The Works of William Harrison Ainsworth

by William Harrison Ainsworth

  I went over to take leave of Ned Culcheth and his pretty wife, and only found the latter at home. I learnt from her that they had been waylaid and attacked by Phaleg, on their way home from the merry-making, but that her husband had beaten off his assailant; and that since then many depredations had been committed upon their out-door property, and Ned suspected the gipsy, but had not been able, as yet, to bring any of the offences home to him, for he and his family had left their haunt in the ravine, and disappeared, though Ned was convinced they were still in the neighbourhood, and was active in his search for them. I asked her if she had seen much of Malpas of late, and she blushed and said:

  “A great teal too much, look you, Master Mirfyn. He quite haunts the place.”

  “Well, take care of yourself, Sissy,” I replied. “You’ve got a good husband. Don’t throw him away.”

  “You give fery coot atfices, Master Mirfyn. Put ton’t pe afraid, I love my husbants tearly.”

  “But you don’t dislike other people’s admiration, Sissy. Well, good-bye! I hope to find you looking prettier than ever when I come back.”

  I had seen little of Malpas. Since Mr. Gripper’s visit, he had scarcely been once to Nethercrofts; and probably, having received some information from Simon Pownall, which had dispelled his hopes, he thought it needless longer to play the hypocrite. My uncle did nob miss him, and rarely inquired after him.

  I called at the vicarage on my way home, and here also found only the lady within. She spoke to me much about my uncle; said she thought him declining fast; and was very sorry I was obliged to leave him. Though she had too much delicacy to allude to my prospect of inheriting his property, I could plainly see she had heard the report. I was sorry to hear from her that Malpas was not to go to Eton that half-year. He did not feel very strong, she said, but was to read at home with Mr. Vawdrey. As I rose to depart, she desired her love to Mrs. Mervyn, whom she often visited; and bade me a very kindly adieu, hoping to see much of me hereafter.

  Malpas came next morning to say good-bye — most likely at the instance of his mother — and Simon Pownall came with him. I was very much depressed in spirits towards the last, and began to think I ought not to leave my uncle; and if he had asked me to stay then, I should have complied. But he did not. My things had been sent off the night before by the carrier, and Taffy was saddled and waiting for me at the door. I had bidden farewell to Hannah and Martha, and was in tears when I came to my uncle, who shook me very kindly by the hand, and said: “Whether I shall be spared till thou com’st back at Easter, Mervyn, or whether thou’lt be sent for sooner, Heaven only knows; but if I’m gone, thou’lt be master here — that’s all.”

  My uncle had never announced his intentions so openly before, and its effect on the auditors was somewhat curious. Malpas bit his quivering lips till the blood sprang from them, and glanced angrily askance at Simon Pownall, who made me a cringing bow; while those of the household who were present appeared to be pleased, though most of them were interested parties. But my uncle didn’t give them time to make any observations, for he hurried me off, saying:

  “And now, good-bye, and God bless thee, Mervyn. Be a good lad, as I’m sure thou wilt.”

  Malpas never offered to shake hands with me, but went out at the back door, with a countenance of unconcealed rage and mortification. The rest followed me, vieing with each other in attentions; and the sycophantic Simon even held my stirrup, wished me a pleasant journey, and with a significant look, for which I longed to lay the whip across his shoulders, whispered: “Hope you may be soon ‘sent for,’ as the old man said — knew aft about it — but mum’s the word with me.”

  CHAPTER VIII.

  A GLANCE AT COTTONBOBOUGH — APPHIA BRIDEOAKE.

