Transcriber's Notes:
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(University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
DELAWARE;
OR
THE RUINED FAMILY.
EDINBURGH
PRINTED BY M. AITKEN, 1, ST JAMES'S SQUARE.
DELAWARE;
OR
THE RUINED FAMILY.
A TALE.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED FOR ROBERT CADELL, EDINBURGH;
AND WHITTAKER & CO., LONDON.
MDCCCXXXIII.
DELAWARE;
OR,
THE RUINED FAMILY.
>CHAPTER I.
I do most sincerely believe, that the very best way to get all the characters of this book out of their manifold difficulties, would be, to end the work at the close of the second volume, and leave the world to settle it, as it liked. However, as the great object is, to make known the truth, and as the chances are infinite, that no single individual of the millions who intend to read this book, would, by the utmost exertion of their imagination, discover what the truth is, it may be necessary to go on, and explain what has become of some at least of the characters which have slipped off the stage Heaven knows where--especially as they have each much to do, and to suffer, before they "sleep the sleep that knows no waking."
The great advantage of autobiography is, that a man never troubles his head about other people's affairs, but goes on with his own tale till he has done with it; whereas the unfortunate wretch who undertakes to tell the history of a number of other people, has no better a life of it than a whipper-in, and is obliged to be continually trotting up and down, flogging up his straggling characters to a pace with the rest. The reader, too, may get his brains most tremendously puzzled in the mean time. But what can be done? If people will not write their own stories, other people must write them for them, and the work must go on as best it may. Under these circumstances, we must request the gentle reader to bring back his mind, or his eyes, to the end of the fourth chapter of the last volume, since which precise point we have neglected entirely the history of Henry Beauchamp. However, amends shall immediately be made to that gentleman, and he shall have the whole of this volume to himself.
Let it be remembered, then, that he set out from the dwelling of the miser at Ryebury, promising that punctilious person to return, and sign at once the more formal and regular documents, for which the necessary stamps were still to be procured from Emberton--that he passed William Delaware on his road, concealing himself from him as he did so; and the reader, if he be so pleased, may dip his hand into the wallet of imagination, and take out his own particular little scheme, for leaving the money with which Beauchamp was burdened, in the chamber of--Blanche Delaware's brother.
Those three last words may seem periphrastic; but if the reader thinks they are so, he makes a mistake; for at that moment, it was not in the least as Captain William Delaware, a Master and Commander in his Majesty's Navy, nor as the son of Sir Sidney Delaware of Emberton, Baronet, nor in any other quality, shape, or capacity of any kind whatsoever, that Henry Beauchamp regarded him; but solely and wholly in relation to Blanche Delaware--or, in short, as the brother of her he loved. When he avoided him, it was because she had rejected his--Beauchamp's offered hand; when he placed the money on the table at Emberton, it was, that the clouds which had so long obscured the sunshine of her days, might be scattered for ever; and Henry Beauchamp could no more think of William Delaware, without the connecting link that bound him to his sister, than one can think of the planetary system without the sun.
When it was all done, however; and, having regained the shade of the park trees, Henry Beauchamp was strolling on, slow and sad, towards Ryebury, he bethought him of what was next to be done, as a consequence of the very things that were just accomplished. Let it be remarked that this was the first time he had thought of what was to follow; for the hurry and confusion of the whole day, which had just passed over his head, had left him no time for reflection, even had he been inclined to indulge in it; and the bitter disappointment he had suffered, had given him no great taste for thought of any kind. All he had calculated, was the best means of arriving at his immediate object; and farther than that, he had satisfied himself with the grand conscience-salve for all mad enterprises--"He dared to say, all would go right!"
Now, however, when he began to consider the matter, it presented more difficulties than he had before perceived. He was quite romantic enough and wealthy enough to have given the money to his cousins, with pleasure in the gift, and without inconvenience from the consequences; but, from the delicacy of feeling natural to his own heart, he perfectly understood that neither Sir Sidney Delaware, nor any of his family, would be willing to receive such a sum from any one as a donation--especially from him, circumstanced as he was in regard to Miss Delaware. Disgusted and wearied with the delays and shuffling of the miser, and suspecting that his worthy uncle, Lord Ashborough, might have some share in producing the impediments, he had determined to put it out of the power of any one to prevent the payment, and consequently had acted as we have seen; but, now that he had done so, he found that it would be in no degree easy to give the matter the air of an ordinary transaction.
People who have met with few difficulties in their undertakings, soon teach themselves to trust the execution of anything they themselves find troublesome, to others, and look upon their carrying it through easily as a matter of course; and as Beauchamp, though not in general given to insouciance, was just then in a state of mental irritation and impatience, which rendered long reflection of any kind irksome to him, he determined to throw the burden of the business upon the shoulders of the miser. "I will tell him," he thought, "to write a note to William Delaware, the first thing to-morrow, informing him that he has sent the money by a friend to-night, and is ready to execute the legal documents in regard to the whole transaction." Having so far made his arrangements in his own mind, he walked on slowly, beginning to feel somewhat weary with his day's exertion; and, as he did so--every other subject which could force his thoughts from the most painful object they could choose, being lost for the time--memory naturally led him back to dream of Blanche Delaware, and her strange and unaccountable conduct towards himself. That he loved her as deeply and as sincerely as man could love woman, he now felt but too painfully; but, notwithstanding good Mrs. Wilson's sentimental anticipations of his antique Roman impatience of existence, Beauchamp was the last man on earth to drown himself under any circumstances whatever. Not that he did not feel that the gloss and splendour was, to him, gone from the earth for ever--not that he did not feel that his love would endure to his last hour, mingling the poison drop of disappointment through all the cup of life--not that wounded pride, and broken hopes, and rebuked self-confidence, and all that can embitter man's feelings, were not poured like gall and wormwood into his heart--but, somehow, he had acquired a strange notion, that to lay hands upon one's own life was not only immoral and unchristian, but was also cowardly and stupid--the act of a madman, a lout, or a barbarian. He had never been one of those men that particularly value life; and certainly he felt that, at the present moment, if any one had been inclined to take it from him, it was a sort of commodity he could part with without great regret. Yet, at the same time, even in that case, he would probably have defended it as a matter of course; and, as to throwing it away by his voluntary act, such a thing never entered his mind.
His thoughts, however, in regard to Blanche Delaware were, as we have said, bitter enough. He loved her deeply--with a first, pure, steadfast, and yet passionate affection. His heart--so long guarded--had poured out upon her all its stored enthusiasm and repressed tenderness; and in the full and confident belief that his attachment was returned, hope had seduced him into every one of those waking visions which are so bright to dream and so agonizing to lose. He had certainly believed that he was loved in return; and the dissolution of that belief was the most painful part of all. Yet Beauchamp was both too proud and too just to suppose that he had been trifled with; or to imagine that a woman, on whom he could have so fixed his heart, would have been guilty of such petty coquetry. He rather chose to blame his own vanity; to admit that Blanche Delaware had been perhaps a little thoughtless; but that he had been far too confident.
