Part 3

It used to be thought that a comet presaged war, that its tail tickled all the elements of irritation in the world and sent nations and kingdoms flying at one another. But this human comet, Mary Trembath, revolving in her elliptical orbits through the country, left peace and goodwill after her. She was an inveterate gossip, a chatterbox. She loved, when she had sold a paper of pins or a knot of tape, to sit and have a dish of tea and a bit of cake and talk, but never, so far as I am aware, did evil spring from what she said; on the contrary, she left those she had been with better disposed towards one another than they had been before.

A somewhat singular instance of this occurs to my memory.

There were two old ladies, spinsters both, who lived within a mile and a half of each other. One was the housekeeper to her brother, a farmer, who was a widower, and the other resided in a pleasant cottage of her own, surrounded by trees, smothered in laurels and snowberries that cut off sun and air, and made garden and house smell of mildew and moth. Now this old lady had a sharp tongue and a lively imagination, and had the credit of being a mischief-maker.

All at once a tremendous feud broke out between these spinsters. It involved more than themselves, their relations, their acquaintances also, in the village. Miss Spindle had said something very nasty and galling of Miss Shank that was absolutely untrue, but so injurious that Miss Shank vowed she would have the law of her.

Hearing of this, and finding the entire village agitated by the controversy, I tried to discover the truth—whether Miss Spindle really had spoken such cruel things of Miss Shank. I tracked the story from one to another, and found that gradually every objectionable expression and statement fell off _en route_ as an assertion, and that what had actually been said was entirely harmless, for it was not said of Miss Shank at all, but of the shank-bone of mutton on which Miss Spindle had been making her meal. In fact, all this good lady had said was, that the shank had been served so often that it was becoming high and discoloured, and had best be hashed. Out of this a mountain of malignant insinuation and defamatory assertion had been evolved.

When I had got to the bottom of the story, I rushed off to Miss Shank to explain that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and ought to be put aside, and peace made. But the lady was furious; she turned on me as a mischief-maker and a meddlesome person for having dared to interfere. She knew that what Miss Spindle meant was to cast slurs at her, and she employed the mutton-bone as a subterfuge so as to avoid prosecution. There it was, worse than ever. I was out with one. I went to Miss Spindle. She was exasperated because Miss Shank had dared to believe that what she had spoken about the mutton applied to her, and she broke into a torrent of abuse of me for interfering in the matter.

There it was; I was out with the other.

As I retired disconsolately, I ran across Mary Trembath, and somehow, for my heart was full, I told her of my ill success.

“Leave it to me,” said Mary.

What was my amazement next Sunday to see Miss Spindle and Miss Shank embracing in the churchyard after service, and walking off arm-in-arm and chatting affectionately together!

How had this transformation in the women, this change in the situation, been brought about? Only with difficulty did I get at the bottom of it. Mary, whilst selling a hank of coloured wool to Miss Spindle, had contrived to hint to her that Farmer Shank, the widower, was terribly concerned over the quarrel, as he was actually much enamoured of the fair spinster who lived in the bower of laurels.

Then, Mary Trembath had gone to the farm of the Shanks, and had let out in confidence that Miss Spindle’s conscience so pained her over the mischief done, that she was sending for the lawyer to alter her will and make over Laurel Cottage and her few hundreds in the Three per Cents. to the woman she had so grievously injured.

When I learned this, I thought I would have it out with Mary. She pulled a face as I reproached her.

“Please, sir, I didn’t say it was so; I merely hinted such a thing might be. They jumped at the conclusion, and turned what might be into it is so.”

“But, Mary, it was not true.”

“How do you know that, sir?—all things are possible.”

That was Mary Trembath’s secret way of making smooth water wherever she went. She was not a deliberate liar, even for a good purpose; but she managed somehow to create impressions that served to bring quarrels to an end, to make people once indifferent to each other become fast friends, and to dispel pretty nearly every cloud that hung over a parish in which she peddled.

