Part 8

It was but three short miles from Oakham to Hambleton; and Hubby Dickinson's eagerness of desire gave such strength and speed to his limbs that he soon reached the village.

"Pray, my good friend," said he to a farmer on horseback, as he entered the place, "can you say where I shall find the singularly endowed youth who is familiarly called Bob Rakeabout, the Noose-larnt?"

Poor Hubby! how he stared, and how loftily indignant he felt, when the farmer returned him a broad horse-laugh for an answer, and, setting spurs to his horse, rode away! He was not to be driven from his purpose, however, and put the same question to a pedestrian, next. The man, who was a ditcher with a shovel on his shoulder, touched, or rather nipped, his hat skirts, and asked what the gentleman said; and when he clearly understood that Bob Rakeabout was wanted, his reply was, that he knew not where he would be found, unless at the alehouse. Hubby thanked his informant, but was sure within himself that there was some mistake arising from the man's dulness, for it could not be that a genius of so magnificent a grade as the human being he was seeking could be found loitering in a vulgar alehouse. So on Hubby strode, looking at the ground, and thinking, and thinking,—till, at last, he was accosted by a very dark-visaged and singularly dressed man, who stood by a tent in a lane, on the other side of the village—for the thinker had passed quite through it, unconsciously.

"Fine weather, sir," said the man; "you seem to be in a brown study."

"Pray, my friend," said Hubby, instantly, "know you one Bob Rakeabout, a singularly gifted youth who, I am informed, hath obtained the significant epithet of the 'Noose-larnt?'"

The man took his short black pipe from his mouth, and stared agape for a few seconds, and then said, with a smothered laugh,—

"Oh, Bob! Ay, I know him well: he's famous for noose-larning!"

Hubby Dickinson's heart leaped within him, and he bounded from the side of the road into the centre of the lane, and, grasping the man's hand, conjured him to lead him to the youth's presence. By this time, three or four more dark faces had gathered at the entrance of the tent.

"Come in a bit," said the man to whom the antiquary had addressed himself. And, winking at his companions, the gipsy led Hubby into the tent.

Hubby was placed upon a sack that covered a clump of wood, and was invited to partake some bread and cheese,—while a boy ran into the village to fetch Bob Rakeabout. Having, in his eagerness, utterly forgot his breakfast at home, Hubby felt nothing loth when he saw the food, and accordingly accepted a "good farrantly piece," as the gipsies called it. A humming horn of ale followed, and then another, and another. Indeed, the contents of the huge black earthen bottle were passed about rather freely. Endless questions followed, and strange answers were given; and sometimes the gipsies stared, and at others they smiled, and often they were in danger of laughing outright.

At length the boy returned, and, behold! immediately afterwards Bob Rakeabout, the "Noose-larnt" himself, entered the tent! Hubby rose to receive him, bareheaded; but, he knew not how it was, it was somewhat difficult for him to stand, and so he sat down again. As for the great natural phenomenon himself, he stretched his brawny hand to each of the gipsies, and they shook it with remarkable good-humour. Then, seizing the black earthen bottle, he applied it to his mouth, without either using the horn or waiting for invitation to drink.

Hubby's thinkings were becoming somewhat confused; but he turned, inwardly, to the fact that Diogenes threw away his dish when he saw the boy drink out of his hand. "Of a verity, the youth is one of Nature's own miracles!" said he to himself.

Forthwith, Bob Rakeabout rakishly laughed as he took out a large pouch, composed of mole-skins, and filled with tobacco. He laid it open on the floor of the tent, filled his own short pipe from it, and the gipsies immediately followed his example. Hubby, as yet, had scarcely spoken to Bob; but when the whole company began to smoke, and the antiquary was again pressed to drink, for more than one reason he quietly remarked that he much wished to converse with this youth alone.

"Oh, ay," replied the gipsy, whom Hubby had seen first, "Bob will have no objection to that:—you can show this gentleman some noose-larning, can't you, Bob?"