Thus thinking, he walked on towards Ryebury, deviating slightly from the way, in order that he might not meet William Delaware on his return, and mingling vague, wild schemes for the future, with the bitter memories and regrets of the past. He would visit Greece he thought--perhaps cross over the narrow strait, and wander through Syria and Judea, or penetrate into Armenia, and pause for a while amongst the tribes, whose patriarchal habits have been so beautifully depicted by Morier's entertaining pen, or even travel forward into India itself, and watch the slow customs of Europe forcing their way amidst the immemorial habits of the Hindoo. He would do anything, in short, for amusement--and forgetfulness.
When he at length approached the door of Mr. Tims's house, the moon had sunk considerably, though she had still some hours to shine; and, pouring her beams from the side, with the slightest possible angle of declination towards the back of the house, her light fell full upon the two steps that led up to the door, without lighting the door itself. Beauchamp thought he heard a noise in the passage as he approached; but with his usual indifference, certainly not decreased either by fatigue or grief, he walked on with the same slow pace in which he had before been proceeding, and was just in the act of laying his hand upon the bell, when the door was suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly thrown open. The faint outline of three men standing in the dim darkness of the passage, was all that Beauchamp could perceive; but the moonlight poured full upon his own figure as he stood alone upon the steps. So unlooked-for a sight in the house of Mr. Tims caused him to pause in some surprise; and he had no time to recover from it; for before he could ask any question, or form any conjecture, he received a violent blow from some heavy instrument on the head, which instantly felled him to the ground, completely stunned and motionless.
How long he continued in that state, Beauchamp could hardly tell; but when he again recovered his consciousness, he found himself lying extended upon some planks, with a stiff and numb sensation over all his limbs, a violent headach, and extreme pain in his ancle, while a rippling sound and buoyant undulating motion seemed to show that he was in a boat upon the water. For the first moment he could not verify this supposition by sight, as he seemed to have been cast carelessly into the boat, and his hat was driven so far over his brows as to prevent him from seeing anything around.
Before he was well aware of what he was doing, he started up, pushing back the covering from his eyes; but, as he did so, his unsteady footing in the boat, together with the violent pain in his ancle, made him lose his balance, and very nearly fall over into the sea, which received his hat as he fell, and bore it far away in a moment.
With an involuntary groan from the pain he suffered, Beauchamp relapsed into his former position; but the single instant he had been able to stand up, had shown him sufficient to make him comprehend in a great degree his immediate situation. The moon, he had remarked, just about to dip below the horizon, was pouring a long, long line of yellow light over the waves that, rippling away in the far perspective, seemed like living things of gold, dancing joyfully in the beams, while over all the rest of the expanse, was to be seen nothing else but the dark mass of agitated waters heaving up and down with a dull but solemn sound. He had just caught a glimpse, too, of a faint line of high coast stretching away to the north-west, and consequently catching upon its most prominent points the beams of the setting moon, while all the rest remained in dim gray shadow. Such had been the more distant objects that Beauchamp had beheld. Those more immediately around him, were the small open boat in which he was borne along, and four figures that it contained. Of these--one of which was that of a woman--two appeared to be death sick, and the other two sat close beside each other in silence at the stern of the boat. One was steering, the other gazing fixedly over the side upon the flashing waters; but the movement of Beauchamp instantly called the eyes of both, though neither made any observation even when he fell back again upon the planks. After he had lain there for a moment or two more, however, the one who was unoccupied whispered something to the steersman. The other made no reply, and the whisper was repeated. The steersman then broke forth with a fearful oath, adding, "If you offer to touch a hair of his head, I will heave you overboard, and send you to hell an hour before your time!"
His companion muttered something which Beauchamp did not hear, and the sailor again replied in the same angry tone, "Come, come, rouse out none of your slack-jaw at me, or blast me if I do not show you who commands here. You have got your way with me once to-night to my own damnation, but you shall not do it again!"
Here the matter dropped, and all was silent but the ripple of the waters. Half an hour more elapsed without a word being spoken; and though Beauchamp felt very giddy and confused, he endeavoured to think over the circumstances in which he was placed, and form some plan for his demeanour towards those by whom he was surrounded.
Although he had very few facts to lead him to such a conclusion, yet something more than a suspicion of the truth crossed his mind. The peculiar whistling he had heard, both in going to and coming from Ryebury, joined with the appearance of the three men in the passage of the miser's house at that time of night--the assault upon himself, and his situation at the very moment, all made him conclude that a bold and extensive robbery had been committed, and that he had been carried away from an apprehension that he might give the alarm, and lead to the detection of the robbers.
He suspected also that it might be a matter of doubt in the bosom of the man who sat by the steersman, whether it would not be best to dispose of such an evidence against them, as he himself might prove, by throwing him into the sea; and the answer of the other showed him that, at all events, there was one of the party averse to such a mode of proceeding.
From all this he concluded, that as he himself could offer little or no resistance to whatever his companions chose to do with him, it would be much better to keep himself as quiet as possible, and to take no apparent notice of anything that was passing around him. Whether such might have been his determination, had he felt well, and in the full use of all his limbs, may be doubtful; but the aching of his head was intense and stupifying, and from the sensation which he experienced in his ancle, he felt sure that one at least of the bones had been dislocated in throwing him into the boat. These sort of little corporalities are apt to make a man excessively quiescent; and Beauchamp, though in general not liking particularly to be treated as a portmanteau, at least without asking the reason why; being now convinced, that however much he might express his volition, he could do no more towards executing it than a trunk itself, determined wisely to keep silence also, and not even to move, any more than the pain he suffered impelled him to do, for the mere sake of changing his position.
His companions remained silent for near an hour, and the only words which then broke the stillness, were spoken by the steersman, who seemed to be the only seaman of the party. "If she be not under the lee of Jerry's Knocker, we must run for old Willy Small's, that's all. We are sure enough with him, and to-morrow we can get another boat, and so across."
The other made no reply, and very likely did not understand clearly what his companion meant. Beauchamp, however, who had in his youth frequented that part of the country; and, as the reader may have perceived, had forgotten but little of the localities, instantly remembered that a long promontory, jutting out from the rest of the coast, and having a calm sheltered bay to the eastward, bore throughout the country the name of Jerry's Knocker; and he was led to conclude, from the rest of the sentence, that the respectable people into whose hands he had fallen, were looking out for some smuggling vessel to carry them to France.
It very speedily became evident, that whatever they were seeking was not to be found. The sea began soon to run high off the headland, and shortly after grew far calmer than before, leading Beauchamp to imagine--though he could see nothing around--that they had doubled the point; but the words, "She's weighed, by ----," at once showed that the vessel was gone; and the steersman, who had been anxiously looking out, resumed his seat, and brought his boat a point nearer to the wind.
