little fellow.”

Thorsby said, “But what of Solomon’s wisdom on the subject?”

“What of Solomon?” said Mr. Woodburn. “Why, that was wisdom enough for the Jews of those semi-barbarous ages, who massacred all the nations round, and stoned to death any old woman who gathered a few sticks on a Sabbath; but it is not wisdom enough for Christians who are to do as they would be done by. Would any of these great, cowardly schoolmasters, who clutch little, shrinking children, and flog them brutally, like some one twice or three times their own size and strength to treat them so? Certainly not. Of all the contemptible examples of cowardice, this is the most contemptible. A big overpowering fellow thus to mishandle a child, who would [Pg 213] learn both manners and letters ten times better by gentleness and persuasion; he is a monster, sir, and no man! Violence and injustice, and this is the worst of injustice, excite only the worst passions in a child’s heart, and lay the sure foundation of violence and tyranny in those who are embittered by it.

“I only hope,” added Mr. Woodburn, “that King Solomon has been set upon by exasperated schoolboys in the other world, and treated as the brave Woodburn lads treated Crusoe; and I hope that till this odious custom is abolished, the boys everywhere will match their strength, by union, with that of their masters, and let them see how they like a good cottoning.”

“Well,” said Thorsby, “but the custom has been made venerable by time, and sanctioned by all our great schools, and if we may judge from effects, has answered well, for no country has produced greater scholars.”

“Sanctioned!” said Mr. Woodburn, “so [Pg 214] have wars and wholesale robberies, under the name of reprisals in other countries, been sanctioned. Duelling was an old and venerable institution, and had the sanction of great names, but this did not make any of these barbarous and insane practices the less base, or unchristian. My dear fellow, we must not be led by past sanctions, or by the nose, we must be led by reason and humanity. Our ancestors were savages, shall we on that account remain savage? Take my word for it, Thorsby, however our public schools may have answered, they would have answered much better, had they been conducted on better principles; and I hope you don’t call outrage of the weak by the strong a good principle. Let full-grown men, if they will, be brutes, and stand up in fair fight against one another, equally matched; but I repeat it, a big man who assaults a little creature, who cannot help or defend himself, is a coward of the vilest, the most odious [Pg 215] stamp, and ought to be scouted from society.” With this he stepped to the book-case, took down the second volume of Addison’s “Spectator,” and opening at No. 157, said, “now hear what a really enlightened man, who had passed through our public schools, thought on such things.” Having read that admirable article, he said:—

“There! Thorsby, you may lend that to Howell Crusoe if you like.”

“No, thank you!” said Thorsby, laughing heartily. “I think Crusoe got his cure in Cotmanhaye Wood.”

One more symptom we may add of the returning sunshine to Woodburn. Dr. Leroy has returned, has resumed his practice in Great Castleborough, and has been seen, more than once, driving towards Fair Manor, in Mr. Heritage’s carriage, as that gentleman returned home after business. William Fairfax, meeting David Qualm in the street, says, “Castleborough is getting all right again. Thorsby [Pg 216] and Dr. Leroy have played out their silly antics, and are really now going about like men of sense.” To which David nodded assent, for his words get fewer and fewer every year.

“I think Frank Leroy dreams a little yet, however,” said William Fairfax.

“Dost thou?” said David, with a surprising effort.

“Yes, he dreams of old times at Fair Manor, I fancy; and dost not thou think Millicent dreams a little that way, too?”

“I understand thee,” said David, and walked on smiling, but most meekly, to himself.

[Pg 217]

THE TRIAL, AND TALK AT WOODBURN.

The winter is over. There were pleasant cheery times again at Woodburn Grange, at Hillmartin Hall, and at Cotmanhaye Manor. There were splendid dinners at Christmas; and many a one that we know seated at them; and faces as joyous as could be at the after games and dances. There were all the Woodburns, but with some of them also under other names. Mrs. Letty Thorsby, and fair Ann of Cotmanhaye Manor, and their loving husbands, and the worthy Thomas Clavering, as fond of a rubber at whist as ever. Ah, it was a bright, happy, prosperous gathering and intergathering, after [Pg 218] dark days and very strange events. But winter is over, and March assizes have arrived.

When Hopcraft was brought into court and placed in the dock, all those who had known him at Woodburn were astonished at the change in his appearance. Instead of that thick, full-fed person, and sun-burnt hue, he was become thin, sickly, and feeble-looking. He gazed about him, on the judge, the barristers, and the crowd, with a frightened stare. The fact was that he had suffered in his health from the constant terror under which he lived so long as Scammel was at large; but since he had been in prison, he had been the victim of another fear, that of the certainty of being hanged. His poor stupid intellect could make no distinction in a general fact. He had always heard murder and hanging linked together in conversation; and he could imagine nothing from his having been implicated in a murder, and present at it, but being hanged for it. Though he contended [Pg 219] that he was totally innocent of any intention of assisting Scammel in the dreadful deed, had warned him against perpetrating it, and was greatly surprised at the deed he said, and probably quite truly; yet he had been seen by the Shalcrosses helping to fling the murdered man into the river, and consenting to share the money with the murderer. This he himself had admitted to the magistrates, and this was the vulture that all through the winter was gnawing at his heart. He was in at the murder, and he must hang for it.

A word which the magistrates used had also greatly alarmed him. He had heard one of them say that he was accessory. To his ignorant imagination this presented itself as something direful and ominous. He had soon forgotten, if he ever clearly caught the pronunciation, and it had metamorphosed itself in his mind to “raxery.” He sat in his cell calling himself a “raxery,” and believing that it sealed his fate. He ventured once [Pg 220] or twice to ask the turnkey what a raxery meant; and on his shaking his head, and saying he did not know, he was still more convinced that it meant something very like condemned, and the man, therefore, would not tell him.

In this miserable condition poor Hopcraft lost his spirits, but he never lost his appetite. It was the grand feature of his constitution—even overtopping his brute strength; had that failed, he would have collapsed and gone altogether; but his food did him little good; he moped and lived on, often crying like a child through whole nights; and now he came forth with the full conviction that he was only a few days from the gallows.

The counsel for the crown, in stating the case against Hopcraft, gave a clear account of the former trial of Mr. Woodburn for the alleged murder of Mr. Drury, and then of the discovery of the real murderers in the persons of Scammel and the prisoner.

[Pg 221]

At the mention of the prisoner, Hopcraft cried out in a voice of terror, “No, sir, it wor na me—it wor Scammel!”

The counsel paused a moment, gave a glance at the prisoner,—the jailer who stood by the dock told Hopcraft not to interrupt,—and the barrister went on. He painted in strong colours the desperate character of Scammel; showed the causes, all now fully brought to light on the clearest evidence; Scammel’s spirit of revenge against Mr. Drury; and then described the scene minutely at Wink’s Ferry.

Here the judge observed to the counsel,—“that he had heard a strange story of the murder, after being for two years involved in deepest mystery, and bringing a most respectable and estimable gentleman into jeopardy and trial for his life, being brought to light by a dream. Is that so?” he asked, “or am I dreaming, Mr. Whiteman?”

“It is perfectly true, my lord,” said the [Pg 222] barrister. “It was not only indicated, but absolutely described in detail, every circumstance as accurately as if the dreamer had been himself on the spot.”

“And pray, what highly imaginative old lady could this dreamer be? But I think you said ‘himself?’”

“Yes, it was a gentleman of this town, my lord.”

“His name is not Bunyan, is it?” asked the judge.

There was a smile on every face both at the bar and in the crowd, and some slight titters amongst the ladies in the gallery.

“Possibly the young gentleman may be descended from the great dreamer of Bedford, but he does not bear his name,” said the counsel; he also looking rather merry over the matter. “He is a learned, and, I understand, a very able and accomplished physician here, who has, moreover, travelled and seen a good deal of the world, moves in the first [Pg 223] society, and would be taken to be most perfectly wide awake in general.”

“Very odd,” said the judge. “I would like very much, Mr. Whiteman, to peruse the account, if you happen to have it.”

“Certainly, my lord. I have here an attested copy of the letter containing the dream; and that your lordship may not suppose that the gentleman dreamed the dream after the event, you will note that the letter was written in India on the night following the very evening on which the murder was perpetrated here, so that the gentleman to whom the vision of the night came upon his bed, could not possibly have heard anything of it. And another thing I may note, that the murder was so wholly improbable, that the real perpetrators escaped all suspicion till this dream, and, as it proved, rightly, threw it upon them, having previously caused the most unfortunate arrest and trial of a most unlikely man for a [Pg 224] murderer, merely from his having been last seen on the spot.”

“Most extraordinary!” said the judge. “Perhaps, Mr. Whiteman, we don’t understand everything yet, even in this enlightened nineteenth century.”

“No, my lord,” said the barrister, “I certainly do not pretend to understand anything of this sort. I am bound to receive it, as a thoroughly attested fact, and I have much pleasure in handing up to your lordship this singular document.”

The letter was handed across the table by some of the counsel to the judge, and the barrister proceeded:—

“The prisoner at the bar, it is admitted by himself in the depositions taken by the magistrates, and as was and will be also proved by two eye-witnesses, was in company with the chief criminal, Scammel. It cannot be proved that he assisted in the murder itself, but it can that he helped to throw the murdered [Pg 225] man into the river, and shared the money of which the deceased gentleman was plundered; and that the prisoner never, till arrested for the crime, took any pains to make the fact known to any one.

“I don’t see,” said the judge, “how there could be two eye-witnesses, unless they are partners in the crime who have turned king’s evidence, and yet the complete concealment of the true perpetrators of the crime have brought an innocent person into question for it.”

“Your lordship will soon see the reason when the witnesses are called.”

“Very well; go on,” said the judge.

The depositions were read, and the evidence was then gone through; and as the counsel called in the two Shalcrosses, he said, “Now, my lord, you will see the two eye-witnesses.”

The evidence was that with which our readers are already acquainted. The jury found Hopcraft guilty on the second count—that [Pg 226] of being accessory to the fact; and on the third—that of concealment; and Hopcraft was very agreeably surprised to find himself not condemned to be hanged, but only transported to Botany Bay for the term of fourteen years.

