Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  At length, however, he devised a legal mode of annoying his enemy. Some land belonging to Mr. Hopkins lay between Gray’s farm and the only bog in the neighbourhood: now he would not permit Mr. Gray, or any body belonging to him, to draw turf upon his bog-road; and he absolutely forbade his own wretched tenants to sell turf to the object of his envy. By these means, he flattered himself he should literally starve the enemy out of house and home.

  Things were in this situation when John and Robin Gray determined to build a house for their father at Rosanna. They made no secret to him of their intentions; for they did not want to surprise but to please him, and to do every thing in the manner that would be most convenient to him and their mother. Their sister, Rose, was in all their counsels; and it had been for the last three years one of her chief delights to go, after her day’s work was done, to the mill at Rosanna, to see how her brothers were going on. How happy are those families where there is no envy or jealousy; but in which each individual takes an interest in the prosperity of the whole! Farmer Gray was heartily pleased with the gratitude and generosity of his boys, as he still continued to call them; though, by-the-bye, John was now three-and-twenty, and his brother only two years younger.

  “My dear boys,” said he, “nothing could be more agreeable to me and your mother than to have a snug cottage near you both, on the very spot which you say I pitched upon two years ago. This cabin that we now live in, after all I have tried to do to prop it up, and notwithstanding all Rose does to keep it neat and clean withinside, is but a crazy sort of a place. We are able now to have a better house, and I shall be glad to be out of the reach of Mr. Hopkins’s persecution. Therefore, let us set about and build the new house. You shall contribute your share, my boys; but only a share: mind, I say only a share. And I hope next year to contribute my share towards building a house for each of you: it is time you should think of marrying, and settling: it is no bad thing to have a house ready for a bride. We shall have quite a little colony of our own at Rosanna. Who knows but I may live to see my grand-children, ay, and my great-grand-children, settled there all round me, industrious and contented?”

  Good-will is almost as expeditious and effectual as Aladdin’s lamp: — the new cottage for farmer Gray was built at Rosanna, and he took possession of it the ensuing spring. They next made a garden, and furnished it with all sorts of useful vegetables and some pretty flowers. Rose had great pleasure in taking care of this garden. Her brothers also laid out a small green lawn before the door; and planted the boundaries with white-thorn, crab-trees, lilacs, and laburnums. The lawn sloped down to the water-side; and the mill and copse behind it were seen from the parlour windows. A prettier cottage, indeed so pretty a one, was never before seen in this county.

  But what was better far than the pretty cottage, or the neat garden, or the green lawn, or the white-thorn, the crab-trees, the lilacs, and the laburnums, was the content that smiled amongst them.

  Many who have hundreds and thousands are miserable, because they still desire more; or rather because they know not what they would have. For instance, Mr. Hopkins, the rich Mr. Hopkins, who had scraped together in about fifteen years above twenty thousand, some said thirty thousand pounds, had never been happy for a single day, either whilst he was making this fortune or when he had made it; for he was of an avaricious, discontented temper. The more he had, the more he desired. He could not bear the prosperity of his neighbours; and if his envy made him industrious, yet it at the same time rendered him miserable. Though he was what the world calls a remarkably fortunate man, yet the feelings of his own mind prevented him from enjoying his success. He had no wife, no children, to share his wealth. He would not marry, because a wife is expensive; and children are worse than taxes. His whole soul was absorbed in the love of gain. He denied himself not only the comforts but the common necessaries of life. He was alone in the world. He was conscious that no human being loved him. He read his history in the eyes of all his neighbours.

  It was known that he had risen upon the ruin of others; and the higher he had risen, the more conspicuous became the faults of his character. Whenever any man grew negligent of his affairs, or by misfortune was reduced to distress, Hopkins was at hand to take advantage of his necessities. His first approaches were always made under the semblance of friendship; but his victims soon repented their imprudent confidence when they felt themselves in his power. Unrestrained by a sense of honour or the feelings of humanity, he felt no scruple in pursuing his interest to the very verge of what the law would call fraud. Even his own relations complained that he duped them without scruple; and none but strangers to his character, or persons compelled by necessity, would have any dealings with this man. Of what advantage to him, or to any one else, were the thousands he had accumulated?