In about half an hour afterwards, the pitching of the boat ceased almost entirely, and it was clear she was entering smooth water; while a warning to be quiet, given somewhat sharply by the steersman to one of the sea-sick personages, who was now inclined to speak, showed that they were approaching some spot where other ears might be on the watch. The thought passed through Beauchamp's mind to try the strength of his lungs; and, had he been sure that there was any one within hearing, it is more than probable he would have done so, as he felt not a little cramped and uncomfortable on the planks of the boat. However, not being sure that any one would or could come to his aid if he were to hollow till he grew hoarse, and that the attempt might only procure him a speedy passage into the sea, he adhered to his former plan, and, in a moment after, with a gentle rush and a slight shock, the boat touched the land.
"Run up to yonder light," said the steersman, in a low voice, "tell the old man that I am here, and bid him come down and lend a hand."
"Why don't you go yourself?" asked the other, in the same whispered tone. "He doesn't know any of us."
"Because I do not choose," answered the other; and the person to whom he spoke at once obeyed. Ere two minutes had elapsed, a considerable addition was made to their party, and the steersman himself, now springing ashore, held a low consultation with those who joined them. The other man and the woman, whom Beauchamp had observed, were next taken out of the boat, and in a moment after a stout old man jumped in, and stirred him by the shoulder. "Come, master!" he said, "you must get out, and come along with us--though you seem to take things vastly quietly."
"I suppose it is the best thing I can do," replied Beauchamp. "But if you want me out, you must carry me out, my good fellow, for they have lamed me, and I cannot stand."
"That's a bad job!" replied the other, speaking in a rough but kindly tone. "Wat will be sorry for that, for they did not intend to hurt you, I can tell you."
"Perhaps not," said Beauchamp; "though knocking me down and stunning me on the spot, were not very unlikely to hurt me."
"Ay, but if a man will poke his nose into what he has no business with, master," replied the other, "he must take what he gets."
"Very true!" answered Beauchamp dryly, though somewhat surprised at the fellow's coolness. "Very true, indeed! But it was purely accidental on my part. I had not the slightest intention of intruding upon the gentlemen in the pursuit of their avocations. But, as I said before, if you mean me to get out of this boat--and I am heartily tired of it--you must carry me; for I can only stand upon one leg, and the ground is somewhat uneven."
"True enough, true enough!" answered the man. "Here, Bill, lend us a hand to lift the lad out of the boat. They have broke his leg amongst them. It will teach you, master, to keep out of the way when there is anything to be run upon the coast. Always sheer off when you see what's going on. But we will get it spliced for you, never fear. Here, Bill, I say!"
A youth of about seventeen or eighteen now came up and helped his father, as it proved the old man was, to lift the stranger on shore. Beauchamp then, with the assistance of the elder personage, made his way from the little sandy cove into which the boat had been run, to a lonely house, standing high up upon the bank, with two boats drawn up nearly to the door, and about a square yard of cabbage-garden at the back. The old smuggler, for such he evidently was, led his unwilling guest in, and was about to conduct him into a room, the door of which opened at a right angle with that which entered from the shore. Various signs and symbols, however, within the chamber, made the man pause ere he went in; and at length he exclaimed, as he still stood in the entrance--"Well, well! But give us a candle, though! How the devil can one see up the stairs? It's as dark as Davy's locker!"
Beauchamp made as much use of his eyes as possible; but it was in vain that he did so, for the persons that the room contained were concealed from his sight by the half-closed door; and all that he could distinguish was part of the common interior of a fisherman's kitchen--a large chest, a deal table, a wide fireplace, and two shelves covered with clean blue-edged plates and porringers, together with a vial bottle, half full of ink, and having a pen stuck in the top of it, pendent by a bit of string from the corner of one of the shelves.
A moment after, a clean, little, well-salted fisherman's wife, emerged from behind the door, with a brazen candlestick and three inches of lighted candle in her hand; and Beauchamp, conducted up stairs with no inconsiderable agony, was ushered into a small bedroom, (of which there appeared to be four, by the way,) which, amidst all its faults and deficiencies, was at least clean.
As they went up the stairs, and for a moment after they entered the room, the eyes of the smuggler continued to run over his guest's apparel and face with a look of surprise, and even anxiety, which increased at every glance; and when he had done, there was a change in his whole demeanor which might have made Beauchamp smile at any other time, or under any other circumstances. He now, however, threw himself down in a chair, exhausted with the pain his exertion had caused him, and was about to demand that a surgeon should be sent for, when the old man, setting down the candle on the table, told him with a tone of respectful civility, that he would return in a moment, and left him.
"Lock the door!" shouted a voice from below, as the smuggler quitted the room. The door accordingly was locked; and Beauchamp, left alone, before he proceeded to think over his present situation, according to his usual deliberate custom, set to work to get his boot off, and see what was really the state of his ancle.
His leg, however, was so much swelled, that all ordinary efforts were vain, although he never committed that piece of exuberant impolicy, the wearing a tight boot. As soon as he discovered this to be the case, he took his penknife from his pocket, and at once relieved his foot and leg from their leathern prison. He was then about to proceed in his examination, when steps coming from below interrupted him; but another door was opened, and in a moment after he heard the voice of the old smuggler, and that of the man who had steered the boat, conversing together somewhat eagerly. At first, as usual, there was a guard upon their tongues, and all that reached his ear was a sort of hum; but soon the caution wore away; they spoke loud, and Beauchamp, without the desire or the capability of moving from the chair in which he had first sat down, heard distinctly the greater part of all that past.
"Well, well, Wat!" said the voice of the old man, "D--me, if I'm a man to leave a poor boy at a pinch! We must just get the cutter run down; but she cannot be here you know till to-morrow night any how,--It must be a bad job though, that makes you so wild to get to France, my boy."
"A bad job enough! A bad job enough!" answered a voice that Beauchamp now remembered full well. "But mark ye, William Small, when ye hear it all told--Mark ye, I say! I had nothing to do with the worst part of it. Those two fellows below have cheated me, and made a wretch of me. D--me, if I would not rather have gone up to the main chains and gone pitch over, head foremost, into the Bay of Biscay--But they did it, not I--mind that!"
"I'd bet a puncheon they've killed the officer," replied the other.
"Don't ask any questions, Willy Small!" replied his companion; "Don't ask any questions--It is safer for us all!"
"Why, that's true enough!" replied the smuggler, "That's true enough! No, no! I'll not ask nor guess either, and then I know nothing about it, but that you and t'others wanted the cutter to go a pleasuring; and I'll take the lowest price you see too, Watty, so they can't bring me in as art and part for the run goods. But what is to be done with the young man in the next room? Why, Wat, he seems a gentleman--I say!"
"Ay! he is a gentleman every inch of him," answered the other; "and such a one as one seldom sees--I would not have harm happen to him for the world--Why, you must just keep him for a day or two, till we are gone and safe, and then let him go. But I say, when you lock the door to-night upon him, keep you the key yourself, mind you. Those fellows below, have an ill-will to him; and if it had not been for me, they would have hove him overboard this blessed night--upon my soul they would!"
"D--n their eyes and limbs!" exclaimed the other, "I should like to see them touch him in my house. If I would not tie them together, like a couple of hogsheads, and sink them out of water-mark. But as to locking the door, Wat, there is no use of that at all, bless ye. He can't stir an inch. Why, you've broken his leg amongst you!"