When the Shalcrosses were brought up, it was at first separately, and then together; and the judge, who had evidently read the depositions of Jenny with much interest, put several questions to her himself, and both he and the court at large showed themselves struck by the clearness and shrewdness of her answers. In summing up, his lordship said, he could not see how these old people could have acted differently from what they had done. They had evidently been casual witnesses of the murder, and had from that very moment, and ever since, been the real prisoners of the murderer—under daily terror of their own lives. The instant that they found themselves freed from his surveillance , they had [Pg 227] hastened to disclose their knowledge of the crime. He could not himself connect them in any manner with the murder. The jury, without withdrawing from the box, pronounced them “Not Guilty,” and they were immediately discharged, to wander again at will amongst the country villages, and dream out their few remaining days on sunny commons and by running brooks. Many a shilling was thrust into their hands as they passed through the crowd, and issued once more into the open air and unimpeded streets.

A subscription was raised, to send Hopcraft’s wife and children out with him, amongst our friends at Woodburn, Hillmartin, Cotmanhaye, &c., and another of Mr. Woodburn’s labourers was put into his cottage.

The magistrates of the county, at their next sitting after the assizes, sent for Tom Boddily, and informed him that the reward of one hundred pounds offered by Government for the apprehension of the murderer, Scammel, [Pg 228] was awarded to him, and they had received a Treasury order to pay it to him. The friends of the murdered gentleman would, no doubt, now pay over to him the two hundred pounds which they had offered; and the Chairman, holding out a cheque on the bank for the one hundred, said that he had well earned the whole amount, and had discharged the duty of tracing out and securing that notorious criminal in a very praiseworthy manner. He advised Tom to allow his employers to invest the sum for him, and not let it make him unsteady, by leading him to the public-house.

“Sir,” said Tom, respectfully, “I will undertake that the money shall do me no harm, because I would not touch it if it were a thousand times the sum. Gentlemen,” he said, “I have done my duty, I hope, in catching that murdering villain, and I am glad of it; but I never will, here or anywhere else, touch blood-money.”

[Pg 229]

“Blood-money?” said the Chairman. “Why, where is the difference between catching a murderer and insuring his death, and taking the reward for it?”

“That is just all the difference,” said Tom, “to my mind. To secure a murderer is every man’s bounden duty. To take a reward for getting a man put out of life—well, gentlemen, it may be all the same, but I’m an uneducated man, and can’t see it so. Excuse me, but I cannot accept the money—it would burn my pocket-bottom out in no time. No, gentlemen, no man shall say I did what I did for money.”

Tom made his bow, and retired, to the great astonishment of the whole bench, except Sir Henry Clavering and Mr. Degge; the Chairman observing, as the door closed after Tom, “A crotchety fellow, after all.”

George Woodburn, who had received orders from Miss Drury to pay to Tom the two hundred pounds offered by herself and mother, [Pg 230] said, “Well, Tom, so you cannot receive this money, then?”

“No, sir,” said Tom, “I can’t do it, anyhow. I am glad that arch rogue is out of the way of doing further mischief; but to get rich on any man’s death—it’s not the thing, somehow.”

“I can understand you, Tom,” said George, “though the greater part of the magistrates could not.”

“And do you know, sir,” said Tom, “I can tell you what I could not tell them justices? Freddy—the poor boy who taught me to play on the pipe and the lark-whistle—has been to me again and again in dreams, and said, ‘Don’t touch that money, Tom—none of it! You’ve done your duty, and may sleep on it; but don’t let any envious fellow say you did it to get the three hundred pounds. No, don’t touch it, Tom—don’t touch it.’ And that is just as it stands, sir. I can’t take it. My dutiful thanks to Miss [Pg 231] Drury, however.” And Tom went off about his business.

Tom did not suffer for his conscientiousness, though many, very many people said he was more nice than wise. Mr. Heritage called Tom the next morning into the library, praised his disinterested conduct, and gave him a bit of paper, which, on reading, he found was the promise of his cottage and garden rent-free for his life, and his wife’s life, if she survived him. Tom was greatly affected. Without saying anything to him, Mr. Simon Degge, Sir Henry Clavering, Mr. Woodburn, Miss Drury, Mr. Heritage, Mr. Fairfax, Mr. Thorsby, and others, subscribed a sum of money, which they invested, and which would amply suffice to put out Tom’s children at a proper time, and leave a provision for his own and his wife’s old age.

Great was the wonder and the discussion at the village inn, the Grey Goose, at this refusal of Tom Boddily to take money so [Pg 232] honestly his due. Howell Crusoe, who used to read the Castleborough papers, and often put in absurd things to mystify his hearers, and once sent them about saying, on his authority, that the great dog of Venus (Doge of Venice) was dead, now read all the account of the trials at Castleborough, and of Tom’s refusal to take the reward.

“Now that’s out-and-out o’er-dainty of Tom Boddily,” said Tim Bentley, the landlord. “It does very well for gentlemen to have such tickle stomachs; but for poor folks like Tom, zounds, it’s a robbing of his family.”

“Oh, Tom’s lived so much among gentry,” said Job Latter, “that I reckon he thinks he’s e’en one.” Job had received a handsome present from Sir Henry Clavering for his able assistance in capturing Scammel; and it seemed rather a reflection on him by Tom. “Tom,” said he, “is getting as ginger as th’ owd mester here at th’ Grange. I seed him [Pg 233] and Samul Davis going to hang th’ owd tarrier t’other morning in th’ orchard. Th’ owd dog was blind and deaf, and continyally under everybody’s feet. Well, they hung him up, and th’ rope broke, and down he came, and began howling as if he did na like it. But th’ owd mester picks him up, and strokes him, and says, ‘So, so then, poor old fellow!’ as if he were only going to crop his ears or so, while Samul Davis ties him up again. They’ve such fine feelings, gentry han; but Tom is na gentry just yet.”

“And why should na we lay hold of and put an end to men as would put an end to us for a trifle?” said farmer Chaffers. “Does na everything put an end to anything as it can, if it can feed on’t? It’s natur, and nothing else, and God wills it.”

“Hold a bit there, Mr. Chaffers,” said Crusoe. “You must read your Bible better than that. It was not God who made things so, but it was man and the devil who did it [Pg 234] at the fall. God has sent us Christianity, and that is opposed to all cruelty in man and beast.”

Hereupon Farmer Chaffers fell into a stout argument with Crusoe, and there ensued a long and violent debate, which ended, as many a debate in a more illustrious assembly, where the arguments that are worth anything are all on one side, and the votes on the other—three-fourths of that village parliament wishing the money had been offered to them, and they would have shown a little more sense than Tom.

“That would have been a miracle,” said Howell Crusoe, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and rising to depart; “for we have not all together as much sense as Tom Boddily has.”

“Sense!” said Latter. “Tom has about as much sense as that simple Quaker of Castleborough, Seth Ward, who is only a poor stockinger, and had saved twenty pounds [Pg 235] by years of hard work and scraping, and now he has gone and given it all away, by a guinea at a time, to other poor creatures, because he thought it a sin to be laying up treasure on earth. If that’s true, then what a sinner Mr. Heritage must be, and a good many more on ’em!”

At this there was general laughter, and the Woodburn philosophers dispersed to their several homes.

Betty Trapps and Sylvanus Crook got to high words, too, over Tom’s refusal of the money. Sylvanus had gone down to the Grange with a note from his mistress; and, while he waited for an answer, Betty came down sharp on Sylvanus about Tom.

“So, Mester Crook, you’re making a Quaker of Tom Boddily. He’s too nice to take money when he’s earned it.”

“Only what he calls blood-money,” said Sylvanus.

“Blood-money—stuff! Th’ money is just [Pg 236] same as any other money. Does Boddily know better than Government as offered it?”

“Perhaps he does,” said Sylvanus, quietly.

“Perhaps he does not,” retorted Betty, sharply. “He could go and catch Scammel, and get him hanged, if he had not been drownded; and then—oh, dear no! he could not take money for doing it! That’s just like catching varmint, and then letting it go again, because you can na bear to kill it, poor thing. Tom’s brains is getting addled, and it’s all through your silly Quakerism.”

“I think thou can hardly prove that Tom has any concern with Quakerism, or that it is silly, Betty.”

“Well, Mester Crook, it does na grow, does na your Quakerism; and a thing as does na grow is silly or worse. If a system has salvation in it, it ought to grow, for sin and wickedness grow like weeds, and spread like wild-fire,—and what’s the use of a religion as goes and sits still in a corner, and does na [Pg 237] move no more nor a post, and lets souls perish by thousands and millions?—that thinks a cocked hat and a coat without a collar, or buttons, will stop the devil when he’s going about like a roaring lion? If it is good, let it come out and show itself, and not sit huddled up in silence like a hen that has got the pip. I went one day into th’ Quaker meeting in Castleborough; and I looked about, and, for the life of me, I could na see any preacher. They all sat with their hats on, and looked, I could na tell where. At last, after a plaguy long time, they shook hands, and started up, and went out. Oh, what a place to call a place of worship, where there’s neither prayer nor praise!”

“There thou art wrong,” said Sylvanus; “I hope there is both. For my own part, I know there is; but thou talkest of things growing and spreading,—and thou say’st ill weeds spread apace. Well, that is true; and look thee, Betty, don’t thy people spread so fast [Pg 238] as to remind one rather of weeds? If there are but few that we acknowledge as fitting members of our Society, does not our Saviour say, ‘Narrow is the way, and few there be that find it?’ Methodism is so prolific, it may be compared to the multiplication of vermin, which multiply by thousands. The lion, the king of beasts, brings forth but one, but then it is a lion.”

“What!” exclaimed Betty, greatly exasperated, “are we varmint, and you Quakers lions? A pretty set of lions, all sitting with their hats on in a meeting like so many stocks. Sheep, Sylvanus—call them sheep—that’s more like it. Now I tell you what it is. You won’t take anybody in lest you should be taken in by them, and they should get any of your blessed money. You would not take the man who said he was convinced of Friends’ principles, because he had eleven children, and heard you took care of all your members. Eh, Sylvanus? Eh? We, Mester Crook,—we [Pg 239] take in all sorts and sizes. Methodism is a general hospital, it takes in all, and cures as many as it can.”

“That is the best thing, Betty, thou hast said yet: and may the Lord enable you to cure many.”

