Stories of Comedy Part 22

Johnny Darbyshire had some fine, rich meadow-land, on the banks of the river Derwent, where he took in cattle and horses to graze during the summer. Hither a gentleman had sent a favorite and valuable blood mare to run a few months with her foal. He had stipulated that the greatest care should be taken of both mare and foal, and that no one, on any pretence whatever, should mount the former. All this Johnny Darbyshire had most fully promised. "Nay, he was as fond of a good bit of horse-flesh as any man alive, and he would use mare and foal just as if they were his own."

This a.s.surance, which sounded very well indeed, was kept by Johnny, as it proved, much more to the letter than the gentleman intended. To his great astonishment, it was not long before he one day saw Johnny Darbyshire come riding on a little s.h.a.ggy horse down the village where he lived, leading the foal in a halter.

He hurried out to inquire the cause of this, too well auguring some sad mischief, when Johnny, shaking his head, said, "Ill luck, my friend, never comes alone; it's an old saying, that it never rains but it pours; and so it's been with me. T' other day I'd a son drowned, as fine a lad as ever walked in shoe-leather; and in hurrying to th' doctor, how should luck have it, but down comes th' mare with her foot in a hole, breaks her leg, and was obligated to be killed; and here's th' poor innocent foal. It's a bad job, a very bad job; but I've the worst on't, and it canna be helped; so, prithee, say as little as thou can about it,--here's the foal, poor, dumb thing, at all events."

"But what business," cried the gentleman, enraged, and caring, in his wrath, not a b.u.t.ton for Johnny Darbyshire's drowned son, in the exasperation of his own loss,--"but what business had you riding to the doctor, or the devil, on my mare? Did not I enjoin you, did you not solemnly promise me, that n.o.body should cross the mare's back?"

Johnny shook his head. He had indeed promised "to use her as his own,"

and he had done it to some purpose; but that was little likely to throw cold water on the gentleman's fire. It was in vain that Johnny tried the pathetic of the drowning boy; it was lost on the man who had lost his favorite mare, and who declared that he would rather have lost a thousand pounds,--a hundred was exactly her value,--and he vowed all sorts of vengeance and of law.

And he kept his word too. Johnny was deaf to paying for the mare. He had lost his boy, and his summer's run of the mare and foal, and that he thought enough for a poor man like him, as he pleased to call himself.

An action was commenced against him, of which he took not the slightest notice till it came into court. These lawyers, he said, were dear chaps, he'd have nothing to do with them. But the lawyers were determined to have to do with him, for they imagined that the Quaker had a deep purse, and they longed to be poking their long, jewelled fingers to the bottom of it.

The cause actually came into court at the a.s.sizes, and the counsel for the plaintiff got up and stated the case, offering to call his evidence, but first submitted that he could not find that any one was retained on behalf of the defendant, and that, therefore, he probably meant to suffer the cause to go by default. The court inquired whether any counsel at the bar was instructed to appear for Darbyshire, in the case Shiffnal _v._ Darbyshire, but there was no reply; and learned gentlemen looked at one another, and all shook their learned wigs; and the judge was about to declare that the cause was forfeited by the defendant, John Darbyshire, by non-appearance at the place of trial, when there was seen a bustle near the box of the clerk of the court; there was a hasty plucking off of a large hat, which somebody had apparently walked into court with on; and the moment afterwards a short man, in a Quaker dress, with his grizzled hair hanging in long locks on his shoulders, and smoothed close down on the forehead, stepped, with a peculiar air of confidence and cunning, up to the bar. His tawny, sunburnt features, and small dark eyes, twinkling with an expression of much country subtlety, proclaimed him at once a character. At once a score of voices murmured,--"There's Johnny Darbyshire himself!"

He glanced, with a quick and peculiar look, at the counsel, sitting at their table with their papers before them, who, on their part, did not fail to return his survey with a stare of mixed wonder and amazement.

You could see it as plainly as possible written on their faces,--"Who have we got here? There is some fun brewing here, to a certainty."

But Johnny raised his eyes from them to the bench, where sat the judge, and sent them rapidly thence to the jury-box, where they seemed to rest with a considerable satisfaction.

"Is this a witness?" inquired the judge. "If so, what is he doing there, or why does he appear at all, till we know whether the cause is to be defended?"

"Ay, Lord Judge, as they call thee, I reckon I am a witness, and the best witness too, that can be had in the case, for I'm the man himself; I'm John Darbyshire. I didn't mean to have anything to do with these chaps i' their wigs and gowns, with their long, dangling sleeves; and I dunna yet mean to have anything to do wi' 'em. But I just heard one of 'em tell thee, that this cause was not going to be defended; and that put my monkey up, and so, thinks I, I'll e'en up and tell 'em that it will be defended though; ay, and I reckon it will too; Johnny Darbyshire was never yet afraid of the face of any man, or any set of men."