The reply of the other, though sufficiently blasphemous--and we must here apologize to the more scrupulous reader for admitting into the dialogues just past, so many profane expletives, which we would not perhaps have done, having no delight in such matter ourselves, had not the love of truth and accuracy prevailed--The reply of the other, then, though sufficiently blasphemous, showed that he was bitterly grieved for the accident which had happened to Beauchamp; and a long conversation ensued in regard to the necessity of sending for a surgeon.
That, however, they both agreed would "blow the whole business"--to use their own expression--and humanity as usual gave way to apprehension. Old Willy Small, as the smuggler was denominated, declared that he was a goodish hand himself at splicing a broken limb, and that he and his wife would look to it, till the other party were safe off to France. This seemed to quiet the conscience of the other upon that particular; and, after concerting some farther plans for facilitating all the preparations for their journey, they returned to their comrades below.
The effect of this conversation upon the mind of Henry Beauchamp, was not certainly to produce any very agreeable sensations. He began to apprehend that a worse crime than simple robbery had been committed at the house of the unhappy miser; and though, in one point of view, he felt little anxiety on his own account--seeing evidently that he would not want assistance at his need, if anything were attempted against him--yet he could not help shuddering at his proximity to a gang of murderers; and contemplated, with no great pleasure, the surgical offices to be performed upon his own leg by a smuggler and an old woman. An evil, however, is seldom without its good; and though, certainly, had it been left to his own choice, he might have found a more agreeable way of diverting his thoughts from all the painful subjects that previously occupied them; yet true it most assuredly is, that corporeal uncomfort, pain, and apprehension, did very materially lessen----No! not his love for Blanche Delaware; but the first bitter feeling of the disappointment which her conduct had occasioned.
If it were not so strange to say, and if we could by any means discover the process by which the mind could arrive at such a result, we should declare, that, in the midst of all these dangers, troubles, and uncomforts of a different kind, Beauchamp had found a new store of hope. How, or why, who can tell? but either his hope was like the limbs of the skeleton in the Fantocini, which, after being all disjointed, are suddenly pulled together again by strings that no one can see; or else it was like a fire of dry wood, which, when it has appeared for some time quite extinguished, will pour out a small white flame, when nobody is expecting any such thing, and soon be as bright again as ever. At all events, he had left Emberton that very morning without a spark of hope apparently left; and after going through as much as would have contented him with adventures for the whole of his life, he could not help thinking that there was something very strange and unaccountable in Blanche Delaware's whole conduct, and that, if he could but get the key, all might still go well. Nevertheless, he was not left long to cogitate upon anything; for, in a minute or two, the smuggler and the smuggler's wife walked in, in the character of surgeon and assistant; and, after some awkward explanations of their purpose, demanded to look at the gentleman's leg, to see if they could help him. As he knew that it was predetermined not to send for a surgeon, Beauchamp, who was not disposed to make people look foolish unnecessarily, did not, as he once intended, propose that expedient.
"You may look at my leg as much as you like, my good people," he said; "but I have not the slightest intention of letting you do anything to it, unless what you propose agrees with my own opinion." This being settled, the woman knelt down, and the man held the candle, and the stocking being withdrawn, an examination and mumbled consultation of some length took place.
"It's not broken, sir, do you see!" said the old man, looking up. "It's only the small bone put out, do you see!"
"I see nothing at all, my good fellow," replied Beauchamp, "except that it is very painful; and, of course, the more you pinch it the worse it is."
The man then assured him that, if he would let him try, he would put it in in a minute; and, after a laborious explanation, Beauchamp consented. The old man pulled his foot as if he would have pulled it off: the old woman squeezed his ancle as if she would have broken it through the middle; but at length, with a sudden snap, the bone started back into its place, and the patient found instant relief. Every attempt to stand, however, was still quite out of the question; and Beauchamp, giving himself entirely up into the hands of such skilful chirurgeons, suffered his ancle to be bandaged up with clothes steeped in vinegar and brandy, and himself to be carried to bed, where the smuggler assured him he ought to lie for at least four days, in order to perfect his recovery. When all was completed, and his host and hostess were retiring, Beauchamp listened for a moment, and heard the key of the door turned with greater satisfaction than he had imagined the fact of being locked into his own room would ever afford him.
CHAPTER II.
Now, Henry Burrel was a great deal too sincere a man, even in his commune with himself, to endeavour by any means to cheat himself into the belief that he was a hero. In short, he had quite sufficient real enthusiasm in his disposition, and quite sufficient contempt for those who affected it without having any, to make him very jealous of letting the portion he did possess appear openly, even before his own eyes; and, in order to correct such propensities, he had got up, as we have shown before, a system of apathetic indifference to every thing that did not affect himself, which, though sometimes run away with by his zeal or his affections, contrived generally to bridle feelings that would otherwise have been somewhat headstrong.
Left alone in a little bed, in a little room in a smuggler's cottage, on the loneliest part of the sea-shore--locked in without being able to set a foot to the ground--without a light----and with a confounded smell of fish pervading the whole atmosphere--his first impulse, as all these minor miseries tickled his imagination one after the other, was to laugh heartily. But the impression lasted but a moment; and, when he thought of the more remote, but more dreadful, circumstances connected by an inseparable link with his temporary situation--the murder of a helpless old man, which he doubted not had been committed--the fearful moral offence which three of his fellow-creatures had perpetrated; and the miserable fate of a youth, in whom he had taken considerable interest--for he had recognized, as we have before hinted, the voice of poor Wat Harrison--when he thought of all these circumstances, his heart smote him for the moment of levity in which he had indulged; and poured out the full tide of its generous and kindly feelings to wash away the fault of that one instant.
He now revolved the matter more seriously; and, as he did so, of course his own situation came again soberly under consideration. That situation was evidently anything but pleasant, for no man could be expected to find his pillow very soft when it was shaken by the hands of a gang of murderers. But Beauchamp was constitutionally a brave man. His impulses were not those of fear; and, though he had a very considerable share of imagination, yet when he wanted to frighten himself about anything, he had to think of it seriously, and call up all the dangers one by one. Now, in the present instance, there were so many unpleasant and perilous points in his position, which he could neither divert nor avoid, that, after a short reflection, he found it would be best and wisest not to think of the danger at all; and, when he had so settled the matter, he found no great difficulty in forgetting it altogether, although with a degree of feverish restlessness he turned and returned in his mind the conversation which he had heard in the adjoining room.
It was evident that Walter Harrison had not told the whole truth to the old man who had given them shelter; and whether it was the smuggler's previous conclusions that had led him to believe the crime, from the consequences of which the young sailor was flying, had been committed in an endeavour to defraud the revenue, or whether by a direct falsehood on the lad's own part, Beauchamp naturally deduced from every thing which he had discovered, that Willy Small, as they called him, would be the first to shrink from the perpetrators of the deeper offence which had really been offered to the laws of God and man. This was, at least, some consolation; and although Beauchamp still felt a sensation of awe and horror when he reflected calmly on the whole transactions of that night, yet his feelings were more like those of one who reads a horrid tale of crime and sorrow in the newspapers, than those of one around whose very person the circumstances had been transacted, and who was in some degree a party to the whole.
