“He spoke of thee, but not by name.”
About six months after the death of Lady L., Mrs. Montgomery, in looking over papers of all descriptions, which had accumulated on her dressing-table, while she had been unable to attend to any thing, found one, folded and wafered, which had the appearance of a petition. On being opened, however, it proved to be a sort of letter, but vulgarly written, badly spelt, and without signature. It was also without date of time or place. It bore, notwithstanding, in its simplicity, strong marks of truth.
It professed to be from a person, calling herself Edmund’s nurse. Yet it gave him no name but that of the “young masther; or, be rights, the young lord, sure; only he was too young, the crathur, to be calling him any thing, barring the misthress’s child.” In like manner, it called Edmund’s father “the lord,” and his mother “the lady,” but did not mention the title of the family. The writer asserted, that having laid the child down for a moment, on the grass of the lawn, at a time when the family were from home, it was stolen by a strolling beggar, for the sake of the fine clothes it had on; for, that the “lord and the lady” were, that very day, expected at the castle. That afraid of blame, she had substituted her own infant. That it had been received without suspicion by the parents, who, having been “mostly in London town and other foreign parts,” had seen but little of their boy. It then went on as follows:—“A little while after, sure, I seen the poor child, with hardly a tack on him, of a winter’s day, in the arms of the divil’s own wife, at laste, if it was’nt the divil himself, the strolling woman, I mane, in the big town, hard by. I went up to her, and abused her all to nothing, and offered to take the child from her. And glad enough he was, the crathur, to see me, and stretched out his poor arms to come to me. But the woman, she hits him a thump, and houlds down both his little hands with one of her great big fists, and turns to me, and says, smelling strong wid spirits all the while, (but for a drunkard as she was, she had cunning enough left,) and she says, spakin’ low, and winking her eye, like, ‘And whose young master is that, dressed up at the castle, yonder?’ says she. ‘And it’s my boy, to be sure,’ says I, ‘and small blame to me, when you didn’t lave me the right one.’ ‘And are you going to send the right one there now, if you get him?’ says she. ‘And what’s that to you?’ says I. And with that, she gives a whistle like, and snaps her fingers afore my face, and thrusts her tongue in her cheek, and begins jogging off. ‘And’ says I, following of her, ‘and what do you want o’ the child?’ says I; ‘and haven’t you got the clothes? and can’t yee be satisfied? I’m not going, sure, to ax them of yee, and can’t yee give me the child! when it’s I that ’ill kape him warm, any how, and fade him well too; I that gave him the strame o’ life from my own breast,’ says I; ‘and what ’ud I be grudging of him afther that?’ says I. ‘Then nothing at all sure, but jist what belongs to him!’ says she, ‘But the divil a bit of him you’ll get, any how; for there’s not a day since I’ve carried him, that I haven’t got the price of a dram, at laste, by the pitiful face of him!’ says she. ‘And for that mather,’ says she, ‘if any one takes him to the castle,’ says she, ‘it’ll be myself that’ll do it,’ says she, ‘and git the reward too.’ ‘You the reward!’ says I; ‘is it for stailing him? It’s the gaol’s the reward you’ll get, my madam!’ says I. ‘It’s the resaver’s as bad as the thafe,’ says she. ‘And it’s you, and yours, that’ll git more by the job than iver I will. But it’s I that’ll make my young gintleman up at the castle yonder, pay for his sate in the coach, and his sate in the parler, too, one o’ these days,’ says she, wagging her head, and looking cunning like. And so it was, to make a long story short, the divil tempted me; and I couldn’t think te take my own boy out o’ the snug birth he had got safe into; and the divil a bit o’ her ’at was worse nor the divil, that ’ud give up the mistress’s boy quietly, at all, at all; and so, I was forced, without I’d a mind to tell the whole truth, to say no more why about it, and let her take the poor child away wid her, tho’ my heart bled for him. Well, sure, twis every year, she came to the big town, begging, and brought him with her, sure enough; but looking miserable like, and starved like; for it was less of him there was every time, instead o’ more. And be the time he was near hand five years ould, she brought him, at last, sure, lainin’ up on crutches, and only one leg on him! I flewd upon her like a tiger, to be sure, and just fastening every nail o’ me in the face of her, I axed her where the rest o’ the boy was. And she tould me, but not till she was tired bateing me for what my nails had done, that the leg o’ him was safe enough in the bag. And a dirty rag of a bag there was, sure enough, hanging where the tother leg should be. And jist then, cums by the coach and six from the castle! And up she makes to the side of it, with the brazen face of her, driving the poor cripple before her. And, sure, I see my mistress throw money out to him, little thinking it was her own child, with the one bare foot of him over the instip in mud, and them crutches, pushing his little shoulders a’most as high as his head, and his poor teeth chattering with the could, and the tears streaming from his eyes, (for she’d given him a divil of a pinch, to make him look pitiful.) And there was my boy sitting laughing on the mistress’s knee. But he looked quite sorry like, when the little cripple said he was hungry, and he throw’d him out a cake he was ateing. ‘Well!’ says I, (quite low to myself,) ‘that you should be throwing a mouthful of bread to the mistress’s child!’ And it was for dropping on my knees I was, and telling all, to the mistress herself; but just then, they brought her out a sight o’ toys she was waiting for, and she drawd up the winder, and the coach druv off. And the next time the woman cum, she cum’d without him, at all, at all! ‘And,’ says I, ‘the last time you cum’d, you brought but a piece of him, and now you’ve brought none at all of him!’ But she tould me, sure, his fortune was made, and that he was with grand people that ’ud do for him. But I wouldn’t believe her, you see, and gave her no pace, any way, but threat’nin’ te hav’ her hanged at the ’sizes, if I was hanged myself along with her, till she took’d my husband with her over seas, and let him see the boy. And he seen him, sure enough, walking with a nice ould lady, that’s been your ladyship, I suppose. And he had his two legs, my husband said, which I was particular glad to hear. And he was getting fat, too, and rosy-like, and was dressed, as the mistress’s child (heaven love the boy) should be. And this made my mind a dale asier, for now there was little wrong dun him.
“But, by and bye, troubles came upon me, and my husband died; but, before he died, he thought, and I thought about our sin in regard to the child, and so I made him write down the way to get a letter to your ladyship’s hands; and it was a thing that my husband, as he was a dying, seemed to hear to. Well, when I buried my husband, sure, I fell sick myself, and then I begun to think the hand of Heaven was upon me, and I sat up in my bed, and wrote this long letter to your ladyship; which, becourse of what my husband set down for me before he died, I give to one that’s going over seas to the harvest, to give to your ladyship’s own hand. He’ll tell your ladyship all my husband thought it best not to put down in the letter. But just ax him that takes it what is nurse’s name, and he’ll tell you fast enough, and all about the great folk at the castle. And it’s he that can tell that too, for its he that ought to know it, for his father, and grandfather before him, got bread under them, and he might have got bread under them himself, only for his tricks. But no matter for that. He knows no more o’ what’s inside the letter, than one that never seen the outside of it; and he’s sworn too, before the praist, at the bedside of the sick, and may be of the dying, to deliver it safe, for the ase of the conscience of the living, and the rest of the soul of him that’s dead.
“And now I have no more to add, but that the young masther (that’s him that’s with your ladyship this present time,) when he has all, should take it to heart to do for his foster-brother, that’s innocent of all harm, and that has larned to lie on a soft bed, without fault o’ his, and that throwd him the cake he was aiting in the coach, poor boy, when he thought it was his own, and that may be too.—But no matter for that now: the penance has been done for that, and the absolution has been given for that, and the priest has had his dues. And it’s not like the sin that satisfaction can be done for, and that it must be done for too, before the absolution can serve the soul: sich as giving back to the owner his own, or the likes of that; or the setting up of the misthress’s child again in his own place, and the pulling down of him that a mother’s heart blades for, but that has no business where he is; though it would be hard, for all that, if his father’s child should want. But don’t be frightening yourself with the thoughts of that, Molly. The young masther, after all that cum and gone, will surely do for him that’s his foster-brother, any way; and may be do something for his foster-sister too.
