The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper

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Some fifty yards, or so, from the hither shore, we discern a roughly
wooded ait, Pike Island to wit, a famous place for fish, and the grand
rendezvous for woodcocks; which, among other useful and ornamental
purposes, serves to screen out the labourer's hovel, at this the
narrowest part of the lake, from a view of that fine old mansion on the
opposite shore, the seat of Sir John Vincent, a baronet just of age, and
the great landlord of the neighbourhood. Toward this mansion, scarcely
yet revealed in the clear gray eye of morning, our humble hero, having
made the long round of the lake, is now fast trudging; and it may merit
a word or two of plain description, to fill up time and scene, till he
gets nearer.

A smooth grassy eminence, richly studded with park-like clumps of trees,
slopes up from the water's very edge to--Hurstley Hall; yonder goodly,
if not grand, Elizabethan structure, full of mullioned windows, carved
oak panels, stone-cut coats of arms, pinnacles, and traceries, and
lozenges, and drops; and all this glory crowned by a many-gabled,
high-peaked roof. A grove of evergreens and American shrubs hides the
lower windows from vulgarian gaze--for, in the neighbourly feeling of
our ancestors, a public way leads close along the front; while, behind
the house, and inaccessible to eyes profane, are drawn terraced gardens,
beautifully kept, and blooming with a perpetual succession of the
choicest flowers. The woods and shrubberies around, attempted some half
a century back to be spoilt by the meddlesome bad taste of Capability
Brown, have been somewhat too resolutely robbed of the formal avenues,
clipped hedges, and other topiarian adjuncts which comport so well with
the starch prudery of things Elizabethan; but they are still replete
with grotto, fountain, labyrinth, and alcove--a very paradise for the
more court-bred rank of sylphs, and the gentler elves of Queen Titania.

However, we have less to do with the gardens than, probably, the elves
have; and as Roger now, just at breaking day, is approaching the windows
somewhat too curiously for a poor man's manners, it may not be amiss if
we bear him company. He had pretty well recovered of his fit of
discontent, for morning air and exercise can soon chase gloom away; so
he cheerily tramped along, thinking as he went, how that, after all, it
is a middling happy world, and how that the raindrops, now that it had
cleared up, hung like diamonds on the laurels, when of a sudden, as he
turned a corner near the house, there broke upon his ear, at that quiet
hour, such a storm of boisterous sounds--voices so loud with oaths and
altercation--such a calling, clattering, and quarrelling, as he had
never heard the like before. So no wonder that he stepped aside to see
it.

The noise proceeded from a ground-floor window, or rather from three
windows, lighted up, and hung with draperies of crimson and gold: one of
the casements, flaring meretriciously in the modest eye of morn, stood
wide open down to the floor, probably to cool a heated atmosphere; and
when Roger Acton, with a natural curiosity, went on tiptoe, looked in,
and just put aside the curtain for a peep, to know what on earth could
be the matter, he saw a vision of waste and wealth, at which he stood
like one amazed, for a poor man's mind could never have conceived its
equal.

Evidently, he had intruded on the latter end of a long and luxurious
revel. Wax-lights, guttering down in gilded chandeliers, poured their
mellow radiance round in multiplied profusion--for mirrors made them
infinite; crimson and gold were the rich prevailing tints in that wide
and warm banqueting-room; gayly-coloured pictures, set in frames that
Roger fancied massive gold, hung upon the walls at intervals; a
wagon-load of silver was piled upon the sideboard; there blazed in the
burnished grate such a fire as poverty might imagine on a frozen
winter's night, but never can have thawed its blood beside: fruits, and
wines, and costly glass were scattered in prodigal disorder on the
board--just now deserted of its noisy guests, who had crowded round a
certain green table, where cards and heaps of sovereigns appeared to be
mingled in a mass. Roger had never so much as conceived it possible that
there could be wealth like this: it was a fairy-land of Mammon in his
eyes: he stood gasping like a man enchanted; and in the contemplation of
these little hills of gold--in their covetous longing contemplation, he
forgot the noisy quarrel he had turned aside to see, and thirsted for
that rich store earnestly.

In an instant, as he looked (after the comparative lull that must
obviously have succeeded to the clamours he had first heard), the roar
and riot broke out worse than ever. There were the stormy revellers, as
the rabble rout of Comus and his crew, filling that luxurious room with
the sounds of noisy execration and half-drunken strife. Young Sir John,
a free and generous fellow, by far the best among them all, has
collected about him those whom he thought friends, to celebrate his
wished majority; they had now kept it up, night after night, hard upon a
week; and, as well became such friends--the gambler, the duellist, the
man of pleasure, and the fool of Fashion--they never yet had separated
for their day-light beds, without a climax to their orgie, something
like the present scene.