The gipsies tittered,—but Bob understood the question,—for much had been said by himself and the gipsies in the peculiar slang of their tribe, which Hubby had not comprehended.

"Take another horn, sir," said Bob; "and give us another ten minutes to smoke our pipes out, and I'll show ye some noose-larning, in a twink."

Hubby's head swum partly with pleasure, but much more with the strong ale, to which he was unused; but he drank off the other horn, in eager expectation of such a mental feast to follow it as he had never yet tasted.

"Come along wi' me, sir!" cried Bob, springing up, suddenly, at the end of less than ten minutes; "come along wi' me, and I'll show ye some noose-larning!"

"Are ye really off, Bob?" asked the gipsies, all together.

"Ay, ay," he answered, "kick up a roaster, and set on iron-jack against I come back."

Hubby thought this strange talk; but he had not time to think much about it, for Bob seized him by the hand, and away they scampered together over two or three fields, and then entered a wood. And here Bob took from his pocket certain strange engines of wood and wire, and, showing Hubby the noose attached to each, planted them severally in little openings of bush or brake, while Hubby stared like one that was thunder-struck, for Bob only uttered one word—"Noose-larning!" and then, seizing Hubby by the arm, hurried him on again. At length, in the thickest part of the wood, Bob began to take up engines instead of putting them down—but, lo! there were dead hares attached to them.

And now poor Hubby Dickinson saw of what kind of mettle the "miracle of mother-wit" was made, and, taking to his heels, he ran from the poacher with as much haste as if a legion of fiends were behind him. Did the poacher follow? Not he, indeed. He only burst into hysterics of laughter, and then went on with his business.

And whither fled the antiquary? Indeed, he knew not; but, having emerged from the wood, he ran as long as the fumes of the strong malt-liquor in his brains permitted him to retain possession of the power of his feet; and, when they failed him, he fell souse into a ditch, which happened merely to contain mud instead of water, and remained there, insensible and asleep for the greater part of the time, till late in the afternoon.

As luck would have it, the parson of Hambleton, who was an old antiquarian crony of Hubby's, took his afternoon walk in that direction, and, to his perfect amazement, found his erudite friend in the ditch.

"Noose-larning!" roared out Hubby, and shook and shuddered, when the parson had poked him with his walking-stick until he waked him:—"Noose-larning!" he still uttered, beholding the poacher in the wood, in his bewildered condition. With much ado, Hubby was at length fully brought to the remembrance of what he was about, and being by that time perfectly sober,—but dreadfully cramped,—he clambered out of the ditch; and though sorely ashamed of his bedaubed condition, and much more of his doating folly, he accompanied his friend to the parsonage-house at Hambleton, and, after much entreaty, with all the simplicity of his soul, recounted all he could remember of the whole adventure, commencing with Gaffer Davy's visit and the present of the Roman spur.

Oft was the hearty laugh of the plain Oakhamers raised at Hubby Dickinson's expense, during the remainder of his life; but the fine old fellow's adventure never lessened their esteem for him. He was never permitted to want, even when age had stiffened his limbs and almost totally closed his eyes and ears. Town and country were alike proud of the learning that he had possessed; and the villages, especially, believed that his like would never be seen in Rutland again, even to the day of judgment.

In the lapse of a few months, Hubby got over the shame and soreness of mind created by his adventure so entirely, as to be able to relish a joke about it; and, when his lamp of life was quivering and ready to sink, nothing would so soon cause it to blaze up with a healthy and cheerful light as a joke about the "noose-larning"—unless it were a grave and respectful mention of the "Tallagium illustrissimum." But the lamp of that life went out at last, though its exit from mortality was peaceful and gentle as the sinking to sleep of a babe; and never yet has "the like" been seen in little Rutland, for wondrous learning, of Master Zerubbabel Dickinson.

THE BEGGARED GENTLEMAN, AND HIS CROOKED STICK.

