Part 6

Having descended, with moderate haste, for a few yards, he felt, by certain jerks of the rope, that Caddy had followed his example, and was pursuing him down the rope,--with such hair-brained velocity too, as he very speedily ascertained, that he was in greater danger than ever. The rope was swung to and fro, by his own exertions and those of his enemy,--bumping him against the banisters with considerable force; but the blows he thus received were beneath his notice; he thought only of escaping. Finding that Caddy gained upon him, he contrived, as the rope swung toward the side of the staircase, to catch hold of one of the stout iron rails of the banister;--secure in his clutch, he quitted the rope with considerable dexterity, and had the satisfaction, while he dangled, of seeing Caddy slide by him. He now began to roar lustily; but his efforts were needless, for almost every living creature in the house was already on the alert; the watch dogs were barking without, and the lap-dogs within; the ladies were shrieking; the gentlemen calling the servants, and the latter wondering, and running here and there, exceedingly active, but not knowing what to do or what was the matter. By degrees, the male portion of the inhabitants of the Castle became concentrated in the hall: lights were procured; and while the ladies and their attendants peeped over the rails of the great staircase, in their night-caps, to watch the proceedings of the party below, Martha, armed with the kitchen poker, volunteered to search every hole and corner in the Castle: but her master forbade her on pain of his displeasure; “For,” said he, “I feel satisfied that it is a disgraceful hoax of some scoundrel in the house, who shall certainly be ducked if ever I discover him.--Is any one absent?”

“All the men servants are here, sir,” said the coachman; “and all the gentlemen, too, I think.”

“No, they are not,” exclaimed Martha, with a ludicrous grin; “where is my sweetheart, can you tell?--I do not see him.”

“Oh! he's fast asleep, good man!” said the Honourable Charles Caddy.

“I wish he were;--I do most sincerely wish he were!” quoth Cuddle, who had released himself, by his own exertions, from his pendent position, and was now hastening down the lowest flight of stairs. “You may stare, my good host,” continued he, “but to sleep in Caddy Castle is perfectly impossible!”

“So I find, to my cost,” replied the Honourable Charles Caddy; “and if I can find out the rascal who--”

“Do not waste time in threats,” said 'Cuddle; “but fly--disperse, in quest of my respected, unhappy friend, poor Caddy Caddy, who has been with me this half hour, and would have disembodied me, if I hadn't given him a kick in the stomach, and put my trust in the bell-rope.”

At the request of his host, Cuddle gave a hurried detail of what had taken place between himself and Caddy Caddy; while those domestics, who had the immediate care of the lunatic, hastened up to his rooms. They returned just as Cuddle had concluded, and stated that Caddy Caddy was undressed, and fast asleep in his bed;--that they found the doors locked, and every thing about the apartments in the precise state in which they had left them. One of the party said, that he slept in the next room to Caddy Caddy, and was quite certain that he should have been, as usual, roused, had the lunatic but merely moved: and as to the old Squire having been at large, the fellow swore that it was impossible.

It was useless for Cuddle to vow and solemnly declare that Caddy Caddy had been with him, in the face of this evidence: the gentlemen shook their heads; the men grumbled; the ladies on the stair-case tittered; and their maids pronounced Mr. Cuddle's conduct to be altogether shocking.

“It is a very distressing case,” said the Honourable Charles Caddy; “and I protest I never was in so awkward a situation before. I feel bound to apologize,” continued he, “to every lady and gentleman in the Castle, for the uproar, which my relation, Mr. Caddy Cuddle, has, doubtless, unintentionally, produced. I am bound to add, in justice to myself, that, upon my honour as a gentleman, I had not the most remote idea that either of my guests was a somnambulist.”

“Is it possible that you can allude to me?” exclaimed Caddy Cuddle. “Is my veracity impeached? Am I to be a martyr to our poor mad relation's freaks?--Or, possibly, you will tell me that I ought to doubt the evidence of my own senses?”

“I never presume,” was the reply, “to dictate to a gentleman on so delicate a point. Perhaps you will allow one of my servants to wait on you during the remainder of the night.”

“I'll do no such thing,” said Caddy Cuddle: “let the horse be saddled directly. I'll go home at once, and endeavour to make my peace with Mrs. Watermark, from whom I expect and merit a very severe lecture, for so cruelly cutting up her feelings as to stay out a whole night nearly. Cousin Caddy, good b'ye; ladies and gentlemen, your servant.”

