Henry made no reply, but the tears fell over his cheeks. Mr. Hayley pressed him to his heart; it was a selfish one, but still gratitude did mingle with rejoicing for his own safety. In five minutes more he was in the coach, with another portmanteau which had been prepared for him the night before by his father, bearing marked upon it, "Henry Calvert, Esq. passenger by 'City of Antwerp.'" On looking at the passport he found the same name therein, and saw (for that Mr. Hayley had forgotten to explain) that he was to take that name during his flight.
In about three-quarters of an hour he stood upon the deck of the vessel, and in ten minutes after his embarkation she was going quickly down the river.
The same morning, on the arrival of the Newcastle mail, two officers in plain clothes had walked up to the side, and examined every passenger both inside and outside. There were in all three men and two women; but neither of the men bore the least resemblance to Henry Hayley, and the officers turned their attention to the coach-offices. The Caermarthen mail escaped unexplored.
An examination into the affair took place that day at Bow Street; but it was proved that Henry had, unknown to Mr. Hayley, frequented the counting-house of Mr. Scriven for more than a fortnight; that he was anxious to conceal his doing so from his father; that, on the very morning of his departure for Northumberland, he had written to Mr. Scriven to say he should come no more; that at four o'clock that day he had obtained money upon the forged bill, and then gone, no one rightly knew whither, further than that his journey was towards Northumberland; for Mr. Hayley took care to give no explanations on that head.
A thousand little circumstances of no real value, such as some small bills at Eton left unpaid, tended to make up a mass of evidence against him; and thus the guilty escaped--if not without doubts, yet without any charge against him--while the whole weight of suspicion fell upon the innocent boy, who was sailing away over the sea to Rotterdam.
CHAPTER V.
The curious state of society in which we exist, and the complex causes and effects which it comprises--the fictitious, the factitious, the unreal, the unnatural relations which it establishes between man and man--are always producing unexpected results and events which no one can rightly account for, because no one can trace all the fine lines which connect one piece of the complicated machinery with another. It must have often struck every thinker who gathers up the passing events, and marks the impression which they produce upon the world at large, that matters, often of great moment, will excite little or no attention--will be slurred over in newspapers, pass without comment in society, be hardly heard of beyond the narrowest possible circle round the point at which they take place--while mere trifles will set Rumour's thousand tongues a-going, men and women will interest themselves with eager anxiety about things that do not affect them in the least, and half the world will be on fire as to whether a feather was blown to the right or the left. The basest political scheme that ever was practised for depriving a queen of hope, happiness, and power, and a great country of its independence, will excite far less attention and curiosity than the disappointment of one priest's ambition and the compensation of another priest's unmerited persecution.
When first my attention was directed to this subject, I said, "A cannon fired in an open country cannot by any chance produce such terrible results as a spark in a powder-mill. It is not the event itself that is important, but the things with which it is connected that make it so." But I soon became convinced that this explanation, though specious, was not true--at least, that there was something more; that whenever anything made a great noise, it must connect itself by some of the many hooks and pulleys of society with some of the loud tongues in high places. By high places I do not mean elevated stations, but positions in which men can make themselves heard: some newspaper scribe--one of the things in parliament assembled--a popular preacher--a mob-orator--is either interested in the matter directly or indirectly, immediately or remotely, or else has nothing else to do and wants a hobby, and the whole affair is made the talk of the town.
In short, it were endless to search out, arrange, and classify the infinite variety of causes which may render any event notorious, or consign it to speedy oblivion, though it may rend the hearts, ruin the fortunes, desolate the prospects, and destroy the peace of all within a certain little circle.
The forgery upon Mr. Scriven made little or no noise in the great world. The first investigation at Bow Street was fully reported in one or two of the morning newspapers. Some others, which had no reporters of their own, abridged it from their "esteemed contemporaries." Others declared there were no matters of public interest at Bow Street that day, because they had not room to report more than the donations of five-pound notes to the poor-box, the receipt of which had been requested to be acknowledged.