  It may be said that such beings are necessary in society; that their industry is productive; and that, therefore, they ought to be preferred to the idle, unproductive members of the community: but wealth and happiness are not the same things. Perhaps, at some future period, enlightened politicians may think the happiness of nations more important than their wealth. In this point of view, they would consider all the members of society, who are productive of happiness, as neither useless nor despicable; and, on the contrary, they would contemn and discourage those who merely accumulate money, without enjoying or dispensing happiness. But some centuries must probably elapse before such a philosophic race of politicians can arise. In the mean time, let us go on with our story.

  CHAPTER III.

  Mr. Hopkins was enraged when he found that his expected victim escaped his snares. He saw the pretty cottage rise, and the mill of Rosanna work, in despite of his malevolence. He long brooded over his malice in silence. As he stood one day on the top of a high mount on his own estate, from which he had a view of the surrounding country, his eyes fixed upon the little paradise in the possession of his enemies. He always called those his enemies of whom he was the enemy: this is no uncommon mistake, in the language of the passions.

  “The Rosanna mill shall be stopped before this day twelvemonth, or my name is not Hopkins,” said he to himself. “I have sworn vengeance against those Grays; but I will humble them to the dust, before I have done with them. I shall never sleep in peace till I have driven those people from the country.”

  It was, however, no easy matter to drive from the country such inoffensive inhabitants. The first thing Mr. Hopkins resolved upon was to purchase from Simon O’Dougherty the field adjoining to that in which the mill stood. The brook flowed through this field, and Mr. Hopkins saw, with malicious satisfaction, that he could at a small expense turn the course of the stream, and cut off the water from the mill.

  Poor Simon by this time had reduced himself to a situation in which his pride was compelled to yield to pecuniary considerations. Within the last three years, his circumstances had been materially changed. Whilst he was a bachelor, his income had been sufficient to maintain him in idleness. Soft Simon, however, at last, took it into his head to marry; or rather a cunning damsel, who had been his mistress for some years, took it into her head to make him marry. She was skilled in the arts both of wheedling and scolding: to resist these united powers was too much to be expected from a man of Simon’s easy temper.

  He argued thus with himself:—”She has cost me more as she is than if she had been my wife twice over; for she has no interest in looking after any thing belonging to me, but only just living on from day to day, and making the most for herself and her children. And the children, too, all in the same way, snatching what they could make sure of for themselves. Now, if I make her my lawful wife, as she desires, the property will be hers, as well as mine; and it will be her interest to look after all. She is a stirring, notable woman, and will save me a world of trouble, and make the best of every thing for her children’s sake; and they, being then all acknowledged by me, will make my interest their own, as she says; and, besides, this is the only way left me to have peace.”

  To
avoid the cares and plagues of matrimony, and that worst of plagues a wife’s tongue, Simon first was induced to keep a mistress, and now to silence his mistress, he made her his wife. She assured him, that, till she was his lawful lady, she never should have peace or quietness; nor could she, in conscience, suffer him to have a moment’s rest.

  Simon married her, to use his own phrase, out of hand: hut the marriage was only the beginning of new troubles. The bride had hordes and clans of relations, who came pouring in from all quarters to pay their respects to Mrs. O’Dougherty. Her good easy man could not shut his doors against any one: the O’Doughertys were above a hundred years, ay, two hundred years ago, famous for hospitality; and it was incumbent upon Simon O’Dougherty to keep up the honour of the family. His four children were now to be maintained in idleness; for they, like their father, had an insurmountable aversion to business. The public opinion of Simon suddenly changed. Those who were any way related to the O’Doughertys, and who dreaded that he and his children should apply to them for pecuniary assistance, began the cry against him of, “What a shame it is {Footnote: Essay on Charity Schools.} that the man does not do something for himself and his family! How can those expect to be helped who won’t help themselves? He is contented, indeed! Yes, and he must soon be contented to sell the lands that have been in the family so long; and then, by and by, he must be content, if he does not bestir himself, to be carried to jail. It is a sin for any one to be content to eat the bread of idleness!”

