The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper

M >> Martin Farquhar Tupper >> The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50

In an instant afterwards, she humbly added,

"Forgive me any thing I may have said, that seems to chide my father."

"Bless you, bless you, dearest one!" was Roger's sobbing prayer, who
had listened to her wisdom breathlessly. "Ah, daughter," then exclaimed
the humbled, happy man, "I'll try to do all you ask me, Grace; but it is
a hard thing to feel myself so wicked, and to have to speak up boldly
like a Christian man."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

EXPERIENCE.

Then, with disjointed sentences, suited to the turmoil of his
thoughts, half in a soliloquy, half as talking to his daughter, Roger
Acton gave his hostile testimony to the worth of wealth.

"Oh, fool, fool that I have been, to set so high a price on gold! To
have hungered and thirsted for it--to have coveted earnestly so bad a
gift--to have longed for Mammon's friendship, which is enmity with God!
What has not money cost me? Happiness:--ay, wasn't it to have given me
happiness? and the little that I had (it was much, Grace, not little,
very much--too much--God be praised for it!) all, all the happiness I
had, gold took away. Look at our dear old home--shattered and scattered,
as now I wish that crock had been. Health, too; were it not for gold,
and all gold gave, I had been sturdy still, and capable; but my nights
maddened with anxieties, my days worried with care, my head feverish
with drink, my heart rent by conscience--ah, my girl, my girl, when I
thought much of poverty and its hardships, of toil, and hunger, and
rheumatics, I little imagined that wealth had heavier cares and pains: I
envied them their wanton life of pleasure at the Hall, and little knew
how hard it was: well are they called hard-livers who drink, and game,
and have nothing to do, except to do wickedness continually.
Religion--can it bide with money, child? I never knew my wicked heart,
till fortune made me rich; not until then did I guess how base, lying,
false, and bad was "honest Roger;" how sensual, coarse, and brutal, was
that hypocrite "steady Acton". Money is a devil, child, or pretty near
akin. Then I complained of toil, too, didn't I?--Ah, what are all the
aches I ever felt--labouring with spade and spud in cold and rain,
hungry belike, and faint withal--what are they all at their worst (and
the worst was very seldom after all), to the gnawing cares, the hideous
fears, the sins--the sins, my girl, that tore your poor old father?
Wasn't it to be an end of troubles, too, this precious crock of gold?
Wo's me, I never knew real trouble till I had it! Look at me, and judge;
what has made me live like a beast, sin like a heathen, and lie down
here like a felon? what has made me curse Ben Burke--kind, hearty,
friendly Ben?--and given my poor good boy an ill-report as having stolen
and slain? all this crock of gold. But O, my Grace, to think that the
crock's curses touched thee, too! didn't it madden me to hear them?
Dear, pure, patient child, my darling, injured daughter, here upon my
knees I pray, forgive that wrong!" And he fell at her feet beseechingly.

"My father," said the noble girl, lifting up his head, and passionately
kissing it; "when they whispered so against me, and Jonathan heard the
wicked things men said, I would have borne it all, all in silence, and
let them all believe me bad, father, if I could have guessed that by
uttering the truth, I should have seen thee here, in a dungeon, treated
as a--murderer! How was I to tell that men could be so base, as to
charge such crimes upon the innocent, when his only fault, or his
misfortune, was to find a crock of gold? Oh! forgive me, too, this
wrong, my father!"

And they wept in each other's arms.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

JONATHAN'S TROTH.

Grace had been all but an inmate of the prison, ever since her
father had been placed there on suspicion. Early and late, and often in
the day, was the duteous daughter at his cell, for the governor and the
turn-keys favoured her. Who could resist such beauty and affection,
entreating to stay with a father about to stand on trial for his life,
and making every effort to be allowed only to pray with him? Thus did
Grace spend all the week before those dread assizes.

As to her daily maintenance, ever since that bitter morning when the
crock was found, her spiritual fears had obliged her to abstain from
touching so much as one penny of that unblest store; and, seeing that
honest pride would not let her be supported by grudged and common
charity, she had thankfully suffered the wages of her now betrothed
Jonathan to serve as means whereon she lived, and (what cost more than
all her humble wants) whereby she could administer many little comforts
to her father in his prison. When she was not in the cell, Grace was
generally at the Hall, to the scandal of more than one Hurstleyan
gossip; but perhaps they did not know how usually kind Sarah Stack was
of the company, to welcome her with Jonathan, and play propriety. Sarah
was a true friend, one for adversity, and though young herself, and not
ill-looking, did not envy Grace her handsome lover; on the contrary, she
did all to make them happy, and had gone the friendly length of
insisting to find Grace and her family in tea and sugar, while all this
lasted. I like that much in Sarah Stack.

