The History of Margaret Catchpole, a Suffolk Girl

About this time so many presents were sent to Margaret, and left in such a clandestine manner at or near the cottage, that although she herself was never corrupted by any one of these temptations, yet the effects of them began to show themselves in her family. Charles, the elder brother, used to find the presents, and dispose of them to Mrs. Cracknell, and he found his own gains so rapidly increase that he began to be idle; would not go to plough; disliked working on the land; took to carpentering at the old sexton’s at Nacton; learned to read and write; and again encouraged his old penchant for soldiering. At length he left his parents and friends, and enlisted in the 33rd regiment of foot, under the fictitious name of Jacob Dedham, at the Black Horse public-house, St. Mary Elm’s, Ipswich. He passed himself off as belonging to that parish; and but for the accidental circumstance of a Nacton lad, of the name of Calthorpe, seeing him at the inn, his friends and relatives would have been ignorant of his departure. His regiment soon after his enlistment sailed for the East Indies; and the history of Charles Catchpole, alias Jacob Dedham, would of itself form no uninteresting narrative. He rose in his regiment by great steadiness and assiduity. He became a singular adept at learning Eastern languages and customs. He was taken great notice of by Sir William Jones, the great Oriental linguist, who recommended him to a very important charge under Lord Cornwallis, who employed him in a confidential duty, as a spy, upon the frontiers of Persia. We shall have occasion to contemplate him in a future part of this history. For the present we pass on to some further fruits of the smuggler’s intimacy with the Catchpoles.

Robert, another son, in consequence of the unwholesome introduction of rapid profits, took to drinking, smoking, and idle company, and very soon brought himself to an early grave; giving the deepest pangs to his parents, and creating sorrow and suffering to all. He died of delirium tremens, in the year 1791.

James became a poacher, and was shot in a desperate affray with the gamekeepers of Admiral Vernon. He lingered on his brother’s bed until December 15th, 1792, and expired in deep distress, and with a declaration to poor Margaret, that it was her acquaintance with Laud that brought him to ruin. The youngest son alone preserved any steady fixed principles, and was the prop of his parents’ hopes.

The whole family now fell into disrepute, and the bitterest days of adversity followed. Tales began to be circulated of Margaret’s connexion with the smuggler. Sailors were seen to come and go from the cottage; and if they went but to ask for information, the lying tongue of slander was sure to propagate some infamous story. It was true that presents were left about the cottage, and that agents of the Cracknells were ready to receive them; but Margaret never touched a single thing that was so found. She was not insensible to all she saw, and she felt the full weight of Laud’s misconduct; but she never forgot to pray for him, and hoped, with that fondness which true love only can know, that he would one day be converted. But she partook of the ignominy which now visited her family, though she assuredly did not deserve it. She recommended her father to take another cottage, and even to seek work under another master. Anything she considered would be better than a place where he met with such continual misfortunes.

It must not be supposed that Mrs. Denton was unkind to Margaret, though her own servants took every opportunity to persuade her that she was a very worthless person – she seemed to think a removal would be best. Accordingly Jonathan Catchpole changed his abode, and, from a regular workman on that farm, became a jobbing labourer wherever he could find employment. He and his family lived at a lone cottage on the borders of Nacton Heath. Edward became a shepherd’s boy, and Margaret had serious thoughts of once more going out to service; but where? Alas! she remembered how happy she had been in her first place, and the very remembrance of that happiness made her shrink from having to relate to her former benefactor the then miserable consequences of her first attachment.

Laud’s father shared in the general stigma attached to his son’s name – he was accused of conniving at the youth’s excesses, and lost his situation as ferryman of the government packets from Harwich to Languard Fort. What miseries, heaped one upon the other, now fell with blighting force upon poor Margaret!

