Kitabı oku: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XI.—April, 1851—Vol. II.», sayfa 21

THE FARM-LABORER. – THE FATHER

BY HARRIET MARTINEAU

When George Banks was nearly thirty years of age, he married. He had always been happy, except for one great drawback: and now he hoped to be happier than ever; and, indeed, he was. The drawback was that his father drank. Banks had been brought up to expect a little property which should make life easy to him; but, while still a youth, he gave up all thought of any property but such as he might earn. He saw every thing going to ruin at home; and he and his sister, finding that their father was irreclaimable, resolved to go out and work for themselves, and for their mother while she lived. The sister went out to service, and Banks became a farm-laborer. Their father's pride was hurt at their sinking below the station they were born to; but they were obliged to disregard his anger when an honest maintenance was in question. There was a smaller drawback, by the way; Banks was rather deaf, and he thought the deafness increased a little; but it was not enough to stand in the way of his employment as a laborer; he could hear the sermon in church; and Betsy did not mind it, so he did not. He had a good master in old Mr. Wilkes, a large farmer in a southern county. Mr. Wilkes paid him 12s. a week all the year round, and £5 for the harvest month. For some years Banks laid by a good deal of money; so did Betsy, who was a housemaid at Mr. Wilkes's. When they became engaged, they had between them £50 laid by.

Banks took a cottage of three rooms, with nearly half a rood of garden-ground. They furnished their house really well, with substantial new furniture, and enough of it. In those days of high prices it made a great cut out of their money: but they agreed that they should never repent it. Banks had the privilege of a run on the common for his cow, and of as much peat as he chose to cut and carry for fuel. He had seen the consequences of intemperance in his father's case, and he was a water-drinker. He seldom touched even beer, except at harvest-time, when his wife brewed for him, that they might keep clear of the public-house.

During the whole of their lives to this day (and they are now old) they have never bought any thing whatever without having the money in their hands to pay for it. If they had not the money, they no more thought of having the article than if it had been at the North Pole. They paid £5 a year for their cottage, and the poor rate has always been from 15s. to 20s. a year. It was war-time when they married, in 1812; and the dread came across them now and then, of a recruiting party appearing, or of Banks being drawn for the militia; but they hoped that the deafness would save them from this misfortune. And the fear was not for long: in 1814, peace was proclaimed. It was a merry night – that when the great bonfire was lighted for the peace. Mrs. Banks could not go to see it, for she was in her second confinement at the time; but her husband came to her bedside and told her all about it. She had never seen him so gay. He was always cheerful and sweet-tempered; but he was of a grave cast of character, which the deafness had deepened into a constant thoughtfulness. This night, however, he was very talkative, telling her what good times were coming, now that Bonaparte was put down; how every man might stay at home at his proper business, and there would be fewer beggars and lower poor rates, and every thing would go well, with God's blessing on a nation at peace. The next year there was war again; but, almost as soon as it was known that Bonaparte had reappeared, the news came of the battle of Waterloo, and there was an end of all apprehension of war.

In eleven years they had eleven children. There was both joy and sorrow with those children. For seven years, the eldest, little Polly, was nothing but joy to her parents. She was the prettiest little girl they had ever seen; and the neighbors thought so too. She was bright and merry, perfectly obedient, very clever, and so handy that she was a helpful little maid to her mother. When three infants died, one after another, her father found comfort in taking this child on his knees in the evenings, and getting her to prattle to him. Her clear little merry voice came easily to his ear, when he could not hear older people without difficulty. The next child, Tom, was a blessing in his way: he was a strong little fellow of six; and he went out with Banks to the field, and really did some useful work – frightening the birds, leading the horses, picking sticks, weeding, running errands, and so on. But the charm at home was little Polly. When Polly was seven, however, a sad accident happened. She was taking care of the little ones before the door, during her mother's confinement, and one of the boys struck her on the top of the head with a saucepan. She fell, and when she was taken up she looked so strangely that the doctor was consulted about her. After watching her for some weeks he said he feared there was some injury to the brain. Banks has had many troubles in life, but none has been sorer than that of seeing the change that came over this child. It was not the loss of her beauty that made his heart ache when he looked in her face: it was the staring, uneasy expression of countenance which made him turn his eyes away in pain of heart. She grew jealous and suspicious; and, though no mood of mind remained many minutes, this was a sad contrast with the open sweetness of temper that they were never more to see. She did as she was bid; she went on learning to cook and to sew, and she could clean the house; but she never remembered from one minute to another what she was to do, and was always asking questions about things that she had known all her life. Her uncle (her mother's brother), who was well off in the world, and had no children, took her home, saying that change and going to school would make all the difference in her. But she had no memory, and could learn nothing, while she lost the mechanical things she could do at home. So, after a patient trial of three years, her uncle brought her home, and took, in her stead, the bright little Susan, now four years old. Polly never got better. After a time, fits of languor came on occasionally, and her mother could not get her out of bed; and now she sometimes lies for many days together, as in a swoon, looking like one dying, but always reviving again, though declining on the whole; so that it is thought it can not now go on very long.