“I dare to say we shall cure a few, Mr. Crook,” said Betty, not fully appeased by the last compliment, and always Mr. Crooking him, when what she called her monkey was up,—“I dare say we shall cure a few; but no thanks to sitting and samming altogether as if all the deaf and dumb had been raked up from the four winds. If fish are to be catched, it is not by sitting on the Trent bank without line and hook, and wishing for them to jump into your creel. It must be by praying in season and out of season, and by preaching the word with unction. If mester niver sowed, he’d niver shear; if he did na mow his grass, and his woots (oats) he’d have a bare crib in winter, Mr. Crook; and what’s [Pg 240] wisdom here is wisdom in them above, I reckon. As for saving souls by sitting still on bare benches and twiddling yer thumbs, it is just as good as telling th’ big miller at Cotmanhaye mill that his corn will grind if he lets the water-wheel stand still.”

Sylvanus was prepared with an answer, but had no opportunity of giving it, for the reply to his mistress’s note came out of the parlour, and he was requested to deliver it as quickly as he could.

“There,” said Betty to herself, “let him chew his cud on that as he goes home, with his lions and his varmint. Varmint, indeed! There’s a fine fellow for you, who says, when he goes to quarterly meeting, or other place of Quaker feasting, he looks round the dinner-table of them rich Friends and takes what he likes least, to mortify his carnal will! And he’ll never confess as he likes music,—‘Nor does mester,’ he says. Does not he, though? And Mester Thorsby tells me as how he’s [Pg 241] seen both him and ‘mester’ listening as demurely as owls by daylight to the barracks band at Castleborough. And did not Mester Thorsby actchully catch Sylvanus listening to a ballad-singer i’ th’ street. ‘What, is that you, Sylvanus?’ says Mester Thorsby; and th’ old sly-boots says, as innocent as th’ parson’s horse, as niver works o’ Sundays, ‘Yes, Friend Thorsby,’ says he, ‘I just staid a moment to discover whether the vagabond was singing anything likely to corrupt the youth.’ Ha, what an old cunning fox!—but he’ll not come his lions over me again in a hurry, I’ll warrant.” And Betty gave her milk-pails an extra-scouring; for a “bit of a raffle,” as she called it, always made her put out her energies, and she laughed to herself as she thought how she should tell it all to Sukey Priddo, as they went to Hillmartin chapel together on Sunday; and how Sukey would roast Sylvanus again about his lions.

A QUAKER WEDDING, AND ANOTHER WEDDING.

“Well, Frank Leroy is not only back again,” said Thorsby, at the Grange on Sunday after the trial of Hopcraft, “but he is amazing jolly. I think some little bird must have whistled to him out in India there, and sent him home so nimbly; don’t you think so, Letty?”

“Likelier things have happened,” said Letty, with a merry smile in her eyes.

“And unlikelier too,” added Thorsby. “Frank has taken the very largest and handsomest house in the Park, too, with a charming large garden and pleasure-grounds running down to the little river, and looking across to Rockville; and, really, I could fancy we could [Pg 243] see it from here. What does that mean, Letty? Do young bachelors require now-a-days such great houses?”

Letty laughed. “Young men are rather ambitious now-a-days, it must be confessed. Perhaps Dr. Leroy thinks he will secure thy little bird, which lured him back, in a fine cage before long.”

“That is just what I was thinking,” said Thorsby; “and somehow I have been continually meeting Mrs. Heritage and Millicent going about the town amongst the shops, and Millicent looks as spry as ever,—quite killing with those dark eyes and eyelashes of hers. It is really delightful.”

“They are buying up remnants and bargains, I dare say,” said Letty, archly, “for making up for the poor against winter.”

“I dare say,” said Thorsby. “However, I am charmed above everything to have Frank back.”

“He must be astonished,” said Mr. Woodburn, [Pg 244] “at the exact truth of his dream. I shall be for ever obliged to him for the effect of it.”

“Oh,” said Thorsby, “you should have seen him blush the other day in court, where we were sitting together, when the judge began asking about it. And when he asked whether the gentleman was called Bunyan! Frank is rather afraid that sobriquet may stick to him; but no matter, I can see he will have his consolations. I don’t know when I have enjoyed myself so much as the other evening when, after dinner with us, he, I, and Letty put our feet on the fender, and got into a great talk on old times. The doctor gave us some touches out of his apprentice days, that were regular fun. You know that great fellow, Surgeon Green, who rides this way sometimes on a great dark bay horse. Frank was apprentice to him, and of all the precious cowards, he is the primest. One night, Frank said he came to his chamber-door, and said in a whisper, ‘Get up, Frank, [Pg 245] directly; there are thieves in the house! they are in the garret—come in through the skylight, no doubt. Up in a minute!’ Frank tumbled out all in a tremble, got his clothes on in the dark, after putting his arm first into one pocket and then into another, instead of into the sleeves, shaking all over like a man with an ague. When he got into the passage, there stood Green, and said, in a scared whisper, ‘Hark! they are in the garret amongst the bottles!’—(they kept all their stock of physic-bottles there)—‘Don’t you hear them? There! down goes a lot more! Run up, Frank, and see how many of them there are.’

“‘No, sir,’ said Frank, ‘you had better go. They would not make a mouthful of me; but you’re so strong.’

“‘No,’ said Green, ‘go this instant, and I’ll stop them here if they offer to come down.’

“He struck a light, and gave Frank a [Pg 246] candle, and said, ‘Just look in, and see who is there, and then lock the door outside, if you can.’

“Frank went trembling up; the candle wagged about in his hand as if he had been switching about a whip. His heart was in his mouth every time he heard a fresh crash amongst the bottles. At length, he was at the door, but he was too much afraid to open it. ‘Quick! Quick!’ said his master from below, in a wild, loud whisper. Frank pushed open the door. Out went his candle with a strong wind, but not before he saw the cause of all the alarm—their great tom-cat, who had been shut up in the room, and was trying to find a way out, dart out of the door, and down the stairs.

“‘There! he is coming!’ shouted Frank, and the next moment he heard Dr. Green’s chamber-door slammed to, and the key turned inside. Frank sat down on the top step of the stairs, and laughed outrageously.”

[Pg 247]

“What a coward must that Green be!” said Mr. Woodburn.

“Another time, Green called up Frank, and said he was sure thieves were not only in the house this time, but they were murdering the old cook; he could hear her groans. ‘Run, then!’ said Frank; ‘my dear sir, don’t let her be murdered!’

“‘No,’ said Green, ‘do you run up, Frank. You’re much less than I am. If they fired at me, they could not possibly miss me. There, run up, there’s a good fellow. And here’s a pistol for you. Shoot the first rogue you see, without mercy.’

“He thrust a pistol into Frank’s trembling hand, and pushed him up-stairs. This time it appeared really awful. At the next floor he distinctly heard frightful groans from the cook’s chamber. The door stood partly open, and, by the dim light from a window beyond her bed, he could see something moving to and fro near the bed. ‘They are murdering [Pg 248] the old woman, and no mistake!’ said Frank to himself; and in a voice so strange with fear that it doubly frightened him to hear it, he cried out, ‘Who are you, there?’

“A shriek from the cook made the blood run through him with an icy shiver, and a start.

“‘What is it?’ cried Frank.

“‘O Lor’, sir,’ said the cook, in a tone of terror, ‘it is only me, sir! I have such a nasty pain in my—my—stomach, and I’ve been downstairs for a little peppermint-water.’

“‘But what are you doing out of bed now, with a pain in your stomach? That will only make it worse,’ said Frank.

“‘Oh, Mr. Frank!’ said the cook, ‘I am only holding on to the bed-post a little, to help me to abide the pain.’

“‘I’ll fetch you something,’ said Frank; but, first of all, he shouted downstairs to his master. ‘Come hither, directly, master, for I think it’s all up with the cook.’ Whereupon Green, as he expected, banged to his [Pg 249] chamber-door, and locked it inside, to Frank’s infinite delight. Presently Frank came up with a good dose of compound tincture of cardamoms for the cook, which soon set her all right; and he tumbled into his bed again, to laugh himself asleep.”

“What an arrant coward,” said Mr. Woodburn again, “is that Green!”

“When Frank was nearly out of his time,” Thorsby went on, “Green’s brother—a doctor in a country place in Yorkshire—wanted to go to the sea-side for a month. And then, the country people being too busy with their harvests to be sick, he got this valiant Mr. Green of ours to send Frank Leroy to look after any casual patient that should turn up. Frank enjoyed it wonderfully. It was a very fine country, and he had a good horse to ride, and it was quite a treat for him to go cantering about amongst the jolly farmers there.

“One day he was sent for to a farm-house, [Pg 250] to see some one, and said he would make up the physic, and they could send a boy for it. He made it up, and set it in the surgery properly addressed. The boy came when he was just gone into a neighbour’s, and the servant sent the lad into the surgery to wait for him. When he came home, soon after, the servant said the boy had bolted out of the house as if his head was on fire, and gone away without the medicine. Frank was a little astonished; but on looking round the surgery, he soon perceived the cause. The lad, with a lad’s curiosity, had been looking into things; and, amongst others, had opened a cupboard-door where hung a skeleton. He had evidently had such a fright, that he did not stop to shut the door again, or the door of the surgery, or of the house after him. The medicine had to be sent.

“A day or two after, as Frank was riding towards the farm to see his patient again, in a deep, narrow lane, he met the boy coming [Pg 251] towards him. Now, he thought, I shall hear all about it. But he was mistaken; for the moment the lad recognised the tall, slender figure of the young doctor, he scrambled up the lofty bank, like a cat or a monkey, and bolted through the hedge into the field above.

“‘Hillo, hillo, there, boy!’ cried Frank, ‘I want to speak to you.’

“‘Nay, nay,’ cried the boy, ‘I’ll na come near thee. I knaw thee, I knaw thee! though thou’s got thy claiths on. I seed thee i’ th’ cupboard!’”

After a hearty laugh of the whole company, Thorsby said, “Well, take my word for it, the man who tells such stories, and enjoys them, is no despairing swain.”

“Not a bit of it,” said George Woodburn.