But a greater trial just now awaited her – a dreadful conflict took place below Felixstowe beach between the coastguard and Laud’s crew. A run was planned and put in execution from the Walton Marshes for Woodbridge – carts were brought to the cliff, the coastguard, as was thought, being attracted to Sizewell Gap, and everything being open before the smugglers. The cargo was landed, and the run began, when the preventive-service men, who had been secretly informed of the intended ruse at Sizewell Gap, came out of their hiding-place in a double band, headed by Lieutenant Edward Barry, a brave young sailor, second son of Mr. Henry Barry, a miller and farmer, of Levington Hill. The onset was tremendous, and the resistance deadly; but might and right were on one side, and bore down the stalwart forms of the violent smugglers.

Three of the crew were killed, and the others, unable to stand against the assault, fled as well as they were able. Young Barry and Laud had a severe personal encounter, in which the death of one or the other seemed the determination of both. Laud was the most powerful man, but Barry was the most expert swordsman; but what was the experience of the sword-arm in so dark a night? The two commanders seemed to know each other even in the darkness, for they fought with voices of encouragement to their men. The smugglers had fled, and Laud began to fear he was alone; but the pursuers, too, had gone, and still the two captains were contending. At this moment the contest was most deadly – Laud had wounded young Barry by a thrust. Though it was slight it was felt by the officer, and he determined neither to ask nor to give quarter. Laud had driven him up the side of a bank, and was in the act of giving a thrust at his heart, as Barry, with the advantage of his situation, like lightning gave a cut at his head, which at once went through his hat, and descended upon his forehead. Down fell the smuggler like a thunderbolt, and another moment the sword would have been buried in his side, had not Barry been compelled to act on the defensive by the opposition of John Luff.

Finding a new antagonist, and being himself wounded, this young man thought best to gather up his strength for a defensive retreat. He was not pursued. Hearing some of his own men he called to them, and, recognizing him, they advanced with him to the spot where, as Barry supposed, Captain Laud lay dead. But Luff had thrown him over his shoulder, and, being well acquainted with the marshes, had carried him over some planks, and so escaped.

CHAPTER IV DECEIT

Margaret was seated in her father’s cottage, now no longer that happy spot it used to be to her, but a change of abode had brought no rest from the troubles and anxieties of her mind: that very day she had heard of the dreadful encounter between the coastguard and the smugglers, and the report of the death of Will Laud, the notorious commander.

Margaret heard of her lover’s death, as may be supposed, with the deepest emotion; but she was not satisfied that the accounts she received were correct, and had serious intentions of going to the ferryman’s house to make inquiries for herself, when a rap came at their lone door, and who should come in but the ferryman himself, the father of Laud. The old man seemed to observe the altered state of the family upon whom he intruded himself, and could not help saying, at once, —

“I bring you bad news, Margaret, very bad, and of my poor boy.” The old man paused, and Margaret’s heart quailed, but in the next moment it revived. “But he would have me bring it!”

“Is he not dead then?” exclaimed the poor girl, as with a bound, she seized the aged ferryman by the arm; “is he not dead?”

“No, not yet – at least he was not when I left him two hours ago, and he would make me come to you, and tell you he wished earnestly to see you before he died.”

“Where is he? where is he?” exclaimed Margaret.

“At my poor cot on Walton Cliff; but oh, Margaret, so altered, so dreadfully marked, and so unhappy, that if you do see him I question much if you will know him. But will you come and see him?”

“Will I? – that I will! Only you sit down and eat a bit, and I will soon be ready.”

It took but a short space of time for Margaret to make preparation for her journey. Laud was alive, though ill, dangerously ill; still she might be the means of restoring him, if not to health of body, at least to a more healthy state of mind. She is ready, and the old man and Margaret depart together.

“Is he much hurt?” was Margaret’s first question, after they had advanced beyond the heath on to the high-road; “is he much wounded?”

“I fear he is. At times he is like a madman, raving at everything, cursing all smugglers and his own misfortunes. The fever is high upon him; he glares wildly at the old woman I have got to do for him – calls her a smuggler’s hag; and then he mentions you, Margaret, and the tears roll down his face, and he finds relief. His wound is on the forehead – a deep gash, through the bone; and the pain he suffers from the dressing is dreadful.”

“Have you had a surgeon?”

