The Man of Feeling Part 7

"My son was a remarkable good shooter; he-had always kept a pointer on our former farm, and thought no harm in doing so now; when one day, having sprung a covey in our own ground, the dog, of his own accord, followed them into the justice's. My son laid down his gun, and went after his dog to bring him back: the game-keeper, who had marked the birds, came up, and seeing the pointer, shot him just as my son approached. The creature fell; my son ran up to him: he died with a complaining sort of cry at his master's feet. Jack could bear it no longer; but, flying at the game-keeper, wrenched his gun out of his hand, and with the b.u.t.t end of it, felled him to the ground.

"He had scarce got home, when a constable came with a warrant, and dragged him to prison; there he lay, for the justices would not take bail, till he was tried at the quarter-sessions for the a.s.sault and battery. His fine was hard upon us to pay: we contrived however to live the worse for it, and make up the loss by our frugality: but the justice was not content with that punishment, and soon after had an opportunity of punishing us indeed.

"An officer with press-orders came down to our county, and having met with the justices, agreed that they should pitch on a certain number, who could most easily be spared from the county, of whom he would take care to clear it: my son's name was in the justices'

list.

"'Twas on a Christmas eve, and the birth-day too of my son's little boy. The night was piercing cold, and it blew a storm, with showers of hail and snow. We had made up a cheering fire in an inner room; I sat before it in my wicker-chair; blessing providence, that had still left a shelter for me and my children. My son's two little ones were holding their gambols around us; my heart warmed at the sight: I brought a bottle of my best ale, and all our misfortunes were forgotten.

"It had long been our custom to play a game at blind man's buff on that night, and it was not omitted now; so to it we fell, I, and my son, and his wife, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, who happened to be with us at the time, the two children, and an old maid servant, who had lived with me from a child. The lot fell on my son to be blindfolded: we had continued some time in our game, when he groped his way into an outer room in pursuit of some of us, who, he imagined, had taken shelter there; we kept snug in our places, and enjoyed his mistake. He had not been long there, when he was suddenly seized from behind; 'I shall have you now,' said he, and turned about. 'Shall you so, master?' answered the ruffian, who had laid hold of him; 'we shall make you play at another sort of game by and by.'"--At these words Harley started with a convulsive sort of motion, and grasping Edwards's sword, drew it half out of the scabbard, with a look of the most frantic wildness. Edwards gently replaced it in its sheath, and went on with his relation.

"On hearing these words in a strange voice, we all rushed out to discover the cause; the room by this time was almost full of the gang. My daughter-in-law fainted at the sight; the maid and I ran to a.s.sist her, while my poor son remained motionless, gazing by turns on his children and their mother. We soon recovered her to life, and begged her to retire and wait the issue of the affair; but she flew to her husband, and clung round him in an agony of terror and grief.

"In the gang was one of a smoother aspect, whom, by his dress, we discovered to be a serjeant of foot: he came up to me, and told me, that my son had his choice of the sea or land service, whispering at the same time that, if he chose the land, he might get off, on procuring him another man, and paying a certain sum for his freedom.

The money we could just muster up in the house, by the a.s.sistance of the maid, who produced, in a green bag, all the little savings of her service; but the man we could not expect to find. My daughter- in-law gazed upon her children with a look of the wildest despair: 'My poor infants!' said she, 'your father is forced from you; who shall now labour for your bread? or must your mother beg for herself and you?' I prayed her to be patient; but comfort I had none to give her. At last, calling the serjeant aside, I asked him, 'If I was too old to be accepted in place of my son?'

"'Why, I don't know,' said he; 'you are rather old to be sure, but yet the money may do much.'

"I put the money in his hand, and coming back to my children, 'Jack,' said I, 'you are free; live to give your wife and these little ones bread; I will go, my child, in your stead; I have but little life to lose, and if I staid, I should add one to the wretches you left behind.'

