A Story

by William Makepeace Thackeray

down in their seats again. "Porter, ale, ginger-beer, cider," comes

  round, squeezing through the legs of the gentlemen in the pit.

  Nobody takes anything, as usual; and lo! the curtain rises again.

  "Sh, 'shsh, 'shshshhh! Hats off!" says everybody.)

  * * *

  Mrs. Hayes had now been for six years the adored wife of Mr. Hayes,

  and no offspring had arisen to bless their loves and perpetuate

  their name. She had obtained a complete mastery over her lord and

  master; and having had, as far as was in that gentleman's power,

  every single wish gratified that she could demand, in the way of

  dress, treats to Coventry and Birmingham, drink, and what not--for,

  though a hard man, John Hayes had learned to spend his money pretty

  freely on himself and her--having had all her wishes gratified, it

  was natural that she should begin to find out some more; and the

  next whim she hit upon was to be restored to her child. It may be

  as well to state that she had never informed her husband of the

  existence of that phenomenon, although he was aware of his wife's

  former connection with the Count,--Mrs. Hayes, in their matrimonial

  quarrels, invariably taunting him with accounts of her former

  splendour and happiness, and with his own meanness of taste in

  condescending to take up with his Excellency's leavings.

  She determined, then (but as yet had not confided her determination

  to her husband), she would have her boy; although in her seven

  years' residence within twenty miles of him she had never once

  thought of seeing him: and the kind reader knows that when his

  excellent lady determines on a thing--a shawl, or an opera-box, or a

  new carriage, or twenty-four singing-lessons from Tamburini, or a

  night at the "Eagle Tavern," City Road, or a ride in a 'bus to

  Richmond and tea and brandy-and-water at "Rose Cottage Hotel"--the

  reader, high or low, knows that when Mrs. Reader desires a thing

  have it she will; you may just as well talk of avoiding her as of

  avoiding gout, bills, or grey hairs--and that, you know, is

  impossible. I, for my part, have had all three--ay, and a wife too.

  I say that when a woman is resolved on a thing, happen it will; if

  husbands refuse, Fate will interfere (flectere si nequeo, etc.; but

  quotations are odious). And some hidden power was working in the

  case of Mrs. Hayes, and, for its own awful purposes, lending her its

  aid.

  Who has not felt how he works--the dreadful conquering Spirit of

  Ill? Who cannot see, in the circle of his own society, the fated

  and foredoomed to woe and evil? Some call the doctrine of destiny a

  dark creed; but, for me, I would fain try and think it a consolatory

  one. It is better, with all one's sins upon one's head, to deem

  oneself in the hands of Fate, than to think--with our fierce

  passions and weak repentances; with our resolves so loud, so vain,

  so ludicrously, despicably weak and frail; with our dim, wavering,

  wretched conceits about virtue, and our irresistible propensity to

  wrong,--that we are the workers of our future sorrow or happiness.

  If we depend on our strength, what is it against mighty

  circumstance? If we look to ourselves, what hope have we? Look

  back at the whole of your life, and see how Fate has mastered you

  and it. Think of your disappointments and your successes. Has YOUR

  striving influenced one or the other? A fit of indigestion puts

  itself between you and honours and reputation; an apple plops on

  your nose and makes you a world's wonder and glory; a fit of poverty

  makes a rascal of you, who were, and are still, an honest man;

  clubs, trumps, or six lucky mains at dice, make an honest man for

  life of you, who ever were, will be, and are a rascal. Who sends

  the illness? who causes the apple to fall? who deprives you of your

  worldly goods? or who shuffles the cards, and brings trumps, honour,

  virtue, and prosperity back again? You call it chance; ay, and so

  it is chance that when the floor gives way, and the rope stretches

  tight, the poor wretch before St. Sepulchre's clock dies. Only with

  us, clear-sighted mortals as we are, we can't SEE the rope by which

  we hang, and know not when or how the drop may fall.

  But revenons a nos moutons: let us return to that sweet lamb Master

  Thomas, and the milk-white ewe Mrs. Cat. Seven years had passed

  away, and she began to think that she should very much like to see

  her child once more. It was written that she should; and you shall

  hear how, soon after, without any great exertions of hers, back he

  came to her.

