CHAPTER XVI.
The day was near its close, and the keen, clear easterly wind had in the end swept all clouds and mist from the air, leaving the features of the landscape sharp and defined, in the peculiar purple light of the evening, when a man with a brass-bound mahogany box upon his back stopped at the door of the little hovel, on the wide, wild common to which I have so frequently had occasion to refer.
About three-quarters of an hour before, in trudging with his pack out of the neighbouring little town, he had been passed by a post-chaise coming from the side of London; and on turning his head he had seen that it contained only a single traveller--a handsome and fashionably-dressed young man, with a complexion considerably darker than is usually found amongst Englishmen. The pedlar very naturally concluded that the stranger was nothing to him, nor he to the stranger, and that he should never behold his face again; and trudging upon his way over the common, he turned a few steps aside, to see if the inhabitants of the hovel, who had more than once purchased bodkins and needles and such little articles of him, would now be tempted by any of his wares.
Pedlars--although by continual chaffering with every different variety of human beings they usually acquire a great deal of shrewdness, not to say cunning--may be deceived in their calculations as well as other people, and it proved so in the present case. He knocked at the door of the cottage, and then shook it, saying to himself, "The old woman's in one of her moping fits, I dare say." But still he received no answer; and then, going to the little window, he tried to look in. There was a board up in the inside, however, which effectually prevented him from seeing, and he was about to turn away, when he perceived a tall figure advancing towards him from the side of the high-road.
Now, the pedlar was a stout, broad-shouldered, clean-limbed man, of about fifty years of age; and having passed the greater part of his life in hardy excise, he was a match for most men in point of strength; but having had occasion, more than once, to fight for the worldly goods and chattels which he carried on his back, he always cast a suspicious eye towards any one who approached him hastily, which was the case with the stranger; and therefore, unslinging his pack, he put it down behind him, that he might have his right arm more at liberty for the exercise of the stout oaken staff with which it was armed.
At the moment when he first perceived the figure advancing towards him, it was coming up between the high sandy banks through which a little rivulet flowed, and the evening sun cast a deep shadow upon it. The instant after, however, it emerged into the broad light, and the whole dress and appearance removed at once anything like apprehension which he had previously felt. Another minute showed him the face which he had seen in the post-chaise; and touching his hat, he replaced his box upon his shoulders, in order to walk away with it, when he saw the stranger approach the door of the hovel and knock for admission.
"There's no one in there, sir," said the pedlar in a civil tone; "they are all gone, poor people, I suppose. Perhaps the old lady is dead, for she was in a failing sort of way when last I passed."
"No, she is not dead," replied the stranger; "but it is probable a friend of mine, who took an interest in her, has provided for her more comfortably than she could be here. I did not think he would have been so rapid in his proceedings, or I might have spared myself a journey. I wonder where the boy is who I hear was with her: are you sure he is not in the cottage?"
"He is not there, sir; the place is all shut up," replied the pedlar. "He's a good boy, and was very kind to the poor woman, though the people said they were not relations; and indeed I always thought she must have been a gentlewoman at one time."
"You were not far wrong," replied Henry Hayley--for he it was. "I suppose you are well acquainted with the country around?" he continued, turning away from the hovel and walking on by the pedlar's side towards the highroad.
"I know every inch of it," answered the man, "for fifty miles round and more, and many another part of the country besides. I have spent more than twenty years of my life in wandering about with my pack on my back, so that there is hardly a cottage in the counties I travel that I do not know."
"Perhaps, then, you can tell me my best way to the house of a farmer named Graves," said Henry Hayley; "I think it is some six or seven miles off."
"I can tell you the way well enough, sir," replied the man; "but I doubt, with all my telling, that you'll find it; for you see it lies on the other road, and the cross-country lanes are rather crooked."
"Can you show me the way?" asked Henry again; "I shall be inclined to pay you well for your trouble."
The man hesitated for a moment, but then replied--
"I may as well go that way as another, though it is out of my regular beat. But is it the old man or the young one you want to see, sir?"
"The old one, I think," replied Henry: "what is his age?"
"Oh, he is well-nigh upon seventy," answered the pedlar, "and a strange old man too. I don't know whether he'll be civil to you; but he's not to most people, though he's a kind old man at bottom, I hear. He had some troubles when he was younger, and that has made him very cross ever since. But we had better cut across the common here, for it lies away there to the westward."