"'No,' replied my son, 'I am not that coward you imagine me; heaven forbid that my father's grey hairs should be so exposed, while I sat idle at home; I am young and able to endure much, and G.o.d will take care of you and my family.'

"'Jack,' said I, 'I will put an end to this matter, you have never hitherto disobeyed me; I will not be contradicted in this; stay at home, I charge you, and, for my sake, be kind to my children.'

"Our parting, Mr. Harley, I cannot describe to you; it was the first time we ever had parted: the very press-gang could scarce keep from tears; but the serjeant, who had seemed the softest before, was now the least moved of them all. He conducted me to a party of new- raised recruits, who lay at a village in the neighbourhood; and we soon after joined the regiment. I had not been long with it when we were ordered to the East Indies, where I was soon made a serjeant, and might have picked up some money, if my heart had been as hard as some others were; but my nature was never of that kind, that could think of getting rich at the expense of my conscience.

"Amongst our prisoners was an old Indian, whom some of our officers supposed to have a treasure hidden somewhere; which is no uncommon practice in that country. They pressed him to discover it. He declared he had none, but that would not satisfy them, so they ordered him to be tied to a stake, and suffer fifty lashes every morning till he should learn to speak out, as they said. Oh! Mr.

Harley, had you seen him, as I did, with his hands bound behind him, suffering in silence, while the big drops trickled down his shrivelled cheeks and wet his grey beard, which some of the inhuman soldiers plucked in scorn! I could not bear it, I could not for my soul, and one morning, when the rest of the guard were out of the way, I found means to let him escape. I was tried by a court- martial for negligence of my post, and ordered, in compa.s.sion of my age, and having got this wound in my arm and that in my leg in the service, only to suffer three hundred lashes and be turned out of the regiment; but my sentence was mitigated as to the lashes, and I had only two hundred. When I had suffered these I was turned out of the camp, and had betwixt three and four hundred miles to travel before I could reach a sea-port, without guide to conduct me, or money to buy me provisions by the way. I set out, however, resolved to walk as far as I could, and then to lay myself down and die. But I had scarce gone a mile when I was met by the Indian whom I had delivered. He pressed me in his arms, and kissed the marks of the lashes on my back a thousand times; he led me to a little hut, where some friend of his dwelt, and after I was recovered of my wounds conducted me so far on my journey himself, and sent another Indian to guide me through the rest. When we parted he pulled out a purse with two hundred pieces of gold in it. 'Take this,' said he, 'my dear preserver, it is all I have been able to procure.'

"I begged him not to bring himself to poverty for my sake, who should probably have no need of it long, but he insisted on my accepting it. He embraced me. 'You are an Englishman,' said he, 'but the Great Spirit has given you an Indian heart, may He bear up the weight of your old age, and blunt the arrow that brings it rest!'

"We parted, and not long after I made shift to get my pa.s.sage to England. 'Tis but about a week since I landed, and I am going to end my days in the arms of my son. This sum may be of use to him and his children, 'tis all the value I put upon it. I thank Heaven I never was covetous of wealth; I never had much, but was always so happy as to be content with my little."

When Edwards had ended his relation, Harley stood a while looking at him in silence; at last he pressed him in his arms, and when he had given vent to the fulness of his heart by a shower of tears, "Edwards," said he, "let me hold thee to my bosom, let me imprint the virtue of thy sufferings on my soul. Come, my honoured veteran let me endeavour to soften the last days of a life, worn out in the service of humanity; call me also thy son, and let me cherish thee as a father."'

Edwards, from whom the recollection of his own suffering had scarced forced a tear, now blubbered like a boy; he could not speak his grat.i.tude, but by some short exclamations of blessings upon Harley.

CHAPTER x.x.xV--HE MISSES AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.--AN ADVENTURE CONSEQUENT UPON IT

When they had arrived within a little way of the village they journeyed to, Harley stopped short, and looked steadfastly on the mouldering walls of a ruined house that stood on the road side.

