Tales for Young and Old

Her proceedings were by no means agreeable to her father or to Modbury. The former wrote enjoining her by no means to leave the farmer's house; but the letter came too late, for she had already taken her departure. Modbury, however, in replying to an epistle in which Fennel had given him free consent to marry his daughter, expressed a thorough conviction of the firmness of the girl's purpose, and that at present it was impossible to shake it. Though she had left his roof he should continue to watch over her, and hoped, by persevering kindness and attention, eventually to win her affections. Under these circumstances, Lucy quietly established herself in Mrs Damerel's cottage.

At first she found it a hard matter to gain sufficient money for her labour to recompense the dame for her board and lodging, which she insisted upon doing every time she was paid by her employers. Still she wrought on, although her savings were small, and at the end of several months they bore a hopeless proportion to the large sum which was required. But time seemed a small object to her: she looked forward to the end, and in it she saw such a world of reward and happiness, that no toil would be too much to arrive at it. She had answered Luke's letter with her own hand, assuring him of her unshaken attachment, in spite of all that had happened; but unfortunately he had sailed for India, and it was sent thither after him, in obedience to the vague 'elsewhere' which had been added to the superscription according to his wish.

Slow progress was not the only trouble Lucy had to contend with. Modbury's attentions pained her as much as Luke's absence; the more so because they were so full of consideration for her welfare. She knew she never could return his kindness, and felt that she did not deserve it. She often told Dame Damerel that a show of hostility from the worthy farmer would not have pained her so much as his unremitting attentions.

Then, when the neighbours came in to gossip, they sometimes spoke against Luke. They would tell her that a man who would suspect her on such slight grounds, and act as he did, could never be true to her; that he would see some other whom he would prefer, and some day send home word that he was married; neither was it likely that he would ever come home alive from the Indies. These poisoned arrows, which were meant as comfort, glanced harmlessly from Lucy, who was invulnerably shielded by trusting love and hope. She would answer: 'very likely,' or 'it may be,' or 'there is no knowing what may happen in this world of trouble,' and still rattle about her lace-pegs over the pillow on which it was made with the quickness of magic. Amongst her visitors, however, there were two who invariably offered her better consolation; these were Larkin and his sister. Tom 'stuck up,' as he expressed it, for his friend Luke, and always put the blame of the enlistment on the wiles and arts of the recruiting-sergeant, who regularly entrapped him into the deed. Many a happy winter evening was spent in that humble cottage by Lucy and her friends. Luke was never forgotten in their conversations; for there was the lace which was being unweariedly made for his release to remind them of him. When Modbury made his appearance (and this was very often) the subject was of course dropped.

A year passed away. Neither Lucy nor Modbury had made much progress in their several aims; scarcely a tithe of the requisite sum for Luke's discharge had been saved; neither could Modbury perceive that his suit advanced. Lucy's conduct sorely perplexed him. She always seemed delighted when he came in, and received him with every mark of cordiality; but whenever he dropped the slightest plea in his own behalf, tears would come into her eyes, and she entreated him to desist. He began to remark also, that besides the presence of the old dame, which was surely a sufficient safeguard against any warmth of manner he might be betrayed into, Lucy always contrived to have Susan Larkin with her. Should she be absent, Lucy would be telling Modbury what a good, industrious, excellent girl she was; which, indeed, was the truth.

No letter came from Luke, and there was no proof that he had received hers. Lucy began gradually to despond; for work became slack, and at times she only got enough to employ her half the day. Not to lose ground, however, she hired herself to the neighbouring farmers' wives to sew during her spare time, leaving Dame Damerel to the occasional care of Susan Larkin. While she was sitting at work during one of these engagements, she compared her own cheerless lot with the happiness which surrounded her. The farmer was reading the newspaper, his wife and daughter assisting her in the work she was doing. As she made this comparison, and thought of Luke, banished as it were from his home, and enduring perhaps severe hardships, she could scarcely refrain from weeping. Now and then the farmer read a paragraph from the paper, and presently exclaimed: 'Ah, our young squire has got safe to his regiment in India.' At these words Lucy trembled, but went on rapidly with her work, lest her emotion should be noticed. She had previously heard that the son of a neighbouring proprietor had bought a commission in Luke's regiment, and this was almost like having news of Luke himself. Presently the reader went on with the paragraph: '"We understand there has been a fatal disease which has carried off many of the"'– The farmer made a pause here, and Lucy's heart sank within her. 'Oh, I see,' the old gentleman ejaculated; 'the corner is turned down—"has carried off many"—yes—"many of the–horses."'