"Henry turned according to his guide's directions, and followed him for some little way in silence; but at length he said--
"What troubles were they that you alluded to just now as having befallen the old man?"
"Troubles that the rich sometimes bring upon the poor, sir," answered the pedlar. "Just about the time when I first took to this trade, I remember him, as fine a looking man of forty-three or forty-four as any in the whole county, and as gay and light-hearted too. He had then two children, a girl of about seventeen or eighteen, and this young man who now holds the great farm: he was not above fourteen then, and the girl was the prettiest creature I ever saw in my life, and quite like a lady. Poor Mary Graves! I shan't forget her in a hurry. But she fell in love, one unlucky day, with a gentleman who came down into these parts from London--a rich merchant they said he was. He did not behave well by the old man, though not so bad as they said at first; but he coaxed the girl to go away with him, without her father's knowledge; and for a long time Farmer Graves thought he had seduced her, and it well-nigh broke his heart. In the end, however, he found that they were really married; but she died with her first child, poor thing, and the old man has never got over it."
"Poor man!" said Henry, in a very grave tone; "it is a sad tale indeed. Did his daughter's husband never do anything to compensate for the pain he had inflicted?"
"There are some things, sir," said the pedlar, "for which there is no compensation. He could not give him back his child again; he could not wipe out a long year of misery, during which the old man was ruined and dishonoured; he could never make his mind what it was before, nor take out of his heart all the bitterness he had planted there. I have heard, indeed, that he did offer to do a great deal which Farmer Graves would not accept of; and the people say that it was through him that the young man was enabled to take this great farm he now holds, and to stock it. They never knew rightly who he really was, for they say the name he was married under was a feigned one; and all they could find out was that he was a great merchant in London; for the child was put out to nurse for some time, and then the father came suddenly and took it away, and nothing more was ever heard of it, by the family at least."
Henry Hayley fell into deep thought, and the reader acquainted with the early part of his history may easily conceive the nature of his meditation. After a time, however, as they walked on, he resumed the conversation with his companion, but changed the subject entirely, talking of the state of the country and the condition of the country people, of the residents in the neighbourhood, and of the curious state of wandering commerce by which his companion gained his livelihood. He found him a shrewd, intelligent man, who was evidently accustomed, during the solitary hours he passed in proceeding from place to place, to think a great deal and deeply of the many different things that came to his knowledge in his travels over the face of the country. It seemed that while disposing of his wares he gained in exchange, not only money, but the history of those with whom he dealt; and that in journeying onwards he turned over and over in thought all the little facts he had acquired, or the scenes that he had witnessed, reasoning upon them with great acuteness and good sense, so that he was ever ready to comment with a degree of caustic precision unusual in the small trader of a town, who has little leisure for any thoughts unconnected with his business.
Curiosity, of course, was one trait in his character, and he did not fail to make sundry efforts to learn more of his companion, and to discover what could be his business with old Farmer Graves. Henry, however, set all questions at defiance; and in the end the pedlar, seeing that it was in vain to inquire, gave up his efforts in despair.
"That is a poor-looking house," said Henry, as they were approaching the opposite side of the common; "it, seems hardly fit for the habitation of a human being. Has it any occupants now?"
"No, sir; none at present," replied his companion. "It is a poor place surely; and yet it is better than it was twelve months ago, for, the gentleman who lives in the large house on the hill there--you cannot see it for the trees--had the thatch mended. He does not think like a great many of the gentlemen about, and sets to work in a different way with the poor. It answers pretty well sometimes, and did in the instance of the lad who lived here."
"How was that?" asked the young wanderer. "I should like to have an example of his way of dealing with the poor: the subject is a very interesting one."