One fine May morning that spring, the sun was shining over the dewy landscape as genially as it used to shine before the dark days fell on Woodburn Grange. The larks were caroling as high and inspiringly in the [Pg 252] blue air. The young corn was growing as greenly, and the weeders were in the midst of it with their spuds, rooting up the thistles, and with their hands pulling the bright yellow charlock out of it. From tree to tree rung the notes of the thrush and blackbird, and the cuckoo shouted her musical, quaint monotone from the new amber-coloured foliage of the spreading oak. The brooks rippled and tinkled so sweetly down the shadowy glens to the river, and the river glid along as fair and as peacefully as if it had never seen a winter or a crime. There was a glow of flowers along the luxuriant hedge-row banks. There was a golden fire of flowers all over the pastures, and a spirit of tranquil joy lay over all the scene, the outward image of the peace and joy which had once more returned to that pleasant neighbourhood.

All at once the bells of Hillmartin burst out with a merry peal, as if they had caught the contagion of happy nature, and sent their [Pg 253] musical cadences over wood and valley, giving them the voice of delight, which seemed only wanting to communicate their full tide of new-born pleasure to the hearts of men. The next instant, the three old jangling bells of Cotmanhaye broke out into the best music that they could make, which was but indifferent, but yet had a note of gladness in it, like the voice of some uncouth labourer, whom nature never meant for a musician, but who goes homeward over the dusky slopes of evening, chanting discordantly some rude country song,—there was a happy heart in its limping clangour, which made it welcome. The discord mingling with the harmony of the bells of Hillmartin was toned down into a symphony which was familiar to the ears of the people of the neighbourhood, who knew that it meant, at least, rejoicing. At once the weeders in the corn, and the cottagers in the villages of Hillmartin and Woodburn, stood still, and said, “What is [Pg 254] that for?” And presently, from one quarter or another came the answer, “It is a peal of welcome for Mr. George Woodburn, who last night brought home his wife to Bilts’ Farm.”

“Wife to Bilts’ Farm! Why, what wife?”

“Why, Miss Drury, to be sure!” was the answer of women’s unerring instincts. “Who else should it be?”

“And all forgotten and forgiven?” said the simple people, thoughtfully.

“There was nothing to forgive,” said one clear-headed village woman. “But there are things, no doubt, which can never be forgotten; and Miss Drury must have a stout heart to come back after what has passed here.”

“There’s that in the case,” said an old, grey-headed fellow, “that has the stoutest heart of all—and that is, true love for a true man; and if there be a true man, it is our sober, steady, sensible George Woodburn. [Pg 255] May God bless him as he deserves; and He has surely begun it in giving him such a sweet, brave-hearted wife as Elizabeth Drury. You may see it in her face, the very first time you look in it, that she’s one of nature’s true women—loving, and kind, and sensible. Thank God, for sending another such a lady here.”

The event was a holiday in Woodburn, and Hillmartin, and Cotmanhaye, though nobody stopped their work for it; but there was a talking, and a burst of good wishes, and a flush of pleasure in the women’s eyes, and a bright, hearty look about the men, that showed that by everybody’s consent George Woodburn had made the right choice.

Soon there were seen horsemen, and carriages full of ladies, driving up towards Bilts’ Farm—Claverings and Woodburns, Heritages and Thorsbys, Degges and Fairfaxes. Coming and going they were, and all looking as if some good thing had happened to them all. [Pg 256] “Who could have thought it,” said the villagers, “only two years ago?” Soon were seen George Woodburn and his tall, buxom, cheery-looking wife, walking soberly down towards the Grange, and all the heads of Woodburn Green put out to have a look after the handsome couple. And to see Letty Thorsby spring out of the porch of the Grange, and fly half down towards the garden-gate to meet her new sister, and such an embracing and kissing. And then, little Leonard Thorsby, with his flaxen locks, like a little burst of sunshine, scampering after his mother, and snatched up and kissed, and held out at arm’s-length, and admired, heavy as he was, by George! And then, Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn hurrying out, and then such hugging and kissing again, and all hurrying into the house, for George says, laughing, “Do just look! all the Green is out watching you!” So in they pop in a crowd. “Well!” say the villagers, “there never was [Pg 257] a woman welcome to a house, if that one is not.”

But in the midst of Elizabeth Woodburn’s joy, there was a dark spot from which she shrunk, as it ever and anon came into her mind. There was somewhere down below the Grange a dreadful place, called Wink’s Ferry, which she and everyone wished could be obliterated from the country. All that could be done, George Woodburn had done. He had had put up a board by the river, with the large words Woodburn Ferry upon it; and all the people both there and at Rockville and at Cotmanhaye were requested never more to utter the hateful word Wink’s. It was to be buried in deepest oblivion, so that it should never fall like a sudden knell on the heart of his beloved bride.

Yet mighty as is the power which says in the heart of woman, “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God [Pg 258] my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me,”—yet it was many a long day, yea, long year, before Elizabeth Woodburn could descend to the river-side below the Grange. There was a spot of horror there that made her whole nature shrink. There was a dark shadow which hung over that spot, which was a spectre lurking beneath the otherwise sunny pleasantness of her fate, which she would have given some years of her life to have banished.

Her mother remained in Yorkshire, and would never come near the fatal neighbourhood.

But one fine summer’s evening, as Elizabeth and George were wandering in the orchard of the Grange, Elizabeth said, with a sad seriousness, to him, “George, I have a mind to go down to the ferry—it haunts me continually. I cannot get rid of it. I dream of it as dark [Pg 259] and dreadful; and I think, if I could see it on such an evening as this, I should be less affected by it afterwards.”

George looked anxiously at her, and then said—“My dear Elizabeth, weigh well your strength; if you could bear it, I think, too, it might have a good effect.” He gave her his arm, and they proceeded down the orchard; he opened the little gate, of which each member of the family carried a key, and they passed out to the river side. Without a word, they walked down to the ferry; a more tranquil scene it was impossible for the human eye to look upon; the river ran full and peacefully, gliding on, the clear gravel seen through its translucent waters. On all sides green meadows, and peaceful banks, overhung with the verdurous trees, the thrush and blackbird chanting as if the whole were ground hallowed to repose, presented anything but a revolting aspect.

Notwithstanding George saw Elizabeth’s [Pg 260] eye run excitedly from object to object, he knew she was calculating where everything had occurred that she had read of. He felt her shudder by his side; and he said,—“Let us go back, my dear Elizabeth.”

“No, no,” said she, in a voice firm, but full of deep feeling; “let us go on, let us cross, it will do me good.” They went on, George pulled the boat across, and Elizabeth looked around over those expansive meadows. She then proposed to return, and in the same silence they retraced their steps, and went up the orchard to the summer-house in the garden. Elizabeth sat down, and looked pale and faint.

“I will run for some wine,” said George.

“No, no wine, George; bring me Letty’s Eau-de-Cologne.”

George was quickly back. Elizabeth bathed her forehead and inhaled the odour, and then faintly smiling, said,—“I am better, and I shall be better; I am glad I have forced [Pg 261] myself to cross that ferry, it has given me a different picture in my mind. I shall gradually get to see that only, and I shall be so much happier.”

And this eventually became the case. The ferry was not a place that Elizabeth ever desired to see; there was indeed scarcely any reason that she should go near it; but in her mind the horrible images of the fatal event, as she had read them, had now been softened and concealed, to a certain degree, by the summer evening tranquillity which she had seen, and in the ordinary life at home, the most painful sensations had disappeared on any mention of Woodburn Ferry. “In a country which we both love so much,” she said to her husband, “I would not have a single thing which can cause me a pang or a regret.”

Not many weeks after the marriage of George Woodburn, one morning there was grave bustle in the streets of Castleborough. The tide was observed to be tending towards [Pg 262] the Friends’ Meeting, and on arriving there, a number of handsome carriages were seen drawn up before the usually so quiet door of that simple tabernacle of silent worshippers. On entering the somewhat large, but very simple meeting-house, with its white-washed walls and plain deal benches, a very different congregation to its usually grave-faced and gravely-dressed one, was seen assembled. Every part of it was crowded with people whose gay costume, especially those of the ladies, made the members of the Society, who were scattered amongst them, look but like little dottings in a lively picture. The walls of the meeting-house were panelled with plain unpainted deal about five feet high, and a raised seat ran along them, on which many of the best known Friends had taken their places, intermingled with some of the most distinguished people of the town and neighbourhood. Along the whole front of the meeting-house ran a gallery raised some steps above [Pg 263] the body of the place, breasted in front by a balustered railing. In this gallery, which was accessible from both the centre and each end, sat conspicuous in the costliest but plainest of silks, Mrs. Heritage, and by her side her sister-in-law, a most silential and antique-looking personage—Dorothy Qualm, wife of that great professor of Silence, David Qualm, whose solemn face and exactly triangular hat were seen under this gallery on a seat fronting the whole of the assembly. In front of this seat stood a rather large table, with pens and ink and blotting-paper; and a vacancy was left on the seat itself of considerable extent.

All was evidently curiosity and expectation. Never had so gay and crowded a gathering appeared in that house, not even when the most noted Public Friend, that is, ministering Friend, or preacher, from London, Ireland, America, or elsewhere, had had the whole town called together, to hear what he, or she, [Pg 264] expected, but was not sure, that the Spirit would give him or her to say. To-day, the brilliant assembly appeared pretty certain of something of interest turning up, and every time that the door behind them opened, there was a general turning round, and often to a disappointment. At length, however, there was certainly an unusual bustle in the lobby; the door was opened with an air of importance by the tall, quaint figure of William Theobold, the drab three-corner-hatted coachman of the eccentric Mr. Barthe, dentist and wit; and in walked up the centre aisle, if it might be so called, no other, arm in arm, than Dr. Frank Leroy and Miss Millicent Heritage. They were followed by their immediate relatives, and advanced and seated themselves in the centre of the seat under the gallery facing the people. There was a general stir and excitement amongst the whole spectator body, and many bright smiles and knowing nods to one another amongst [Pg 265] the ladies,—soon, however, subsiding into a deep silence. The bride and bridegroom had to-day conformed, in a great measure, to the costume of the Society. Millicent was dressed in a lovely dress of richest white satin, and a jaunty though Quaker bonnet of the same material. A white veil covered but did not completely obscure her face, in which her peculiarly oriental style of beauty appeared the more piquant from that simple but truly bridal costume. The Doctor had a plain suit of black, with his coat collarless, certainly, but cut, it might have been, by a Court tailor, for appearance at a royal levee. He appeared at once a very handsome, intellectual young man, a gentleman and a Friend.