Caddy Cuddle immediately departed, vowing, _per Jovem_, as he went, never, after that morning, to bestride Anthony Mutch's horse,--to dine at Caddy Castle, or any where else out of his own house,--or to put on a strange pair of spectacles again.

THE BRAINTREES.

It was the boast of old Samuel Gough, who, during a period of thirty-two years, had been landlord of The Chough and Stump,--a little, old-fashioned house, with carved oaken angels supporting the roof of its porch,--that, notwithstanding the largest road-side farm-house in the village had been licensed and beautified; though tiles had been substituted for its old thatch; a blue sign, with yellow letters, fixed over its entrance; and a finger-post erected at the top of the lane, about the middle of which his own tenement stood, directing travellers to The New Inn,--The Chough and Stump still “bore the bell.”

“Richard Cockle,” he would often say, “being twenty years butler to old 'Squire Borfield, ha' made friends among the gentlefolks. The petty sessions is held in his best parlour, now and then; he hath a' got a pair of post-horses, and tidy tits they be, I must say; his house is made post-office; and excise-office, to the tail o' that--for this and the five nearest parishes; he pays for a wine license, and hath two or three gentlevolks, may be, once a month, for an hour or two; but not much oftener, as there be few do travel our cross-country road; and he do call one room in his house a tap:--but for all that, and his powdered head to boot, gi' me The Chough and Stump still.” Gough's boast was not altogether without warranty: his comfortable, old-fashioned kitchen, with its bacon-rack, broad hearth, dingy walls, and rude mantel-slab, enriched with strange hieroglyphical scratches, in which his neighbours traced, or affected to trace, the names of their grandfathers, was endeared to the inhabitants of the village;--there were old feelings, and pleasant associations connected with it Sam Gough was a jolly host, who regaled himself, among his guests, from morning till night; habitual drinking, for along time, having rendered him, as Abel Harris, the schoolmaster of the village, said, “invulnerable to intoxication he not only could, but often did, sing a good old song, and tell a good old story;--never repeating either the one or the other on the same day; for he was orderly in his entertainment, and had his Monday's songs and his Tuesday's songs, as well as his morning stories and his evening jokes: he never sponged upon a customer but paid his share of the reckoning to his wife, who officiated as mistress, while he appeared to be only a constant guest. His ale was generally clear as amber, sweet as milk, and strong as brandy.” In the tap of The New Inn, which was the name of the rival house, the company generally consisted of the postilion and ostler of the establishment, a few out-door servants from some of the neighbouring gentlemen's houses, and three or four of the gayest, youthful, village bucks: but the elderly and middle-aged men,--“the substantial,” as Abel Harris called them, usually congregated, to smoke their evening pipes, round the oak in front of The Chough and Stump, when the weather would permit, or in the kitchen settle, before a blazing fire of logs and turf, when the rustics sat up three or four hours after sunset Schoolmaster Abel, although he was one of the pair of parish constables, patronized The Chough and Stump, and grumbled mightily at being obliged to pay five shillings for a dinner, once a year, at the New Inn, with the churchwardens, and other official persons of the parish; which dinner had been instituted solely for the benefit of Richard Cockle, and much against the inclination of several of those, who were almost compelled, on account of their connexion with his wealthy supporters, to attend it. It was at The Chough and Stump that all the village news was to be heard; and if one of its customers were not found at his post, on the settle, at the usual hour, old Gough concluded, that he was either bad, busy, or gone to the rival tap, to glean gossip about the great families, from the servants, in order to retail it, the next night, to the grateful crew at The Chough and Stump.

One winter's evening, although it was neither a Saturday, a holiday, nor a fast day, the settle was not only completely occupied, but several occasional visitors to the old kitchen were closely packed along a narrow bench that ran across the back wall. Many of the poorer inhabitants of the place were lurking about the porch, and several women, with their check aprons thrown over their red and almost frost-bitten elbows, stood peeping in at the window, and eagerly listening to an old dame, who had placed her ear to a little corner from which the glass had been broken, and occasionally repeated what she heard passing within.

“I do pity the mother o' the lad, troth do I,” said a woman about twenty-five years of age; “her hath a got but one zon--no more have I--and truth to speak, I do pity her.”