"Why, sir, the way was this," answered the pedlar; "I had it from the game-keeper who was with him when it all happened, and he's an honest fellow, so I'm sure the story's true:--Mr. Payne, the gentleman who lives up there, was coming home from shooting, one day last October--he's very fond of shooting; and as he was crossing this bit of the common about the time of sunset, with his two keepers, he saw this hut, and looked up at it. I must tell you, it was raining as hard as it could pour, and blowing fit to freeze one. So he said to the head keeper, 'I suppose nobody lives in that place?' 'I beg your pardon, sir,' said the keeper, 'but there does;' and then he told him all about it. There was a poor lad who had lived in the parish a good many years--an orphan--and as he had neither father nor mother to look after him, he had been badly enough brought up: that was Billy Small's first misfortune. The people pitied him a little, and some of the farmers gave him a bit of work to do, from time to time. But Bill was idle, and Bill was wild; and he got turned off here, and he got turned off there, and in the end everybody abused him, and would have nothing to do with him. Well, to make matters worse, when he was half starved himself, he must needs have some one to starve with him, and so he married a poor girl who had worked in the same fields with him; and you may guess what a to do there was in the parish. I believe they'd have hanged him for it, if they could but have proved that marriage was felony. He tried to get work, and his wife tried; but no one would have anything to say to him, though he promised hard to do better. They all said he was lazy and idle--which was true enough; and they said his wife was as bad, which might be true too, for aught I know; but, however, the two poor things went from bad to worse, till they took refuge in that hovel we passed just now. The boy said he would not go into 'the house,' to be separated from his wife; and there they lived--or, I should rather say, there they were dying--when Mr. Payne passed. The keeper told him how terribly they were off, and that they were both ill of pure starvation and want of covering. Well, the gentleman said he would go in and see with his own eyes; and he found them--the boy, and the girl, and their baby--all crouched up together on some straw, with nothing on earth to cover them during the night but the rags they had on during the day. As half the thatch was off, the rain was pouring in at the other end of the hut, and the wind blowing through at all quarters. The lad had just had a fit of some kind, brought on, the doctor afterwards said, by privation; and the girl was bathed in tears, thinking he was going to die. Well, Mr. Payne is not a bad-hearted man, as gentlemen go, and he was very sorry to see them in such a state; he had some sandwiches in his pocket, and some sherry-and-water in a bottle, and that made them the best meal they had had for many a day. He staid and talked with them, too, for an hour or more; and though he did not promise them much, yet he spoke to them kindly, and did not throw in the lad's teeth all the foolish things he had done, but asked him if he were well again, and work were given him, whether he would be steady and industrious. The lad looked at his little wife, and said with tears in his eyes that he would try; but that he was sure that nobody would take him, for he had asked for employment everywhere in vain. Then Mr. Payne told him not to be downhearted, for that when he was well enough to work he would give a stray job or two and try him, and in the mean time the girl might come down to the house for some soup and bread. Hope's a good medicine, sir, and that he left them, and as he went home, he thought how he might do them good; and that very night he sent for two of the farmers, who were guardians of the poor, and talked to them about the young man. At first they were very hard about it, and called William all sorts of names for marrying when he had no means of supporting himself, and worse still for not coming into the workhouse; and they declared that if people would but let him alone and not help him, he would soon be starved out of his obstinacy. Mr. Payne thought differently, however. He said he believed there were many people who would rather die of starvation than go in; and as to his marriage, he said, though it was certainly a very foolish thing, yet he had already been punished more than enough for what was no crime after all. And he told them, too, that he thought, from what he had seen of the lad, it would do him good rather than harm, for that he would work more steadily, now that he had somebody to work for, than he had ever done before. What he said made no impression upon one of the farmers; but the other seemed to think there might be some truth in it, and promised if the lad got well to give him a trial. Mr. Payne took care that he should get well, for all that he and the poor girl wanted was food and covering, and a very little medicine; and Mr. Payne sent his own doctor to him, and had the thatch mended, and sent them soup and bread every day, and now and then some meat--not much, indeed, for he afterwards told the keeper that the whole did not cost five pounds. Nevertheless, it was quite enough, for William got strong and hearty again, and so did his wife; and the baby, which was but a little bag of bones, throve wonderfully. It is strange what fine hardy babies starving people will have sometimes. A rich man's child would have been killed by one-half what that little thing went through. But, to cut my story short, sir, when they were all well again, and had some clothes given to them--flannel petticoats, and jackets, and things that Mrs. Payne keeps for the poor--they turned out very tidy, and Mr. Payne first tried the lad himself to work a bit in his garden, though he did not want him, but just for a trial, like; and when he had satisfied himself that the lad was inclined to do well, he put Farmer Slade in mind of his promise. The farmer was very willing when he found all had gone right, and took him upon the farm as a labourer. He has been well-nigh six months at it now, and every one says that there is not a more industrious, clever lad in all the place, and things have changed with him altogether; for he is gone down to live in one of the nice little cottages by the farm, for which he pays a shilling a-week quite regular, and they have contrived to pick up a good lot of furniture--part of which he made for himself, by-the-way, for he's not a bad hand at carpentering; and his wife's always neat and tidy, and so is the baby. The girl told me herself that she got all their clothes and such things by her own work in picking and hoeing, that Bill might be able to save a little out of his wages in case another rainy day should come; but I don't think it will, sir; for if they go on as they are going, they will make sunshine for themselves."
