Barrington. Volume 2

This rejection of him came at a critical moment. It was just when the press had begun to comment on the cruelty of his conduct at Peterloo, and when a sort of cry was got up through the country to have him dismissed from the service. We all saw, but never suspected, why he was so terribly cut up at this time. It was hard to believe that he could have taken mere newspaper censure so much to heart. We never guessed the real cause, never saw that he was driven to his last expedient, and obliged to prejudice all his hope of success by precipitancy. If he could not make Josephine his wife at once, on the very moment, all was lost. He made a bold effort at this. Who knows if he might not have succeeded but for you, as Josephine was very young, my old friend himself utterly unfit to cope with anything but open hostility? I say again, I ‘d not have answered for the result if you had not been in command of the fortress. At all events, he failed; and in the failure lost his temper so far as to force a quarrel upon your brother. He failed, however; and no sooner was he down, than the world was atop of him: creditors, Jews, bill-discounters, and, last of all, the Stapyltons, who, so long as he bore their family name thousands of miles off, or associated it with deeds of gallantry, said nothing; now, that they saw it held up to attack and insult, came forward to declare that he never belonged to them, and at length appealed formally to the Horse Guards, to learn under what designation he had entered the service, and at what period taken the name he went by.

Stapylton’s application for leave to sell out had just been sent in; and once more the newspapers set up the cry that this man should not be permitted to carry away to Aix and Baden the proceeds of a sale which belonged to his “creditors.” You know the world, and I need not tell you all the pleasant things it told this fellow, for men are pretty nigh as pitiless as crows to their wounded. I thought the complication had reached its limit, when I learned yesterday evening that Stapylton had been summoned before a police magistrate for a case of assault committed by him when in command of his regiment at Manchester. The case had evidently been got up by a political party, who, seeing the casual unpopularity of the man, determined to profit by it. The celebrated radical barrister, Hesketh, was engaged for the plaintiff.

When I arrived at the court, it was so full that it was with difficulty I got a passage to a seat behind the bench. There were crowds of fashionables present, the well-known men about town, and the idlers of the clubs, and a large sprinkling of military men, for the news of the case had got wind already.

Stapylton, dressed in black, and looking pale and worn, but still dignified and like a gentleman, had not a single friend with him. I own to you, I felt ashamed to be there, and was right glad when he did not recognize me.

Though the case opened by a declaration that this was no common assault case, wherein in a moment of passion a man had been betrayed into an excess, I knew the cant of my craft too well to lay any stress on such assertion, and received it as the ordinary exordium. As I listened, however, I was struck by hearing that the injured man was asserted to be one well known to Stapylton, with whom he had been for years in intimacy, and that the assault was in reality a deliberate attempt to kill, and not, as had been represented, a mere passing act of savage severity committed in hot blood. “My client,” said he, “will be brought before you; he is a Hindoo, but so long a resident of this country that he speaks our language fluently. You shall hear his story yourselves, and yourselves decide on its truthfulness. His wounds are, however, of so serious a nature that it will be advisable his statement should be a brief one.” As he said this, a dark-complexioned fellow, with a look half-frightened, half defiant, was carried forwards in a chair, and deposited, as he sat, on the table. He gave his name as Lai Adeen, his age as forty-eight, his birthplace Majamarha, near Agra. He came to this country twelve years ago, as servant to an officer who had died on the passage, and after many hardships in his endeavor to earn a livelihood, obtained employment at Manchester in the mill of Brandling and Bennett, where he was employed to sweep the corridors and the stairs; his wages were nine shillings a week. All this, and much more of the same kind, he told simply and collectedly. I tried to see Stapylton while this was going on, but a pillar of the gallery, against which he leaned, concealed him from my view.

I omit a great deal, not without its interest, but reserving it for another time, and come to his account of the night on which he was wounded. He said that as the cavalry marched on that morning into Manchester, he was struck by seeing at the head of the regiment one he had never set his eyes on for years, but whose features he knew too well to be deceived in.

“I tried to get near him, that he might recognize me,” said he; “but the crowd kept me back, and I could not. I thought, indeed, at one moment he had seen me, and knew me; but as he turned his head away, I supposed I was mistaken.

