CHAPTER IX.
ALL WRONG AT WOODBURN.
Summer was once more shining and breathing its perfumes over the country round Woodburn. The pleasant fields stood full of flower-embroidered grass; of green corn waving and billowing in the scented breeze. The trees shed their verdurous gloom beneath them; the red wild rose, and the snowy discs of the elder flowers, mingled their odours with the yellow-and-red honeysuckle blossoms in the fresh hawthorn hedges. The larks carolled high in the blue air; brooks ran glittering down to the river, and the river glided on in stately beauty. All was beautiful and happy in nature as ever, but over the Grange lay a stillness, within was a stillness. Betty Trapps, pursuing her accustomed household duties, neither sung that “very cutting” song—“Once I freedah engyed,” nor the equally favourite hymn—“We are marching through Emmanuel’s land.” Mr. Woodburn wore a grave and sad air; Mrs. Woodburn sat knitting in deep thought, or watched her cheese-making, without any of her former jollity. Ann was with Letty in Castleborough, and George was taking his solitary rides over the farm, as if something lay on his heart which had banished that cheerful countenance so natural to him. There were no preparations for any festive gathering in the hayfield. “The light of other days” had disappeared like a dream.
The conduct of Thorsby had verified all the instinctive prescience in Betty Trapps’s nature. Letty, the loved and loving creature of gladness, the sunshine of that once happy home; the flitting shape, the ringing, singing voice of joy in it, was a deserted wife, and the once jocose and sportive Thorsby, a disgraced and shameless fugitive. Nor was that all; those shadows which Mrs. Heritage had foreseen in the hayfield fête, had not only fallen on Woodburn Grange, but on other spots around. Fair Manor itself had not escaped. There was the only child there, then the hope and happiness of her house, now a serious and nervous woman, who had passed through a severe baptism, and now shrunk from intercourse beyond her own family walls. Awaking from the impassioned dreams of her London visit, she found that she had wounded another too deeply to leave peace in her own bosom. She had candidly stated to Edmund Barrington, that great as was her affection for him, she never could be happy in the consciousness of the affliction she had occasioned to a most worthy, faithful, and noble heart, nor under the sense of the deep blame, which all those most dear to her, or most connected with the attachments and the memories of her youth, awarded her. She had resolved, therefore, to do the only penance which should mark her sense of her wrong, and satisfy her innermost feeling of sacred duty—never to marry; but to devote herself as soon as her health should be restored, if indeed her shattered nerves should ever again regain their healthy tone, to the works of the good Samaritan.
Her mother had, through Mrs. Barrington, explained to that family the severe shock and shattering through which her daughter had gone, and the sensitive state of her nervous system still. She returned to Edmund Barrington the diamond-clasped bracelet which he had given Millicent, and which under no circumstances could she wear, but she entreated that all other little mutual gifts might be retained as memorials of a friendship, which both she and her daughter trusted would still and for ever remain unbroken.
It is only justice to say that these communications were received in the most beautiful spirit. Both Edmund Barrington and his sisters wrote to Millicent in the most kind and sympathizing terms. Edmund declared himself willing to await the time when full health might bring happier thoughts to Millicent, and his sisters expressed their sincere sorrow that the tender conscience of Millicent had dissipated to them so many pleasant hopes. They declared that they should never cease to recollect with pleasure the happy time of her visit, or to regret the prospect of losing her as a sister. No hope, however, was held out by Millicent of a change in her present sentiments; and in no very long time not only those amiable women, but their brother too, had selected their partners for life, and were scattered into their respective homes, amid all the solaces and distinctions of an enormous affluence.
Millicent Heritage regained her former estimation amongst her friends by a knowledge of this conscientious renunciation of all selfish happiness for herself; and the sense of this did much to renew her vigour of frame, though it did not banish the grave and thoughtful expression from her face and manner. She was often seen mounted on her favourite mare, May Dew, followed by Tom Boddily, taking her way towards the Grange, where she was always received with love by Mrs. Woodburn and by Ann, when at home, and by Mr. Woodburn and George with much kindly regard. Many, too, were her visits to Bilts’ Farm, and her long conversations with Elizabeth Drury, which seemed always to fill her with a renewed spirit of peace and satisfaction.