  In the month of July, in the year 1715, there came down a road about

  ten miles from the city of Worcester, two gentlemen; not mounted,

  Templar-like, upon one horse, but having a horse between them--a

  sorry bay, with a sorry saddle, and a large pack behind it; on which

  each by turn took a ride. Of the two, one was a man of excessive

  stature, with red hair, a very prominent nose, and a faded military

  dress; while the other, an old weather-beaten, sober-looking

  personage, wore the costume of a civilian--both man and dress

  appearing to have reached the autumnal, or seedy state. However,

  the pair seemed, in spite of their apparent poverty, to be passably

  merry. The old gentleman rode the horse; and had, in the course of

  their journey, ridden him two miles at least in every three. The

  tall one walked with immense strides by his side; and seemed,

  indeed, as if he could have quickly outstripped the four-footed

  animal, had he chosen to exert his speed, or had not affection for

  his comrade retained him at his stirrup.

  A short time previously the horse had cast a shoe; and this the tall

  man on foot had gathered up, and was holding in his hand: it having

  been voted that the first blacksmith to whose shop they should come

  should be called upon to fit it again upon the bay horse.

  "Do you remimber this counthry, Meejor?" said the tall man, who was

  looking about him very much pleased, and sucking a flower. "I think

  thim green cornfields is prettier looking at than the d----- tobacky

  out yondther, and bad lack to it!"

  "I recollect the place right well, and some queer pranks we played

  here seven years agone," responded the gentleman addressed as Major.

  "You remember that man and his wife, whom we took in pawn at the

  'Three Rooks'?"

  "And the landlady only hung last Michaelmas?" said the tall man,

  parenthetically.

  "Hang the landlady!--we've got all we ever would out of HER, you

  know. But about the man and woman. You went after the chap's

  mother, and, like a jackass, as you are, let him loose. Well, the

  woman was that Catherine that you've often heard me talk about. I

  like the wench, ---- her, for I almost brought her up; and she was

  for a year or two along with that scoundrel Galgenstein, who has

  been the cause of my ruin."

  "The inferrnal blackguard and ruffian!" said the tall man; who, with

  his companion, has no doubt been recognised by the reader.

  "Well, th
is Catherine had a child by Galgenstein; and somewhere here

  hard by the woman lived to whom we carried the brat to nurse. She

  was the wife of a blacksmith, one Billings: it won't be out of the

  way to get our horse shod at his house, if he is alive still, and we

  may learn something about the little beast. I should be glad to see

  the mother well enough."

  "Do I remimber her?" said the Ensign. "Do I remimber whisky? Sure

  I do, and the snivelling sneak her husband, and the stout old lady

  her mother-in-law, and the dirty one-eyed ruffian who sold me the

  parson's hat that had so nearly brought me into trouble. Oh but it

  was a rare rise we got out of them chaps, and the old landlady

  that's hanged too!" And here both Ensign Macshane and Major Brock,

  or Wood, grinned, and showed much satisfaction.

  It will be necessary to explain the reason of it. We gave the

  British public to understand that the landlady of the "Three Rooks,"

  at Worcester, was a notorious fence, or banker of thieves; that is,

  a purchaser of their merchandise. In her hands Mr. Brock and his

  companion had left property to the amount of sixty or seventy

  pounds, which was secreted in a cunning recess in a chamber of the

  "Three Rooks" known only to the landlady and the gentlemen who

  banked with her; and in this place, Mr. Sicklop, the one-eyed man

  who had joined in the Hayes adventure, his comrade, and one or two

  of the topping prigs of the county, were free. Mr. Sicklop had been

  shot dead in a night attack near Bath: the landlady had been

  suddenly hanged, as an accomplice in another case of robbery; and

  when, on their return from Virginia, our two heroes, whose hopes of

  livelihood depended upon it, had bent their steps towards Worcester,

  they were not a little frightened to hear of the cruel fate of the

  hostess and many of the amiable frequenters of the "Three Rooks."