Tom never went to school. There was no school within reach, while he was a very little boy, and when a new clergyman's lady came and set up one, Tom was thought rather too old to begin; and, besides, his father really could not spare his earnings. Old Mr. Wilkes was dead, and his son, succeeding to the farm, complained of bad times, and reduced his laborers' wages to 11s., and then 10s., and then 9s., while the poor-rate went on increasing. Tom can not read or write, and his father is very sorry for it. The boy always seemed, however, to have that sobriety of mind and good sense which education is thought necessary to give. The fact is, he has had no mean education in being the associate of his honorable-minded father. He grew up as grave as his father, thoughtful and considerate, while very clever. He is a prodigious worker, gets through more work than any other man in the neighborhood, and does it in a better manner. Earning in his best days only 9s. a week, and not being sure of that, he has never married, nor thought of marrying; and a great loss that is to some good woman.

The school being set up while Harry was a little fellow, he was sent to it, and he remained at it till he was twelve years old. It was well meant for him – well meant by the lady and by his parents; but the schoolmistress "was not equal to her business," as the family mildly say. Those years were almost entirely lost. Harry was remarkably clever, always earnest in what he was about, always steady and business-like, and eager to learn; yet he came away, after all those years, barely able to spell out a chapter in the Testament on Sundays, and scarcely able to sign his own name. He tried to use and improve his learning, putting in, where beans and peas were sown, slips of wood with banes and pase upon them, and holding a pen with all his force when he wanted to write his name; but he felt all along that he had better have been obtaining the knowledge which the earnest mind may gain in the open fields, unless he had been really well taught.

By this time there were few at home, and the home had become grave and somewhat sad. Six children had died in infancy – the oldest dying under three years old. Susan was at her uncle's, and not likely to come home again; for her aunt had become insane, and was subject to epilepsy to such a degree that she could not be left. Some people thought Susan's prospects very fine, for her uncle promised great things as to providing for her and leaving her property; but the story of her grandfather was a warning to her. Her uncle was falling into drinking habits, and this young girl, supposed to be so fortunate, often found herself with her aunt on one side in an epileptic fit, and her uncle on the other helplessly or violently drunk. He was an amiable man, and always, when remonstrated with, admitted his fault and promised amendment. It ended, however, in his being reduced in his old age to the point of screwing out of Susan her earnings at service, under the name of debt, and finding a home with her old father. Instead of enjoying his money, she enjoys the comfort of having gloriously discharged her duty to him, and she seems to be quite content.

But of the small party at home. The sons did not live at home, but they were not far off. Their honest faces looked in pretty often, and they were so good that their father had a constant pride in them. It was little more than seeing them, for Banks was now so deaf that conversation was out of the question. He went to church every Sunday, as he had always done; but every body knew that he did not hear one word of the service. His wife, exhausted by care and grief for her children, was too feeble to be much of a companion to him; and many a long night now he was kept awake by rheumatism. Yet no one ever saw a cross look in either, or heard a complaining word. Their house was clean; their clothes were neat; and, somehow or other, they went on paying poor-rate. One of the daughters says, "We always live very comfortably;" and the sons were told that, if their employment failed, they were always to come to their father's for a dinner. Banks worked harder and with more intenseness of mind at his garden, and they still continued to keep a pig; so they reckoned upon always having bacon and vegetables – summer vegetables, at least – upon the table. The youngest daughter lived at home, and earned a humble subsistence by stay-making and dress-making for the neighbors. She could read and write well enough to be a comfort if any letter came from a distance (an incident which, as we shall see, was hereafter to happen often), and to amuse her mother in illness with a book. Lizzy was not so clever as her brothers and Susan, but she was a good girl and a steady worker.

