The History of Margaret Catchpole Part 9

"What will that cost?"

"I charge one shilling and sixpence extra for that, as I have to get the turf from the heath; but I shall have some time to wait before I am paid for what I have done. Time was when that family was well off; but no good comes of bad doings."

"What do you mean, my man? what bad doings have these poor people been guilty of?"

"I see, sir, you are a stranger in these parts, or else the Catchpoles, especially one of them, would be known to you by common report."

"Which one is that?"

"Margaret, sir."

"Well, what of her? has she been unfortunate?"

"If she has it has been her own seeking, no one's else. She might have done well, but she would not."

"What might she have done? and what has she done?"

"Why, sir, she might have married an industrious young man, who would have done well by her; but she chose to encourage a vagabond smuggler, who first set her up with high notions, and then ruined and left her to poverty and shame."

"You do not mean to say that the young woman is a depraved and abandoned character?"

"No, no; I mean she don't like any honester man, and so no one seems to care anything about her."

A tear stole down the stranger's cheeks; and, whoever he was, he seemed to feel a little relief at this information.

"Is the young woman living at home with her family?"

"Yes; because n.o.body will hire her. She is laughed at by the females, and the men don't care anything about her. If they could catch her lover, and pocket a hundred pounds reward for his capture, they would like the chance."

"How are the family supported?"

"Why, I suppose the father earns eight shillings a week, the youngest son one-and-sixpence; but they must have been hard run this winter, and it will take them some time to get up their back-rent and present expenses."

"What is the amount of their present expense?"

"Why, I must get, if I can, sixteen shillings, somehow or another. I dare say I shall have it; but it will take them some time to pay it. There is ten shillings for the coffin (for I am carpenter, clerk, and s.e.xton), three shillings and sixpence digging the grave, one shilling for tolling the bell, and one shilling and sixpence for the clergyman; that will exactly make the sum."

"You say it will take one shilling and sixpence extra for turfing and binding: that will be seventeen shillings and sixpence. How much do you think they owe at the shop?"

"I know that it cost them three shillings and sixpence for flannel; but I know it is not paid for yet."

"There's a guinea; that will exactly pay you all, will it not?" and the stranger pitched a guinea against the s.e.xton's spade.

What a wonderful thing is a golden guinea in the eye of a poor parish clerk! how reverential it makes a man feel, especially when a stranger pays it for a poor man! He might have got it; but he must have waited the chance till after the next harvest.

"That it will, sir--that it will. I'll call and pay the bill at the shop. Are you coming to live in these parts?"

"Not for long--not long!" sighed the stranger.

"Why, you look very healthy, sir? You are not ill?"

"No, no, my man; I do not mean to give you a chance of getting another guinea by me, at least for the present. I only meant to say my stay in this village would not be for long. But where do these poor people live?"

"Not in the same place they used to do in the days of their prosperity and respectability. Their house now stands at the corner of the heath, sir: shall I go with you and show it you?"

"I can find it; there are not many cottages there. Do you go and pay the bill at the shop; and then if you have a mind to bring the receipt, instead of giving me the trouble to call at your house for it, you will find me at the cottage of these poor people; and hear me, old man, do not talk to any one about this matter. You may as well bring a receipt, also, for your own work at the same time."

"You are quite a man of business, I see, sir. I will not fail to be at the cottage this very evening with a receipt in full."

The old s.e.xton placed the guinea carefully at the bottom of his pocket, and, shouldering his spade and mattock, marched off towards the village shop. The stranger walked round Nacton churchyard. He stood sometime attentively reading the inscription upon Admiral Vernon's mausoleum; and, taking another look at the humble, new-made grave of Margaret Catchpole's mother, he took the highroad to the heath, and saw the cottage, known by the name of the Shepherd's Cot, at the verge of that wild waste.

Meantime the following conversation was going on in that cottage:-- "I wonder," said Margaret to her father, as the old man sat by the log-fire in the chimney-corner, "whether our brother Charles is alive or dead?"

"I can just remember him," said the boy; "he used to be very fond of me, and said I should make a good soldier."

"I have never heard of him," said the father, "since he went to Ipswich, and enlisted in another name, at the Black Horse, in St. Mary Elms. I understood that his regiment went off to India almost immediately after he enlisted."

"I wonder if he is alive?"

"I cannot tell, my dear; the chances are very much against it. He was a quick, intelligent, lively boy; and, when he was at work in the fields, used often to say he should like to be a soldier. The old clerk taught him to read and write, and used to say, 'If Charles had a chance he would be scholar enough to succeed him as parish clerk.' He left us at the commencement of our misfortunes; G.o.d grant he may meet us again in happier days!"

Poor Margaret sighed; for she too well remembered the origin of all their sorrows not to feel for her dear parent. That sigh was answered by a sudden knock at the door, which occasioned a start. The latch was lifted up, and in walked the stranger who had attended the funeral. His entrance gave a change to their conversation; and Margaret placed a chair for him, in which he quietly sat down opposite to the old labourer. Care had worn the countenance of the venerable man more than years and work. The only mourning of an outward kind which met the eye, was an old piece of c.r.a.pe round the equally old hat which hung upon a peg in the wall. Nothing else could be afforded; but their countenances betokened the state of their hearts. They were really melancholy. It is not in the outward pageantry of a funeral that real sorrow is to be seen; and the real grief of the Shepherd's Cottage surpa.s.sed all the pageantry of the palace, and was viewed with calm and respectful silence by the stranger.