Henry Mynton, high in oath, and dashing down his cards, has charged Sir
Richard Hunt with cheating (it was _sauter la coupe_ or _couper la
saut_, or some such mystery of iniquity, I really cannot tell which):
Sir Richard, a stout dark man, the patriarch of the party, glossily
wigged upon his head, and imperially tufted on his chin, retorts with a
pungent sarcasm, calmly and coolly uttered; that hot-headed fool
Silliphant, clearly quite intoxicated, backs his cousin Mynton's view of
the case by the cogent argument of a dice-box at Sir Richard's head--and
at once all is struggle, strife, and uproar. The other guests, young
fellows of high fashion, now too much warmed with wine to remember their
accustomed Mohican cold-bloodedness--those happy debtors to the prowess
of a Stultz, and walking advertisers of Nugee--take eager part with the
opposed belligerents: more than one decanter is sent hissing through
the air; more than one bloody coxcomb witnesses to the weight of a
candle-stick and its hurler's clever aim: uplifted chairs are made the
weapons of the chivalric combatants; and along with divers other less
distinguished victims in the melee, poor Sir John Vincent, rushing into
the midst, as a well-intentioned host, to quell the drunken brawl, gets
knocked down among them all; the tables are upset, the bright gold runs
about the room in all directions--ha! no one heeds it--no one owns
it--one little piece rolled right up to the window-sill where Roger
still looked on with all his eyes; it is but to put his hand in--the
window is open to the floor--nay a finger is enough: greedily, one
undecided moment, did he gaze upon the gold; he saw the hideous contrast
of his own dim hovel and that radiant chamber--he remembered the pining
faces of his babes, and gentle Grace with all her hardships--he thought
upon his poverty and well deserts--he looked upon wastefulness of wealth
and wantonness of living--these reflections struck him in a moment; no
one saw him, no one cared about the gold; that little blessed morsel,
that could do him so much good; all was confusion, all was opportunity,
and who can wonder that his fingers closed upon the sovereign, and that
he picked it up?

CHAPTER IV.

THE LOST THEFT.

Stealthily and quickly "honest Roger" crept away, for his
conscience smote him on the instant: he felt he had done wrong; at any
rate, the sovereign was not his--and once the thought arose in him to
run back, and put it where he found it: but it was now become too
precious in his sight, that little bit of gold--and they, the rioters
there, could not want it, might not even miss it; and then its righteous
uses--it should be well spent, even if ill-got: and thus, so many
mitigations crowded in to excuse, if not to applaud the action, that
within a little while his warped mind had come to call the theft a
god-send.

O Roger, Roger! alas for this false thought of that wrong deed! the
poisonous gold has touched thy heart, and left on it a spot of cancer:
the asp has bitten thee already, simple soul. This little seed will grow
into a huge black pine, that shall darken for a while thy heaven, and
dig its evil roots around thy happiness. Put it away, Roger, put it
away: covet not unhallowed gold.

But Roger felt far otherwise; and this sudden qualm of conscience once
quelled (I will say there seemed much of palliation in the matter), a
kind of inebriate feeling of delight filled his mind, and Steady Acton
plodded on to the meadow yonder, half a mile a-head, in a species of
delirious complacency. Here was luck indeed, filling up the promise of
his dreams. His head was full of thoughts, pleasant holiday thoughts, of
the many little useful things, the many small indulgences, that bit of
gold should buy him. He would change it on the sly, and gradually bring
the shillings home as extra pay for extra work; for, however much his
wife might glory in the chance, and keep his secret, well he knew that
Grace would have a world of things to say about it, and he feared to
tell his daughter of the deed. However, she should have a ribbon, so she
should, good girl, and the pedlar shouldn't pass the door unbidden;
Mary, too, might have a cotton kerchief, and the babes a doll and a
rattle, and poor Thomas a shilling to spend as he liked; and so, in
happy revery, the kind father distributed his ill-got sovereign.