While the pedlar was telling his story, the truth of every word of which the author has had an opportunity of ascertaining, he had led the way up the slope of a little hill; and Henry Hayley turned round to take another look at the miserable hovel which had given rise to the narrative, and which was now about a quarter of a mile behind them.
"Either my eyes deceive me," he said, "or you are mistaken in saying that the place is uninhabited. There is smoke rising up out of it--don't you see?"
"So there is," said the pedlar, turning round and shading his eyes with his hand. "Ay, and there's a man down by the pond there: I wonder what he's about. There used to be good fish in that pond; it belongs to Mr. Payne."
As he spoke, the figure of another man appeared at the door of the hut; and they could hear a low whistle, which apparently caused the man at the pond to turn round and walk quickly towards the hut.
"We had better get on, sir," said the pedlar; "there are some bad sort of folks down here just now, and there's no knowing what they may do."
"What have they been doing?" asked Henry, walking on as he led.
"Oh! thieving, and sheep-stealing, and poaching, and all manner of things," replied the pedlar. "The people in London are at the bottom of it all; for these men would not dare to go on as they do if they could not easily and quickly dispose of what they steal. They were caught once by a cunning contrivance, and that stopped them for a long time."
"How was that effected?" asked Henry.
"Why, you see, sir," replied the man, "the way they carried on their trade was this: they went into a field, killed half-a-dozen sheep or so, skinned them upon the spot, and left the head, skin, and feet in the field. Then upon the commons, you know, there's a great number of donkeys. Well, they used to gather them all together, or as many as they wanted, put the mutton on their backs, and drive them away ten or twelve miles to market. They found plenty of butchers ready to buy the carcases, without asking where they came from--just as men buy game now-a-days. However, a man who had a donkey on the common found that every now and then he lost him for a whole day, and sometimes when he came home his back was bloody; and that roused suspicion as to how the stolen sheep were disposed of. For a long time they could not trap them; but at last a shrewd old fellow fell upon a plan, and getting the asses all together one night, they stuffed their hoofs with a compound of red ochre and something else to make it stiff, and then turned them loose, well knowing they would not go very far before morning. The next day, ten or twelve of the donkeys were missing, and a whole heap of people set out upon the track--for there were plenty of marks of red ochre near the field, where some sheep had been stolen the night before. They had no great difficulty now; for all along the road the thieves had taken, one stone had a mark, and another stone had a mark, for nine or ten miles or more, till they came to the place where the carcases had been carried; and there they found thieves, and sheep, and asses, and all. That stopped the business for some time; but now they have got another plan, which is safer. A man comes down from London in a light cart, and there are five or six different places, at each of which he stops, gets out, and goes into the next field. There he finds whatever has been stolen during the night; and whatever it may be, whether it be a dead sheep, fowls, or game, linen, clothes, or anything else, there is sure to be a ticket upon it with the price marked. If he likes the price, he takes the goods, and he almost always does, for they never put half the value upon them; and then he sends down the money every week to what they call their bankers, in some of the towns near; and they take the fellow-ticket to that which they left upon the goods, and get the money, giving the banker his share."
"Is it possible that such a system is tolerated in England?" exclaimed Henry. "Why, it could not be carried on even in Spain, where heaven knows, justice is lax enough."
"It's true notwithstanding," said the pedlar: "they would have been caught long ago by the old Bow Street runners, for they would have pounced upon the people in London; but you see, sir, we go on improving, this country of ours. We are always improving: that is to say, mending one thing and spoiling another. The streets of London are, I dare say, a great deal quieter and safer, though we hear of bad things enough still, considering how much is paid for keeping them quiet; but then, if a great crime is committed, or a gang of scoundrels formed for robbing and plundering honest men, months go by before these men in the blue coats find out anything about it."