“No, Margaret, no – I dare not: I fear lest he should betray himself. His life would be forfeit to his country’s outraged laws, and he would die a more bitter death than now awaits him in my cot.”

There ran a sensitive shudder through poor Margaret’s frame as she thought of the situation of her lover. Parental affection had been more cautious than she would have been, and she secretly rejoiced. She thought likewise of her own situation; but selfishness had no portion in her soul. Laud might die! The thought was agonizing; but he would die, perhaps, a true penitent. This was surely better than being suddenly sent out of the world with all his sins upon his head. She felt thankful for so much mercy.

“Does he ever seem sorry for his crimes?” she inquired of the old man.

“I cannot exactly say he does,” was the reply, “though he speaks so vehemently against his captain. I wish he saw his situation in a more forcible light.”

“Time may be given him for that yet, Mr. Laud; at least, I pray God it may be so.”

“Amen, say I; amen!”

“How did he find you out? How did he reach home?”

“He was brought here upon a comrade’s back, a stout sailor, who came accompanied by old Dame Mitchel, who, if report speaks truth, is well acquainted with the smugglers. She says that John Luff, the captain’s mate, brought poor Will to her house; and when he learned that I was living only half a mile off, he persuaded her to come and help me to do for him. He brought him to me at night.”

With conversation of this kind, the father and the maiden pursued their course till they arrived at a very sequestered cottage, near the ruins of Walton Castle, close to that celebrated spot where the Earl of Leicester landed with his Flemings in A.D. 1173. “It stood upon a high cliff, about the distance of a mile from the mouth of the Woodbridge haven, two miles from the Orwell. At this time but few stones mark the spot. There is little doubt that it was a Roman fortification, as a great many urns, rings, coins, and torques, have been found in that neighbourhood. It is supposed to have been built by Constantine the Great when he withdrew his legions from the frontier towns in the east of Britain, and built forts or castles to supply the want of them.” So says the old Suffolk Traveller.

Our travellers arrived at this lone cottage, where a faint, glimmering light from the low window told that the watch was still kept at the sick man’s bed. The father entered first, and soon returned, telling Margaret that she might come in, as sleep, for the first time since the night he had been brought home, had overpowered Laud’s senses.

By the faint gleam of that miserable light, Margaret perceived how dreadfully altered were the features of her lover. He lay in a heavy, hard-breathing, lethargic sleep, and the convulsive movements of his limbs, and a restless changing of the position of his arms, told that, however weary the body, the spirit was in a very agitated state; and, oh! how deadly, how livid was his countenance! Scarcely could Margaret think it the same she had been accustomed to look upon with so much pleasure: the brow was distorted with pain, the lips scorched with fever – a stiff white moisture exuded from his closed eyelids. A painful moan escaped his heaving chest, and at last he surprised the listeners by a sudden painful cry.

“Margaret, ahoy! Margaret, ahoy! Hullo! hullo! Don’t run away. Here, here! I want you!”

And then his limbs moved, just as if he was in the act of running after some one.

The fever was evidently high upon him, and poor Margaret was herself greatly afflicted at seeing his extreme suffering. She gave way to tears, which affected the poor father so much that the old man could not refrain from weeping. The woman alone seemed composed; as if she had been accustomed to scenes of horror, she exhibited no signs of tenderness or concern. She continued to mumble a piece of brown bread which she held in her hand, lifting up her brows from time to time, and darting her sharp grey eyes, first at the smuggler, then at the girl, and then at the old man, but without uttering or seeming to hear a word, or to feel a single human emotion.

As she looked upon her, a thought shot through Margaret’s brain of no very friendly nature toward the singular being before her – she could not help thinking that this Moggy Mitchel was a sort of spy upon her lover. How keen, how quick, how apprehensive is true love!

To prove that Margaret’s suspicion was not altogether groundless, that very night the old woman went out of the house, under pretence of seeing what sort of night it was; and as Margaret sat watching by the bedside of Laud, the moon, which was just rising above the summit of the cliff, showed her, through the lattice, two dark figures standing together. She could not, of course, distinguish their features, but the outlines of their forms were very strong, and not to be mistaken – she was sure it was John Luff and Dame Mitchel, and that they were in close conversation on the verge of the cliff.

