Mr. Longstaff gets fuddled, and revenges himself upon Mrs. Clink; together with some excellent discourse of his while in that pleasing condition. The mother of our hero partially discloses a secret which the reader has been anxious to know ever since he commenced this history.

WHILE things were thus progressing elsewhere, the poor and destitute, though erring, creature, over whose head the rod of petty tyranny now hung so threateningly, had passed a solitary evening by the side of her small fire, unnoticed even by the neighbours humble as herself; for adversity, though it is said to make men friends, yet renders them selfish also, and leaves in their bosoms but few feelings of charity for others.

Little Fanny, transformed into a miniature washerwoman, and elevated on two or three lumps of Yorkshire stone to lengthen her out, had been employed since nightfall, by the hazy light of a candle scarcely thicker than her own little finger, in washing some few things for the baby; while young Colin himself, held up in his mother's arms, with his face pressed close to her bosom, was silently engaged in fulfilling, as Voltaire has it, one of the most abstruse laws of natural philosophy. Having at length resolved this problem perfectly to his satisfaction, Master Colin betook himself, with the utmost complacency, to sleep, just as though his mother had had no trouble whatever in the world with him; or, as though Mr. Longstaff, the steward, had been fast asleep in bed, dreaming of felled timbers and unpaid arrears, and utterly regardless of Colin's existence, instead of preparing, as he was—untimely and heartlessly—to disturb that baby slumber, and to harass with additional pains and fears the bosom of one who had already found too abundantly that folly and vice mete out their own punishment.

The child had already been placed in the cradle, and little Fanny had taken her seat on a small stool in the chimney-corner, with her supper in her hand, consisting of a basin of milk and water, thickened with cold potatoes; while the mother sat before the fire, alternately knitting a ball of black worsted on the floor into a stocking, and giving the cradle an additional push, as the impetus it had previously received died away and left it again almost at rest. Everything was silent, save one or two of those quiet homely sounds, which fall on the ear with a sensation that appears to render even silence itself still more silent. The solitary ticking of an old caseless Dutch clock on the wall was interrupted only by the smothered rocking of the cradle, wherein lay the yet unconscious cause of all I have told, or may yet have to tell. As hand or foot was applied to keep it in motion, the little charge within was tossed alternately against each blanketed side of his wooden prison, and jolted into the utterance, every now and then, of some slight sound of complaint, which as regularly sunk again to nothing as the rocking was increased, and the mother's low voice cried—

“Hush, child! peace, peace! Sleep, barn, sleep!”

And then rounded off into a momentary chant of the old ditty, beginning,

But out of doors, as the rustic village had long ago been gone to rest, everything was as silent as though the country had been depopulated.

Fatigued by the long day's exertion, Fanny had fallen asleep, with half her supper uneaten in her lap; and Mistress Clink, unconsciously overtaken in a similar manner, had instinctively covered her face with her hand, and fallen into that imperfect state of rest in which realities and dreamy fictions are fused together like things perfectly akin,—when the sound of visionary tongues seemed to be about her.

“Go straight in,” said one. “Don't stand knocking.”

“Perhaps she's a-bed,” observed another.

“Then drag her out again, that 's all,” replied the same person that had first spoken; “I 've sworn to kick her and her young 'un into th' street to-night, and the devil's in it if I don't, dark as it is. It will not be the first time she's lay i' th' hedge-bottom till daylight, I 'll swear.”

Mrs. Clink started up, terrified. The door was pushed violently open, and the village constable, an assistant, and Mr. Longstaff, the steward,—in a state of considerable mental elevation, arising from the combination of punch and revenge,—stood in the middle of the room.

“Now, missis!” bawled the steward, advancing, and clenching his fist before his own face, while he stared at her through a pair of leaden eyes, with much of the expression of an owl in the sun; “You see me, don't you? You see me, I say? Mark that. Did you expect me, I say, missis? No, no, I think not. You thought you were safe enough, but I've got you! I've got you, I tell you, as sure as a gun; and now I'm going to learn you how to put your whelps down i' th' parish books to my account; I am, my lady. I 'll teach you how to touch a steward again, you may 'pend on't!”

“Oh, sir!” began Mrs. Clink imploringly; but she was instantly stopped by Mr. Longstaff.

“Ay, ay,—you may oh, sir! as long as you like, but I'm not to be oh sir'd, that way. Do you know aught about rent?—rent, I say—rent?—last year?—t' other house?—d 'ye know you hav'n't paid it? or are you going to swear that to me, an' all?—'Cause if you are, I wish you may die in a ditch, and your baby under you! Now, look you, I'm going to show you a pretty trick;—about as pretty, missis, as you showed me this morning. What d 'ye think of that, now, for a change? How d 'ye like that, eh? I'm going to seize on you—”

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No sooner did Mrs. Clink hear these words from the mouth of the intoxicated Mr. Longstaff, than she screamed, and fell on her knees; crying out in broken exclamations, “Oh, not to-night, sir—not to-night! Tomorrow, if you please, sir,—to-morrow—tomorrow!”

But, though joined in this petition by the tears of little Fanny, and the unintentional pleadings of Colin, who now began to scream lustily in his cradle, the steward disregarded all, until, finding prayers and entreaties vain, the voice of the woman sunk into suppressed sobbings, or was only heard to utter repeatedly,

“What will become of my poor baby!”

