The carrier was just cracking his whip to proceed after a halt, when the brother and sister made their appearance at the end of the lane. Ellen cast one glance back upon the familiar spire and hedgerows and cottage roofs, and summoned up one bright smile and a few more words for Frank.
“’Tis not as if you were to stay behind, Frank.”
“To be sure not! Leave every thing to me dear, and be steady and easy, that’s all; and don’t talk of Bob and Jerry, for your own sake.—All right, carrier?—Well then, good bye!”
And high on the hedge stood Frank, gazing long after he had ceased to distinguish the bright face looking out at the back of the cart. Not till the vehicle had disappeared behind the hill did he descend to the stubble-field below, and pick up straws, and cut hazel switches like a truant boy, muttering to himself “In three days we shall be off.”
The second departure was more public and more painful. The two old folks would come out at the last moment; and their distress moved the gazers to an outcry against the cruelty of deserting them, and the unnatural behaviour of leaving one’s country and kindred. A giddy young couple thanked the Castles for vacating their cottage just when others were wanting one; and of the rest, some who were disappointed of going looked on in silent envy, and others were loud in their reports of the dangers of the sea, and the horrors of savage life. Frank had seated his charge in the waggon and walked on, intending to be overtaken out of hearing of these busy tongues. He looked back from the first corner, and seeing that there was great confusion, returned. Castle was motioning away the parish officers and Mr. Jackson, and doggedly refusing to go after all. His wife was laughing, and little Susan crying.
“You must please yourself, father,” said he firmly. “If you put yourself out of the way of being helped by your own children, God help you! I must go, and that this moment.”
“Come along!” cried the wife. “We may as well get out of reach of these plaguy officers, with their talk of our debt to them. Let’s be off, and then they may get their money as they can. We shall never drive our carriage here, as they say my boys may do at Botany Bay. Come along!”
Frank would allow of no force, His father should choose for himself. So said Mr. Jackson.
While he was choosing, a ready pauper jumped into his place, and the waggon drove off. Before it had gone two hundred yards, there was a cry to the driver to stop, the new candidate was turned out grumbling, and Castle scrambled in. Twenty times during the journey to London, he asked how he and his were to pay the seventy pounds required to send them out; and as often his wife bade him not mind whether it was paid or not; and Frank assured him that he should not be burdened with debt, if his children lived and prospered. Tears came at last to the unhappy man’s relief. As he passed villages and farmsteads where healthy and cheerful faces looked up at the waggon as it went by;—as he heard the saw grinding in the saw-pit, and the hammering at the forge, he wept at being reminded of his younger and more prosperous days, and at the thought that while so many were busy and happy in their occupations, there was no room for him,—once as hearty in his toil, and now as willing to work as any of them. Frank contrived to gather what was in his thoughts, and spoke of the saw-pits and forges which are so busy in the land they were going to, and of the increased dignity and profit of such occupations in places where artificers are scarce. His own heart was ready to sink when he fancied, instead of such a busy region as that under his eye, plains and valleys with scarcely a roof visible from end to end: but every glimpse of a workhouse, every notice by the way-side about vagrants, restored his courage, and satisfied him that it was best, at all events, to be where, whatever other evils might exist, there was no pauperism.
The departure of Jerry and Bob took place in a somewhat different style. A stranger would have fancied there was high holiday in Newgate the day before they went. Parties of convicts from the country arrived, and were lodged there previous to embarkation, and the larger proportion were full of congratulations to one another on their fine prospects. This was done in bravado by some, no doubt; and a few looked downcast, and were laughed at by their companions for the shame expressed in their countenances and manners: but it was actually the belief of most that they were lucky fellows to be carried free of expense to a country where they should have little to do but get rich as fast as they liked. Two among them had been transported before, and so wonderful and tempting were the tales they had to tell, that they not only found willing listeners among criminals wherever they went, but had induced more than one of the present company to commit thefts in order to get transported and put in fortune’s way. These men, Giles and Green, held forth in all the vanity of superior experience, and in all the pride of having cheated the law; and drew an attentive audience round them while waiting for the cart which was to convey the company to the convict-ship.