“What a lucky fellow!—such a wife, and such a fortune!” was the thought of most of the spectators; and there was no doubt that Frank Leroy thought the same. It was clearly enough written on his grave but [Pg 266] happy face. Around and about the young couple might be seen Mr. Heritage, Mr. Fairfax, the humorous-looking George Barthe, Sir Henry and Lady Clavering, Thorsby and his Letty, Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn, and George and Elizabeth, and with them the Degges.

After a little pause Mrs. Heritage took off her bonnet, dropped softly on her knees in the gallery, and put up a short but fervent prayer for God’s blessing on the ceremony about to take place. Then another little pause of expectation, and the bridegroom took the bride by the hand; they rose, and in the simple formula of words prescribed by the Society, declared that they took each other as husband and wife, and promised mutual love and fidelity till death did them part. On sitting down, there was soon a bustle of unrolling paper on the table, and the clerk of the meeting laid the certificate of marriage before the contracting parties for their signatures. [Pg 267] Then the parents and immediate relatives signed it in attestation; after which there was a crowding and a moving up from all quarters of those who were desirous of appending their names to so peculiar a document. Whilst this was doing the newly-married pair, and their nearest of kin, withdrew, and then was heard a rapid rolling away of carriages.

After a short time spent amongst the pleasant hills and rocky dales of Derbyshire, Dr. Leroy and his wife returned to their handsome house in Castleborough Park. If appearances might be relied on, Millicent Leroy had, after all, found in Frank Leroy, the man of her heart. The little season of illusion which had once enwrapped her had left no traces behind it, but such as time had already very much obliterated, and which the affection and merits of a most highly esteemed and popular husband were likely to render ever less perceptible. A very sunny and velvet path was theirs. Vast wealth, a married home and a [Pg 268] parental one existed for them, for, like Woodburn Grange, Fair Manor was the resort of the younger branches in almost daily intercourse. A sphere of great usefulness, as well as of a splendid future, lay before Dr. and Millicent Leroy; and those who believe they will show themselves worthy of such superb advantages, we may venture to prognosticate will not be deceived.

IT IS ALL OWING TO LETTY.

Our history may wind itself up in comfort. The dark cloud which fell on the happy home at Woodburn has thoroughly dispersed. Though there is no longer such a cluster of young life there as made its old shady rooms, and its garden alleys, and its pleasant fields ring with laughter and merriment in the days of our great hayfield fête, a sober happiness rests on that now familiar Grange. Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn live a life of quiet enjoyment, only interrupted by frequent invasions of children and friends that send a fresh tide of pleasure around them, and make even the old times seem pale in comparison.

From the breezy hill of Cotmanhaye come [Pg 270] Sir Henry and Lady Clavering, from Bilts’ Farm walks down the sunny and sensible Elizabeth, whilst George is ever to and fro, superintending both farms at the same time. Every few days Letty Thorsby comes driving over with her children. Children? Yes, did I not tell you that she has a little fairy-like daughter, bright Ann Woodburn Thorsby, as well as that sturdy growing Leonard, who is always wanting to go to Fair Manor, to hear Tom Boddily play on that wonderful pipe and lark whistle? and on Sundays, over comes Thorsby, and there is a life in the house with the young people, and children and nurses, comers and goers, that is better than any of the old times. Thorsby has always some pleasant story of somebody or other to relate, and the other day he was amusing them with an account of an old aunt of his, who says it is a lucky thing her memory fails so. She had heard of a man who had written a book about the pleasures of [Pg 271] memory, but for her part she thought it was a pleasure to forget. “It is a pleasure that old age brings,” she says, “for then things come new again to us. It is because people forget that they tell their old stories over again, and read their old books. Not to forget would be to be poor; to forget is to enjoy twice, and sometimes much oftener.”

But a word about Thorsby and forgetting. There are things that he has not yet learned to forget, and they keep him sober. Cheerful and even joyous, as he often seems in his own intimate circle of friends, there are dark thoughts that often come across him; and at times he is low, very low and desolate in heart, and it then requires all Letty’s genial glow of nature’s and affection’s sunshine to keep him up and keep him going. The days of his folly and his guilt come back upon him, and he remembers the dark, estranged and even contemptuous bearing of his most respected townsmen towards him; and he knows, [Pg 272] that if he had not had a Letty Woodburn for his wife, but some proud and indignant dame who would have spurned the dust of his threshold from her, and abandoned him to the more than seven devils that were in his blood, he would now have been a lost man, lost body and soul for ever.

It was because of this noble-heartedness of his wife, because she had drawn him back, and soothed and attracted, instead of exasperating him, and driving him headlong down the precipice of perdition on which he was already staggering, that he felt the keenest shame and remorse at his treatment of her. There was a time, he felt, when a few words of just reproach from her would have stung him to a ruinous desperation, and these words had never been spoken. Oh! in those dreary winter days and nights at Tunckhannock in the far-off American forests, how these thoughts had come in upon him, and scorched and wrung him, and made him cry out aloud, [Pg 273] “Fool! fool!” And yet with the spring came the loving letter of that ever-faithful wife, reminding him of the Redeemer’s heavenly words, “Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost!” Nothing, not even a fragment of anything belonging to that immortal God-derived thing—the soul—was to be lost, if any effort, any faith could save it; and Thorsby had then made a vow, that he would devote his life, his strength, his everything to make a recompense to God and to that faithful woman. And he had kept it.

It was long before he could regain the favourable opinion of his townsmen; and especially of those more noble-minded ones whose esteem he especially coveted. Dark, cold looks, estranged faces, that did not deign even a recognition: a leaving out and passing over him, in all public and benevolent works and subscriptions in the town, as if his very money were contamination. Yet his wife had prepared the way for his reception at [Pg 274] Woodburn, and had induced her father and family to meet him in a friendly manner. In his own house in Castleborough, there was always a bright look, and a pleasant word, and a cheery hearth, and all the news of the place that could cast a lively spell over the dinner or the tea-table was detailed in Letty’s happiest manner. It was like stepping from winter to summer, out of the streets where some bitter cut had been experienced, or where some side-long glance of the passer by, had said plainly, “Oh, there goes that abandoned Thorsby, and he dares to show his face here again!”

Nothing but this firm, fast, heart-strengthening anchorage of home could have made Thorsby stand out this time of justly incurred contempt and reproach. He knew that many said that Thorsby had no ballast in him, and that some day he would break down again as intolerably as ever. It was this consciousness, combined with his sense of the love that had [Pg 275] saved him, and that cared for no scorn, no malicious misconstruction of her actions; no taunts that she was trying to make a bulrush into a stable tree, so that she could save him still, that made him resolve to stand firm by the help of God, and thus give her the reward of a conquest so dearly and nobly striven after.

Thorsby found that his affairs, under the careful and conscientious management of Thomas Barnsdale and Letty, had flourished. The trade in London had greatly expanded under the judicious control of the agent whom Mr. Barnsdale had put there, and whom, in the days of his folly, Thorsby would have dismissed, if the American crisis had allowed him time. Since his return from New York, his business had equally prospered in the hands of the new house with which he had entrusted it. Worldly strength was, therefore, given to him to enable him to persevere; and even whilst his own character was at a very [Pg 276] low estimate in his native town, he was busily engaged in schemes for the safeguard of the character of others.

Whilst he was absent, and Letty attended the warehouse and counting-house, she observed that in the lobby of the warehouse there were continually people waiting, who were bringing in work, or expecting it being given out. There was a considerable number of young women amongst these, who had to remain there for hours sometimes amongst men and youths, who did not appear the most suitable companions for them. On speaking to Thomas Barnsdale about this, he said that he had long thought they ought to do something to amend this state of things. He had heard complaints from young women of the language and conduct of some young men there, and had dismissed one or two for their doings.

“But,” said Letty, “cannot we curtail this waiting by establishing certain regulations, as [Pg 277] to the bringing in and sending out work, at least so far as relates to the town?”

Thomas Barnsdale thought, at first, this would be difficult of accomplishment; but Letty went earnestly into the subject, and soon showed him that by gradual management it might be done. In the meantime she had a small room, adjoining the lobby, used as a ware-room, cleared out, a good fire kept in it in winter, some books laid on the table, and this was made the women’s waiting-room. The plan gave immense satisfaction to the women, and was soon imitated in other great establishments. Thorsby was extremely pleased with this arrangement, and he proposed that a school should be opened for the children of the work-people, who lived very much in one part of the town. This was set on foot, and answered well. Mr. G. Dell had built a very handsome and airy school for poor children, but Thorsby persuaded him, and some other benevolent people, to join him in a [Pg 278] plan for opening day-schools in all parts of the town where the working classes lived. A committee was formed for this purpose of both gentlemen and ladies, who superintended the schools once set on foot, each of their own sex. The same committee took upon them to make visits to the houses of the workpeople, in order to see that they were well drained, and otherwise kept clean and healthy. The visit of the cholera at this time made both rich and poor acquiescent in such visits of inspection. Thorsby’s purse was always liberally open for all those purposes, and the earnest gravity and sound sense with which he went about these social reforms, did much to restore him to the good opinion of his most distinguished townsmen and townswomen. They began to say, amongst themselves, “After all, Mrs. Thorsby had more sense than we had. What a wonder this will be if Thorsby holds on as he is acting now.”

But the foothold that he felt he was gaining [Pg 279] made him more determined than ever. He said to himself, “Rather than fall back again, I would go off to the woods of Indiana and swing that sobering hammer for another winter!” He projected a splendid building for a people’s hall, and put down £4000 for his subscription to it. In a while he saw this handsome house, with ample and airy rooms for lectures, for popular public gatherings of the people, for a library, and news and coffee-rooms, erected in a near suburb, and lighted and warmed in winter in so comfortable a manner that it became the great resort of the working men. He himself gave the first opening lecture on the advantages of education and combination for mutual improvement amongst the artisan classes; and others of his townsmen followed his example, and kept up a weekly or fortnightly course of lectures on suitable subjects. In all these plans he was joined cordially by Mr. Dell and the son of William Fairfax, who was [Pg 280] now coming forward in all the popular works which had been advocated by his father, who was now beginning to feel the desire of well-advanced years for rest. Dr. Leroy was an ever-active coadjutor in the promotion of sanitary plans, schools, and lectures. He invited the working men, in order to lead them occasionally into the open air, to bring him plants, stones, or other objects of nature, on which he gave them scientific lectures descriptive of their places in Natural History, and their uses. These became very popular.