The only gleam of the past happy days seemed to be on the head of the wise and loving Ann Woodburn. The effect of his father’s changed views, revealed on his deathbed, had been on Sir Henry Clavering such as she had hoped. He had thought deeply on this unexpected confession. The peace with which he had seen his father depart had made a deep impression on his mind through his affectionate nature. He had arrived soon so far, that he felt that there was something beyond the mere teachings of physical nature and the wisdom of the schools which we need to enable us to push off our spiritual bark into the unknown with confidence. He accepted, therefore, like his father, the Saviour which the Gospel proclaims, though ponderous difficulties lay betwixt his conceptions of this Saviour as a messenger of God, and as God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. But Ann, filled now with the brightest hopes, helped him along this valley of stumbling and of huge stones fallen from the bald rocks of long past ages. She put into his hands Paley’s “Evidences,” Butler’s “Analogy,” and other ably reasoned works of her Church, and marked with deep satisfaction their gradual effect. She no longer talked of leaving Sir Henry to his freedom of choice for a wife. She found herself daily drawn into a nearer and more kindred unity with him. All real obstacles to their marriage were, in fact, surmounted, and that event was regarded as at hand, when these unhappy circumstances connected with Letty’s fortunes, and others yet to be related, made her beg that the marriage might be a little delayed, that it might be celebrated under happier auspices, if possible. Meantime, the political difficulties of the period, and irritated condition of the people at large, and of the manufacturing population in particular, kept Sir Henry actively engaged in his magisterial duties. He generally looked in at the Grange in going to and returning from Castleborough; and whilst Ann was there, at Letty’s, he frequently went in and dined with them. Every day tended to present the excellence of his heart and the clear solidity of his mind more attractively to the whole Woodburn family. Ann only was held back from the goal of her earthly happiness by the cloud that lay on her most beloved ones.
The settlement of Mr. Trant Drury in their immediate neighbourhood had not proved such a source of satisfaction as had been hoped for. Those dictatorial and hurrying qualities in his character, which farmer Barrowclouch had noticed, soon began to press themselves unpleasantly on most of those around him. That he was a first-rate agriculturist of a particular school there could be no question; but it was a school essentially different from that which prevailed in all that part of the country. It was a country naturally fertile, varied in its features, and rendered extremely pleasant by the fine and free-grown fences, the scattered hedge-row trees, and patches of wood. With all these, Mr. Drury made war to the knife—no, to the hatchet and the saw. He expressed his great surprise that any agriculturists could yet be found who would sacrifice so much of their valuable land to the mere growth of useless bushes and almost worthless hedge-row trees. As to the woods and plantations, they might remain, and be made profitable by liberal thinning; but as for the hedges, he would have them all pared down to the shortest state possible to be fences at all, and the hedge-row trees, he would cut down every one of them. He would leave only here and there on the land a spreading tree for shelter for the cattle from the sun in summer; but as for hedges, they were useful only as a means of separating fields, and these he would cut to the quick, and narrow as much as possible; nay, he would cut down half of the hedges altogether, and leave the fields—especially the tillage fields—four of five times their present size. He calculated that nearly a tenth of the superficies of the country might be thus brought into profitable culture. As for the hedge-row trees, he said they were so frequently lopped on their trunks as they grew, to prevent their spreading too widely, that as timber they were a congeries of knots, and of no use but for firewood. In fact, he would have reduced the whole country to a condition as bare as the back of your hand; for beauty or the picturesque had no organ in his brain,—their place was engrossed by the organ of profit.
“Now, of what mortal use,” he would say to Mr. Woodburn, as he rode over his farm, or through the neighbourhood with him,—“of what mortal use are these little shapeless crofts and paddocks with their fences running in all sorts of ways but straight lines,—these little, often triangular plots, with their meandering huge hawthorn hedges, actually turning and doubling on themselves? Sweep all these crooked, scrambling fences away, and have some fine, large, shapely pastures instead. And here is a brook now—do look at it. Would any one have supposed, with the present value of land, that it should be allowed to turn and twine about as it does, forming what the Scotch call links, and as we may call them bows and loops, positively occupying three times the ground which it would if reduced to a straight, handsome course, as it soon might be?”
Mr. Woodburn replied “that in truth they might remove some of the rambling fences, and enlarge those little plots to advantage, but he should be sorry to see all those beautiful hawthorn hedges now throwing out their odorous sprays of wild roses and eglantine, cut close like the cropped bristly head of a parish pauper.”
