Put Yourself in His Place

C >> Charles Reade >> Put Yourself in His Place


At the last turn in the road their leader suddenly halted, and, kneeling
on one knee, waved to his men to keep quiet: he had seen several dark
figures busy about the porch.

After many minutes of thrilling, yet chilling, expectation, he rose and
told his men, in a whisper, to follow him again.

The pace was now expedited greatly, and still Mr. Raby, with his
double-barreled gun in his hand, maintained a lead of some yards and his
men followed as noiselessly as they could, and made for the church: sure
enough it was lighted inside.


The young man who was thus beset by two distinct bands of enemies,
deserved a very different fate at the hands of his fellow-creatures.

For, at this moment, though any thing but happy himself, he was working
some hours every day for the good of mankind; and was every day visiting
as a friend the battered saw-grinder who had once put his own life in
mortal peril.

He had not fathomed the letter Grace had sent him. He was a young man
and a straightforward; he did not understand the amiable defects of the
female character. He studied every line of this letter, and it angered
and almost disgusted him. It was the letter of a lady; but beneath the
surface of gentleness and politeness lay a proposal which he considered
mean and cold-blooded. It lowered his esteem for her.

His pride and indignation were roused, and battled with his love,
and they were aided by the healthy invigorating habits into which Dr.
Amboyne had at last inveigled him, and so he resisted: he wrote more
than one letter in reply to Grace Carden; but, when he came to read them
over and compare them with her gentle effusion, he was ashamed of his
harshness, and would not send the letter.

He fought on; philanthropy in Hillsborough, forging in Cairnhope Church;
and still he dreamed strange dreams now and then: for who can work, both
night and day, as this man did--with impunity?

One night he dreamed that he was working at his forge, when suddenly the
floor of the aisle burst, and a dead knight sprang from the grave with
a single bound, and stood erect before him, in rusty armor: out of his
helmet looked two eyes like black diamonds, and a nose like a falcon's.
Yet, by one of the droll contradictions of a dream, this impetuous,
warlike form no sooner opened its lips, than out issued a lackadaisical
whine. "See my breastplate, good sir," said he. "It was bright as silver
when I made it--I was like you, I forged my own weapons, forged them
with these hands. But now the damps of the grave have rusted it.
Odsbodikins! is this a thing for a good knight to appear in before his
judge? And to-morrow is doomsday, so they all say."

Then Henry pitied the poor simple knight (in his dream), and offered his
services to polish the corslet up a bit against that great occasion. He
pointed toward his forge, and the knight marched to it, in three wide
steps that savored strongly of theatrical burlesque. But the moment he
saw the specimens of Henry's work lying about, he drew back, and wheeled
upon the man of the day with huge disdain. "What," said he, "do you
forge toys! Learn that a gentleman can only forge those weapons of war
that gentlemen do use. And I took you for a Raby!"

With these bitter words he vanished, with flashing eyes and a look
of magnificent scorn, and left his fiery, haughty features imprinted
clearly on Henry's memory.

One evening, as he plied his hammer, he heard a light sound at a window,
in an interval of his own noise. He looked hastily up, and caught a
momentary sight of a face disappearing from the window. It was gone like
a flash even as he caught sight of it.

Transient as the glance was, it shook him greatly. He heated a bar of
iron white hot at one end, and sallied out into the night. But there was
not a creature to be seen.

Then he called aloud, "Who's there?" No reply. "Jael, was it you?" Dead
silence.

He returned to his work, and set the appearance down to an ocular
illusion. But his dreams had been so vivid, that this really seemed only
one step more into the realm of hallucination.

This was an unfortunate view of the matter.

On old Christmas Eve he lighted the fires in his mausoleum first, and
at last succeeded in writing a letter to Grace Carden. He got out of
the difficulty in the best way, by making it very short. He put it in
an envelope, and addressed it, intending to give it to Jael Dence, from
whom he was always expecting a second visit.

He then lighted his forge, and soon the old walls were ringing again
with the blows of his hammer.

It was ten o'clock at night; a clear frosty night; but he was heated
and perspiring with his ardent work, when, all of a sudden, a cold air
seemed to come in upon him from a new quarter--the door. He left his
forge, and took a few steps to where he could see the door. Instead of
the door, he saw the blue sky.

He uttered an exclamation, and rubbed his eyes.

It was no hallucination. The door lay flat on the ground, and the stars
glittered in the horizon.