As Henry Hayley knew very little of the affairs of the London police, he did not enter into the question of its efficiency with his worthy companion; and still conversing, though upon other subjects, they walked on more quickly after they had reached the summit of the rise, passed the lodge-gates of Mr. Payne, and soon after entered upon another heath, more wild and desolate-looking than the first. The sun had by this time set, but they had yet full half-an-hour of the long twilight of northern lands before them; and the rich purple tints of the whole landscape were a compensation, in the eyes of one at least of the two, for the brighter beams of the day. Passing onward across the heath, the grey shades of night gaining perceptibly upon the lingering light, they came suddenly upon the edge of a small sandpit, from which was rising up a glare that tinged with red the thick bushes of gorse near the edge. Both Henry and the pedlar stopped and looked over, when, certainly greatly to the surprise of the former, a group was seen seated round a good warm fire, engaged in an occupation perhaps the least to be expected in the world at such a spot and in such circumstances.
The party was composed of three: a man of fifty-four or fifty-five years of age, another of four or five-and-thirty, and a good-looking but rather robust young woman of six or seven-and-twenty. Some kettles and pots, a pair of bellows, and various other articles of the tinker's trade, with a bundle, apparently of clothes, sufficiently denoted the calling of the party; but that which was worthy of admiration and surprise was, as I have said, the occupation in which they were engaged. The young woman was seated by the side of the younger man, her head resting on his shoulder, and her arm thrown carelessly across his knee; but her eyes as well as his were fixed upon their elder companion, who, sitting with his back against the bank and his knees drawn up so as to form a sort of desk, was reading to them out of a large quarto volume, very neatly covered with green baize.
The clear, strong voice rose up distinctly, and Henry heard a part of the eighteenth chapter of St. Matthew. He would willingly have listened long, for there was something which seemed to him so fine and touching in the sounds of those holy words read by such a man, in such a situation, that the exquisite beauty and sublimity of the truths there written seemed to acquire, if possible, a deeper force than when read in the crowded church, or even in the solemn cathedral.
"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," read the poor man below; and Henry thought, "Surely it is so, even here;" but his companion, who did not understand the feelings which had been excited by the sounds, interrupted the reading with little reverence, saying aloud, "Ah, Master Barnes! is that you? How is it that you are not at Slade's to-night, and so near?"
"The barn is quite full," said the old man, as they all looked up, "and so we came here. We shall do very well; and Master Slade was very sorry he couldn't take us in, and gave us some milk to make up, so that's something."
"How do you do, James?" said the pedlar, nodding to the younger man. "I say--if any fellows should come and ask if you have seen us, and which way we have gone, tell them we have taken to the right. I don't half like the looks of things under Knight's-hill."
"Why, I saw two men go down through the gully there about five minutes ago," said the younger man. "I don't know who they were--strangers, I think. But I'll tell them what you say, if I see any one. Go on, father; I want to hear that out."
Henry Hayley and the pedlar walked on, and very naturally the former inquired into the history and character of the persons he had just seen.
"They are very good, respectable people," said the pedlar, who was more a man of thought than of feeling. "The father has travelled this country for a great many years, mending pots and kettles and all kinds of tinware. He always charges the same sum, which is moderate, bad times or good, and is supposed to be quite rich enough to lodge at a public-house if he liked it, but he never sets his foot in one of them; and the farmers are all generally well content to give him lodging in a barn or out-house, for they are certain that there will be no pilfering at the farm that night. When he can't get such accommodation, he passes the night anywhere--in a copse or in a sandpit, as you have seen just now. He always goes to church on a Sunday in a good clean suit, and the other tinkers and trampers call him. 'Gentleman Barnes.' The young man is his son-in-law, and I can assure you, sir, his daughter was as much courted as if she had been a great lady; but the old gentleman would not let her marry, if she had been inclined, which she did not seem to be, till he found a man to his mind; and I will say James Staples promises to be just such another as himself. We are not far from Mr. Graves's farm now. You can see the chimneys up there, just over the trees."
