Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “Your loyal foster-brother,

  “CHRISTY DONOGHOE.”

  Glenthorn Castle is now rebuilding; and when it is finished, and when I return thither, I will, if it should be desired by the public, give a faithful account of my feelings. I flatter myself that I shall not relapse into indolence; my understanding has been cultivated — I have acquired a taste for literature, and the example of Lord Y —— convinces me that a man may at once be rich and noble, and active and happy.

  Written in 1804. Printed in 1809.

  THE DUN.

  “Horrible monster! hated by gods and men.” — PHILLIPS.

  “In the higher and middle classes of society,” says a celebrated writer, “it is a melancholy and distressing sight to observe, not unfrequently, a man of a noble and ingenuous disposition, once feelingly alive to a sense of honour and integrity, gradually sinking under the pressure of his circumstances, making his excuses at first with a blush of conscious shame, afraid to see the faces of his friends from whom he may have borrowed money, reduced to the meanest tricks and subterfuges to delay or avoid the payment of his just debts, till, ultimately grown familiar with falsehood, and at enmity with the world, he loses all the grace and dignity of man.”

  Colonel Pembroke, the subject of the following story, had not, at the time his biographer first became acquainted with him, “grown familiar with falsehood;” his conscience was not entirely callous to reproach, nor was his heart insensible to compassion; but he was in a fair way to get rid of all troublesome feelings and principles. He was connected with a set of selfish young men of fashion, whose opinions stood him in stead of law, equity, and morality; to them he appealed in all doubtful cases, and his self-complacency being daily and hourly dependent upon their decisions, he had seldom either leisure or inclination to consult his own judgment. His amusements and his expenses were consequently regulated by the example of his companions, not by his own choice. To follow them in every absurd variety of the mode, either in dress or, equipage, was his first ambition; and all their factitious wants appeared to him objects of the first necessity. No matter how good the boots, the hat, the coat, the furniture, or the equipage might be, if they had outlived the fashion of the day, or even of the hour, they were absolutely worthless in his eyes. Nobody could be seen in such things — then of what use could they be to any body? Colonel Pembroke’s finances were not exactly equal to the support of such liberal principles; but this was a misfortune which he had in common with several of his companions. It was no check to their spirit — they could live upon credit — credit, “that talisman, which realizes every thing it imagines, and which can imagine every thing.” [See Des Casaux sur le Méchanisme de la Société.] Without staying to reflect upon the immediate or remote consequences of this system, Pembroke, in his first attempts, found it easy to reduce it to practice: but, as he proceeded, he experienced some difficulties. Tradesmen’s bills accumulated, and applications for payment became every day more frequent and pressing. He defended himself with much address and ingenuity, and practice perfected him in all the Fabian arts of delay. “No faith with duns” became, as he frankly declared, a maxim of his morality. He could now, with a most plausible face, protest to a poor devil, upon the honour of a gentleman, that he should be paid to-morrow; when nothing was farther from his intentions or his power than to keep his word: and when to-morrow came, he could, with the most easy assurance, damn the rascal for putting a gentleman in mind of his promises. But there were persons more difficult to manage than poor devils. Colonel Pembroke’s tailor, who had begun by being the most accommodating fellow in the world, and who had in three years run him up a bill of thirteen hundred pounds, at length began to fail in complaisance, and had the impertinence to talk of his large family, and his urgent calls for money, etc. And next, the colonel’s shoe and boot-maker, a man from whom he had been in the habit of taking two hundred pounds’ worth of shoes and boots every year, for himself and his servants, now pretended to be in distress for ready money, and refused to furnish more goods upon credit. “Ungrateful dog!” Pembroke called him; and he actually believed his creditors to be ungrateful and insolent, when they asked for their money; for men frequently learn to believe what they are in the daily habit of asserting [Rochefoucault], especially if their assertions be not contradicted by their audience. He knew that his tradesmen overcharged him in every article he bought, and therefore he thought it but just to delay payment whilst it suited his convenience. “Confound them, they can very well afford to wait!” As to their pleas of urgent demands for ready money, large families, &c., he considered these merely as words of course, tradesmen’s cant, which should make no more impression upon a gentleman than the whining of a beggar.

