Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family
“Arthur Smith, Clerk, Slowby.”
There were several such carts in the inn yard on this particular morning, for the ladies of the clerical families generally shopped on market-days, and fetched the magazines from the bookseller’s if it was near the first of the month.
The farmers’ wives and daughters, too, put in a pretty good appearance with their egg and butter baskets, which were carried in good old style upon the woman’s arm, irrespective of the fact that she was probably wearing a velvet jacket, and had ostrich feathers in her bonnet.
Tomlinson, the draper, was answerable for the show, and he used to boast that the Rector might preach as he liked against finery; his shop-window could preach a far more powerful sermon in silence, especially with bonnets for a text.
Some of the farmers had protested a little against the love of show evinced by their wives and daughters, but in vain. The weaker vessels said that the egg and butter money was their own to spend as they pleased, and they always had something nice to show for their outlay, which was more than the husbands and fathers, who stayed at the King’s Head so long after the market ordinary, could say.
The Rev. Eli Mallow was dropped at the town-hall, where a pretty good group of people were assembled. There were the rustic policemen from the various outlying villages and a couple of Lord Artingale’s keepers in waiting ready to touch their hats. Then the ladies went off in the carriage to make a few calls before returning to pick up papa after the magistrates’ sitting was over.
The usual country town cases: Matthew Tomlin had been drunk and riotous again; James Jellicoe had been trespassing in search of rabbits; Martha Madden had assaulted Elizabeth Snowshall, and had said, so it was sifted out after a great deal of volubility, that she would “do for her” – what she would do for her not stated; a diminutive being, a stranger, who gave his name as Simpkins, had torn up his clothes at the workhouse, and now appeared, to the great delight of the spectators, in a peculiar costume much resembling a sack; another assault case arising out of the fact that Mrs Stocktle had “called” Mrs Stivvison, – spelt Stockton and Stevenson, – with the result that their lawful protectors had been dragged into the quarrel, and “Jack Stivvison had ‘leathered’ Jem Stocktle.”
Upon these urgent cases the bench of magistrates, consisting of the Rev. Eli Mallow, chairman, the Rev. Arthur Smith, Sir Joshua St. Henry, and the Revds. Thomas Hampson, James Lawrence Barton, and Onesimus Leytonsby, solemnly adjudicated.
Then came the important case of the day; two men, who gave the names of Robert Thorns and Jock Morrison, were placed at the table.
The first was a miserable, dirty-looking object, who seemed to have made a vow somewhere or another never to wash, shave, or sleep in anything but hay and straw, some of which was sticking still in his tangled hair; the other was a different breed of rough.
Rough, certainly, a spectator who had judged the two idlers would have said; but he was decidedly a country rough, and did not belong to town. His big, burly look and length of limb indicated a man of giant strength; at least six feet high, his chest was deep and broad, and in his brown, half gipsy-looking face, liberally clothed with the darkest of dark-brown beards, there shone a pair of fierce dark eyes. Scraped and sand-papered down, and clothed in brown velveteen, with cord trousers and brown leather gaiters, he would have made a gamekeeper of whose appearance any country magnate might have been proud. As it was, his appearance before the country bench of magistrates was enough to condemn him for poaching.
There was something of the keeper, too, in his appearance, for he had on a well-worn velveteen coat and low soft hat, but his big, soft hands told the tale of what he was – a ne’er-do-well, who looked upon life as a career in which no man was bound to work.
Such was Jock Morrison.
The case was plain against them, and they knew that they would have to suffer, for Jock was pretty well known for these affairs. Upon former occasions his brother Tom, the wheelwright, had paid guineas to Mr Ridley, the Lawford attorney, to defend him, but there were bounds to brotherly help.
“I can’t do it for ever,” Tom Morrison had said to his young wife. “I’ve give Jock every chance I could; now he must take care of himself.”
Big Jock Morrison looked perfectly able to do that, as he now stood with his hands in his pockets, staring about him in a cool defiant way. It seemed that he had been warned off Lord Artingale’s ground several times, but had been too cunning for the keepers, and had only been taken red-handed the previous day, very early in the morning, so evidence showed; and he and his companion had upon them a hare, a rabbit, and a couple of pheasants, beside some wire snares and a little rusty single-barrelled gun, whose barrel unscrewed into two pieces, and which, so the head-keeper deposed, was detached from the stock and stowed away in the inner pocket of the big prisoner’s coat.
