BOOK I.
"Youth pastures in a valley of its own:
The glare of noon--the rains and winds of heaven
Mar not the calm yet virgin of all care.
But ever with sweet joys it buildeth up
The airy halls of life."
SOPH. /Trachim/. 144-147.
CHAPTER I.
"My meaning in't, I protest, was very honest in the behalf of the
maid * * * * yet, who would have suspected an ambush where I was
taken?"
/All's Well that Ends Well/, Act iv. Sc. 3.
SOME four miles distant from one of our northern manufacturing towns, in
the year 18--, was a wide and desolate common; a more dreary spot it is
impossible to conceive--the herbage grew up in sickly patches from the
midst of a black and stony soil. Not a tree was to be seen in the whole
of the comfortless expanse. Nature herself had seemed to desert the
solitude, as if scared by the ceaseless din of the neighbouring forges;
and even Art, which presses all things into service, had disdained to
cull use or beauty from these unpromising demesnes. There was something
weird and primeval in the aspect of the place; especially when in the
long nights of winter you beheld the distant fires and lights which give
to the vicinity of certain manufactories so preternatural an appearance,
streaming red and wild over the waste. So abandoned by man appeared the
spot, that you found it difficult to imagine that it was only from human
fires that its bleak and barren desolation was illumined. For miles
along the moor you detected no vestige of any habitation; but as you
approached the verge nearest to the town, you could just perceive at a
little distance from the main road, by which the common was intersected,
a small, solitary, and miserable hovel.
Within this lonely abode, at the time in which my story opens, were
seated two persons. The one was a man of about fifty years of age, and
in a squalid and wretched garb, which was yet relieved by an affectation
of ill-assorted finery. A silk handkerchief, which boasted the ornament
of a large brooch of false stones, was twisted jauntily round a muscular
but meagre throat; his tattered breeches were also decorated by buckles,
one of pinchbeck, and one of steel. His frame was lean, but broad and
sinewy, indicative of considerable strength. His countenance was
prematurely marked by deep furrows, and his grizzled hair waved over a
low, rugged, and forbidding brow, on which there hung an everlasting
frown that no smile from the lips (and the man smiled often) could chase
away. It was a face that spoke of long-continued and hardened vice--it
was one in which the Past had written indelible characters. The brand
of the hangman could not have stamped it more plainly, nor have more
unequivocally warned the suspicion of honest or timid men.
He was employed in counting some few and paltry coins, which, though an
easy matter to ascertain their value, he told and retold, as if the act
could increase the amount. "There must be some mistake here, Alice," he
said in a low and muttered tone: "we can't be so low--you know I had two
pounds in the drawer but Monday, and now--Alice, you must have stolen
some of the money--curse you."
The person thus addressed sat at the opposite side of the smouldering
and sullen fire; she now looked quietly up, and her face singularly
contrasted that of the man.
She seemed about fifteen years of age, and her complexion was remarkably
pure and delicate, even despite the sunburnt tinge which her habits of
toil had brought it. Her auburn hair hung in loose and natural curls
over her forehead, and its luxuriance was remarkable even in one so
young. Her countenance was beautiful, nay, even faultless, in its small
and child-like features, but the expression pained you--it was so
vacant. In repose it was almost the expression of an idiot--but when
she spoke or smiled, or even moved a muscle, the eyes, colour, lips,
kindled into a life, which proved that the intellect was still there,
though but imperfectly awakened.
"I did not steal any, father," she said in a quiet voice; "but I should
like to have taken some, only I knew you would beat me if I did."
"And what do you want money for?"
"To get food when I'm hungered."
"Nothing else?"
"I don't know."
The girl paused.--"Why don't you let me," she said, after a while, "why
don't you let me go and work with the other girls at the factory? I
should make money there for you and me both."
The man smiled--such a smile--it seemed to bring into sudden play all
the revolting characteristics of his countenance. "Child," he said,
"you are just fifteen, and a sad fool you are: perhaps if you went to
the factory, you would get away from me; and what should I do without
you? No, I think, as you are so pretty, you might get more money
another way."