  WHAT a wondrous town is Cottonborough! How vast — how populous — how ugly — how sombre! Full of toiling slaves, pallid from close confinement and heated air. Full of squalor, vice, misery: yet also full of wealth and all its concomitants — luxury, splendour, enjoyment. The city of coal and iron — the city of the factory and the forge — the city where greater fortunes are amassed, and more quickly, than in any other in the wide world. But how — and at what expense? Ask you crew of careworn men, wan women, and sickly children, and they will tell you. Look at you mighty structure, many-windowed, tail-chimneyed, vomiting forth clouds of smoke, to darken and poison the wholesome air. Listen to the clangour and the whirl of the stupendous and complicated machinery within. Count the hundreds of pale creatures that issue forth from it at meal-times. Mark them well, and say if such employment be healthy. Yet these poor souls earn thrice the wages of the labourer at the plough, and therefore they eagerly pursue their baneful taskwork. Night comes; the mighty mill is brilliantly lighted up, and the gleam from its countless windows is seen afar. It looks like an illuminated palace. Come nearer, and you may hear the clangour and the whirl still going on, and note the steady beat of the huge engine, that, like the heart of a giant, puts all in motion; and you may see the white faces flitting past, and the young girls and boys still toiling on, sweltering beneath the glaring gas that consumes the vital air. The owner of that mill, and the worker of that vast machinery of flesh and blood, iron and steam — for all are mere machines with him — is rich, and will soon be richer — richer than many a prince. And he will strain the moneygetting principle to the utmost, for the power has been given him. And there are a thousand such in Cottonborough. There Mammon has set up his altars: there his ardent votaries are surest of reward. Ugly and black is Cottonborough, shrouded by smoke, tasteless in architecture, boasting little antiquity, and less of picturesque situation; yet not devoid of a character strongly impressive, arising from magnitude, dense population, thronged streets, where the heavy wagon with its bales of goods takes place of the carriage, vast warehouses, and a spacious and busy ’Change — the resort of the wealthiest merchants of the realm. Active and energetic are its inhabitants, enterprising, spirited, with but one thought — one motive — one aim, and one end — MONEY. Prosperous is Cottonborough — prosperous beyond all other cities — and long may it continue so; for, with all its ugliness, and all its faults — and they are many — I love it well.

  Some such thoughts crossed me as I approached the large and smoky town, though, doubtless, as I now record them, they have got mixed up with impressions subsequently received. And it is only right to add, that, of late years, considerable ameliorations have been made by the millowners, and the hours of labour limited, from which causes the health, condition, and morals of the persons employed, especially the girls and children, have been materially improved. But I could not then help contrasting the careworn countenances and emaciated frames of the fustian-jackets I now encountered, with the cheerful, ruddy visages, and hardy limbs of the country people I had left; and I thought how infinitely preferable was the condition of the latter. The women, too, and the young girls — how different were those sallow faces, bleached like their own calico, from the rosy-cheeked, brown-armed damsels of Marston!

  I passed through the far-spreading suburbs, consisting for the most part of long rows of mean-looking habitations of red brick, with occasional bare spaces, which had once been fields, and still retaining a few consumptive bushes of thorn to show where hedges had grown, but otherwise caked over with cinders, or receptacles for rubbish; I passed by many public-houses; several Methodist chapels; an ugly, formal church, part brick, part stone — (a magnificent Roman Catholic temple has since been erected in the same neighbourhood); more rows of red brick houses, but of a better description, and neater, with low iron rails in front, to fence them from the road, and bright brass plates on the doors; huge factories, whose smoke was blackening the air, and blotting out the sun; little streams that ran like frothing ink, and into which the mills and dye-works discharged their steaming and livid waters; and, crossing a bridge over a river, into which all these inky currents poured, I entered the town.

  All looked dark, dirty, and disagreeable. When I left Marston — and even
a few miles off — the sun was shining brightly; but now imperfectly distinguished through the canopy of smoke, the luminary looked like a great red ball, — as it does through a London November fog. The streets were almost ankle-deep in black sludge, and where the frost had maintained its power, the snow had become the colour of soot. The very houses seemed to wear an unusually dingy aspect, as if the black snow had melted into them, and stained them of its own hue. The fog and smoke appeared to have got down everybody’s throat, for almost all the people I met were coughing, and I myself felt affected by the reeky atmosphere, to an extent that made my eyes smart and water. I would have got on faster if I could, but my course was impeded by ponderous waggons laden with heavy bales of cotton, carts, hand carts, and numerous other vehicles, and I was compelled to proceed at a slow pace through the long thoroughfare intersecting the town from south to north. The eye found little pleasurable to rest on, but much that was disagreeable and even distressing; and the ear constantly caught the sharp click of the patten, and the clamp of the wooden clog — for clogs are much worn in Cottonborough.

