CHAPTER XIII.In which better days seem to dawn upon the Poacher.
A high-sounding oath from Sir John Slingsby passed unnoticed, forthough every one had heard the shot, each person's attention wassuddenly called to an object of his own. Ned Hayward sprang to thewindow and looked out, Dr. Miles started up and turned towards Mr.Wittingham; and Beauchamp, who was sitting next to that gentleman,suddenly stretched out his hand, and caught him by the arm andshoulder, so as to break his fall to the ground, though not to stopit; for the worthy magistrate, with a low exclamation of horror, whichreached no ear but one, pressed his hand upon his heart, and fellfainting to the ground, just as if the ball, which had entered thewindow, had found out the precise spot in his skin, which had not beendipped in Styx. Nevertheless, when Sir John and Mr. Beauchamp, and Dr.Miles, lifted him up off the floor, and seated him on his chair again,though they undoubtedly expected to find one of those small holeswhich I should call a life-door, were it not that they never let lifein, if they often let life out, yet no wound of any kind was to beperceived, except in the wig. Lights were brought, servants hurried inand out, cold water was sprinkled on the old gentleman's face, thebutler recommended sal volatile, Sir John Slingsby tried brandy; andat length Mr. Wittingham was brought to himself. Every one was busyabout him but Ned Hayward; and as Ned was a very charitable andbenevolent man, it may be necessary to say why he bestowed no care norattention on Mr. Wittingham. The fact was, that he did not know anything was the matter with him; for Ned Hayward was no longer in theroom; the window was open, indeed, and Ned Hayward had jumped out.
To return to Mr. Wittingham, however, no sooner did he recover breathenough to articulate, than he declared, in a low voice, he must gohome.
"Why, my dear fellow!" exclaimed Sir John Slingsby, "you're not hurt,only frightened, devilish frightened, that's all, and you're stillwhite about the gills, and fishy in the eyes. Come, come, finish yourbottle, and get rid of that haddock-look before you go, or you mayfaint again in the carriage."
"I must go home," repeated Mr. Wittingham, in a dismal tone.
"Then what's to become of the business you came about?" inquired thebaronet.
"I must leave it in your hands, Sir John," replied Mr. Wittingham,rising feebly; "l have no head for it to-night. It was about thatnotorious poacher, Gimlet, I came; the constables will tell you how Ihappen to have him apprehended; but I must go, I must go, I have nohead for it."
"Though the bullet kept out, plenty of lead has got in, somehow orother," muttered Sir John Slingsby, as his fellow-magistrate totteredtowards the door; but the baronet was not a bad-hearted man, and,taking compassion on Mr. Wittingham's state, he followed him with alarge glass of Madeira, insisted upon his drinking it, and supportedhim under the right arm to the hall-door, where he delivered him overto the hands of the butler to put him safely into his carriage. Whilethis was being effected, Sir John turned round and gazed upon thefigure of Stephen Gimlet, and the two officers who had him in charge;and if his look was not peculiarly encouraging to the poacher, itcertainly was much less so towards the constables. To say the truth, aconstable was an animal, towards which, for some reason or another,Sir John Slingsby entertained a great dislike. It is not impossiblethat his old roving propensities, and sundry encounters with theparticular kind of officer which was now under his thumb, hadimpressed him with a distaste for the whole species; but, assuredly,had he been called upon to give a Lin?an description of the creature,it would have been: "A two-legged beast of the species hound, made tobe beaten by blackguards and bullied by magistrates."
Waving his hand, therefore, with an air of dignity, over his extendedwhite waistcoat, he said,--
"Bring him in," and leading the way back to the dining-room, he seatedhimself in his great chair, supported on either side by decanters; andwhile the constables were entering, and taking up a position beforehim, he pushed a bottle either way, to Dr. Miles and Mr. Beauchamp,saying, in as solemn a tone as if he were delivering sentence ofdeath, "A bumper, gentlemen, for a toast--now Master Leathersides, whydo you bring this man before me?"
"Why, please your worship's honour," replied the constable, "weapprehended him for poaching in the streets of Tarningham, and--"
"Halloah!" cried Sir John, "poaching in the streets of Tarningham,that's a queer place to set springes. Leathersides, you're drunk."
