Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  By some of these arguments, which passed rapidly through the mind without his being conscious of them, each boy decided, and deceived himself — what none would have done alone, none scrupled to do as a party. It was determined, then, that there should be a Barring Out. The arrangement of the affair was left to their new manager, to whom they all pledged implicit obedience. Obedience, it seems, is necessary, even from rebels to their ringleaders; not reasonable, but implicit obedience.

  Scarcely had the assembly adjourned to the Ball-alley, when Fisher, with an important length of face, came up to the manager, and desired to speak one word to him. “My advice to you, Archer, is, to do nothing in this till we have consulted, YOU KNOW WHO, about whether it’s right or wrong.”

  “‘YOU KNOW WHO!’ Whom do you mean? Make haste, and don’t make so many faces, for I’m in a hurry. Who is ‘YOU KNOW WHO?’”

  “The old woman,” said Fisher, gravely; “the gipsy.”

  “You may consult the old woman,” said Archer, bursting out a-laughing, “about what’s right and wrong, if you please; but no old woman shall decide for me.”

  “No; but you don’t TAKE me,” said Fisher; “you don’t TAKE me. By right and wrong, I mean lucky and unlucky.”

  “Whatever I do will be lucky,” replied Archer. “My gipsy told you that already.”

  “I know, I know,” said Fisher, “and what she said about your friends being lucky — that went a great way with many,” added he, with a sagacious nod of his head; “I can tell you THAT — more than you think. Do you know,” said he, laying hold of Archer’s button, “I’m in the secret. There are nine of us have crooked our little fingers upon it, not to stir a step till we get her advice; and she has appointed me to meet her about particular business of my own at eight. So I’m to consult her and to bring her answer.”

  Archer knew too well how to govern fools, to attempt to reason with them; and, instead of laughing any longer at Fisher’s ridiculous superstition, he was determined to take advantage of it. He affected to be persuaded of the wisdom of the measure; looked at his watch; urged him to be exact to a moment; conjured him to remember exactly the words of the oracle; and, above all things, to demand the lucky hour and minute when the Barring Out should begin. With these instructions Archer put his watch into the solemn dupe’s hand, and left him to count the seconds, till the moment of his appointment, whilst he ran off himself to prepare the oracle.

  At a little gate which looked into a lane, through which he guessed that the gipsy must pass, he stationed himself, saw her, gave her half a crown and her instructions, made his escape, and got back unsuspected to Fisher, whom he found in the attitude in which he had left him, watching the motion of the minute hand.

  Proud of his secret commission, Fisher slouched his hat, he knew not why, over his face, and proceeded towards the appointed spot. To keep, as he had been charged by Archer, within the letter of the law, he stood BEHIND the forbidden building, and waited some minutes.

  Through a gap in the hedge the old woman at length made her appearance, muffled up, and looking cautiously about her. “There’s nobody near us!” said Fisher, and he began to be a little afraid. “What answer,” said he, recollecting himself, “about my Livy?”

  “Lost! lost! lost!” said the gipsy, lifting up her hands; “never, never, never to be found! But no matter for that now; that is not your errand to-night; no tricks with me; speak to me of what is next your heart.”

  Fisher, astonished, put his hand upon his heart, told her all that she knew before, and received the answers that Archer had dictated: “That the Archers should be lucky as long as they stuck to their manager, and to one another; that the Barring Out should end in woe, if not begun precisely as the clock should strike nine on Wednesday night; but if begun in that LUCKY moment, and all obedient to their LUCKY leader, all should end well.”

  A thought, a provident thought, now struck Fisher; for even he had some foresight where his favourite passion was concerned. “Pray, in our Barring Out shall we be starved?”

  “No,” said the gipsy, “not if you trust to me for food, and if you give me money enough. Silver won’t do for so many; gold is what must cross my hand.”

  “I have no gold,” said Fisher, “and I don’t know what you mean by ‘so many.’ I’m only talking of number one, you know. I must take care of that first.”

  So, as Fisher thought it was possible that Archer, clever as he was, might be disappointed in his supplies, he determined to take secret measures for himself. His Aunt Barbara’s interdiction had shut him out of the confectioner’s shop; but he flattered himself that he could outwit his aunt; he therefore begged the gipsy to procure him twelve buns by Thursday morning, and bring them secretly to one of the windows of the schoolroom.