Meantime Mrs. Thorsby, Mrs. Heritage, Mrs. Leroy, and many other ladies, were now, since Mrs. Leroy’s marriage, become a very strong party, and were greatly employed in looking after the poor, seeing that they sent their children to the schools, that they kept their houses clean and sweet, and that they were provided with all proper clothing for the winter months. They established homes for young women who were out of [Pg 281] place, and seeking new engagements, which were also offices of inquiry for servants, which they found of great use, in not only expediting the procurement of good domestics, but in preventing much demoralisation during the intervals of services in young women. Nor did they overlook the old. They found that there was always a certain number of old, superannuated servants, who, unable to save sufficient for their latter days, had no resource but the workhouse, to which they looked with so much repugnance, that they often continued to linger in wretched lodgings, and suffer incredible misery and starvation rather than be compelled to go into one of these last sad scenes of “waiting for death.” For these a suitable home was opened, where a little maintained them; and where they were, as far as they were able, employed in such sewing as was needed for the Dorcas Society, &c.

In his explorations of the purlieus of the [Pg 282] town in prosecution of these popular objects, Thorsby observed how closely the dwellings of the poor were jammed upon one another. Every little spot of a back-yard was bought up for the building of a factory, and every day the unhealthiness of this crowding was becoming more obvious. Asking himself what was the remedy for this evil, he immediately remembered that all round the higher part of the town, the very part most adapted for building, the land was denied to this important object by being town land. Every year till “Lammas-tide,” temporary fences were put up, extremely ugly in themselves, being of hurdles or dead thorns, the natural hedges being only in fragments, and after the hay was cut, all these temporary fences were thrown down or withdrawn, and the whole ground became a desolate, unsightly waste, over which the rabble ranged in listless idleness, or engaged in boxing and dog-fighting. The corporation, who deemed themselves most [Pg 283] useful and patriotic conservators of the rights of the freedmen, had maintained the freedom of these lands from full inclosure most jealously; making every man who became a member of the corporation take an oath never to vote for an inclosure. Thorsby saw that whilst no one, except a few butchers, derived any benefit from the keeping open of these lands, the greatest evils were inflicted on the town by it; that the whole of that side of the place was made hideous by it; there was no longer the necessary room for the natural expansion of the town till this obstruction was removed. He took his resolve at once.

At the next vacancy for a town councillor, he presented himself; he was unanimously returned; and on the presentation of the usual oath against an inclosure, he begged to decline the taking of it till he had made a few remarks. The town clerk who offered the oath to him was very peremptory, and told him he must take it or not take it, without [Pg 284] observation. But Thorsby was as positive, and prevailed. In a few plain statements he showed to the council the severe injuries which the town, its beauty, its trade, its health, suffered from the want of land to extend itself upon; that it possessed the most admirable ground for houses and gardens, for factories and streets on these Lammas lands, which did no good to the freedmen, though a suitable compensation for their right, properly invested, would do them a permanent good. To the astonishment of the town, the whole corporation voted for the measure at once. In less than a year Thorsby had the satisfaction of seeing an act of parliament obtained for that purpose; and in a few years the whole of those so long desolated fields covered with handsome villas, gardens, airy streets, and public edifices; schools, alms-houses for the decayed members of different trades; a blind asylum in an open, healthy situation, under the care of the principal ladies and [Pg 285] gentlemen of the place, where the children, under a wise system of instruction, presented one of the most interesting sights that suffering humanity can offer to the benevolent heart; and where they were preparing, too, for different occupations, which such instructions alone made possible to them.

The success of this great scheme, and the serious and kindly zeal with which Thorsby had carried it out, completed that regard of his townsmen which had been gradually reviving towards him. The steady decorum, the real wisdom of his deportment and life, and the high regard in which they saw him held by the most eminent of his townsmen, eminent as much for their virtues as their wealth, raised Thorsby to a pitch of popularity with the masses which was an enthusiasm. He was declared to be the pre-eminent friend of the people, and they determined to send him to parliament. In this idea, those, indeed, who could at that time send him to parliament, [Pg 286] happened to coincide. Thorsby had grown into a great authority in the corporation. They saw that he sought nothing for himself, all his proposals were for the good of the town at large, and had succeeded wonderfully. But to this honour of representing his native place Thorsby would not consent. He declared that he lived for his town and his townspeople, but that he did not aspire to live for the nation. He would unite with them in selecting the most suitable man to represent them in the national council, but he would never go there himself. He felt that he could do little in that national assembly, as then constituted, but that he could do much in constant work for the prosperity, improvement, and enlightenment of his own town and neighbourhood. Beyond that he had no ambition, or rather he knew of no higher ambition than to prosecute the interests and the happiness of eighty thousand people, who relied on, and responded to his exertions.

[Pg 287]

Thorsby, once the very black sheep of Castleborough, and hanging by his torn and mud-drenched fleece over an unfathomable abyss, gently seized and stoutly withdrawn by a loving hand, is now the most popular man of a great and busy community. He stands a monument of what may be done by seeking in order to save, rather than by the exercise of a bitter though not causeless resentment; and still, as he goes on his way, planning and diffusing benefits to others, he says in his own soul, “What can I do in retribution of my faults, in recompense of a deathless and redeeming love?” By his side he still sees that gentle embodiment of unpretending wisdom and domestic sunshine, whose kind glance, if he is low, re-inspires him; if he is ready, in some momentary flush of his once excitable spirits, to say or do anything too prominent, steadies and sobers him. With such a pilot and such a sheet-anchor, we will venture to predict a safe voyage of [Pg 288] life to his mortal bark, and that never again will the sunshine of peace now lying on Woodburn, on Cotmanhaye Manor, on Bilts’ Farm, and on Fair Manor be disturbed on his account. And may the heavens, blue and fair, shine out with their softest sunshine: may the larks carol above, the flowers wave in the breeze, and the brooks sing on below, around that little peaceful Arcadia where we have so many friends, through many and many long years as now,—long, indeed, after the whole town of Castleborough shall follow in deepest mourning the remains of their greatest reformer and benefactor to their honoured resting place—follow the ashes of a great and good man, who, but for the gentle wisdom of a heart inspired by the sublime power of devoted conjugal love, would, years ago, have sunk into a dishonoured grave, burying all this host of blessings with him.

Oh, woman! woman! what strength is concealed in thy weakness—what victories are [Pg 289] engemmed in thy gentleness! what miracles conferred on thy truth! As the giant oak lies coiled in the little, brown, burnished acorn that we pick up and pitch lightly into the thicket; as the Titan of the winds lies dreaming and poetising in the zephyr; as the little limpid, sun-bright brooklets inherit the fulness of the ocean, with its illimitable breadth and stupendous force; as the clouds and the rivers enshrine themselves in the diamond drops of morning dew, so in the light and sportive life of girlhood lie powers that can direct the course of human destiny more effectually than the little rudder can direct the colossal ship; which can shape the condition and the fortunes of society, and evoke revolutions more beneficent or portentous than all the conspirations or parliaments that ever existed.

At the root of the tree, buried in unambitious silence, lie the life-forces, that elaborate and evolve all the pillared and ramified glories above. In the bosom of the family live the [Pg 290] feminine instincts and harmonies which send forth the masculine majesty of deeds and doctrines which rule the universe.

Tears that have wet the floor of solitary dungeons, still more bitter but for the consciousness of the deathless sympathy of one faithful bosom somewhere; crimes, arrested by the persuasive voice of woman; wrongs, goaded to madness but for her soothing whispers; poverty, pitiless and intolerable, but for her acts and her patient labours; darkness, unpierced, but by the light of one heaven-kindled smile; hopes, kept alive only by the eloquence of feminine truth; strength, born of the weakness of never-vanquished faith; despair, scattered by the words of one God-inspired bosom, stand forth and testify to the unproclaimed achievements of the mother-half of mankind! Great Mother! not only of men and women, but of the energies, hopes, virtues and triumphs that bloom out of them and their generations, stand forth! Be the [Pg 291] herald of that immortal recognition of this great truth, which shall have its fullest acknowledgement in that region of perfect recompense, where sits our Divine Master on the crystalline throne of immaculate justice, and says to every advancing hero and heroine who has—

Done good by stealth and blushed to find it fame—

“For as much as thou hast done it to the very least of these little ones, thou hast done it unto Me. Enter into the joy of thy Lord!”

THE LONG LINE AND THIS BOOK END.

The time was at hand which should bring the antagonism of Sir Roger Rockville to our friends in this history to an end. The severity which he had for so many years exercised towards all sorts of offenders, independent of his unconquerable repugnance to all the views and principles of advancing society, had made him the object of deepest vengeance. Eyes watched for him, ears listened for him, dark hearts burned in murderous breasts in lonely places, to discharge upon his head the collected fury of a thousand injuries. In a lonely hollow of his woods, watching at midnight with two of his men, there came a sturdy knot of poachers. An affray ensued. [Pg 293] The men perceived that their old enemy, Sir Roger, was there, and the blow of a hedge-stake stretched him on the earth. His keepers fled. And thus ignominiously terminated the long line of the Rockvilles. The actual nature of the catastrophe was concealed at the time from the public, and the conservative newspaper of Castleborough announced that Sir Roger had died suddenly in his bed. It was true that he died in his bed, but it was from the lingering effects of the injury received in the wood. Sir Roger was the last of his line, but not of his class. There is a feudal art of sinking, which requires no study, and the Rockvilles are but one family amongst thousands who have perished in its practice.

Scarcely had Sir Roger breathed his last, when his title and estate fell into litigation. Owing to two generations having passed with no other issue of the Rockville family than a single son and heir, the claims, though numerous, were so mingled with obscuring [Pg 294] circumstances, and so equally balanced, that the lawyers raised quibbles and difficulties enough to keep it in chancery till they had not only consumed all the ready money and rental, but had made frightful inroads into the estate itself. To save the remnant, the contending parties came to a compromise. A neighbouring squire, whose grandfather had married a Rockville, was allowed to secure the title, on the condition that the residuum of the estate should be divided amongst the whole of the claimants. The woods and lands of Rockville were accordingly announced for sale.

It was at this juncture that old William Watson reminded Simon Degge of a conversation in the great grove at Rockville which they had held at the time that Sir Roger was endeavouring to drive the people thence.

