Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. — Volume 1

by Henry Hunt

The first opportunity I informed him of the arrangement that was made, upon hearing which he flew into a violent passion, and vowed vengeance. Nor did he fail to try the last effort, which was to endeavour to make Mr. Halcomb's pride operate, so as to prevent the match. The next market day he had a private interview with him, and did every thing in his power to accomplish his object. His opponent had the best of the argument, but he retorted his insinuations with such a degree of spirit, that, for a while, my father had hopes of success. Mr. Halcomb, however, soon crushed his hopes, by telling him that he had given me and his daughter his word, and that nothing which he had said in his anger should induce him to break it. My father when requested to see the young lady, which was readily assented to. In the course of his interview with her, he made every effort to persuade her to abandon such a "mad project," as he was pleased to term it, and she listened to, and answered, all his arguments with great modesty and forbearance. He urged the folly of such a match, and told her he was sure she would live to repent it; he warned her that such sudden and inconsiderate unions seldom if ever turned out well; he pointed out to her my hasty, enthusiastic, volatile disposition; he said that I had seen nothing of the world, and that, whatever might be her charms, when I got into the world I might see other objects that might induce me to repent of having been so hasty; he mentioned the probability of a large family of children, without the means of supporting them; in fact, he tried every thing that man could do; he begged, he prayed, and he threatened. All was in vain. The only promise that he could obtain from her was, that she would inform me of all he said, and that she would leave the decision to me.

This to him was worse than no promise at all, and he retired to the market room and took his dinner, perfectly dissatisfied with the little, or gather no progress which he had made. However, when the evening came, instead of calling for his horse to go home as usual, he sent for Halcomb, and told him that, as it was a dark evening, and he was not very well, if he would permit him, he would drink tea and spend the evening with his family, and take a bed there that night. Mr. Halcomb, who was a warm-hearted, generous, forgiving fellow, readily pardoned all the insulting language that he had heard in the morning, accepted his offer by a hearty shake of the hand, and without further ceremony introduced him into his private room to his family. Mrs. Halcomb, however, the mother-in-law of the lady, having learned what had passed in the morning, and expecting nothing less than a fresh attempt to frustrate the match, no sooner fixed her piercing eyes upon him, after he was seated, than she drew up, and without waiting for any explanation, began to resent the insult which he had offered to her profession. He, however, demanded a parley, and a truce to all hostility, as he was come to offer the olive branch; assuring her that as a match could not be avoided, he was determined to make the best of what must be endured. In the course of the evening he had a private interview with the young lady, and after extorting a solemn pledge from her that she would not inform me of it till we were married, he gave her his consent and promised to acknowledge her as his daughter-in-law. This solemn pledge to keep silence till our union was completed he made her give, because he wished to see how far I would go without his consent; and she kept her word; although the fact certainly came to my knowledge through a third person. My father took the first opportunity of telling me that, as I was determined to marry against his will, he should do but little for me, compared to what he would have done if I had married to please him. He would, he said, give me, or rather he would lend me, the stock upon Widdington farm, and I might begin to furnish my house as soon as I pleased; but I must do this out of the fortune which I was to have with my wife. There was a most excellent stock upon this farm, the rent of which was three hundred pounds a year. There were[15] fifteen or sixteen hundred of the finest Southdown sheep, the very best in the county, as this was a fine sheep farm, in fact, principally so; twelve cows; six most valuable cart horses, and all other live and dead stock complete. With this arrangement I was perfectly content, and indeed it was much better than I had any reason to expect. The farm was, in reality, a very beautiful one, with a very good house, and all necessary appendages attached to it. I now seemed to be in a fair way of obtaining the height of my ambition. This happy intelligence I lost no time in communicating to the family at Devizes, and the necessary orders [16] were given without delay. I left it all to the lady, as it was to be paid for out of her fortune. Few young men entered into life with fairer prospects in the farming line; very few farmers in the county had such a stock of all sorts; in truth, nothing was wanting.