He was a tall, pale, thin young man, with a scar upon the side of his face: he looked as if he had undergone much sickness or misfortune. He was dressed in a plain suit of black, which hung rather loosely round him. He asked Margaret if the youth beside her was her youngest brother, and whether she had any other brothers living. She replied that it was, to the best of her knowledge, her only brother living. He then made inquiries concerning the illness of her late mother; and after various other domestic matters, he looked very earnestly at Margaret, and in a seemingly abstracted manner said, "Where is Will Laud?" It was as if an electric shock had been given to all in the room; for all started at the question, and even the stranger was greatly moved at his own question, when he saw Margaret hide her face in her hands, weeping.

"I did not mean to occasion you any grief. I only asked after a man whom I once knew as a boy, and whom the old clerk informed me you could tell me more about than any one else."

"And do not you know more of him than we do, sir?" said the old man.

"I know nothing of him, and have heard nothing of him since I was a youth; my question was purely accidental. I am sorry to see your daughter so afflicted by it. Has the man been unkind to her?"

"No, sir! no!" said Margaret. "If you are here as a spy, sir, indeed we know not where he is."

"A spy!" said the stranger; and the stranger started and muttered something to himself. Margaret herself now began to feel alarmed; for the stranger seemed to be deep in thought; and, as the flame from the log of wood cast its light upon his face, she thought he looked ghastly pale.

"A spy!" said the stranger; "what made you think me a spy?--and what should I be a spy for?"

"I did not mean to affront you, sir; but the question you asked concerning one for whose apprehension a hundred pounds is offered, made me think of it. Pray pardon me, sir."

"I am sorry that he has done anything to occasion such an offer from the Government. Has he murdered any one?"

"No, sir; but Will is a wild young man, and he attempted to kill young Barry of Levington, and wounded him so severely, that a reward was offered for his apprehension."

"Has Barry recovered?"

"Yes, sir; and he is gone out of the country to Canada, or some more distant land."

"Then never mind if Laud be caught. Government will never pay a hundred pounds for his conviction when the princ.i.p.al evidence cannot be obtained. Never mind! never mind!--that will soon be forgotten."

Such words of consolation had never been uttered in Peggy's ear before. She began to feel very differently toward the stranger, as the tone of his voice, and his manner, together with his words, became so soothing.

"Thank you, sir, for your good wishes; you make my heart joyful in the midst of my mourning."

"I only wish I could make it more joyful by telling you any good news of your lover, Margaret; but though I know nothing of him, and only wish he were more worthy of you than he is, yet I bear you tidings of some one else of whom you will all be glad to hear."

"Our brother Charles!" both she and the boy at once exclaimed, whilst the old man remained in mute astonishment.

"It is of your brother Charles; and first, let me tell you that he is alive and well."

"Thank G.o.d for that!" said the father.

"Next, that he is in England, and it will not be long before you will have the pleasure of seeing him."

At this moment the door opened, and in walked the old clerk, who, seeing the stranger, made his bow, and gave him a piece of paper containing a receipt for the guinea which he had received. To the surprise of all, the stranger rose, and taking a little red box made in the shape of a barrel, which stood on the wooden shelf over the fire-place, he unscrewed it, and put the paper in it; and, replacing it, seated himself again.

"You were just telling us of our brother Charles," said Margaret.

"What!" exclaimed the s.e.xton, "is Charles alive? My old scholar! Where is the boy? I have often thought of him. Oh! what a pity he took to drinking! He was as good a reader as our clergyman, and beat me out and out."

"He is not addicted to drink now, and is as sober as a man can be."

"I am glad of that. Then he will succeed in anything he undertakes. But where has he been these many years?"

"You shall hear if you will sit down; for, as I knew him well, and was his most intimate friend, he made me his confidant in everything. He was always of a restless spirit; and when he left his father and friends, he had no settled plan in his mind. He enlisted in the 33rd regiment of Foot, which was then going out to India; and that his relatives and friends might not grieve about him, he gave his name to the parochial authorities of St. Mary Elms, at Ipswich, as Jacob Dedham, the name of a boy who, he knew, was not alive. The parish-officer gave him a shilling, and he took another shilling of the recruiting-officer.

"He was sworn in, and took his departure with many others for Portsmouth, at which place he embarked for India, and joined the 33rd regiment at Bombay. He was always of an aspiring and inquisitive turn of mind. He became an active and orderly soldier, and a.s.sisted the sergeant-major in all his writings and accounts. He soon became an adept in all the cunning and customs of the various castes of natives in India; was remarkable for the quickness with which he mastered the different idioms of the different territories of the East; and at length became so noticed by Sir William Forbes, that he introduced him to Lord Cornwallis, who employed him upon the frontier of Persia.

