The Works of William Harrison Ainsworth

by William Harrison Ainsworth

  Satisfied with accomplishing his object, the barber-surgeon told Malpas he should pay him a final visit in the morning, after which he might return to the vicarage as soon as he pleased. Pownall then took leave, and I accompanied him. On the way to the village we met Mrs. Sale, to whom the barber-surgeon gave a very satisfactory account of her son.

  “I’m pleased with all you tell me, Pownall, but I shall go on and see him, since he is not to come home till to-morrow,” she said; “won’t you walk back with me, Mervyn?”

  I could not refuse — and, indeed, I had no desire to do so — and therefore retraced my steps with her. What was our surprise, when we came within a hundred yards of the cottage, to perceive Malpas walking slowly towards us. We hurried to meet him.

  “Why, my dear, this is very imprudent — very imprudent indeed,” the lady cried. “Simon Pownall told me you oughtn’t to move till to-morrow. Why have you run this risk?”

  “That Rufus of a keeper is such a brute, I can’t stand him,” Malpas replied. “He says the rudest things to his wife and to me; and because I replied — would you believe it? — he has ordered me — me! — to leave the house.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it!” Mrs. Sale cried; “and Sissy such a nice creature. Ah! here she is!”

  As she spoke, Sissy came up, with her apron to her eyes, and sobbing violently.

  “So please you, Master Malpas — do come back, sir! My husbants is ferry sorry for what he said; look you, sir — he’s hasty. Do come back, sir.”

  Malpas looked as if he would have complied, but his mother interposed:

  “No, my dear; since you have ventured out, you had better go home. Where would be the use of returning? You have been very kind to him, I’m sure, Sissy, and I’m greatly indebted to you; but I’m quite distressed there should be any unpleasantness between you and your husband, and I hope my son has not been the cause of it. I will go with you and arrange it, for I cannot bear differences between married people. Mervyn, my dear, give Malpas your arm, and walk home with him. Come, Sissy, no more tears.”

  And as Mrs. Sale went to the cottage with the keeper’s wife, Malpas and I proceeded slowly to the vicarage. I asked him what was the cause of the disturbance, and he replied:

  “Oh! Rufus is infernally jealous, that’s all.”

  “Well, don’t give him cause, Malpas,” I said.

  “I — pshaw!” he exclaimed contemptuously.

  And he then continued silent till we reached the vicarage, where I left him.

  I was afterwards happy to learn from Mrs. Sale that all differences were made up between the couple; while I was subsequently informed by Ned himself that he and his wife had been very handsomely rewarded for the trouble they had been put to in regard to Malpas, who, I may mention, did not suffer in the least from quitting the house so suddenly, but was perfectly well next day, and able to come over to Nethercrofts and join me in my sports.

  CHAPTER VI.

  IN WHICH I HIDE BOUND MARSTON MERE; MEET WITH SOME GIPSIES IN A STRANGE PLACE; AND TAKE PART AT THE TWELFTH-NIGHT MERRY MAKING IN FARMER SHAKESHAFT’S BARN.

  AND plenty of sport, out-door and in-door, too, we had, for it was holiday-time at Marston, and all the lads of the village were enjoying themselves in various recreative exercises and games suitable to the season. There were battles with snowballs in the fields; football, and bat-and-ball on the ice; wrestling and nine-pins in the barns; and hot-cockles, hunt the slipper, blind-man’s-buff, puss in the comer, and other romping games within doors at night. Marston was a very primitive place, and Christmas was kept well at it. The old church was decked with evergreens, and the windows of the farm-houses were stuck full of holly and ivy, while a bunch of mistletoe was hung in the middle of the house-place; the great yule log blazed on the hearth, and merry parties assembled round it to eat mince pies or plum porridge, drain the well-spiced bowl of elder wine, and disport themselves afterwards at some boisterous game. The mummers, too, came round in their tinsel finery and ribands, ranted, and struck their lathen swords upon the floor, and executed their dances. So that, though the season was severe, the cold was well fenced off by wholesome exercise and mirthful pastime. But the crowning piece of festivity was to be the Twelfth-Night merry-making given by Farmer Shakeshaft, at which I anticipated no little amusement, and to which even Malpas seemed to look forward with interest, probably because he hoped to meet Sissy Culcheth there. As to Simon Pownall, he did nothing but talk about the great event; and he not only induced the vicar and his lady and Mr. Vawdrey to promise that they would look in for a short time at the proceedings, but even prevailed upon my uncle Mobberley to give a similar promise.