This little incident produced such strong emotions in Lucy's frame, that though she felt, upon the whole, much gratified by merely hearing about Luke's regiment and its horses, yet she became too ill to proceed with her work, and found it necessary to return to the cottage.

Lucy soon altered her plan of engaging herself out; for the idea struck her, that if she were to make lace on a sort of speculation, and keep it by her till it was wanted, she would in the end make a greater profit. Having, when her father was in good circumstances, been partly educated at an Exeter boarding-school, she had acquired there some knowledge of drawing, and by exercising her pencil, she now invented some very pretty lace-patterns.

Lucy wrought and hoped on for another year. Still nothing was heard from Luke. A new calamity had fallen upon Lucy. Her father, a broken and decayed man, had come to live near her, and was now nearly dependent on her for support. Both Modbury and Farmer Larkin gave him little jobs to do, for which they liberally recompensed him. The quantity of lace Lucy was employed to make was so small, that it just sufficed to keep her and her father; while her little capital, instead of increasing, was gradually absorbed by the purchase of materials for the stock her industry accumulated. Susan Larkin frequently visited her, and Modbury was seldom absent.

No ill-fortune seemed to depress the persevering girl. Even though she was working almost night and day, she still kept up her spirits. Indeed, at every new misfortune, a fresh accession of firmness and resolution seemed to nerve her. About this time her father died, invoking blessings on her for having been so good a daughter. After the first shock of grief had passed, she continued her task amidst the most hopeless circumstances. The lace-trade sunk lower and lower; still Lucy wrought on, under a strong presentiment that it would improve. She did not relax one hour's labour, although she was now receiving much less for it than when she began. She accumulated so large a stock, that at last every shilling of her savings was spent for materials. In exchange, however, she possessed a large quantity of beautiful lace, that, even if it sold at the present low prices, would have yielded a small profit. At last things became so bad, that a sale seemed unavoidable, disadvantageous as it might be. Lucy, now an object of commiseration amongst the neighbours, still retained her cheerfulness. That so much patience, modesty, and firmness of purpose should not meet its reward, seemed almost impossible; and fortune smiled on Lucy when nearly every hope seemed to have left her.

It is well known by what trifles in the mercantile world fortunes are lost and won. The detention of a ship, the non-arrival of a mail, has ruined hundreds; whilst some equally unforeseen caprice of fashion or similar accident has made as many fortunes. It happened, when Lucy had the greatest cause for despondency, that within a short period two members of the royal family died. Mourning lace was then much in request, and it happened that most of Lucy's stock was of that kind. Suddenly, commissions from Honiton flowed in, and Lucy was kept constantly at work, at wages much higher than before—her own stock acquiring fresh value while the price continued to rise. Young Larkin, who was a shrewd fellow, advised her to 'hold' it till the value increased still more. She took the advice, and at the proper moment sold it at a price she never hoped to realise. At the end of a week she found herself in possession of a sum which was, within a few pounds, sufficient to procure her lover's discharge from the army!

Poor Lucy could hardly believe her eyes when the manufacturer laid down the bank-notes before her. She pinned them carefully into the bosom of her frock, and hastened to tell Dame Damerel that all their troubles were over. The old woman's eyes glistened as Lucy unpinned her treasure and laid it on the table. It was counted, re-counted, and wondered over. What was to be done with it till the rest was procured? Who would take care of it?