The girl did not seem to understand this allusion: but repeated,
vacantly, "I should like to go to the factory."
"Stuff!" said the man, angrily; "I have three minds to--"
Here he was interrupted by a loud knock at the door of the hovel.
The man grew pale. "What can that be?" he muttered. "The hour is
late--near eleven. Again--again! Ask who knocks, Alice."
The girl stood for a moment or so at the door; and as she stood, her
form, rounded yet slight, her earnest look, her varying colour, her
tender youth, and a singular grace of attitude and gesture, would have
inspired an artist with the very ideal of rustic beauty.
After a pause, she placed her lips to a chink in the door, and repeated
her father's question.
"Pray pardon me," said a clear, loud, yet courteous voice, "but seeing a
light at your window, I have ventured to ask if any one within will
conduct me to ------; I will pay the service handsomely."
"Open the door, Alley," said the owner of the hut.
The girl drew a large wooden bolt from the door; and a tall figure
crossed the threshold.
The new-comer was in the first bloom of youth, perhaps about eighteen
years of age, and his air and appearance surprised both sire and
daughter. Alone, on foot, at such an hour, it was impossible for any
one to mistake him for other than a gentleman; yet his dress was plain
and somewhat soiled by dust, and he carried a small knapsack on his
shoulder. As he entered, he lifted his hat with somewhat of foreign
urbanity, and a profusion of fair brown hair fell partially over a high
and commanding forehead. His features were handsome, without being
eminently so, and his aspect was at once bold and prepossessing.
"I am much obliged by your civility," he said, advancing carelessly and
addressing the man, who surveyed him with a scrutinising eye; "and
trust, my good fellow, that you will increase the obligation by
accompanying me to ------."
"You can't miss well your way," said the man surlily: "the lights will
direct you."
"They have rather misled me, for they seem to surround the whole common,
and there is no path across it that I can see; however, if you will put
me in the right road, I will not trouble you further."
"It is very late," replied the churlish landlord, equivocally.
"The better reason why I should be at ------. Come, my good friend, put
on your hat, and I will give you half a guinea for your trouble."
The man advanced, then halted; again surveyed his guest, and said, "Are
you quite alone, sir?"
"Quite."
"Probably you are known at ------?"
"Not I. But what matters that to you? I am a stranger in these parts."
"It is full four miles."
"So far, and I am fearfully tired already!" exclaimed the young man with
impatience. As he spoke he drew out his watch. "Past eleven too!"
The watch caught the eye of the cottager; that evil eye sparkled. He
passed his hand over his brow. "I am thinking, sir," he said in a more
civil tone than he had yet assumed, "that as you are so tired and the
hour is so late, you might almost as well--"
"What?" exclaimed the stranger, stamping somewhat petulantly.
"I don't like to mention it; but my poor roof is at your service, and I
would go with you to ------ at daybreak to-morrow."
The stranger stared at the cottager, and then at the dingy walls of the
hut. He was about, very abruptly, to reject the hospitable proposal,
when his eye rested suddenly on the form of Alice, who stood eager-eyed
and open-mouthed, gazing on the handsome intruder. As she caught his
eye, she blushed deeply and turned aside. The view seemed to change the
intentions of the stranger. He hesitated a moment, then muttered
between his teeth: and sinking his knapsack on the ground, he cast
himself into a chair beside the fire, stretched his limbs, and cried
gaily, "So be it, my host: shut up your house again. Bring me a cup of
beer, and a crust of bread, and so much for supper! As for bed, this
chair will do vastly well."
"Perhaps we can manage better for you than that chair," answered the
host. "But our best accommodation must seem bad enough to a gentleman:
we are very poor people--hard-working, but very poor."
"Never mind me," answered the stranger, busying himself in stirring the
fire; "I am tolerably well accustomed to greater hardships than sleeping
on a chair in an honest man's house; and though you are poor, I will
take it for granted you are honest."