Young Little ran toward the door; but, when he got near it, he paused,
and a dire misgiving quelled him. A workman soon recognizes a workman's
hand; and he saw Hillsborough cunning and skill in this feat, and
Hillsborough cunning and cruelty lurking in ambush at the door.

He went back to his forge, and, the truth must be told, his knees felt
weak under him with fears of what was to come.

He searched about for weapons, and could find nothing to protect him
against numbers. Pistols he had: but, from a wretched over-security, he
had never brought them to Cairnhope Church.

Oh, it was an era of agony that minute, in which, after avoiding the
ambuscade that he felt sure awaited him at the door, he had nothing on
earth he could do but wait and see what was to come next.

He knew that however small his chance of escape by fighting, it was his
only one; and he resolved to receive the attack where he was. He blew
his bellows and, cold at heart, affected to forge.

Dusky forms stole into the old church.




CHAPTER XV.


Little blew his coals to a white heat: then took his hammer into his
left hand, and his little iron shovel, a weapon about two feet long,
into his right.

Three assailants crept toward him, and his position was such that two at
least could assail him front and rear. He counted on that, and measured
their approach with pale cheek but glittering eye, and thrust his shovel
deep into the white coals.

They crept nearer and nearer, and, at last, made an almost simultaneous
rush on him back and front.

The man in the rear was a shade in advance of the other. Little, whose
whole soul was in arms, had calculated on this, and turning as they came
at him, sent a shovelful of fiery coals into that nearest assailant's
face, then stepped swiftly out of the way of the other, who struck at
him too immediately for him to parry; ere he could recover the wasted
blow, Little's hot shovel came down in his head with tremendous force,
and laid him senseless and bleeding on the hearth, with blood running
from his ears.

Little ladled the coals right and left on the other two assailants, one
of whom was already yelling with the pain of the first shovelful; then,
vaulting suddenly over a pew, he ran for the door.

There he was encountered by Sam Cole, an accomplished cudgel-player,
who parried his blows coolly, and gave him a severe rap on the head that
dazzled him. But he fought on, till he heard footsteps coming behind
him, and then rage and despair seized him, he drew back, shifted his
hammer into his right hand and hurled it with all his force at Cole's
breast, for he feared to miss his head. Had it struck him on the breast,
delivered as it was, it would probably have smashed his breastbone, and
killed him; but it struck him on his throat, which was, in some degree,
protected by a muffler: it struck him and sent him flying like a
feather: he fell on his back in the porch, yards from where he received
that prodigious blow.

Henry was bounding out after him, when he was seized from behind, and
the next moment another seized him too, and his right hand was now
disarmed by throwing away the hammer.

He struggled furiously with them, and twice he shook them off, and
struck them with his fist, and jobbed them with his shovel quick and
short, as a horse kicking.

But one was cunning enough to make a feint at his face, and then fell
down and lay hold of his knees: he was about to pulverize this fellow
with one blow of his shovel, when the other flung his arms round him. It
became a mere struggle. Such was his fury and his vigor, however, that
they could not master him. He played his head like a snake, so that they
could not seize him disadvantageously; and at last he dropped his shovel
and got them both by the throat, and grasped them so fiercely that their
faces were purple, and their eyes beginning to fix, when to his dismay,
he received a violent blow on the right arm that nearly broke it: he
let go, with a cry of pain, and with his left hand twisted the other man
round so quickly, that he received the next blow of Cole's cudgel. Then
he dashed his left fist into Cole's eye, who staggered, but still barred
the way; so Little rushed upon him, and got him by the throat, and would
soon have settled him: but the others recovered themselves ere he could
squeeze all the wind out of Cole, and it became a struggle of three to
one.

He dragged them all three about with him; he kicked, he hit, he did
every thing that a man with one hand, and a lion's heart, could do.

But gradually they got the better of him; and at last it came to this,
that two were struggling on the ground with him, and Cole standing over
them all three, ready to strike.

"Now, hold him so, while I settle him," cried Cole, and raised his
murderous cudgel.

It came down on Little's shoulder, and only just missed his head.

Again it came down, and with terrible force.

Up to this time he had fought as mute as a fox. But now that it had
come to mere butchery, he cried out, in his agony, "They'll kill me. My
mother! Help! Murder! Help!"

"Ay! thou'lt never forge no more!" roared Cole, and thwack came down the
crushing bludgeon.

"Help! Murder! Help!" screamed the victim, more faintly; and at the next
blow more faintly still.