"If you are what you say, good man," said the judge, "defendant in this case, you had better appoint counsel to state it for you."

"Nay, nay, Lord Judge, as they call thee,--hold a bit; I know better than that. Catch Johnny Darbyshire at flinging his money into a lawyer's bag! No, no. I know them chaps wi' wigs well enough. They've tongues as long as a besom's teal, and fingers as long to poke after 'em. Nay, nay, I don't get my money so easily as to let them sc.r.a.pe it up by armfuls.

I've worked early and late, in heat and cold, for my bit o' money, and long enough too, before these smart chaps had left their mother's ap.r.o.n-strings; and let them catch a coin of it, if they can. No! I know this case better than any other man can, and for why? Because I was in it. It was me that had the mare to summer; it was me that rode her to the doctor; I was in at th' breaking of th' leg, and, for that reason, I can tell you exactly how it all happened. And what's any of those counsellors,--sharp, and fine, and knowing as they look, with their tails and their powder,--what are they to know about the matter, except what somebody'd have to tell 'em first? I tell you, I saw it, I did it, and so there needs no twice telling of the story."

"But are you going to produce evidence?" inquired the counsel for the other side.

"Evidence? to be sure I am. What does the chap mean? Evidence? why, I'm defender and evidence and all!"

There was a good deal of merriment in the court, and at the bar, in which the judge himself joined.

"There wants no evidence besides me; for, as I tell you, I did it, and I'm not going to deny it."

"Stop!" cried the judge; "this is singular. If Mr. Darbyshire means to plead his own cause, and to include in it his evidence, he must be sworn. Let the oath be administered to him."

"Nay, I reckon thou need put none of thy oaths to me! My father never brought me up to cursing and swearing, and such like wickedness. He left that to th' ragam.u.f.fins and rapscallions i' th' street. I'm no swearer, nor liar neither,--thou may take my word safe enough."

"Let him take his affirmation, if he be a member of the Society of Friends."

"Ay, now thou speaks sense, Lord Judge. Ay, I'm a member, I warrant me."

The clerk of the court here took his affirmation, and then Johnny proceeded.

"Well, I don't feel myself any better or any honester now for making that affirmation. I was just going to tell the plain truth before, and I can only tell th' same now. And, as I said, I'm not going to deny what I've done. No! Johnny Darbyshire's not the man that ever did a thing and then denied it. Can any of these chaps i' th' wigs say as much? Ay, now I reckon," added he, shaking his head archly at the gentlemen of the bar, "now I reckon you'd like, a good many on you there, to be denying this thing stoutly for me? You'd soon persuade a good many simple folks here that I never did ride the mare, never broke her leg, nay, never saw her that day at all. Wouldn't you, now? wouldn't you?"--

Here the laughter, on all sides, was loudly renewed.

"But I'll take precious good care ye _dunna_! No, no! that's the very thing that I've stepped up here for. It's to keep your consciences clear of a few more additional lies. O dear! I'm quite grieved for you, when I think what falsities and deceit you'll one day have to answer for, as it is."

The gentlemen, thus complimented, appeared to enjoy the satire of Johnny Darbyshire; and still more was it relished in the body of the court.

But again remarked the judge, "Mr. Darbyshire, I advise you to leave the counsel for the plaintiff to prove his case against you."

"I'st niver oss!" exclaimed Johnny, with indignation.

"I'st niver oss!" repeated the judge. "What does he mean?--I don't understand him." And he looked inquiringly at the bar.

"He means," my lord, said a young counsel, "that he shall never offer,--never attempt to do so."

"That's a Darbyshire chap now," said Johnny, turning confidentially towards the jury-box, where he saw some of his county farmers. "He understands good English."

"But, good neighbors there," added he, addressing the jury, "for I reckon it's you that I must talk to on this business; I'm glad to see that you are, a good many on you, farmers like myself, and so up to these things. To make a short matter of it, then,--I had the mare and foal to summer; and the gentleman laid it down, strong and fast, that she shouldn't be ridden by anybody. And I promised him that I would do my best, that n.o.body should ride her. I told him that I would use her just as if she was my own,--and I meant it. I meant to do the handsome by her and her master too; for I needn't tell you that I'm too fond of a bit of good blood to see it willingly come to any harm. Nay, nay, that never was the way of Johnny Darbyshire. And there she was, the pretty creature, with her handsome foal cantering and capering round her in the meadow; it was a pleasure to see it, it was indeed! And often have I stood and leaned over the gate and watched them, till I felt a'most as fond of them as of my own children; and never would leg have crossed her while she was in my possession had that not happened that may happen to any man, when he least expects it.