Nevertheless, he could not go to sleep over it, with the easy carelessness of one of those daily devourers of manufactured horrors, who join to patronize the periodical press with the devout idolaters of agitation, and who, like men fed upon deviled gizzards, find that nothing on earth has enough cayenne. Whether it was busy thoughts, or a broken head, or an ancle that had been dislocated, that kept him awake, I cannot tell; but he lay in feverish and uneasy restlessness long after all was quiet in the house, and even the murderers had retired--I had almost said--to sleep.
Towards morning, however, exhaustion overcame all, and he slept long and profoundly. How long indeed he did not know, for he had forgot to wind up his watch; but, at all events, he woke refreshed and calm, his headach gone, and the pain of his hurt ancle so much relieved, that he fancied he could do anything, and at once sprang out of bed. He instantly found his mistake; for the moment he attempted to set that foot to the ground, he reeled, and would have fallen but for his hold of the bedstead; and, on examining more closely, he found his leg enormously swelled, and bidding fair, as the smuggler had predicted, to confine him to the house for more than one day. Notwithstanding this discovery, he determined to make his way to the window before any one interrupted him, in order to examine the local, and what was passing without; and by means of the table and the chairs he contrived to effect this purpose.
The scene that presented itself, was one that may be met with about once every three miles along the greater part of the southern and eastern coasts of England--a small sandy bay opening out into the wide blue sea, with two or three high cliffs on either hand, and nothing more. In the present instance, however, an object struck the eyes of Henry Beauchamp, which was not without its peculiar interest. It was a small low-rigged cutter, just making her way out to sea, with a full steady wind, and a press of sail. He looked up to the sky; and as far as he could judge, from the position of the sun, concluded that one or two hours must have passed since noon. At the same time, there was no sound of voices below; a lad was seen mending one of the boats on the shore; and a man, in whom he easily distinguished the old smuggler, was standing on the nearest bank, with a glass to his eye, either watching the progress of the cutter, or examining a vessel that could just be seen hull down in the offing. All seemed to imply, that those who had brought him thither had effected their escape from England; and after gazing out for a moment he returned to his bedside, and proceeded to dress himself as well as he could. The gentleman who threaded the DÆdalion labyrinth, and slew Mrs. Pasephae's illegitimate son at the end of it, had not half such a piece of work of it, as Henry Beauchamp had, to get into his clothes. It is wonderful how much more use one makes of one's foot even in dressing oneself, than one knows anything about; and what would have come of it in the present instance, can hardly be divined, had it not so happened that, after Beauchamp had struggled with innumerable difficulties for nearly half an hour, the old smuggler presented himself as a somewhat rude valet-de-chambre, and saved his guest from martyrdom.
The old man, in his quality of surgeon, blamed Beauchamp highly for getting up at all; and, pointing out the swelled state of his ancle, declared that he would only let him remain up, on condition that he would keep it raised upon a chair during the rest of the day.
Beauchamp was perhaps a little irritable with the contention he had just gone through with various parts of his apparel; and consequently, seating himself calmly on the nearest chair, he informed the old man, in a cool determined tone, that it was his intention immediately to proceed to Dorchester, which, as far as he could calculate, was the nearest large town. He was met by the smuggler, however, in a way that he did not expect, and this, of course, gave a sudden change to the current of his feelings. Instead of telling him that he could not go, or that he should not go, or any of those things which would have rendered him more determined than ever, the old man replied in a civil tone:--"Well, sir, you can do as you like; but I don't see how you can manage it to-night, for it is now near four--Dorchester's twenty miles off; and even were I to send for a shay, it can't come down within two mile of this place--cause there is no road."
"Past four is it?" cried Beauchamp. "I must have slept sound."
"I dare say you were tired enough, sir," replied the old man; "but it is past four, indeed--and, as I was saying, Dorchester is twenty miles, and the next town is ten. You are very welcome to your bed, sir; and I think you had a great deal better stay till you can walk a bit."
Beauchamp mused; for his situation was certainly a very unpleasant one. He knew it to be his duty to give immediate information of what had occurred to himself, to those persons who might investigate the matter thoroughly, and discover whether a greater offence had not been committed. At the same time, he felt the impossibility of walking two miles, if his life had been at stake; while he did not think it would be either wise or safe to intrust to a man of so doubtful a character as this Willy Small, even his suspicions in regard to persons, with one of whom, at least, the smuggler was on terms of friendship. It was impossible to say what the fear of being implicated in such a transaction, as Beauchamp believed to have taken place, might cause him to do, if he found that he had in his power the only person who could prove his connexion with the culprits. At the same time, the man's tone was perfectly civil, and even kind; and as soon as Beauchamp found that no opposition was intended to the exercise of his free-will, he of course dropped the more peremptory manner he had assumed, and determined to try milder means instead, though he well knew that no measures would have proved successful, had the smuggler made up his mind to risk after consequences, in order to gain the present object.
"If these places be so far by land," he said, at length, "is it not possible that I can get a boat to carry me to the next town on the coast?--I see two lying there upon the beach; and I will pay well for one, if it can be procured."
"Why, sir, for the matter of that," answered the smuggler, "one of the boats has not been sea-worthy these three months, and the other unfortunately got badly damaged this morning in taking those fellows and the woman to the cutter.--They would not wait till high water, and seemed in a devil of a hurry to get aboard; and how my boy managed it, or whether the old un had a hand in it, I don't know, but they had all near been swamped, and the boat can't be reckoned on, d'ye see!"
Beauchamp's lip curled, as he thought that he perceived a determination to oppose his departure by fair means, if not by force; but the smuggler instantly caught it, and interpreting it aright, replied with a glowing cheek and a look of candour, that went farther to convince his hearer than all the oratory or bullying in the world would have done.
"Well, well! I see what it is," he said. "You think that I want to keep you, while those fellows sheer off clear. But they are gone, and that's done; and sorry am I that I ever saw their faces, for I've a notion that there's somewhat worse at bottom than I thought for. But never mind that. Your honour's a gentleman, at least such I take you to be; and d--me if I have a hand in stopping your going wherever you like. If you like to get under weigh to-night, why, I say nothing; and I will even send the boy Bill over to ---- for horses and a shay, though I think you had better stay here, a devil of a deal; and as for the boat, you may hop down and look at her yourself, and you will see that it will be this time to-morrow before all's right again. So your honour may just do as you like--I say nothing, do you see?"
"You have said enough to make me believe you an honest man," replied Beauchamp; "and if what I suspect of your late inmates be true, you may find my testimony in your favour no slight matter.--What they have done," he added, seeing the old man's curiosity awakened, "I can only suspect, as you do yourself. All I know, of my own personal knowledge, is that, as I was accidentally coming upon them unawares, they thought fit to knock me down, and brought me hither; but I should certainly think you would find it most safe and most creditable to go immediately to the next magistrate and give information."