  However, we were two or three days from it yet, though, in the meantime, as I have shown, there was no lack of amusement. My uncle very good-naturedly allowed me to go to some of the rustic parties I have mentioned (always sending Sam Massey with me, though I could have dispensed with the attention), and very amusing I found them. And many a comely maiden did I meet at them, too; for Marston had its full share of female beauty. Our return home, which, I am sorry to say, was sometimes later than was supposed, did not disturb my uncle, for I slept at some distance from him, and in a part of the house allotted to the men.

  And here I may as well complete the survey, which I previously commenced, of the premises. I have described the large and comfortable house-place where my uncle and aunt usually sat. Adjoining it was a snug little parlour, where company was received, containing some old-fashioned furniture, and a few scriptural pictures on the walls, and but seldom used. On the other side, a short passage led to the room where the men had their meals, which was provided with a narrow oak table and benches of the like substantial material. A door at one end of the house-place opened upon the women’s apartments, and another door led to the old people’s chamber, which occupied the ground-floor of the more modem part of the building. Above it was a bed-chamber once allotted to me; but as to gain it I had to pass through my uncle’s room, I preferred, as I have just stated, a different part of the house, where the men slept, and which was gained by the help of a narrow ladder-like staircase ascending from the back kitchen or washhouse, and communicating with a large room having a roof like that of a bam, crossed by great beams, so that a man had to stoop in passing under them, though I could still do so with ease. Here were three beds, of one of which I had taken possession, while the furthest was occupied by William Weever and Peter Massey, and in the middle bed slept my friend Sam. A mingled odour of apples and cheese pervaded the place; and no wonder, for close adjoining was the room where the cheeses were deposited in long rows of three or four deep, while near it was a store closet, filled with the produce of the orchard. But I didn’t mind this at all. On the contrary, I thought the cheesy smell rather agreeable, and decidedly wholesome. Just below was the dairy, where Hannah reigned supreme, and where she was always to be seen with her helpmates filling milk-pans, scouring pails, churning butter, or pressing curds into a mould; while the whole place rang with her shrill tones. Outside the door was the pump, with a large array of clean white milk-pails beside it. In front of the dwelling was the farm-yard, a large quadrangular area, filled with heaps of litter, surrounded on three sides by shippons, stables, barns, and piggeries; and on the fourth by an orchard, full of old damascene plum-trees, with stems as green as the mantle of the ditch that divided the orchard from the meadows. In fact, I suspect the drainage of the place must have been rather imperfect, for not only had a large black pool collected near the pigsties, but the gates and palings, as well as the fruit trees, were painted in bright green by the hand of Nature. The garden lay at the back of the house, and, though small, was pretty; and, besides possessing a couple of clipped yew-trees, was defended on the north by one of the finest holly-hedges in the county. In a sunny corner was a row of bee-hives. Adjoining the garden was a paddock, or croft, scattered over with old apple-trees and pear-trees, and occupied at one end by numerous stacks of hay and straw, with a dovecot amongst
them.

  But garden and grounds were now bound up by the rigorous hand of winter. The farmyard was full of snow; the poultry and pigeons had some difficulty in obtaining a living; and as to the poor ducks and geese, they were quite disconsolate, while the tracks of the cart-wheels threw up masses that looked like great lumps of sugared plum-cake. The old plum-trees in the orchard appeared frostbitten, like starved old men, and on the weather side were white with snow. The pools and ditches were caked over with chocolate-coloured ice; the thatched roof of the house had its coat of congealed and sparkling snow, and from the wide eaves icicles depended like stalactites; the beehives were gone, and nothing was green except the ivy on the wall and the long holly-hedge, and they were in the fulness of their beauty. As the old song says:

  Holly hath birdies, a full fair flock ——

  The nightingale, the popinjay, the gentle laverock,

  Good ivy, what birdies hast thou?