The man grinned: and turning to Alice, bade her spread what their larder
would afford. Some crusts of bread, some cold potatoes, and some
tolerably strong beer, composed all the fare set before the traveller.
Despite his previous boasts, the young man made a wry face at these
Socratic preparations, while he drew his chair to the board. But his
look grew more gay as he caught Alice's eye; and as she lingered by the
table, and faltered out some hesitating words of apology, he seized her
hand, and pressing it tenderly--"Prettiest of lasses," said he--and
while he spoke he gazed on her with undisguised admiration--"a man who
has travelled on foot all day, through the ugliest country within the
three seas, is sufficiently refreshed at night by the sight of so fair a
face."
Alice hastily withdrew her hand, and went and seated herself in a corner
of the room, when she continued to look at the stranger with her usual
vacant gaze, but with a half-smile upon her rosy lips.
Alice's father looked hard first at one, then at the other.
"Eat, sir," said he, with a sort of chuckle, "and no fine words; poor
Alice is honest, as you said just now."
"To be sure," answered the traveller, employing with great zeal a set of
strong, even, and dazzling teeth at the tough crusts; "to be sure she
is. I did not mean to offend you; but the fact is, that I am half a
foreigner; and abroad, you know, one may say a civil thing to a pretty
girl without hurting her feelings, or her father's either."
"Half a foreigner! why, you talk English as well as I do," said the
host, whose intonation and words were, on the whole, a little above his
station.
The stranger smiled. "Thank you for the compliment," said he. "What I
meant was, that I have been a great deal abroad; in fact, I have just
returned from Germany. But I am English born."
"And going home?"
"Yes."
"Far from hence?"
"About thirty miles, I believe."
"You are young, sir, to be alone."
The traveller made no answer, but finished his uninviting repast and
drew his chair again to the fire. He then thought he had sufficiently
ministered to his host's curiosity to be entitled to the gratification
of his own.
"You work at the factories, I suppose?" said he.
"I do, sir. Bad times."
"And your pretty daughter?"
"Minds the house."
"Have you no other children?"
"No; one mouth besides my own is as much as I can feed, and that
scarcely. But you would like to rest now; you can have my bed, sir; I
can sleep here."
"By no means," said the stranger, quickly; "just put a few more coals on
the fire, and leave me to make myself comfortable."
The man rose, and did not press his offer, but left the room for a
supply of fuel. Alice remained in her corner.
"Sweetheart," said the traveller, looking round and satisfying himself
that they were alone: "I should sleep well if I could get one kiss from
those coral lips."
Alice hid her face with her hands.
"Do I vex you?"
"Oh no, sir."
At this assurance the traveller rose, and approached Alice softly. He
drew away her hands from her face, when she said gently, "Have you much
money about you?"
"Oh, the mercenary baggage!" said the traveller to himself; and then
replied aloud, "Why, pretty one? Do you sell your kisses so high then?"
Alice frowned and tossed the hair from her brow. "If you have money,"
she said, in a whisper, "don't say so to father. Don't sleep if you can
help it. I'm afraid--hush--he comes!"
The young man returned to his seat with an altered manner. And as his
host entered, he for the first time surveyed him closely. The imperfect
glimmer of the half-dying and single candle threw into strong lights and
shades the marked, rugged, and ferocious features of the cottager; and
the eye of the traveller, glancing from the face to the limbs and frame,
saw that whatever of violence the mind might design, the body might well
execute.
The traveller sank into a gloomy reverie. The wind howled--the rain
beat--through the casement shone no solitary star--all was dark and
sombre. Should he proceed alone--might he not suffer a greater danger
upon that wide and desert moor--might not the host follow--assault him
in the dark? He had no weapon save a stick. But within he had at least
a rude resource in the large kitchen poker that was beside him. At all
events it would be better to wait for the present. He might at any
time, when alone, withdraw the bolt from the door, and slip out
unobserved. Such was the fruit of his meditations while his host plied
the fire.