However, the remainder of the virtuous world were not so considerate,
nor so charitable. Many neighbours shunned the poor girl, as if
contaminated by the crimes which Roger had undoubtedly committed: the
more elderly unmarried sisterhood, as we have chronicled already, were
overjoyed at the precious opportunity:--"Here was the pert vixen, whom
all the young fellows so shamelessly followed, turned out, after all, a
murderer's daughter;--they wished her joy of her eyes, and lips, and
curls, and pretty speeches: no good ever came of such naughty ways, that
the men liked so."

Nay, even the tipsy crew at Bacchus's affected to treat her name with
scorn:--"The girl had made much noise about being called a trull, as if
many a better than she wasn't one; and, after all, what was the prudish
wench? a sort of she-butcher; they had no patience with her proud
looks."

As to farmer Floyd, he made a great stir about his boy being about to
marry a felon's daughter; and the affectionate mother, with many
elaborate protestations, had "vowed to Master Jonathan, that she would
rather lay him out with her own hands, and a penny on each eye, than see
a Floyd disgrace himself in that 'ere manner."

And uncles, aunts, and cousins, most disinterestedly exhorted that the
obstinate youth be disinherited--"Ay, Mr. Floyd, I wish your son was a
high-minded man like his father; but there's a difference, Mr. Floyd; I
wish he had your true blue yeoman's honour, and the spirit that becomes
his father's son: if the lad was mine, I'd cut him off with a shilling,
to buy a halter for his drab of a wife. Dang it, Mrs. Floyd, it'll never
do to see so queer a Mrs. Jonathan Junior, a standing in your tidy shoes
beside this kitchen dresser."

These estimable counsels were, I grieve to say, of too flattering a
nature to displease, and of too lucrative a quality not to be
continually repeated; until, really, Jonathan was threatened with
beggary and the paternal malediction, if he would persist in his
disreputable attachment.

Nevertheless, Jonathan clung to the right like a hero.

"Granting poor Acton is the wretch you think--but I do not believe one
word of it--does his crime make his daughter wicked too? No; she is an
angel, a pure and blessed creature, far too good for such a one as I.
And happy is the man that has gained her love; he should not give her up
were she thrice a felon's daughter. My father and mother," Jonathan went
on to say, "never found a fault in her till now. Who was more welcome on
the hill than pretty Grace? who would oftenest come to nurse some sickly
lamb, but gentle Grace? who was wont, from her childhood up, to run home
with me so constantly, when school was over, and pleased my kinsfolk so
entirely with her nice manners and kind ways? Hadn't he fought for her
more than once, and though he came home with bruises on his face, his
mother praised him for it?" Then, with a natural divergence from the
strict subject-matter of objection, vicarious felony, Jonathan went on
to argue about other temporal disadvantages. "Hadn't he heard his father
say, that, if she had but money, she was fit to be a countess? and was
money, then, the only thing, whereof the having, or the not having,
could make her good or bad?--money, the only wealth for soul, and mind,
and body? Are affections nothing, are truth and honour nothing, religion
nothing, good sense nothing, health nothing, beauty nothing--unless
money gild them all? Nonsense!" said Jonathan, indignantly, warmed by
his amatory eloquence; "come weal, come wo, Grace and I go down to the
grave together; for better, if she can be better--for worse, if she
could sin--Grace Acton is my wealth, my treasure, and possession; and
let man do his worst, God himself will bless us!"

So, all this knit their loves: she knew, and he felt, that he was going
in the road of nobleness and honour; and the fiery ordeal which he had
to struggle through, raised that hearty earthly lover more nearly to a
level with his heavenly-minded mistress. Through misfortune and
mistrust, and evil rumours all around, in spite of opposition from false
friends, and the scorn of slanderous foes, he stood by her more
constantly, perchance more faithfully, than if the course of true-love
had been smoother: he was her escort morning and evening to and from the
prison; his strong arm was the dread of babbling fools that spoke a word
of disrespect against the Actons; and his brave tongue was now making
itself heard, in open vindication of the innocent.

CHAPTER XL.

SUSPICIONS.

Yes--Jonathan Floyd was beginning to speak out boldly certain
strange suspicions he had entertained of Jennings. It was a courageous,
a rash, a dangerous thing to do: he did not know but what it might have
jeoparded his life, say nothing of his livelihood: but Floyd did it.