"Here he became a spy, and was actively engaged for that highly honourable and intelligent Governor-General. He readily entered into his lordship's views; and, receiving from him a purse well stored, to provide himself with disguises, he a.s.sumed the garb of a Moorish priest, and with wonderful tact made himself master of all the requisites of his office. I have here a sketch of him, in the very dress in which he travelled through the country."

Taking out a roll from his coat-pocket, he unfolded the canvas wrapper in which it was enclosed, and presented it to Margaret, asking her if she recognized her brother.

With eager and interested glance she looked at the sketch, but not a feature could she challenge. She then looked up at the stranger, and, as she did so, said-- "It is much more like you, sir, than it is like my brother."

"I think it is full as like me as it is like him. But, such as it is, you have it; for he commissioned me to give it to you, together with a sketch of a fortress in which he resided a long time as the priest of the family. This is Tabgur, on the frontiers of Persia. His master and family are walking on the rampart-garden of the fort."

Here the old clerk could not help bursting out with an exclamation of astonishment at the wonderful talent of his former pupil.

"I always said he would be a wonderful man, did I not, Master Catchpole,--did I not? Did he teach himself this art, sir?"

"Indeed he did; and many others he learned, which did him equal credit. He was a very quiet man in appearance, though he was alive to everything around him. Many were the hairbreadth escapes he had; but his self-possession carried him through all. He had to conceal all his drawings of the different fortresses, all his calculations of the inhabitants, of their forces, and their condition; but he contrived to wrap them about his person, so that they could not be discovered.

"Once, indeed, one of his papers, written as close as pencil could write, was picked up in the fort-garden at Tabgur, and he was suspected for a spy; but he quickly changed their suspicions; for, observing that his master had a bad toothache, he told him it was a charm to prevent it. Every person, he said, for whom he wrote that charm, would be free from the toothache as long as he kept it secreted in his turban; but it must be one expressly written for the purpose, and for the person; and that, during the time of its being written, the person must have a piece of rock-salt upon that very tooth which was aching at the time. The charm was only of use for the person for whom it was written; and, as that one was written for himself, it could do the Persian warrior no good. This answered well; for he got back his valuable paper, and wrote one immediately, in the presence of his master, who, placing a piece of rock-salt upon the tooth, found that, as he wrote, the pain was diminished; and when he concluded, it was completely gone.

"But the next day, your brother, the Moorish priest, was gone also. He pa.s.sed over into Hindostan, changed his Moorish dress, and soon made his way to head-quarters, where he delivered such an accurate account of all that befell him, and of all that was required of him, that he received a most ample reward. He called himself Caulins Jaun, the Moorish priest.

"He has been sent to England by Lord Cornwallis, to deliver some despatches to the government, relating to the Mysore territory and Tippoo Saib's conduct; and, having accomplished his mission, he has asked permission to visit his poor friends at Nacton, in Suffolk. His leave is very short, as his services are again required."

"And when may we expect him here?" exclaimed Margaret. "Oh, how I long to see him!"

"I expect him here this night; for, as I was his companion, and am to go back again with him, so I am his forerunner upon this occasion."

"I could almost set the village-bells ringing for joy," said the old clerk. "I wonder whether he would know me."

"That I am sure he would."

"Pray, sir, how do you know that?"

"Because the description he gave me of you is so accurate that I could tell you from a thousand. Do you remember the sketch he made of an old woman throwing a cat at her husband?"

"That I do. Did he tell you of that?"

"That he did; and of the scratch he got from the cat's claws, as you bopped your head, and puss lit directly on his face."

Here the old man could not help laughing.

"But did he tell you nothing else about the sketch?"

"That he did, and with such feeling, that I almost fancy I see now the scrub-brush belabouring his head for his pains."

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! I thought he had forgotten all that."

"No; he thought of it at the very time he was sketching the forts of his enemies' country. Had he been caught in such freaks as those, he would have had a severer punishment than what your good dame gave him."

"But if my old dame could see him now, how rejoiced she would be; for notwithstanding his roguery, he was a great favourite of hers!"

"She will see him to-morrow."

"That will be news for the old woman. But shall I see him this night? I would not mind waiting till midnight for such a purpose."

"That you may. But I do not think that even you would know him, were you to see him."

"Why not? Would he know me?"

"He would: but youth alters more in countenance than age, especially where a foreign climate has acted upon the const.i.tution."

"I should know him from two things," said Margaret. "He once so nearly cut off the end of his little finger with a sharp tool, that it hung only by a piece of skin: it was bound up, so that it adhered and grew together; but somehow, the tip got a twist, so that the nail of the finger grew under the hand: it was the left hand."

"And what was the other mark?"

"It was a deep scar on the back of the same hand, caused by imprudently cutting off a large wart."

"Now tell me," said the stranger, drawing the glove off his left hand, "were the scars you mention anything like those?"

"Exactly," said the clerk, who looked at him again and again with amazement.

"Why, you can't be he? Are you Master Charles?"

"Can you doubt it?"