“Beauty!” said Mr. Trant Drury,—“beauty! My dear sir, we cannot live by beauty. We cannot pay rent by beauty. The interests of this densely populated country cannot be maintained by empty notions of beauty. When you want to go to market with your produce, see what your crop of beauty will bring you. No, sir; as much corn, cattle, hay, potatoes, and the like substantials, for which we labour, and from which we must hope to live, as you please. The greatest possible return for the greatest possible amount of labour and skill expended;—that is my doctrine and my practice; and they are the only principles that will in the long run make this country what it ought to be.”
“But man cannot live by bread alone,” said Mr. Woodburn; “that is a principle established by an authority which I hope, Mr. Drury, you consider as of as much validity as your modern save-all doctrine.”
“I bow to the wisdom of our Lord,” said Mr. Drury; “but what He undoubtedly meant was, not your visionary thing beauty, but divine grace,—‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’”
“Very true,” said Mr. Woodburn; “and out of that divine mouth issued these divine words: ‘Behold the lilies of the field, how they grow.’ He who made beauty as well as material food, and showered it on the earth, and continues so to shower it, knew and knows that we want food for every part of our nature. ‘Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both it and them.’ Now, according to my notions, every part of us demands its proper food. Food for the support of the body, grace for the life of the soul, beauty for the imagination, love for the heart, and truth for the intellect. To feed only the body, and to devote all our labours and our lands only to this purpose, is, in my opinion, to make ourselves no better than the beasts that perish.”
Mr. Drury smiled contemptuously. “That is all very well for you, Mr. Woodburn, who live at ease on your own land; but that sort of doctrine won’t do for tenant-farmers.”
Mr. Woodburn thought it as good for tenant-farmers as for anybody else; and should be very sorry to see the tenant-farmers allowed to follow such a system of agricultural economy, as would make the whole country as bare as a drill-ground, and as ugly as sin. He had seen this style of cultivation carried out in some parts of the country, and he would sooner emigrate to the American forests than live in such a featureless district. He thought, to cut down hedges almost to the ground, and exterminate every tree, was by no means beneficial to cattle or sheep, which in cold weather, and especially during the sharp east winds of early spring, required shelter as well as food.
After one or two conversations of this kind Woodburn thought Mr. Drury would say no more to him on this subject, but he was greatly mistaken; for Mr. Trant Drury was one of those people that we now and then come across, who carry their hobbies to a perfect monomania. They are always on the same subject, in all places and with all persons. Though they may have told you the same thing fifty times, they never seem to recollect it, but treat it as perfectly new, and go over the whole ground with merciless pertinacity. After a few inflictions of the all-profit and threadbare country doctrine, Mr. Woodburn began to wince visibly, and to say rather crustily, “Oh! Mr. Drury, you have told us all that again and again.”
“But you don’t benefit by it,” Mr. Drury would say.
“No, nor ever shall, so far as I am concerned,” Mr. Woodburn would reply.
To George Woodburn and Elizabeth Drury, who had become deeply attached to each other, and with the mutual consent of parents on both sides, this disagreement of tastes in their fathers was a subject of the greatest concern and anxiety. George quietly begged of Mr. Drury not to say anything to his father on agricultural topics, for that nothing would induce him to adopt any new notions; but then Mr. Trant Drury’s whole thought, feeling, taste, and conversation were agricultural. New modes of tillage, new implements, new manures, new kinds of vegetables for winter feed,—these made up the furniture, stock, and staple of his mind. His imagination stood as thickly planted with those ideas as his rick-yard with ricks, his fold-yard with cattle, or his fields with crops. George Woodburn listened patiently to his perpetual talk on these subjects, and admitted to a certain extent the value of them: but as to cutting down hawthorn hedges and hedge-row trees, he stood out as firmly as his father. When Mr. Drury was riding his indefatigable hobby in that direction, he remained quiet and let the stream flow over him. His after-conversations with Elizabeth were a rich compensation for this otherwise rather severe martyrdom. Every day showed Elizabeth in a more loveable character. Her lively, cheerful manner, combined with a beautifully intellectual and religious sentiment, and great intelligence, made her the beloved friend of Ann and Mrs. Woodburn; and Mr. Woodburn looked on her with pride as his future daughter-in-law. He only regretted that such a woman should be the daughter of what he began in his own house to term such an unmitigated bore.