  One day when Pembroke was just going out to ride with some of his gay companions, he was stopped at his own door by a pale, thin, miserable-looking boy, eight or nine years old, who presented him with a paper, which he took for granted was a petition; he threw the child half-a-crown. “There, take that,” said he, “and stand out of the way of my horse’s heels, I advise you, my little fellow.”

  The boy, however, still pressed closer; and, without picking up the half-crown, held the paper to Colonel Pembroke, who had now vaulted into his saddle.

  “O no! no! That’s too much, my lad — I never read petitions — I’d sooner give half-a-crown at any time than read a petition.”

  “But, sir, this is not a petition — indeed, sir, I am not a beggar.”

  “What is it then? — Heyday! a bill! — Then you’re worse than a beggar — a dun! — a dun! in the public streets, at your time of life! You little rascal, why what will you come to before you are your father’s age?” The boy sighed. “If,” pursued the colonel, “I were to serve you right, I should give you a good horse-whipping. Do you see this whip?”

  “I do, sir,” said the boy; “but — —”

  “But what? you insolent little dun! — But what?”

  “My father is dying,” said the child, bursting into tears, “and we have no money to buy him bread, or any thing.”

  Struck by these words, Pembroke snatched the paper from the boy, and looking hastily at the total and title of the bill, read—”Twelve pounds fourteen — John White, weaver.”—”I know of no such person! — I have no dealings with weavers, child,” said the colonel, laughing: “My name’s Pembroke — Colonel Pembroke.”

  “Colonel Pembroke — yes, sir, the very person Mr. Close, the tailor, sent me to!”

  “Close the tailor! D — n the rascal: was it he sent you to dun me? For this trick he shall not see a farthing of my money this twelvemonth. You may tell him so, you little whining hypocrite! — And, hark you! the next time you come to me, take care to come with a better story — let your father and mother, and six brothers and sisters, be all lying ill of the fever — do you understand?”

  He tore the bill into bits as he spoke, and showered it over the boy’s head. Pembroke’s companions laughed at this operation, and he facetiously called it “powdering a dun.” They rode off to the Park in high spirits; and the poor boy picked up the half-crown, and returned home. His home was in a lane in Moorfields, about three miles distant from this gay part of the town. As the child had not eaten any thing that morning, he was feeble, and grew faint as he was crossing Covent Garden. He sat down upon the corner of a stage of flowers.

  “What are you doing there?” cried a surly man, pulling him up by the arm; “What business have you lounging and loitering here, breaking my best balsam?”

  “I did not mean to do any harm — I am not loitering, indeed, sir, — I’m only weak,” said the boy, “and hungry.”

  “Oranges! oranges! fine China oranges!” cried a woman, rolling her barrow full of fine fruit towards him. “If you’ve a two-pence in the world, you can’t do better than take one of these fine ripe China oranges.”

  “I have not two-pence of my own in the world,” said the boy.

  “What’s that I see through the hole in yo
ur waistcoat pocket?” said the woman; “is not that silver?”

  “Yes, half-a-crown; which I am carrying home to my father, who is ill, and wants it more than I do.”

  “Pooh! take an orange out of it — it’s only two-pence — and it will do you good — I’m sure you look as if you wanted it badly enough.”

  “That may be; but father wants it worse. — No, I won’t change my half-crown,” said the boy, turning away from the tempting oranges.

  The gruff gardener caught him by the hand.

  “Here, I’ve moved the balsam a bit, and it is not broke, I see; sit ye down, child, and rest yourself, and eat this,” said he, putting into his hand half a ripe orange, which he just cut.

  “Thank you! — God bless you, sir! — How good it is! — But,” said the child, stopping after he had tasted the sweet juice, “I am sorry I have sucked so much; I might have carried it home to father, who is ill; and what a treat it would be to him! — I’ll keep the rest.”