  As Fisher did not produce any money when he made this proposal, it was at first absolutely rejected; but a bribe at length conquered his difficulties; and the bribe which Fisher found himself obliged to give — for he had no pocket money left of his own, he being as much RESTRICTED in that article as Archer was INDULGED — the bribe that he found himself obliged to give to quiet the gipsy was half a crown, which Archer had intrusted to him to buy candles for the theatre. “Oh,” thought he to himself; “Archer’s so careless about money, he will never think of asking me for the half-crown again; and now he’ll want no candles for the THEATRE; or, at anyrate, it will be some time first; and maybe, Aunt Barbara may be got to give me that much at Christmas; then, if the worst comes to the worst, one can pay Archer. My mouth waters for the buns, and have ’em I must now.”

  So, for the hope of twelve buns, he sacrificed the money which had been intrusted to him. Thus the meanest motives, in mean minds often prompt to the commission of those great faults, to which one should think nothing but some violent passion could have tempted.

  The ambassador having thus, in his opinion, concluded his own and the public business, returned well satisfied with the result, after receiving the gipsy’s reiterated promise to tap THREE TIMES at the window on Thursday morning.

  The day appointed for the Barring Out at length arrived; and Archer, assembling the confederates, informed them, that all was prepared for carrying their design into execution; that he now depended for success upon their punctuality and courage. He had, within the last two hours, got all their bars ready to fasten the doors and window shutters of the schoolroom; he had, with the assistance of two of the day scholars who were of the party, sent into the town for provisions, at his own expense, which would make a handsome supper for that night; he had also negotiated with some cousins of his, who lived in the town, for a constant supply in future. “Bless me,” exclaimed Archer, suddenly stopping in this narration of his services, “there’s one thing, after all, I’ve forgot, we shall be undone without it. Fisher, pray did you ever buy the candles for the playhouse?”

  “No, to be sure,” replied Fisher, extremely frightened; “you know you don’t want candles for the playhouse now.”

  “Not for the playhouse, but for the Barring Out. We shall be in the dark, man. You must run this minute, run.”

  “For candles?” said Fisher, confused; “how many? — what sort?”

  “Stupidity!” exclaimed Archer, “you are a pretty fellow at a dead lift! Lend me a pencil and a bit of paper, do; I’ll write down what I want myself! Well, what are you fumbling for?”

  “For money!” said Fisher, colouring.

  “Money, man! Didn’t I give you half a crown the other day?”

  “Yes,” replied Fisher, stammering; “but I wasn’t sure that that might be enough.”

  “Enough! yes, to be sure it will. I don’t know what you are AT.”

  “Nothing, nothing,” said Fisher, “here, write upon this, then,” said Fisher, putting a piece of paper into Archer’s hand, upon which Archer wrote his orders. “Away, away!” cried he.

  Away went Fisher. He returned; but not until a considerable time afterwards. They were at supper when he returned. “Fish
er always comes in at supper-time,” observed one of the Greybeards, carelessly.

  “Well, and would you have him come in AFTER supper-time?” said Townsend, who always supplied his party with ready wit.

  “I’ve got the candles,” whispered Fisher as he passed by Archer to his place.

  “And the tinder-box?” said Archer.

  “Yes; I got back from my Aunt Barbara under pretence that I must study for repetition day an hour later to-night. So I got leave. Was not that clever?”

  A dunce always thinks it clever to cheat even by SOBER LIES. How Mr. Fisher procured the candles and the tinder box without money, and without credit, we shall discover further on.

  Archer and his associates had agreed to stay the last in the schoolroom; and as soon as the Greybeards were gone out to bed, he, as the signal, was to shut and lock one door, Townsend the other. A third conspirator was to strike a light, in case they should not be able to secure a candle. A fourth was to take charge of the candle as soon as lighted; and all the rest were to run to their bars, which were secreted in a room; then to fix them to the common fastening bars of the window, in the manner in which they had been previously instructed by the manager. Thus each had his part assigned, and each was warned that the success of the whole depended upon their order and punctuality.

  Order and punctuality, it appears, are necessary even in a Barring Out; and even rebellion must have its laws.

  The long expected moment at length arrived. De Grey and his friends, unconscious of what was going forward, walked out of the schoolroom as usual at bedtime. The clock began to strike nine. There was one Greybeard left in the room, who was packing up some of his books, which had been left about by accident. It is impossible to describe the impatience with which he was watched, especially by Fisher, and the nine who depended upon the gipsy oracle.

