The Chaplain of the Fleet

“It seems a pity, Mr. Stallabras,” I was saying, “that you, who are so fond of singing about the purling stream and the turtles cooing in the grove, do not know more about the familiar objects of the country. Here is this little flower” – only a humble crane’s-bill, yet a beautiful flower – “you do not, I engage, know its name?”

He did not.

“Observe, again, the spreading leaves of yonder great tree. You do not, I suppose, know its name?”

He did not. A common beech it was, yet as stately as any of those which may be seen near Farnham Royal, or in Windsor Forest.

“And listen! there is a bird whose note, I dare swear, you do not know?”

He did not. Would you believe that it was actually the voice of the very turtle-dove of which he was so fond?

“The Poet,” he explained, not at all abashed by the display of so much ignorance – “the Poet should not fetter his mind with the little details of nature: he dwells in his thought remote from their consideration: a flower is to him a flower, which is associated with the grove and the purling stream: a shepherd gathers a posy of flowers for his nymph: a tree is a tree which stands beside the stream to shelter the swain and his goddess: the song of one bird is as good as the song of another, provided it melodiously echoes the sighs of the shepherd. As for – ”

Here we were interrupted. The post-chaise drove rapidly up the road and overtook us. As we turned to look, it stopped, and two men jumped out of it, armed with cudgels. Nancy seized my arm: “Kitty! Will is in the carriage!” I will do Solomon Stallabras justice. He showed himself, though small of stature and puny of limb, as courageous as a lion. He was armed with nothing but his cane, but with this he flew upon the ruffians who rushed to seize me, and beat, struck, clung, and kicked in my defence. Nancy threw herself upon me and shrieked, crying, that if they carried me away they should drag her too. While we struggled, I saw the evil face of Will looking out of the carriage: it was distorted by every evil passion: he cried to the men to murder Solomon: he threatened his sister to kill her unless she let go: he called to me that it would be the worse for me unless I came quiet. Then he sprang from the carriage himself, having originally purposed, I suppose, to take no part in the fray, and with his cudgel dealt Solomon such a blow upon his head that he fell senseless in the road. After this he seized Nancy, his own sister, dragged her from me, swore at the men for being cowardly lubbers, and while they threw me into the carriage, he hurled his sister shrieking and crying on the prostrate form of the poor poet, and sprang into the carriage after me.

“Run!” he cried to the two men; “off with you both, different ways. If you get caught, it will be the worse for you.”

We were half-way up the hill which leads from the town to the Downs; in fact, we were not very far above the doctor’s house, but there was a wind in the road, so that had his men been looking out of his doors they could not have seen what was being done, though they might have heard almost on the Terrace the cries, the dreadful imprecations, and the shrieks of Nancy and myself.

They had thrown me upon the seat with such violence that I was breathless for a few moments, as well as sick and giddy with the dreadful scene – it lasted but half a minute – which I had witnessed. Yet as Will leaped in after me and gave the word to drive on, I saw lying in the dust of the road the prostrate and insensible form of poor Solomon and my faithful, tender Nancy, who had so fought and wrestled with the villains, not with any hope that she could beat them off, but in order to gain time, lying half over the body of the poet, half on the open road. Alas! the road at this time was generally deserted; there was no one to rescue, though beyond the tall elms upon the right lay the gardens and park of Durdans, where my lord was walking at that moment, perhaps, meditating upon his wretched Kitty.

As for my companion, his face resembled that of some angry devil, moved by every evil passion at once. If I were asked to depict the worst face I ever saw, I should try to draw the visage of this poor boy. He could not speak for passion. He was in such a rage that his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He could not even swear. He could only splutter. For a while he sat beside me ejaculating at intervals disjointed words, while his angry eyes glared about the coach, and his red cheeks flamed with wrath.

The Downs were quite deserted: not even a shepherd was in sight. We drove along a road which I knew well, a mere track across the grass: the smooth turf was easy for the horses, and we were travelling at such a pace that it seemed impossible for any one to overtake us.

My heart sank, yet I bade myself keep up courage. With this wild beast at my side it behoved me to show no sign of terror.

