The dinner hour now approached, and a chaise drove up to the door; containing the two Miss Halcombs, accompanied by their brother, on horseback. My father having introduced them to me, Mr. Halcomb made an apology for the absence of his father who was ill, and presented a letter, which had been sent to him by the coach from Botham, directed for my father. The latter having opened and read it, he looked very grave and disconcerted, and said, addressing himself to the young lady, "I am very sorry to inform you, Madam, that I find by this letter, which I have received from Mr. Botham, that we shall be deprived of the pleasure of his company, in consequence, as he informs me, of his unexpectedly having a large party from town, who have ordered a dinner, which totally precludes the possibility of his leaving home." This caused a slight blush upon the cheek of Miss Halcomb, who very modestly replied, "that she was sorry my father was deprived of the company of his friend; but," looking round to me and my sister, she added with a smile, "we will endeavour to bear the loss with fortitude, and spend the day as pleasantly as we can without him." It might have been very natural for me to feel an inward pleasure at the absence of one whom I had expected to meet as a rival; but to tell the truth, I felt very differently, for I at once set him down as an opponent not worth contending with, and I could not help despising him for his want of gallantry. I had also eagerly watched the countenance of the lady, to endeavour, if possible, to collect whether this Mr. Botham had made any impression upon her heart or not; and from the apathy which it manifested, I felt very little fear on his account. My father was sadly mortified at the circumstance; both at the absence of his old friend Halcomb, and his new acquaintance Botham. However, we spent a very pleasant day, and, as I had already made up my mind to be, I was over head and ears in love with the lady. My attentions, in fact, were so pointed and unreserved, that I saw that my father began to repent that he had ever had any thing to do with match making.
I found Miss Halcomb not only to possess all the good qualities that my father had ever described, but in my estimation she possessed ten thousand times more charms than my fervid imagination previously formed. My attentions were received with that politeness which was becoming an amiable, a virtuous and an accomplished female, on the first interview with a young man, to whom she had never given one thought before; but it was very flattering to me to find that those attentions were not considered obtrusive or disagreeable. I perceived that my father sat upon thorns, and that he was very much pleased to find that the young ladies declined the invitation of my sister to remain all night, although I added my intreaties to those of my sister, and this too in so earnest a manner, that my father could not refrain from saying that he should be very happy if the young ladies would remain all night with his daughter, but really he was fearful that my homely way of pressing them to stay would be considered as being very rude. Notwithstanding they had made up their minds to go, yet I could see that they were not offended at the homely way (as my father called it) in which I enforced my suit. I enlarged upon the darkness of the evening, the badness of the roads, and a thousand other obstacles which I presented to their view; but when I found that all was in vain; I seized an occasion to withdraw, while they were at tea, and taking off one of the wheels of the chaise I conveyed it unobserved into the rick yard, where I secreted it under some straw. I then returned and took my leave, saying that I had an appointment to meet some friends at a neighbouring fair, which was actually the case. Then, mounting my horse, off I rode. It happened as I had anticipated. When the horses were brought out to be put to the chaise, the boy was astonished to find that one of the hind-wheels was gone; and as it was a physical impossibility for any one to find it that night, the young ladies were obliged to accept my sister's offer, in which my father now sincerely joined, since he found that I had left home: though he did not hesitate to pronounce me to be the culprit who had, in one of my ridiculous frolics, stolen the wheel off the chaise. Upon my return, I was charged with the act, which I freely confessed, assigning as an excuse, my fears for the safety of the young females, travelling such bad roads in such a dark night.