  None but the howlet, that cries ‘How! how!’”

  Though there were no nightingales that I am aware of, plenty of blackbirds and thrushes resorted to the holly-hedge to appease their hunger on the red berries; and I dare say my favourite owl came to the ivy-bush for its black fruit, though I never saw him, nor heard his “how! how!” To my thinking, the old place never looked so well nor so cheery as at this wintry season; and on a clear bright day, when the sun shone upon its snowy roof, I thought it positively beautiful.

  On such a morning as this — on Twelfth Day, for which I had longed so much — I went to the stable with Sam Massey to saddle my pony and take a ride round the mere. I had announced my intention the evening before to Malpas, and asked him to accompany me, but he declined, saying he would ride out and meet me as I came back, a mile or two out of Marston. My pony was soon ready, and, as I had not ridden him much of late, owing to the frosty weather, he was very frisky, and Sam bade me mind what I was about, or I might miss the hopping that night. I told him never to fear, and, touching Taffy with the whip, dashed out of the farmyard. The roads were very slippery, and justified Sam’s caution; but my pony was clever and careful, and being “sharpened,” as they have it at Marston, kept his feet well. Taffey was a rough little fellow, with a shaggy mane and long tail, but came of good Welsh mountain stock, and had recently been given me by kind, good Mrs. Mervyn to ride between the Anchorite’s and school.

  A blithe and joyous morning it was, and I was in high spirits, and sang and shouted from mere exuberance of happiness. Ah! days of our youth! how happy are we then, if we only knew it! Then we ride merrily on, with no black Care seated behind us. Many a rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed damsel, roused by the clatter of my pony’s heels, came forth to look at me, and as I gave to each a passing salutation, adding a hope that I should meet her at the merrymaking at night, in every instance the response was in the affirmative. So thinks I to myself, thinks I, “What a large party we shall have!”

  Taking the right bank of the mere first — Marston lying on the left — I proceeded at a gallant pace up the slippery hill, and down the still more slippery descent; passed deep snowdrifts that had buried whole hedges, and now folded beautifully over them; crossed runnels turned to ice; and paused to look at an old picturesque mill, whose water-wheel was stopped, and overhung with icicles; and when the miller came forth, my gaiety prompted me to ask him after his daughter Bessy, whom I knew to be a pretty girl. He shook his head, and went back into the mill without a word; and Simon Pownall’s story rushing upon my recollection, I blamed myself for my indiscretion.

  Again I rode on: now looking at the wide expanse of the icebound mere, and pluming myself upon having crossed it, yet thinking nothing should tempt me to do so again; now glancing at some black old tree half-clad in snowy drapery, or holly bowed down by the weight upon its leaves; until, having mounted the gentle acclivity on which Dunton Church was situated, I halted near its reverend walls. Hence, in springtime, the view was exquisite. Then it looked, as now, as if the whole country were covered with snow, but from a different cause, the white vestiture being occasioned by the bloom of the damascene plum-trees with which the numerous orchards abounded, and the blossom of the sloe, or the bullace in the hedges. At such a season the mere would gleam like a sheet of silver, mirroring the bright sky above it. Now its surface sparkled in places, but in others was seamed, roughened, and covered with snow, like a frozen ocean. Suddenly, a merry peal of bells arose in the distance, and I knew it came from Marston Church, which stood directly opposite me, across the mere. How pleasantly those bells sounded; and yet, somehow, they awakened a train of half-melancholy reflections, as a pensive thought will intrude in the midst of deepest joy. But my reverie was speedily disturbed by a deafening crash overhead, and the jackdaws flew screaming away from the church tower. The challenge of Marston had been answered by the ringers of Dunton, and loudly and exultingly did the peals of the latter resound.

  But the din was rather too much for me, so I hastened away, and presently entered Dunton Park, through which the road passed. These sylvan domains of the Earl of Amounderness boasted much noble timber; and many a sweeping vista, lined by magnificent though leafless trees, now opened before me. Beneath the lordly beech-trees the ground was thickly strewn with red sere leaves, which contrasted strongly with the snow in the brake beyond them. The dappled denizens of the forest might be seen herding together in some favoured patches which had escaped the drift; hares, emboldened by hunger, dashed from out the covert, and passed by regardless of my presence; and pheasants, tamed by the severity of the season, fed like barn-door fowls on grain placed for them by the keepers.