Every woman has got two weapons, one provided by Nature, the other by Art. The first is the one which King Solomon had ever in his mind when he wrote the Book of Proverbs (which should be the guide and companion of every young man). Certainly he had so many wives that he had more opportunities than fall to the lot of most husbands (who have only the experience of one) of knowing the power of a woman’s tongue. He says he would rather dwell in the wilderness than with an angry woman: in the corner of the house-top than with a brawling woman. (Yet the last chapter of the book is in praise of the wise woman.) I had, therefore, my tongue. Next I had a pair of scissors, so that if my fine gentleman attempted the least liberty, I could, and would, give him such a stab with the sharp points as would admonish him to good purpose. But mostly I relied upon my tongue, knowing of old that with this weapon Will was easily discomfited.

Presently, the cool air of the Downs blowing upon his cheeks, Will became somewhat soothed, and his ejaculations became less like angry words used as interjections. I sat silent, taking no notice of what he said, and answering nothing to any of his wild speeches. But be sure that I kept one eye upon the window, ready to shriek if any passer-by appeared.

The angry interjections settled down into sentences, and Will at last became able to put some of his thoughts into words.

He began a strange, wild, rambling speech, during which I felt somewhat sorry for him. It was such a speech as an Indian savage might have made when roused to wrath by the loss of his squaw.

He bade me remember that he had known me from infancy, that he had always been brought up with me. I had therefore a first duty to perform in the shape of gratitude to him (for being a child with him in the same village). Next he informed me that having made up his mind to marry me, nothing should stop him, because nothing ever did stop him in anything he proposed to do, and if any one tried to stop him, he always knocked down that man first, and when he had left him for dead, he then went and did the thing. This, he said, was well known. Very well, then. Did I dare, then, he asked, knowing as I did full well this character of his for resolution, to fly in the face of that knowledge and throw him over? What made the matter, he argued, a case of the blackest ingratitude, was that I had thrown him over for a lord: a poor, chicken-hearted, painted lord, whom he, for his own part, could knock down at a single blow. He would now, therefore, show me what my new friends were worth. Here I was, boxed up in the carriage with him, safe and sound, not a soul within hail, being driven merrily across country to a place he knew of, where I should find a house, a parson, and a prayer-book. With these before me I might, if I pleased, yelp and cry for my lord and his precious friend, Sir Miles Lackington. They would be far enough away, with their swords and their mincing ways. When I was married they might come and – what was I laughing at?

I laughed, in fact, because I remembered another weapon. As a last resource I could proclaim to the clergyman that I was already a wife, the wife of Lord Chudleigh. I knew enough of the clergy to be certain that although a man might be here and there found among them capable of marrying a woman against her will, just as men are found among them who, to please their patrons, will drink with them, go cock-fighting with them, and in every other way forget the sacred duties of their calling, yet not one among them all, however bad, would dare to marry again a woman already married. Therefore I laughed.

A London profligate would, perhaps, have got a man to personate a clergyman; but this wickedness, I was sure, would not enter into the head of simple Will Levett. It was as much as he could devise – and that was surely a good deal – to bribe some wretched country curate to be waiting for us at our journey’s end, to marry us on the spot. When I understood this I laughed again, thinking what a fool Will would look when he was thwarted again.

“Zounds, madam! I see no cause for laughing.”

“I laugh, Will,” I said, “because you are such a fool. As for you, unless you order your horses’ heads to be turned round, and drive me instantly back to Epsom, you will not laugh, but cry.”

To this he made no reply, but whistled. Now to whistle when a person gives you serious advice, is in Kent considered a contemptuous reply.