"No, no, no!" cried the smuggler--"No, by ----, I won't peach; and, besides, I know nothing about them!"
"I am well aware, my good friend," replied Beauchamp, "that you have been deceived; for I will tell you fairly that I heard unwillingly all that past between you and the young sailor, in the next room, last night. Take my word for it, however, that there has been no smuggling in the business."
The man started, but Beauchamp went on. "Smuggling had nothing to do with it; but as I know that your ideas of honour are very different from mine, I shall not of course press you to inform against men, whose crime you do not fully know, and whose guilt I myself could not clearly prove. Nevertheless, I must do my duty, and, well or ill, I must make my way to Dorchester to-morrow, in executing which purpose, I am sure you will aid me."
"That I will, sir! That I will!" answered the old man. "I will leave Bill to mend the boat, and I will set out for ---- by daylight, and you shall have a shay down at the red stile by two o'clock at farthest. No! No! I will never peach against a poor lad who trusted me; but somehow, what your honour has said, has made me feel a little queerish--I should like to know the truth of the business vastly--I don't like these jobs, that I don't--anything in the way of business I don't mind--but I don't--no I don't like these jobs at all!"
It was very evident, from the changed and anxious countenance which the old smuggler now presented, that what he said was very true; and though he could talk with the utmost coolness of killing a king's officer in a smuggling brawl, yet the vague and doubtful nature of the transactions into which he had been unwittingly entrapped, filled him with anxious apprehensions.
"Well, well, my good friend!" replied Beauchamp, whose object was not to alarm him too much on his own account, "At all events you have nothing to do with it, and I can bear witness to the conversation which took place between you and the young sailor last night, and which would at any time establish your ignorance of the whole facts."
"Thank your honour! Thank your honour!" cried the old man with evident heartfelt satisfaction. "Your honour's a gentleman---that you are; and I am sure that I would do anything your honour tells me--that's to say, I wouldn't like to peach, d'ye see--but anything else."
"All that can be required of you," replied Beauchamp, "is not to obstruct the course of justice; and, therefore, I shall trust to you to set out as early as possible to-morrow, to get me some conveyance; and farther, should you be called upon hereafter to give evidence in this business, take my advice, and tell the whole truth boldly and straightforwardly; for depend upon it, to tell a falsehood or to prevaricate, is the most dishonourable thing a man can do, whether his station be high or low."
"That it is sir, surely--that it is!" replied the smuggler; "and I will tell the truth when I am asked. But that is different, your honour knows, from going and telling without any one asking me."
"Certainly it is," said Beauchamp; "and I do not ask you to do more than tell it when it is asked--But now, my good sir, can I get dinner, or breakfast as it is to me; for I begin to feel that I have not eaten any thing for several hours?"
"Now, that's what I call being d--d stupid!" cried Willy Small, much to Beauchamp's surprise, who at first concluded that the smuggler's censure was addressed to him. "If my old woman did not send me up on purpose to tell your honour that she had done you three mackerel, and that, with a rasher of pickled pork, and some fried"--
"Good God!" cried Beauchamp, "I trust that she does not intend me to eat three mackerel, pickled pork, and fried anything!--But never mind--let me see them, by all means. I will eat what I can; and she must excuse me the rest."
Beauchamp's dinner was accordingly placed before him; and with his usual perversity of disposition, it must be acknowledged that, in a smuggler's cottage, with a lame leg, and disappointed in love, he ate a better dinner of mackerel in October, salted pork, and fried eggs, than he had done since he left the Grand St. Bernard. There's a hero! Ulysses was nothing to him, though dressed in a dishclout! The hero of the Odyssey did sit down with twenty fellows who were making love to his own wife, and supped heartily upon the "entrails, fat, enriched with blood," by which Homer undoubtedly meant black puddings.
When he had concluded--as Beauchamp could, when he liked it, cast off his reserve, mingle freely with all classes, and examine nature wherever he found it--he declared that, as the evening was somewhat chilly, he would come down and spend the rest of it by the kitchen fire; and, getting to the bottom of the stairs the best way he could, by the help of the old man and his son, he soon rendered himself familiar with the whole family, winning their love, while he made them more and more inclined to declare, that he was really a gentleman.
Nor did the time pass unpleasantly to himself. He had got a notion, in direct opposition to generally received opinions, that nature was to be found only in the highest and in the lowest classes--more especially indeed in the highest, because the persons of which it is constituted have little inducement to conceal their feelings or thoughts, and certainly no wish to affect the manners of any other cast. Nature, however, as modified by the education of the lower classes, was more interesting to him, from being less frequently before his eyes; and, though he certainly liked the nature of his own rank best, yet he was not sorry occasionally to observe the other a little nearer. Thus the time wore imperceptibly away; and the more tranquil passing of the night was only interrupted by the smuggler's son showing his father a powder-flask, which, he said, one of the gentlemen had dropped upon the beach that morning. Beauchamp took it carelessly in his hand, and returned it without observation; but a single glance had shown him that it was one which, from some fault in it construction, he had given to his servant, Harding, a few days before. The sight, though it but confirmed former suspicions, threw him into a fit of musing for several minutes; but he shook it off as fast as possible, and soon resumed the easy tone in which he had been previously conversing.
The next morning he woke earlier than the day before; but he found from the smuggler's son, that the old man, true to his word, had already set out to procure a post-chaise for him from the nearest town. Many an hour passed by, however, without his return, and it was again nearly four o'clock ere Beauchamp, whose sole amusement had been looking out upon the ever varying sea, beheld him walking sturdily along over the high grounds to the west. He was soon down the little path, and into the house; but Beauchamp remarked that he paused not below, as he naturally might have done, to speak with his wife; but, on the contrary, with a hurried pace proceeded straight up stairs, and entered the stranger's room at once. He was far too much agitated to think of ceremonies; and, leaning on the table without taking off his hat, he stood before Beauchamp, pale, trembling, and out of breath, for several moments before he could utter a word.
"Oh, your honour!" he cried at length. "Oh, your honour! I hope to God you will stand my friend--for this is a horrible business I have got into, and, without help, I shall sink--that's certain!"
"What is the matter? What has happened?" demanded Beauchamp, eagerly; but then, seeing the fearful state of agitation which shook the whole of the old man's powerful frame, he added, "Calm yourself! Calm yourself, Small! You have done nothing that I know of that can injure you! Let me hear what it is alarms you!"
"Thank you, sir, for that!" replied the smuggler, catching at Beauchamp's consolation. "Thank you for that! If you stand by me, I dare say I shall do--but what is it that alarms me? you ask. Why, what should it be? Why, when I went into the town of ----, what should I see but a number of people standing round the town-hall---just at a particular spot like; and something misgave me, so I went up, and there I saw stuck up against the wall a large sheet of paper, and at the top was printed, Five Hundred Pounds Reward; and then, when I looked below, I saw, in bigger letters still, Murder! At first I could not see any more, my brain turned round so; but when I could read on, I saw in the Blagard, as the people called it, how those infernal villains who were here the night afore last had murdered a poor old helpless man at a place they call Ryebury--It did not just say it was them indeed, but I am sure it was--Oh, I am quite sure it was them!"
