Morley Ernstein; or, the Tenants of the Heart

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXXIV.

The old and vulgar proverb--that misfortune makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows, is true in more senses than in one; for it not only brings us into contact with persons that we should never otherwise have met, but it makes us seek companionships which nothing else, perhaps, could have produced. To be recognised in such a tone, in such a place, might at any other time have made Morley Ernstein start with some surprise; but now he drew in his horse calmly and deliberately, and turned towards the man who addressed him, very little caring, to say the truth, who was the person, or what was his trade. In the meanwhile the other approached, and the light of the fire was sufficiently strong where they stood to shew Morley a countenance that was familiar to him, but which, for a moment, he could not connect in memory with any particular circumstance or situation.

"Ay, you don't recollect me, sir," said the man; "and you saw me only in a place which I should not think of mentioning anywhere else than where we now stand--nor, indeed, for that matter, should I take the liberty of claiming acquaintance with you here, only it can do you no harm, and I wish to thank you for bringing back the babe."

While he had been speaking, the man's voice led Morley's mind back, by the paths of remembrance, to the point in the past which referred to their first meeting. "I recollect you, now, Mr. Martin," he said; "but, to say the truth, we are at such a distance from the spot where we last saw each other, that you took me by surprise. So this was your child I found upon the common. How did it happen to stray so? The poor thing might have perished in such a night as this."

"True, sir--true!" replied Harry Martin, for it was that bold, and somewhat unscrupulous personage with whom Morley now stood face to face. "True, sir--true, the boy might have perished, and with him my only tie to life. No, not my only tie either, for there is my poor girl, Mary, I must think of her a bit, too, though I often fancy she would be better off if I were gone. She would have been better off, sure enough, if she had never known me; but, however, she loves me, and I love her, dear little soul; and though I know you gentle people and others think that we in our way of life have little or no feelings of any kind, but just to drink and smoke, and fight a main of cocks, or something of that sort, yet it is not altogether so either, and we can love our wife, or our sweetheart, or our child, just as much as the best in the land. I know one thing, that if we had lost the babe, it would have broke my heart outright, though I I can remember very well the time when I did not care anything about children, and thought they would only be a bother to one; but, somehow, since I had one of my own, I have got very fond of it, and I don't know how it is that fondness has made me think very differently of many other things too. So you see, sir, I am very much obliged to you,--only there is one favour I'll ask of you, which is not just to mention that you have seen me here; for the beaks are after me for a little job I did some time ago, and I think of taking a swim over the herring-pond as a volunteer, for fear, as they say on board the ships, they should make me work my passage to Heaven by pulling at a rope's-end."

"I will certainly not mention it, Martin," replied Morley; "but I should like to hear something more of you. I asked that young woman, who is, I suppose, your wife, and her companion, to give me shelter in the cottage for this night, having got somewhat out of my way, and being, I fancy, some sixteen or seventeen miles from Warmstone Castle."

"Not so far as that, sir--not so far as that," said Harry Martin; "but, nevertheless, you shall be welcome to stay if you like it. I know I can trust you; but the women did not know who you were, and they are in a sad fright about me, poor things! I had left them, for an hour or two, to go and look out for news; but my poor wife could not be satisfied, and as I did not come so soon as she expected, went away to meet me, leaving the boy with his grandmother. The poor old woman was so tired with all our dodging about for the last two or three days, that she fell asleep by the fire, and the boy strayed away after a will-o-the-wisp, or something of that kind, I suppose. But come, Sir Morley, if you like to stay with us, we will do the best we can for you, though what you call a cottage is but a hovel, and that the two women must have. There are some pitmen's cottages, however, two miles further up on the moor; but between you and I, bad as they call me, you may rest more safely with me than with them."

"I will stay by your fire, Martin," said Morley, dismounting and leading his horse back; and in a few minutes more, after some formalities and introductions of a particular kind, he was seated in what may be called Harry Martin's domestic circle, and in full conversation with him, his wife, and mother-in-law.