  “No — that you sha’n’t,” said the orange-woman. “But I’ll tell you what you shall do — take this home to your father, which is a better one by half — I’m sure it will do him good — I never knew a ripe China orange do harm to man, woman, or child.”

  The boy thanked the good woman and the gardener, as only those can thank who have felt what it is to be in absolute want. When he was rested, and able to walk, he pursued his way home. His mother was watching for him at the street-door.

  “Well, John, my dear, what news? Has he paid us?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Then we must bear it as well as we can,” said his mother, wiping the cold dew from her forehead.

  “But look, mother, I have this half-crown, which the gentleman, thinking me a beggar, threw to me.”

  “Run with it, love, to the baker’s. No — stay, you’re tired — I’ll go myself; and do you step up to your father, and tell him the bread is coming in a minute.”

  “Don’t run, for you’re not able, mother; don’t hurry so,” said the boy, calling after her, and holding up his orange: “see, I have this for father whilst you are away.”

  He clambered up three flights of dark, narrow, broken stairs, to the room in which his father lay. The door hung by a single hinge, and the child had scarcely strength enough to raise it out of the hollow in the decayed floor into which it had sunk. He pushed it open, with as little noise as possible, just far enough to creep in.

  Let those forbear to follow him whose fine feelings can be moved only by romantic, elegant scenes of distress, whose delicate sensibility shrinks from the revolting sight of real misery. Here are no pictures for romance, no stage effect to be seen, no poetic language to be heard; nothing to charm the imagination, — every thing to disgust the senses.

  This room was so dark, that upon first going into it, after having been in broad daylight, you could scarcely distinguish any one object it contained; and no one used to breathe a pure atmosphere could probably have endured to remain many minutes in this garret. There were three beds in it: one on which the sick man lay; divided from it by a tattered rug was another, for his wife and daughter; and a third for his little boy in the farthest corner. Underneath the window was fixed a loom, at which the poor weaver had worked hard many a day and year — too hard, indeed — even till the very hour he was taken ill. His shuttle now lay idle upon his frame. A girl of about sixteen — his daughter — was sitting at the foot of his bed, finishing some plain work.

  “Oh, Anne! how your face is all flushed!” said her little brother, as she looked up when he came into the room.

  “Have you brought us any money?” whispered she: “don’t say No loud, for fear father should hear you.” The boy told her in a low voice all that had passed.

  “Speak out, my dear, I’m not asleep,” said his father. “So you are come back as you went?”

  “No, father, not quite — there’s bread coming for you.”

  “Give me some more water, Anne, for my mouth is quite parched.”

  The little boy cut his orange in an instant, and gave a piece of it to his father, telling him, at the same time, how he came by it The sick man raised his hands to heaven, and blessed the poor woman who gave it to him.

  “Oh, how I love her! and how I hate that cruel, unjust, rich man, who won’t pay father for all the hard work he has done for him!” cried the child: “how I hate him!”

  “God forgive him!” said the weaver. “I don’t know what will become of you all, when I’m gone; and no one to befriend you, or even to work at the loom. Anne, I think if I was up,” said he, raising himself, “I could still contrive to do a little good.”

  “Dear father, don’t think of getting up; the best you can do for us is to lie still and take rest.”

  “Rest! I can take no rest, Anne. Rest! there’s none for me in this world. And whilst I’m in it, is not it my duty to work for my wife and children? Reach me my clothes, and I’ll get up.”