Gun, powder-flask, tin measure, and bag of shot, with game, placed upon the table.
“And what did the prisoners say when you came upon them by – where did you say, keeper?” said one magistrate.
“Runby Spinney, Sir Joshua, just where the Greenhurst lane crosses the long coppice, Sir Joshua.”
“And what did the prisoners say?” said the chairman stiffly.
“Said they was blackberrying, Sir.”
“Oh!” said the chairman, and he appeared so stern that no one dared laugh, though a young rustic-looking policeman at whom Jock Morrison winked turned red in the face with his efforts to prevent an explosion.
“Did they make any – er – er – resistance, keeper?” said the chairman.
“The big prisoner, sir, said he’d smash my head if I interfered with him.”
“Dear me! A very desperate character,” said Sir Joshua. “And did he?”
“No, Sir Joshua, we was too many for him. There was me, Smith, Duggan, and the two pleecemen, so they give in.”
And so on, and so on.
Had the prisoners anything to say in their defence?
The dirty man had not, Jock Morrison had. “Lookye here: he didn’t take the game, shouldn’t ha’ taken it, only they foun’ ’em all lying aside the road. It was a fakement o’ the keeper’s, that’s what it was. They was a pickin’ blackberries, that’s what him and his mate was a doin’ of, and as soon as the ’ops was ready they was a going down south to pick ’ops.”
The magistrates’ clerk, the principal solicitor in the town, smiled, and said he was afraid they would miss the hop-picking that season, as it was over.
There was a short conference on the bench, and then the Rev. Eli Mallow sentenced the prisoners to three months’ imprisonment, and told them it was very fortunate for them that they had not resisted the law.
“You arn’t going to quod us for three months along o’ them birds and that hare, are you?” said Jock Morrison.
“Take them away, policeman.”
“Hold hard a moment,” said the big fellow, so fiercely that the sergeant present drew back. “Look here, parsons, you’ll spoil our hop-picking.”
“Take them away, constable,” said the Rev. Eli. “The next case.”
“Hold hard, d’ye hear!” cried the big ruffian, in a voice of thunder. “I s’pose, parson,” he continued, addressing the chairman, “if I say much to you, I shall get it laid on thicker.”
“My good fellow,” said the Rev. Eli, “you have been most leniently dealt with. I am sorry for you on account of your brother, a most respectable man, who has always set you an admirable example, and – ”
“I say,” exclaimed Jock, “this arn’t chutch, is it?”
There was a titter here, but the chairman continued: —
“I will say no more, as you seem in so hardened a frame of mind, only that if you are violent you may be committed for trial.”
“All right,” said the great fellow, between his gritting teeth; “I don’t say no more, only – all right: come along, matey; we can do the three months easy.”
There was a bit of a bustle, and the prisoners were taken off. The rest of the cases were despatched. The carriage called for the chairman, and on the way back it passed the police cart, with the sergeant giving the two poaching prisoners a ride, but each man had his ankle chained to a big ring in the bottom of the vehicle, where they sat face to face, and the sergeant and his man were driving the blackberry pickers to the county gaol.
“What a dreadful-looking man!” said Julia, as in passing Jock Morrison ironically touched his soft felt hat.
“Yes, my dear – poachers,” said the Rev. Eli calmly, as one who felt that he had done his duty to society, and never for a moment dreaming that he had been stirring Fate to play him another bitter turn.
Part 1, Chapter VII.
Polly’s Surprise
There was a dark shadow over Polly Morrison’s mind, and she started and shivered at every step when her husband was away at work, but only to brighten up when the great sturdy fellow came in, smelling of wood, and ready to crush her in his arms with one of his bear-like hugs.
Polly had been furtively gazing from the window several times on the afternoon of that market-day, and turned hot and cold as she had heard steps which might be those of some one coming there; but the cloud passed away in the sunshine of Tom Morrison’s happy smile, now that he had come in, and she felt, as she expressed it, “oh! so safe.”
“There, let me go, do, Tom,” she cried, merrily. “Oh, what a great strong, rough fellow you are!”
“No, no; stop a minute,” he said here. “I oughtn’t to be smiling, for I’ve just heard something, Polly.”
“Heard something, Tom!” she faltered, and she turned white with dread, and shrank away.
“Here, I say,” he cried, “you must get up your strength, lass. Why, what a shivering little thing thou art!”
“You – you frightened me, Tom,” she gasped.