But soon the second Mr. Wilkes died rather suddenly. Banks's heart sank at the news. He had been attached to his employer, and valued by him, though his earnings had been so much reduced; and he had a misgiving that there would be a change for the worse under the young master. It was too true. The young master soon began to complain of want of money, and to turn off his laborers. He told Banks to his face that being now past sixty, and rheumatic at times, it was impossible that his work could be worth what it was, and he should have no more than six shillings a week henceforth. It was a terrible blow; but there was no help for it. A deaf old man had no chance of getting work in any new place; and the choice was simply between getting six shillings a week and being turned off. If his heart was ever weak within him, it must have been now. His savings were all gone years ago; there was no security that he would not be turned off any day. His children really could give him no effectual help; for the sons could not marry, and the daughters were not fully maintaining themselves. The workhouse was an intolerable thought to one who had paid rates, as he had done ever since he married. It was a dark time now, the very darkest. Yet the grave man lost nothing of his outward composure and gentleness. They were not without friends. The clergyman had his eye upon them; and Mrs. Wilkes, the widow, sent for Mrs. Banks once a year to spend two or three days with her, and talk over old times; and she always sent her guest home with a new gown. The friendship of some, and the respect of all, were as hearty as ever.

Some comfort was near at hand: and out of one comfort grew several. Susan first found herself well placed; and soon after, and as a consequence, Harry, and then, and again as a consequence, Tom; and then, Lizzy. About this, more will be told hereafter. The next thing that befell was a piece of personal comfort to Banks himself. A deaf lady, at a distance, sent him an ear-trumpet – with little hope that it would be of use – so long, and so extremely deaf as he was. He took it to church, and heard the service for the first time for twenty years. Steady and composed as he usually was, he now cried for a whole day. After that he cheered up delightfully; but nothing could make him use his trumpet on week days. It was too precious for any day but Sundays. When the lady heard this, she sent him an old shabby one for every day use, and it makes a great difference in his everyday life.

Next, the good clergyman found himself able to do something that he had long and earnestly wished, to let out some allotments to laborers. Banks obtained one immediately; a quarter of an acre of good land, at a rent of ten shillings a year. The benefit of this is very great. He is still strong enough to cultivate it well; and, by his knowledge, as well as his industry, makes it admirably productive. In the midst of this little brightening of his prospects, there is one overshadowing fear which it sickens the heart to hear of; it happened that, by an accident which need not be detailed, the fact got into print that one of the sons at a distance had sent some money to his old father. The family were immediately in terror lest the employer should hear of it, and should turn off his old servant on the plea that he had other means of subsistence than his labor. It is not credible that such a thing should be done in the face of society. It is not credible that any one should desire to do such a thing. But that the fear should exist is mournful enough, and tells a significant tale; a tale too significant to need to be spoken out.

Banks is, as we have said a silent man. He does not pour out his heart in speech, as some of us do who have much less in our hearts than he. And there is surely no need. We want no prompting from him to feel that wrong must exist somewhere when a glorious integrity, a dignified virtue like his, has been allied with sinking fortunes through life, and has no prospect of repose but in the grave.