And now you will see how it is that, as I said, she provided me with a problem only a casuist can solve. Of course, it is never right to speak an untruth even for a good end. Mary was too conscientious to say straight out what was false, but she had a clever, subtle manner of bewildering people through her hints and suggestions, till she induced them to deceive themselves, and that always with a good object in view.

She was a peacemaker, eminently a peacemaker, but was she justified in the method she employed to make peace?

THE OLD POST-BOY

THE OLD POST-BOY

One of the most characteristic and interesting features of old English life has passed away beyond recall—the post-boy. Whatever his age he was always a boy, for he always wore the short jacket. His _confrère_ the postillion has lasted on somewhat longer on the Continent, but he also is nearly gone. He was a picturesque feature, very different from the dapper English post-boy.

The latter figures in most old English romances. He took a part in all elopements, and was concerned in the conveyance of Queen’s Messengers with despatches; he was suspected of affording information to and furnishing opportunities for highwaymen.

Who does not remember the flight of Jingle with Miss Rachel, in “Pickwick,” and the pursuit by Mr. Wardle and Mr. Pickwick?

But the post-boy has taken more than a subsidiary part in a story, he is the hero in Smollett’s “Humphry Clinker,” and he figures as a leading part in the opera of “Le Postillon de Longjumeau.” His place now knows him no more. He is as extinct an animal as the dodo or the great auk.

The last I knew was fallen from his old estate—a slim, grey-haired man, who drove a hired carriage, but no longer mounted one of a pair of post-horses. At weddings the post-boy made his final appearance, with a white beaver hat, a yellow jacket and white breeches and top-boots, a showy individual, and poor old George Spurle, whom I knew, had appeared in his proper character on many such occasions before leaving the saddle altogether to mount the box. His jacket was of a buttercup yellow, but other colours were indulged in by these servants of the public. Humphry Clinker wore “a narrow-brimmed hat with gold cording, a cut bob [wig], a decent blue jacket, leather breeches, and a clean linen shirt, puffed above the waistband.”

Old George, like every other post-boy I have known, loved his horses. In his old age he loved them too well, spared them so much as to annoy those whom he was conveying, and who proved impatient at his walking them up the least hill, and at his frequent dismounting to ease his brute.

There was a grey mare he was specially fond of, and one night the grey got her halter twisted about her neck and was found strangled. George Spurle sat down and fairly cried. The landlord seeing him so cut up endeavoured to comfort him.

“George,” said he, “do not take on so. After all it is only a horse, and that an old one. If you had lost a wife, that would have been a different matter altogether, and there would have been some excuse for tears, but—a horse—” “Ah, maister,” replied the post-boy, “wives!—one has but to hold up the finger, and they’d come flying to you from all sides—more than you can accommodate; but an ’oss—and such a mare as this—booh!” and he burst into tears again. “Such a mare as this is not to be found again in a hurry.” When a little subdued, he explained himself: “You see, maister, ’osses cost money, good ’osses cost a power of money, but wimen wifes—they don’t cost you a ha’penny piece.”

George Spurle kept a list of all the great persons he had ridden before, and his list is before me as I write. Unhappily he has not dated his several stages, and his spelling makes his MS. sometimes hard to unravel.

For instance, “Druv the Duck of Dangle’em” apparently means le Duc d’Angoulême, and “the Count D. Parry” is le Comte de Paris. After a long list beginning with royalty, he winds up, “Members of the American legation and Van Amburgh’s lions and tigers in American vans. Lunatics and hospital patients with fractured limbs, gold bullion, convicts in vans, also naturalists and gaiests [_sic_] to be married, the junior of springs [_sic_] two months old and an aged person living ninety-four years, the oldest to the grave a hundred years and six months. Adventurers, photographers, explorers of Mont Blanck [_sic_] and Africa. Comercials [_sic_], astronomers and philosophers and popular auctioneers, Canadian rifles, American merchants, racehorses in vans with gold caps. Mackeral [_sic_] fish and several deans and bankers. Paupers to onions [_sic_], some idjots and Sir H. Seale Hayne Bart.”