The old woman shortly returned to the room, and it was evident to Margaret that something had excited her.

“We must get him well as soon as we can,” were the first words she uttered; and had not her former coolness and her late meeting upon the cliff awakened in Margaret’s mind some sinister motive prompting this speech, she might have been deceived by it.

Margaret had the deepest and purest motives for desiring the young man’s restoration to health: she loved him, and she hoped to re-establish his character, and to recover him not only from his sick-bed, but from his state of degradation. But in all her efforts she found herself frustrated by the interference of this beldame, who, as William progressed towards recovery, was constantly keeping alive within him some reports of the successes of the crew, of their kind inquiries after his health, and the hopes they had of soon seeing him among them. Independently of this, there came presents and compliments from Captain Bargood, and these increased as Laud recovered.

Nothing so much stung Margaret’s heart as to find that all her attentions, prayers, entreaties, and admonitions, were counteracted by the secret influences of these agencies; but her object was a righteous one, and she did not slacken in her endeavours to attain it. She found, as Laud gradually recovered, that he was fully sensible of his past folly, and quite alive to the devoted affection she had shown to him; but she found also that no touch of religious feeling blended with his regret for his past conduct.

This gave her the deepest pang, for she would rather have heard him offer one thanksgiving to the Being to whom all thanks are due, than find herself the object of his praise and gratitude.

It was at this time that Margaret wished she had been a scholar. There was a Bible in the cottage, an old black-letter edition, containing the Book of Common Prayer, the genealogies recorded in the sacred Scriptures, together with the Psalms of David, in metre, by Sternhold and Hopkins, with curious old diamond-headed notes of the tunes to each psalm.

Margaret would gladly have read the holy book to her lover, but she might as well have had a Hebrew edition before her, for not a word could she decipher. He could read, and her only way of inducing him so to do was by expressing her desire to hear him read. She found this, however, a difficult and dangerous task, for, independently of the distaste which the old woman had to the Bible, she found her lover very restless and feverish after any exertion of the kind. Where the spirit is unwilling, how irksome is the task!

“How plain is that description you read to me this morning of our first parents’ fall,” said Margaret one day, when the enemy was absent: “how plainly it shows us the necessity of our denying ourselves anything and everything which God has forbidden us!”

“It does, indeed, Margaret; but no man can help sinning!”

“I doubt that – I think Adam could have done so.”

“Then why did he sin, Margaret?”

“You read to me, that the woman tempted him or persuaded him, and that the serpent beguiled her into sin: so that the serpent was the author of sin.”

“Yes: and the woman was first deceived, and then deceived her husband. You must admit that she was the worst of the two.”

“I own that she was, and is the weakest; but her sorrows appear to have been the greater, and she has been little better than a slave to man ever since.”

“Well, Margaret, well, you have been very kind to me, and I know now that you are a good girl, and wish me to be good. I wish I may be better.”

“Do not only wish it, dear William, but pray to God to make you so, and I do think that He will.”

“Well, well, I will be better – yes, I will, if I get over this blow on the head; but oh, how it aches! You must not bewilder me too much.”

So did this interesting conversation cease, by the man’s appeal to his want of strength, when he was asserting a will of his own, which, though bold in words, was but fickle in actions.

Every day, as her patient advanced towards recovery, was poor Margaret more and more convinced that Laud wanted stability of purpose to resist evil, – he was, like every passionate man, self-willed and wicked. Margaret, though at this time uneducated, had been a very attentive listener to all good instruction – she was far from being ignorant of right and wrong. Her principles were good, and through her most eventful years she exhibited but one great error, which was her blind passion for the unhappy man whom she would have made, if she could, a better being; and every day she found a more persevering enemy in Mrs. Mitchel, who counteracted all her salutary influence with Laud. Silent and morose as this woman was at times, she could be loquacious enough when it suited her own purpose.