“It was on the following evening, when the riot broke out in Mill Street, that I saw him next. I was standing at the door of a chemist’s shop when the cavalry rode by at a walk. There was a small body of them in front, at about forty or fifty paces, and who, finding a sort of barricade across the street, returned to the main body, where they seemed to be reporting this. A cry arose that the troops had been blocked up at the rear, and at the same instant a shower of stones came from the side-streets and the house-tops. Thinking to do him a service, I made my way towards him I knew, in order to tell him by what way he could make his escape; and jostled and pushed, and half ridden down, I laid my hand on his horse’s shoulder to keep myself from falling. ‘Stand back, you scoundrel!’ said he, striking me with the hilt of his sword in the face. ‘Don’t you know me, master?’ cried I, in terror. He bent down in his saddle till his face was almost close to mine, and then, reining his horse back to give him room for a blow, he aimed a desperate cut at me. I saw it coming, and threw myself down; but I rose the next instant and ran. The street was already so clear by this time, I got into Cleever’s Alley, down Grange Street, up the lane that leads to the brick-fields, and at last into the fields themselves. I was just thinking I was safe, when I saw a horseman behind me. He saw me, and dashed at me. I fell upon my knees to ask mercy, and he gave me this;” and he pointed to the bandages which covered his forehead, stained as they were with clotted blood. “I fell on my face, and he tried to make his horse trample on me; but the beast would not, and he only touched me with his hoof as he sprang across me. He at last dismounted to see, perhaps, if I were dead; but a shout from some of the rioters warned him to mount again; and he rode away, and I lay there till morning. It is not true that I was in prison and escaped, – that I was taken to the hospital, and ran away from it. I was sheltered in one of the clay-huts of the brickmakers for several weeks, afraid to come abroad, for I knew that the Sahib was a great man and could take my life. It was only by the persuasions of others that I left my hiding-place and have come here to tell my story.”

On being questioned why this officer could possibly desire to injure him, what grudge one in such a station could bear him, he owned he could not say; they had never been enemies, and, indeed, it was in the hope of a friendly recognition and assistance that he approached him in Mill Street.

Stapylton’s defence was very brief, given in an off-hand, frank manner, which disposed many in his favor. He believed the fellow meant to attack him; he certainly caught hold of his bridle. It was not his intention to give him more than a passing blow; but the utterance of a Hindoo curse – an expression of gross outrage in the East – recalled prejudices long dormant, and he gave the rascal chase, and cut him over the head, – not a severe cut, and totally unaccompanied by the other details narrated.

“As for our former acquaintance I deny it altogether. I have seen thousands of his countrymen, and may have seen him; but, I repeat, I never knew him, nor can he presume to say he knew me!”

The Hindoo smiled a faint, sickly smile, made a gesture of deep humility, and asked if he might put a few questions to the “Sahib.”

“Were you in Naghapoor in the year of the floods?”

“Yes,” said Stapylton, firmly, but evidently with an effort to appear calm.

“In the service of the great Sahib, Howard Stapylton?”

“In his service? Certainly not. I lived with him as his friend, and became his adopted heir.‘’

“What office did you fill when you first came to the ‘Residence’?”

“I assisted my friend in the duties of his government; I was a good Oriental scholar, and could write and speak a dialect he knew nothing of. But I submit to the court that this examination, prompted and suborned by others, has no other object than to insult me, by leading to disclosures of matters essentially private in their nature.”

“Let me ask but one question,” said the barrister. “What name did you bear before you took that of Stapylton?”

“I refuse to submit to this insolence,” said Stapylton, rising, angrily. “If the laws of the country only can lend themselves to assist the persecutions of a rascally Press, the sooner a man of honor seeks another land the better. Adjudicate on this case, sirs; I will not stoop to bandy words with these men.”

“I now, sir,” said Hesketh, opening his bag and taking out a roll of papers, “am here to demand a committal for forgery against the person before you, passing under the name of Horace Stapylton, but whose real designation is Samuel Scott Edwardes, son of Samuel Edwardes, a name notorious enough once.”