The old post-boy was never married. Before the days of railways he was in constant request, but the whirligig of time brought about its changes that touched George Spurle to the quick, and thrust him from his seat.

He had begun life as a little urchin perched on the back of the waggon horse that had brought in the wheat at harvest, and this had so raised his ambition that nothing would content the child but becoming a post-boy. The scarlet of the Queen’s livery presented no attraction to him, nor the blue jacket of the navy. Nothing would do but the stable with the anticipation of wearing at some time the yellow jacket and white beaver. When not in the stable, he was to be found in the bar, where he told many a yarn. Here is one. “Gentlemen—I cannot tell you precisely the year, but it was at the very beginning of the century that there was a rather remarkable robbery of the mail, going from Exeter to Plymouth, near Haldon. A party of fellows with black over their faces sprang out of the bushes, and were all armed with pistols. They stayed the coach, and they got the letter-bags and carried them off. Now I was here—some fifteen miles away—and somehow I saw it all take place; I saw and counted the men—that is, in my dream, for I was sleepin’ in the little chamber over the stable; and I saw the men take the bags off to a quarry and there they ripped ’em open, and searched and took away some of the letters, and left the rest. I see’d it all distinct as daylight, though it took place in the night. Well, when I came down in the mornin’ and had washed at the pump, I went into the bar and I told Mary Foale about it; she was maid there then, and I was a bit sweet upon her. She laughed and thought nought on it. Then I went on and told the mistress of the inn, but, bless you! she gave no heed. Well—gentlemen, you may believe me or not, as you please; but it’s true enough, the mail had been robbed during the night, on Haldon, just as I had described, and we didn’t hear the news till the afternoon of the day—and I told all about it in the morning early. But that is not all. The mail-bags were not found for ten or twelve days, and they were in the old quarry just where I had seen the chaps cutting them open. That is a coorious story, ain’t it?”

“Indeed it is, George. It almost looks as if you had been riding that night and had been in it.”

“Ah! I’m not that sort of chap. Now there was a sequel to it.”

“What was that?”

“Why, a day or two arter I asked Mary Foale if she’d condescend to be Mrs. Spurle.”

“‘No thank y’, George,’ sez she; ‘you see too much to make it comfortable for me.’ And she didn’t take me, she took Jeremiah Ancker; and that just shows she didn’t see enough, for he turned out a drunken lout as whacked her.”

“Were you ever robbed on the road, George?”

“I’ve been stopped, but on that occasion things didn’t turn out as was intended.”

“How so?”

“I’ll just tell y’, gentlemen. There was some bullion to be sent up to London from India. It had been landed at Falmouth. Now the authorities had some suspicion, and so they didn’t send it the way as was intended. I had orders quite independent—I knowed nothing about it—to go to Chudleigh; I reckon there was a gentleman there as wanted me to drive him across the moors to Tavistock, and he knowed he could rely on me. He was to start early in the morning, so I drove in the direction in the evening before, with a close conveyance, as I knew there might be rough weather and rain next day going over the moors.

“I hadn’t got half-way when I was stopped by a man on horseback with his face blackened. He held a pistol and levelled it at my head; I had no mind to be shot, so I pulled up. In a rough voice he asked me who was in the chaise. ‘No one,’ said I. ‘But there is something,’ said he. ‘Nothing in the world but cushions,’ I replied. ‘Get down, you rascal,’ he ordered. ‘You hold my horse, whilst I search the chaise.’ ‘I’m at your service,’ said I, and I took his horse by the bridle, and as I passed my hand along I felt that there were saddle-bags. Well, that highwayman opened the chaise door and went in to overhaul everything. I had made up my mind what to do. So while he was thus engaged I undid the traces of my ’osses with one hand, holding the highwayman’s ’oss with the other.

“Presently he put his head out, and said, ‘There is nothing within—I must search behind.’ ‘Search where you will,’ said I, ‘you’ve plenty o’ time at your disposal.’ And so saying I leaped into his saddle. Then I shouted, ‘Gee up and along, Beauty and Jolly Boy!’ and struck spurs into the flanks of the horse, and away I galloped on his steed with my two chaise horses galloping after me; and we never stayed till we came to Chudleigh.”