JANE ECCLES; OR, CONFESSIONS OF AN ATTORNEY

The criminal business of the office was, during the first three or four years of our partnership, entirely superintended by Mr. Flint; he being more au fait, from early practice, than myself in the art and mystery of prosecuting and defending felons, and I was thus happily relieved of duties which, in the days when George III. was king, were frequently very oppressive and revolting. The criminal practitioner dwelt in an atmosphere tainted alike with cruelty and crime, and pulsating alternately with merciless decrees of death, and the shrieks and wailings of sentenced guilt. And not always guilt! There exist many records of proofs, incontestable, but obtained too late, of innocence having been legally strangled on the gallows in other cases than that of Eliza Fenning. How could it be otherwise with a criminal code crowded in every line with penalties of death, nothing but – death? Juster, wiser times have dawned upon us, in which truer notions prevail of what man owes to man, even when sitting in judgment on transgressors; and this we owe, let us not forget, to the exertions of a band of men who, undeterred by the sneers of the reputedly wise and practical men of the world, and the taunts of "influential" newspapers, persisted in teaching that the rights of property could be more firmly cemented than by the shedding of blood – law, justice, personal security more effectually vindicated than by the gallows. Let me confess that I also was, for many years, among the mockers, and sincerely held such "theorists" and "dreamers" as Sir Samuel Romilly and his fellow-workers in utter contempt. Not so my partner Mr. Flint. Constantly in the presence of criminal judges and juries, he had less confidence in the unerring verity of their decisions than persons less familiar with them, or who see them only through the medium of newspapers. Nothing could exceed his distress of mind if, in cases in which he was prosecuting attorney, a convict died persisting in his innocence, or without a full confession of guilt. And to such a pitch did this morbidly-sensitive feeling at length arrive, that he all at once refused to undertake, or in any way meddle with, criminal prosecutions, and they were consequently turned over to our head clerk, with occasional assistance from me if there happened to be a press of business of the sort. Mr. Flint still, however, retained a monopoly of the defenses, except when, from some temporary cause or other, he happened to be otherwise engaged, when they fell to me. One of these I am about to relate, the result of which, whatever other impression it produced, thoroughly cured me – as it may the reader – of any propensity to sneer or laugh at criminal-law reformers and denouncers of the gallows.

One forenoon, during the absence of Mr. Flint in Wiltshire, a Mrs. Margaret Davies called at the office, in apparently great distress of mind. This lady, I must premise, was an old, or at all events an elderly maiden, of some four-and-forty years of age – I have heard a very intimate female friend of hers say she would never see fifty again, but this was spite – and possessed of considerable house property in rather poor localities. She found abundant employment for energies which might otherwise have turned to cards and scandal, in collecting her weekly, monthly, and quarterly rents, and in promoting, or fancying she did, the religious and moral welfare of her tenants. Very barefaced, I well knew, were the impositions practiced upon her credulous good-nature in money matters, and I strongly suspected the spiritual and moral promises and performances of her motley tenantry exhibited as much discrepancy as those pertaining to rent. Still, deceived or cheated as she might be, good Mrs. Davies never wearied in what she conceived to be well-doing, and was ever ready to pour balm and oil into the wounds of the sufferer, however self-inflicted or deserved.

"What is the matter now?" I asked as soon as the good lady was seated, and had untied and loosened her bonnet, and thrown back her shawl, fast walking having heated her prodigiously. "Nothing worse than transportation is, I hope, likely to befall any of those interesting clients of yours?"

"You are a hard-hearted man, Mr. Sharp," replied Mrs. Davies between a smile and a cry; "but being a lawyer, that is of course natural, and, as I am not here to consult you as a Christian, of no consequence."

"Complimentary, Mrs. Davies; but pray go on."

"You know Jane Eccles, one of my tenants in Bank Buildings: the embroidress who adopted her sister's orphan child?"

"I remember her name. She obtained, if I recollect rightly, a balance of wages for her due to the child's father, a mate, who died at sea. Well, what has befallen her?"

"A terrible accusation has been preferred against her," rejoined Mrs. Davies; "but as for a moment believing it, that is quite out of the question. Jane Eccles," continued the warm-hearted lady, at the same time extracting a crumpled newspaper from the miscellaneous contents of her reticule – "Jane Eccles works hard from morning till night, keeps herself to herself; her little nephew and her rooms are always as clean and nice as a new pin; she attends church regularly; and pays her rent punctually to the day. This disgraceful story, therefore," she added, placing the journal in my hands, "can not be true."

I glanced over the police news: "Uttering forged Bank-of-England notes, knowing them to be forged," I exclaimed, "The devil!"

