The Adventures of Hugh Trevor

by Thomas Holcroft

Every resource was soon exhausted, and immediate relief became necessary. To whom could she apply? To whom, but the rector? She wrote to him in terms the most moving, the most humiliating, and indeed the most abject, that her imagination could suggest. But in vain: no prayers, no tears, no terrors, of this world or of the next, could move him. The father, and the divine, were equally inexorable. He pleaded his oath, but he remembered his revenge. After the first letter he would receive no more, and when she wrote again and again, with the direction in a different hand, and using other little stratagems, he returned no answer.

From this extreme distress, and from the intolerable disgrace, as my mother supposed it to be, of coming on the parish, we were relieved, to the best of her ability, by a poor widow woman with four children; who had formerly lived a servant in the Trevor family, and who, after her husband's death, maintained herself and her orphans with incredible industry, and with no other aid but the produce of a cow, that she fed chiefly on the common where her cottage stood. The active good sense with which she did every thing that was entrusted to her, was the cause that she never wanted employment; and she exerted her utmost attention to make her children, as they grew up, as useful as herself.

By this woman's advice and aid, my mother applied herself to spinning; and it was agreed that I should either drive the plough or be put apprentice, as soon as I could find a master.

For my own part, all my sources of pleasure and improvement were at once retrenched. That I had not horses to ride, a father to play with and caress me, and a kind uncle to instruct and delight me, were among the least of my misfortunes. Reading, that great field of enjoyment, which was daily opening more amply upon me, was totally cut off. My curiosity had been awakened, my memory praised, and my acuteness admired: in an instant, as it were, all these joys were vanished.

Previous to my uncle's departure, I had found another mode of obtaining knowledge, and applause. He was musical, and a few persons of the like turn, scattered through the neighbouring hamlets, used occasionally to meet at his house; where they exercised themselves in singing, from the works of Croft, Green, Boyce, Purcell, Handel, and such authors as they possessed. One of them played the bassoon, another the flute, and a third the violin, I had a quick ear, was attracted by their harmony, and began to join in their concerts. A treble voice was a great acquisition; I was apt and they encouraged me, by frequent praise and admiration. My uncle gave me Arnold's Psalmody, in which I eagerly studied the rudiments of the science: but this book, with the rest, was swept away in the general wreck; and I, after having had a glimpse of the enchanted land of knowledge, was cast back, apparently to perish in the gloomy deserts of ignorance. I had no source of information, except my mother; and her stores, at the best, were scanty: at present, labour left her but little leisure, and the little she had was spent in complaint.

The poor widow, indeed, willingly did me every kindness in her power; but that alas was small. With this honest-hearted creature I remained eight months, going out to a day's work whenever I could get one, to weed, drive the plough, set potatoes, or any thing else that they would put me to: till at last a farmer, finding me expert, agreed to take me as an apprentice; on condition that I should serve him till I was one and twenty. The offer was joyfully accepted by my mother, and I had spirit and understanding enough to be happy that I could thus provide for myself.

I had soon reason to repent; my master was the most passionate madman I ever beheld; and, when in a passion, the most mischievous. His cattle, his horses, his servants, his wife, his children, were each of them in turn the objects of his fury.

The accidents that happened from his ungovernable choler were continual, and his cruelty, when in these fits, was incredible; though at other times, strange to tell, he was remarkably compassionate. He one day beat out the eye of a calf, because it would not instantly take the milk he offered. Another time he pursued a goose, that ran away from him when he flung it oats; and was so enraged, by the efforts it made to escape, that he first tore off its wing and then twisted its neck round. On a third occasion he bit off a pig's ear, because it struggled and cried while he was ringing it. One of his children was lamed, and, though nobody knew how it happened, every body gave him credit for the accident. Yet he had his paroxysms of fondness for his children, and for the lame boy in particular. Indeed it was generally remarked that he was the most cruel to those for whom he had the greatest affection. The perception of his own absurdity did but increase his rage, till it was exhausted; after which he has sometimes been seen to burst into tears, at the recollection of his own madness and inhumanity.

One habit arising from his excessive vivacity was that, when he wanted any thing done, he expected the person nearest to him should not only instantly obey, but conceive what he meant from the pointing of his finger, the turn of his head, or the motion of his eye, without speaking a word; while the dread of his anger stupified and rendered the person against whom it was directed motionless.

I continued for an unexampled length of time to be his favourite. The family remarked, at first with surprise, and afterward either with a sense of injustice or of enmity, the restraint he put upon himself, and the great partiality with which he treated me. My superior quickness excited his admiration; he held me up as an example, and laid the flattering unction to his soul that he was no tyrant; on the contrary, when people had but common sense, nobody was more kind.