For a while he held it in his hand, as loth to part from the tangible
possession of his treasure; but manual contact could not last all day,
and, as he neared his scene of labour--he came late after all, by the
by, and lost the quarter-day, but it mattered little now--he began to
cogitate a place of safety; and carefully put it in his fob. Poor
fellow--he had never had enough to stow so well away before: his pockets
had been thought quite trust-worthy enough for any treasures hitherto:
never had he used that fob for watch, or note, or gold--and his
predecessor in the cast-off garment had probably been quite aware how
little that false fob was worthy of the name of savings' bank; it was in
the situation of the Irishman's illimitable rope, with the end cut off.
So while Roger was brewing up vast schemes of nascent wealth, and
prosperous days at last, the filched sovereign, attracted by centripetal
gravity, had found a passage downwards, and had straightway rolled into
a crevice of mother-earth, long before its "brief lord" had commenced
his day's labour. Yes, it had been lost a good hour ere he found it out,
for he had fancied that he had felt it there, and often did he feel, but
his fancy was a button; and when he made the dread discovery, what a
sting of momentary anguish, what a sickening fear, what an eager search!
and, as the grim truth became more evident, that, indeed, beyond all
remedy, his new-got, ill-got, egg of coming wealth was all clean
gone--oh! this was worm-wood, this was bitter as gall, and the strong
man well-nigh fainted. It was something sad to have done the ill--but
misery to have done it all for nothing: the sin was not altogether
pleasant to his taste, but it was aloe itself to lose the reward. And
when, pale and sick, leaning on his spade, he came to his old strength
again, what was the reaction? Compunction at incipient crime, and
gratitude to find its punishment so mercifully speedy, so lenient, so
discriminative? I fear that if ever he had these thoughts at all, he
chased them wilfully away: his disappointment, far from being softened
into patience, was sharpened to a feeling of revenge at fate; and all
his hope now was--such another chance, gold, more gold, never mind how;
more gold, he burnt for gold, he lusted after gold!

We must leave him for a time to his toil and his reflections, and touch
another topic of our theme.

CHAPTER V.

THE INQUEST.

Just a week before the baronet came of age, and a fortnight
from the present time, an awful and mysterious event had happened at the
Hall: the old house-keeper, Mrs. Quarles, had been found dead in her
bed, under circumstances, to say the very least, of a black and
suspicious appearance. The county coroner had got a jury of the
neighbours impanelled together; who, after sitting patiently on the
inquest, and hearing, as well as seeing, the following evidence, could
arrive at no verdict more specific than the obvious fact, that the poor
old creature had been "found dead." The great question lay between
apoplexy and murder; and the evidence tended to a well-matched conflict
of opinions.

First, there lay the body, quietly in bed, tucked in tidily and
undisturbed, with no marks of struggling, none whatever--the clothes lay
smooth, and the chamber orderly: yet the corpse's face was of a purple
hue, the tongue swollen, the eyes starting from their sockets: it might,
indeed, possibly have been an apoplectic seizure, which took her in her
sleep, and killed her as she lay; _but_ that the gripe of clutching
fingers had left their livid seals upon the throat, and countenanced
the dreadful thought of strangulation!

Secondly, a surgeon (one Mr. Eager, the Union doctor, a very young
personage, wrong withal and radical) maintained that this actual
strangulation might have been effected by the hands of the deceased
herself, in the paroxysm of a rush of blood to the brain; and he
fortified his wise position by the instance of a late statesman, who, he
averred, cut his throat with a pen-knife, to relieve himself of pressure
on the temples: while another surgeon--Stephen Cramp, he was farrier as
well, and had been, until lately, time out of mind, the village
AEsculapius, who looked with scorn on his pert rival, and opposed him
tooth and nail on all occasions--insisted that it was not only
physically impossible for poor Mrs. Quarles so to have strangled
herself, but more particularly that, if she had done so, she certainly
could not have laid herself out so decently afterwards; therefore, that
as some one else had kindly done the latter office for her, why not the
former too?

Thirdly, Sarah Stack, the still-room maid, deposed, that Mrs. Quarles
always locked her door before she went to bed, but that when she
(deponent) went to call her as usual on the fatal morning, the door was
just ajar; and so she found her dead: while parallel with this, tending
to implicate some domestic criminal, was to be placed the equally
uncommon fact, that the other door of Mrs. Quarles's room, leading to
the lawn, was open too:--be it known that Mrs. Quarles was a stout
woman, who could'nt abide to sleep up-stairs, for fear of fire;
moreover, that she was a nervous woman, who took extraordinary
precautions for her safety, in case of thieves. Thus, unaccountably
enough, the murderer, if there was any, was as likely to have come from
the outside, as from the in.