"No please your honour's worship, I arn't," whimpered the constable,who would at any time rather have been sent for a week to prison, thanbe brought up before Sir John Slingsby; "I said, as how we apprehendedhim in the streets of Tarningham, not as he was a-poaching there."
"Then where was he poaching when you apprehended him?" demanded SirJohn, half in fun, half in malice, and with a full determination ofpuzzling the constable.
"Can't say he was poaching anywhere just then," replied Mr.Leathersides.
"Then you'd no business to apprehend him," replied the baronet,"discharge the prisoner, and evacuate the room. Gentlemen, are youcharged? The king, God bless him!" and he swallowed down his glass ofwine, winking his eye to Beauchamp, at what he thought his good jokeagainst the constables.
Mr. Leathersides, however, was impressed with a notion, that he mustdo his duty, and that that duty was to remonstrate with Sir JohnSlingsby; therefore, after a portentous effort, he brought forth thefollowing words:--
"But, Sir John, when we'd a got 'un, Mr. Wittingham said we were tokeep un'."
"Where's your warrant?" thundered Sir John.
"Can't say we've got one," said the other constable, for Mr.Leathersides was exhausted.
"If you apprehended him illegally," said Sir John Slingsby,magisterially, "you detained him still more illegally. Leathersides,you're a fool. Mr. What's-your-name, you're an ass. You've bothviolated the law, and I've a great mind to fine you both--a bumper--soI will, by Jove. Come here and drink the king's health;" and Sir Johnlaughed heartily while inflicting this very pleasant penalty, as theythought it, upon the two constables; but resolved to carry the jokeout, the baronet, as soon as the men had swallowed the wine,exclaimed, in a pompous tone: "Stephen Gimlet, you are charged withpoaching in the streets of Tarningham, and convicted on the sufficienttestimony of two constables. Appear before the court to receivesentence. Prisoner, your sentence is this; that you be brought up tothis table, and there to gulp down, at a single and uninterrupteddraught, one glass of either of those two liquors called Port orMadeira, at the discretion of the court, to the health of oursovereign lord the king; and that, having so done, you shall beconsidered to have made full and ample satisfaction for the saidoffence."
"With all my heart, Sir," said Ste Gimlet, taking the glass of winewhich Sir John Slingsby offered him. "Here's to the king, God blesshim! and may he give us many such magistrates as Sir John Slingsby."
"Sir, I've a great mind to fine you another bumper for adding to mytoast," exclaimed the baronet; and then, waving his hand to theconstables, he continued: "Be off, the prisoner is discharged; you'venothing more to do with him--stay here, Master Gimlet, I've somethingto say to you;" and when the door was shut, he continued, with a veryremarkable change of voice and manner: "Now, my good friend, I wish togive you a little bit of warning. As I am Lord of the Manor for manymiles round the place where you live, the game you have taken must bemine, and, therefore, I have thought myself justified in treating thematter lightly, and making a joke of it. You may judge, however, fromthis, that I speak disinterestedly, and as your friend, when I pointout to you, that if you follow the course you are now pursuing, itwill inevitably lead you on to greater offences. It will deprave yourmind, teach you to think wrong right, to resist by violence theassertion of the law, and, perhaps, in the end, bring you to the awfulcrime of murder, which, whether it be punished in this world or not,is sure to meet its retribution hereafter."
"Upon my life and soul, Sir John," said Ste Gimlet, earnestly, "I willnever touch a head of game of yours again."
"Nor any one else's, I hope," answered Sir John Slingsby, "you are aninge
nious fellow I have heard, and can gain your bread by bettermeans."
"How?" inquired the man, emphatically; but the moment after he added,"I will try at all events. This very morning, I was thinking I wouldmake a change, and endeavour to live like other people; but then Ifancied it would be of no use. First, people would not employ me, andI feared to try them. Next, I feared myself; for I have led a wildrambling kind of life, and have got to love it better than any other.If there were a chance of men treating me kindly and giving meencouragement, it might answer; but if I found all faces looking coldon me, and all hearts turned away from me, though perhaps I havedeserved it, I am afraid I should just fall back into my old waysagain. However, I will try--I will try for the child's sake, though itwill be a hard struggle at first, I am sure."