Within a very few days after this event, I gained Miss Halcomb's consent to ask her father's permission to pay my addresses in form; and within a week from that time, I demanded her hand in marriage. The old gentleman, however, very properly replied, that, although he had no objection to me as a son-in-law, he could not give his consent to any such hasty measure, till he had seen my father, to know if it met with his approbation. I frankly told him that he might save himself the trouble and mortification of applying to my father, who, as soon as I mentioned my attachment to Miss Halcomb, and that I had offered her my hand and heart, (which at the same time I informed him she had kindly accepted,) had thrown himself into a violent passion, and swore, that unless I gave up my prize, and abandoned all further intentions of marrying an innkeeper's daughter, he would disinherit me, and cut me off with a shilling. This was quite enough to fix my determination, and I at once told old Mr. Halcomb, that I hoped he would act a more considerate part, for, as I had gained his daughter's consent, and as I was of age, and his daughter very nearly so, all the fathers in Christendom, nor all the powers on earth, should prevent me from making her my wife. The old gentleman very clearly saw that it was of no use to endeavour to deter me from my purpose by vain vows or threats; he therefore took a more rational course; he endeavoured to win me over by persuasion; and at length, by this conciliatory conduct, and by an assurance that he would not stand personally in the way, but that he would take every means consistent with the feelings of a man of honour to soften down the rigour of my father, he prevailed upon me to give up all intention of taking any hasty or premature step, which might involve us all in very unpleasant difficulties. This was a course which was sure to succeed with me, and I promised him that I would do nothing without his knowledge. Now, I am convinced that if Mr. Halcomb had acted in the same way that my father did, if he had forbidden me his house, and endeavoured by force to prevent my access to his daughter, such was my spirit of opposition, such an abhorrence had I of being driven into or out of any measure, such an innate hatred had I of every thing like tyrannical force, that I am quite sure if he had so acted, I having got the lady's consent, I am quite sure I should have run away with her in a week, in spite of all that could have been done to prevent me. If my father, on the contrary, had taken a similar course with Mr. Halcomb, if he had kindly advised me, and endeavoured to prevail upon the by mild and gentle means, I do not say that he would, or that he ought, to, have succeeded in making me give up the lady, but I am quite clear that he would have had a much better chance of success. Nay, if he had appeared careless, and left me to myself, I was at that time of such a volatile disposition, that such a hasty attachment might possibly have been weakened, or it might have worn off by time; but the very course which he took, irrevocably fixed my fate as to marriage. I was of age, and I had always made up my mind that I was, and ought to be, my own master upon this subject. I am still of the same opinion; I still hold that parents have no right to make their children miserable by any arbitrary dictation upon a question of such vital importance as that of whom they shall marry. Parents have an undoubted right, nay it is an imperious duty which they owe to their children, to direct their choice with respect to suitable connections, and they have a right to interpose the authority of their advice and recommendation to their children. But the law of God and of man says[14], that the parties about to be united ought to exercise their own free choice. The law says that no person shall marry who is under age, without the consent of his or her parents; and the law has very justly drawn this line. The law, therefore, very properly contemplates that no parent shall have the absolute controul over the person of a child in this matter after that child has come of age.
I have, probably, detained the reader much longer upon this subject than is either entertaining or edifying, but as this occurrence paved the way for that important part of my history, my marriage, I feel it a duty which I owe to myself, and to those who do me the honour to read these Memoirs, and more particularly to the Radicals, to be more explicit than I otherwise should be, if the venal press, and particularly the profligate Editors and Proprietors of that press, in order to gratify their political employers and partisans, had not, upon so many occasions, and with such brutal and savage coarseness, when they could neither answer my arguments nor contradict the truths that I promulgated, sought to cover their defeat and their infamy by accusing me of having deserted my wife, and left her to starve. Fearless of the consequences, I shall, therefore, as I go along, place the circumstances fairly and honestly before the public, and leave them to draw their own conclusions, as to the correctness, not to say any thing of the honesty, of the base assertions which are made by the toots of my political adversaries. At this moment, however, I will merely state briefly this fact, that, in the year 1802, more than eighteen years ago, I was separated from my wife by mutual consent. We had three children; two