Part 21

“Somewhere about a hundred years ago (but in which of our good kings’ reigns, or in which of our sea-coast counties, is needless to be known) there stood, quite by itself, in a parish called Milverstoke, a cottage of the better sort, which no one could have seen, some few years before that in which it is presented to our notice, without its suggesting to him that he was looking at a cottage quite of the old English kind. It was most snug in winter, and in summer very beautiful; glistening, as then it did, in all its fragrant loveliness of jessamine, honeysuckle, and sweet-brier. There, also, stood a bee-hive, in the centre of the garden, which, stretching down to the road-side, was so filled with flowers, especially roses, that nothing whatever could be seen of the ground in which they grew; wherefore it might well be that the busy little personages who occupied the tiny mansion so situated, conceived that the lines had fallen to them in very pleasant places indeed. The cottage was built very substantially, though originally somewhat rudely, and principally of sea-shore stones. It had a thick thatched roof, and the walls were low. In front there were only two windows, with diamond-shaped panes, one above another, the former much larger than the latter, the one belonging to _the_ room of the building, the other to what might be called the chief bed-room; for there were three little dormitories—two being small, and at the back of the cottage. Close behind, and somewhat to the left, stood an elm-tree, its trunk completely covered with ivy; and so effectually sheltering the cottage, and otherwise so materially contributing to its snug, picturesque appearance, that there could be little doubt of the tree’s having reached its maturity before there was any such structure for it to grace and protect. Beside this tree was a wicket, by which was entered a little slip of ground, half garden and half orchard. All the foregoing formed the remnant of a little freehold property, which had belonged to its present owner and to his family before him, for several generations. The initial letter (A) of their name, Ayliffe, was rudely cut in old English character in a piece of stone forming a sort of centre facing over the doorway; and no one then living there knew when that letter had been cut.”

Such is the scene, and such the small house, in and from which the events evolve, that form the solemn and instructive narrative. The owner of the cot, the foremost though the humblest personage in the drama, was once a substantial, but is now a reduced yeoman, well stricken in years, being, at the opening of the story, close upon his sixty-eighth year.

“The crown of his head was bald, and very finely formed; and the little hair that he had left was of a silvery colour, verging on white. His countenance and figure were very striking to an observant beholder, who would have said at once, ‘That man is of a firm and upright character, and has seen trouble,’—all which was indeed distinctly written in his open Saxon features. His eye was of a clear blue, and steadfast in its gaze; and when he spoke, it was with a certain quaintness, which seemed in keeping with his simple and stern character. All who had ever known Ayliffe entertained for him a deep respect. He was of a very independent spirit, somewhat taciturn, and of a retiring, contemplative humour. His life was utterly blameless, regulated throughout by the purifying and elevating influence of Christianity. The excellent vicar of the parish in which he lived reverenced him, holding him up as a pattern, and pointing him out as one of whom it might be humbly said, _Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile_. Yet the last few years of his life had been passed in great trouble. Ten years before had occurred, in the loss of his wife, who had been every way worthy of him, the first great sorrow of his life. After twenty years spent together in happiness greater than tongue could tell, it had pleased God, who had given her to him, to take her away—suddenly, indeed, but very gently. He woke one morning, when she woke not, but lay sweetly sleeping the sleep of death. His _Sarah_ was gone, and thenceforth his great hope was to follow her, and be with her again. His spirit was stunned for a while, but murmured not; saying, with resignation, ‘The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.’ A year or two afterwards occurred to him a second trouble, great, but of a different kind. He was suddenly reduced almost to beggary. To enable the son of an old deceased friend to become a collector of public rates in an adjoining county, Ayliffe had unsuspiciously become his surety. The man, however, for whom he had done this service, fell soon afterwards into intemperate and dissolute habits; dishonesty, as usual, soon followed; and poor Ayliffe was horrified one evening by being called upon, his principal having absconded, a great defaulter, to contribute to repair the deficiency, to the full extent of his bond.”