  Amid the crowd, which was constantly increasing, as the tide poured in towards the centre of the town, there were many haggard faces that told of want and disease, many miserable, famished children, without shoes and stockings, trampling through the mire. Then there were the sots at the doors of the public-houses, with the recruiting-sergeant amongst them, holding out his lures, by which some of them were sure to be taken. Then came another wide thoroughfare, leading to the quays along the banks of the Ater, and to a bridge connecting Cottonborough with its sister town of Spinnyford; but my way not being along it, I passed by a large butchers’ shambles, held under a low roof, approached by low brick archways, and delightfully inconvenient; by a great coaching-house, with several stage-coaches before it; by a long range of warehouses, with here and there an old black and white chequered house among them (mementoes of other days, and looking quite beautiful amid so much architectural uniformity, not to say deformity); by another bridge leading to Spinnyford; and leaving the Square and the Exchange, and several other public places unvisited, I descended the eminence on which the fine old Collegiate Church is situated, crossed the Ink, and was right glad some quarter of an hour afterwards to find myself under the roof of the sequestered Anchorite’s.

  How glad Mrs. Mervyn was to see me; and how much I had to tell her about my poor aunt Mobberley, and about Mrs. Sale, and about everything! And how well she thought my mourning fitted me! And when she had done with me, what a deal Mr. Comberbach and Mrs. Chadwick made of me! And what a nice little dinner Molly Bailey gave us! — how pleasantly Mr. Barton Lever talked! — how well the old Madeira tasted — Mr. Lever made me take a second glass — and how glad I was to get back to my own bed at night! I quite hugged the pillow with delight.

  But not quite so pleasant was my return to school, for I had been so used to freedom of late, that I felt the restraint rather irksome at first. But I was delighted to meet my old schoolfellows again, and had plenty to tell them, while on their part they had much to relate to me. We had long confabs at John Leigh’s, which might be called the school-club; and the consumption of cakes, and tarts, and “pop,” as the ginger-beer was called, went on as swimmingly as our Bunker’s Hill hero could desire.

  I have not yet mentioned John Brideoake, though he was more pleased to see me than any of the others, and though he was foremost in my own regard, but for that very reason have I left him apart, for I shall now have a good deal to say about him. John continued to work as hard as ever, but he looked so ill that I was sure the mind was preying upon the body, and I also felt sure he had not nourishment enough, and sometimes suspected, from his faintness, that he went without breakfast altogether, though he said he took his morning’s meal before he left home at six o’clock; but this I accidentally found out was rarely more than a crust of bread and a cup of water. On making this discovery, I devised a scheme for helping him which should not wound his feelings. Not having time to return to the Anchorite’s during the hour allowed for breakfast, I used to have a basin of milk and a hot roll or two in a little parlour at the back of John Leigh’s shop, and I asked Brideoake to share the meal with me, assuring him there was enough for both of us. He was very diffident, but I overcame his modest scruples, and nothing could exceed the heartfelt satisfaction I experienced at his enjoyment of the meal, and the good it evidently did him. He thanked me again and again, and apologised for eating too much; but his hunger was too real and unmistakable not to show how much privation he endured.

  Brideoake repaired daily to the public library attached to the Blue-Coat Hospital, to read during the intervals of school hours. The reading-room was most congenial to study. Antique, with a coved and groined ceiling, deeply-embayed windows filled with painted glass, which threw a mellow and subdued light around, walls wainscoted with black oak, a high, carved mantel-piece, above which hung the portrait of the munificent founder, an austere-looking man, “frosty but kindly, like a lusty winter,” chairs of ancient make, with leathern seats and backs, old oak tables, and quaint old reading-desks in nooks — such was the room, and such its furniture.