Fourthly, the murderer in this way is commonly a thief, and does the
deed for mammon-sake; but the new house-keeper, lately installed, made
her deposition, that, by inventories duly kept and entered--for her
honoured predecessor, rest her soul! had been a pattern of
regularity--all Mrs. Quarles's goods and personal chattels were found to
be safe and right in her room--some silver spoons among them too--ay,
and a silver tea-pot; while, as to other property in the house, with
every room full of valuables, nothing whatever was missing from the
lists, except, indeed, what was scarce worth mention (unless one must be
very exact), sundry crocks and gallipots of honey, not forthcoming;
these, however, it appeared probable that Mrs. Quarles had herself
consumed in a certain mixture she nightly was accustomed too, of rum,
horehound, and other matters sweetened up with honey, for her
hoarseness. It seemed therefore clear she was not murdered for her
property, nor by any one intending to have robbed the house.

Against this it was contended, and really with some show of reason, that
as Mrs. Quarles was thought to have a hoard, always set her face against
banks, railway shares, speculations, and investments, and seemed to have
left nothing behind her but her clothes and so forth, it was still
possible that the murderer who took the life, might have also been the
thief to take the money.

Fifthly, Simon Jennings--butler in doors, bailiff out of doors, and
general factotum every where to the Vincent interest--for he had managed
to monopolize every place worth having, from the agent's book to the
cellar-man's key--the said Simon deposed, that on the night in question,
he heard the house-dog barking furiously, and went out to quiet him; but
found no thieves, nor knew any reason why the dog should have barked so
much.

Now, the awkward matter in this deposition (if Mr. Jennings had not been
entirely above suspicion--the idea was quite absurd--not to mention that
he was nephew to the deceased, a great favourite with her, and a man
altogether of the very strictest character), the awkward matters were
these: the nearest way out to the dog, indeed the only way but casement
windows on that side of the house, was through Mrs. Quarles's room: she
had had the dog placed there for her special safety, as she slept on the
ground floor; and it was not to be thought that Mr. Jennings could do so
incorrect a thing as to pass through her room after bed-time, locked or
unlocked--indeed, when the question was delicately hinted to him, he was
quite shocked at it--quite shocked. But if he did not go that way, which
way did he go? He deposed, indeed, and his testimony was no ways to be
doubted, that he went through the front door, and so round; which, under
the circumstances, was at once a very brave and a very foolish thing to
do; for it is, first, little wisdom to go round two sides of a square to
quiet a dog, when one might have easily called to him from the
men-servants' window; and secondly, albeit Mr. Jennings was a strict
man, an upright man, shrewd withal, and calculating, no one had ever
thought him capable of that Roman virtue, courage. Still, he had
reluctantly confessed to this one heroic act, and it was a bold one, so
let him take the credit of it--mainly because--

Sixthly, Jonathan Floyd, footman, after having heard the dog bark at
intervals, surely for more than a couple of hours, thought he might as
well turn out of his snug berth for a minute, just to see what ailed
the dog, or how many thieves were really breaking in. Well, as he
looked, he fancied he saw a boat moving on the lake, but as there was no
moon, he might have been mistaken.

_By a Juryman._ It might be a punt.

_By another._ He did'nt know how many boats there were on the
lake-side: they had a boat-house at the Hall, by the water's edge, and
therefore he concluded something in it; really did'nt know; might be a
boat, might be a punt, might be both--or neither.

_By the Coroner._ Could not swear which way it was moving; and, really,
if put upon his Bible oath, wouldn't be positive about a boat at all, it
was so dark, and he was so sleepy.

Not long afterwards, as the dog got still more violent, he turned his
eyes from straining after shadows on the lake, to look at home, and then
all at once noticed Mr. Jennings trying to quiet the noisy animal with
the usual blandishments of "Good dog, good dog--quiet, Don, quiet--down,
good dog--down, Don, down!"

_By a Juryman._ He would swear to the words.

But Don would not hear of being quiet. After that, knowing all must be
right if Mr. Jennings was about, he (deponent) turned in again, went to
sleep, and thought no more of it till he heard of Mrs. Quarles's death
in the morning. If he may be so bold as to speak his mind, he thinks the
house-keeper, being fat, died o' the 'plexy in a nateral way, and that
the dog barking so, just as she was a-going off, is proof positive of
it. He'd often heard of dogs doing so; they saw the sperit gliding away,
and barked at it; his (deponent's) own grandmother--

At this juncture--for the court was getting fidgetty--the coroner cut
short the opinions of Jonathan Floyd: and when Mr. Crown, summing up,
presented in one focus all this evidence to the misty minds of the
assembled jurymen, it puzzled them entirely; they could not see their
way, fairly addled, did not know at all what to make of it. On the
threshold, there was no proof it was a murder--the Union doctor was loud
and staunch on this; and next, there seemed to be no motive for the
deed, and no one to suspect of it: so they left the matter open, found
her simply "Dead," and troubled their heads no more about the business.