He perceived that the elder woman looked at him hard from time to time, and at length she said--"I was stupid not to know you, Sir Morley, for you are so like your father. There is something of your mother, too, about the eyes, but you are more like your father."

"I suppose you knew my father well, then?" answered Morley, looking at her steadfastly, in order to see whether he could trace in her worn, but still fine features, the countenance of any of the dependents of his family whom he had known in youth. It was in vain that he did so, however; the face of the old woman was quite unknown to him, as her reply soon showed him that it must be.

"Ay, I did know him well," replied the old woman, "and a good man he was. I wish I had always followed what he told me. It is now about eighteen years since I saw him, and then he said, very truly, that those who seek riches by wrong means, are sure to find poverty straight on their road."

"I certainly am sorry that you did not take his advice," said Morley; "but I trust you were led to do nothing very wrong in opposition to his counsel."

"Tut, nonsense, granny!" cried Harry Martin; "you are doting with your old stories. What wrong did you ever do, if it was not letting me marry your daughter? You were as good an old body as ever lived, and as thriving a one, too, after you came back from India, till both mother and daughter, I believe, fell in love with a scapegrace like myself."

"I did not fall in love with you, Harry," replied the old woman; "but I thought you better than you seemed, and, to say the truth better than you are. You were frank and free; I believed you would be kind to my poor girl, and, to do you but justice, you have been so. But what I am talking about is many years ago; she was then a babe, not so big as little Harry here, and I was the wife of Serjeant More, a good man and a kind, but somewhat too fond of money withal. Ay, it was a bad business, that; but it is of no use thinking of it now. I have not been in those parts, sir," she continued, "since I came back to England, and I should like much to hear of all the people there. Your father is dead, sir, I know; pray, how is your mother? She was a beautiful creature!"

"Alas!" replied Morley, "she has been long dead, too."

"Well-a-day!" exclaimed the old woman, and then, after a pause, she asked--"and Mr. Sanderstead's family, sir--how are they? He was just married then."

"He has now eight or nine daughters, I believe," answered Morley; "I know the room was full of them when I called there one morning."

"Ay," said the old woman, abstractedly, "and what has become of Lawyer Carr and his wife?"

Morley shrunk, as if a rude hand had been laid upon a fresh wound, but he replied, after a moment's hesitation--"The old man is still living, but his wife has been dead, I find, for some years."

"Dead!--dead!" cried the old woman; "and is the child living--the daughter?"

"Yes, she is," replied Morley, rising--"she is living--Martin, I think I shall go on."

"Why, what's the matter, sir?" said Harry Martin, gazing on the young Baronet's face; "a minute ago you were all for staying, and now you must be gone."

"I am, perhaps, whimsical," replied Morley Ernstein; "I have become so lately. However, before I go, let me speak a word or two with you on your own affairs. You talk of going to America, if I understood you rightly. I do not wish to hear why, or anything about it--I can guess, perhaps; but two women and a child must be a burden to you under such circumstances. If they like to come up to Warmstone, while you make your escape, there is a vacant cottage, I hear from my agent, which they can have, till they go to join you. Some furniture can be sent down from the Castle, and if you think fit, I will give full orders before I leave Warmstone, for I shall not be there more than a day."

Harry Martin had risen while Morley was speaking, and was gazing in his face, with an expression in which doubt and suspicion seemed to mingle with satisfaction. "I don't think you would play me a trick, sir," he said, as Morley concluded, "and yet it's strange enough, your starting up in that way the moment the old woman mentioned Lawyer Carr!"

Morley returned his gaze with a look of unmixed surprise, "I don't understand what you mean," he answered; "what have you to do with Lawyer Carr? or Lawyer Carr to do with you?"

"Everything in the world," cried Harry Martin, knitting his brows, and stamping his foot--"everything in the world--don't you know that?"

It was the old woman who now replied, for she seemed now the most astonished of the party, and catching Martin by the arm, she asked--"Is it old Carr, then, that you are afraid of? He had better not touch a hair of your head!"