This delight was, however, somewhat damped when they came to consider that, putting aside all uncertainty about his fate, it would be at least six months before Luke's discharge could reach him; then an additional half-year would elapse ere he could get back. It was a long time to wait. 'Never mind, dear mother,' said Lucy, 'the time that has passed since he left seems scarcely a year, although it is three. It is only because the twelvemonth is to come that it appears to be so long. Still,' she said, considering and heaving a deep sigh, 'we have not got his discharge yet, and great as this sum is, some more must be earned to make up the rest.'

'Leave that to me,' returned Mrs Damerel.

Next day, when Lucy returned from the post-office, where she had taken a letter for Luke, she found another lying on the table, in Larkin's handwriting. On reading the superscription, she found it was addressed to the War-Office. 'Yes,' said Mrs Damerel in answer to her inquiring glances, 'it is all done now, Lucy; and this letter is to be sent off to tell the great people that we can have the money ready to buy our dear Luke off again.'

Larkin had, in truth, gladly supplied the small sum which was deficient. The letter was sent, and in less than a week an immense dispatch found its way to the village, which excited universal wonderment. It was a great oblong missive, with the words 'On His Majesty's Service' printed at the top. It had an enormous seal, and was directed to 'Mr Thomas Larkin.' A crowd of idlers followed the postman with this epistolary phenomenon, in the hope of getting some knowledge of its contents. Tom, however, when he read it, coolly put it into his pocket, and walked to the cottage without saying a word to anybody.

This letter seemed like a climax to Lucy's good-fortune, and 'begged to inform Mr Larkin that Corporal Farrier Damerel was on his way to England to superintend the selection of troop-horses, and that his discharge should be made out when he had arrived and performed that duty.'

Scarcely a month after the arrival of the official dispatch, a corporal of dragoons was seen trespassing on Farmer Modbury's fields, by crossing them in great haste without any regard to the footpaths. An old ploughman roughly warned him off, threatening personal ejection. 'What, Roger Dart!' exclaimed the soldier, 'is this the way you welcome a man home after a long absence?' The ploughman stared, and said he did not know him. 'Do you know,' rejoined the corporal with a trembling voice and anxious countenance—'do you know Lucy Fennel?'

'Of course I do,' returned Roger; 'everybody knows her, and, if I may make so bold, loves her too! Why, sure enough, there she is sitting—don't you see?—there, sitting at Dame Damerel's door making lace for the life of her.'

The stranger flew across the field, and the ploughman saw him bound over the hedge, take Lucy into his arms, and drag her, bewildered and enraptured, into the cottage. 'Why, dang me if it bean't Luke Damerel!' exclaimed the rustic, slapping the thighs of his leather breeches; 'how main glad the folks will be to see 'un!—I know what I'll do.' Whereupon Roger trudged across the fields towards the church. He happened to be one of the parish-ringers, and calling his mates from the fields, they all trudged off to the bell-tower, and rang out as merry a peal as ever was heard. The whole country was in a commotion; the news ran like wild-fire from lip to lip and from ear to ear, till the cottage was beset with visitors within and without. But Luke heard no welcome, felt no grasp, but that of Lucy and his mother. As to Lucy, an intense happiness thrilled through her, which absorbed all her faculties, except that of feeling the full extent of her bliss.

This story of patience, endurance, and faith in humble life is almost ended. Luke's furlough only extended to a week, which he spent as an inmate of the farm, at Modbury's earnest entreaty; for he now gave up all hope of Lucy, and determined to help in rewarding her patience by promoting the match with his rival. At the end of that time, Luke was obliged to depart for Yorkshire, to meet the veterinary-surgeon and purchase horses, in which he was found of the utmost use; but this, together with his excellent character, operated most unfavourably for his discharge. The authorities were unwilling to lose so good a soldier. The interest of the 'squire,' however, whose son was a cornet in Luke's troop, was set to work, the hard-earned money paid, and the discharge obtained. Damerel got a farm let to him on advantageous terms, close to his native village, and was married amidst more noisy demonstrations by Roger and his company of ringers. Modbury had taken to wife Lucy's friend, Susan Larkin.

The last time I was in Devonshire I called on Mr and Mrs Damerel. They are an interesting old couple, who have brought up a large family in comfort and respectability.