“Why I trouble your ladyship I forgot to mintion, but thim that it concarns most are not to the fore, and, besides, you have the boy.—Your sarvent till death: and that, I think, won’t be long now.
“I’m jist thinking, that may be your ladyship would’nt be happy without you’d a boy to be doing for: and there’s him, sure, that’s up at the castle now, my poor boy, and there isn’t a finer boy in the wide world; and if I thought that your ladyship would jist take him in place of the misthress’s child, and do for him, I would die quite aisy.”
Thus ended the nurse’s epistle.
“I should certainly,” observed Mrs. Montgomery to Mr. Jackson, “believe this strange letter to be genuine, from the perfect simplicity of the style, but that the writer appears to be too illiterate to have been any thing so decent as a nurse in such a family as is here described.”
“That,” replied Mr. Jackson, “does not at all invalidate the evidence of this extraordinary document; for, nurses intended merely to supply the nutriment denied by unnatural mothers to their offspring, must be chosen with reference chiefly to their youth, health, and wholesomeness of constitution; and, in great country families, they are naturally selected from among the simplest of the surrounding peasantry.”
The letter, bearing, as we have said, no date of time or place, the first and most obvious step seemed to be, to inquire very particularly where, and by whom, it had been brought to the house. The outside of the mysterious dispatch was shown to, and examined, by most of the servants, without other effect than a disclaiming shake of the head, although each turned it upside down, and downside up, and viewed it, not only before the light, but through the light, as with the light through, is generally expressed.
Mrs. Smyth, indeed, allowed that, as the bit of a scrawl was vara like a petition, it was no impossible that she hersel’ meud ha’ just laid it o’ the mistress’s table; for the mistress, to be sure, never refused tle read ony peur body’s bit o’ paper, however unlarned or dirty it meud be.
At length John, the under-footman, made his appearance, and after examining the shape, hue, and dimensions of the folded paper, said, that it was not unlike one which he had taken about six months since from a strange looking man, who had come to the door, requesting to see his mistress, on the very day that ——, and he hesitated—that every body was in so much trouble, he added.
Mr. Jackson, seeing Mrs. Montgomery turn pale, took up the questioning of John. And here, lest the said John’s powers of description should not do justice to his subject, we shall give the scene between him and the nurse’s messenger, exactly as it occurred.
The stranger was tall and well made, with a countenance, the leading characteristic of which was, now drollery, and now defiance; whilst its secondary, and more stationary expression, was equally contradictory, being made up of shrewdness and simplicity, most oddly blended. He carried a reaping-hook in one hand, and, with the other, held over his shoulder a large knotted stick, with a bundle slung on the end of it.
This personage, on the melancholy day alluded to, arrived at the closed and silent entrance of Lodore House. Disdaining to use the still muffled, and therefore, in his opinion, noneffective knocker, he substituted the thick end of his own stick. This strange summons was answered by John.
“And is it affeard of a bit of a noise you are?” was the first question asked by the stranger. Without, however, waiting for reply, he was about to pass in, saying, “Just show us which is the mistress, will yee?”
The powdered lackey, astonished at such want of etiquette, placed an opposing hand against the breast of the intruder; upon which the stranger, after a momentary look of unfeigned surprise, very quietly laid down his reaping-hook, bundle, and stick, behind him, (for the latter he would not deign to use against an unarmed foe,) then planting his heels as firmly together as though he had grown out of the spot whereon he stood, he cocked his hat (none of the newest) on three hairs, put his arms a-kimbo, and his head on one side; and, his preparations thus completed, with a knowing wink, said, “Now I’ll tell you what, my friend, I’d as soon crack the scull of yee, as look at yee!”
John, even by his own account, stepped back a little, while saying, “You had better not raise a hand to me: for if you do, there are half a dozen more of us within, to carry you to Carlisle gaol.”