"Nonsense--nonsense, granny!" said the man; "you don't understand what you are talking about. But I see Sir Morley has not heard of the job. Sir, I'm very much obliged to you for your offer, and wont say No, but will just talk to my wife about it after you are gone, if it would not be too much trouble for you to give the orders upon the chance."

"I will not fail to have the place put in order," replied Morley; "and you may be sure that if they do come, they shall be well taken care of. As for yourself, Martin, I can offer you nothing, for your own words have, of course, given me to suspect that you have placed yourself in a situation which precludes me from affording you shelter, or any sort of aid, except of a pecuniary kind. If, however, you are in want of money, all that I have about me is at your service."

"Thank you, sir," said Martin, with a light, laugh at the double meaning of that which was about to spring from his lips; "I am very much obliged to you, but I do not want your money, or I would have taken it, I can assure you.--Though that is not true either," he added; "I might have taken a stranger's, but not yours, Sir Morley; but the fact is, I don't want money."

"Of that I am very happy," answered Morley; "but I cannot help expressing a regret, Martin, that you should adhere to a course so dangerous as well as so evil. I thought, when first I saw you, and think still, that you were intended for better things, and might distinguish yourself, and raise yourself high in a good and honourable course."

The man he spoke to cast down his eyes, and gazed musingly upon the ground for several minutes, but he then replied--"Thank you, sir, for your good opinion; but it's all nonsense talking or thinking of such things now--it's too late in the day to mend. The worst of the laws of this country, and of what people call society, is, that they never allow any man to get better. A man may get worse in this world every day, if he likes it; the bad road is always open before him, and plenty there are to drive him on upon it. But if he tries to go back again, sir, to the good road that he has left, there is sure to be some one to bang the turnpike in his face, and stop him ere he has got half a mile. I cannot help thinking, sir, that it is a pity those men who set about making laws and customs, do not recollect that there is such a thing as amending as well as punishing. I believe it would be better for all of us if they did; for now, even a hardened scoundrel like myself, as they would call me if I were in a prison tomorrow, why, a very little thing would have made me a better man at one time, and I don't believe it would take very much even now. It may be an odd thing to say, for a man who does something wrong every day, that he never does anything that is wrong without being sorry for it very soon after it's done; but yet it is true; and, even now, a word or two of encouragement, such as you spoke to me just this minute, makes me feel quite vexed with myself that I have not gone in the right way instead of the wrong."

"There is some truth in what you say," replied Morley, "that our laws and our customs, in dealing both with man and woman, seem to lose sight altogether of the great object of reformation. Terror is the only instrument we use, and terror never yet reclaimed. Nevertheless, though the path back, Martin, must always be more difficult and laborious than the path onward, still I believe it may be trodden, if a man have a strong heart and a good resolution; and I trust that, when you have made your escape to another country, and are out of danger altogether, you will think of what we have been saying tonight, and will see whether, in a new world, you cannot live a new life.

"On my soul and honour I will, sir!" replied the man, eagerly. "I'll do my best, at all events. I'll tell you what it is, Sir Morley Ernstein--the thing that ruins half of us is want of hope. The least little bit of hope would very often lead on a man to do much better, but we don't get it, sir. Once we have done amiss, as the world goes now, there's no object in stopping. However, sir, I have had some encouragement, and, as I said just now, I'll do my best, if I can contrive to get off this time."

"I trust you may do both," replied Morley--"I trust you may do both, my good friend, for I believe that you are not without good feelings, if they were well directed. But I will now go on, and before to-morrow night the cottage shall be all ready for your wife and her mother."

"Stay a bit, sir," said Harry Martin; "I'll walk up with you beyond the pitmen's hovels. They are somewhat of a wild set, and some of them may be stirring yet."

Morley threw the rein of his horse over his arm, and walked on with Harry Martin by his side. Most men would have considered it not the safest sort of companionship in the world; but no idea of danger to himself crossed the young Baronet's mind, and his thoughts, to say the truth, were busy in a struggle which every one must have endured who has felt for his fellow-creatures.