  All the goodly company were separated; the house was no longer an

  inn. Was the money gone too? At least it was worth while to look--

  which Messrs. Brock and Macshane determined to do.

  The house being now a private one, Mr. Brock, with a genius that was

  above his station, visited its owner, with a huge portfolio under

  his arm, and, in the character of a painter, requested permission to

  take a particular sketch from a particular window. The Ensign

  followed with the artist's materials (consisting simply of a

  screwdriver and a crowbar); and it is hardly necessary to say that,

  when admission was granted to them, they opened the well-known door,

  and to their inexpressible satisfaction discovered, not their own

  peculiar savings exactly, for these had been appropriated instantly,

  on hearing of their transportation, but stores of money and goods to

  the amount of near three hundred pounds: to which Mr. Macshane said

  they had as just and honourable a right as anybody else. And so

  they had as just a right as anybody--except the original owners:

  but who was to discover them?

  With this booty they set out on their journey--anywhere, for they

  knew not whither; and it so chanced that when their horse's shoe

  came off, they were within a few furlongs of the cottage of Mr.

  Billings, the blacksmith. As they came near, they were saluted by

  tremendous roars issuing from the smithy. A small boy was held

  across the bellows, two or three children of smaller and larger

  growth were holding him down, and many others of the village were

  gazing in at the window, while a man, half-naked, was lashing the

  little boy with a whip, and occasioning the cries heard by the

  travellers. As the horse drew up, the operator looked at the new-

  comers for a moment, and then proceeded incontinently with his work;

  belabouring the child more fiercely than ever.

  When he had done, he turned round to the new-comers and asked how he

  could serve them? whereupon Mr. Wood (for such was the name he

  adopted, and by such we shall call him to the end) wittily remarked

  that however he might wish to serve THEM, he seemed mightily

  inclined to serve that young gentleman first.

  "It's no joking matter," said the blacksmith: "if I don't serve him

  so now, he'll be worse off in his old age. He'll come to the

  gallows, as sure as his name is Bill---never mind what his name is."

  And so saying, he gave the urchin another cut; which elicited, of

  course, another scream.

  "Oh! his name is Bill?" said Captain Wood.

  "His name's NOT Bill!" said the blacksmith, sulkily. "He's no name;

  and no heart, neither. My wife took the brat in, seven years ago,

  from a beggarly French chap to nurse, and she kept him, for she was

  a good soul" (here his eyes began to wink), "and she's--she's gone

  now" (here he began fairly to blubber). "And d--- him, out of love

  for her, I kept him too, and the scoundrel is a liar and a thief.

  This blessed day, merely to vex me and my boys here, he spoke ill of

  her, he did, and I'll--cut--his--life--out--I--will!" and with each

  word honest Mulciber applied a whack on the body of little Tom

  Billings; who, by shrill shrieks, and oaths in treble, acknowledged

  the receipt of the blows.

  "Come, come," said Mr. Wood, "set the boy down, and the bellows

  a-going; my horse wants shoeing, and the poor lad has had strapping

  enough."

  The blacksmith obeyed, and cast poor Master Thomas loose. As he

  staggered away and looked back at his tormentor, his countenance

  assumed an expression which made Mr. Wood say, grasping hold of

  Macshane's arm, "It's the boy, it's the boy! When his mother gave

  Galgenstein the laudanum, she had the self-same look with her!"

  "Had she really now?" said Mr. Macshane. "And pree, Meejor, who WAS

  his mother?"

  "Mrs. Cat, you fool!" answered Wood.

  "Then, upon my secred word of honour, she has a mighty fine KITTEN

  anyhow, my dear. Aha!"

  "They don't DROWN such kittens," said Mr. Wood, archly; and

  Macshane, taking the allusion, clapped his finger to his nose in

  token of perfect approbation of his commander's sentiment.

  While the blacksmith was shoeing the horse, Mr. Wood asked him many

  questions concerning the lad whom he had just been chastising, and

  succeeded, beyond a doubt, in establishing his identity with the

  child whom Catherine Hall had brought into the world seven years

  since. Billings told him of all the virtues of his wife, and the

  manifold crimes of the lad: how he stole, and fought, and lied, and

  swore; and though the youngest under his roof, exercised the most

  baneful influence over all the rest of his family. He was

  determined at last, he said, to put him to the parish, for he did

  not dare to keep him.