“Ah!” he went on, “sly as you were, I have been too many for you. It was you who set the two bullies, your great lord and your baronet, on me with their swords – made all the people laugh at me. You shall pay for it all. It was you set Nancy crying and scolding upon me enough to give a man a fit; it was you, I know, set my father on to me. Says if he cannot cut me off with a shilling, he will sell the timber, ruin the estate, and let me starve so long as he lives. Let ’un! let ’un! let ’un, I say! All of you do your worst. Honest Will Levett will do what he likes, and have what he likes. Bull-dog Will! Holdfast Will! Tear-’em Will! By the Lord! there isn’t a man in the country can get the better of him. Oh, I know your ways! Wait till I’ve married you. Then butter wont melt in your mouth. Then it will be, ‘Dear Will! kind Will! sweet Will! best of husbands and of men!’ – oh! I know what you are well enough. Why – after all – what is one woman that she should set herself above other women? Take off your powder and your patches and your hoops, how are you better than Blacksmith’s Sue? Answer me that. And why do I take all this trouble about you, to anger my father and spite my mother, when Blacksmith’s Sue would make as good a wife – ay! a thousand times better – because she can bake and brew, and shoe a horse, and mend a cracked crown, and fight a game-cock, and teach a ferret, and train a terrier or a bull-pup, whereas you – what are you good for, but to sit about and look grand, and come over the fellows with your make-pretence, false, lying, whimsy-flimsy ways, your smilin’ looks when a lord is at your heels, and your ‘Oh, fie! Will,’ if it’s only an old friend. Why, I say? Because I’ve told my friends that I’m going to bring you home my wife, and my honour’s at stake. Because I am one as will have his will, spite of ’em all. Because I don’t love you, not one bit, since I found you out for what you are, a false, jiltin’ jade; and I value the little finger of Sue more than your whole body, tall as you are, and fine as you think yourself. Oh! by the Lord – ”

I am sorry I cannot give the whole of his speech, which was too coarse and profane to be written down for polite eyes to read. Suffice it to say that it included every form of wicked word or speech known to the rustics of Kent, and that he threatened me, in the course of it, with every kind of cruelty that he could think of, counting as nothing a horsewhipping every day until I became cheerful. Now, to horsewhip your wife every day, in order to make her cheerful, seems like starving your horse in order to make him more spirited; or to flog an ignorant boy in order to make him learned; or to kick your dog in order to make him love you. Perhaps he did not mean quite all that he said; but one cannot tell, because his friends were chiefly in that rank of life where it is considered a right and honourable thing to beat a wife, cuff a son, and kick a daughter, and even the coarsest boor of a village will have obedience from the wretched woman at his beck and call. I think that Will would have belaboured his wife with the greatest contentment, and as a pious duty, in order to make her satisfied with her lot, cheerful over her duties, and merry at heart at the contemplation of so good a husband. “A wife, a dog, and a walnut-tree, the harder you flog them, the better they be.” There are plenty of Solomon’s Proverbs in favour of flogging a child, but none, that I know of, which recommend the flogging of a wife.

Blacksmith Sam, Will said, in his own village, the father of the incomparable Sue, used this method to tame his wife, with satisfactory results; and Pharaoh, his own keeper, was at that very time engaged upon a similar course of discipline with his partner. What, he explained, is good for such as those women is good for all. “Beat ’em and thrash ’em till they follow to heel like a well-bred retriever. Keep the stick over ’em till such times as they become as meek as an old cow, and as obedient as a sheep-dog.”

While he was still pouring forth these maxims for my information and encouragement my heart began to beat violently, because I heard (distantly at first) the hoofs of horses behind us. Will went on, hearing and suspecting nothing, growing louder and louder in his denunciation of women, and the proper treatment of them.

The hoofs drew nearer. Presently they came alongside. I looked out. One on each side of our carriage, there rode Lord Chudleigh and Sir Miles Lackington.

But I laughed no longer, for I saw before me the advent of some terrible thing, and a dreadful trembling seized me. My lord’s face was stern, and Sir Miles, for the first time in my recollection, was grave and serious, as one who hath a hard duty to perform. So mad was poor headstrong Will that he neither heard them nor, for a while, saw them, but continued his swearing and raving.

They called aloud to the postillions to stop the horses. This it was that roused Will, and he sprang to his feet with a yell of rage, and thrusting his head out of the window, bawled to the boys to drive faster, faster! They whipped and spurred their horses. My lord said nothing, but rode on, keeping up with the carriage.

“Stop!” cried Sir Miles.

“Go on!” cried Will.

Sir Miles drew a pistol and deliberately cocked it.

“If you will not stop,” he cried, holding his pistol to the post-boy’s head, “I will fire!”

“Go on!” cried Will. “Go on; he dares not fire.”