“Half a dozen!” cried our unknown hero, in a voice of contempt, and snapping his fingers as he spoke, “the divil a much I’d mind half a dozen of you, Englishers, with your gingerbread coats, and your floured pates, for all the world as if you had been out in the snow of a Christmas day, with never a hat on; that is, if I had you onest in my own dacent country, where one can knock a man down in pace and quietness if he desarve it, without bothering wid yeer law for every bit of a hand’s turn.”
During the latter part of this speech he turned to his bundle, and kneeling on one knee, untied it, took a small parcel out of it, unrolled a long bandage of unbleached linen cloth from about the parcel, next a covering of old leather, that seemed to have once formed a part of a shamoy for cleaning plate, then several pieces of torn and worn paper, and at length, from out the inmost fold, he produced a letter, which, as he concluded, he held up between his thumb and finger, saying, “There it is now! I mane no harm at all at all, to the misthress; nothing but to give her this small bit of paper, that the dying woman put into my hands, in presence of the priest, and that hasn’t seen the light o’ day since till now.”
John told him, that if that was all, he might be quite easy, as his delivering the letter at the house was the same thing as if he handed it to his lady herself; for that all his lady’s letters were carried in by the servants.
“And is she so great a lady as all that,” said the stranger, “that a poor man can’t have spache of her? But I’ve had spache, before now, of the great lady up at the castle, sure, and its twiste, aye, three times as big as that house.”
After some more parleying, in the course of which John disclosed the peculiar circumstances in which his mistress then was, our faithful messenger, after ejaculating, with a countenance of true commiseration, “And has she, the crathur?” at length seemed to feel the necessity of consenting to what he considered a very irregular proceeding, namely, the sending in of the letter; not, however, till he had first compelled John to kiss the back of it, and, in despite of the evidence of his own senses, to call it a blessed book, and holding one end, while our pertinacious friend held the other, to repeat after him the words of a long oath, to deliver it in safety. This, John proceeded to say, he did immediately, by giving the letter to one of the women to carry into his mistress’s room.
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Montgomery, with a sigh, “I must have laid it down without opening, and forgotten it.”
Mr. Jackson observed, that from the expression, “over seas to the harvest,” and also the man’s appearance, it was very evident he must be one of those poor creatures who come over in shiploads from the north of Ireland to Whitehaven, during the reaping season; and that this fact, once admitted, seemed to render it more than probable, that the noble family spoken of were Irish. As to the important particulars of names and titles, there seemed but one chance of obtaining them; which was, to institute an immediate search after the young man who had brought the letter. Every inquiry was accordingly made, but in vain.
After some months, Mr. Jackson himself, in the warmth of his zeal, undertook a journey to Ireland; but returned, without having been able to discover any clue to the business. Advertisements were next resorted to, but no one claimed Edmund. The letter had said, that “those it concerned most were,” in the nurse’s phraseology, “not to the fore.” Whether death, or absence from the kingdom was meant, it was impossible to say.
The harvest season of the next year came and went, but the wandering knight of the reaping-hook was heard of no more; and Mrs. Montgomery, while her better judgment condemned the feeling, could not conceal from herself, that she experienced a sensation of reprieve, on finding that she was not immediately to be called upon to resign her little charge. Poor Edmund had now become to her a kind of sacred pledge; every thought and feeling that regarded him, was associated with the memory of her dear departed child, who had taken so benevolent a delight in protecting and cherishing the helpless being she had rescued from misery, and almost certain death. Could the mourning mother then leave undone any thing that that dear child, had she lived, would have done? The absolute seclusion too, in which grief for the loss of her daughter, induced Mrs. Montgomery to live, gave all that concerned this object, of an interest thus connected with the feelings of the time, an importance in her eyes, which, under any other circumstances, would scarcely, perhaps, have been natural.
Gradually, however, the prospect of discovering who Edmund’s parents were, faded almost entirely away; but the conviction that they must be noble was, from the period of the receipt of the nurse’s packet, firmly fixed on the mind, both of his benefactress and of Mr. Jackson. The style, indeed, of the letter itself, left no doubt of the veracity of the writer; while the manners of him who had been the bearer of the strange epistle, the conversation of the man and woman on the Keswick road, nay, the very state in which the poor child was first found—were all corroborating evidences.