"Oh, heavens!" he cried, "what do I see: silent, unroofed, and desolate! Are all thy gay tenants gone? do I hear their hum no more Edwards, look there, look there? the scene of my infant joys, my earliest friendships, laid waste and ruinous! That was the very school where I was boarded when you were at South-hill; 'tis but a twelve-month since I saw it standing, and its benches filled with cherubs: that opposite side of the road was the green on which they sported; see it now ploughed up! I would have given fifty times its value to have saved it from the sacrilege of that plough."

"Dear sir," replied Edwards, "perhaps they have left it from choice, and may have got another spot as good."

"They cannot," said Harley, "they cannot; I shall never see the sward covered with its daisies, nor pressed by the dance of the dear innocents: I shall never see that stump decked with the garlands which their little hands had gathered. These two long stones, which now lie at the foot of it, were once the supports of a hut I myself a.s.sisted to rear: I have sat on the sods within it, when we had spread our banquet of apples before us, and been more blessed--Oh!

Edwards, infinitely more blessed, than ever I shall be again."

Just then a woman pa.s.sed them on the road, and discovered some signs of wonder at the att.i.tude of Harley, who stood, with his hands folded together, looking with a moistened eye on the fallen pillars of the hut. He was too much entranced in thought to observe her at all, but Edwards, civilly accosting her, desired to know if that had not been the school-house, and how it came into the condition in which they now saw it.

"Alack a day!" said she, "it was the school-house indeed; but to be sure, sir, the squire has pulled it down because it stood in the way of his prospects."

"What! how! prospects! pulled down!" cried Harley.

"Yes, to be sure, sir; and the green, where the children used to play, he has ploughed up, because, he said, they hurt his fence on the other side of it."

"Curses on his narrow heart," cried Harley, "that could violate a right so sacred! Heaven blast the wretch!

"And from his derogate body never spring A babe to honour him!" -

But I need not, Edwards, I need not" (recovering himself a little), "he is cursed enough already: to him the n.o.blest source of happiness is denied, and the cares of his sordid soul shall gnaw it, while thou sittest over a brown crust, smiling on those mangled limbs that have saved thy son and his children!"

"If you want anything with the school-mistress, sir," said the woman, "I can show you the way to her house."

He followed her without knowing whither he went.

They stopped at the door of a snug habitation, where sat an elderly woman with a boy and a girl before her, each of whom held a supper of bread and milk in their hands.

"There, sir, is the school-mistress."

"Madam," said Harley, "was not an old venerable man school-master here some time ago?"

"Yes, sir, he was, poor man; the loss of his former school-house, I believe, broke his heart, for he died soon after it was taken down, and as another has not yet been found, I have that charge in the meantime."

"And this boy and girl, I presume, are your pupils?"

"Ay, sir; they are poor orphans, put under my care by the parish, and more promising children I never saw."

"Orphans?" said Harley.

"Yes, sir, of honest creditable parents as any in the parish, and it is a shame for some folks to forget their relations at a time when they have most need to remember them."

"Madam," said Harley, "let us never forget that we are all relations."

He kissed the children.

"Their father, sir," continued she, "was a farmer here in the neighbourhood, and a sober industrious man he was; but n.o.body can help misfortunes: what with bad crops, and bad debts, which are worse, his affairs went to wreck, and both he and his wife died of broken hearts. And a sweet couple they were, sir; there was not a properer man to look on in the county than John Edwards, and so indeed were all the Edwardses."

"What Edwardses?" cried the old soldier hastily.

"The Edwardses of South-hill, and a worthy family they were."

"South-hill!" said he, in a languid voice, and fell back into the arms of the astonished Harley. The school-mistress ran for some water--and a smelling-bottle, with the a.s.sistance of which they soon recovered the unfortunate Edwards. He stared wildly for some time, then folding his orphan grandchildren in his arms,