The remaining portion of his confederates being now secured in two bunches of three and four respectively, the whole were marched off under a strong escort of their conquerors, to a lock-up in the village, where they remained under guard all night; two or three hours of this time being expended in a hot dispute between Jerry and David Shaw, upon the point whether Mrs. Anne Clink did, or did not, wilfully and maliciously betray them into the hands of their enemies.
That individually she was innocent, the reader is fully aware; although, in reality, she still had been the unconscious cause of all the disasters that had occurred. No sooner had she left her house on this eventful night, as described at the conclusion of a preceding chapter, than Mr. Longstaff, being conscious that he had stretched his authority too far, appointed his assistant, the constable, to steal out, and trace her footsteps wherever she might go, until he found her in a resting-place for the night; since, by this precaution, the steward would be enabled, in case of need, to find her again at any moment he might think proper. The constable discharged his commission so well, that he carried back a great deal more than he went for; and not only reported the lodging which Mistress Clink had taken up, but also discovered that a number of poachers, as he believed, against whom he had long held a warrant granted for offences against the game-laws, were there and then assembled in mischievous cogitation, as he had actually seen one of them emerge from a pigsty at the back of the premises. To be able to detect the unfortunate woman whom he had deprived of a home, in the very act of patronising a house of poachers upon the squire's manor, was the very thing for Mr. Longstaff. He lost no time in informing the guardians of the woods what a pretty garrison might be taken by surprise; and they, in accordance with that information, and the direction of the constable, accordingly advanced to the attack with the success which has already been related.
The injury sustained by Mrs. Mallory when knocked down on the staircase was not very material; nor did she feel it half so much as the additional one inflicted on her by the magistrates, when she was, some short time after, called up and fined ten pounds for the share she had taken in this little business. Longstaff struggled hard to involve Mrs. Clink in the same difficulty, on the plea that she had aided and abetted Mrs. Mallory either in having game in her possession, or in eating it. He failed, however, to make out a case; and as the squire entirely disapproved of the step he had taken in breaking up Mrs. Clink's house, the steward had the additional mortification of hearing himself commanded not only to reinstate her therein, but also to make ample restitution for the loss and misery he had occasioned to her.
In conclusion of this chapter, and of the events recorded therein, I may briefly observe, that, early on the following morning, old Jerry Clink, and seven of his associates, were conveyed to the castle at York; and that, after soliloquizing there during some weeks, they underwent their trial. Now, if any man can escape an infringement of the game-laws, especially if accompanied by violence, he can escape anything—in the items of burglary, manslaughter, and arson, he may be considered invulnerable. They all were found guilty: and, while some of the lesser offenders were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment at home, Mr. David Shaw and Jerry Clink were accommodated with a fourteen years' residence in New South Wales. This judgment served only to sharpen the fangs of Jerry's resentment; but as revenge is a commodity which like Thorn's Tally-Ho Sauce, may be warranted to keep in all climates with equal freshness, Jerry not only carried his resentment out with him, and preserved it while abroad, but likewise brought it back again, for the purpose of making use of it after his return to his own country.
CHAPTER VII.
Though short, would yet be found, could it be measured by time, nearly fifteen years long. Colin Clink's boyhood and character. A trap is laid for him by Mr. Longstaff, into which his mother lets him fall: with other matters highly essential to be told.
HAD not the days of omens and prognostications in great part passed by at the enlightened period in which our story commences, it would inevitably have been prophesied that the child, by whose very birth the passions of jealousy and revenge had been so strongly excited, and which had gone far to cloud the mind of the lady of Kiddal House, was predestined to create no common stir when he became a man. In that little vessel, it would have been contended, was contained a large measure of latent importance; although, contrary to the most approved and authentic cases of this nature, neither mark, spot, mole, nor even pimple, was to be found upon him; no strawberry on his shoulder, no cherry on his neck, no fairy's signet on his breast, by which the Fates are sometimes so obliging as to signify to anxious mothers the future eminence of their sons, or to stamp their identity. But, in the absence of all or any of these, he was gifted with that which some people consider of almost as much importance amongst the elements of future greatness,—an amount of brain which would have rejoiced the late Dr. Spurzheim, and put sweetness into the face of Gall himself.
During the earlier years of his childhood, Master Colin did not display anything uncommon, if I except the extraordinary talent he developed in the consumption of all kinds of edible commodities, whereby, I firmly believe, he laid the foundation of that excellent figure in which he appeared after arriving at the age of manhood. Sometimes, when his mother was in a mood prospective and reflective, she would look upon him with grief, and almost wish him appetiteless; but Colin stared defiance in her face as he filled his mouth with potatoes, and drank up as much milk as would have served a fatting calf.