“Become of him?” exclaimed Longstaff, turning towards her as she yet remained on her knees on the ground. “Why,—take and throw him into th' horsepond, that's my advice. He 'll never be good for aught in this world but to hang on th' work'us, and pull money out of other people's pockets. Go on, Bill;—go on, my lad:—put 'em all down, stick and stone; and away with 'em all to-night. There sha'n't be a single thing of any sort left in this house for th' sun to shine on to-morrow morning.”

The excitement produced by Mr. Longstaff's discourse upon his own stomach and brain had the effect of rendering him, in this brief period of time, apparently much more intoxicated than he was on first entering the cottage, and he now sunk heavily upon a chair, as though unable to remain upon his feet any longer.

“Have you put this chair down, Bill?” he asked, at the same time tapping with his fingers the back of that upon which he was sitting, by way of drawing attention to it.

The constable answered in the affirmative.

“That's right, my boy—that's right. And that clock, there, have you got him? Bless his old pendulum! we 'll stop his ticking very soon:—we 'll show him what o'clock it is,—won't we, missis?”

But this facetiousness passed unheeded by the poor woman to whom it was addressed, unless one look of reproachful scorn, which she cast in the stupid face of the steward, might be considered as an answer to it.

“Why, you 're looking quite pretty, tonight, Miss Clink,” said Mr. Longstaff in a more subdued tone:—“I don't wonder—though he is married, and all that sort of thing,—I don't wonder at the squire, if he did patronise you a little.”

The cheeks of our hero's mother blushed scarlet with indignation. She rose from the cradle-side, on which she had been sitting, and with an evident struggle to overcome the sobs that were rising in her throat, so as to enable her to speak distinctly, she stood up before the astonished steward, displaying a countenance and figure that would have graced many a far fairer place, and thus addressed him:—

“I'm a poor helpless woman, Mr. Longstaff, and you know it; but such men as you are always cowards. You may rob me of my few goods; you may destroy my home, though it is almost too poor to be worth the trouble; you may turn me out of my house, with that baby, without a roof to put my head under, because you may have power to do it, and no humanity left in you. But, I say, he is a mean contemptible man,—whether it be you, or any one else,—who can thus insult me, bad as I am. I can bear anything but that, and that I won't bear from any man. Especially—” and she laid strong emphasis on her words, and pointed with her finger emphatically to the person she addressed:—“Especially from such a man as you: for you know that if it had not been for you and your wife—”

Longstaff began to lose his colour somewhat rapidly, and to look half a dozen degrees more sober.

“—Yes, I repeat it, you and your wife,—I should not have been the wretched creature that I am. And yet you seek to be revenged on me,—” she continued, growing more passionate as she proceeded, “you have courage enough to set your foot on such a hovel as this, because it shelters me, and crush it.”

It was clear beyond dispute, from Mr. Longstaff's manner, that he had drawn down upon himself a retort which he never intended—especially in the presence of two other persons. He leaned half over his chair-back, with his dull eyes fixed, though evidently in utter absence of mind, upon the ceiling; while a visible nervous quivering of his pale lips and nostrils evinced the working of inward emotions, to which his tongue either could not, or dared not, give utterance.

Meantime, Mrs. Clink had taken little Colin out of his cradle, and wrapped him warmly round with all the clothes it contained. She then led Fanny into the inner room, which was occupied as a bed-chamber.

“Come, Fanny,” said she; “if there be still less charity under a bare sky than under this stripped roof, we cannot do much worse. Put on all the clothes you have, child, for perhaps we may want them before morning.”

And then she proceeded to select from her scantily stored drawers such few trifles as she wished to retain; and afterwards, in accordance with her own injunction, dressed herself as if for a long night-journey.

“Come, lads,” at length remarked Mr. Longstaff, after a long silence, “hav'n't you done yet? You mustn't take any notice of this woman, mind;—she's had her liquor, and hardly knows what she's talking about.”

“Won't to-morrow do, sir, to finish off with?” asked the holder of the distress-war-rant: and at the same moment our hero's mother, with Colin in her arms, and Fanny by her side, passed out of the door-way of the inner room. Mr. Longstaff looked up, and, seeing them prepared for leaving the place, observed, in a tone very different to that in which he had before spoken, “We shall not remove anything now; so you may stay to-night, if you like.”

“No, sir,” replied Mrs. Clink; “your master's charity is quite enough: I want none of yours. But, before I go, let me tell you I know that Mr. Lupton has never sanctioned this; and I doubt your right to do what you are doing.”

Here again was something which appeared to throw another new light upon the steward's mind; for, in reality, his passion had not allowed him for a moment to consider what might be the squire's opinion about such an off-hand and barbarous proceeding. He began to feel some misgivings as to the legal consequences of his own act, and eventually even went so far as to request that Mrs. Clink would remain in the house until the morrow, when something more could be seen about it.

“No,” said she again, firmly, “whatever I may be now, I was not born to be blown about by every fool's breath that might come across me. Once done is not undone. Come, Fanny.”

In another minute, Mr. Longstaff, Bill the constable, and his assistant, were the only living creatures beneath that roof, which, an hour before, with all its poverty, seemed to offer as secure a home, as inviolable a hearth stone, as the castle of the best lordling in the kingdom.