sons and a daughter. It was agreed that the daughter should live with the mother, and the sons with me; but that both mother and father should have free access to each of the children, and the children the same access to the parents; and as I made a most liberal settlement upon my wife, (the particulars of which I shall not withhold,) there has been no complaint uttered by either party; no living creature ever having heard me make even the slightest insinuation against my wife, or ever cast the most remote reflection upon her character or conduct; neither has it ever come to the knowledge of myself or any of my friends that my wife has spoken one disrespectful word against me. As we have both always lamented, as a misfortune, the circumstances which led to our separation, so we both have carefully abstained from heightening and adding to the poignancy of that misfortune, by mutual accusations, revilings, and recriminations, which would have been as base as they would have been proved to he unfounded. If, on the contrary, I had deserted my wife, after having, when I was first married, surrounded her by prostitutes and courtezans; if I had been intriguing with every loose and abandoned female that came within the precincts of a profligate circle; if, after having driven her from my home, friendless and unprovided for; if, after having personally insulted her, I had hired spies and informers to traduce her character; if I had employed and paid the most abandoned characters, and had suborned them to swear away her life and her honour; if, when this plot had been detected and exposed, and her innocence had been proved by the very means that I had employed to blast her reputation and to destroy her; if I had still, in the most unfeeling and unnatural manner, separated her from, and cut off all communication with, her child, under the hollow and false pretence that she was not a proper person to be entrusted with the care of her own daughter; if, I say, I had driven her out of the country, and, having done this, if I had hired another gang of base villains, not only to dog and watch her steps, but to seduce and bribe her servants to betray her; if I had rewarded these villains, even with my own money, to fabricate and propagate all sorts of calumnies against her abroad, while their infamous agents at home were reiterating and magnifying those falsehoods; if I had bribed the dastardly hireling press to libel and villify her; if in fact, I had carried my persecutions and deadly hatred so far as at last to break the heart of her daughter; if, upon her return, I had made another atrocious attempt to destroy her by means of hired, bribed and suborned foreign witnesses; if I had done these things, or any of them, I should have been an execrable and detestable villain, and I should have merited the scorn of every man and woman in the universe: but, even then, even if I had been guilty of all these horrible and unnatural deeds, it would, even under these abhorrent circumstances, have been base in the extreme in the doubled-faced, black-hearted villains of the Courier, the dull Post and the mock Times to attack me in the way they have repeatedly done about my wife; because there are not three such abandoned profligate unprincipled monsters under the canopy of heaven. Even the virtuous Mr. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, has, when an occasion offered, endeavoured to varnish over his own character by attacking me about my wife. But, when I remind Mr. Perry that his wife, or at least the person he called one of his wives, was a Miss HULL, a butcher's daughter of the above-named town of Devizes, and that I know that those "who have glass heads, should be very careful how they throw stones;" I trust he will be more guarded in future.
I now request my readers to accept my apology for this long digression, and, without further comment, I will resume the thread of my narrative. I have now introduced the reader to Miss Halcomb, who was destined to be my wife; and I also have before said that I event to send a Sunday with her at Heytesbury, a distance of nearly thirty miles from my father's house. The reader will recollect, too, that I had engaged with my father's mowers to meet them at four o'clock on the Monday, morning upwards of three miles from home, in order to attack a field of oats, of seventeen acres and a half, a very heavy crop, to see if we, (five in number,) could not cut them down the same day. The time, however, passed so delightfully and so rapidly in the society of an amiable and lovely female, to whom I was betrothed, that the clock had unobserved by me struck twelve more than half an hour; and, before I could muster up resolution enough to tear myself from the clear object of all my hopes, the respectable family, with whom my intended wife was visiting, had given me more than one hint of its being past their usual time of retiring to rest. However, upon another hint being given by the prudent matron of the family, I took my leave, and having mounted my faithful steed I bent my course over the downs, twenty miles across Salisbury Plain. As I quitted the village, or rather the rotten borough, of Heytesbury, the church clock struck one; Which for the first time recalled to my recollection the promise I had made, as well as my resolution to perform an uncommon day's mowing, which was to commence at twenty-three miles distance at four o'clock.