  When he had got all his books together under his arm, he let one of them fall; and whilst he stooped to pick it up, Archer gave the signal. The doors were shut, locked, and double-locked in an instant. A light was struck and each ran to his post. The bars were all in the same moment put up to the windows, and Archer, when he had tried them all, and seen that they were secure, gave a loud “Huzza!” — in which he was joined by all the party most manfully — by all but the poor Greybeard, who, the picture of astonishment, stood stock still in the midst of them with his books under his arm; at which spectacle Townsend, who enjoyed the FROLIC of the fray more than anything else, burst into an immoderate fit of laughter. “So, my little Greybeard,” said he, holding a candle full in his eyes, “what think you of all this? — How came you amongst the wicked ones?”

  “I don’t know, indeed,” said the little boy, very gravely: “you shut me up amongst you. Won’t you let me out?”

  “Let you out! No, no, my little Greybeard,” said Archer, catching hold of him, and dragging him to the window bars. “Look ye here — touch these- -put your hand to them — pull, push, kick — put a little spirit into it, man — kick like an Archer, if you can; away with ye. It’s a pity that the king of the Greybeards is not here to admire me. I should like to show him our fortifications. But come, my merry men all, now to the feast. Out with the table into the middle of the room. Good cheer, my jolly Archers! I’m your manager!”

  Townsend, delighted with the bustle, rubbed his hands, and capered about the room, whilst the preparations for the feast were hurried forward. “Four candles! — Four candles on the table. Let’s have things in style when we are about it, Mr. Manager,” cried Townsend. “Places! — Places! There’s nothing like a fair scramble, my boys. Let everyone take care of himself. Hallo! Greybeard, I’ve knocked Greybeard down here in the scuffle. Get up again, my lad, and see a little life.”

  “No, no,” cried Fisher, “he sha’n’t SUP with us.”

  “No, no,” cried the manager, “he shan’t LIVE with us; a Greybeard is not fit company for Archers.”

  “No, no,” cried Townsend, “evil communication corrupts good manners.”

  So with one unanimous hiss they hunted the poor little gentle boy into a corner; and having pent him up with benches, Fisher opened his books for him, which he thought the greatest mortification, and set up a candle beside him—”There, now he looks like a Greybeard as he is!” cried they. “Tell me what’s the Latin for cold roast beef?” said Fisher, exultingly, and they returned to their feast.

  Long and loud they revelled. They had a few bottles of cider. “Give me the corkscrew, the cider sha’n’t be kept till it’s sour,” cried Townsend, in answer to the manager, who, when he beheld the provisions vanishing with surprising rapidity, began to fear for the morrow. “Hang to- morrow!” cried Townsend, “let Greybeards think of to-morrow; Mr. Manager, here’s your good health.”

  The Archers all stood up as their cups were filled to drink the health of their chief with a universal cheer. But at the moment that the cups were at their lips, and as Archer bowed to thank the company, a sudden shower from above astonished the whole assembly. They looked up, and beheld the rose of a watering-engine, whose long neck appeared through a trap door in the ceiling. “Your good health, Mr. Manager!” said a voice, which was known to be the gardener’s; and in the midst of their surprise and dismay the candles were suddenly extinguished; the trap-door shut down; and they were left in utter darkness.

  “The DEVIL!” said Archer.”

  “Don’t swear, Mr. Manager,” said the same voice from the ceiling, “I hear every word you say.”

  “Mercy upon us!” exclaimed Fisher. “The clock,” added he, whispering, “must have been wrong, for it had not done striking when we began. Only, you remember, Archer, it had just done before you had done locking your door.”

  “Hold your tongue, blockhead!” said Archer. “Well, boys! were ye never in the dark before? You are not afraid of a shower of rain, I hope. Is anybody drowned?”

  “No,” said they, with a faint laugh, “but what shall we do here in the dark all night long, and all day to-morrow? We can’t unbar the shutters.”

  “It’s a wonder NOBODY ever thought of the trap-door!” said Townsend.