Good Mr. Evans, the vicar, preached her funeral sermon, only as last
Sunday, amplifying the idea that she "was cut off in the midst of her
days:" and thereby encouraging many of the simpler folks, who knew that
Mrs. Quarles had long passed seventy, in the luminous notion that
house-keepers in great establishments are privileged, among other
undoubted perquisites, to live to a hundred and forty, unless cut off by
apoplexy or murder.

Mr. Simon Jennings, as nephew and next of kin, followed the body to its
last home in the capacity of chief mourner; to do him justice, he was a
real mourner, bewailed her loudly, and had never been the same man
since. Moreover, although aforetime not much given to indiscriminate
charity, he had now gained no small credit by distributing his aunt's
wardrobe among the poorer families at Hurstley. It was really very kind
of him, and the more so, as being altogether unexpected: he got great
praise for this, did Mr. Jennings; specially, too, because he had gained
nothing whatever from his aunt's death, though her heir and probable
legatee, and clearly was a disappointed man.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BAILIFF; AND A BITTER TRIAL.

Jennings--Mr. Simon Jennings--for he prided himself much both
on the Mr. and the Simon, was an upright man, a very upright man indeed,
literally so as well as metaphorically. He was not tall certainly, but
what there was of him stood bolt upright. Many fancied that his neck was
possessed of some natural infirmity, or rather firmity, of
unbendableness, some little-to-be-envied property of being a perpetual
stiff-neck; and they were the more countenanced in this theory, from the
fact that, within a few days past, Mr. Jennings had contracted an ugly
knack of carrying his erect head in the comfortless position of peeping
over his left shoulder; not always so, indeed, but often enough to be
remarkable; and then he would occasionally start it straight again, eyes
right, with a nervous twitch, any thing but pleasant to the marvelling
spectator. It was as if he was momentarily expecting to look upon some
vague object that affrighted him, and sometimes really did see it. Mr.
Jennings had consulted high medical authority (as Hurstley judged), to
wit, the Union doctor of last scene, an enterprising practitioner, glib
in theory, and bold in practice--and it had been mutually agreed between
them that "stomach" was the cause of these unhandsome symptoms; acridity
of the gastric juice, consequent indigestion and spasm, and generally a
hypochondriacal habit of body. Mr. Jennings must take certain draughts
thrice a day, be very careful of his diet, and keep his mind at ease. As
to Simon himself, he was, poor man, much to be pitied in this ideal
visitation; for, though his looks confessed that he saw, or fancied he
saw, a something, he declared himself wholly at a loss to explain what
that something was: moreover, contrary to former habits of an
ostentatious boldness, he seemed meekly to shrink from observation: and,
as he piously acquiesced in the annoyance, would observe that his
unpleasant jerking was "a little matter after all, and that, no doubt,
the will of Providence."

Independently of these new grimaces, Simon's appearance was little in
his favour: not that his small dimensions signified--Caesar, and
Buonaparte, and Wellington, and Nelson, all were little men--not that
his dress was other than respectable--black coat and waistcoat, white
stiff cravat, gray trowsers somewhat shrunk in longitude, good
serviceable shoe-leather (of the shape, if not also of the size, of
river barges), and plenty of unbleached cotton stocking about the
gnarled region of his ankles. All this was well enough; nature was
beholden to that charity of art which hides a multitude of failings; but
the face, where native man looks forth in all his unadornment, that it
was which so seldom pre-possessed the many who had never heard of
Jenning's strict character and stern integrity. The face was a sallow
face, peaked towards the nose, with head and chin receding; lit withal
by small protrusive eyes, so constructed, that the whites all round were
generally visible, giving them a strange and staring look; elevated
eye-brows; not an inch of whisker, but all shaved sore right up to the
large and prominent ear; and lank black, hair, not much of it, scantily
thatching all smooth. Then his arms, oscillating as he walked (as if the
pendulum by which that rigid man was made to go his regular routine),
were much too long for symmetry: and altogether, to casual view, Mr.
Jennings must acknowledge to a supercilious, yet sneaking air--which
charity has ere now been kind enough to think a conscious rectitude
towards man, and a soft-going humility with God.