Imagination or memory must have helped the worthy pedlar, for Henry Hayley could see nothing at any distance, and it was in fact quite dark. The only objects visible were two rows of trees, one on either side of the lane they were entering, and some stars peeping out in the sky above. Once, through the trees, indeed, the young gentleman thought he caught the glimmer of a light, probably in a cottage window; and being somewhat impatient to arrive at least so far on the way as the house of Mr. Graves, Henry strode forward a little in advance of the pedlar, as in the lane there seemed no probability of missing the road.
They had proceeded thus for the distance of about a third of a mile when the young gentleman suddenly stopped and turned round, on hearing a sort of choking cry behind him; and he had just time, in the dim and obscure light of the night, to see two men pulling the pedlar backwards by the leathern strap which supported his pack, when he himself received a violent blow on the head from a thick stick, which made him stagger and fall against the bank. He had heard no one approach, for the lane was sandy, and the light sound of their own footfalls was all that met the ears of the travellers.
The fire flashed from Henry's eyes, and his brain reeled with the blow he had received; but he was accustomed to perils of all kinds; and while two of the assailants were engaged, apparently, in plundering the pedlar of his pack, he sprang upon the third as soon as he regained his feet, closed with him at once, and by an exertion of his great strength had mastered him and thrown him down, when a fourth man leaped from the bank above, and cast himself at once upon the young soldier.
The contest would not have been so unequal, even then, as it might have seemed, for Henry was a far more powerful man than either of his assailants; but one of the others, who had been engaged with the pedlar, left his companion to hold the wandering merchant down, and hastened to join the affray which was going on a few steps farther forward.
It still took the whole of their united efforts to master a man of great natural strength, rendered available in a moment by the habit of robust exercises; but he was at length brought to the ground by a tremendous blow of a stick, and for a moment or two lay unconscious of all that was passing around.
When Henry Hayley revived to a sense of what was going on about him, he found his head supported on somebody's knee, and a pair of hands at his throat, busily untying his black handkerchief.
Nature has an instinctive abhorrence of being meddled with in places whence the road to the life-blood is short, and especially about the throat; so that Henry's first impulse was to raise himself as well as he could, and thrust away the busy hands.
"It's all right," said the voice of the pedlar; "he's coming to. Thank you, James--thank you. If you had not taken it into your head to follow us, the blackguards would have done for us, that's clear enough. I feel the squeeze of that fellow's knee upon my breastbone now. But who is the other man who came with you, and who's gone to look after them?"
"It is John Wirling, one of Mr. Graves's men," said a voice which Henry remembered. And then it added, addressing him, "Well sir, how are you getting on now? You have spoiled one of the rogues anyhow, for he ran as if he could hardly get along. I should not wonder if John caught him."
"I hope he won't try," said the pedlar, "though they've got my pack; but they'll turn on him, to a certainty. No, no--here he comes."
With a giddy and aching head Henry Hayley now raised himself from the ground, and all that had happened after he was stunned was explained to him in a few moments.
Seeing some men walking rapidly after the travellers, and knowing that two others had gone on before, the younger of the two tinkers whom he had seen in the sandpit had followed as fast as possible, getting the assistance of a labouring man as he went. They had come up just as the villains were rifling Henry's pockets, and had scared them from their work before it was completed.
As the man who took upon himself the task of explanation concluded, Henry suddenly put his hand into his pocket, with an exclamation of alarm. The next moment he withdrew it, saying--
"They have stolen my pocket-book, full of valuable papers. I will give a hundred guineas to any one who recovers it. I would rather that they had taken all I have in the world than that."
"That is unlucky indeed, sir," exclaimed the pedlar; "but if it has got nothing but papers in it, perhaps we may get it back."
"It contains nothing but papers, and those only valuable to myself," replied Henry. "They have left my purse, which I should have cared little about, and taken that which it is impossible to replace."
"Well, sir, leave it to me," said the pedlar: "I marked one of the men well, and I'll see if we cannot get it; for I know somewhat of these people's ways, as you may have seen by what I told you. And now, sir, we had better trot on, if you are going to Mr. Graves's; for you've had a bad knock on the head, and may as well have something done for it."
"Whoever obtains that pocket-book for me with its contents shall have a hundred guineas for his pains, and all that he expends shall be paid," repeated Henry.
And after having given his address, at a hotel in London, to the two men who had come up to his assistance, and bestowed on them a considerable part of the money in his purse, he followed his guide, with a slow step and an anxious and thoughtful air.