Mr. Trant Drury went to work vigorously on his own farm to exemplify his peculiar code of agriculture, and, as he said, to set an example to the benighted farmers around. His landlady, who lived in London, readily granted him permission to pare down his fences and fell hedge-row trees as he pleased. As the property was her own, but would go, at her death, for want of direct issue, to another branch of the family, she was at liberty to do this. The very first autumn and winter, Mr. Drury had men cutting close the fences, and felling all the trees but the oaks, which must stand till the proper season for peeling, in spring. Part of this timber he was allowed to employ in extending his outbuildings, and in making new gates, gateposts, hurdles, &c. Part went to the wood-merchant, its proceeds to be remitted to the landlady.
Mr. Woodburn saw with indignation the destruction of these hedges and trees, the wide, bare gap in the general beauty of the landscape thus created, and his feelings were partaken by many others of the neighbouring country and town, who denounced Mr. Drury as a Goth, and hoped there would be no imitators of this unloveable sort of thrift. Mr. Woodburn could not restrain himself, on the next visit of Elizabeth Drury, from speaking in a sarcastically jeering manner of this frightful system, as he called it, of her father. Elizabeth, to whose ideas of beauty it was as great an outrage as to Mr. Woodburn’s, burst into tears; and Mrs. Woodburn intreated her husband to desist, saying, that Miss Drury was not responsible for the acts of her father, and did all in her power, by affectionate kindness, to make Elizabeth forget it. Mr. Woodburn’s own natural goodness of heart caused him to express his regret for having hurt her feelings, and adding that certainly Elizabeth must as much regret it as he did. But there was a poisoned arrow fixed into her sensitive heart, which nothing could effectually extract. She had begged and entreated that the but thinly scattered trees on the farm might be spared, but in vain. She witnessed their fall with grief, which she could not conceal, and had thus incurred a considerable degree of anger from her father. She had heard the mortifying remarks of the Heritages and other friends; but the ground of painful feeling and of comment which it had laid in the mind of all the Woodburns, and especially of Mr. Woodburn, was a source of real unhappiness. She felt afraid to go to the Grange when Mr. Woodburn was in the house, and when she did meet him there, or elsewhere, she thought he looked coldly on her. She was conscious that her very presence brought to his mind this piece of Vandalism—the blot on the face of the country, as he termed it. She heard of his by no means measured remarks upon it amongst his neighbours; for though a quiet and courteous man, he was strong in his feelings.
George never alluded to the subject in her company, and never omitted one of his usual visits to the farm. He even sat and heard Mr. Drury’s conversation on the subject, for nothing could prevent him continually introducing it, and remained passive, and making but now and then an incidental reply, endeavouring to divert the discussion to something more agreeable to the ladies. But nothing could turn Mr. Trant Drury long. He would say, “Well, I find my plans don’t meet with the approbation of my neighbours, eh? They would like all to live in a wood, and pay rent, where they do pay rent, for growing their landlord’s timber. Ah! they shall see in a while! They shall see by my rick-yards how the matter stands.”
To George, as to Elizabeth, this was a bitter drop which had fallen into their cup. They saw that a strong antagonism would assuredly grow up betwixt their fathers. All their ideas of rural economy were so totally and irreconcileably opposed. Bitterly did Elizabeth deplore their ever coming into such close and permanent contact; bitterly did she repent having proposed their removal hither. By her marriage with George, she would have come amongst her friends here without one painful circumstance. But the change was made, and these two faithful hearts resolved that no family dissension which might arise should break or weaken the sacred tie of their own souls. They endeavoured, each of them, so to arrange their visits to each other’s house, as to come as little in the way of each other’s father as possible, without seeming to make an actual coldness or breach. But this was a most difficult plan of operations to manage. If Mr. Drury did not see George for several days, he would say—
“Well, George Woodburn seems to avoid us. He is like his father, I suppose. He takes part with him, and can’t forgive this ridding my farm of its lumber and rubbish.”
“No, dear father,” Elizabeth would say, “George does not concern himself about it; but he is very busy—and I wish, however, you would not mention the subject so often to him. It looks as though you wished to remind him of his father’s vexation. Oh, do, dear father, let the matter be a tabooed subject. There is plenty to talk of besides.”
“Plenty to talk of!—to be sure there is. But I have no notion of people having such thin skins, such tender ears, that they can’t bear to hear of a tree falling or of a hedge being lopped. And I am sure I very seldom refer to the thing.”
“Only every time that George Woodburn is here, dear father. Though he does not trouble himself about it, it must become tiresome to him.”
“So he finds my company tiresome, does he, eh? A nice young man! Perhaps he’ll find yours tiresome soon, Elizabeth, if he be so difficult to please. So that’s the way the wind blows, eh? Um—um!”—or rather an indescribable noise made with his mouth shut and through his nose.