  In the deep recess of an oriel window projecting from the centre of the chamber sat the pale young student. With what intensity of zeal did he work. Having in a short space mastered the task-work of the day, he would plunge into writers with whom he had no concern; would acquaint himself with the natural history of Pliny, or take up the “Annals of Tacitus,” the “Institutes of Quintilian,” or “Cicero de Officiis:” would dip into the “Thebaid” and “Achilleid” of the wordy and turgid Statius, or test the pure latinity of the later poets, Ausonius and Claudian, by the “Mo sella” and other idyls of one, and the “Proserpina” of the other. Neither did he neglect the Greek historians, dramatists, and philosophers, and meditated often upon the precepts of the divine Plato. Sometimes he would consult the fathers, and pore over Origen, Lactantius, and Chrysostom. The only apprehension was, lest he should sink under his labours, his slight and delicate frame seeming wholly inadequate to sustain the spirit burning within it, while neither due rest nor support were afforded. But no personal consideration could check his ardour, and he worked on like one determined to win the race or perish in the effort. I have sat for hours with him in the college library, and have been surprised at his zeal and the extent of information he acquired. He read with great rapidity; and his memory was so extraordinarily retentive, that he never forgot what he read, however hastily.

  Convinced, from his appearance, that his health was giving way, I spoke to him earnestly on the subject; but remonstrances were in vain. I was, therefore, scarcely surprised, though deeply distressed, when he did not make his appearance as usual, and was fully prepared for the intelligence which was brought to Doctor Lonsdale two days afterwards, that he was very ill, and unable to attend school. On receiving this message, which appeared to make him uneasy, the doctor called to me, and bade me make further inquiries of the messenger, who was at the door. I went there, and found a little girl outside, whom I knew at once must be Brideoake’s sister, Apphia.

  She was a child of extraordinary beauty. Her features were of the most perfect regularity, lighted up by eyes of the tenderest blue, and her complexion was as soft as the tint of an opening damask-rose; her limbs were slight, but very gracefully formed; and long fair ringlets hung about her shoulders. But there was a canker in the rose — the worm was there — and the bloom, now so delicate and fugitive, would soon, I feared, be altogether effaced by sadness and want.

  “I presume you are Apphia Brideoake?” I said. “I am very sorry to hear your brother is unwell. I hope it is nothing serious?”

  “If hope not,” she replied, heaving a deep sigh, while tears filled her eyes. “I hope not — for he is everything to us. We don’t know what is the matter with him, but he is so faint and weak that he can’t get up; and his mind slightly wanders at times. He complains that he can’t read; for when he takes up a bo
ok the letters dance and skip before him, and he can’t make out a word.”

  “Who attends him?” I inquired anxiously.

  “Only mamma,” she replied. “We can’t afford a doctor. Besides, he says he wouldn’t take anything if it were given him. A little cup of broth was all that passed his lips yesterday. He had a very restless night, mamma says, for she sat up with him; and I don’t think he is any better to-day.”

  “He must have advice without delay,” I said. “Where do you live, Apphia? — for although John Brideoake is my intimate friend, whom I love as a brother, I have never been made acquainted with his dwelling. But now I must know it.”

  “You are his friend, Mervyn Clitheroe, I suppose?” she inquired, fixing her eyes full upon me. And, on my replying in the affirmative, she blushed slightly, and continued—” I thought so the moment I saw you. John described you exactly. But I must go. Mamma will wonder why I stayed so long.”

  “Not before you have answered my question, Apphia,” I rejoined. “Nay, do not hesitate. Under any other circumstances I would not intrude, but now your brother’s life may be at stake.”

  “Well I will tell you,” she replied; “for I am sure you mean so kindly that mamma cannot be offended, and even if she is, I must bear her displeasure. Our lodgings are in Preston-court, in Friar’s-gate — the last house on the right; and the upper story,” she added, blushing deeply.

  “Don’t be ashamed, Apphia,” I said, taking her hand. “Poverty is no crime; and if John is spared he will make a good home for you — of that I’m certain. And now good-bye. Try to cheer your mamma, and tell her I will obtain medical advice for your brother in the course of the morning.”