“And well thou may'st, Tabby Mudford,” said the old dame; “for constable Abel hath just a' told thy husband, that the boy's taken off in a cart, wi' 'Squire Stapleton's coachman a one side o' un, and constable Tucker o' t'other, hand-cuffed, and leg-fast, to the county gaol.”

“Poor Meg Braintree! poor soul!” cried several of the women, on hearing this, and one or two of them actually began to sob aloud.

“Poor Meg Braintree, forsooth!” exclaimed a little sharpnosed female, with a high-cauled cap, and leathern stomacher;--“I don't zay no zuch ztuff--not I,” added she, in a shrill, disagreeable voice; “it hath a' come home to her now; and I said it would, two-and-twenty years agone come Candlemas, when she scoffed and vlouted poor Phil Govier, and took up wi' Zaul Braintree, a'ter she'd a' most a' promised, as I have heard tell, to marry Phil. In my mind, he loved her better, worse luck vor un, poor vellow, than ever this Zaul Braintree did, and took on zo for two or dree year a'ter, that there was some that thought he'd never ha' got over 't.”

“Vor shame, Aunt Dally,” said Tabby Mudford; “Meg Braintree never done you wrong.”

“I don't know that,” replied Dolly.

“It be true, I ha' heard mother zay, you cocked your cap at Zaul, yourself; as you did to many more, though you never could trap any body to have'ee, aunt; but I never could believe it.”

“The vellow did, once upon a time, look up to me,” said Dolly, lifting her chin, and curling her thin and slightly-bearded lip; “but I scorned'un. I wouldn't ha' had un if his skin were stuffed wi' gold.”

“And yet you do blame Meg vor scorning Phil Govier! Vor my part,--I were a child, to be zure,--but by what I do recollect of'em, I'd rather ha' had Zaul, wi'out a zhoe to's, voot, than Philip Govier, if every hair on the head o' un were strung wi' pearls.”

“Don't talk to me, Tab,” cried her now incensed aunt, flouncing off; “it don't become thee. I do zay it ha' come home to her;--her zon be zent to the county gaol, vor murdering the man whose heart she a'most broke more than twenty year agone:--get over that if you can. It ha' came home to her, and I'll bide by it;--wi' her blue clocked ztockings, and putting up her chit of a daughter to smirk wi' the young 'squire!--I ha'n't a' got patience wi' zuch pride.”

The supervisor, who was going his rounds, and intended to sleep that night at The Chough and Stump, now rode up, on his sturdy little grey cob; and before he could alight, some of the loiterers about the porch had, in part, acquainted him with the cause of their being assembled round the inn-door. The old man, however, as he said, could make “neither head nor tail” of what he heard; and hastened, as well as his infirmities would allow, into the kitchen. The landlord rose on his appearance, and conducted the spare and paralytic old man, to the post of honour, in the settle, between his own seat and that of the exciseman,--a cunning-looking, thick-set, fat, or, to use an expressive West Country adjective, podgy, little man, between forty and fifty; with a round, sallow, bloated face, begemmed here and there with groups of pimply excrescences, resembling the warts that are occasionally seen on the cheek that is turned to the sun of a wounded pumpkin. One of the exciseman's eyes glared at his beholder, dull and void of expression, while the other was almost concealed beneath its lids;--a circumstance occasioned by an inveterate habit of winking, all his life, at every tenth word, with the latter; which operation he was totally unable to perform with the former.

“Here hath been a sad to-do, sir,” said Gough, addressing the supervisor, as soon as the latter was comfortably seated; “a sad to-do, indeed.”

“Ah! so I hear, Gough,--so I hear;--but what is it?--No affray with the excise, I hope.”

“No--fear of--that, sir,” replied the exciseman, winking, and puffing the smoke from his lips thrice as he spoke; “we've no enemies here.--I'll tell you all--about it--sir, when--I have wetted--my lips.” He now raised the jug to his mouth, but before he had finished his draught, little Tailor Mudford, who sat by his side, taking advantage of the moment, placed his right elbow on his knee, and still keeping his pipe between his teeth, leaned forward, and bore away the glory of the announcement from the exciseman, by stating, that Philip Govier, 'Squire Stapleton's gamekeeper, had been killed; and young Robert Braintree committed for trial, as the perpetrator of the crime.

“Robert Braintree! Robert Braintree!” calmly repeated the old man; “Preserve us from evil! Haven't I seen him?”

“To be sure you have, sir,” replied Gough; “a tall, straight-limbed chap, between eighteen and twenty, and as fine a young fellow as ever stood in shoe-leather. I shouldn't ha' thought it of him.”