There is not a sight in the world more distressful to the bosom that retains any measure in it of "the milk of human kindness" than that of an abject, poverty-stricken fellow-creature, who once rolled in wealth and plenty. Even the born beggar, who has lived a beggar all his life, feels an involuntary compassion for such a man. And, if his fall be attributable to no avaricious spirit of speculation, or proud and sensual excess—but is the effect of Fortune's untoward frown, or the result of what the selfish world calls an imprudent practice of relieving the distressed, the "beggared gentleman" is surely a legitimate object of universal commiseration.

"Poor Mr. Clifford!" the most ragged and hungry inhabitant of Kirton-in-Lindsey would exclaim, "how much he is to be pitied!—I never thought to see him come to this!" And when the subject of this general pity happened to let fall his curious crooked stick through infirmity of age, there was not a poor man or woman in the little town but would hasten to restore it to him who seemed to regard it as the most prizeable possession he had left in the world. It was moving to see the instant act of ceremonious courtesy to which the recipient of this simple heart-kindness would resort. He would raise his hat, and smile with the same polite expression of thankfulness as in his best days. No one who saw him could forget that he had been a gentleman. And yet the home of his old age was one of squalid misery!

Hugh Clifford's father was a descendant, by a younger branch, of a noble family, and had gained a considerable fortune as a merchant in the port of Hull. He died in the beginning of the reign of George the Third, and left his accumulated wealth to his only son, who was then at college. Hugh hastened home, on the sudden death of his father, and, by the advice of a few friends, resolved to carry on his father's mercantile concern. Twelve months, however, served to disgust him with business. His wealth, instead of augmenting, began rapidly to decrease under the peculations of clerks and managers, to whom the business was necessarily entrusted, and he took the resolution, ere it was too late, of retiring, after he had disposed of his "concern," to a pretty little estate which had fallen to him, by his mother's right, at the pleasant little rural town of Kirton-in-Lindsey, that like "a city set on a hill" delights the eye of the traveller for miles before he reaches it.

For many years, Hugh Clifford's house was a general refuge for the distressed. None ever knocked at his gate, and told a tale of want, but they found instant relief. Hugh Clifford's heart was expansive as Nature herself. He felt that all men were his brethren, and that, if he merely tendered them lip-kindness when they were in sorrow, it was but mockery. He pondered over the precepts and history of the Great Exemplar, until, nature and reason combining to stimulate him, his whole life became an effort to banish the misery of human-kind. And yet the sphere in which he acted was comparatively narrow; for his natural intelligence was not of that high order which marks out for itself extended fields of enterprize in philanthropy. Hugh Clifford could not be termed a planet, like Howard, that visited widely distant climes in its great dispensing orbit of goodness; but he was most veritably a star of benevolence, that cheered with a pure and genial light all within its neighbourhood who partook of woe and wretchedness.

Living, by his charity, in the very core of poor men's hearts, and respected for his true politeness and urbanity by his wealthier neighbours, Hugh Clifford, while he rendered others happy, was believed to be himself a very happy man. Nevertheless, for twenty years after he had passed the prime of age, discomfort and distress were gradually stealing upon him; and these, too, from a source which was almost entirely unsuspected by the majority of his neighbours. True, it was sometimes remarked that fox-eyed lawyer Merrick was often, very often, at Clifford cottage,—and this was considered to be anomalous, since Hugh Clifford's acquaintances had been uniformly chosen for some quality which distinguished them in the little town and its neighbourhood, as benefactors rather than oppressors of the poor: albeit lawyer Merrick was notoriously of the latter description of character. A few shrewd, hard-bargaining farmers also made a notch in their memories, now and then, that lawyer Merrick's purchases of odd bits of land were becoming frequent now he seemed to be so very oft a visitor at good Mr. Clifford's.

Notwithstanding these slight precurses of suspicion, it came, at length, upon the ears of the Kirton people, poor and rich together, like the shock of an earthquake, that "poor good old Mr. Clifford was turned bodily out of doors, with nothing but the clothes on his back and his favourite crooked stick in his hand, a complete pauper, for that he had been getting into lawyer Merrick's debt for years and years, by borrowing small sums upon his estate, whereby all he was worth was mortgaged to the lawyer, who had now suddenly foreclosed, and pounced upon house and land, pushing good old Mr. Clifford away, by the shoulders!"