Ayliffe’s property was sacrificed at a blow. At the time of entering into his engagement, he was the freehold owner of some forty or fifty acres of ground, and the master of some sums of money advanced upon mortgage to a neighbour. Much of this went immediately. Nor was this calamity his only one. He had a son, another Adam Ayliffe. Ayliffe the younger was betrothed, at this period of accumulated misfortune, to a young girl, who jilted him in the time of the family poverty. The blow fell upon the young and proud-hearted yeoman, as such blows will fall upon those in whose retired course a first affection comes as an abiding blessing, or an utter curse. A visible change took place both in his character and demeanour after the disappointment. First love in the younger Ayliffe’s case was the curse and not the blessing. All went wrong with the family from this hour. Adam finally married, it is true, a maiden residing with Mr Hylton, the vicar of Milverstoke, but the union, though one of unquestionable affection, yielded no earthly happiness. After the loss of worldly goods, Adam, and his son betook themselves to labour for their subsistence. The father became a hireling, much to the affliction of his son, but not to his own sorrow, for he “heartily thanked God for the strength that still remained to him, and for the opportunity of profitably exerting that strength.” Father, son, and daughter, still resided in the cottage, being its sole occupants. A year and a half of severe and constant exertion in the ordinary out-of-door operations of farming, and old Adam gave way. The spirit was more willing than the flesh. The younger Ayliffe laboured then for the livelihood of all, and another was added to the group, in the shape of an infant son, born about a year after the marriage of his parents, at the peril of its mother’s life.

At this stage of the history, the remnant of old Ayliffe’s land is demanded in the way of purchase by the agent of the Earl of Milverstoke, (whose principal country residence is within a short distance of the cottage,) and steadily refused by the owners. The old man assured Mr Oxley that it would break his heart to be separated for ever from the property of his fathers, to see their residence pulled down, and all trace of it destroyed; but Mr Oxley’s appetite for the property was only whetted by the reluctance of its insignificant proprietor.

“‘Be not a fool, Adam Ayliffe,’ [said Mr Oxley, during one of his frequent visits to the cottage on the subject of this purchase;] ‘know your interest and duty better. Depend upon it, I will not throw all this my trouble away, nor shall my Lord be disappointed. Listen, therefore, once for all, to reason, and take what is offered, which is princely, and be thankful!’

“‘Well, well,’ said Ayliffe, ‘it seems that I cannot say that which will suit you, Mr Oxley. Yet once more will I try, and with words that perhaps may reach the ear that mine cannot. Will you hear me?’

“‘Ay, I will hear, sure enough, friend Adam,’ said Mr Oxley, curiously; on which Ayliffe took down a large old brass-bound book, and, opening it on his lap, read with deliberate emphasis as follows:——

“‘Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.

“‘And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.

“‘And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.’

“When he had read these last words Ayliffe closed the Bible, and gazed at Mr Oxley in silence. For a moment the latter seemed somewhat staggered by what he saw and what he had heard; but at length—‘Oh, ho, Adam! do you make your Bible speak for you in business?’ said he, in a tone of rude jocularity. ‘Well, I shall wish you good day for some little while, it may be, and good luck to you here. It is somewhat of a bit of a place,’ he continued as he drew on his gloves, glancing, at the same time, contemptuously round the little room, ‘to set such store by; but be patient—be patient, Adam; there is one somewhat larger that will be ready for you by-and-bye——’

“This insulting allusion to the workhouse or the county jail old Ayliffe received in dignified silence. Not so his son, who, rising with ominous calmness from the chair on which he had for some time been sitting, as it were, on thorns, and silent only out of habitual deference to his father, approached Mr Oxley in two strides, seized him by the collar with the hand of a giant, and, before his astonished father could interpose, had dragged Mr Oxley to the doorway, near which he had been standing, and with a single jerk flung him out into the open air with a violence which sent him staggering several yards, till he fell down at full length on the ground.

“‘Adam, Adam! what have you done!’ commenced his father, approaching his son with an astounded air.

“‘Nay, never mind _me_, father,’ muttered his son vehemently, standing with arms akimbo, and watching Mr Oxley with eyes flashing fury. ‘There, Master Oxley; show never here again that wizened face of yours, or worse may happen. Away! Back to the Castle, and tell him that sent you here what you have received! Off! out into the road,’ he added, raising his voice, and moving furiously towards Mr Oxley, who precipitately quitted the garden, ‘or I’ll teach you to speak of the workhouse again! See that _the dogs lick not_——’

“‘Adam! I charge you hold your peace!’ said the old man, loudly and authoritatively, and advancing towards Mr Oxley, who, however, having, after muttering a few words to himself, and glancing furiously at young Ayliffe, hastily mounted his horse, which had been standing fastened at the gate, had already galloped out of hearing; and about that time in the ensuing day had contrived, during an interview on business with the Earl, to intimate, as if casually only, that the Ayliffes, who owned the roadside cottage, had received the liberal overtures made by Mr Oxley on his lordship’s behalf, with expressions of coarse disrespect, and even malignant hostility. Not a syllable breathed Mr Oxley of the treatment which he had received at the hands of young Ayliffe; nor did he deem it expedient, for reasons of his own, to summon his assailant to answer before the magistrates for what he had done.”