“I should,” said the exciseman; “a down-looking--”

“Ah! I be zorry vor the lad,” said Mudford, again interrupting the exciseman, in the brief interval occupied by a puff and a wink; “nobody could zay harm o' un, except that his vather made un go out a poaching wi' un, and so vorth: but a zung in the choir o' Zindays; and' though he never were asked so to do, often joined in, wi' the rest o' th' neighbours, to reap a little varmer's bit o' wheat, or mow a tradesman's whoats he ha' done zo by me, many's the time, wi'out any thing but thanks, and a bit o' dinner and a drop o' drink, which he never wanted at home. He'd ha' been the last I should ha' zuzpected.”

“But the evidence,” said constable and schoolmaster Abel, “the circumstantial evidence, doth leave no doubt, either in the mind of me, or the magistrate, of his guilt.”

“You be d--d, Yeabel!” cried a bluff old fellow in a corner; “Who be you, I should like to know?--Marry come up, then! times be come to a vine pass, I trow, when a pig-vaced bit of a constable, two yards long, and as thin as a hurdle, do zet hi'zelf up cheek-by-jowl wi' the 'squire!--Who cares vor thy opinion, dost think?”

“Farmer Salter,” responded Abel, with affected humility; “I am educating your son and heir:--you are a freeholder, and ha' got a vote for the county--”

“I know that well enough, stupid! and zo had my vather avore me, and so shall my zon a'ter me.--Poor buoay! you ha' often licked un, Yeabel:--may be you be right--may be you bean't; but this I do know, tho' I ha'n't a told un zo, that I do vind, upon casting things over, whenzoever I do gie you a bit ov a clumzy wipe here, at The Chough and Stump, over night Jack's zure and zartin to get breeched in your school-room the next day: now that be odd, yean't it, Gough?”

“Farmer Salter,” pursued Abel, as Gough nodded in acquiescence, and Salter chuckled at what he had said; “I repeat, you are a freeholder:--you've a slip of land between the two 'squires' estates, upon which you and your forefathers ha' grazed a cow, raised a crop of wheat, hay and potatoes, to last'ee for the year; and built a small edifice for yourselves, and a sty for your pigs: you do wear a looped hat at all times, and, on Sundays, a blue coat, wi' a red collar and cuffs, and crown pieces of the reign of King Jacobus, for buttons; a flowered and flapped waistcoat; leather breeches, wi' seven-shilling pieces and silver buckles at the knees; and half a pack o' cards figured wi' colours in each o' your stockings: you do strut up to church, just as a 'squire would, and your father did,--whose finery you ha' saved for such service,--half a century ago:--but you know nothing either of law or good breeding for all that, fanner Salter.”

The freeholder was about to bristle up indignantly when Abel concluded, but Zachary Tickel, the hereditary herbalist, or, as he denominated himself, apothecary of the village, whose nick-name was “Bitter-Aloes,”--and there were few of his neighbours who were not as well known by some equally appropriate baptismal of the laity,--took him by the collar, and endeavoured to tranquillize, while he forcibly held him on his seat:--meantime, the supervisor inquired what had induced the constable to suspect Robert Braintree of the murder.

“Why, zir,” said Mudford, cutting in, as a coachman would express it, before Abel and the exciseman, (each of whom intended to reply,) while the asthmatic constable was cleansing his throat by two or three hems, and the exciseman was puffing out a magazine of smoke, which, at that moment, he had drawn into his mouth, to be retailed and divided into a dozen or twenty whiffs;--“the vact, zir, is this,” said Mudford; “the body were vound, dead and stiff, this morning, in the copse, t'other zide o' the hill;--there was a nail or more of znow on the ground, and vootsteps ov a dog and a man were traced vrom the body to Braintree's cottage:--the dog's vootsteps were, likely enough, the vootsteps ov Ponto, a dog belonging to the Braintrees; a zort ov a crossbred pointer, az ztrong as a bull, and wi' more zense in his tail-end, as the zaying is, than many men ha' got in their whole bodies, head and all.”

“The shoe-marks, permit me to observe,” said Abel, “were decidedly made by the shoes of Bob Braintree:--I've sworn to't, because I compared'em; and I apprehended him wi' those identical shoes on his feet.”