  These and similar reproaches were uttered often, in our idle hero’s presence. They would perhaps have excited him to some sort of exertion, if his friend, Sir Hyacinth O’Brien, had not, in consequence of certain electioneering services, and in consideration of his being one of the best sportsmen in the county, and of Simon’s having named a horse after him, procured for him a place of about fifty pounds a year in the revenue. Upon the profits of this place Simon contrived to live, in a shambling sort of way.

  How long he might have shuffled on is a problem which must now for ever remain unsolved; for his indolence was not permitted to take its natural course; his ruin was accelerated by the secret operation of an active and malignant power. Mr. Hopkins, who had determined to get that field which joined to Gray’s mill, and who well knew that the pride of the O’Doughertys would resist the idea of selling to him any part or parcel of the lands of Rosanna, devised a scheme to reduce Simon to immediate and inextricable distress. Simon was, as it might have been foreseen, negligent in discharging the duties of his office, which was that of a supervisor.

  He either did not know, or connived at the practices, of sundry illegal distillers in his neighbourhood. Malicious tongues did not scruple to say that he took money, upon some occasions, from the delinquents; but this he positively denied. Possibly his wife and sons knew more of this matter than he did. They sold certain scraps of paper, called protections, to several petty distillers, whose safest protection would have been Simon’s indolence. One of the scraps of paper, to which there was O’Dougherty’s signature, fell into the hands of Mr. Hopkins.

  That nothing might be omitted to ensure his disgrace, Hopkins sent a person, on whom he could depend, to give Simon notice that there was an illegal still at such a house, naming the house for which the protection was granted. Soft Simon received the information with his customary carelessness, said it was too late to think of going to seize the still that evening, and declared he would have it seized the next day: but the next day he put it off, and the day afterwards he forgot it, and the day after that, he received a letter from the collector of excise, summoning him to answer to an information which had been laid against him for misconduct. In this emergency, he resolved to have recourse to his friend Sir Hyacinth O’Brien, who, he thought, could make interest to screen him from justice. Sir Hyacinth gave him a letter to the collector, who happened to be in the country. Away he went with the letter: he was met on the road by a friend, who advised him to ride as hard after the collector as he could, to overtake him before he should reach Counsellor Quin’s, where he was engaged to dine. Counsellor Quin was candidate for the county in opposition to Sir Hyacinth O’Brien; and it was well understood that whomsoever the one favoured the other hated. It behoved Simon, therefore, to overtake the collector before he should be within the enemy’s gates. Simon whipped and spurred, and puffed and fretted, but all in vain, for he was mounted upon the horse which, as the reader may remember, fell into the tan-pit. The collector reached Counsellor Quin’s long before Simon arrived; and, when he presented Sir Hyacinth’s letter, it was received in a manner that showed it came too late. Simon lost his place and his fifty pounds a year: but what he found most trying to his temper were the reproaches of his wife, which were loud, bitter, and unceasing. He knew, from experience, that nothing could silence her but letting her “have all the plea;” so he suffered her to rail till she was quite out of breath, and he very nearly asleep, and then said, “What you have been observing is all very just, no doubt; but since a thing past can’t be recalled, and those that are upon the ground, as our proverb says, can go no lower, that’s a great comfort; so we may be content.”

  “Content, in troth! Is it content to live upon potatoes and salt? I, that am your lawful wife! And you, that are an O’Dougherty too, to let your lady be demeaned and looked down upon, as she will be now, even by them that are sprung up from nothing since yesterday. There’s Mrs. Gray, over yonder at Rosanna, living on your own land: look at her and look at me! and see what a difference there is!”