With a heart as light as a feather, I reached home at three o'clock, when my father's servant informed me that the mowers had been gone forward nearly half an hour, and that they had left the bottles to be filled and carried to the field by me. Finding that I was rather behind my time, I merely then pulled off my coat and waistcoat, and put on my frock. I did not wait to take off either my tight leather breeches, (which were the fashion at that time,) or my boots; but as soon as the servant had filled the bottles with ale, I mounted a poney, and reached the field of oats, just as the other four men were stripped and whetting their scythes in order to begin; a thing which they had never before had an opportunity of doing, throughout the whole harvest, as the first stroke was uniformly struck by myself. They waited while I threw off my frock and took off my spurs, and having unbuttoned the knees of my breeches, we set to; and in ten minutes after the sun had sunk below the horizon, the last swarth was laid flat, and not an oat left standing; a day's work which stands unrivalled in that country, and which is the more uncommon, as, in fact, there were only four scythes at work during the greater part of the day; for, it being excessively hot, one of the men, the worst mower of course, was principally employed in riding to and from the Inn at Everly, to replenish the bottles. This was indispensible, every man being allowed as much ale as he could drink, with the exception of the two last bottles, containing three quarts each, which I was obliged to prohibit from being tapped till the oats were all down, as some of my partners by this time began to discover evident symptoms of inebriety. As we finished the last stroke, a very severe flash of lightning announced the approach of a storm, which had been gathering for several hours. I advised the men to hasten home, but they declared, now that the mowing was finished, they would finish the bottles before they left the field, and they kept their words. I hurried home as fast as my pony could gallop, and got in doors just in time to escape one of the most tremendous thunder-storms I ever witnessed; my four companions got jollily drunk, and slept upon the open down, drenched in rain all night; and although I met two of them returning home, the next morning at four o'clock, in a most wretched state, yet such was their hardy nature that neither of them took the least cold.
I have detailed this day's work as the last perhaps of the sort with which I shall trouble the reader. It was, as I have already intimated, such a day's work as had never been accomplished by five mowers before, or has been since, in that part of the world; and it will be recollected that I performed my share with out having had any sleep or rest. But to me, at that time, I never appeared to want any rest—I frequently worked till ten o'clock, and after taking my supper, and conversing with my father, arranging the proceedings for the next morning, I was very often not in bed till after eleven; yet I was very commonly up and dressed again by half past 3, and never in the summer time was in bed after four. It is a very extraordinary fact, that those who labour hard in the fields all day require the least sleep; at all events the smallest quantity of time in bed; for when they get thither, they enjoy and receive as much real sleep, they receive as much real refreshment in four hours, as the indolent, the idle, or the sedentary do in double the time. When the mind is active and well employed I now find it has the same effect upon me as laborious bodily exercise, for I sleep as sound as a rock here, and when my mind is fully occupied, and kept upon a proper stretch during the day, six or seven hours rest in bed is quite ample; but when my mind is less employed, or occupied by light reading, and not exerted in its usual way, then I require more rest in bed, and I can sleep eight or even nine hours. It is, however, very seldom indeed that I give way to such negligence and sluggishness. I go to rest usually between eleven and twelve, and I am always up before seven. I was always instructed by my father to consider indolence as one of the greatest faults; it was, in fact, a sin of the first magnitude in his vocabulary.—Indolence, he always said was the harbinger of every vice, of every evil. And the Songs of Solomon and his Proverbs were on every occasion ready to support his opinion. He would say to the sluggard, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise." He would forgive many a fault in a servant, but at habitual lyer in bed, he would get rid of immediately, unless he could break him of the bad habit.
My father for some time was very positive, and very determined to prevent me from marrying an Innkeeper's daughter; and at length I undertook to reason with him upon the subject. I demanded if he knew any thing in the slightest degree affecting the character of the young lady? His answer was "No; quite the reverse." I asked if he had not, at all times, and perpetually, spoken in the highest terms of her conduct, and whether he had not, in my hearing, held her up as a pattern of propriety, and an example to my sisters? All this he admitted to be true: but she had no fortune, and he had expected me to marry a lady of fortune and family; at the same time he pointed out several, whom he should have been pleased to acknowledge as his daughter-in-law. I then demanded, whether, if she were, fit to be held up by him as a pattern for his daughters, she were likely to degrade his son as his wife? But, then, she had no fortune, and she was an Innkeeper's daughter. I begged then to know if he had any thing to urge against her father? No, indeed, he was a truly honourable and upright man. Then I would reply, "how often, Sir, have I been taught by you, in the language of your favourite author Pope, to look upon "an honest man as the noblest work of God."[">[ This would make him fly off, and, although he would admit this to be very true, yet he would not give his consent.