  "He's a fine whelp, and would fetch ten pieces in Virginny," sighed

  the Ensign.

  "Crimp, of Bristol, would give five for him," said Mr. Wood,

  ruminating.

  "Why not take him?" said the Ensign.

  "Faith, why not?" said Mr. Wood. "His keep, meanwhile, will not be

  sixpence a day." Then turning round to the blacksmith, "Mr.

  Billin
gs," said he, "you will be surprised, perhaps, to hear that I

  know everything regarding that poor lad's history. His mother was

  an unfortunate lady of high family, now no more; his father a German

  nobleman, Count de Galgenstein by name."

  "The very man!" said Billings: "a young, fair-haired man, who came

  here with the child, and a dragoon sergeant."

  "Count de Galgenstein by name, who, on the point of death,

  recommended the infant to me."

  "And did he pay you seven years' boarding?" said Mr. Billings, who

  was quite alive at the very idea.

  "Alas, sir, not a jot! He died, sir, six hundred pounds in my debt;

  didn't he, Ensign?"

  "Six hundred, upon my secred honour! I remember when he got into

  the house along with the poli--"

  "Psha! what matters it?" here broke out Mr. Wood, looking fiercely

  at the Ensign. "Six hundred pounds he owes me: how was he to pay

  you? But he told me to take charge of this boy, if I found him; and

  found him I have, and WILL take charge of him, if you will hand him

  over."

  "Send our Tom!" cried Billings. And when that youth appeared,

  scowling, and yet trembling, and prepared, as it seemed, for another

  castigation, his father, to his surprise, asked him if he was

  willing to go along with those gentlemen, or whether he would be a

  good lad and stay with him.

  Mr. Tom replied immediately, "I won't be a good lad, and I'd rather

  go to ---- than stay with you!"

  "Will you leave your brothers and sisters?" said Billings, looking

  very dismal.

  "Hang my brothers and sisters--I hate 'em; and, besides, I haven't

  got any!"

  "But you had a good mother, hadn't you, Tom?"

  Tom paused for a moment.

  "Mother's gone," said he, "and you flog me, and I'll go with these

  men."

  "Well, then, go thy ways," said Billings, starting up in a passion:

  "go thy ways for a graceless reprobate; and if this gentleman will

  take you, he may do so."

  After some further parley, the conversation ended, and the next

  morning Mr. Wood's party consisted of three: a little boy being

  mounted upon the bay horse, in addition to the Ensign or himself;

  and the whole company went journeying towards Bristol.

  * * *

  We have said that Mrs. Hayes had, on a sudden, taken a fit of

  maternal affection, and was bent upon being restored to her child;

  and that benign destiny which watched over the life of this lucky

  lady instantly set about gratifying her wish, and, without cost to

  herself of coach-hire or saddle-horse, sent the young gentleman very

  quickly to her arms. The village in which the Hayeses dwelt was but

  a very few miles out of the road from Bristol; whither, on the

  benevolent mission above, hinted at, our party of worthies were

  bound: and coming, towards the afternoon, in sight of the house of

  that very Justice Ballance who had been so nearly the ruin of Ensign

  Macshane, that officer narrated, for the hundredth time, and with

  much glee, the circumstances which had then befallen him, and the

  manner in which Mrs. Hayes the elder had come forward to his rescue.

  "Suppose we go and see the old girl?" suggested Mr. Wood. "No harm

  can come to us now." And his comrade always assenting, they wound

  their way towards the village, and reached it as the evening came

  on. In the public-house where they rested, Wood made inquiries

  concerning the Hayes family; was informed of the death of the old

  couple, of the establishment of John Hayes and his wife in their

  place, and of the kind of life that these latter led together. When

  all these points had been imparted to him, he ruminated much: an

  expression of sublime triumph and exultation at length lighted up

  his features. "I think, Tim," said he at last, "that we can make

  more than five pieces of that boy."

  "Oh, in coorse!" said Timothy Macshane, Esquire; who always agreed