“I have,” said she, one day, “just left a choice set of fellows upon the beach, as merry a set, Will, as I ever saw, and all rejoicing in your improvement. Luff holds your office until you join them again. They have had fine success lately, since young Barry is laid by the leg. I have brought you a box of raisins, and such a choice can of sweetmeats, as a present from the captain.”

“Ah! they are all good fellows, but I do not think that I shall ever join them again.”

“Pshaw, my lad! this is only a love-fit for the moment.” (Margaret was absent upon an errand.) “If that girl does not know what it is to have a high-spirited young fellow like yourself for a lover, without making him a poor, tame, milk-and-water poodle, why then she ought to make herself always as scarce as she is at this moment. I have no patience with the girl – she does not know her own interest. I suppose she would have you stick to the plough’s tail, or toil all day at the spade, and bring her home a hard-earned pittance at the week’s-end. Pshaw! Will, you are formed for better things.”

“But she’s a good girl, Moggy,” said Will.

“Oh, aye! the girl is well enough, and decent too. I don’t mean to say she would not make a chap a good sort of wife either, but she’s not the sort of girl for you, Will. She’s no spirit about her. She don’t see how a young fellow like you can do better by her, in a bold, dashing way, than by such tame, dull, plodding industry as her family use.”

“No; but then she wishes to see me happy, and I might be popped off the next skirmish.”

“You always look on the black side of things. Here are your fellows making their fortunes rapidly, and you talking of drudging on, in a quiet, stupid way, with the chance of being informed against and executed for your past doings. Young Barry won’t easily forgive you.”

“Nor I him, either,” was the significant reply, with a clenching of the fist and a grinding of the teeth, which proved how artfully the hag had worked upon Laud’s worst feelings.

Margaret, on her return, could perceive that her absence had been taken advantage of to effect a purpose adverse to all her hopes.

Against all these disadvantages, however, Margaret combated with some success, and by degrees had the happiness of seeing her patient get the better of his sufferings. The wound would have healed sooner and better, had Laud’s mind been kept free from feverish excitement. It did heal up, though not so well as Margaret wished – a frightful scar extended over the os frontis, directly to the high cheek-bone. For a long time the eye seemed as if it had perished, but as the fever abated its sight returned.

It will be sufficient to record, that in due time Laud perfectly recovered, and the services of his nurses became no longer necessary.

If at this time any situation had offered itself by which Laud could have gained an honest livelihood, he would, probably, have accepted it, and become an honest man; and in talking with Margaret of his future life, he promised that she should never again hear of anything against him. He would go to sea, and earn an honest livelihood, even if he was obliged to serve a foreigner.

“Well, Laud, I will trust you again,” said Margaret, on the day she took her leave of him: “I will trust you again, William, though my heart aches bitterly at parting with you, whilst you have no regular employment, but I shall pray for you wherever I am. I shall probably go to service soon, for I do not like to be a burden to my friends.”

They parted affectionately, for Laud felt that he owed his life to her care; and she, that all her hopes of future comfort in this life were centred in his welfare. Yet that very night did William Laud meet his former comrades, and was persuaded to join their crew at the Bawdsey Cave, to assume the name of Hudson, and to become again neither more nor less than a desperate smuggler.

We will not follow him through his career of guilt: suffice it to say, that he contrived to send word to Margaret that he had entered into the service of a Dutch trader, and was promised a future share of his ship. He pretended to have quitted the society of the smugglers, who at that time so infested the eastern coasts of this country; and as she heard no more of his name, and received no more suspicious presents, she suffered her heart to cherish the fond hope of his reformation.

The anticipation of days to come, and the promised pleasure of those days, are always greater than are ever realized by mortals. It is, however, one of the greatest blessings of life to anticipate good. The hope, too, of another’s welfare, and of being the humble instrument of promoting the interest of another, is the sweetest bond of woman’s cherished affection. Truly may such be termed man’s helpmate, who would do him good, and not evil, all the days of his life.

Poor Margaret found, that the more she hoped for Laud’s amendment, the more constant became her attachment, the more she excused his past life, and the more deeply her heart became engaged to him.