At length, having found that I persevered in my visits to the young lady, and having ascertained from my sister that I was preparing for the wedding, he addressed me as follows, one evening when we were alone:—"So, I find from your sister, that you are determined, in spite of my remonstrances, to marry Miss Halcomb? It is very true that, as you are of age, I cannot prevent your union with that young lady; the law empowers you to make your own choice; but, recollect the law does not compel me to. If you had selected Miss —— or Miss ——," naming several young ladies of fortune, "I would have come down handsomely, and you might have lived like a gentleman; and if you had chosen to be a farmer, you might have occupied your own estate; but if you 'make a hard bed you must lie upon it.' Although this is a vulgar saying, yet it is a very just one; and you may rely upon it that it applies to your case most pointedly." I began to be impatient, and replied warmly, that I had to thank God for a sound body and an ardent mind, and I also had to thank him, any father, for the best of instruction and example; and that he had given me a proof, by his own industry and perseverance, that a man might not only be happy, but that he might also acquire wealth, without having much capital to begin with; and that I was not in the least afraid of the effects of lying upon a hard-bed by night, so that I had peace and comfort by day.—"Ah, my dear son," said he, "it is very true that I have devoted my life to business, and by incessant application and industry have acquired a considerable fortune;" and with tears in his eyes, he added "alas! you are now going, by one false step, to blast my fondest hopes: by this match you are going, in one hour, to beat down and destroy all the bright prospects, all my plans for promoting your future well-being and consequence in life! Do you believe, can you for a moment be so silly as to imagine, that I have toiled from morning till night, that I have laboured with such incessant assiduity, scarcely giving myself time to enjoy even my meals; and do you think that I have been so anxious, merely to get money, merely to acquire riches? Believe me, my dear son, I have never been led away by any such grovelling notions; I have had higher and more noble objects in view. In fact, and in truth, my great, my sole aim has always been to make you a man of consequence in the county; and although I know that riches alone will neither make a man happy nor respected, yet without wealth I know not how a man in this country can acquire any celebrity in it. With wealth, if a man have but a common share of understanding, he is at once pronounced a wise man, and he is looked up to as a prodigy; when his own native talent alone would not more than fit him for a menial office. Look for instance at our neighbours; there is. Mr. Astley of Everly, who is surrounded by every comfort; he has at his command not only horses, servants, and carriages, but he has a numerous body of tenantry, who submit to be his mere vassals, and will do any act, however dirty or mean, at his nod. He is your commander of the troop of Yeomanry; he keeps hounds; and has many manors well stocked with game; and he is a Magistrate of the county, and ignorant as he is, yet he dispenses the laws, or rather issues his arbitrary mandates to the whole surrounding neighbourhood. In fact, he possesses great power, and all his power is derived from his wealth alone. Let me ask you, who know him well, what would he be without his wealth? Strip him of his estates and his riches, what would he be fit for? I wait," said he firmly, "for your honest reply."—The question was put so home and so unexpected, and when I turned my thoughts towards our gallant captain, without wealth and power, he presented to my imagination such a forlorn, helpless, wretched being—that I actually burst out a laughing. "Really," said my father, "I am not in a laughing mood; but tell me, seriously, if you know of any situation in life in which, either on the score of his talent, his knowledge, or his ability of any kind, he would be capable of keeping his wife and family from starving? Tell me honestly whether, if he were left to provide for himself, you do not think he would be upon the parish books in a fortnight?"
I answered that, in my opinion, no one who knew the captain would, for a moment, dispute the correctness of the conclusion which he had drawn; but, I added, "I hope, Sir, that you do not compare me to such a man as Captain Astley; and I hope, too, that you will allow me to ask you a question in return. Do you not believe, Sir, that if I, your son, were obliged to go to day-labour to-morrow, I could earn sufficient to support, not only myself, but also a wife and family, by that sort of industry and zealous application which I have always shewn in your business?" The reply was, "I know you are able and willing to do as much as any man; but, do you consider that I have given you an education which cost me upwards of five hundred pounds, and have you spent ten years and a half of your life at the best schools, under the best masters whom I could procure you, only to enable you to earn twenty or thirty shillings a week as a day-labourer; have you, no higher ambition than that?"