The happy day at length arrived. It was the twelfth of January. My sister, who was to be one of the bride-maids, and my friend the clergyman of Enford, who was to marry us, [17] went over with me in a chaise. Upon retiring to rest, having undressed myself, I sat down in an easy chair, meditating upon the serious engagement into which I was to enter on the morrow. In this situation I fell fast asleep, and did not awake till three o'clock in the morning, when I had caught a dreadful cold, and was in a shivering fit, which I could not get rid of till I arose in the morning. I was excessively ill the whole of the day. We were taken to the church in a post coach, and being married we returned to breakfast, where a large party was assembled to greet us. We were engaged to dine at the Castle, at Marlborough, which Inn was kept by my wife's brother. We, the married couple, in a chaise, and two post coaches, each with four beautiful grey horses, with the rest of the party, accordingly set out to Marlborough, where we spent the day, during the whole of which I suffered great pain, being all the time extremely ill. We returned to Devizes to tea, after taking which we were to go home to Widdington. Just as we were about to start, Mr. Halcombe took me aside with his son into the next room, and holding out a canvass bag, he said, "here, my son, is all that I can afford to give you with my daughter. In this bag is a thousand pounds. I wish it were ten times as much; but, such as it is, may God grant you to enjoy it! I have no doubt but it will wear well, as it was got honestly."

This again was more than I expected, as the only time I had ever permitted him to speak about money, the old gentlemen hinted at no more than five hundred pounds; but I believe my father had said something which made him double the sum. I thanked him most heartily; not forgetting to add, that his daughter was the prize at which I had aimed, and not the money. He replied, that he should give his other daughter the same, without trenching upon what he meant to give his sons. In fact, he had at this time provided for them. However, before we parted, one of his sons, William, who was then the manager of the Bear, called me on one side, and said, that as his brother James was just going into business, if I had no particular use for the money, he should be obliged if I would lend him 500_l_. of it, upon their joint notes. I instantly complied, told out half my wife's portion, and lent it to her brother, upon his word to give me a note for it, which he did the first time that I saw him afterwards. I believe, if they had asked me for the whole thousand, I should cheerfully have parted with it to them. The five hundred pounds remained in their hands for nearly ten years, and was not withdrawn by me till several years after my separation from my wife. I mention this circumstance merely to shew how these gentlemen felt as to my separation from their sister. In fact they as well as myself considered it to be a misfortune which ought to be lamented on all sides, rather than as a reason for entertaining any vindictive feeling towards me.

We now set off in a coach towards our future residence, Widdington Farm, a distance of ten miles. The company consisted of myself, the bride, her sister and mine, who were the two bride maids, and the clergyman. I had, by this time, completely recovered from the effect of my cold; but, what was rather remarkable, before we had accomplished half our journey, we discovered that the bride had suddenly lost her voice, without feeling any pain or illness. So completely had she lost it, that she could not articulate a single syllable, otherwise than in a whisper. I was very much alarmed at first, but as she assured us it was only a cold, and that she felt not the least pain or uneasiness whatever; and as, with perfect good humour, she congratulated me on being about to take to my home "a quiet wife," the alarm gradually passed off.

Widdington Farm lies about a mile from the turnpike road, and when the carriage turned out of the high road I was obliged, as it was dark, to get on the coach box to direct the post boys; and, after considerable difficulty, we reached the house; it being a road over which a chaise probably had not passed since my father left the farm, twenty years before this period. Although every thing was prepared comfortably for our reception, yet a lone farm, in a valley upon the downs, which compose Salisbury Plain, and not a house within a mile, was quite a different thing from the cheerful scenes to which Mrs. Hunt and her sister had been accustomed. A deep silence reigned around; not a tree nor even a bush was to be seen; and, since we left the turnpike road, the carriage having passed over the turf for nearly the last mile, the well-known sound of wheels rattling over the stones had never once vibrated upon the ears of those who were so much accustomed to it; altogether, it was so very different from every thing to which the ladies had ever before been habituated, that, even after I had introduced them into the parlour, which was well lighted up, and where the hospitable board seemed almost to invite their welcome, yet I could see that Miss Halcombe looked at her sister almost in a state of despondency, as much as to say, "God of Heaven! what enchanted castle are we come to at last?" However, when we were once seated round the table, with the door closed, the solitary gloom speedily vanished, for we soon made it appear that there was as much cheerfullness to be obtained in a lone farm house as there was in one of the most public and best frequented inns upon the Bath road. Miss Halcombe, as a matter of delicacy, had always declined to see this residence before she was married, notwithstanding I had repeatedly pressed her to ride over and give orders about the arrangement of the house, and other domestic affairs. During the first fortnight that we were married, my wife never spoke one word louder than a whisper. At the end of that time her voice returned, to the great joy of myself and all her friends. The honeymoon passed with uninterrupted felicity; in fact it was a honeymoon all the year round, and we were blessed with an endearing pledge of our loves before the honeymoon appeared even in its wane. Nearly a year had now gone by in one unbroken scene of pleasure and gay delight. My wife was of a cheerful disposition, and fond of company, in which I most cordially participated, and consequently we were seldom without plenty of visitors. As soon as we were married I purchased two more horses and a gig; thus my establishment at once consisted of three horses and a gig, and when to these are added grey-hounds and pointers, &c. &c. the reader will perceive that I cut a dashing figure, whether at home, at the table, in the field, or on the road. I drove two thorough-bred mares in a tandem, with which I could and did accomplish, in a trot, fourteen miles within the hour; I was almost always the first in the chase, having become a subscriber to a pack of hounds; and my pointers were as well bred, and as well broken, as any sportsman's in the county.