“Frightened you? There, there, it’s nothing to frighten thee. I have just heard about Jock.”
“Oh! about Jock,” cried Polly, drawing a breath full of relief. “I hope he has got off.”
“Well, no, my lass, he hasn’t, and I’m sorry and I’m not sorry, if thou canst understand that. I’m sorry Jock is to be punished, and I’m not sorry if it will do him good. Arn’t you ashamed of having a husband with such a bad brother?”
“Ashamed! Oh, Tom!” she cried, throwing her arms about his neck.
“Well, if you are not, I am,” said Tom, sadly; “and I can’t help thinking that if old Humphrey Bone had done his duty better by us, Jock would have turned out a different man.”
“But tell me, Tom, are they going to do anything dreadful to him?”
“Three months on bread and water, my lass,” said Tom Morrison, – “bread of repentance and water of repentance; and I hope they’ll do him good, but I’m afraid when he comes out he’ll be after the hares and pheasants again, and I’m always in a fret lest he should get into a fight with the keepers. But there, my lass, I can’t help it. I’d give him a share of the business if he’d take to it, but he wean’t. I shan’t fret, and if people like to look down on me about it, they may.”
“But they don’t, Tom, dear,” cried Polly, with her face all in dimples, the great trouble of her life forgotten for the time. “I’ve got such a surprise for you.”
“Surprise for me, lass? What is it? A custard for tea?”
“No, no; what a boy you are to eat!” cried Polly, merrily.
“Just you come and smell sawdust all day, and see if you don’t eat,” cried Tom. “Here, what is it?”
“Oh, you must wait. There, what a shame! and you haven’t kissed baby.”
She ran out to fetch the baby and hold it up to him to be kissed, while she looked at him with all a young mother’s pride in the little one, of which the great sturdy fellow had grown so fond.
“It makes me so happy, Tom,” she said, with the tears in her eyes.
“Happy, does it, lass?”
“Oh, yes. So – so happy,” she cried, nestling to him with her baby in her arms, and sighing with her sense of safety and content, as the strong muscles held her to the broad breast. “I was afraid, Tom, that you might not care for it – that you would think it a trouble, and – and – ”
“That you were a silly little wife, and full of foolish fancies,” he cried, kissing her tenderly.
“Yes, yes, Tom, I was,” she cried, smiling up at him through her tears. “But come – your tea. Here, Budge.”
Budge had been a baby herself once – a workhouse baby – and she looked it still, at fourteen. Not a thin starveling, but a sturdy workhouse baby, who had thriven and grown strong on simple oatmeal fare. Budge was stout and rosy, and daily putting on flesh at Tom Morrison’s cottage, where her duty was to “help missus, and nuss the bairn.”
But nearly always in Polly’s sight; for the first baby was too sacred a treasure in that cottage home to be trusted to any hands for long.
She was a good girl, though, was Budge; her two faults prominent being that when she cried she howled – terribly, and that “the way” – to use Tom Morrison’s words – “she punished a quartern loaf was a sight to see.”
Budge, fat, red-faced, and round-eyed, with her hair cut square at the ends so that it wouldn’t stay tucked behind her ears, but kept coming down over her eyes, came running to take baby, and was soon planted on a three-legged stool on the clean, red-tiled floor, where she began shaking her head – and hair – over the baby, like a dark-brown mop, making the little eyes stare up at it wonderingly; and now and then a faint, rippling smile played round the lips, and brightened the eyes, to Budge’s great delight.
For just then Budge was hard pressed. Workhouse matron teaching had taught her that when she went out to service it would be rude to stare at people when they were eating; and now there was the pouring out of tea, and spreading of butter, and cutting of bread and bacon going on in a way that was perfectly maddening to a hungry young stomach, especially if that stomach happened to be large, and its owner growing.
Budge’s stomach was large, and Budge was growing, so she was hard pressed: and do what she would, she could not keep her eyes on the baby, for, by a kind of attraction, they would wander to the tea-table, and that loaf upon which Tom Morrison was spreading a thick coating of yellow butter, prior to hacking off a slice.
Poor Budge’s eyes dilated with wonder and joy as, when the slice was cut off, nearly two inches thick, Tom stuck his knife into it, and held the mass out to her, with —
“Here, lass, you look hungry. Tuck that away.”