  The trap-door had indeed escaped the manager’s observation. As the house was new to him, and the ceiling being newly white-washed, the opening was scarcely perceptible. Vexed to be out-generalled, and still more vexed to have it remarked, Archer poured forth a volley of incoherent exclamations and reproaches against those who were thus so soon discouraged by a trifle; and groping for the tinder-box, he asked if anything could be easier than to strike a light again.* The light appeared. But at the moment that it made the tinder-box visible, another shower from above, aimed, and aimed exactly, at the tinder-box, drenched it with water, and rendered it totally unfit for further service. Archer in a fury dashed it to the ground. And now for the first time he felt what it was to be the unsuccessful head of a party. He heard in his turn the murmurs of a discontented, changeable populace; and recollecting all his bars and bolts, and ingenious contrivances, he was more provoked at their blaming him for this one only oversight than he was grieved at the disaster itself.

  *Lucifer matches were then unknown. — Ed.

  “Oh, my hair is all wet!” cried one, dolefully.

  “Wring it, then,” said Archer.

  “My hand’s cut with your broken glass,” cried another.

  “Glass!” cried a third; “mercy! is there broken glass? and it’s all about, I suppose, amongst the supper; and I had but one bit of bread all the time.”

  “Bread!” cried Archer; “eat if you want it. Here’s a piece here, and no glass near it.”

  “It’s all wet, and I don’t like dry bread by itself; that’s no feast.”

  “Heigh-day! What, nothing but moaning and grumbling! If these are the joys of a Barring Out,” cried Townsend, “I’d rather be snug in my bed. I expected that we should have sat up till twelve o’clock, talking, and laughing, and singing.”

  “So you may still; what hinders you?” said Archer. “Sing, and we’l
l join you, and I should be glad those fellows overhead heard us singing. Begin, Townsend —

  ”’Come now, all ye social Powers,

  Spread your influence o’er us’ —

  Or else —

  ”’Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!

  Britons never will be slaves.’”

  Nothing can be more melancholy than forced merriment. In vain they roared in chorus. In vain they tried to appear gay. It would not do. The voices died away, and dropped off one by one. They had each provided himself with a great-coat to sleep upon; but now, in the dark, there was a peevish scrambling contest for the coats, and half the company, in very bad humour, stretched themselves upon the benches for the night.

  There is great pleasure in bearing anything that has the appearance of hardship as long as there is any glory to be acquired by it: but when people feel themselves foiled, there is no further pleasure in endurance; and if, in their misfortune, there is any mixture of the ridiculous, the motives for heroism are immediately destroyed. Dr. Middleton had probably considered this in the choice he made of his first attack.

  Archer, who had spent the night as a man who had the cares of government upon his shoulders, rose early in the morning, whilst everybody else was fast asleep. In the night he had resolved the affair of the trap-door, and a new danger had alarmed him. It was possible that the enemy might descend upon them through the trap-door. The room had been built high to admit a free circulation of air. It was twenty feet, so that it was in vain to think of reaching to the trap-door.

  As soon as the daylight appeared, Archer rose softly, that he might RECONNOITRE, and devise some method of guarding against this new danger. Luckily there were round holes in the top of the window-shutters, which admitted sufficient light for him to work by. The remains of the soaked feast, wet candles, and broken glass spread over the table in the middle of the room, looked rather dismal this morning.

  ‘A pretty set of fellows I have to manage!” said Archer, contemplating the group of sleepers before him. “It is well they have somebody to think for them. Now if I wanted — which, thank goodness, I don’t — but if I did want to call a cabinet council to my assistance, whom could I pitch upon? not this stupid snorer, who is dreaming of gipsies, if he is dreaming of anything,” continued Archer, as he looked into Fisher’s open mouth. “This next chap is quick enough; but, then, he is so fond of having everything his own way. And this curl pated monkey, who is grinning in his sleep, is all tongue and no brains. Here are brains, though nobody would think it, in this lump,” said he, looking at a fat, rolled up, heavy breathing sleeper; “but what signify brains to such a lazy dog? I might kick him for my football this half hour before I should get him awake. This lank jawed harlequin beside him is a handy fellow, to be sure; but, then, if he has hands, he has no head — and he’d be afraid of his own shadow too, by this light, he is such a coward! And Townsend, why, he has puns in plenty; but, when there’s any work to be done, he’s the worst fellow to be near one in the world — he can do nothing but laugh at his own puns. This poor little fellow that we hunted into the corner has more sense than all of them put together; but then he is a Greybeard.”