But again the murderous cudgel was lifted high, to descend upon his
young head.

As the confederates held the now breathless and despairing victim to
receive the blow, and the butcher, with one eye closed by Henry's fist,
but the other gleaming savagely, raised the cudgel to finish him,
Henry saw a huge tongue of flame pour out at them all, from outside the
church, and a report, that sounded like a cannon, was accompanied by the
vicious ping of shot. Cole screamed and yelled, and dropped his cudgel,
and his face was covered with blood in a moment; he yelled, and covered
his face with his hands; and instantly came another flash, another
report, another cruel ping of shot, and this time his hands were covered
with blood.

The others rolled yelling out of the line of fire, and ran up the aisle
for their lives.

Cole, yelling, tried to follow; but Henry, though sick and weak with the
blows, caught him, and clung to his knees, and the next moment the place
was filled with men carrying torches and gleaming swords, and led by a
gentleman, who stood over Henry, in evening dress, but with the haughty
expanded nostrils, the brilliant black eyes, and all the features of
that knight in rusty armor who had come to him in his dream and left him
with scorn.

At this moment a crash was heard: two of the culprits, with desperate
agility, had leaped on to the vestry chest, and from that on to the
horse, and from him headlong out of the window.

Mr. Raby dispatched all his men but one in pursuit, with this brief
order--"Take them, alive or dead--doesn't matter which--they are only
cutlers; and cowards."

His next word was to Cole. "What, three blackguards to one!--that's how
Hillsborough fights, eh?"

"I'm not a blackguard," said Henry, faintly.

"That remains to be proved, sir," said Raby, grimly.

Henry made answer by fainting away.




CHAPTER XVI.


When Henry Little came to himself, he was seated on men's hands, and
being carried through the keen refreshing air. Mr. Raby was striding on
in front; the horse's hoofs were clamping along on the hard road behind;
and he himself was surrounded by swordsmen in fantastic dresses.

He opened his eyes, and thought, of course, it was another vision.
But no, the man, with whose blows his body was sore, and his right
arm utterly numbed, walked close to him between two sword-dancers with
Raby-marks and Little-marks upon him, viz., a face spotted with blood,
and a black eye.

Little sighed.

"Eh, that's music to me," said a friendly voice close to him. It was
the King George of the lyrical drama, and, out of poetry, George the
blacksmith.

"What, it is you, is it?" said Little.

"Ay, sir, and a joyful man to hear you speak again. The cowardly
varmint! And to think they have all got clear but this one! Are ye sore
hurt, sir?"

"I'm in awful pain, but no bones broken." Then, in a whisper--"Where are
you taking me, George?"

"To Raby Hall," was the whispered reply.

"Not for all the world! if you are my friend, put me down, and let me
slip away."

"Don't ask me, don't ask me," said George, in great distress. "How could
I look Squire in the face? He did put you in my charge."

"Then I'm a prisoner!" said Henry, sternly.

George hung his head, but made no reply.

Henry also maintained a sullen silence after that.


The lights of Raby came in sight.

That house contained two women, who awaited the result of the nocturnal
expedition with terrible anxiety.

Its fate, they both felt, had been determined before they even knew that
the expedition had started.

They had nothing to do but to wait, and pray that Henry had made his
escape, or else had not been so mad as to attempt resistance.

In this view of things, the number and even the arms of his assailants
were some comfort to them, as rendering resistance impossible.

As for Mr. Coventry, he was secretly delighted. His conscience was
relieved. Raby would now drive his rival out of the church and out of
the country without the help of the Trades, and his act of treachery and
bad faith would be harmless. Things had taken the happiest possible turn
for him.

For all that, this courtier affected sympathy, and even some anxiety, to
please Miss Carden, and divert all suspicion from himself. But the true
ring was wanting to his words, and both the women felt them jar, and got
away from him, and laid their heads together, in agitated whispers. And
the result was, they put shawls over their heads, and went together out
into the night.

They ran up the road, sighing and clasping their hands, but no longer
speaking.

At the first turn they saw the whole body coming toward them.

"I'll soon know," said Jael, struggling with her agitation. "Don't
you be seen, miss; that might anger the Squire; and, oh, he will be a
wrathful man this night, if he caught him working in yonder church."

Grace then slipped back, and Jael ran on. But no sooner did she come
up with the party, than Raby ordered her back, in a tone she dared not
resist.