  It was in vain to contend with him, when this notion seized him that it was his duty to work till the last. All opposition fretted and made him worse; so that his daughter and his wife, even from affection, were forced to yield, and to let him go to the loom, when his trembling hands were scarcely able to throw the shuttle. He did not know how weak he was till he tried to walk. As he stepped out of bed, his wife came in with a loaf of bread in her hand: at the unexpected sight he made an exclamation of joy; sprang forward to meet her, but fell upon the floor in a swoon, before he could put one bit of the bread which she broke for him into his mouth. Want of sustenance, the having been overworked, and the constant anxiety which preyed upon his spirits, had reduced him to this deplorable state of weakness. When he recovered his senses, his wife showed him his little boy eating a large piece of bread; she also ate, and made Anne eat before him, to relieve his mind from that dread which had seized it — and not without some reason — that he should see his wife and children starve to death.

  “You find, father, there’s no danger for to-day,” said Anne; “and to-morrow I shall be paid for my plain work, and then we shall do very well for a few days longer; and I dare say in that time Mr. Close the tailor will receive some money from some of the great many rich gentlemen who owe him so much; and you know he promised that as soon as ever he was able he would pay us.”

  With such hopes, and the remembrance of such promises, the poor man’s spirits could not be much raised; he knew, alas! how little dependence was to be placed on them. As soon as he had eaten, and felt his strength revive, he insisted upon going to the loom; his mind was bent upon finishing a pattern, for which he was to receive five guineas in ready money: he worked and worked, then lay down and rested himself, — then worked again, and so on during the remainder of the day; and during several hours of the night he continued to throw the shuttle, whilst his little boy and his wife by turns wound spools for him.

  He completed his work, and threw himself upon his bed quite exhausted, just as the neighbouring clock struck one.

  At this hour Colonel Pembroke was in the midst of a gay and brilliant assembly at Mrs. York’s, in a splendid saloon, illuminated with wax-lights in profusion, the floor crayoned with roses and myrtles, which the dancers’ feet effaced, the walls hung with the most expensive hot-house flowers; in short, he was surrounded with luxury in all its extravagance. It is said that the peaches alone at this entertainment amounted to six hundred guineas. They cost a guinea a-piece: the price of one of them, which Colonel Pembroke threw away because it was not perfectly ripe, would have supported the weaver and his whole family for a week.

  There are political advocates for luxury, who assert, perhaps justly, that the extravagance of individuals increases the wealth of nations. But even upon this system, those who by false hopes excite the industrious to exertion, without paying them their just wages, commit not only the most cruel private injustice, but the most important public injury. The permanence of industry in any state must be proportioned to the certainty of
its reward.

  Amongst the masks at Mrs. York’s were three who amused the company particularly; the festive mob followed them as they moved, and their bon-mots were applauded and repeated by all the best, that is to say, the most fashionable male and female judges of wit. The three distinguished characters were a spendthrift, a bailiff, and a dun. The spendthrift was supported with great spirit and truth by Colonel Pembroke, and two of his companions were great and correct in the parts of the bailiff and the dun. The happy idea of appearing in these characters this night had been suggested by the circumstance that happened in the morning. Colonel Pembroke gave himself great credit, he said, for thus “striking novelty even from difficulty;” and he rejoiced that the rascal of a weaver had sent his boy to dun him, and had thus furnished him with diversion for the evening as well as the morning. We are much concerned that we cannot, for the advantage of posterity, record any of the innumerable good things which undoubtedly were uttered by this trio. Even the newspapers of the day could speak only in general panegyric. The probability, however, is, that the colonel deserved the praises that were lavished upon his manner of supporting his character. No man was better acquainted than himself with all those anecdotes of men of fashion, which could illustrate the spendthrift system. At least fifty times he had repeated, and always with the same glee, the reply of a great character to a creditor, who, upon being asked when his bond debts were likely to be paid, answered, “On the day of judgment.”

  Probably the admiration which this and similar sallies of wit have excited, must have produced a strong desire in the minds of many young men of spirit to perform similar feats; and though the ruin of innumerable poor creditors may be the consequence, that will not surely be deemed by a certain class of reasoners worthy of a moment’s regret, or even a moment’s thought. Persons of tender consciences may, perhaps, be shocked at the idea of committing injustice and cruelty by starving their creditors, but they may strengthen their minds by taking an enlarged political view of the subject.