DAME DEBORAH THRUMPKINSON,
AND HER ORPHAN APPRENTICE, JOE.
Joe's story opens in that unclassical region, the Isle of Axholme,—a section of Lincolnshire divided from the main body of the county by the broad and far extending stream of the Trent. Insular situations are invariably held to give some peculiarity of manners to their inhabitants; and the Axholmians, or "Men of the Isle," have always been reckoned to be an odd sort of, plain kind of people, by the other inhabitants of Lindsey, the great northern division of the shire, of which the Isle is accounted a part. This was more emphatically true of them seventy years ago; and the face of the country was, at that time, much in keeping with the unpolished character of the Axholmian people. A journey through the Isle, in the autumnal and winter months especially, would then have been studiously avoided by a traveller acquainted with its excessively bad roads, rendered insufferably disagreeable by the stench of the sodden "line" or flax, with which the broad ditches on each side of the rural ways were filled. Low, thatched abodes, built of "stud and mud,"—or wood and clay, were the prevailing description of human dwellings scattered over the land; and swine were the animals most commonly kept and fattened by the farmers and peasantry.
The two considerable villages of Owston and Crowle (pronounced Crool by the euphonious Axholmians), together with the town of Epworth, the modern capital of the Isle, were the only localities in Axholme to which improvements, common in the rest of the shire, had then penetrated. Haxey, the ancient capital of the district, meanwhile, remained unvisited by the spirit of modern change, and drew its only distinction from the historic associations connected with its decay. In remote times, and under its Saxon appellation of "Axel," the town had been fortified with a castle of the Mowbrays, to a chief of which chivalrous race the greater part of "the Isle of Axelholm" was given as a manor, by the Norman conqueror. And, amid the straggling and irregular assemblage of buildings which now form the village, an intelligent visitor would discover indubitable evidence of the former importance of the place. Its large church, displaying the rich architecture prevalent during the wars of the Roses, and supporting a lofty tower resonant at stated hours with chimes of loud and pleasing music, looks from an eminence, almost in cathedral state, over the greater extent of the Isle; and a few ample and curiously built houses of some centuries old,—affording a striking contrast to the paltry erections of the day,—denote the ancient denizens of Haxey to have been the principal possessors of comparative wealth, and, it may be added, of the soil in the neighbourhood.
On a fine summer's evening, at the door of one of these large antiquated houses, sat Dame Deborah Thrumpkinson, the aged widow of Barachiah Thrumpkinson, cordwainer, deceased. Her husband, who had been long dead, was a thrifty man at his trade, and had, by habits of strict industry and parsimony,—holpen therein by the like disposition of his beloved Deborah,—contrived to store a good corner of his double-locked oaken chest with spade-ace guineas. Deborah had acquired sufficient skill in the "art and mystery" of her husband's employment to be able to carry on his trade after his death; and, with the assistance of two stout apprentices, and as many journeymen, was, at the season in which our narrative begins, conducting the best business in that line within a circuit of several miles.
We have hinted that Dame Deborah began to be stricken in years: nevertheless, the labours of "the gentle craft" gave little fatigue to her elastic mind and strong sinewy frame; and as she sat in the old-fashioned oaken chair, enjoying rest, and inhaling the soft breeze, after a day of healthful toil, she neither stooped through infirmity, nor experienced dimness of vision, though sixty winters had gone over her head. The short pipe in her mouth proved that she had discovered an effectual, though unfeminine, solace for a weary frame; and although, through the flitting volumes of smoke, you saw that their frequent visitings had left on the dame's cheek a deeper shade than years only would have imprinted there,—yet, a nearer gaze would have convinced you that, in youth, no contemptible degree of comeliness had been commingled with her strength. With the calmness derived from experienced age, and from a consciousness of honest independence,—thus, then, sat the grave Deborah, receiving, now and then, a mark of respect from the slow, worn labourers of either sex, as they passed homeward, with fork or rake on shoulder, from the hay-field.
The dame had just knocked the ashes out of the head of her pipe, and was about to retire within her dwelling for the night, when her attention was strongly attracted by the conversation of a group which was suddenly formed but a few yards from her threshold. A pale, melancholy-looking woman, with a very little boy clinging to her blue linen apron, was met by a master chimney-sweep, followed by a couple of wretched-looking urchins bowed beneath enormous bags of soot.
"Well, mistress," said the man, in a voice so harsh that it grated sorely on the ears of Dame Deborah, who would have been offended with the words of the speaker, even if they had been uttered in the softest accents, "you may as well take the fasten-penny I offered you the other day, and let me have this lad o' yours."
The child clung more closely to his mother, and looked imploringly and pitifully in her face.
"Nay, I think I mustn't," replied the pale-looking woman, in a faint and somewhat irresolute tone, catching the wistful glance of her child, and then bending her eyes sorrowfully on the ground.