“What a divine pleasure,” said Mr. Degge, “might this man enjoy if he had a heart capable of letting others enjoy themselves. If [Pg 295] he could but see that the laws of property should be maintained in consistency with the laws of God: that He has given the rentals of the earth to individuals, but that He has never repealed his great law which gives the whole earth to the undivided race of man: that the rentals may be enjoyed by the individual possessors without infringement of the general enjoyment of the pleasures of nature by society at large. These different kinds of possession may surely co-exist without one interfering with the other.”

“But we talk without the estate,” William Watson had said; “what might we do if we were tried with it?”

Mr. Degge, when reminded of this conversation, was silent for a moment, and then replied, that there was sound philosophy in William’s remark. He said no more, but went away, and the next day announced to the astonished old man that he had purchased the groves and the whole ancient estate of Rockville.

[Pg 296]

Simon Degge, the last of a long line of paupers, had become the possessor of the noble estate of Sir Roger Rockville of Rockville, the last of a long line of aristocrats! It may be imagined what was the consternation of the whole Bullockshed and Tenterhook clan; what the delightful amazement of Woodburn, Cotmanhaye, and all Castleborough. To the squirearchy of the old school, the audacity of this purchase surpassed the range of their limited imaginations. This daring and fortunate quondam pauper, and present manufacturing millionaire, squatted down, as they expressed it, amid all the woods and lands, amid all the ancient honours of the line of Rockville. To them it portended something very like the end of the world. They saw all the old fixedness of ancestry and soil broken up, and the despised men of spindles and looms invading everything which to them was sacred. It seemed that Sir Roger and all his ghostly forefathers and foremothers must rise [Pg 297] up and scare, in the midnight hours, the plebeian new comers from their hall and possessions of nearly a thousand years. It seemed as if those stately monuments and procumbent effigies of so many Rockvilles in armour, ruffs, and farthingales, must start up from their tombs in the old church, saturated as it was with the presence and emblazoned with the arms and glorious epitaphs of the Rockvilles. But they all remained perfectly quiescent; neither chiselled stone nor ancestral spirit moved. Nature received these terræ filii with as much equanimity and indifference as it had received the Norman hordes before. There was neither storm-wind nor earthquake, but the still small voice of reason was heard whispering in many quarters, that whenever man puts forth his powers he makes himself the lord of the circumstances around him; whenever he sinks into sloth and imbecility, nature throws him from her weird shoulders, as the vigorous but interloping [Pg 298] young cuckoo throws the hedge-sparrow from its parental nest. The earth is for the bold.

In how many a quarter of this island of late years has this same revolution been developing itself? The sons of industry, risen by it to wealth, in how many of the seats of the old aristocracy, decayed through luxury and indolence, do we find them planted? Perhaps the new blood thus infusing itself may reinvigorate and thus perpetuate the old race; but at any rate, new ideas, new sentiments, and a more popular spirit must follow these transformations. Novi homines cannot rest on their laurels, and to rest solely on their money were too odious; they must, therefore, proclaim a newer and more popular creed; and so the world moves on its spiral course.

To the inmates of Woodburn Grange, of Cotmanhaye Manor, of Fair Manor, and of the whole population of Castleborough, this was a delightful event. The old odious antagonism was at an end. The more earthy [Pg 299] squirearchy receded into the distance, and a spirit of a more genial nature took possession of all this pleasant neighbourhood.

The following summer, when the hay was lying in fragrant cocks in the great meadows below Rockville, and on the little islands of the river, Simon Degge held a grand fête on the occasion of his coming to reside at Rockville Hall, henceforth the family seat of the Degges. Simon Degge remained plain Simon Degge. On occasion of going up to London with an address to the King on some great occasion, the honour of knighthood had been offered him; and further, it had been communicated to him through his friend, Lord Netherland, the Recorder of Castleborough, that his majesty, in consideration of his great wealth and his public spirit, was disposed graciously to create him a baronet. Both these intended honours Simon Degge as graciously declined. He declared that he preferred the simple unadorned name which [Pg 300] he had ever borne, and he desired no honours but such as naturally sprung from the exercise of virtue and benevolence.

For the present occasion his house and gardens had all been restored in the most consummate style. For years Mr. Degge had been a great purchaser of works of art and literature—painting, statuary, books, and articles of antiquity, including rich armour and precious works in ivory and gold. As Mrs. Degge had a particular weakness for beautiful china, he had gratified her eyes with a grand array of the most exquisite specimens of the ceramic art.

First and foremost, he now gave a great banquet to his wealthy friends—and no man with a million and a half is without them, and in abundance. In the second place, he gave a substantial dinner to all his tenantry, from the wealthy farmer of five hundred acres to the tenant of a cottage. On this occasion he said, “Game is a subject of great heart-burnings, [Pg 301] and of great injustice to the country. It was the bane of my predecessor, let us take care that it is not ours. Let every man kill the game on the land that he rents, then he will neither destroy it utterly, nor allow it to grow into a nuisance. I am fond of a gun myself, and my sons probably will be more so; but we shall find game enough in our own fields and woods for our destructive propensities, without fostering such a swarm of these animals as may lead us to degenerate into game-butchers. Gentlemen, I should as soon think of setting up to kill my own oxen, as to kill game merely for the sake of killing it. The healthy excitement of the chase vanishes when a very inundation of the animals pursued rolls under our feet, and a satiating slaughter takes the place of a keen and vigorous search after it. To hunt!—yes, the word expresses what field-sports once were—the game had to be hunted out. Now the foreign name best designates it—battu, [Pg 302] beat it up, and knock it ignobly on the head. Gentlemen, whenever we may occasionally extend our pursuit of game beyond the fields of the home-farm and the woods, across the lands of our tenants, it shall not be to carry off the first-fruits of their feeding, and we will still hold the enjoyment as a favour.”

We need not say that this speech was applauded most vociferously.

Thirdly, and lastly, Mr. Degge gave a grand entertainment to all his work-people, both of the town and country. His house and grounds were thrown open to the inspection of the whole concourse. The delighted crowd admired the pictures and pleasant gardens. On the lawn, lying betwixt the great grove and the hall, an enormous tent was pitched, or rather a vast canvas canopy erected, open on all sides, in which was laid a charming banquet. A military band from Castleborough Barracks played during the time. Here Simon Degge, leaning his hand on the shoulder of [Pg 303] his happy mother,—his worthy father-in-law, Spires, was gone to his rest,—surveyed the scene with the utmost delight. His mother, fresh and hale as ever, was seated with William Watson and her old Castleborough neighbours about her; and as her son there stood, he made a speech which was as rapturously applauded as that delivered to the farmers. It was to the effect that all the old privileges of wandering in the groves, of angling and boating on the river, were restored. The inn was already rebuilt in a handsome Elizabethan style, larger than before, and to prevent it ever becoming a fane of intemperance, he had there placed as landlord, he hoped for many years to come, his old friend and benefactor, William Watson. William Watson, he was sure, would protect the inn from riot, and they themselves the groves and river banks from injury.

Long and loud was the applause which this announcement occasioned. The young [Pg 304] people turned out upon the green for a dance, and in the evening, after an excellent tea, the whole company descended the river in boats and barges decorated with green boughs and flowers, and singing a song made by William Watson for the occasion, called, “The Health of Simon Degge, the last and first of his line!”

Years have rolled on. The groves and river banks, and islands of Rockville are still greatly frequented, but are never known to be injured. Poachers are never known, for excellent reasons: nobody would like to annoy the good Mr. Degge. Game is not very numerous there; there is no fun in killing it, where there is no resistance, and it is vastly more amusing to kill it where it is abundant, and is jealously watched and guarded by the proprietor of the demesnes, and where there is the chance of a good spree with the keepers.

And with what different feelings does the good Simon Degge look down from his lofty [Pg 305] eyrie over the princely expanse of meadows, and over the glittering river, and over the stately woods to where Great Castleborough still stretches farther and farther its red-brick walls, its red-tiled roofs, and its tall, smoke-emitting chimneys! There he sees no haunts of crowded men, enemies to himself or to any one. No upstarts, no envious opponents, but a vast family of human beings, all toiling for the good of their families and their country. All advancing, some faster, some slower, to a better education, a better social condition, a better conception of the principles of art and commerce, a clearer recognition of their rights and duties, and a more cheering faith in the upward tendency of humanity.

Looking on this interesting scene from his distant and quiet home, Simon Degge sees what blessings flow—and deeply he feels them in his own case—from the circulation not only of trade but of human reciprocities. How this corrects the mischiefs, moral and physical, [Pg 306] of false systems and rusty prejudices, and he ponders not on poachers and encroachers, but on schemes of no ordinary beauty and beneficence yet to reach his beloved town through him. He sees lecture halls and academies, means of sanitary purification and delicious recreation, in which baths and wash-houses and airy homes figure largely, whilst the public walks round the town are still farther extended, including woods, hills, meadows, and rivers, in a circuit of many miles. There he lives and labours, around him a noble family of sons and daughters to perpetuate his labours and his virtues.

And what a change has fallen on all the country and the families, rich and poor, around! The friends of Sir Roger have fallen out of the circuit, as it were. The old leaven of heart-burnings and conflicting principles has died out from amongst those in whom we are most interested. In that lovely little district, which includes Cotmanhaye, Woodburn, [Pg 307] Rockville, Bilts’ Farm, Fair Manor, and Castleborough, the abodes of the Claverings, the Woodburns, Degges, and Heritages, the old sunny and Arcadian days have returned. Young families are springing up here and there, bringing with them new floods of happiness, and a spirit of peace and harmony floats over all that charmed region, and from no cause more conspicuously than from the simple circumstance of the providential removal of one single man out of so many thousands— THE LAST OF A LONG LINE .

No longer antagonist—no longer mutually irritant, the towers and woods of Rockville look down with an affectionate smile on the russet roof and green paddocks of Woodburn Grange .

THE END.

BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

The History of Discovery in Australia, Tasmania,
and New Zealand, from the earliest date to the
present day. By William Howitt, Author of “Two
Years in Victoria,” etc. etc. With Maps of the Recent
Explorations, from Official Sources. In 2 Vols. 20s. London,
Longman and Co.

NOTICES OF THE PRESS.

Times, Dec. 8, 1865.

