Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

  CHAPTER IV.The Post-boy and the Pot-boy.

  After a few words of common observation upon Mr. Wittingham and hisproceedings when that excellent gentleman had left the room at thelittle inn of Tarningham, Ned Hayward fell into a very unusual fit ofthought.

  I do not mean in the least to say that it was unusual for Ned Haywardto think, for probably he thought as much as other men, but there arevarious ways of thinking. There are pondering, meditating, brownstudying, day dreaming, revolving, considering, contemplating, andthough many of these terms may at first sight seem synonymous, yetupon close examination it will be found that there are shades ofdifference between the meanings. Besides these ways or modes ofthinking, there are various other mental processes, such asinvestigating, examining, disentangling, inquiring, but with these Iwill not meddle, as my business is merely with the various operationsof the mind which require various degrees of rapidity. Now though NedHayward, as I have said, probably thought as much as other men, hissort of thought was generally of a very quick and active habit. He wasnot fond of meditating, his mind's slowest pace was a canter, and whenhe found an obstacle of any kind, hedge, gate, fence, or stone wall,he took up his stirrups and went over it. Now, however, for once inhis life, he paused and pondered for full five minutes, and thenthinking perhaps it might seem a little rude if he treated hisnew-found friend to nothing but meditation, he began to talk of otherthings, still meditating over the former subject of his contemplationsall the while.

  It must not be supposed, however, that he did not think of what he wassaying. Such a supposition might indeed be founded upon the old axiomthat men cannot do two things at once. But the axiom is false: therenever was a falser. We are always doing many things at once. Therewould be very little use of our having hands and feet, tongues andeyes, ears and nose, unless each of our organs with a little practicecould go on quite quietly in its little workshop, without disturbingthe others. Indeed it is very serviceable sometimes to give our morevolatile members something light to do, when we are employing othersupon more serious business, just to keep them out of the way, as we dowith noisy children. So also is it with the mind and its faculties,and it is not only quite possible, depend upon it, dear reader, tothink of two subjects at once, but very common also.

  Totally unacquainted with Mr. Beauchamp's habits and character, orwhat topics he could converse upon, and what not, Ned Haywardnaturally chose one which seemed perfectly indifferent and perfectlyeasy; but it led them soon to deeper considerations, as a very smallkey will often open a very large door. It led to some politicaldiscussions too; but let it be remarked, this is not a politicalnovel, that most wearisome and useless of all the illegitimateoffsprings of literature, and therefore if I give a few sentences oftheir conversation, it is not to insinuate sneakingly my own opinions,but merely to display my characters more fully.

  "This seems a very pretty little town," said Ned Hayward, choosing thefirst free subject at hand; "quite rural, and with all thetranquillity of the country about it."

  "It is indeed," answered Mr. Beauchamp; "but I should almost havesupposed that a gayer place would have pleased you more. Were younever here before?"

  "Never in my life," replied his companion; "but you are quite mistakenabout my tastes. London, indeed, is a very pleasant place for threemonths or so; but one soon gets tired of it. It gets slow, devilishslow after a while. One cannot go to the theatre every night. There islittle use of going to balls and parties, and risking falling in loveif one has not got money enough to marry. One gets weary of the facesand the houses in St. James's-street. Morning visits are the greatestbores in the world. Epsom and Ascot are good enough things in theirway, but they are soon over for one who does not bet and runs nohorses. The newspapers tire me to death--romances I abominate; andthough a good opera comes in twice a-week to lighten the load alittle, it gets desperate heavy on one's shoulders before the first ofJuly. Antiquaries, connoisseurs, lawyers, physicians, fiddlers, andportrait-painters, with merchants, and all the bees of the hive, mayfind London a very pleasant and profitable place. I am nothing but adrone, and so I fly away in the country. Of all towns after the secondmonth, I hate London the most--except a manufacturing town indeed, andthat is always horrible, even to change horses in."

  "And yet perhaps," answered Beauchamp, "a manufacturing townoffers subjects of deeper interest than any other spot of theearth--especially at the present moment."

  "Not in themselves, surely," said Ned Hayward; "the abstract idea ofbroad cloth is to me very flat, cotton-spinning not particularlyexciting, iron ware is far too hard for me to handle, and as for theproduction of soda and pearlash, I have no genius that way. But Isuppose," he continued, "you mean that the manufacturing towns areinteresting from their bearing upon the prosperity of the country; butin that case it is your speculations regarding them that interest you,not the places themselves."