Ever since that inquest, contrived to be so quickly and so quietly got
over, he had noticed Simon's hurried starts, his horrid looks, his
altered mien in all he did and said, his new nervous ways at
nightfall--John Page to sleep in Mr. Jennings's chamber, and a
rush-light perpetually--his shudder whenever he had occasion to call at
the housekeeper's room, and his evident shrinking from the frequent
phrase "Mrs. Quarles's murder."

Then again, Jonathan would often lie awake at nights, thinking over
divers matters connected with his own evidence before the coroner, which
he began to see might be of great importance. Jennings said, he had gone
out to still the dog by the front door--didn't he?--"How then, Mr.
Jennings, did you contrive to push back the top bolt? The Hall chairs
had not come then, and you are a little fellow, and you know that nobody
in the house could reach, without a lift, that bolt but me. Besides,
before Sir John came down, the hinges of that door creaked, like a
litter o' kittens screaming, and the lock went so hard for want of use
and oil, that I'll be sworn your gouty chalkstone fingers could never
have turned it: now, I lay half awake for two hours, and heard no creak,
no key turned; but I tell you what I did hear though, and I wish now I
had said it at that scanty, hurried inquest; I heard what I now believe
were distant screams (but I was so sleepy), and a kind of muffled
scuffling ever so long: but I fancied it might be a horse in the stable
kicking among the straw in a hunter's loose box. I can guess what it was
now--cannot you, Mr. Simon?--I say, butler, you must have gone out to
quiet Don--who by the way can't abear the sight of you--through Mrs.
Quarles's room: and, for all your threats, I'm not afeard to tell you
what I think. First answer me this, Mr. Simon Jennings:--where were you
all that night, when we were looking for you?--Oh! you choose to forget,
do you? I can help your memory, Mr. Butler; what do you think of the
shower-bath in Mother Quarles's room?"

As Jonathan, one day at dinner in the servants' hall, took occasion to
direct these queries to the presiding Simon, the man gave such a horrid
start, and exclaimed, "Away, I say!" so strangely, that Jonathan could
doubt no longer--nor, in fact, any other of the household: Jennings gave
them all round a vindictive scowl, left the table, hastened to his own
room, and was seen no more that day.

Speculation now seemed at an end, it had ripened into probability;--but
what evidence was there to support so grave a charge against this rigid
man? Suspicions are not half enough to go upon--especially since Roger
Acton seemed to have had the money. Therefore, though the folks at
Hurstley, Sir John, his guests, and all the house, could not but think
that Mr. Jennings acted very oddly--still, he had always been a strange
creature, an unpopular bailiff; nobody understood him. So, Floyd, to his
own no small danger, stood alone in accusing the man openly.

CHAPTER XLI.

GRACE'S ALTERNATIVE.

Very shortly after that remarkable speech in the servants'
hall, Jonathan found another reason for believing that Mr. Simon
Jennings was equal to any imaginable amount of human wickedness. That
reason will shortly now appear; but we must first of all dig at its
roots somewhat deeper than Jonathan's mental husbandry could manage.

If any trait of character were wanting to complete the desperate infamy
of Jennings--(really I sometimes hope that his grandfather's madness had
a kind of reawakening in this accursed man)--it was furnished by a new
and shrewd scheme for feeding to the full his lust of gold. The bailiff
had more than once, as we have hinted, found means to increase his evil
hoard, by having secretly gained power over female innocence and honest
reputation: similarly he now devised a deep-laid plot, nothing short of
diabolical. His plot was this: and I choose to hurry over such foul
treason. Let a touch or two hint its outlines: those who will, may paint
up the picture for themselves. Simon looked at Sir John--young, gay,
wealthy; he coveted his purse, and fancied that the surest bait to catch
that fish was fair Grace Acton: if he could entrap her for his master
(to whom he gave full credit for delighting in the plan), he counted
surely on magnificent rewards. How then to entrap her? Thus:--he,
representing himself as prosecutor of Roger, the accused, held for him,
he averred, the keys of life and death: he would set this idea (whether
true or not little mattered, if it served his purpose) before an
affectionate daughter, who should have it in her power to save her
parent, if, and only if, she would yield herself to Jennings: and he
well knew that, granting she gave herself secretly to him first, on such
a bribe as her father's liberation, he would have no difficulty whatever
in selling her second-hand beauty on his own terms to his master. It was
a foul scheme, and shall not be enlarged upon: but (as will appear) thus
slightly to allude to it was needful to our tale, as well as to the
development of character in Mammon's pattern-slave, and to the fullness
of his due retribution in this world. I may add, that if any thing could
make the plan more heinous--if any shade than blackest can be
blacker--this extra turpitude is seen in the true consideration, that
the promise to Grace of her father's safety would be entirely futile--as
Jennings knew full well; the crown was prosecutor, not he: and
circumstantial evidence alone would be sufficient to condemn. Again, it
really is nothing but bare justice to remark, with reference to Sir
John, that the deep-dyed villain reckoned quite without his host; for
however truly the baronet had oft-times been much less a self-denying
Scipio than a wanton Alcibiades, still the fine young fellow would have
flung Simon piecemeal to his hounds, if ever he had breathed so
atrocious a temptation: the maid was pledged, and Vincent knew it.

