Digby Heathcote: The Early Days of a Country Gentleman's Son and Heir

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Though Mr Simson did not forfeit his word by saying anything, he ascertained enough to satisfy him on the matter from the less scrupulous Mr Jones, whose only bond to keep silence was the hope of getting more out of them.

Miserably always are those mistaken who put confidence in dishonest persons. Such are influenced only by interested motives, and invariably betray their dupes if it suits their convenience.

The holidays at length arrived. The last few weeks at Osberton, Julian Langley had found very disagreeable. His lather wrote him a scolding letter, for having put him to so much expense, as he had thought it wiser to pay the fishermen their demand for the damage done their boats rather than allow the transaction, so disgraceful to his son, to become public.

Mr Nugent kept a strict watch over him. He was not allowed to associate with Digby, while the rest of his fellow-pupils treated him with marked contempt, not so much on account of what he had done, as because he had denied having done it, and because they believed that he would have drawn Digby into the scrape, and, if he could, have thrown the blame on him.

Digby did not remain very long out of spirits. His conscience was tolerably at ease. He thought that his uncle had treated him very kindly, and as he wished, therefore, to please him, he set diligently to work to do his lessons each day as well as he could. He had not yet learned to study for the sake of the knowledge he should thus acquire. He did not appreciate the value of knowledge, the use it is of in every way, the delight it affords, the satisfaction it brings. He did his lessons because he knew that all boys were made to do lessons, and he did not expect to avoid the general fate of boyhood. He had a sort of indefinite idea that boys were compelled to do lessons from some tyrannical motive of grown-up people; probably because they, when children, had been made to do them, now, when they were grown up, they retaliated on the next generation for the annoyance they themselves had suffered; much in the same way that boys who have been most bullied and fagged when, they were little fellows, frequently bully most, and make the severest masters, when they get into the upper forms—not always, but frequently, that is the case. Digby now and then wished for the society of his former companion, and thought it rather hard that they were not allowed to speak to each other except at meal-times.

Mr Nugent or Marshall used to take Julian out to walk, never allowing him to go out of their sight. This was more galling to him as Digby now enjoyed the same unrestricted liberty as at first. He seldom, however, went out by himself, except, perhaps, to run to the post-office, or to carry a message to some neighbour.

Dick Owlett did not escape the consequences of his lark, for the fishermen did not overlook the mischief he had wished to do them, and many a kick and a cuff he got from their hands which he might otherwise have avoided. Soon afterwards, he was taken up before the magistrates for another misdemeanor, and Mr Langley, hearing who he was, told his father that he would receive the most severe punishment which could be inflicted if he did not at once send him off to sea. To sea, therefore, went master Owlett, not at all to his own satisfaction, and very much to his father’s rage, who vowed that he would be revenged on some of the aristocracy for what had happened.

The magistrates had lately got the character of being unusually severe. A gang of smugglers had some time before been captured, and a revenue officer having been killed in the affray, two were transported, and others sent for a year or more to gaol—a punishment which, to men of the habits of that class, is peculiarly galling. Although some of the band were taken, others escaped, and the latter, furious at the punishment inflicted on their friends, had sworn, it was said, to take vengeance on the magistrates who had procured their conviction by sending them up for trial, and on Squire Heathcote especially, through whose means they had been captured.

One of the transported men was a grandson of old Dame Marlow, and though it was supposed that she loved nothing human, she had certainly always shown an affection for the ill-conditioned youth in question. Ever since, she had been heard, it was said, muttering threats of dire vengeance against those who had caused it. Time, however, passed on, and nothing occurred, and even those who fully believed in the old woman’s power, as well as in the means at the disposal of the smugglers, thought that nothing would come of the threats of one or the other.

Mr Heathcote, when told of what was said, laughed the matter to scorn. “Dame Marlow has done nothing else but mutter foolish threats against all the human race for the last twenty years,” he observed; “and as for the smugglers, they know too well to come and burn down my ricks, or anything of that sort; and as to personal violence, they are pretty well aware that they would get as much or more than they gave. The man who is afraid of poachers, smugglers, gipsies, or vagabonds of any sort, had better not attempt to act the part of an English country gentleman; he isn’t fit for his place.”