We welcome these volumes as giving a full account of the Enterprises by which Australia has been explored, and as calculated to enlarge our knowledge respecting this vast and important region. They are careful, accurate, and succinct epitomes of Australian discovery, and the results it has produced, and contain a great deal of valuable information.

Athenæum, May 6, 1865.

Mr. Howitt’s volumes comprise the history of Tasmania and New Zealand as well as that of the Australian Continent. We recommend them to those who wish for a convenient book of reference on Australian discovery and exploration, or those who wish to know all that has been done towards our present acquaintance with New Holland and the adjacent islands.

Illustrated News.

Mr. Howitt in this work does, as it seems to us, all the justice in his power to every gallant explorer; enlivens his history with many anecdotes, and has enriched his work with excellent maps.

London Review, July 22, 1865.

Mr. Howitt possesses a sort of family claim to write on the topics contained in his book. He has been in Australia; one of his sons, Alfred, commanded the expedition sent out in quest of Burke and Wills, whose remains he found and buried; and another, Charlton, was drowned in New Zealand while trying to make his way across the country from Canterbury to the Western Coast over the Southern Alps. The history of the exploration of the New Zealand group is briefly told, and well.

Bell’s Messenger, June 17, 1865.

Mr. William Howitt, of all travellers, is perhaps the very best person that could have been encouraged to give a history of those vast colonies, which in little more than a quarter of a century have vied with the mother country in progress and prosperity. For some time a resident in one or more of the three great dependencies whose growth he describes, he is perhaps better adapted than even many a permanent settler to solve the question so often asked, “How is it that these enormous districts became annexed to England?” His object in going thither was not to trade, not to seek for gold at the “diggings,” not to dispossess a single Maori of his vast pasturage, and grow his own wool, tallow, and mutton thereon, to the ruin of the original native holder. He crossed the broad seas, not as a cosmopolitan, but as a keen observer, a patient investigator, and an honest student, bent rather upon gathering information that might do more good to others, in a pecuniary point of view, than to himself, since the remuneration for his literary work could never bring to him the return, which the facts he had collected may be the means of recommending to others. The subject he undertook to deal with is large; but he has had the power to grasp it; and the simple-minded manner in which he relates the trials of the first adventurers, the difficulties they had to surmount, and the results which have followed upon their enterprise, adds a charm to the book, which will ensure its popularity. To those desirous of trying their fortune at the antipodes this will be a book indeed of very considerable usefulness; not because it abounds with advice to such individuals, or tells them what to do, and what to avoid, but because it is suggestive of a host of things that will enable a prudent man to judge rightly, and act accordingly. Whilst however, the value of Mr. William Howitt’s experience will do good service in this particular, it is also calculated to assist the merchant and manufacturer at home, to tell them many truths it were well for them to know.

Examiner, April 15, 1865.

An old friend of the public’s, Mr. William Howitt, who has been himself to Australia, and whose son has made a name for himself there in the history of exploration, now adds one more to the number of the histories of “Discovery in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand.” His book, a history in two octavo volumes, begins at the beginning and brings down its story to the present day. It is a story that will bear many a telling, and who will not gladly hear it told by William Howitt in sympathy with the strong interest he feels in it, of which he writes, “Having had one son engaged in these researches in Australia, as the successful discoverer of the lost expedition of Burke and Wills, and the recoverer of their remains, and having lost another in assisting to open up the interior of New Zealand, he has entered on the undertaking as a labour of love.” Such a book from his hands cannot fail to be attractive.

Examiner, April 22, 1865.

Nowhere else, in the history of modern discovery,—save in those Arctic explorations which have had for chief promoters more than one man schooled to hardship and perseverance in this southern field of adventure,—was there so much room for unflinching heroism, with such abundance of dangers to be overcome and substantial victories to be gained over the treacherous elements. Names like those of Oxley, Cunningham, King, Grey, Eyre, Sturt, Stuart, Burke, and Wills have, in the annals of the present century, a dignity akin to that which makes the lives of Willoughby and Frobisher, Gilbert, Raleigh, and a crowd of others, illustrious in Tudor history. Best known, and noblest of all, is the story of the disastrous expedition of Burke and Wills in 1860 and 1861, followed, while the fate of the missing adventurers was unknown, by several memorable journies in quest of them. Two of these, undertaken by Mr. McKinlay and Mr. Landsborough, have been described in recent publications. Two others, led by Mr. Howitt’s own son, are here for the first time made known in detail.

Observer, April 16, 1865.

This book contains a most complete and faithful summary of the various discoveries that have been made in Australia during the last 260 years, commencing with those made by the Portuguese in the north west of Australia before the discovery of the north of Australia by the Dutch in 1605. It shows, however, that even these early navigators were not the first discoverers; and that it is difficult to decide how long Australia had been previously known to the Chinese. In fact indications exist from the most remote antiquity of unrecorded voyages, which led the ancients to speak of countries lying beyond the regions of any positive knowledge then remaining, and our author cites the passage from Mænilius, who lived in the time of Tiberius or Augustus, in which the rotundity of the earth and the existence of antipodes were distinctly referred to.

Literary Gazette, June 10, 1865.

We are greatly impressed with the value of this work, and cannot doubt but that it will take rank as a standard authority on all that pertains to the history of our trans-Pacific possessions. Maps of Australia, Van Diemen’s Land, and New Zealand, compiled from official and authentic information, accompany the volumes, which abound in pictures new and strange, and contain a large number of facts illustrative of countries which seem destined to become centres of a new and extensive civilization.

Australian and New Zealand Gazette, April 20, 1865.

The want of a connected history of the progress of discovery in Australia has long been felt, but we are glad to find that the delay has been amply compensated for in the very excellent work which has just been published by William Howitt, who, in addition to his other literary claims, has the advantage of not only being personally connected with the colonies, but also with the subject, for his sons enjoy a conspicuous position in the illustrious phalanx of Australian explorers. In conclusion, we can only say that Mr. Howitt is entitled to the best thanks of the public, both at home and in the colonies, for the manner in which he has executed his task.

Morning Advertiser, April 17, 1865.

As a graphic and vigorous writer, one who deals with his subject in an earnest manner, William Howitt requires no eulogy from the pen of any critic. His present work is the best and most comprehensive which has yet appeared on the countries it treats of. The author’s personal knowledge of several of the colonies, and the possession of documents not yet given to the public, have achieved for his work greater accuracy than would otherwise have been the case.

Guardian, Sept. 1, 1865.

The two handsome volumes before us, are really standard, useful works, and in some respects exhaustive of their subject. There are, we imagine, few, if any, points of information for which the intending emigrant, the settler, or the student need search this history in vain. The maps are clearly and accurately drawn, and are founded on the most recent discoveries, with which Mr. Howitt has made himself fully acquainted. The whole subject is well handled, but perhaps Australia with the greatest fullness and success, as presenting scenes of danger and of wild romance, of heroic daring and devoted deaths, such as few countries have to show.

Daily News, June 5, 1865.

The author of these volumes has well qualified himself to write upon the subject to which they are devoted. He has had a personal acquaintance with the country, and written a delightful book about it: he has had access to all the sources of information in the possession of both the colonial and home government, and the better half of his heart has been long given to the great southern land, upon which he has bestowed two noble sons. One of Mr. Howitt’s sons perished in an attempt to explore the interior of New Zealand; the other still lives, and has had the triumph of discovering the remains of poor Burke and Wills, who perished in the centre of Australia on their return after having traversed the continent. The history of this remarkable, and in many respects, anomalous land, could not have fallen into better hands. It is a work which engages Mr. William Howitt’s affections as well as his very great talents, and with his long practised pen the reader may be sure that the interest of the subject is not diminished by him.

The Morning Herald, April 25, 1865.

The title page of this book rather startles us at first, by the very magnitude of its subject, being no less than a chronicle of three hundred years of discovery. But Mr. Howitt is an old and able hand at condensing, and is able to give us an excellent summary of all that is really worth knowing.

The Globe, May 29, 1865.

The peculiar fitness of the writer for his task—his “labour of love,” as he himself styles it—need hardly be dilated on. His long residence in the country, the country as distinguished from the town—the services and discoveries of his son Alfred, who brought back the remains of Burke and Wills for honourable burial, and the loss of his youngest son, Charlton, in the work of exploration and improvement in New Zealand, add a personal and family interest to that of the mere encyclopædias of other men’s labours.

Standard, April 25, 1865.

This is a story of labours and adventures, of romantic daring and noble endurance, such as few, if any other countries have to show. The names of such men as Tasman, Dampier, Cook, King, Fitzroy, Lushington, Austin, Babbage, Kennedy, Burke and Wills, Howitt and Walker, suggest to all that are acquainted with Australian discovery a host of scenes in which Englishmen took a noble and brave part, and made their names as famous in the wilderness as they have since become in the world. And when we call to mind that the peoples of Australia are almost entirely of our own race and kindred, bound to us by the closest ties of blood, commerce, and common fortunes, it is clear that a good sketch of their history must possess a deep and lasting interest for the public. Mr. Howitt is well fitted to be their historian, not simply by his natural gifts as a writer, but by his wide and varied experience as a traveller, and by the occupation of his two sons, one as an explorer in Australia and the other in New Zealand. He had omitted no fair research or exertion to render his sketch attractive and complete, and we are bound to add that his efforts are crowned with success.

The Morning Post, April 25, 1865.

The title of this work opens up a vista of adventure, enterprise, and daring which is without parallel in the world of fiction and romance. Its heroes are travellers by land and by water, “men of might and high achievement,” and great pioneers, who made their age and country famous, and all succeeding time their debtors. For all sorts and conditions of men the work possesses attractions. The studious will find it a storehouse of information, carefully collected and imparted with a graceful and graphic pen; those who have not outlived the sympathies of youth will, while they peruse its pages, recall the pleasurable emotions with which in the days gone by they followed heroic voyagers into seas over which a cloud of mystery had theretofore hung, and traced their perilous progress from land to land; while the younger reader will have in the history an instructive and delightful study. To all it will be a source of interest to watch the growth of an Anglo-Saxon empire at the antipodes from feeble infancy to robust youth, and to speculate upon the probable greatness of its future from the rapid development which has taken place during its brief career.

These are examples of the opinions of the general press, which, without exception, have been of the most unexampled commendatory character.

Billing, Printer, Guildford.