At Woodburn Grange, Mr. Woodburn would say—
“Have you seen Miss Drury lately?”
“Yes; she was here this morning.”
“Oh, she was! She takes care that I don’t see her. I suppose she’s not pleased with me because I don’t like the devastations of that father of hers. I suppose she takes up the cudgels for him. Well, I am sorry for it—I am sorry indeed that such a sweet, good creature has such a father. As for poor Mrs. Drury, she does not seem to have a soul of her own. She is just like a scared automaton, if an automaton could be scared. She must have had a pretty life of it with such a man.”
If George were in, he would quietly get up and go out, and then Mrs. Woodburn, or Ann, if at home, would say, “Pray don’t make such remarks, dear father—or husband—don’t you see how painful they are to George; and as for Elizabeth Drury, she loves and honours you most sincerely. Oh, what a misfortune that ever they came so near us!”
In the meantime, Mr. Trant Drury went on his way in his own way, which was of unwavering, confident comfortableness in his assurance that all which he thought and did was right. To him all adverse criticism was ignorance, all opposition envy. He lamented the benighted condition of his bucolic neighbours, and was certain that he should show them all their deficiencies. Mr. Drury had, in the north, been a high authority, and he soon let it be known that it was the same Mr. Trant Drury, whose letters in the “Farmers’ Journal,” and in the York and Doncaster newspapers, on all agricultural topics were so well known. “Eh! so this is the great Mr. Drury of Yorkshire,” said Sir Roger Rockville, and Sir Benjamin Bullockshed, and Squire Swagsides, “that we have got among us: that is very fortunate.” Mr. Drury soon took the opportunity to make the public aware of this great fact still further, by some letters in the Castleborough papers, containing remarks on the improvements which might obviously be introduced into that part of the country. He was very soon consulted by landowners on the nature of such improvements, which they hoped would lead to an augmentation of rents. Mr. Drury soon became much in request for valuations of stock and crops in cases of farms passing from one tenant to another, in matters of drainage and manures, and treatment of woods,—and in all these departments he was really extremely skilful. He attended public meetings in different counties of an agricultural character, and made speeches which went through the newspapers far and wide.
It was soon made known by himself that he had been consulted by Sir Roger Rockville, Sir Benjamin Bullockshed, Sir Timothy Sheepshanks, Lord Rancliffe, the Earl Manvers, and others, on the condition of their estates. Not one of them, however, we are well informed, could be brought to listen to cropping all their fences close, and knocking down all their hedge-row trees, except Sir Benjamin Bullockshed, and one or two of his neighbours. In the rest, Mr. Drury said, the old feudal notions of things were too strongly rooted to allow of their ridding their lands of any trees. Mr. Woodburn, when he heard that Mr. Drury had actually become the steward of Sir Benjamin Bullockshed, and was going to display his science on his farms, blessed his stars that that estate lay at some distance, and that the odious disfigurement and stripping bare of nature would not often offend his eyes.
In the meantime, Mr. Drury, in the late autumn, had certainly a fine rick-yard and cattle-yard to show. His sheep were in fine condition, and he had an ample supply of turnips and mangel wurzel for winter feed. He had also sown several acres of carrots for his horses and cattle, then a matter of wonder and curiosity to his neighbours, as applied to that purpose, having before been thought of only for culinary use. With the working-men, the labourers of the neighbourhood, Mr. Drury was by no means in favour. He had brought with him a great variety of machinery, thrashing and winnowing machines, tedding and raking machines, which at that day, when such machinery was little known, were looked upon as all intended to supersede manual labour. They were beheld with an evil eye, and the indignant labourers were heard to wish that the earth would open and swallow up these godless and man-starving inventions. Besides this, Mr. Drury kept a very sharp eye on every man who worked for him. He had a bailiff, or headman, who timed all the men as they arrived in the morning, and noted the exact minute down, and a half, or even a quarter of an hour, on any day was deducted at the end of the week. He was always riding about on that tall roan horse of his, and so continually at their heels, or ready to drop upon them at any minute. They nick-named him Drury the Fire-eater, and wondered what they had done that the devil had sent him into their country.