"Poor Mr. Clifford!" was echoed by every body;—but who helped "poor Mr. Clifford?"

There lay the hardest fact in the good man's history. The little tradesmen who had shared his daily orders for the relief of the miserable had none of them more than five pounds in their books against him; but each of them made out a bill of thrice the amount of their debt, and so figured in the world's compassion as great losers by the "beggared gentleman," instead of ingrates, when they shut their doors against him. The farmers shook their heads, and buttoned up their fobs, saying, "It was no wonder that all was over with Mr. Clifford: he ought to have remembered that, 'Charity begins at home.'" The parish parson, who was the prime whip of the neighbourhood, and spent more days of the year with 'Squire Harrison's hounds than he spent in his pulpit and study, thrice told, only struck his top-boots violently with his whip, and said, "God bless me! I always thought the poor fellow was cracked in his upper story! Why, he must have meant to end his days in an alms-house, or he would not have undertaken to keep all the poor in my parish and the surrounding parishes to boot!" and, springing into the stirrups, was out of sight in a minute.

And into an alms-house poor Hugh Clifford went, but not until he had wandered through the little town three or four times, leaning upon his curious crooked stick, and looking as if unconscious of the crowd of tearful poor men and women that followed him. At first, the parish overseers waited, in the expectation that, as a matter of course, either the parson or some of the "better sort of people" would invite the "beggared gentleman" into their houses; but when it was seen that no such invitation was given, while, all the time, the poor fallen man was wandering in the street with derangement manifest in his looks, the puzzled overseers laid their heads together, and agreed that one of the alms-houses should be apportioned for Mr. Clifford's home, and that an old deaf female pauper should be put under the same roof to wait upon him.

For many days the poor victim to his own goodness was silent and helpless, and, by order of the parish surgeon, was disturbed, on the rugged bed where he lay, no oftener than was necessary to arouse him in order that he might be fed; for his mental powers seemed to have undergone so complete a paralysis as to render him insensible to the calls of nature. After the lapse of some weeks, during the latter half of which he seemed to be absorbed in abstract devotion, poor Hugh Clifford's mind rallied. And now the meekness with which he bore his adversity was equally remarkable with the perfectness of that pity he had evermore displayed for the wretched during the term of his prosperity. He accepted the smallest act of kindness with gratitude; and the poor deaf old female pauper never knew what it was to hear him utter a word of complaint.

The remnant of his life may be summed up in a few lines. All who had the means of ameliorating his lot neglected him; and all who wished for the means, and had hearts to have used them in his relief, lacked them. He lived years in his beggared condition, and died calmly and quietly, complaining of nothing in the world, nor of the world itself, and leaving but one request,—that his curious crooked stick might be placed by his right side, in his coffin, and buried with him!

The deaf old female pauper who had waited on him did not fail to communicate this strange request to the parish overseers when they came to look at Hugh Clifford's corpse, prior to giving orders for his burial. It may be guessed that the singular request gave rise to much wonder and some enquiry. But the old female could only answer that the good gentleman would often place his odd-looking walking-stick in the corner, and sit on his bedside looking very intently upon it; and that often he would turn the other side of it to the wall, and then sit and look at it again; and several times she had seen him take a little note-book from his coat pocket, at the breast, and write in it, looking, ever and anon, at the curious crooked stick.

The latter part of the old female's communication of course occasioned a search. The pocket-book was found, and in it a paper covered with a close manuscript of a most curious character, but one that served to display the anatomy of poor Hugh Clifford's heart under his misfortunes more fully than it could have been laid open and read in either death-bed confession, or funeral sermon. It ran as follows:—

"_A Soliloquy on my only faithful and never-failing friend,—my beloved and valued crooked stick._

"Ay, there thou art,—my own crooked stick!—My heart cleaves to thee, in thy crookedness; and I love thus to look upon thee, more and more, daily, as thou leanest by the wall in that corner,—remembering that thou and I were not always tenants of an alms-house.