“Now, d'ye hear, volks?--d'ye hear?” exclaimed farmer Salter; “how Yeabel do belabour us wi' vine dixonary words? 'Apprehended,' and 'identical,' quotha!--Why, I should be azhamed to talk zo-vashion. 'Those identical zhoes!' zays he;--'those!'--Bless us, how vine we be!--'Those,' vorsooth!--Why doan't the vool zay 'they there zhoes,' like a man?”

Abel cast a glance of contempt on the freeholder, but did not condescend to reply. A brief silence ensued, which was broken by the herbalist; who observed, after throwing himself back in the settle, “Bad bird, bad egg--that's all I've to zay. I bean't so compassionate, and all that, as zome volk. How hath Zaul Braintree ha' got his living vor eighteen year past, but by zmuggilin and poaching, and, may be, worse, vor what I know? Why wen he discharged by 'Zquire Ztapleton, but vor doing what he shon not do? Didn't poor Phil Govier, that's lying dead, when he wen under Zaul, detect and prove to the 'zquire, that instead o' Zaul' s doing his duty, as game-keeper, he were killing hares upon the zly, and zending'em to market? And when Phil got Zaul's place, have they ever met without looking at one another like a couple o' dogs that was longing vor a vight, and yet stood off, as though they were aveard to pitch into one another? What d'ye think Braintree hath instilled into Bob, but hatred and malice against Govier?”

“You may talk and talk, old Bitter-Aloes,” said Salter; “but vor my part, though the'zquire believed Govier's story, and turned away Zaul, in a way enough to nettle a parson, I didn't think it quite as it should be. I ha' zeen things o' Phil, what I won't tell ov, now he's gone, as I didn't while he were alive; but if I had to choose, vor all Phil's quiet tongue and humble looks,--which were all zlyness, in my mind,--gi'e me Zaul, I zay.”

“Well,” quoth Gough, “I say nothing--why should I? But Bob was a good boy; and though he'd noose a hare, or decoy a vlock o' wild ducks, or stalk a covey, I don't think he'd any harm in him. He'd do what Zaul bid him, to be zure, but I don't think Zaul would ever tell him to commit murder; and if I must speak my mind--I don't agree wi' Abel Harris.”

“Abel--I must say,”--muttered the exciseman, “the constable, I mean;--he--he's no conjuror.”

“I can't make out,” growled Salter, “how he came to be made constable, zeeing az he's the most uncapable man in the parish. I ha' zeed un run, as if'twere vor his life, when he thought nobody were nigh, vrom my gander!--Poor Jack! thoult zuffer, may be, vor this to-morrow;--but I can't help speaking the truth. Yeabel, doan't thee baste un, or dang me if I doan't drash thee!”

“There is one thing,” remarked a spare, but hale-looking man, who sat next the herbalist, “one thing, or, may be, a thing or two, I'll make bold to observe, which is, namely, this:--though Zaul Braintree were never over and above vriendly to I--that be nothing--the man's a man--and I do zay, the'zquire were a bit too hard upon Zaul, to turn un off wi out more nor an hour's notice, and not gi'e un a good character:--and what vor, I wonder?--Because this here Phil Govier, a demure, down-looking twoad, zaid a' poached a bit! A'ter this, what were Zaul to do? Wi'out a character, he couldn't get a zarvice, and a poor man bean't to starve: zo a' poached, and that in downright earnest;--and it ztrikes I, no blame to un neither.”

“Oh! fie! fie!” exclaimed the supervisor; “you should not preach so, friend; the practice of poaching is highly illegal.”

“Highly illegal,--indeed,--John,--that is,--James Cobb,” said the exciseman, in his usual manner; “we must not hear--this sort of a--thing; must we,--constable?”

“Why, it bean't treason, master exciseman, be it?” asked a tall old fellow, who stood at the end of the settle.

“Do you hear--that?” said the exciseman, turning to his superior; “do you hear that?--and he an earth-stopper,--and gets his bread by--the game laws.”

The supervisor looked aside toward the bottom of the narrow table, and while the ensuing conversation went on, took a deliberate view of the earth-stopper's person, apparel, and accoutrements. He was a squalid-looking figure, with half a week's growth of grey beard on his chin and cheeks; the edge of a red woollen night-cap, which he wore under a weather-beaten dog's-hair hat, was strained across his pale, wrinkled brow; his legs were thin, puny, and bent outward in such a manner, that they seemed to have been moulded on the carcase of a horse.