  "So it is with everything," answered Mr. Beauchamp; "no single imageor impression gives us great pleasure. It is in their combination thatour engagement dwells. Single ideas are but straight lines, blankplains, monotonous patches of colour. Associate them with other shapesand hues, and you produce beauty and pleasure. Thus with themanufacturing towns; if I only went to see a steam-engine work, ashuttle play, or a spindle turn, I should soon be tired enough; butwhen in all that I see there, I perceive a new development of man'smind, a fresh course opened for his energies when old ones areexhausted, when I behold the commencement of a great social change,which shall convert the pursuits of tribes and nations fromagricultural to manufacturing--we rather shall throw the great mass ofhuman industry, for which its former sphere was too small, intoanother and almost interminable channel, I feel that I am a spectatorof a great social phenomenon, as awful and as grand as the lightningthat rends the pine, or the earthquake that overthrows the mountain.It is magnificent, yet terrible; beautiful, but still sad."

  "Why sad?" demanded Ned Hayward. "I have considered the matter in thesame light a little, and have talked with various grave manufacturersabout it; but they all seem to see nothing in it but what is very fineand pleasant. They have no apprehension for the result, or doubtsabout its doing a great deal of good to every body in the end."

  "The end!" said Beauchamp, "where is the end? What will the end be?They see nothing but good; they augur nothing but good, because theyare actively employed in that one particular course, and buoyed upwith those sanguine expectations which active exertion alwaysproduces. Neither do I doubt that the end will be good; but still erethat end be reached, how much misery, how much strife, how much evil,must be encountered. One needs but to set one's foot in a factory, ay,or in a manufacturing town, to see that the evil not only will be, butis; that we are wading into a dark stream which we must pass over, andare already knee deep. I speak not of the evils inseparable from theworking of any great change in the relations of society or in itsobjects. As we can never climb a hill without some fatigue, so we cannever reach a higher point in social advance without some suffering,but that inevitable evil I look upon as light, compared with manyother things before us. I doubt not that in God's good providence newresources will be ever opened before mankind for the employment ofhuman industry; but when I see even a temporary superfluity of labour,I tremble to think of what vast power of grinding and oppressing thatvery circumstance places in the hands of the employer. Combine thatpower with the state of men's minds at present, and all the tendenciesof the age; remember that to accumulate wealth, to rival others inluxury and display, to acquire at any price and by any means, is apart not of the manufacturer's spirit, but of the spirit of the age,and especially of this country, and then see to what purposes must andwill be applied that vast authority or command, which the existingsuperabundance of labour, brought about by mechanical inventions andthe natural increase of population entrusts to those who have alreadythe power of wealth. Were it not for this spirit acting through thispower, should we see in our manufactories such squalid misery, suchenfeebled frames, such overtasked exertion
s, such want of moral andreligious culture, such recklessness, such vice, such infamy, suchfamine?"

  "Perhaps not," answered Ned Hayward, "but yet something is to be saidfor the manufacturers too. You see, my good Sir, they have to competewith all Europe. They are, as it were, running a race, and they mustwin it, even if they break their horses' wind."

  "If they do that, they will lose it," replied Beauchamp; "but yet I donot blame them. I believe the spirit of the times we live in. Theyonly share it with other men; many of them are humane, kind, generous,just, who do as much good and as little evil as the iron band ofcircumstances will permit; and were all to strive in the same manner,and to the same degree, that iron band would be broken, and all wouldbe wiser, happier, better--ay, even wealthier than they are; but,alas! the example of the good have little influence on the rest on thesame level with themselves, and the example of the bad, immenseinfluence on every grade beneath them. The cupidity of the greatmill-owner is imitated and exceeded by those below him. He robs thepoor artizan of his labour, by allowing him as little out of thewealth his exertions earn as the superfluity of industry compels theartizan to take, and justifies himself with the cold axiom, that he isnot bound to pay more than other men; those below him rob the samedefenceless being of a great part of those poor wages themselves by amore direct kind of plunder, and have their axiom too. One of thegreat problems of the day is this: what proportion of the profitsaccruing from the joint-operation of capital and labour is to beassigned to each of those two elements? And the day will come erelong, depend upon it, when that great problem must be solved--Itrust not in bloody characters. At present, there is no check tosecure a fair division; and so long as there is none, wealth willalways take advantage of poverty, and the competition for mere foodwill induce necessity to submit to avarice, till the burden becomesintolerable--and then--"

  "What then?" asked Ned Hayward.