I was now become that of which my father had always entertained the greatest dread; namely, a complete sportsman. Frequently when he called, I was from home, either hunting, shooting, or partaking of the social society which is the concomitant of those who delight in the sports of the field. He would ride round my farm, but there all was in the most regular order, and he could find no other fault with any thing he saw going on there than the absence of the master. Yet he was uneasy; for he well knew that the profits of Widdington Farm would not support such extravagance and revelry as he was pleased to call it. The stock, it is true, was in good order, and the crops were well cultivated, and thriving; never better. Still he was not ignorant of the expense attending a house always thronged with visitors, a stable and kennel full of horses and dogs, and the master entering with ardour into the sports of the field. He remonstrated; but I was young, thoughtless and giddy; my wife was the same. Rent-day came. Three hundred pounds was due to Mr. Wyndham for rent; my father knew I was not prepared; he was certain, from the manner in which I had lived, that[18] I could not have saved any money. Without saying one word to me on the subject, he paid the rent himself. But he did not fail again to urge the strongest remonstrances. No farm in the county was in better condition, or better looked after; the times were good; and if the farm had been my own, I could just have managed to live in a very respectable way; for no man knew better how to make the most of every thing, and very few put it into practice more rigidly than I did; yet, on the other hand, I could very well manage to spend all the gains whatever they were, and as my father paid the rent, as well as stocked the farm, it was quite as good as if it were my own. My father, however, threatened me, and remonstrated with my wife, on our keeping so much company, and being guilty of such extravagance. But she could not be induced to think that we did any thing in a more extravagant way than we were bred up to, which was very true; and, as I was full as prone to the enjoyment of society as she was, we seldom refused an invitation, and never failed to return it.

Christmas arrived, and with it, of course, the social merry-making that at this time was kept up with the greatest spirit in this part of the country; where every one gave a Christmas feast, which was attended by all the neighbours for several miles round. We were invited to the first. Some difficulty presented itself with respect to Mrs. Hunt's accepting the invitation, as our daughter was only two months old; but this impediment was soon removed. The little child was in excellent health, and the nurse, it was thought, would take great care of it in the mother's absence. This was settled as much to my satisfaction as to that of my wife: for I enjoyed little pleasure unless she was with me to partake of it.

When the day came, we mounted our horses and she being an excellent horsewoman, we galloped off to meet our friends at a distance of four miles, and we reached the place without the slightest accident, though it was one of the most severe frosts I was ever out in. About three o'clock the next morning we returned in the same way. I shall never forget the look of my father, when he saw her come into the room, and involuntarily exclaimed "for God's sake, Mrs. Hunt, where is your child?" She answered it was at home. He turned his eyes up and said no more; but I felt this as a most severe rebuke, and for the, first time I began to think that a mother leaving her child was not quite so proper. He soon took an opportunity to speak to me aside, and having asked me whether I was mad, to bring my wife away from a young sucking child in such weather, he added, "you acted very prudently and firmly, I understand, when, your child was born, as to her suckling it, but now you are going to destroy the child by suffering the mother to remain from it twelve or fourteen hours at a time." I listened, indeed, to this wholesome advice; but, in the thoughtlessness of my heart, unfortunately, I passed it of without paying it that attention, to which, coming from one with such experience as my father had, it was so well entitled.

What my father alluded to, about my firm conduct when my child was born, was this. My mother having always nursed her own children, I was bred up with the notion that it ought to be so, and I still entertained the greatest antipathy to my offspring sucking any other woman but its mother.[19] My father had, on his side, already guarded me against all the arts and tricks played off by gossips, upon such an occasion. Upon this subject, therefore, I had always expressed a strong and decided feeling to my wife, in which she appeared to participate.