Johnny Ludlow, Third Series

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Nash was flush of money now, for he had saved some; but he could not go on living upon it for ever. After sundry interviews with his brother, Miles agreed to hand him over a thousand pounds: not at all too large a sum, considering that Nash had given him his services, such as they were, for a number of years for just his keep as a gentleman and a bonus for pocket-money. A thousand pounds would not go far with such a farm as Nash had been used to and would like to take, and he resolved to emigrate to America.

Mrs. Tinkle (the Squire called her simple at times) was nearly wild when she heard of it. It brought her out of her temper with a leap. Condoning the rebellious marriage, she went off to remonstrate with Nash.

“But now, why need you put yourself into this unhappy state?” asked Nash, when he had heard what she had to say. “Dear Mrs. Tinkle, do admit some common sense into your mind. I am not taking Charlotte to the ‘other end of the world,’ as you put it, but to America. It is only a few days’ passage. Outlandish foreigners! Not a bit of it. The people are, so to speak, our own countrymen. Their language is ours; their laws are, I believe, much as ours are.”

“You may as well be millions of miles away, practically speaking,” bewailed Mrs. Tinkle. “Charlotte will be as much lost to me there as she would be at the North Pole. She is my only daughter, Nash Caromel, she has never been away from me: to part with her will be like parting with life.”

“I am very sorry,” said poor Nash, who was just a woman when any appeal was made to his feelings. “Live with you? No, that would not do: but, thank you all the same for offering it. Nothing would induce me to spunge upon you in that way: and, were I capable of it, your son Henry would speedily turn us out when he returned. I must get a home of my own, for Charlotte’s sake as well as for mine: and I know I can do that in America. Land, there, may be had for an old song; fortunes are made in no time. The probability is that before half-a-dozen years have gone over our heads, I shall bring you Charlotte home a rich woman, and we shall settle down here for life.”

There isn’t space to pursue the arguments—which lasted for a week or two. But they brought forth no result. Nash might have turned a post sooner than the opinions of Mrs. Tinkle, and she might as well have tried to turn the sun as to stop his emigrating. The parish looked upon it as not at all a bad scheme. Nash might get on well over there if he would put off his besetting sin, indolence, and not allow the Yankees to take him in.

So Nash Caromel and Charlotte his wife set sail for New York; Mrs. Tinkle bitterly resenting the step, and wholly refusing to be reconciled.

II.

About five years went by. Henry Tinkle’s wife had died, leaving him a little girl, and he was back with the child at his mother’s: but that has nothing to do with us. A letter came from the travellers now and then, but not often, during the first three years. Nash wrote to Caromel’s Farm; Charlotte to the parson’s wife, Mrs. Holland, with whom she had been very friendly. But none of the letters gave much information as to personal matters; they were chiefly filled with descriptions of the new country, its manners and customs, and especially its mosquitoes, which at first nearly drove Mrs. Nash Caromel mad. It was gathered that Nash did not prosper. They seemed to move about from place to place, making New York a sort of standing point to return to occasionally. For the past two years no letters at all had come, and it was questioned whether poor Nash and his wife had not dropped out of the world.

In the midst of this uncertainty, Miles Caromel, who had been seriously ailing for some months, died. And to Nash, if he were still in existence, lapsed the Caromel property.