  "Nay, God forbid," answered Beauchamp, "that the fears which willsometimes arise should ever be verified. A thousand unforeseen eventsmay occur to waft away the dangers that seem to menace us; but Icannot help thinking that in the meantime there are many dutiesneglected by those who have the power to interfere; for surely, if anyforesight be wisdom, any human providence a virtue, they are theforesight that perceives the future magnitude of evils yet in the bud,and the providence that applies a remedy in time."

  "Very true," answered Ned Hayward; "things do look rather badly; but Idare say all will get right at last. I have not thought of such thingsvery deeply--not half so deeply as you have done, I know; but still Ihave been sorry to see, in many of our great towns, the people sowretched-looking; and sometimes I have thought that if better carewere taken of them--I mean both in mind and body--our judges at theassizes would not have so much to do. Just as fevers spread throughwhole countries from a great congregation of sickly people, so crimesextend through a land from great congregations of vicious people. Formy part, if, like our good friend Abon Hassan, I could but be caliphfor a short time, I'd open out all the narrow streets, and drain allthe foul lands, and cultivate all ignorant minds, and try to purifyall the corrupt hearts by the only thing that can purify them. But Iam not caliph; and if I were, the task is above me I fancy: but still,if it could be accomplished, even in part, I am quite sure thatjurymen would dine earlier, lawyers have less to do, courts would riseat three o'clock, and the lord mayor and sheriffs eat their turtlemore in peace. But talking of that, do you know I have been thinkingall this while how we could get some insight into this affair of thehighway robbery; for I am determined I will not let the matter sleep.Highway robberies are going quite out of fashion. I have not heard ofone for these four months. Hounslow Heath is almost as safe asBerkeley-square, and Bagshot no more to be feared than Windsor Castle.It is a pity to let such things revive; and there is something aboutthat old fellow Wittingham which strikes me as odd. Another thing toowas funny enough. Why should they pull the young lady out of thechaise? She could just as well have handed her purse and her trinketsout of the window!"

  "That seemed strange to me also," answered Beauchamp. "But how do youpropose to proceed?"

  "Why, I think the best way will be to frighten the post-boy," repliedNed Hayward. "He's in league with the rogues, whoever they are, dependupon it; and if he thinks his neck's in a noose, he'll peach."

  "That is not improbable," said his companion; "but we had betterproceed cautiously, for if we frighten him into denying all knowledgeof the parties, he will adhere to his story for mere consistency'ssake."

  "Oh, I'll manage him, I will manage him," answered Ned Hayward,who had carried so many points in his life by his dashingstraightforwardness, that he had very little doubt of his own powers."Come along, and we will see. Let us saunter out into the yard, in aquiet careless way, as if we were sentimental and loved moonlight. Weshall find him somewhere rubbing down his horses, or drinking a pinton the bench."

  The two gentlemen accordingly took their hats and issued forth, NedHayward leading the way first out into the street through aglass-door, and then round into the yard by an archway. Thisman[oe]uvre was intended to elude the vigilant eyes of Mr. Groomber,and was so far successful that the landlord, being one of that smallclass of men who can take a hint, did not come out after them to offerhis services, though he saw the whole proceeding, and while he wasuncorking sherry, or portioning out tea, or making up a bill, kept oneeye--generally the right--turned towards a window that looked in thedirection of the stables. Before those stables the bright moon waslaying out her silver carpeting, though, truth to say, she might havefound a cleaner floor to spread it on; and there too paraded up anddown our friends, Ned Hayward and Mr. Beauchamp, looking for thepost-boy who had driven Mrs. Clifford and her daughter, but notperceiving him in any direction. Ned Hayward began to suspect he hadreckoned without his host. The man was not rubbing down his horses, hewas not drinking a pint on the bench, he was not smoking a pipe at theinn door.