Ayliffe heard no more of Mr Oxley, but his trials sadly increased from the hour of that gentleman’s violent departure from his humble roof. The poor remnant of his patrimonial estate had dwindled down to the cottage and the slip of ground attached to it. Young Ayliffe continued to work from morning till night like any slave in the plantations; but his industry yielded small result. In addition to the other misfortunes, the infant member of this luckless household, feeble from its birth, and likely to be reared with difficulty, became, by an accident, maimed for life. The black cloud had fairly settled over the habitation.

Sarah, the wife, was about to give birth to another child, when misery appeared to have reached its climax. The once comely furniture had been disposed of by degrees to purchase necessary food; and nothing but horror stared the unfortunates in the face, when an accident took place which gave the final touch to a dismal history that appeared already complete.

“Young Ayliffe, with heavy thoughts in his mind, burthening and depressing it, went one day to his work at a farmer’s at some distance from Milverstoke, having only one companion the whole day long: but that companion appearing good-natured and communicative, the frank young Ayliffe could not refrain from talking about that which was uppermost in his thoughts—the feeble condition of his wife, and her doctor’s constant recommendation of nourishing food. ‘And why don’t you get it, if you care for her?’ inquired his companion with a surprised air, resting for a moment from his work.

“‘Surely,’ quoth poor Ayliffe, ‘you should ask me why I do not get one of the stars out of the sky. Is meat to be picked up in the high road?’

“‘No; not in the high road,’ said the other, drily, ‘but there’s dainty eating for the sick and the gentle to be had—elsewhere.’

“In plain English, Ayliffe’s new friend pointed at game; speaking most temptingly of hare, above all other sorts of game, as a dainty dish, whether roast or stewed, for those that were sick and delicate; and assured Ayliffe that his (the speaker’s) wife had lived secretly on hare all through _her_ time of trouble, and had never in her life thriven so well; for naught was so nourishing as hare’s flesh. Poor Ayliffe listened to this with but too willing an ear, though it went clean contrary to all his own notions, and those which he knew to be entertained by his father. He resisted but very faintly the arguments of his new friend; who indeed fairly staggered Ayliffe, by asking him whether he thought that he did wrong if he caught a hedgehog, a weasel, or a snake, in the field or hedge of another; and if not, why was it different with a hare? Much conversation had they of this sort, in the course of which poor Ayliffe, in the frank simplicity of his nature, gave such a moving picture of his wife’s necessities, as greatly interested his companion; who said that he happened to have by him a very fine hare that had been given him by a neighbouring squire, and which was greatly at Ayliffe’s service. After much hesitation he, with many thanks, accepted the gift; and, accompanying his new friend to his cottage, received into his possession the promised hare, (a finer one certainly was hardly to be seen,) and made his way home with his perilous present, under cover of the thickening shades of night. What horrid misgivings he had, as he went along! How often he resolved either to return the hare to the giver, or fling it over the hedge, as he passed! For he was aware of his danger: there being no part of England where game was more strictly preserved, more closely looked after, or poachers more severely punished, than at Milverstoke. But he thought of his wife—of the relish with which she must partake of this hare; and by the inspiriting aid of thoughts such as these, he nerved himself to encounter her suspicions, and his father’s rebuke and reproaches.”

That rebuke and those reproaches he encountered. Happy had he been had he encountered nothing worse! The hare was rejected by the upright father, but the rejection did not save the son. He had been entrapped into accepting the gift by one who had sent a companion to watch him home, and who, in order to obtain half the penalty, forthwith informed against the unfortunate receiver. The receiver was fined, but Mr Hylton, the vicar, paid the sum required, and released him from his trouble.

Whilst matters are looking so black at the cottage, there is joyousness enough at the neighbouring castle. The season is Christmas, and Viscount Alkmond, the only son and heir of the Earl of Milverstoke, has arrived at the castle to pass the Christmas holidays. Here is the castle and its owner.