Sir John Slingsby laid his finger upon his temple and thought for amoment. He had been serious for a long while--fully five minutes--andhe had some difficulty in keeping up his grave demeanour; but that wasnot all: some words which Ned Hayward had let fall almost at random,suggested a plan to his mind which he hesitated whether he shouldadopt or not. Perhaps--though he was a kind-hearted man, as we haveseen and said before--he might have rejected it, had it not been forits oddity; but it was an odd plan, and one that jumped with hispeculiar humour. He was fond of doing all sorts of things that othermen would not do, just because they would not--of trying experimentsthat they dared not try--of setting at defiance every thing which hadonly custom and convention for its basis; and, therefore, after aninstant's meditation, given to the consideration of whether peoplewould suppose he was actuated by benevolence or eccentricity (he wouldnot have had them think he did an odd thing from benevolence for theworld), he went on as the whim prompted to reply to Stephen Gimlet'slast words, mingling a high degree of delicacy of feeling with hisvagaries, in the strangest manner possible, as the reader will see.
"Well Ste," he said, "perhaps we may make it less of a struggle thanyou think. I'll tell you what, my fine fellow, you're very fond ofgame--a little too fond perhaps. Now, my friend, Ned Hayward--that'sto say, Captain Hayward. Where the deuce he has gone to?--I don'tknown--ran after the clumsy fellow, I suppose, who fired through thewindow and missed the deer too, I'll be bound. It must have beenConolly, the underkeeper; nobody but Conolly would have thought offiring right towards the window--but as I was saying, my friend, NedHayward, said just now that you'd make a capital keeper. What do youthink of it, Gimlet? Wouldn't it do?"
"Not under Mr. Hearne, Sir," answered Ste Gimlet. "We've had too manysquabbles together;" and he shook his head.
"No, no, that would never do," replied Sir John, laughing; "you'd soonhave your charges in each other's gizzards. But you know Denman died aweek ago, over at the Trottington Hall manor, on t'other side of thecommon--you know it, you dog--you know it well enough, I can see bythe twinkling of your eye. I dare say you have looked into every neston the manor, since the poor fellow was bagged by the grim archer.Well, but as I was saying, there's the cottage empty and eighteenshillings a week, and you and Hearne can run against each other, andsee which will give us the best day's sport at the end of the year.What do you say, Gimlet? you can go and take possession of the cottagethis very night; I don't want it to stand empty an hour longer."
"Thank you a thousand times, Sir John," said the man heartily; "youare a kind gentleman indeed, but I must go up to my own place first.There's my little boy, you know. Poor little man, I dare say he hascried his heart out."
"Pooh, nonsense, not a bit," said the baronet, "I'll take care of allthat. I'll send up and have him fetched."
The man smiled and shook his bread, saying, "He would not come with astranger."
"What will you bet?" cried Sir John Slingsby, laughing. "I'll bet youa guinea against your last ferret, that he'll come directly. Here,Matthew--Moore--Harrison," he continued, first ringing the bell, andthen opening the door to call, "some of you d--d fellows run up andbring Ste Gimlet's little boy. Tell him, his daddy's here," and SirJohn Slingsby sat down and laughed prodigiously, adding every now andthen, "I'll take any man five guineas of it that he comes."
There is an exceedingly good old English expression, which smartpeople have of late years banished from polite prose, but which Ishall beg leave to make use of here. Sir John Slingsby then was knownto be a _comical fellow_. Stephen Gimlet was well aware that such wasthe case; and though he thought the joke was a somewhat extravagantone, to send a man-servant up to the moor at that hour of the evening,to fetch down his little boy, yet still he thought it a joke. His onlyanxiety, however, was to prevent its being carried too far, and,therefore, after twirling his hat about for a minute in silence, hesaid--
"Well, Sir John, perhaps if he's told I am here, he may come; but nowI recollect, I locked the door; and besides, there are all my thingsto be fetched down; so if you will be kind enough to give me tillto-morrow, Sir, I will accept your bounty with a grateful heart, anddo my best to deserve it--and I am sure I am most grateful to thegentleman who first spoke of such a thing. I am, indeed," he added,with some degree of hesitation, and cheek rather reddened; for whileSir John was still laughing heartily, he saw that Mr. Beauchamp's finelustrous eyes were fixed upon him with a look of deep interest, andthat Doctor Miles was blowing his nose violently, while his eyelidsgrew rather red.