  Having cleared the park, and left it nearly a mile behind, I descended a gentle hill, and approached a secluded spot, where, many years ago, a robbery had been committed by a noted highwayman. Since then, however, the road had been slightly turned, and a deep ravine, overshadowed by brushwood, through which it had formerly passed, avoided. Just as I reached the brink of this hollow, a lad suddenly started forward, and, planting himself right in my path, screamed and flung his arms in the air, and so startled Taffy that I was nearly thrown from his back. Notwithstanding the severity of the weather, the lad was half naked, and evidently, from his tawny skin and cast of features, of gipsy origin. I bade him get out of the way; but he uttered a wild and peculiar cry, which was instantly answered by a crushing amongst the brushwood, caused by a fierce-looking man, who presently emerged from it, and, springing upon me with a bound, seized hold of my bridle, and dragged Taffy towards the edge of the ravine. I resisted as well as I could, and tried to make him leave go by cutting at his hands. But he snatched the whip from me with an oath, and gave it to the lad, who scutched the pony behind, and made him go on.

  “Where are you taking me to? What are you going to do?” I cried, greatly terrified, and unable to conceive what was about to happen.

  “You’ll lam presently,” the man replied, with a savage grin. And he forced Taffy down the slippery sides of the hollow; and if the pony had not been as sure-footed as a goat of his own native hills, he must have fallen. As it was, he slided down for some yards. I would have jumped off if I could, but the gipsy held me fast. On reaching the bottom, I became aware that the ravine was inhabited, and perceived at a little distance a low shed, protected from the weather by a sloping roof of dried gorse, and having wattled sides. The snow had been carefully cleared away around it, and in this space a turf fire was burning, and heating a caldron suspended above it from a cross-sticks. In summer this ravine must have been beautiful as well as secluded; but now it had a savage and almost fearful aspect, more fitted to the lair of a wild beast than the haunt of man. Black and gnarled roots of trees protruded from the sides, looking hideous from the congealed snow around them, and the shoots of ice hanging from them. So strange and fantastic were some of the tricks played by the spirits of frost and snow, that the hollow had almost the appearance of an icy cavern; and at the further end, where the boughs overhead were thick, making an arch impervious to the sun in
summer, the snow had lodged in masses, and then, freezing, formed a roof from which long icicles depended, giving the whole place the semblance of a grotto, with a pavement of “thick-ribbed ice,” caused by the accumulations of a half-frozen rivulet that tried to force its way through it.

  I was so much alarmed that I called loudly for help; but the gipsy bade me hold my tongue or he would silence me for ever. At the cry, a woman and a girl issued from the tent. The former was not so dark as the man, who was excessively swarthy, but she was very handsome, with coal-black hair, and fine black eyes; and the girl, who might be twelve years old, promised to be very like her. I felt some assurance of safety when I saw them, more especially when the woman, advancing towards me, seemed to scrutinise my features, in spite of the man’s orders to her to go back.

  “What do you mean to do with him, Phaleg?” she asked.

  “Give him a winding-sheet of snow, Peninnah,” the gipsy replied, with a ferocious look at me that thrilled to my very marrow; “he’ll sleep soundly under it, and no one will ever find him till it melts.”

  “You won’t let him do it? — you won’t let him murder me?” I cried, appealing to Peninnah, who looked as if she had some touch of compassion about her.

  “No — no; don’t be afraid, my little gentleman; he’s only joking,” she replied. “It’s a queer way he has with him. He sha’n’t harm a hair of your pretty head. You don’t mean it — do you, Phaleg?”

  The man contradicted her with a muttered oath, and a savage scowl at me.

  “He wants to buy your pony — that’s it — eh, Phaleg? Our old donkey died last week.”

  “Mayhap he’ll give us the pony?” Phaleg said with a grin.

  “No, I won’t,” I replied, endeavouring to appear unconcerned, though I was terribly frightened; “I’ll neither give it you, nor sell it. So pray let me go.”