BILLY EGG

'Can you direct me to Mr William Egg's?' said I one morning to a smart shopman, who was loitering at the door of a showy haberdasher in the principal street of a town in Ireland, in which, for a few months, I once resided. I had been told by two or three persons that Billy Egg's was the best shop in the place; for that, he being a general dealer on a very large scale, I should be sure to get 'everything in the world' there. Moreover, I had been instructed that he sold good articles at a cheap rate; and being a stranger, I felt truly glad that I had been recommended to a tradesman on whom I could confidently rely. 'Can you direct me to Mr Egg's?' I repeated, seeing that the smart shopman was so much occupied either in admiring his window or his own person, that he had not at first attended to my question.

'I know no such person, ma'am,' he replied rather sharply; and as I now perceived that the house bore the evidence of fresh paint and recent alterations, it occurred to me that the smart shopkeeper might be a new-comer, and ignorant of the old residents. Nothing daunted, I next entered the shop of a neighbouring bookseller, and repeated my inquiries, but with no better success. I then made my way to that of a milliner; and though a young girl, who was busily engaged at her needle, looked up for a moment with an arch smile, and then turned away, as I plainly perceived, to repress a hearty laugh, her mistress dismissed me with the expression of her opinion 'that no such person lived in that town, nor, she believed, in any other.' I felt a little puzzled to know what the girl had found so ludicrous in my simple question, and wondered if my repeated disappointments had given me a forlorn air. 'At any rate,' thought I, 'this Mr Egg is not so generally known as I expected to find him. I had better walk up the street and try if I can discover any outward indications of his abode.'

I spent a weary half-hour in this endeavour, and as it now seemed evident to me that no considerable shop could belong to the object of my search, I lowered my tone in addressing an old apple-woman, who sat behind a table covered with her stores at the corner of the street. 'Pray, can you direct me to Billy Egg's?' I asked, dropping the Mr altogether, and adopting the familiar term which had been used to me.

'Och, then, to be shure I will, an' welcome, if it was a mile off; but there it's just furnint ye—that big grand shop there, wid the big letthers gilt wid goold over the big windees.'

'My good woman,' I replied, 'I am afraid you must be mistaken; the name there is William Carter.'

'Och, don't I know that? but they call him Billy Egg, because all he has—and half the town that's his—came out of an egg.'

An exclamation of surprise escaped me, and the old woman continued—'Och, but well he desarves it, for he is a dacent man, and good to the poor; God bless him every day he rises, and make the heavens his bed at last!'

As I took part of her speech as a hint to myself, I gave her sixpence, and believing there was some story worth the hearing, I begged my new acquaintance to call on me in the evening and relate it, instead of hindering her business and mine by listening to it at that moment; although I suspect she would have been nothing loath to have given me the full and particular account there and then, for she told me she knew every circumstance 'consarning him and his.'

I proceeded without further delay to the 'big grand shop,' where I saw in the master the veritable Billy Egg. He was a fine portly personage, with a good open countenance, and it was evident he could not have acquired his nickname from bearing even the most remote resemblance to an egg. He served me himself with zeal and civility, and my purchases were soon completed.

In the evening, my old apple-woman was true to her appointment, and from her I gathered the following particulars: William Carter was a poor boy, the eldest of a large family, who, with their mother, were left destitute by the death of their father. Their poor neighbours were charitable, as the poor, to their credit be it spoken, so often are; and one took one child, and one another, until something could be thought of and done for their subsistence. William had made the most of the scanty schooling his father had afforded him, and could read a little. He was, moreover, a steady, hard-working boy; yet the only occupation he was able to obtain was that of tending a cow on the border of a large bog. In return for this service, he was comfortably lodged and fed, and for a time the clothes he had were sufficient. He was in the habit of saving any scraps of printed paper which fell in his way, and by means of these he somewhat improved in his reading; for while the cow was munching away, little Billy had ample time for his studies, without neglecting her either, for he made a point of looking out for the sweetest grass, and leading her to it.