  "Well," he said at length, "I will look into all the stables to seeafter my horse. It is but right I should attend to his supper now Ihave had my own, and perhaps we may find what we are looking for onthe road. Let us wait awhile, however, till that one-eyed ostler ispassed, or he will tell us where the horse is, and spoil ourman[oe]uvre." And, walking on, he pointed out to Beauchamp a peculiarspot upon the moon's surface, and commented upon it with face upturnedtill the inconvenient ostler had gone by.

  At that moment, however, another figure appeared in the yard, which atonce brought light into Ned Hayward's mind. It was not a prettyfigure, nor had it a pretty face belonging to it. The back was bowedand contorted in such a manner as to puzzle the tailor exceedingly tofit it with a fustian jacket when it required a new one, which luckilywas not often; the legs were thin, and more like a bird's than a humanbeing's, and though the skull was large and not badly shaped, thefeatures that appeared below the tall forehead seemed all to besqueezed together, so as to acquire a rat-like expression, notuncommon in the deformed. The head, which was bare, was thatched withthin yellow hair, but the eyes were black and clear, and the teethlarge and white, the garments which this poor creature wore, werethose of an inferior servant of an inn; and his peculiar functionseemed to be denoted by a tankard of beer, which he carried in hishand from the door of the tap towards the stables.

  "He is carrying our friend his drink," said Ned Hayward, in a whisperto Beauchamp, "let us watch where the little pot-boy goes in, and I'lltake seven to one we find the man we want."

  The pot-boy gave a shrewd glance at the two gentlemen as he passedthem, but hurried on towards one of the doors far down the yard, whichwhen it was opened displayed a light within; and as soon as he haddeposited his tankard and returned, those who had watched him followedhis course and threw back the same door without ceremony. There beforethem, seated on a bench at a deal-table, was the post-boy of whom theywere in search. They had both marked him well by the evening light,and there could be no doubt of his identity, though by this time hehad got his hat and jacket off
, and was sitting with a mane-comb onone hand and a curry-comb on the other, and the tankard of beerbetween them. He was a dull, unpleasant, black-bearded sort of fellowof fifty-five or six, with a peculiarly cunning gray eye, and apeculiarly resolute slow mouth, and as soon as Ned Hayward beheld theexpression by the light of a tallow-candle in a high state ofperspiration, he muttered "We shall not make much of this specimen."

  Nevertheless, he went on in his usual careless tone addressing thelord of the posting-saddle, and saying, "Good night, my man; I wantyou to tell me where I can find a gentleman I wish to see hereabouts."

  The post-boy had risen, and pulled the lock of short black and whitehair upon his forehead, but without looking a bit more communicativethan at first, and he merely answered, "If I knows where he lives,Sir. What's his name?"

  "Why that's another matter," replied Ned Hayward; "perhaps he may notmuch like his name mentioned; but I can tell you what people call himsometimes. He goes by the name of Wolf occasionally."

  The slightest possible twinkle of intelligence came into the man'seyes for a moment, and then went out again, just as when clouds aredriving over the sky at night we sometimes see something sparkle foran instant, and then disappear from the heavens, so faint while it ispresent, and so soon gone, that we cannot tell whether it be a star ornot.

  "Can't say I ever heard of such a gemman here, Sir," replied thepost-boy. "There's Jimmy Lamb, Sir, the mutton-pieman, but that's thenearest name to Wolf we have in these parts."

  "Why, my good friend, you saw him this very night," said Mr.Beauchamp, "when the chaise was stopped that you were driving. He wasone of the principals in that affair."

  "Likely, Sir," answered the other, "but they were all strangers tome--never set eyes on one 'on 'em afore. But if you knows 'em, you'llsoon catch 'em; and that will be a good job, for it is very unpleasantto be kept a waiting so. It's as bad as a 'pike."

  "I've a notion," said Ned Hayward, "that you can find out my man forme if you like; and if you do, you may earn a crown; but if you do notyou may get into trouble, for concealing felons renders you what iscalled an accessory, and that is a capital crime. You know the law,Sir," he continued, turning to Beauchamp, and speaking in anauthoritative tone, "and if I am not mistaken, this comes under thestatute of limitations as a clear case of misprision, which under theold law was merely burning in the hand and transportation for life,but is now hanging matter. You had better think over the business, myman, and let me have an immediate answer with due deliberation, foryou are not a person I should think to put your head in a halter, andif you were, I should not advise you to do so in this case."