"There's no occasion to be spurting that name out so loudly, Mr. Sharp," said Mrs. Davies with some asperity, "especially in a lawyer's office. People have been wrongfully accused before to-day, I suppose?"

I was intent on the report, and not answering, she continued, "I heard nothing of it till I read the shameful account in the paper half an hour agone. The poor slandered girl was, I daresay, afraid or ashamed to send for me."

"This appears to be a very bad case, Mrs. Davies," I said at length. "Three forged ten-pound notes changed in one day at different shops each time, under the pretense of purchasing articles of small amount, and another ten-pound note found in her pocket! All that has, I must say, a very ugly look."

"I don't care," exclaimed Mrs. Davies, quite fiercely, "if it looks as ugly as sin, or if the whole Bank of England was found in her pocket! I know Jane Eccles well: she nursed me last spring through the fever; and I would be upon my oath that the whole story, from beginning to end, is an invention of the devil, or something worse!"

"Jane Eccles," I persisted, "appears to have been unable or unwilling to give the slightest explanation as to how she became possessed of the spurious notes. Who is this brother of hers, 'of such highly-respectable appearance,' according to the report, who was permitted a private interview with her previous to the examination?"

"She has no brother that I have ever heard of," said Mrs. Davies. "It must be a mistake of the papers."

"That is not likely. You observed, of course, that she was fully committed – and no wonder!"

Mrs. Davies's faith in the young woman's integrity was not to be shaken by any evidence save that of her own bodily eyes, and I agreed to see Jane Eccles on the morrow, and make the best arrangements for the defense – at Mrs. Davies's charge – which the circumstances and the short time I should have for preparation – the Old Bailey session would be on in a few days – permitted. The matter so far settled, Mrs. Margaret hurried off to see what had become of little Henry, the prisoner's nephew.

I visited Jane Eccles the next day in Newgate. She was a well-grown young woman of about two or three-and-twenty – not exactly pretty, perhaps, but very well-looking. Her brown hair was plainly worn, without a cap, and the expression of her face was, I thought, one of sweetness and humility, contradicted in some degree by rather harsh lines about the mouth, denoting strong will and purpose. As a proof of the existence of this last characteristic, I may here mention that when her first overweening confidence had yielded to doubt, she, although dotingly-fond of her nephew, at this time about eight years of age, firmly refused to see him, "in order," she once said to me, and the thought brought a deadly pallor to her face – "in order that, should the worst befall, her memory might not be involuntarily connected in his mind with images of dungeons, and disgrace, and shame." Jane Eccles had received what is called in the country "a good schooling," and the books Mrs. Davies had lent her she had eagerly perused. She was, therefore, to a certain extent, a cultivated person; and her speech and manners were mild, gentle, and, so to speak, religious. I generally found, when I visited her, a Bible or prayer-book in her hand. This, however, from my experience, comparatively slight though it was, did not much impress me in her favor – devotional sentiment, so easily, for a brief time, assumed, being, in nine such cases out of ten, a hypocritical deceit. Still she, upon the whole, made a decidedly favorable impression on me, and I no longer so much wondered at the bigotry of unbelief manifested by Mrs. Davies in behalf of her apparently amiable and grateful protégée.

But beyond the moral doubt thus suggested of the prisoner's guilt, my interviews with her utterly failed to extract any thing from her in rebutment of the charge upon which she was about to be arraigned. At first she persisted in asserting that the prosecution was based upon manifest error; that the impounded notes, instead of being forged, were genuine Bank-of-England paper. It was some time before I succeeded in convincing her that this hope, to which she so eagerly, desperately clung, was a fallacious one. I did so at last; and either, thought I, as I marked her varying color and faltering voice, "either you are a consummate actress, or else the victim of some frightful delusion or conspiracy."

"I will see you, if you please, to-morrow," she said, looking up from the chair upon which, with her head bowed and her face covered with her hands, she had been seated for several minutes in silence. "My thoughts are confused now, but to-morrow I shall be more composed; better able to decide if – to talk, I mean, of this unhappy business."

I thought it better to comply without remonstrance, and at once took my leave.