"You will sleep sound to-night," said his entertainer, smiling.
"Humph! Why, I am /over/-fatigued; I dare say it will be an hour or two
before I fall asleep; but when I once am asleep, I sleep like a rock!"
"Come, Alice," said her father, "let us leave the gentleman. Goodnight,
sir."
"Good night--good night," returned the traveller, yawning.
The father and daughter disappeared through a door in the corner of the
room. The guest heard them ascend the creaking stairs--all was still.
"Fool that I am," said the traveller to himself, "will nothing teach me
that I am no longer a student at Gottingen, or cure me of these
pedestrian adventures? Had it not been for that girl's big blue eyes, I
should be safe at ------ by this time, if, indeed, the grim father had
not murdered me by the road. However, we'll baulk him yet: another
half-hour, and I am on the moor: we must give him time. And in the
meanwhile here is the poker. At the worst it is but one to one; but the
churl is strongly built."
Although the traveller thus endeavoured to cheer his courage, his heart
beat more loudly than its wont. He kept his eyes stationed on the door
by which the cottagers had vanished, and his hand on the massive poker.
While the stranger was thus employed below, Alice, instead of turning to
her own narrow cell, went into her father's room.
The cottager was seated at the foot of his bed muttering to himself, and
with eyes fixed on the ground.
The girl stood before him, gazing on his face, and with her arms lightly
crossed above her bosom.
"It must be worth twenty guineas," said the host, abruptly to himself.
"What is it to you, father, what the gentleman's watch is worth?"
The man started.
"You mean," continued Alice, quietly, "you mean to do some injury to
that young man; but you shall not."
The cottager's face grew black as night. "How," he began in a loud
voice, but suddenly dropped the tone into a deep growl--" how dare you
talk to me so?--go to bed--go to bed."
"No, father."
"No?"
"I will not stir from this room until daybreak."
"We will soon see that," said the man, with an oath.
"Touch me, and I will alarm the gentleman, and tell him that--"
"What?"
The girl approached her father, placed her lips to his ear, and
whispered, "That you intend to murder him."
The cottager's frame trembled from head to foot; he shut his eyes, and
gasped painfully for breath. "Alice," said he, gently, after a
pause--"Alice, we are often nearly starving."
"/I/ am--/you/ never!"
"Wretch, yes, if I do drink too much one day, I pinch for it the next.
But go to bed, I say--I mean no harm to the young man. Think you I
would twist myself a rope?--no, no; go along, go along."
Alice's face, which had before been earnest and almost intelligent, now
relapsed into its wonted vacant stare.
"To be sure, father, they would hang you if you cut his throat. Don't
forget that;--good night;" and so saying, she walked to her own opposite
chamber.
Left alone, the host pressed his hand tightly to his forehead, and
remained motionless for nearly half an hour.
"If that cursed girl would but sleep," he muttered at last, turning
round, "it might be done at once. And there's the pond behind, as deep
as a well; and I might say at daybreak that the boy had bolted. He
seems quite a stranger here--nobody'll miss him. He must have plenty of
blunt to give half a guinea to a guide across a common! I want money,
and I won't work--if I can help it, at least."
While he thus soliloquised the air seemed to oppress him; he opened the
window, he leant out--the rain beat upon him. He closed the window with
an oath; took off his shoes, stole to the threshold, and, by the candle,
which he shaded with his hand, surveyed the opposite door. It was
closed. He then bent anxiously forward and listened.
"All's quiet," thought he, "perhaps he sleeps already. I will steal
down. If Jack Walters would but come tonight, the job would be done
charmingly."
With that he crept gently down the stairs. In a corner, at the foot of
the staircase, lay sundry matters, a few faggots, and a cleaver. He
caught up the last. "Aha," he muttered; "and there's the sledge-hammer
somewhere for Walters." Leaning himself against the door, he then
applied his eye to a chink which admitted a dim view of the room within,
lighted fitfully by the fire.