"My wife had been ill, very ill. My poor Lizzy, I thought I should ha'

certainly lost her. The doctors said she must be kept quiet in bed; if she stirred for five days she was a lost woman. Well, one afternoon as I was cutting a bit o' gra.s.s at th' bottom o' th' orchard for the osses, again they came from ploughing the fallows, I heard a shriek that went through me like a baggonet. Down I flings th' scythe. 'That's Lizzy, and no other!' I shouted to myself. 'She's out of bed,--and, goodness! what can it be? She's ten to one gone mad with a brain fever!' There seemed to have fallen ten thousand millstones on my heart. I tried to run, but I couldn't. I was as cold as ice. I was as fast rooted to the ground as a tree. There was another shriek more piercing than before--and I was off like an arrow from a bow--I was loose then. I was all on fire. I ran like a madman till I came within sight of th' house; and there I saw Lizzy in her nightgown with half her body out of the window, shrieking and wringing her hands like any crazed body.

"'Stop! stop!' I cried, 'Lizzy! Lizzy! back! back! for Heaven's sake!'

"'There! there!' screamed she, pointing with staring eyes and ghastly face down into the Darrant that runs under the windows.

"'O G.o.d!' I exclaimed, 'she'll drown herself! she's crazed, she means to fling herself in'--groaning as I ran, and trying to keep crying to her, but my voice was dead in my throat.

"When I reached her chamber, I found her fallen on the floor,--she was as white as a ghost, and sure enough I thought she was one. I lifted her upon the bed, and screamed amain for the nurse, for the maid, but not a soul came. I rubbed Lizzy's hands; clapped them; tried her smelling-bottle. At length she came to herself with a dreadful groan,--flashed open her eyes wide on me, and cried, 'Didst see him?

Didst save him? Where is he? Where is he?'

"'Merciful Providence!' I exclaimed. 'She's gone only too sure! It's all over with her!'

"'Where is he? Where's my dear Sam? Thou didn't let him drown?'

"'Drown? Sam? What?' I cried. 'What dost mean, Lizzy?'

"'O John! Sammy!--he was drowning i' th' Darrant--oh!--'

"She fainted away again, and a dreadful truth flashed on my mind. She had seen our little Sammy drowning; she had heard his screams, and sprung out of bed, forgetful of herself, and looking out, saw our precious boy in the water. He was sinking! He cried for help! there was n.o.body near, and there Lizzy stood and saw him going, going, going down!

There was not a soul in the house. The maid was gone to see her mother that was dying in the next village; the nurse had been suddenly obliged to run off to the doctor's for some physic; Lizzy had promised to lie still till I came in, and in the mean time--this happens. When I understood her I flew down stairs, and towards the part of the river she had pointed to. I gazed here and there, and at length caught sight of the poor boy's coat floating, and with a rake I caught hold of it, and dragged him to land. But it was too late! Frantic, however, as I was, I flew down to the meadow with a bridle in my hand, mounted the blood mare,--she was the fleetest in the field by half,--and away to the doctor. We went like the wind. I took a short cut for better speed, but it was a hobbly road. Just as I came in sight of the doctor's house there was a slough that had been mended with stones and f.a.gots and anything that came to hand. I pushed her over, but her foot caught in a hole amongst the sticks, and--crack! it was over in a moment.

"Neighbors, neighbors! think of my situation. Think of my feelings. Oh!

I was all one great groan! My wife! my boy! the mare! it seemed as if Job's devil was really sent out against me. But there was no time to think; I could only feel, and I could do that running. I sprang over the hedge. I was across the fields, and at the doctor's; ay, long before I could find breath to tell him what was amiss. But he thought it was my wife that was dreadfully worse. 'I expected as much,' said he, and that instant we were in the gig that stood at the door, and we were going like fire back again. But--"

Here Johnny Darbyshire paused; the words stuck in his throat,--his lips trembled,--his face gradually grew pale and livid, as if he were going to give up the ghost. The court was extremely moved: there was a deep silence, and there were heard sobs from the throng behind. The judge sate with his eyes fixed on his book of minutes, and not a voice even said "Go on."

Johnny Darbyshire meantime, overcome by his feelings, had sate down at the bar, a gla.s.s of water was handed to him,--he wiped his forehead with his handkerchief several times, heaved a heavy convulsive sigh or two from his laboring chest,--and again arose.

"Judge, then," said he, again addressing the jury, "what a taking I was in. My boy--but no--I canna touch on that, he was--gone!" said he in a husky voice that seemed to require all his physical force to send it from the bottom of his chest. "My wife was for weeks worse than dead, and never has been, and never will be, herself again. When I inquired after the mare,--you can guess--when was a broken leg of a horse successfully set again? They had been obliged to kill her!