By his care and attention, he gave such satisfaction to his employer, that by the time his clothes were worn out, he was allowed wages sufficient to replenish them; and his good-behaviour gave such confidence and respectability to his family, that a neighbouring farmer engaged one of his younger brothers in a capacity similar to his own. One day this farmer gave Billy a newly-laid goose's egg, thinking it might make him a good meal, and be something of a dainty, and as a sort of return for an act of good-nature and watchfulness on Billy's part, he having noticed that a certain gate leading to the kitchen-garden had been left open, took the precaution to close it, thereby preventing the incursion of a greedy sow and her interesting family, which would undoubtedly have played the part of the Goths in that flourishing spot. It is very likely that Billy's first impulse was to boil his egg and eat it; but a moment's reflection convinced him that this would be conduct very like that of the boy in the fable, who slaughtered the goose that laid golden eggs. But how to hatch his egg—for this was what he thought of—became now the question. The good woman of the house noticed that Billy was unusually silent at supper-time, and thought at first that some disaster must have happened. She learned, however, that the cow had her customary bed of soft heather, which it was Billy's pride to pick for her, and had been as carefully attended to as usual in every particular. We ought to mention that Billy was a great favourite with his mistress; and perhaps he had won her heart by the care and attention he had bestowed at every spare moment on one of her little ones, who was a very sickly, fretful child, but who, somehow or other, was always most quickly pacified by Billy. She soon learned the cause of his thoughtful silence, and kindly offered to remove two or three eggs from under a duck which was then sitting, and give their place to her cow-boy's single treasure. This was the foundation of William Carter's fortune; and it is worthy of remark, that both the gift of the egg, and the opportunity of hatching it, he owed to acts of thoughtful good-nature on his own part.

In due time the goslin appeared, and Billy fed it from his own scanty fare, taking it with him when he was herding. By Christmas it had become a large fat goose, and its owner was offered half-a-crown for it. But he had a higher ambition for it than this, and he was not to be tempted from his purpose by the prospect of present gain. The following spring he set her on twelve eggs, which she had herself produced, and by and by twelve goslins appeared. Our hero was now obliged to exercise some ingenuity in finding food for so large a family of dependents; but he accomplished his end by bartering away three of them, in exchange for permission that the remainder should feed in his master's yard, until they should be old enough to pick up their subsistence in company with their mother and the cow upon the common, and indulge in swimming there in the abundant pools. At the proper time, he sold the young geese for the largest sum he had ever seen in his life; for, though to have kept some of them might have proved an additional source of profit, he knew that he had only accommodation for one to hatch. A portion of his money he gave to his mother, but he placed a one-pound note in the safe-keeping of his kind mistress, and when spring again came round, he bought with it a year-old heifer, which he sent to graze on the mountains, paying with it a small sum, the remnant of his money, which he had reserved for this purpose. Old goosy again presented him with young ones, the sale of which enabled him to purchase fodder for his cow, when she was sent home at the end of the season. And now he built a little shed for her with fir sticks from the bog and heather sods, so that perhaps she was better cared for than many a rich man's cow. We may be pretty sure, however, that Billy never neglected his master's business to attend to his own private affairs, or he and his wife would not have encouraged him in his plans, as they evidently did. It is not worth while to follow the fortunes of the prudent industrious little fellow step by step, or to declare precisely how he dealt in cows and geese. It may be enough to say, that at the end of six years he quitted servitude a richer man than ever his father had been; on which occasion he presented the venerable goose to his mother, to whose necessities and comforts he had for some time constantly contributed. So soon as he was thoroughly established in the world, he married; but not till he had provided a neat cottage for his parent, who had the happiness to enjoy for many years the prosperity of her son, and who lived to see the poor cow-boy a man among the most respected and esteemed in his native county.

'And so, you see,' said the old apple-woman in conclusion, 'it is a foolish thing to despise small beginnings. Thrue as I am telling it ye, this is how Mr Carter got the name of Billy Egg, though, d'ye see, he never was called Billy Goose—no, never.'

THE PLEDGE REDEEMED