“And the saddle-bags?”

“There was a lot of money in them—but there’s my luck. That fellow had robbed a serge-maker the same night, and this serge-maker came and claimed it all.”

“But you were handsomely rewarded?”

“He gave me a guinea and the highwayman’s ’oss, and that same ’oss is the old grey mare, gentlemen, as folks ha’ laughed at me for weeping over when she were hanged. Now it is a coorious sarcumstance that so far as I know that there highwayman went scot free to his grave, and the poor innocent grey were hanged.”

George Spurle lived to an advanced age, but he was one of those men whose age it is hard to determine: his face was always keen and his eye bright, he had a ruddy cheek, was always closely shaven, and his grey hair cut short. Till he died he drove a conveyance belonging to the inn; he could not be induced to drive the ’bus to the station. To that, “No, sir!” he said; “an old post-boy can’t go to that. There be stations and callin’s, and the station and callin’ of a post-boy is one thing, and the station and callin’ of a ’bus man is another. You can’t pass from the one to the other.”

He fell ill very suddenly and died almost before any one in the town—where he was well known—suspected that he was in danger.

But he had no doubt in his own mind that his sickness would end fatally, and he asked to see the landlady of the inn.

“Beg pardon, ma’am!” he said from his bed, touching his forelock, “very sorry I han’t shaved for two days and you should see me thus. But please, ma’am, if it’s no offence, be you wantin’ that there yellow jacket any more? It seems to me post-boys is gone out altogether.”

“No, George, I certainly do not want it.”

“Nor these?—you’ll understand me, ma’am, if I don’t mention ’em.”

“No, George; what can you require them for?”

“Nor that there old white beaver? I did my best, but it is a bit rubbed.”

“I certainly do not need it.”

“Thank y’, ma’am, then I make so bold might I be buried in ’em as the last of the old post-boys?”

AUNTIE

AUNTIE

No one would suppose that Auntie had once been pretty. Yet Mrs. Estcourt, the Squire’s wife, said that she was so at one time, and Mrs. Estcourt had known her from a girl and ought to be an authority.

No one without a moment’s thought would suppose that she had once been young. Of course, when you considered, you knew that in the order of nature young she must have been; but her entire appearance and cut of figure and dress seemed to proclaim that she had been born old, and had remained at a standstill whilst the world moved on.

She was short, carried little curls like beer barrels arranged on each side of her forehead, had mild benevolent eyes of no particular colour, wore an old-fashioned bonnet, and gowns still older in fashion, for they were leg-of-mutton sleeved.

When tight sleeves came in, Auntie continued to wear her old-fashioned full sleeves. “My dear,” she would say to one who objected that they were antiquated, “my dear, leg-o’-muttons will come in again.”

Come in they have, but after Auntie had closed her eyes and could not see her prediction verified. Her skirts, flounced and full, saw the crinoline come in and go out, saw the tight straight skirt, and saw fulness again become fashionable.

Auntie’s gowns were mostly of dark grey, but she had one for the evening of good silk that was silver-grey, and in that, at night, Auntie looked quite presentable. But Auntie rarely wore it. She could not dine out, as she had no carriage or conveyance of any sort, and the risk of marring her one silk evening dress, by going on foot in such an unsettled climate as is ours in England to the house where the festive board was spread, that was too serious to be undertaken. But she did, once, dine in it at the Hall, without having been fetched. Then she had hired a farmer’s butter-cart, that in which he sent some of the home produce to market. It was without springs, it was without seats, and it was _sans_ steps. The cob that drew it was white and ungroomed, brought in for the occasion from the field in which it lay and rolled. Auntie’s maid had put a chair in the cart and a chair beside the cart. By this means the old lady mounted into it, without the necessity of scrambling up the spokes of the wheel, or leaping on to the shaft, and thence somersaulting into the cart.