The following spring a circumstance occurred which pre-eminently delighted not only the labourers, but the farmers around, and in no small degree Mr. Woodburn himself. Mr. Drury had written so much on the necessity of cleaning, dressing your fields, of extirpating to the utmost every species of couch-grass and weed, and that your growing crops should be as free from them as your gardens; he had made so many cutting remarks on the slovenliness of some of the neighbouring farms, and characterised the style of cultivation thereabout as lax, that it was with singular pleasure and merriment that they observed several of his corn crops, and one six-acre field in particular, as thickly mixed with docks as if the seed had purposely been sown half-and-half. There was a going and riding from all quarters to witness this wonderful sight. It was the talk at market, and Mr. Drury was accosted with much country wit on the occasion. “Is that,” asked farmers, “a part of your new plans, Mister Drury? Are these a new sort of carrots of yourn?” Carrots being just introduced by Mr. Drury, this was received with much laughter. Mr. Drury replied angrily, and in the words of Scripture, “An enemy hath done this.”
But who was this enemy! It was certain that Mr. Drury had his enemies in abundance amongst the labourers; but these men were too regularly engaged in hard work to collect such a quantity of dock seed, and to sow it so completely. There was a touch of ingenuity in it, too, which seemed beyond their habitual dulness. The suspicion turned in another direction.
In the autumn, on proceeding to get his potatoes, it was discovered by the men that the rows had been extensively plundered, by the potatoes being extracted from the sides of the rows, the tops being left standing, and the earth at the sides carefully put back and trampled hard. There was ingenuity there, too.
Mr. Drury not only set a man to watch at night, but he watched with him, and they soon captured, in the fact, a sort of half-witted, wandering vagabond fellow of Castleborough, named Ned King. This Ned King, a thin shangling fellow, dirty and ragged, and seldom without a pipe in his mouth, was reckoned only half-witted, but, at the same time, he had a cunning about him of no ordinary calibre. He was accustomed to ramble the streets, and early in the morning turn over with his feet or his hands, as carefully as a hen scratching in the chaff at a barn-door, the dust and scraps of paper swept out of the shops. It was said that he had occasionally recovered thus one-pound and even five-pound notes. It was certain that one day, in a main street, he was seen to stoop down and pick up a half-guinea in gold. A person close behind said, “That is mine!” “Oh!” said Ned, keeping the piece in his closed hand, “is yours a straight or a crooked one?” The man immediately imagined that it must be a crooked one, or so stupid a fellow would not have thought of it. “A crooked one, to-be sure,” said the man. “Then it is not yours,” added King, opening his hand, “for this is straight;” and the claimant disappeared amid the jeers of the people.
Ned being caught, begged hard to be let go, saying, he would make Mr. Drury amends; but such was not Mr. Drury’s creed. He was for the most summary punishment of all such depredators, and King was carried before the magistrates, and thence to the House of Correction for three months. The extraordinary crop of docks on Mr. Drury’s farm was no sooner talked of, than many people recollected seeing King here and there all round the country collecting, as he said, bird-seeds of different sorts; but they noticed him particularly gathering dock-seeds, which he said were for birds, but which nobody had ever known collected for such a purpose. It was shown by some of King’s neighbours that he had whole sack-bags of such seeds in his possession during the winter. But his having collected such seeds, and his having whole bags of them, did not prove that he had sown Mr. Drury’s corn-fields with them. There was no moral doubt whatever that he had done it; but it had been done so adroitly, that no one had ever seen him about Mr. Drury’s farm at night. He must have done it in midnights when every soul was fast asleep.
Mr. Drury had him up before the magistrates; and brought plenty of evidence of his having collected dock-seed for six or seven miles round, and of his having sacks full of it; but when the magistrates called on him to show how he had disposed of it, Ned grinned, and said, “How was he to know? He was always selling seeds and yarbs (herbs) to all sorts of people, and he did not know their names.” The old proverb of any fool taking a horse to water, and not all England being able to make him drink, was verified in Ned’s case. Nobody could convict him, and he was too shrewd to convict himself. The magistrates were compelled to dismiss him with a threat, and everybody said Mr. Drury had better have let Ned alone, he would do him some other ill-turn. And this soon appeared to be the case, for Mr. Drury’s field-gates were continually found wide open in a morning, and cattle and sheep let in or let out, and the greatest damage done. Sheep and cattle were found eating up and treading down the corn crops, and his horses were gone off, and were discovered in some neighbouring parish.
In this case the able and acute Mr. Trant Drury had found his match in the half-witted Ned King, the fool of Castleborough, much to the delectation of farmers and labourers all round Woodburn.