Now, it so happened that one evening at dusk, when Grace as usual was
obliged to leave the prison, there was no Jonathan in waiting to
accompany her all the dreary long way home: this was strange, as his
good-hearted master, privately informed of his noble attachment, never
refused the man permission, but winked, for the time, at his frequent
evening absence. Nevertheless, on this occasion, as would happen now and
then, Floyd could not escape from the dining-room; probably because--Mr.
Jennings had secretly gone forth to escort the girl himself.
Accordingly, instead of loved Jonathan, sidled up to her the loathsome
Simon.

Let me not soil these pages by recording, in however guarded phrase, the
grossness of this wretch's propositions; it was a long way to Hurstley,
and the reptile never ceased tormenting her every step of it, till the
village was in sight: twice she ran, and he ran too, keeping up with
her, and pouring into her ear a father's cruel fate and his own
detestable alternative. She never once spoke to him, but kept on praying
in her own pure mind for a just acquittal; not for one moment would she
entertain the wicked thought of "doing evil that good might come;" and
so, with flushed cheek, tingling ears, the mien of an insulted empress,
and the dauntless resolution of a heroine, she hastened on to Hurstley.

Look here! by great good fortune comes Jonathan Floyd to meet her.

"Save me, Jonathan, save me!" and she fainted in his arms.

Now, truth to say, though Sir John knew it, Simon did not, that Grace
was Jonathan's beloved and betrothed; and the cause lay simply in this,
that Jonathan had frankly told his master of it, when he found the
dreadful turn things had taken with poor Roger; but as to Simon, no
mortal in the neighbourhood ever communicated with him, further than as
urged by fell necessity. Of course, the lovers' meetings were as private
as all such matters generally are; and Sarah's aid managed them
admirably. Therefore it now came to pass that Simon and Jonathan looked
on each other in mutual astonishment, and needs must wait until Grace
Acton could explain the "save me." Not but that Jennings seemed much as
if he wished to run away; but he did not know how to manage it.

"Dear Jonathan," she whispered feebly, "save me from Simon Jennings."

In an instant, Jonathan's grasp was tightly involved in the bailiff's
stiff white neckcloth. And Grace, with much maidenly reserve, told her
lover all she dared to utter of that base bartering for her father's
life.

"Come straight along with me, you villain, straight to the master!" And
the sturdy Jonathan, administering all the remainder of the way (a
quarter of a mile of avenue made part of it) innumerable kickings and
cuffings, hauled the half-mummied bailiff into the servants' hall.

"Now then, straight before the master! John Page, be so good as to knock
at the dining-room door, and ask master very respectfully if his honour
will be good enough to suffer me to speak to him."

CHAPTER XLII.

THE DISMISSAL.

It was after dinner. Sir John and his friends had somehow been
less jovial than usual; they were absolutely dull enough to be talking
politics. So, when the boy of many buttons tapped at the door, and
meekly brought in Jonathan's message, recounting also how he had got Mr.
Jennings in tow for some inexplicable crime, the strangeness of the
affair was a very welcome incident: both host and guests hailed it an
adventure.

"By all means, let Jonathan come in."

The trio were just outside; and when the blue and silver footman,
hauling in by his unrelinquished throat that scared bailiff, and
followed by the blushing village beauty, stood within the room, Sir John
and his half-dozen friends greeted the _tableau_ with united
acclamations.

"I say, Pypp, that's a devilish fine creature," metaphorically remarked
the Honorable Lionel Poynter.

"Yaas." Lord George was a long, sallow, slim young man, with a goatish
beard, like the Duc d'Aumale's; he affected extreme fashion and infinite
_sangfroid_.

"Well, Jonathan, what is it?" asked the baronet.

"Why, in one word, my honoured master, this scoundrel here has been
wickedly insulting my own poor dear Grace, by promising to save her
father from the gallows if--if--"

"If what, man? speak out," said Mr. Poynter.