The last declaration of his conviction was made more faintly, as if he entertained some slight hope that Beauchamp would contradict him; but, on the contrary, that gentleman replied, "I am afraid it was, indeed; for it was at that very place, Ryebury, and at the door of that old man's house, that they met me, and stunned me by a blow on the head.--But what more did the placard say?"
"Oh, it mentioned a Captain Somebody," replied the smuggler. "I forget the name. It was a Frenchified name, however. It was that black-looking ---- with the whiskers, I'll bet a puncheon!"
"Was it Harding?" demanded Beauchamp, fixing his eyes upon him eagerly, to catch his answer from his look, even before he had time to utter it.
"No, no, no!" answered the smuggler. "It was not Harding. It was some Frenchified name; and then there came some person or persons unknown. But now your honour will stand by me, I am sure--for if the justices find out that I helped them off the coast, they will make me out as having a hand in it; and I am sure that if I had known what they had been doing, I would sooner have scuttled the cutter and sent them all to the bottom, if I had gone down with them myself."
"I really believe you would," replied Beauchamp; "and I do not think that--with the evidence which I can give, and which I will give in your favour, should anything be brought against you--there is the slightest cause for your entertaining any apprehension."
"Thank you, sir! Thank you for that!" replied the smuggler. "That will make me easy, and now I'll go and tell the old woman."
"But stay, stay, my good friend!" cried Beauchamp. Is the post-chaise"----
"Lord-a'-mercy, now!" cried the man, before his guest could finish the sentence, at the same time pulling off his hat, and throwing it down upon the ground with a despairing sort of fling. "Lord-a'-mercy, now, if I did not forget all about it! This murder has turned my brain, I do think--for I never went into a house or shed in the whole place, but set off home as hard as I could go, to ask if your honour would stand by me."
"Humph!" said Beauchamp. "This is pleasant."
CHAPTER III.
"Well," thought Beauchamp, "I certainly did calculate upon being at Dorchester to-night, as firmly as if I had never read the Rambler. Oh, Seged, Seged, emperor of Ethiopia! But never mind! to-morrow, at all events, nothing shall stop me; and by that time this leg of mine will be nearly well; so that some advantage at least will be gained by the disappointment."
The following morning the son, instead of the father, was accordingly despatched to the post-town of ----, to order down a chaise immediately to the nearest point of the high-road; and he was, moreover, directed to take advantage of the conveyance, to return so far upon his way, in order to give Beauchamp notice of its arrival. This precaution was not unnecessary, for the boy was a lout, who might very probably have suffered the chaise to go on without him; but having taken these measures, Beauchamp very confidently expected to hear that his vehicle was in waiting, at or about the hour of two.
His lameness had by this time so far worn off, that he could move from place to place with tolerable ease; and he spent the morning principally on the sea-shore, partly in thoughts which were all the busier from the forced inactivity of his body, partly in removing any remaining traces of apprehension from the mind of the old smuggler, who continued working leisurely and lazily at his boat, the damage done to which had evidently been considerable. A little before two o'clock, Beauchamp settled his accounts with his hostess; and all charges being left to his own liberality, and his purse being luckily and miraculously still in his pocket, he presented the worthy dame with a sum so much above either her expectations, or the value of her mackerel and pickled pork, as, in the first place, to make her turn red with surprise and satisfaction, and then run out to tell her husband what the stranger had given them. Two o'clock, however, passed, and old Billy Small began to regret that he had sent young Billy Small, instead of going himself. Three o'clock passed, and Beauchamp joined most sincerely in the regret, especially when he heard the old man exclaim, in the tone of a discovery, "I'd bet a puncheon, now, that Bill has gone and got drunk at the 'lection. I forgot this was the first day of the 'lection for the borough, or I would ha' gone myself to a certainty. He's drunk, no doubt!"
The father, however, did the son injustice; for towards half-past three, the good youth appeared lumbering over the hill, and entered the cottage, wiping his brow, indeed, but with a sober pace. In answer to Beauchamp's enquiries--which were made with more eager haste than he generally indulged in--the young man replied, that all the horses in the town, and for many miles round it, were engaged in the 'lection, so that not one was to be got for love or money.
Now, Beauchamp found himself so strongly inclined to be cross, that--instead of either sending all elections to that distinguished personage who has gained more by them and their consequences than any one else--I mean the devil--or vituperating the post-horses, or any of the other things concerned, as some persons would have done when put out of temper by similar mischances--he acted, of course, in a way of his own, and laughed outright, merely exclaiming, "Well, I must buy a shirt of you, Small, if you will sell me one; for at present I certainly do not come within the old beau's definition of a gentleman!"
As Beauchamp now determined to send no more to a town in which the election of a fit and proper person to represent his Majesty's lieges in Parliament was going on, his next questions related to the boat, or rather to the boats. The smaller of the two, old Small assured him, though it served well enough to catch mackerel in the little sheltered bay before the house, would never do to go any distance; but he promised Beauchamp that the other boat should be ready to carry him to the next coast town by three o'clock on the following day.
Beauchamp, from what he had seen in the morning, imagined that the old man's promise might very well be fulfilled; but he little knew what mending an old boat is. Father and son set to work upon it at once, and went on as long as they could see; and, when the young stranger rose next morning, he found them already occupied in the same manner. His ancle being now greatly better, though not well, he walked out to watch their proceedings; and, sitting beside them, and occasionally giving some slight assistance, he saw hour after hour of the fourth day since his arrival wear away, in performing what he had imagined would have been completed in half the time; till at length, while several small things still remained to be done, he beheld the purple mingling with the blue in the sky, and telling that the daystar was going down to the dark pavilion of his rest. "Oh! Seged, Seged, emperor of Ethiopia!" cried Beauchamp, as he returned into the cottage, "I will this night, at all events, resolve upon doing nothing at all to-morrow, in order to see whether fate will for once disappoint me the right way!"
The morrow, however, dawned bright and clear--the boat was at length ready and launched; and Beauchamp--shaved as usual with the smuggler's one universal razor, and covered with the best specimen of his check-shirts--gladly stepped into the yawl, and saw her pushed off from the land by the united efforts of father and son, both of whom accompanied him on his voyage.
The boat was clinker-built, somewhat broad over the beam, and in all respects the very reverse of a long, thin, shadowy thing that was lying high and dry a little farther up the beach, looking both in form and colour just like the shell of a razor-fish.
Old Willy Small, however, shook his head at mention of that craft, saying, "No, no! The preventive had knocked up all that stuff." So that Beauchamp, well content to get off at all, was obliged to rest satisfied with the slow and sure means of progression which the yawl afforded, though, the wind being light and rather baffling, it appeared very plainly that they were not destined to reach their port much before nightfall.