I cannot go on, my dear friend; the emotions that overpowered me at the time, and compelled me to leave the court, are again threatening me, and my brain reels at the recollection of a scene which, even to my fast-fading senses, was the most trying of my life.

To General Conyers I must refer you for what ensued after I left. I cannot even say who came home with me to the hotel, though I am aware I owed that kindness to some one. The face of that unhappy man is yet before me, and all the calm in which I have written up to this leaves me, as I think over one of the most terrible incidents of my life.

Your brother, shocked of course, bears up bravely, and hopes to write to you to-morrow.

One word of good cheer before I close this miserable record. The Indian directors have written to offer excellent terms – splendidly liberal terms, Conyers calls them, and I agree with him. We have had a very busy week of it here, but it will be well requited if all that I now anticipate be confirmed to us. Barrington begs you will tell your neighbors, the Dills, that Tom – I think that is the name – has just arrived at Southampton with General Hunter, and will be here to-morrow evening.

I have cut out a short passage from the newspaper to finish my narrative. I will send the full report, as published, to-morrow.

Your attached friend,

T. Withering.

“The chief police-office in Marlborough Street was yesterday the scene of a very shocking incident. The officer whose conduct at the head of his regiment in Manchester has of late called for the almost unanimous reprobation of the Press, was, while answering to a charge of aggravated assault, directly charged with forgery. Scarcely was the allegation made, than he drew a pistol from his pocket, and, placing the muzzle to his mouth, pulled the trigger. The direction of the weapon, however, was accidentally turned, and the ball, instead of proceeding upwards, passed through the lower jaw, fracturing the bone, and created a terrible wound. It is supposed that the large vessels are not injured, and that he may yet recover. All who witnessed the scene describe it as one of intense horror.

“The unhappy man was at once removed to the Middlesex Hospital. He has not uttered a word since the event; and when asked if there were any relatives or friends whom he wished might be sent for, merely shook his head negatively. It is said that when the result of the consultation held on him was announced to him as favorable, he seemed rather grieved than otherwise at the tidings.”

FROM PETER BARRINGTON TO DINAH, HIS SISTER.

My dear Dinah, – How glad am I to tell you that we leave this to-morrow, and a large party of us, too, all for “The Home.” Put young Conyers in my dressing-room, so that the large green bedroom can be free for the General, at least for one of the generals – for we have another here, Hunter, who will also be our guest. Then there will be Withering. As for myself, I can be stowed away anywhere. What happiness would there be to us all at such a meeting, if it were not for that poor wretch who lies in all his agony a few streets off, and who is never out of my thoughts. I went twice to the hospital to see him. The first time I lost courage, and came away. The second, I sent up my name, and asked if he would wish to see me. The only answer I got was my visiting-card torn in two! How hard it is for an injurer to forgive him he has injured! I have arranged with the Stapyltons, however, who instigated the charge of forgery, not to press it; at least, they are to take bail, and the bail will be forfeited, so I understand it; but Withering will explain all more clearly.

Our own affairs are all as bright and prosperous as our best wishes could desire. The Council have had all the evidence before them, and the Moonshee has produced his copy of the Koran, with the torn leaf fitting into the jagged margin, and George is vindicated at last in everything. His loyalty, his disinterestedness, his honesty, all established. The ceremony of his marriage has been fully recognized; and General Conyers tells me that the lowest estimate of our claim is a little short of a quarter of a million sterling. He counsels me not to be exigent in my terms; if he knew me better, perhaps, he would not have deemed the advice so necessary.

What will Fifine say to all this wealth? Will she want to go back to India, and be a princess, and ride about on an elephant; or will she reconcile herself to such humble ways as ours? I am most eager to hear how she will take the tidings. Withering says it will not spoil her; that knowing nothing of life in its moneyed relations, she runs no risk of being carried away by any vulgar notions of her own importance through riches.

Conyers has never once hinted at his son’s pretensions since Fifine has become an heiress; and I fancy – it may be only fancy – is a shade or so cool towards me, so that I have not referred to them. But what can I do? I cannot offer him my granddaughter, nor – if what you tell me be true, that they are always quarrelling – would the proposal be a great kindness to either.