“Milverstoke Castle, to which its next lordly possessor was then on his way, was a truly magnificent structure, worthy of its superb situation, which was on the slope of a great forest, stretching down to the sea-shore. Seen from the sea, especially by moonlight, it had a most imposing and picturesque appearance; but from no part of the surrounding land was it visible at all, owing to the great extent of woodland in which it was embosomed. The Earl of Milverstoke, then lord of that stately residence, had a personal appearance and bearing which might be imagined somewhat in unison with its leading characteristics. He was tall, thin, and erect; his manner was composed, his countenance refined and intellectual, and his features comely; his hair had been for some years changed from jet-black into iron-gray. His bearing was lofty, sometimes even to repulsiveness; his temper and spirit haughty and self-reliant. Opposition to his will, equally in great or small things, rendered that arbitrary will inflexible, whatever might be the consequence or sacrifice; for he gave himself credit for never acting from impulse, but always from superior discretion and deliberation. He was a man of powerful intellect, extensive knowledge, and admirably fitted for public affairs,—in which, indeed, he had borne a conspicuous part, till his imperious and exacting temper had rendered him intolerable to his colleagues, and objectionable even to his sovereign, from whose service he had _retired_, to use a courteous word, in disdainful disgust, some five years before being presented to the reader. He possessed a vast fortune, and two or three princely residences in various parts of the kingdom. Of these Milverstoke was the principal; and its stern solitude suiting his gloomy humour, he had betaken himself to it on quitting public life. He had been a widower for many years, and, since becoming such, had become alienated from the distinguished family of his late countess; whose ardent and sensitive disposition they believed to have been utterly crushed by the iron despotism of an unfeeling and domineering husband. Whatever foundation there might have been for this supposition, it contributed to imbitter the feelings of the Earl, and strengthen a tendency to misanthropy. Still his character had fine features. He was most munificent; the very soul of honour; a perfect gentleman; and of irreproachable morals. He professed a firm belief in Christianity, and was exemplary in the discharge of what he considered to be the duties which it imposed upon him. He would listen to the inculcation of the Christian virtues of humility, gentleness, and forgiveness of injury, with a kind of stern complacency; unaware, all the while, that they no more existed within himself, than fire could be elicited from the sculptured marble. Most of his day-time he spent in his library, or in solitary drives, or walks along the sea-shore or in the country. Unfortunately, he took no personal part, nor felt any personal interest in the management of his vast revenues and extensive private affairs; intrusting them, as has been already intimated, implicitly to others. When he rode through the village, which lay sheltered near the confines of the woodland in which his castle was situated, he appeared to have no interest in it or its inhabitants, though nearly all of them were his own tenantry. His agent, Mr Oxley, was their real master.

“Mr Hylton was one of his lordship’s occasional chaplains, but by no means on intimate terms with him; for that the vicar’s firm independent character unfitting him. While he acknowledged the commanding talents of the Earl, his lordship was, on his part, fully aware of Mr Hylton’s strong intellect, superior scholarship, and the pure and lofty spirit in which he devoted himself to his spiritual duties. The good vicar of Milverstoke knew not what was meant by the fear of man—and that his stately parishioner had had many opportunities of observing; and, in short, Mr Hylton was a much less frequent visitor at the Castle than might might have been supposed, and was at least warranted, by his position and proximity.

“Possibly some of the Earl’s frigid reserve towards him was occasioned by the cordial terms of intimacy which had existed between him and the late Countess—an excellent personage, who, living in comparative retirement at Milverstoke, while her lord was immersed in political life, had consulted Mr Hylton constantly on the early education of her two children. The Earl had married late in life, being nearly twenty years older than his Countess, who had brought him one son and one daughter. The former partook largely of his father’s character, but in a somewhat mitigated form; he was quicker in taking offence than his father, but had not his implacability. If he should succeed to that father’s titles and estates, he would be the first instance of such direct succession for nine generations, the Earl himself having been the third son of a second son. The family was of high antiquity, and its noble blood had several times intermingled with that of royalty.”

On one of the more advanced days of the Christmas week, we are told there took place a kind of military banquet at the Castle, in compliment to the officers of a dragoon regiment, one of whose out-quarters was at the barracks at some two miles distance. Lord Alkmond was present at this banquet. During its progress his lordship quitted the company to stroll in the woods—wherefore none knew; but during his evening walk he was barbarously murdered. Young Ayliffe, under fearfully suspicious circumstances, is arrested for the crime. He had been discovered near the body—his sleeves were covered with blood—he had been hunted and tracked to his home. The cup of misery was full.

A coroner’s inquest is held—a verdict of wilful murder returned against Adam Ayliffe, who is formally committed by the magistrate. He is held in custody, and must await his trial. He is _not_ guilty. The reader feels it in spite of the damning evidence that will be brought against the accused on the day of his solemn trial: the father is aware of it, and sustains his manly soul with the consciousness, dreadful as may be the unjust and as yet unspoken sentence. Old Adam has gone to his child in prison. Behold the miserable pair! Listen to the pathetic appeal.

“They were allowed to be alone for a short time, the doctor and nurse of the prison being within call, if need might be. The prisoner gently raised his father’s cold hand to his lips and kissed it, and neither spoke for a few minutes; at length——