Budge would have made a bob, but doing so would have thrown the baby on the floor; so she contented herself with saying “Thanky, sir,” and proceeded to make semicircles round the edge of the slice, and to drop crumbs on the baby’s face.
“Well, lass,” said Tom, as Polly handed him his great cup of tea, “about the christening? When’s it to be?”
“On Sunday, Tom, and that’s what I wanted to tell you – it’s my surprise.”
“What’s a surprise?”
“Why, about the godmothers, dear. Why, I declare,” she pouted, “you don’t seem to mind a bit.”
“Oh, but I do,” he said, “only I’m so hungry. Well, what about the godmothers?”
“Why, Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia have promised to stand. Isn’t it grand?”
“Grand? Oh, I don’t know.”
“Tom!”
“Well, I suppose it is grand, but I don’t know. It’s all right if they like it. But about poor Jock?”
“Oh, that won’t make any difference, dear. They’ve promised, and I know they won’t go back. They’ll be the two godmothers, and you the godfather.”
“Of course,” cried Tom, eating away; “two godmothers and a godfather, eh, lass? that’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Tom,” said the little woman, eagerly attending to her husband’s wants, “and two godfathers and a godmother if it’s a boy.”
“It’ll be a grand christening, won’t it, Polly?” said Tom.
“Oh, no, dear. Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia are the dearest and best of girls, and they have no pride. Miss Julia talked to me the other day just like a friend.”
“I say,” cried Tom, eagerly.
“What, dear?”
“Why not do the thing in style while we’re about it. What do you say to asking young Mr Cyril to be godfather?”
If Tom Morrison had looked up then he would have been startled at the livid look in his young wife’s face, but he was too intent upon his tea, and Polly recovered herself and said —
“Oh, no, dear, that would not do, and the young ladies would not like it. Look here, Tom.”
Polly tripped to a basket, from which she produced a white cloak and hood, trimmed with swan’s-down; and these she held up before her husband, flushed and excited, as, in her girlish way, she wondered whether he would like them.
Budge left off eating, and wished for a white dress on the spot, trimmed with silk braid, like that.
“Say,” said Tom, thickly, speaking with his mouth fall, “they’re fine, arn’t they? – cost a lot o’ money.”
“No,” said Polly, gleefully, “they cost nothing, Tom. Miss Julia made me a present of the stuff, and I made them.”
“Did you, though?” he said, looking at her little fingers, admiringly. “You’re a clever girl, Polly; but I often wonder how it was you came to take up with a rough chap like me.”
Polly looked up in his steady, honest eyes, and rested one hand upon his, and gazed lovingly at him, as he went on —
“My old woman said it was because I’d got a cottage, and an acre of land of my own.”
“Did she say so, Tom?”
“Yes,” he said, taking her hand, patting it, and gazing up in the pretty rustic face he called his own; “but I told her you were a silly little girl, who would have me if I’d got a cottage and an acre less than nothing to call my own.”
“And you told the truth, Tom, dear,” she whispered. “Tom, you make me so happy in believing in me like this.”
“Tut, tut, my girl. I’m not clever; but I knew you.”
“And married me without anything, only enough to buy my wedding dress and a little furniture.”
“D’yer call that nothing?” said the hearty, Saxon-faced young fellow, pointing to the baby; “because I don’t. And I say, Polly, dear,” he whispered, archly, “perhaps that’s only the thin end of the wedge.”
“Hush, Tom, for shame!” she said, trying to frown, and pointing to Budge; while he took a tremendous bite of bread and bacon, and chuckled hugely at his joke.
“The old lady used to have it that you were too fine for me, Polly, and would have been setting your cap at one of the young gentlemen at the rectory when you was abroad with them.”
“Tom!” she panted, as his words seemed to stab her, and she ran out of the room.
“Why, Polly, Polly,” he cried, following her and holding her to his breast, “what a touchy little thing thou art since baby came! Why, as if I didn’t know that ever since you were so high you were my little sweetheart, and liked great rough me better than the finest gentleman as ever walked. There, there, there! I was a great lout to talk like that to thee. Come, wipe thy eyes.”
“I can’t bear it, Tom, if you talk like that,” she sobbed, smiling at him through her tears. “There, it’s all over now.”
There was a little cold shiver at Polly Morrison’s breast, though, all the same, and it kept returning as she sat there over her work that evening, rocking the cradle with one foot, and wondering whether she could gain strength enough to tell her husband all about Cyril Mallow, and the old days at Dinan.