When I returned the next afternoon, the governor of the prison informed me that the brother of my client, James Eccles, quite a dashing gentleman, had had a long interview with her. He had left about two hours before, with the intention, he said, of calling upon me.

I was conducted to the room where my conferences with the prisoner usually took place. In a few minutes she appeared, much flushed and excited, it seemed to be alternately with trembling joy, and hope, and doubt, and nervous fear.

"Well," I said, "I trust you are now ready to give me your unreserved confidence, without which, be assured, that any reasonable hope of a successful issue from the peril in which you are involved is out of the question."

The varying emotions I have noticed were clearly traceable as they swept over her telltale countenance during the minute or so that elapsed before she spoke.

"Tell me candidly, sir," she said at last, "whether, if I owned to you that the notes were given to me by a – a person, whom I can not, if I would, produce, to purchase various articles at different shops, and return him – the person I mean – the change; and that I made oath this was done by me in all innocence of heart, as the God of heaven and earth truly knows it was, it would avail me?"

"Not in the least," I replied, angry at such trifling. "How can you ask such a question? We must find the person who, you intimate, has deceived you, and placed your life in peril; and if that can be proved, hang him instead of you. I speak plainly, Miss Eccles," I added, in a milder tone; "perhaps you may think unfeelingly, but there is no further time for playing with this dangerous matter. To-morrow a true-bill will be found against you, and your trial may then come on immediately. If you are careless for yourself, you ought to have some thought for the sufferings of your excellent friend Mrs. Davies; for your nephew, soon, perhaps, to be left friendless and destitute."

"Oh, spare me – spare me!" sobbed the unhappy young woman, sinking nervelessly into a seat. "Have pity upon me, wretched, bewildered as I am!" Tears relieved her; and, after a while, she said: "It is useless, sir, to prolong this interview. I could not, I solemnly assure you, if I would, tell you where to search for, or find the person of whom I spoke. And," she added, while the lines about her mouth of which I have spoken grew distinct and rigid, "I would not, if I could. What, indeed, would it, as I have been told and believe, avail, but to cause the death of two deceived, innocent persons, instead of one? Besides," she continued, trying to speak with firmness, and repress the shudder which crept over and shook her as with ague – "besides, whatever the verdict, the penalty will not, can not, I am sure, I know, be – be – "

I understood her plainly enough, although her resolution failed to sustain her through the sentence.

"Who is this brother, James Eccles he calls himself, whom you saw at the police-office, and who has twice been here, I understand – once to-day?"

A quick start revealed the emotion with which she heard the question, and her dilated eyes rested upon me for a moment with eager scrutiny. She speedily recovered her presence of mind, and, with her eyes again fixed on the floor, said, in a quivering voice: "My brother! Yes – as you say – my brother!"

"Mrs. Davies says you have no brother!" I sharply rejoined.

"Good Mrs. Davies," she replied, in a tone scarcely above a whisper, and without raising her head, "does not know all our family."

A subterfuge was, I was confident, concealed in these words; but after again and again urging her to confide in me, and finding warning and persuasion alike useless, I withdrew discomfited and angry; and withal as much concerned and grieved as baffled and indignant. On going out, I arranged with the governor that the "brother," if he again made his appearance, should be detained bongrè malgrè, till my arrival. Our precaution was too late: he did not reappear; and so little notice had any one taken of his person, that to advertise a description of him with a reward for his apprehension was hopeless.

A true bill was found, and two hours afterward Jane Eccles was placed in the dock. The trial did not last more than twenty minutes, at the end of which, an unhesitating verdict of guilty was returned, and she was duly sentenced to be hanged by the neck till she was dead. We had retained the ablest counsel practicing in the court, but, with no tangible defense, their efforts were merely thrown away. Upon being asked what she had to say why the sentence of the law should not be carried into effect, she repeated her previous statement – that the notes had been given her to change by a person in whom she reposed the utmost confidence; and that she had not the slightest thought of evil or fraud in what she did. That person, however, she repeated once more, could not be produced. Her assertions only excited a derisive smile; and all necessary forms having been gone through, she was removed from the bar.