  "Thank you, Sir," said the post-boy, "I won't; but I don't know thegemmen as showed themselves such rum customers, nor him either as youare a axing arter."

  "It is in vain, I fear," said Beauchamp to his companion in a very lowvoice, as their respondent made this very definite answer, "themagistrates may perhaps obtain some further information from him whenhe finds that the matter is serious, but we shall not."

  The post-boy caught a few of the words apparently, and perhaps it wasintended that he should do so, but they were without effect; and whenat length they walked away baffled, he twisted the eyelids into a sortof wreath round his left eye, observing with his tongue in his cheek,"Ay, ay, my covies, no go!"

  Ned Hayward opened the door somewhat suddenly, and as he went out, healmost tumbled over the little humpbacked pot-boy. Now whether theyoung gentleman--his years might be nineteen or twenty, though hisstature was that of a child of eight--came thither to replenish thetankard he had previously brought, or whether he affected themoonlight, or was fond of conversation in which he did not take apart, Ned Hayward could not at the moment divine; but before he andBeauchamp had taken a dozen steps up the yard, Hayward felt a gentlepull at his coat-tail.

  "What is it, my lad?" he said, looking down upon the pot-boy, and atthe same time stooping his head as if with a full impression that hisears at their actual height could hear nothing that proceeded from apoint so much below as the deformed youth's mouth.

  Instantly a small high-pitched but very musical voice replied, "I'llcome for your boots early to-morrow, Sir, and tell you all about it."

  "Can't you tell me now?" asked the young gentleman, "I am going intothe stable to see my horse, and you can say your say there, my man."

  "I daren't," answered the pot-boy, "there's Tim the Ostler, and JackMillman's groom, and Long Billy, the Taunton post-boy, all about.I'll come to-morrow and fetch your boots."

  At the same moment the landlord's voice exclaiming in sharp tones,"Dicky! Dicky Lamb!--what the devil are you so long about?" was heard,and the pot-boy ran off as fast as his long thin legs would carry him.

  "Well this affair promises some amusement," said Ned Hayward, whenthey had again reached the little parlour, which in his good-humouredeasy way he now looked upon as common to them both. "Upon my word I amobliged to these highwaymen, or whatever the scoundrels may be, forgiving me something fresh to think of. Although at good Sir JohnSlingsby's I shall have fishing enough, I dare say, yet one cannotfish all day and every day, and sometimes one gets desperately boredin an old country-house, unless fate strikes out something not quitein the common way to occupy one."

  "Did you ever try falling in love?" asked Beauchamp, with a quietsmile, as he glanced his eyes over the fine form and handsome featuresof his companion, "it is an excellent pastime, I am told."

  "No!" answered Ned Hayward quickly and straightforwardly; "I neverdid, and never shall. I am too poor, Mr. Beauchamp, to marry in my ownclass of society, and maintain my wife in the state which that classimplies. I am too honest to make love without intending to marry; toowise I trust to fall in love where nothing could be the result butunhappiness to myself if not to another also." He spake these fewsentences very seriously; but then, resuming at once his gay rattlingmanner, he went on: "Oh, I have drilled myself capitally, I assureyou. At twenty I was like a raw recruit, bungling at every step; foundmyself saying all manner of sweet things to every pretty face I met;felt my heart beating whenever, under the pretty face, I thought Idiscovered something that would last longer. But I saw so much of lovein a cottage and its results, that, after calculating well what awoman brought up in good society would have to sacrifice who married aman with 600_l_. a-year, I voted it unfair to ask her, and made up mymind to my conduct. As soon as ever I find that I wish to dance withany dear girl twice in a night, and fall into reveries when I think ofher, and feel a sort of warm blood at my fingers' ends when my handtouches hers, I am off like a hair-trigger, for if a man is bound toact with honour to other men, who can make him if he does notwillingly, he is ten times more strongly bound to do so towards women,who can neither defend nor avenge themselves."

  With a sudden impulse Beauchamp held out his hand to him, and shookhis heartily, and that grasp seemed to say, "I know you now to theheart. We are friends."