But this conveyance of two wheels so shook up Auntie internally that she had no appetite for her dinner, and no enjoyment of the social evening. Mrs. Estcourt, after that, sent the carriage for her, but Auntie could rarely be prevailed on to accept it. She was poor in pocket and large in heart, and she tipped the coachman on such occasions half-a-crown, and half-a-crown to Auntie was a sum of money that she could ill afford to miss.

No one in the parish, rich or poor, secular or clerical, thought of calling the old lady by other name than “Auntie,” yet was she aunt to no single person there, nor indeed remotely connected with any. Those who wished to be respectful called her Miss Jane, or Miss Auntie. Yet was there a tie, not of blood, that bound her to all and all to her, a tie even stronger than that of blood—the tie of infinite charity.

Never was there a woman with a kinder, more unselfish heart than old Auntie. Her mind was ever active, but occupied only with thought of others.

Unhappily we know by experience that this world of ours is full of selfishness, that among a hundred persons we meet, scarce one is not infected with this vice; nevertheless there is a salt of fresh unselfishness to be discovered. But among the many of these elect, the very crown and acme of all was, I verily believe, Auntie.

The parish knew her story, yet no one ventured on an allusion to it in her hearing, except possibly Mrs. Estcourt, who had been her schoolfellow, and with whom she did sometimes speak of the past, and open that old, but unwithered, heart.

The story was this.

When Auntie was young and pretty and little, for a little body she had ever been, she had been engaged to a handsome young fellow in the service of the East India Company. He had come to England for a holiday, happened to see her, had been attracted by her, as well, perhaps, as by the fact that she had some money of her own, and he proposed to her to accept him and go out with him to India.

She certainly was greatly attached to Mr. Warnacre. She had never cared for any man previously, never had gone into a gentle flirtation even.

Her younger sister was at school, finishing her education, but when the day of the marriage was fixed, she was brought home that she might serve as bridesmaid to her sister.

Emily—this schoolgirl—was far prettier than Jane who was to be married, and what money there was, left by the mother, went equally in shares to each sister.

The cares of trousseau weighed heavily on Miss Jane, and were undertaken with that thoroughness that characterised all she did. So occupied was she over the preliminaries, so necessarily occupied was she, as her mother was dead and she had no elder sister, that she could not be as much as she wished with her intended, and was constrained to leave him to walk and talk and lounge about with Emily.

On the day before the marriage, bridegroom and sister had disappeared. They had eloped together and were married before it was discovered whither they had gone.

The blow was acutely felt, how acutely no one knew. Mrs. Estcourt, who was not Mrs. Estcourt then, hastened to her friend to show sympathy and love.

“My dear,” said Jane, with her eyes full, “it was only natural. I ought not to have thought of keeping him. Emily is so beautiful. He naturally only cared for me till he saw her. I hope, please God, they will be happy together.”

Mr. Warnacre did not venture back to the village, but carried off his wife at once to India.

After a while Auntie’s friend became Mrs. Estcourt, and then this latter lady insisted on Jane taking a cottage on her husband’s estate, so as to be near her. She desired to befriend her, and befriend her she did. But the condition of life of a great country squire’s wife, the wife of a man who aimed at becoming representative of his county in Parliament, and that of a solitary lady with moderate means, in a cottage, and without connections in the place, were so diverse, that much as Mrs. Estcourt desired to see a great deal of her friend, she was not able to do so.

As time went on, and the Squire was elected, and a large part of Mrs. Estcourt’s life was spent in town, the opportunities for social intercourse with Auntie became less, and when the family was at the Hall there were so many visitors, friends made in London, and political allies and acquaintances, who crowded the house, who were there to dine, and dance, and shoot, and attend political meetings, that even whilst in the country, Mrs. Estcourt could not see much of her old school friend. Moreover, when Jane did dine at the Hall, it was with persons whom she did not understand, who belonged to another order of existence to herself, persons with whom she had no common topics of conversation, consequently she declined invitations and remained at home.

As yet she had not acquired the title of Auntie; that accrued to her in this way.