The fellow – I knew him for a stable-boy whose life at the Hall had been one long series of kicks, cuffs, abuse, and horsewhippings at the hands of his young master – ducked his head between his shoulders, and put up his elbows, as if that which had so often protected him when Will was enforcing discipline by the help of Father Stick, would avail him against a pistol-shot. But he obeyed his master, mostly from force of habit, and spurred his horse.

Sir Miles changed the direction of the pistol, and leaning forward, discharged the contents in the head of the horse which the boy was riding. The poor creature bounded forward and fell dead.

There was a moment of confusion; the flying horses stumbled and fell, the boys were thrown from their saddles: the carriage was stopped suddenly.

Then, what followed happened all in a moment. Yet it is a moment which to me is longer than any day of my life, because the terror of it has never left me, and because in dreams it often comes back to me. Ah! what a prophetess was Nancy when she said that some dreadful thing would happen before all was over, unless Will went away.

Sir Miles and my lord sprang to their feet. Will, with a terrible oath, leaped forth from the carriage. For a moment he stood glaring from one to the other like a wild beast brought to bay. He was a wild beast. Then he raised his great cudgel and rushed at my lord.

“You!” he cried; “you are the cause of it. I will beat out your brains!”

Lord Chudleigh leaped lightly aside, and avoided the blow which would have killed him had it struck his head. Then I saw the bright blade in his hand glisten for a moment in the sunlight, and then Will fell backwards with a cry, and lay lifeless on the green turf, while my lord stood above him, drops of red blood trickling down his sword.

“I fear, my lord,” said Sir Miles, “that you have killed him. Fortunately, I am witness that it was in self-defence.”

“You have killed him! You have killed my master!” cried the stable boy, whose left arm, which was broken by his fall from the horse, hung helpless at his side. “You have killed the best master in all the world! Lord or no lord, you shall hang!”

He rushed with his one hand to seize the slayer of his master, this poor faithful slave, whose affections had only grown firmer with every beating. Sir Miles caught him by the coat-collar and dragged him back.

“Quiet, fool! Attend to your master. He is not dead – yet.”

He looked dead. The rage was gone out of his eyes, which were closed, and the blood had left the cheeks, which were pallid. Poor Will never looked so handsome as when he lay, to all seeming, dead.

Lord Chudleigh looked on his prostrate form with a kind of stern sadness. The taking of life, even in such a cause and in self-defence, is a dreadful thing. Like Lamech (who also might have been defending his own life), he had slain a man to his wounding, and a young man to his hurt.

“Kitty,” he said, in a low voice, taking my hand, “this is a grievous day’s work. Yet I regret it not, since I have saved your honour!”

“My lord,” I replied, “I had the saving of that in my own hands. But you have rescued me from a wild beast, whose end I grieve over because I knew him when he was yet an innocent boy.”

“Come,” said Sir Miles, “we must take measures. Here, fellows! come, lift your master.”

The two boys, with his help, lifted Will, who, as they moved him, groaned heavily, into the carriage.

“Now,” said Sir Miles, “one of you get inside. Lift his head. If – but that is impossible – you come across water, pour a little into his mouth. The other mount, and drive home as quickly as you can.”

I bethought me of my friend the mad doctor, and bade them take their master to his house, which was, as I have said, on the road between the town and the Downs, so that he might be carried there quietly, without causing an immediate scandal in the town.

The fellows were now quite obedient and subdued. Sir Miles, who seemed to know what was to be done, made some sort of splint with a piece of poor Will’s cudgel, for the broken arm, which he tied up roughly, and bade the boy be careful to get attended to as soon as his master was served. In that class of life, as is well known, wounds, broken bones, and even the most cruel surgical operations, are often endured with patience which would equal the most heroic courage, if it were not due to a stupid insensibility. The most sensitive of men are often the most courageous, because they know what it is they are about to suffer.

However, they did as they were told, and presently drove back, the third horse following with a rope.

Then we were left alone, with the blood upon the grass and the dead horse lying beside us.

Sir Miles took my lord’s sword from him, wiped it on the turf, and restored it to him.

“Come,” he said, “we must consider what to do.”

“There is nothing to do,” said Lord Chudleigh, “except to take Miss Pleydell home again.”