"I don't doubt it in the least, Ste," said Sir John; "Ned Hayward is avery good fellow--a capital fellow--you owe him a great deal, I cantell you. There! there!" he continued, as the door opened to giveadmission to the servant, "I told you he would come--didn't I tellyou? There he is, you see!"
Stephen Gimlet gazed for an instant in silent astonishment when hebeheld the boy in the butler's arms, wrapped warmly up in thehousekeeper's shawl; for at Sir John's indisputable commands, they hadtaken him from his bed. He was confounded: he was one thunderstruck;but the moment after, the child, recovering from the first dazzlingeffect of the light, held out his little hands to his father with acry of delight, exclaiming, "There's my daddy, there's my daddy!" andthe poacher sprang forward and caught him to his heart.
Sir John Slingsby was himself overset by what he had done: the tearsstarted in his eyes; but still he laughed louder than ever;out-trumpeted Doctor Miles with blowing his nose, wiped away the tearswith the back of his hand, put on his spectacles to hide them, andthen looked over the spectacles to see Ste Gimlet and his boy.
The child was nestling on his father's breast and prattling to him;but in a moment the man started and turned pale, exclaiming,"Fire!--the place burnt! What in Heaven's name does he mean?"
"There, there!" cried Doctor Miles, coming forward and making the mansit down, seeing that he looked as ghastly as the dead, with strongemotion. "Don't be alarmed, Stephen. Don't be agitated. Lift up thevoice of praise and thanksgiving to God, for a great mercy shown youthis day, not alone in having saved your child from a terrible death,but in having sent you a warning with a most lenient hand, which willassuredly make you a better man for all your future days. Lift up thevoice of praise, I say, from the bottom of your heart."
"I do indeed!" cried the poacher, "I do indeed!" and bending down hishead upon the boy's neck, he wept. "But how did it happen?--how couldit happen?" he continued, after a while, "and how, how was he saved?"
"Why, Ned Hayward saved him, to be sure," cried the baronet. "GallantNed Hayward--who but he? He saw the place burning from the top of thebarrow, man, rushed in, burnt himself, and brought out the boy."
"God bless him! God bless him!" cried the father. "But the fire," headded, "how could the place take fire?"
"That nasty cross man set it on fire, daddy, I'm sure," said the boy;"the man that was there this morning. He came when you were away, andhe wouldn't answer when I called, and I saw him go away, through thepeep-hole, with a lighted stick in his mouth. I didn't do it indeed,daddy."
A glimpse of the truth presented itself to Stephen Gimlet's mind; andthough he said nothing, he clenched one hand tight, so tight that theprint of the nails remained in the palm; but t
hen his thoughts turnedto other things, and rising up out of the chair in which Doctor Mileshad placed him, he turned to Sir John Slingsby, and said, "Oh, Sir, Iwish I could say how much I thank you!"
"There, there, Stephen," replied the baronet, waving his hand kindly,"no more about it. You have lost one house and you have got another;you have given up one trade and taken a better. Your boy is safe andwell; so as the good doctor says, praise God for all. Take anotherglass of wine, and when you have talked a minute with the little man,give him back to the housekeeper. He shall be well taken care of tillyou are settled, and in the meantime you can go down to the Marquis ofGranby in the village, and make yourself comfortable till to-morrow.Hang me if I drink any more wine to-night. All this is as good as abottle;" and Sir John rose to join the ladies.
The other two gentlemen very willingly followed his example; butbefore they went, Beauchamp, who had had his pocket-book in his handfor a minute or two, took a very thin piece of paper out of it, andwent round to Stephen Gimlet.
"You have lost all your furniture, I am afraid," he said, in a lowvoice; "there is something to supply its place with more."
"Lord bless you, Sir, what was my furniture worth?" said the poacher,looking at the note in his hand, with a melancholy smile; but by thattime Beauchamp was gone.
Beauchamp; or, The Error. Page 14