"You don't mean to say, Jennings, that you are brute enough to be
seducing that poor man Roger's daughter, just as he's going to be tried
for his life?" asked Sir John.

Simon uttered nothing in reply; but Grace burst into tears.

"A fair idea that, 'pon my honour," drawled the chivalrous Pypp,
proceeding to direct his delicate attentions towards the weeping damsel.

"Simon Jennings," said Sir John, after pausing in vain for his reply, "I
have long wished to get rid of you, sir. Silence! I know you, and have
been finding out your rascally proceedings these ten days past. I have
learnt much, more than you may fancy: and now this crowning villany
[what if he had known of the ulterior designs?] gives me fair occasion
to say once and for ever, begone!"

Jennings drew himself up with an air of insufferable impudence, and
quietly answered,

"John Vincent, I am proud to leave your service. I trust I can afford to
live without your help."

There was a general outcry at this speech, and Jonathan collared him
again; but the baronet calmly set all straight by saying,

"Perhaps, sir, you may not be aware that your systematic thievings and
extortions have amply justified me in detaining your iron chest and
other valuables, until I find out how you may have come by them."

This was the _coup de grace_ to Jennings, who looked scared and
terrified:--what! all gone--all, his own beloved hoard, and that
dear-bought crock of gold? Then Sir John added, after one minute of
dignified and indignant silence,

"Begone!--Jonathan put him out; and if you will kick him out of the
hall-door on your private account, I'll forgive you for it."

With that, the liveried Antinous raised the little monster by the small
of the back, drew him struggling from the presence, and lifting him up
like a football, inflicted one enormous kick that sent him spinning down
the whole flight of fifteen marble stairs. This exploit accomplished to
the satisfaction of all parties, Jonathan naturally enough returned to
look for Grace; and his master, with a couple of friends who had run to
the door to witness the catastrophe, returned immediately before him.

"Lord George Pypp, you will oblige me by leaving the young woman alone;"
was Sir John's first angry reproof when he perceived the rustic beauty
radiant with indignation at some mean offence.

"The worthy baronet wa-ants her for himself," drawled Pypp.

"Say that again, my lord, and you shall follow Jennings."

Whilst the noble youth was slowly elaborating a proper answer,
Jonathan's voice was heard once more: he had long looked very white,
kept both hands clenched, and seemed as if, saving his master's
presence, he could, and would have vanquished the whole room of them.

"Master, have I your honour's permission to speak?"

"No, Jonathan, I'll speak for you; if, that is to say, Lord George
will--"

"Paardon me, Sir John Devereux Vincent, your feyllow--and his master,
are not fit company for Lord George Pypp;"--and he leisurely proceeded
to withdraw.

"Stop a minute, Pypp, I've just one remark to make," hurriedly exclaimed
Mr. Lionel Poynter, "if Sir John will suffer me; Vincent, my good
friend, we are wrong--Pypp's wrong, and so am I. First then, let me beg
pardon of a very pretty girl, for making her look prettier by blushes;
next, as the maid really is engaged to you, my fine fellow, it is not
beneath a gentleman to say, I hope that you'll forgive me for too warmly
admiring your taste; as for George's imputation, Vincent--"

"I beyg to observe," enunciated the noble scion, "I'm awf, Poynter."

He gradually drew himself away, and the baronet never saw him more.

"For shame, Pypp!" shouted after him the warm-hearted Siliphant; "I tell
you what it is, Vincent, you must let me give a toast:--'Grace and her
lover!' here, my man, your master allows you to take a glass of wine
with us; help your beauty too."

The toast was drank with high applause: and before Jonathan humbly led
away his pleased and blushing Grace, he took an opportunity of saying,

"If I may be bold enough to speak, kind gentlemen, I wish to thank you:
I oughtn't to be long, for I am nothing but your servant; let it be
enough to say my heart is full. And I'm in hopes it wouldn't be very
wrong in me, kind gentlemen, to propose;--'My noble master--honour and
happiness to him!'"

"Bravo! Jonathan, bravo-o-o-o!" there was a clatter of glasses;--and the
humble pair of lovers retreated under cover of the toast.

CHAPTER XLIII.

SIMON ALONE.

Jennings gathered himself up, from that Jew-of-Malta tumble
down the steps, less damaged by the fall than could have been imagined
possible; the fact being that his cat-like nature had stood him in good
stead--he had lighted on his feet; and nothing but a mighty dorsal
bruise bore witness to the prowess of a Jonathan.