  “Some difference there surely is,” said Simon.

  “Some difference there surely is,” repeated Mrs. O’Dougherty, raising her voice to the shrillest note of objurgation; for she was provoked by a sigh that escaped Simon, as he pronounced his reply, or rather his acceding sentence. Nothing, in some cases, provokes a female so much as agreeing with her.

  “And if there is some difference betwixt me and Mrs. Gray, should be glad to know whose fault that is?”

  “So should I, Mrs. O’Dougherty.”

  “Then I’ll tell you, instantly, whose fault it is, Mr. O’Dougherty: the fault is your own, Mr. O’Dougherty. No, the fault is mine, Mr. O’Dougherty, for marrying you, or consorting with you at all. If I had been matched to an active, industrious man, like Mr. Gray, I might have been as well in the world and better than Mrs. Gray; for I should become a fortune better than she, or any of her seed, breed, or generation; and it’s a scandal in the face of the world, and all the world says so, it’s a scandal to see them Grays flourishing and settling a colony, there at Rosanna, at our expense!”

  “Not at our expense, my dear, for you know we made nothing of either tan-yard or mill; and now they pay us 30l. a year, and that punctually too. What should we do without it, now we have lost the place in the revenue? I am sure, I think we were very lucky to get such tenants as the Grays.”

  “In truth, I think no such thing; for if you had been blessed with the sense of a midge, you might have done all they have done yourself: and then what a different way your lawful wife and family would have been in! I am sure I wish it had pleased the saints above to have married me, when they were about it, to such a man as farmer Gray or his sons.”

  “As for the sons,” said Simon, “they are a little out of the way in point of age, but to farmer Gray I see no objection in life: and if he sees none, and will change wives, I’m sure, Ally, I shall be content.”

  The sort of composure and dry humour with which Simon made this last speech overcame the small remains of Mrs. O’Dougherty’s patience: she burst into a passion of tears; and from this hour, it being now past eleven o’clock at night, from this hour till six in the morning she never ceased weeping, wailing, and upbraiding.

  Simon rose from his sleepless bed, saying, “The saints above, as you call them, must take care of you now, Ally, any how; for I’m fairly tired out: so I must go a-hunting or a-shooting with my friend, Sir Hyacinth O’Brien, to recruit my spirits.”

  The unfo
rtunate Simon found, to his mortification, that his horse was so lame he could scarcely walk. Whilst he was considering where he could borrow a horse, just for the day’s hunt, Mr. Hopkins rode into his yard, mounted upon a fine hunter. Though naturally supercilious, this gentleman could stoop to conquer: he was well aware of Simon’s dislike to him, but he also knew that Simon was in distress for money. Even the strongest passions of those who involve themselves in pecuniary difficulties must yield to the exigencies of the moment. Easy Simon’s indolence had now reduced him to a situation in which his pride was obliged to bend to his interest. Mr. Hopkins had once been repulsed with haughtiness by the representative of the O’Dougherty family, when he offered to purchase some of the family estate; but his proposal was now better timed, and was made with all the address of which he was master. He began by begging Simon to give him his opinion of the horse on which he was mounted, as he knew Mr. O’Dougherty was a particularly good judge of a hunter; and he would not buy it, from Counsellor Quin’s groom, without having a skilful friend’s advice. Then he asked whether it was true that Simon and the collector had quarrelled, exclaimed against the malice and officiousness of the informer, whoever he might be, and finished by observing that, if the loss of his place put Simon to any inconvenience, there was a ready way of supplying himself with money, by the sale of any of the lands of Rosanna. The immediate want of a horse, and the comparison he made, at this moment, between the lame animal on which he was leaning and the fine hunter upon which Hopkins was mounted, had more effect upon Simon than all the rest. Before they parted, Mr. Hopkins concluded a bargain for the field on which he had set his heart: he obtained it for less than its value by three years’ purchase. The hunter was part of the valuable consideration he gave to Simon.