Amongst all the pieces of casuistry which man puts to his own heart, there is none more difficult, I might say more painful, to resolve, than the question of where lenity should stop and just severity begin; how far, in short, compassion for an offender may be extended, without injustice to the innocent and to society. I must not say that Morley felt a strong inclination to aid the man, Martin, in making his escape, for that was not altogether the sensation which affected him; but he did regret sincerely, that what he owed to the laws of his country, prevented him from aiding, in the least degree, the flight of one whom he believed to be formed for better things, and in whom he saw, or thought he saw, a tendency to repentance, which would certainly lead to a new course of life. Nevertheless, he felt that he had no right to place his individual opinion, his hopes or expectations, of the man's reformation in direct opposition to the law of the land, and, consequently, he felt anxious to turn from the subject as soon as possible, though he felt some difficulty in so doing.

Harry Martin himself, however, soon relieved him by speaking first--"Pray, Sir Morley," he said--"can you tell me what has become of that young scamp, William Barham? I saw him after he escaped from being drowned--which he never will be, if there's truth in the old proverb--for he is as bad a youth as ever lived or died unhanged. He partly put me up to this last job, and then, when it was done, sneaked out of the way somewhere, and I never could get sight of him afterwards."

The recollection of the last time he had seen William Barham was, as the reader may suppose, agitating to Morley Ernstein; but he was more upon his guard upon the present occasion, than when all the painful circumstances of his fate had been suddenly recalled to his mind, a few minutes before, by the questions of the old woman. He paused for a moment, indeed, ere he replied; but he then answered calmly enough--"Not many days ago, he was staying at the house of Mr. Carr, at Yelverly."

"Ha!" replied his companion; "the young villain's betraying me: he is fit to sell his own soul, though it is not worth buying if he did; but he had better take care what he is about, or I will break his neck for him."

"Do nothing rashly, Martin," replied Morley Ernstein; "he is, I believe, bad enough; but I have a faint recollection of having heard that some connexion or other has been discovered between him and Mr. Carr--some relationship or friendship between their parents--I forget what; but, certainly, it had no reference to you."

"I trust it has not," replied Martin, in the same stern tone with which he had before spoken; but he still seemed dissatisfied, and continued to walk by Morley's side in silence, till they had passed a long row of low-built cottages, and had gone on for about half a mile on the moor. At length he paused, and pointing on the road before him, he said--"That is your way, sir. About a mile on you will find a finger-post, with two roads separating to the right and left; take the left-hand road, and follow it till you come to a village, where you must get further directions. Good night, sir!"

Morley wished him good night, and was about to proceed, but he thought he perceived a degree of hesitation in the man's manner, which made him pause for a moment. "You seem to have something more to tell me, Martin," he said; "speak without reserve, if you have."

"Why, there is a word or two, sir," replied Harry Martin, approaching close to his horse's side, and speaking in a low tone. "If things go right with me, and I get away, it's all well and good; but you know, sir, matters may go another way, and then the game's up. As for dying, I declare, I care no more about it, than about going to sleep; but you see, sir, there's my poor wife--she is as good a girl as ever lived, and I don't know how or why it is, but since we were married it has made a great difference in me. I am not half so wild as I was before; and I have got a sort of tenderness, if I may call it so, towards all women for her sake. I believe it is, that I did no rightly know what a good woman was before I married her; but it is very different now, and that is the only thing that rests upon my mind. You see, sir, she has never been used to hard work, but has been brought up as a sort of a lady, and if I were gone, what would come of her? I think, if I knew she would be well taken care of, I should not care for anything in life."

"Make your mind easy," said Morley, "though I cannot exactly say what I should be able to do for her under such circumstances; I will promise you to see her established in some honest way of life--some small school, or other thing, that does not imply any severe exertion."

The man made no answer, but he grasped the young Baronet's hand tight, in a way that was not to be mistaken, and thus they parted.