Here is Tom Dill, too, and what a change! He is the image of Polly; and a fine, well-grown, straight-figured fellow, that looks you manfully in the face, – not the slouching, loutish, shamefaced creature you remember him. Hunter has had him gazetted to an Ensigncy in the 10th Foot, and he will, or I much mistake him, do honest credit to the recommendation. Hunter takes him about with him wherever he goes, telling all about the shipwreck and Tom’s gallantry, – enough to turn the lad’s head with vanity, but that he is a fine, simple-hearted creature, who thinks very little of himself or his achievement. He seems to have no other thought than what Polly, his sister, will say and think of him.

He also will be one of our party; that is if I can persuade him to make “The Home” his headquarters while our friends are with us. What a strong muster we shall be; and how we ‘ll astonish that old bin of Madeira, Dinah! By the way, I have been rather boastful about it to Conyers, and let some bottles have the sun on them for a couple of hours every day.

I should like to try my chance once more of seeing that poor fellow at the hospital, but Withering will not hear of it; he got positively ill-tempered at the bare mention of such a wish. Even Conyers says, “Better not,” with an air that may mean for the sick man’s sake as much as my own.

A little more of this life of noise, confusion, and excitement would finish me. This city existence, with its incessant events and its never ending anxieties, is like walking in a high wind with the chimney-pots falling and crashing on every side of one, – while I am pitying the fellow whose skull is just cracked, I am forced to remember that my own is in danger. And yet there are people who like it; who tell you that out of London there is no living; that the country is a grave, aggravated by the consciousness that one is dead and buried there!

On Tuesday, – Wednesday, at farthest, – Dinah, look out for us. I do not believe there is that prize in the wheel that would tempt me again away from home! and till I reach it, believe, my dear Dinah,

Your loving brother,

Peter Barrington.

I have just seen Conyers. He met Sir Harvey Hethrington, the Home Secretary, this morning, and they got into a talk over our business, and H. said how cruelly I had been treated all this time back, and how unfairly poor George’s memory was dealt with. “We want,” said he, “to show your friend our respect and our sympathy, and we have thought of submitting his name to the King for a Baronetcy. How do you think Mr. Barrington himself would take our project?” “I ‘ll find out,” said Conyers, as he told me of the conversation. “If they don’t let me off, Conyers,” said I, “ask them to commute it to Knighthood, for the heralds’ fees will be smaller; but I’ll try, meanwhile, if I can’t escape either.” So that now, Dinah, you may expect me on Saturday. I told you what a place this was; you are never sure what may befall you from one moment to another!

CHAPTER XX. THE END

Fortune had apparently ceased to persecute Peter Barrington

The Minister did not press honors upon him, and he was free to wait for his companions, and in their company he returned to Ireland.

The news of his success – great as it was, magnified still more – had preceded him to his own country; and he was met, as all lucky men are met, and will be met to the end of time, by those who know the world and feelingly estimate that the truly profitable are the fortunate!

Not that he remarked how many had suddenly grown so cordial; what troops of passing acquaintances had become in a moment warm friends, well-wishing and affectionate. He never so much as suspected that “Luck” is a deity worshipped by thousands, who even in the remotest way are not to be benefited by it. He had always regarded the world as a far better thing than many moralists would allow it to be, – unsteady, wilful, capricious, if you like – but a well-intentioned, kindly minded world, that would at all times, where passion or prejudice stood aloof, infinitely rather do the generous thing than the cruel one.

Little wonder, then, if he journeyed in a sort of ovation! At every change of horses in each village they passed, there was sure to be some one who wanted to shake his hand. People hobbled out on crutches and quitted sick-beds to say how “glad they were;” mere acquaintances most of them, who felt a strange mysterious sort of self-consequence in fancying themselves for the moment the friends of Peter Barrington, the millionnaire! This is all very curious, but it is a fact, – a fact which I make no pretence to explain, however.

“And here comes the heartiest well-wisher of them all!” cried Barrington, as he saw his sister standing on the roadside, near the gate. With thoughtful delicacy, his companions lingered behind, while he went to meet and embraced her. “Was I not a true prophet, Dinah dear? Did I not often foretell this day to you?” said he, as he drew her arm, and led her along, forgetting all about his friends and companions.