  Ned Hayward was a little surprised at this enthusiastic burst of Mr.Beauchamp for he had set him down for what is generally called a verygentlemanlike person, which means, in the common parlance of theworld, a man who has either used up every thing like warm feeling, orhas never possessed it, and who, not being troubled with any emotions,suffers polite manners and conventional habits to rule him in and out.With his usual rapid way of jumping at conclusions--which he oftenfound very convenient, though to say the truth he sometimes jumpedover the right ones--he said to himself at once, "Well, this is reallya good fellow, I do believe, and a man of some heart and soul."

  But though Beauchamp's warm shake of the hand had led him to thisconviction, and he thought he began to understand him, yet Ned Haywardwas a little curious as to a question which his new friend had askedhim some time before. He had answered it, it is true, by telling himthat he took care not to fall in love; but he fancied that Mr.Beauchamp had inquired in a peculiar tone, and that he must have hadsome meaning more than the words implied, taken in their simple andstraightforward application.

&n
bsp; "Come now, tell me, Beauchamp," he said, after just five secondsconsideration, "what made you ask if I had ever tried falling in loveby way of amusement? Did you ever hear any story of my being guilty ofsuch practices? If you have it was no true one--at least for six orseven years past."

  "Oh, no," replied Beauchamp laughing, "I have had no means of learningyour secret history. I only inquired because, if you have never triedthat pleasant amusement, you will soon have a capital opportunity. SirJohn Slingsby's daughter is one of the loveliest girls I ever saw."

  "What, old Jack with a daughter!" exclaimed Ned Hayward, and thenadded after a moment's thought, "By the way, so he had. I remember hercoming to see him when we were at Winchester. He was separated fromher mother, who was a saint, I recollect. Nobody could accuse old Jackof that himself, and his daughter used to come and see him at times. Apretty little girl she was; I think five or six years old. Let me see,she must be about sixteen or seventeen now; for that is just ten yearsago, when I was an ensign."

  "She is more than that," answered Beauchamp, "by two or three years;and either it must be longer since you saw her, or--"

  "Oh, no, it is just ten years ago," cried Mr. Hayward; "ten years nextmonth, for I was then seventeen myself."

  "Well, then, she must have been older than you thought," replied hiscompanion.

  "Very likely," said Mr. Hayward. "I never could tell girls' ages,especially when they are children. But there is no fear of my fallingin love with her, if she is what you tell me. I never fell in lovewith a beautiful woman in my life--I don't like them; they are alwayseither pert, or conceited, or vain, or haughty, or foolish. Sooner orlater they are sure to find some ass to tell them how beautiful theyare, and then they think that is quite sufficient for all the purposesof life."

  "Perhaps because they are first impressed with a wrong notion of thepurposes of life," answered Beauchamp; "but yet I never heard of a manbefore who objected to a woman because she was pretty."

  "No, no," answered Ned Hayward, "that is a very different thing. Idid not say pretty. I am very fond of what is pretty. Oh! the veryword is delightful. It gives one such a nice, good-humoured,comfortable idea: it is full of health, and youth, and good spirits,and light-heartedness--the word seems to smile and speak content; andwhen it is the expression that is spoken of, and not the merefeatures, it is very charming indeed. But a beautiful woman is a verydifferent thing. I would as soon marry the Venus de Medicis, pedestaland all, as what is usually called a beautiful woman. But now let ustalk of this other affair. I wonder what will come of my mysteriouspost-boy."

  "Why, I doubt not you will obtain some information regarding thegentleman calling himself Wolf," replied Beauchamp; "but if you do,how do you intend to proceed?"

  "Hunt him down as I would a wolf," answered Ned Hayward.

  "Then pray let me share the sport," rejoined Beauchamp.

  "Oh! certainly, certainly," said Ned Hayward; "I'll give the viewhalloo as soon as I have found him; and so now, good night, for I amsomewhat sleepy."

  "Goodnight, goodnight!" answered Beauchamp; and Ned Hayward rang for abed-candle, a boot-jack, a pair of slippers, and sundry other thingsthat he wanted, which were brought instantly, and with great goodwill. Had he asked for a nightcap it would have been provided withthe same alacrity; for those were days in which nightcaps werefurnished by every host to every guest; though now (alas! for the goodold times) no landlord ever thinks that a guest will stay long enoughin his house to make it worth while to attend to his head-gear. ButNed Hayward needed no nightcap, for he never wore one, and thereforehis demands did not at all overtax his host's stock.