"I love to look upon thee, with a melancholy yet pleasurable love, beholding that thou preservest thy crooked identity,—yea, remainest as crooked as ever thou wert! I know not whether aught within me, or, indeed, any thing but thyself without me, be still the same as on that beautiful summer eve when, more than fifty years ago, I cut thee from the venerable crab-tree whereon thou didst grow, and we formed our inseparable friendship.

"The wise men of this age would tell me that not a particle of the body I had then, at nineteen, is to be found in this old body of threescore and ten,—but that blood, bone, brains, and all its other youthful components, are changed. I know not, my dear crooked crab-stick, how truly they may speak; but this I know,—that I then was proud of a perfect and spotless array of teeth, while, now, my old gums are tenantless; that then my eyes were sharp and strong, while now I see, with the utmost difficulty, objects removed half a yard from my nose; that then my ears were instruments of use, and porches for receiving the brain's most precious visitants, the sounds of music,—while, now, they only serve to plague me when I see people's lips moving, and think, like other old fools, that folks are always talking about me; and, that I used to have 'a handsome head of hair,' as my barber always called it, on quarter-day, when he expected his salary,—while, now, I behold a perpetual winter above my brow, and on my brow itself!

"But, ah! my faithful friend, why should I lament the changes which have come upon me? Fate, or Fortune, or whatever power I might fancifully charge with my evil day, cannot avenge herself of me so bitterly as she might,—if I had teeth to be set on edge with inferior food,—eyes to be offended with the rude shapes of this straw mattrass and rush-bottomed chair,—ears to be tormented with the jangling of earthen porringers, as the poor deaf old woman knocks them against each other,—and hair which I could not dress for lack of a mirror!

"And then, as to my inner man, good lack, my beloved crooked crab-stick! though thou remainest the same, how is this my inner man changed! ay, how hath it changed and changed again, since our first dear friendship was formed! Yet I said in my heart, once, that my mind could never change in its regard for what I was pleased to call 'certain great principles!' Alack! I have lived to feel uncertain about the certainty and greatness of almost all principles! and——

"But stop! how is this, that having taken thee into my hand, I begin, just now, to question the reality of thy crookedness? Art thou really so very, very crooked, my dearly beloved stick?

"There! I place thee, again, in thy own corner, that so thou mayst lean against thy own spot in the wall, and lo! thy crookedness is made, once more, fully manifest! No, no, my friend—for Hugh Clifford loves thee too well and sincerely to call himself thy 'master,' and think of thee as of a slave!—no, no, it is too late in life for the 'beggared gentleman' to deceive himself—thou _art_ crooked, crooked indeed!

"But ah! my beloved stick, it is for thy crookedness I love thee, above all, though not for it alone. I avow to thee, as I have often avowed, in times past, when no human ear heard me, that I thank thee, my faithful, crooked, unfailing friend, for all thy service. Twice, when wielded by my right arm, didst though enable me to deliver a weak fellow-creature from his stronger, who would have slain him because he had not filthy gold or silver to satisfy the robber: ten times didst thou empower me to wrest open the cottage doors of dying human beings deserted by their kind, and unable to arise and welcome their deliverer: nay, once didst thou enable me to preserve my own poor life when the plunderer who now possesseth my house and land would have secretly and bloodily taken it!

"What though it bringeth some sorrow to remember the angelic face and form I saw, for the last time, but an hour before I cut thee from thy parent tree, Ah! how well doth life assort the lot of its inheritors, even when they most deeply repine! The sea devoured my Mary—my beauty, my only love, and I repined that she was not spared to share my riches and possessions; alas! would she not have had to share my lot, also, in this alms-house? Indeed, my friend, I was blessed that I gained thy friendship that night, when my love was taken from me, for how great a comfort hast thou been to me!