“Have they paid the money, Peter?” said she, sharply.

“Of course they have not; such things are not settled like the fare of a hackney-coach. But our claim is acknowledged, and, fifty thousand times better, George Barrington’s name absolved from every shadow of an imputation.”

“What is the amount they agree to give?”

“Upon my life, I don’t know, – that is, I don’t recollect, there were so many interviews and such discussions; but Withering can tell you everything. Withering knows it all. Without him and Conyers I don’t know how I could have got on. If you had heard how he spoke of George at the Council! ‘You talk of my services,’ said he; ‘they are no more fit to be compared with those of Colonel Barrington, than are my petty grievances with the gross wrongs that lie on his memory.’ Withering was there; he heard the words, and described the effect of them as actually overwhelming.”

“And Withering believes the whole thing to be settled?”

“To be sure, he does! Why should he oppose his belief to that of the whole world? Why, my dear Dinah, it is not one, nor two, but some hundreds of people have come to wish me joy. They had a triumphal arch at Naas, with ‘Welcome to Barrington’ over it. At Carlow, Fishbourne came out with the corporation to offer me congratulations.”

She gave a hasty, impatient shake of the head, but repressed the sharp reply that almost trembled on her lips.

“By George!” cried he, “it does one’s heart good to witness such a burst of generous sentiment. You ‘d have thought some great national benefit had befallen, or that some one – his country’s idol – had just reaped the recompense of his great services. They came flocking out of the towns as we whirled past, cheering lustily, and shouting, ‘Barrington forever!’”

“I detest a mob!” said she, pursing up her lips.

“These were no mobs, Dinah; these were groups of honest fellows, with kind hearts and generous wishes.”

Another, but more decisive, toss of the head warned Peter that the discussion had gone far enough; indeed she almost said so, by asking abruptly, “What is to be done about the boy Conyers? He is madly in love with Josephine.”

“Marry her, I should say!”

“As a cure for the complaint, I suppose. But what if she will not have him? What if she declares that she ‘d like to go back to the convent again, – that she hates the world, and is sorry she ever came out into it, – that she was happier with the sisters – ”

“Has she said all this to you, sister?”

“Certainly not, Peter,” said Dinah, bridling up. “These were confidences imparted to the young man himself. It was he told me of them: he came to me last night in a state bordering on distraction. He was hesitating whether he would not throw himself into the river or go into a marching regiment.”

“This is only a laughing matter, then, Dinah?” said Peter, smiling.

“Nothing of the kind, brother! He did not put the alternatives so much in juxtaposition as I have; but they lay certainly in that manner on his thoughts. But when do your friends arrive? I thought they were to have come with you?”

“What a head I have, Dinah! They are all here; two carriages of them. I left them on the road when I rushed on to meet you. Oh, here they come! here they are!”

“My brother’s good fortune, gentlemen, has made him seem to forget what adversity never did; but I believe you all know how welcome you are here? Your son, General Conyers, thought to meet you earlier, by taking boat down to the village, and the girls went with him. Your friend, Polly Dill, is one of them, General Hunter.”

Having thus, with one sweep of the scythe, cut down a little of all around her, she led the way towards the cottage, accepting the arm of General Conyers with an antiquated grace that sorely tried Hunter’s good manners not to smile at.

“I know what you are looking at, what you are thinking of, Barrington,” said Withering, as he saw the other stand a moment gazing at the landscape on the opposite side of the river.

“I don’t think you do, Tom,” said he, smiling.

“You were thinking of buying that mountain yonder. You were saying to yourself, ‘I ‘ll be the owner of that beech wood before I’m a month older!’”

“Upon my life, you ‘re right! though I have n’t the remotest notion of how you guessed it. The old fellow that owns it shall name his own terms to-morrow morning. Here come the girls, and they ‘ve got Tom Dill with them. How the fellow rows! and Fifine is laughing away at Conyers’s attempt to keep the boat straight. Look at Hunter, too; he ‘s off to meet them. Is he ‘going in’ for the great heiress prize, eh, Tom?” said he, with a knowing smile.