To increase the tediousness of a day's voyage in an open boat, to a man who had the utmost abhorrence of every sort of water-carriage, the fine morning waxed more and more dim; and first a drizzle, and then a deluge, continued to pour from the sky during the whole of the rest of the day. It was five o'clock before they reached the small town, whose white houses, ranged along with their large goggling windows directly opposite the sea, like a score or two of unsophisticated girls, with white frocks and large black eyes, ranged along the side of a country ball-room, afforded a most welcome sight to the eyes of the weary voyager.
The custom-house officers satisfied themselves with wonderful ease that there was nothing in the boat which they could count as lawful prey, though the appearance of their well-known acquaintance, Willy Small, excited many a shrewd suspicion; and they looked after Beauchamp, as he was borne off to the inn, with the same prying glance with which the merchants, in the Arabian Nights, might be supposed to have examined the pieces of beef brought up by the eagles from the valley of diamonds. At the inn the dripping traveller, who limped along, leaning on the shoulder of the old smuggler, was examined with scarcely less attention, as soon as it was ascertained that he had no baggage; but, somehow, there was--to use a most fearful periphrasis--an air of, right to respect, and of, the habit of being obeyed, which instantly commanded obedience and attention.
Old Billy Small was immediately rewarded and dismissed; and, with many thanks, he hustled rapidly away, like a hunted hippopotamus, to his own element again; perhaps purposing, as he passed by the quay, to have some short conversation, concerning various professional matters, with some of the sailors of a ship which was lying in the harbour, and about to sail for Cherbourg the next morning.
When he was alone, Beauchamp thanked God--not with the empty idleness of tongue with which those words are so often spoken, but truly, sincerely, and from his heart--for his escape from dangers which he had not suffered himself to estimate fully, till they were over. He then rang, and desired the landlord to be called, feeling heated and weary, and having taken it into his head, that the long period which had elapsed since he had enjoyed anything like gentlemanly neatness of person, was the cause of the dry and thirsty feeling that he experienced.
The landlord appeared and answered his enquiries concerning warm baths, and various other matters which would occupy too much room to enumerate, eyeing him curiously to the end, when he added--"Beg pardon, sir--beg pardon! but is not your name Major Beauchamp?"
"It was some time ago," replied Mr. Beauchamp; "but I have quitted the service, and am now plain Mr. Beauchamp, if you please--but who are you, my good friend?"
"Beg your pardon, sir, for the liberty," replied the landlord; "but I am Frank, the waiter at ----'s Hotel, in St. James's Street--that is to say, I was, sir; but this being my native place, and having got together a little money, and having married, and--you see, sir, I came to set up in a small way for myself."
"Well, I am glad to see you, Frank, and hope you prosper," replied Beauchamp. "Have you many people in your house?"
"No, sir, no! answered the man, with a somewhat grave shake of the head. Not many; the season's over indeed--only an old gentleman and his daughter, and an old lady who seems like the housekeeper; but they are very dismal-like, and do not do so much in the way of our business."
"They might be rueful enough, if they had been kept as I have been for the last five days," replied Beauchamp, "at a little cottage on the sea-shore, with a dislocated ancle, and neither clothes, assistance, nor the means of procuring any. But see about the things I mentioned, Frank, and send the things; and if these warm baths are not far, I will try to walk to them, in the mean time."
"Next door but one, sir! Next door but one!" replied the landlord. "Lord, sir, you walk very lame! Stay, sir, I will get my hat, and help you there;" and accordingly, leaning on the arm of the quondam waiter, Beauchamp made his way to the warm baths, feeling that there was some truth in the old Greek epigram, which describes them as amongst the luxuries without which life were not worth possessing.
Returning to the inn, where his family and fortune, by this time fully known, made the whole house ready to perform Cow Tow he dined with that sort of moderation which a man feels inclined to practise, when he finds himself extremely feverish, and when every sort of wine, from cool claret to hot sherry, seems like molten lead, within ten minutes after it is swallowed. Immediately after dinner, all the necessary changes of raiment, which he had been so long without, and which could never be so rapidly supplied as at a seaport town, were brought in one by one, by the officious care of the landlord; and, on discovering that the first coach for London set off on the following morning at ten o'clock, he made that fact a good excuse to himself for yielding to the lassitude he felt, and going to bed at nine.
The night past in heated tossing to and fro; and short fitful intervals of sleep, too dreamful and agitated to be called repose. From one of those brief snatches of slumber, he was awakened early the next morning, by some one knocking at the door of the room next to his own, and exclaiming in a loud tone, "Seven o'clock, sir, is the luggage ready?"
Beauchamp certainly wished the luggage and the man who demanded it, at the bottom of the sea together, and tried to go to sleep again; but after rolling from side to side for half an hour, he found that it was in vain. All the infamous noises which announce that some frightful people, in the neighbouring chambers of the same inn, are going to set out upon voyage or journey, at an awfully early hour, were complicated around Beauchamp's unfortunate head; and at length, after the trampling of sailors and porters in the passage had ceased, he heard some one again knock at a door, on the opposite side of the passage, and say, "My love, I must go down to see the luggage passed and put on board; but make haste and be ready, for the ship will sail directly. I will send up and let you know when to come down."
Beauchamp started out of bed, and hurried on his clothes as fast as possible, for the voice was that of Sir Sidney Delaware; but his lameness still retarded him, and every time he took a quick step, his ancle gave way beneath him, and caused him intolerable pain; so that, just as he was tying his cravat, the voice of old Mrs. Williams, the housekeeper, was heard along the passage.
"Miss Blanche! Miss Blanche!" she cried, "Make haste, pray make haste! Your papa says all is ready, and the ship is just going to sail."
Beauchamp pulled on his coat as best he might, and threw open his door; nor was he a moment too soon, for Blanche Delaware was already walking along the passage. She was paler far, but as beautiful as ever, and not the less so that the tears were swimming in her eyes at the thought of quitting her own dear fair native land--perhaps for ever.
"Good God, Miss Delaware!" cried Beauchamp, "What is the meaning of this?"
"Mr. Burrel!" exclaimed Blanche faintly, while the blood mounted quick into her cheek, and then again left it pale as ashes. "Oh, Mr. Burrel, where have you been? Your presence might perhaps have saved us all!"
"How, how?" cried Beauchamp, "You sent me from you, yourself. Had it not been for your own word, I would never, never have left you!"
"Do not--do not say it!" cried Blanche, while the tears streamed over her cheeks, "Do not say it, or I shall never forgive myself--I never have, indeed.--You only could have saved us--and oh, Henry Beauchamp, I am sure you would have done so!"
Beauchamp started to hear his real name from his fair cousin's lips; but Blanche went on rapidly and eagerly. "But it seems all strange to you. Have you not heard of my poor brother? Have you not heard what has happened?"
"I have heard nothing!" replied Beauchamp. "I have been detained for several days, ill and wretched, in a spot where I heard nothing."
"Oh!" cried Blanche, wringing her hands, "they have accused him of crimes he never committed, and blasted his name, and broken his heart--and if--if--Henry Beauchamp"----