“Pardon me, my lord,” Sir Miles interposed; “if ever I saw mischief written on any man’s face, it was written on the face of that boy. A brave lad, too, and would have driven to the death at his master’s command.”

“How can he do harm?” I asked. “Why, Sir Miles, you are witness; you saw Will Levett with his cudgel rush upon his lordship, who but drew in self-defence. I am another witness. I hope the simple words of such as you and I would be believed before the oath of a stable-lad.”

“I suppose they would,” he replied. “Meantime, there is the fact, known to all the company at the Wells, that both you and I, Lord Chudleigh, had publicly informed this unhappy young man, that, under certain circumstances, we would run him through. The circumstances have happened, and we have run him through. This complication may be unfortunate as regards the minds of that pig-headed institution, a coroner’s inquest.”

“Sir!” cried my lord, “do you suppose – would you have me believe – that this affair might be construed into anything but an act of self-defence?”

“I do indeed,” he replied gravely; “and so deeply do I feel it, that I would counsel a retreat into some place where we shall not be suspected, for such a time as may be necessary. If the worst happens, and the man dies, your lordship may surrender yourself – but in London – not to a country bench. If the man recovers, well and good; you can go abroad again.”

At first my lord would hear nothing of such a plan. Why should he run away? Was it becoming for a man to fly from the laws of his country? Then I put in a word, pointing out that it was one thing for a case to be tried before a jury of ignorant, prejudiced men upon an inquest, and another thing altogether for the case to be tried by a dispassionate and unprejudiced jury. I said, too, that away from this place, the circumstances of the case, the brutal assault upon Solomon Stallabras, whose ribs, it appeared, were broken, as well as his collar-bone, the ferocious treatment of Nancy by her own brother, and my forcible abduction in open daylight, would certainly be considered provocation enough for anything, and a justification (combined with the other circumstances) of the homicide, if unhappily Will should die.

This moved my lord somewhat.

Where, he asked, could he go, so as to lie perdu for a few days, or a few weeks, if necessary?

“I have thought upon that,” replied Sir Miles, looking at me with a meaning eye (but I blushed and turned pale, and reddened again). “I have just now thought of a plan. Your lordship has been there once already; I mean the Rules of the Fleet. Here will I find you lodgings, where no one will look for you; where, if you please to lie hidden for awhile, you may do so in perfect safety; where you may have any society you please, from a baronet out at elbows to a baker in rags, or no society at all, if you please to lie quiet.”

“I like not the place,” said his lordship. “I have been there it is true once, and it was once too often. Find me another place.”

“I know no other,” Sir Miles replied. “You must be in London; you must be in some place where no one will suspect you. As for me, I will stay near you, but not with you. There will be some noise over this affair; it will be well for us to be separated, yet not so far but that I can work for you. Come, my lord, be reasonable. The place is dirty and noisy; but what signify dirt and noise when safety is concerned?”

He wavered. The recollection of the place was odious to him. Yet the case was pressing.

He gave way.

“Have it,” he said, “your own way. Kitty,” he took my hand, “hopeless as is my case, desperate as is my condition, I am happy in having rescued you, no matter at what cost.”

“Your lordship’s case is not so hopeless as mine,” said Sir Miles; “yet I, too, am happy in having helped to rescue this, the noblest creature in the world.”

The tears were in my eyes as these two men spoke of me in such terms. How could I deserve this worship? By what act, or thought, or prayer, could I raise myself to the level where my lord’s imagination had planted me? O Love divine, since it makes men and women long to be angels!

“I mean,” Sir Miles continued bluntly, “that since your lordship has found favour in her eyes, your case cannot be hopeless.”

Lord Chudleigh raised my hand to his lips, with a sadness in his eyes of which I alone could discern the cause.

“Gentlemen,” I cried, “we waste the time in idle compliments. Mount and ride off as quickly as you may. As for me, it is but three miles across the Downs. I have no fear. I shall meet no one. Mount, I say, and ride to London without more ado.”

They obeyed; they left me standing alone. As my eyes turned from following them, they lighted on the pool of blood – Will’s blood, which reddened the turf – and upon the poor dead horse. Then I hastened back across the Downs.