But no, she could not, and they discussed, as Tom smoked his pipe, the state of affairs at the rectory; how Mrs Mallow remained as great an invalid as ever, and how they seemed to spare no expense, although people had said they went abroad because they had grown so poor.
“Folk seem strange and sore against parson,” said Tom at last.
“Then it’s very cruel of them, for master is a real good man,” cried Polly.
“They don’t like it about owd Sammy Warmoth. They say he killed him,” said Tom, between the puffs of his pipe.
“Such nonsense!” cried Polly; “and him ninety-three.”
“Then they are taking sides against him for wanting to get rid of Humphrey Bone.”
“And more shame for them,” cried Polly, indignantly.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Tom; “I’ve rather a liking for old Humphrey. He taught me.”
“He’s a nasty wicked old man,” cried Polly. “He tried to kiss me one day when he was tipsy.”
“He did?” cried Tom, breaking his pipe in the angry rush that seemed to come over him.
“Yes, Tom, and I boxed his ears,” said the little woman, shivering again, for the fit of jealous anger did not escape her searching eyes.
“That’s right, lass. I’m dead on for a new master now.”
Then a discussion arose as to the baby’s name, Tom wanting it to be called after his wife, who was set upon Julia, and she carried the day.
“There,” said Tom, “if anybody had told me a couple of years ago that any bit of a thing of a girl was going to wheedle me, and twist me round her finger, and do what she liked with me, I should have told him he didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“And you don’t mind, Tom, dear?”
“No,” he said, smiling, “I don’t mind, if it pleases thee, my lass.”
“And it does, dear, very, very much,” she said, kissing him.
But Polly Morrison did not feel happy, and several times that night there was the little shiver of dread at her heart, and she wished she could tell Tom all.
Part 1, Chapter VIII.
The Black Shadow
It was, as Julia Mallow said, a very pretty baby, that of Polly Morrison and her husband, when she spoke to her invalid mother, lying so patiently passive upon the couch in her own room; but that weak little morsel of humanity had a part to play in the troubles of the Rev. Eli Mallow’s life. For hardly had the tiny babe sent to the care of Tom Morrison and his young wife begun to smile upon them, than it was taken suddenly ill.
No childish ailment this, brought on by careless attendance; but the cold grey hand of death was laid upon the fragile form, its little eyes – erst so bright and blue – sunken, and the tiny nose pinched and blue.
Julia and Cynthia Mallow had been in to see her, and found the little woman prostrate with grief, and then hurried to the town for medical advice, though that of fifty doctors would have been in vain.
“Pray, pray, Tom, go and ask Budge not to cry,” sobbed Polly, as her husband knelt at her side; for ever and again, from below, came a long, dismal cry, that almost resembled the howl of a dog in a state of suffering.
Tom Morrison rose in a heavy, dull way, and slowly descended the stairs, returning in a minute to resume his place beside his wife, turning his eyes to hers, as they looked up to him in mute agony.
They could not speak, but they read each other’s hearts, and knew full well that nothing could be done; that the tiny life that had been given to them to have in charge was passing fast away – so fast, and yet so gently that neither knew it had gone till, alarmed by the slow dilation of the little eyes, and their fixed and determinate look, Polly bent over the waxen form in eager fear, caught it tightly to her breast, and then sank back in her chair, crying —
“Tom, Tom, God has taken it away!” An hour later, husband and wife were sitting hand in hand by the little couch on which their darling lay, so still and cold, its tiny face seeming restful, free from pain, and almost wearing a smile, while on either hand, and covering its breast, were the best of the simple, homely flowers the garden could produce.
There was a heavy, blank look upon the parents’ faces; for even then they could not realise their loss. It was so sudden, seemed so strange; and from time to time Polly got softly up, to lean down and hold her cheek close to the little parted lips, to make sure that the infant did not breathe; but there was no sign, and when she pressed her lips to the white forehead, it was to find it cold as ice.
Budge had been silent for some time, going about the house on tiptoe, and, like those above, too stunned to work; but her homely mind was busy for a way to show her sympathy, and this she did by making and taking up on the little tray two steaming cups of tea, each flanked by a goodly slice.
Poor Budge! she had not calculated her strength aright; for on softly entering the room, and setting down the tray, she turned her head, and saw the simple flower-strewn bier, gave a long, loving look, and then, sinking on her knees, with her hands to her eyes, burst forth into a wild and passionate wail.