She ran back, and told Grace they were carrying him in, hurt, and the
Squire's eyes were like hot coals.

Grace slipped into the drawing-room and kept the door ajar.

Soon afterward, Raby, his men, and his prisoners, entered the hall, and
Grace heard Raby say, "Bring the prisoners into the dining-room."

Grace Carden sat down, and leaned her head upon her hand, and her little
foot beat the ground, all in a flutter.

But this ended in a spirited resolve. She rose, pale, but firm,
and said, "Come with me, Jael;" and she walked straight into the
dining-room. Coventry strolled in after her.

The room was still brilliantly lighted. Mr. Raby was seated at his
writing-table at the far end, and the prisoners, well guarded, stood
ready to be examined.

"You can't come in here," was Mr. Raby's first word to Grace.

But she was prepared for this, and stood her ground. "Excuse me, dear
uncle, but I wish to see you administer justice; and, besides, I believe
I can tell you something about one of the prisoners."

"Indeed! that alters the case. Somebody give Miss Carden a chair."

She sat down, and fixed her eyes upon Henry Little--eyes that said
plainly, "I shall defend you, if necessary:" his pale cheek was flushing
at sight of her.

Mr. Raby arranged his papers to make notes, and turned to Cole. "The
charge against you is, that you were seen this night by several persons
engaged in an assault of a cruel and aggravated character. You, and two
other men, attacked and overpowered an individual here present; and,
while he was helpless, and on the ground, you were seen to raise a heavy
cudgel (Got the cudgel, George?)--"

"Ay, your worship, here 'tis."

"--And to strike him several times on the head and limbs, with all your
force."

"Oh, cruel! cruel!"

"This won't do, Miss Carden; no observations, please. In consequence
of which blows he soon after swooned away, and was for some time
unconscious, and--"

"Oh!"

"--For aught I know, may have received some permanent injury."

"Not he," said Cole; "he's all right. I'm the only man that is hurt; and
I've got it hot; he hit me with his hammer, and knocked me down like a
bullock. He's given me this black eye too."

"In self-defense, apparently. Which party attacked the other first?"

"Why they attacked me, of course," said Henry. "Four of them."

"Four! I saw but three."

"Oh, I settled one at starting, up near the forge. Didn't you find him?"
(This to George.)

"Nay, we found none of the trash but this," indicating Cole, with a
contemptuous jerk of the thumb.

"Now, don't all speak at once," said Mr. Raby. "My advice to you is to
say nothing, or you'll probably make bad worse. But if you choose to say
anything, I'm bound to hear it."

"Well, sir," said Cole, in a carrying voice, "what I say is this: what
need we go to law over this? If you go against me for hitting him with
a stick, after he had hit me with a blacksmith's hammer, I shall have to
go against you for shooting me with a gun."

"That is between you and me, sir. You will find a bystander may shoot
a malefactor to save the life of a citizen. Confine your defense, at
present, to the point at issue. Have you any excuse, as against this
young man?" (To Henry.)--"You look pale. You can sit down till your turn
comes."

"Not in this house."

"And why not in this house, pray? Is your own house a better?"

No answer from Henry. A look of amazement and alarm from Grace. But she
was afraid to utter a word, after the admonition she had received.

"Well, sir," said Cole, "he was desecrating a church."

"So he was, and I shall talk to him in his turn. But you desecrated
it worse. He turned it into a blacksmith shop; you turned it into
a shambles. I shall commit you. You will be taken to Hillsborough
to-morrow; to-night you will remain in my strong-room. Fling him down
a mattress and some blankets, and give him plenty to eat and drink; I
wouldn't starve the devil on old Christmas Eve. There, take him away.
Stop; search his pockets before you leave him alone."

Cole was taken away, and Henry's turn came.

Just before this examination commenced, Grace clasped her hands, and
cast a deprecating look on Henry, as much as to say, "Be moderate." And
then her eyes roved to and fro, and the whole woman was in arms, and on
the watch.

Mr. Raby began on him. "As for you, your offense is not so criminal in
the eye of the law; but it is bad enough; you have broken into a church
by unlawful means; you have turned it into a smithy, defiled the graves
of the dead, and turned the tomb of a good knight into an oven, to the
scandal of men and the dishonor of god. Have you any excuse to offer?"

"Plenty. I was plying an honest trade, in a country where freedom is
the law. The Hillsborough Unions combined against me, and restrained my
freedom, and threatened my life, ay, and attempted my life too, before
to-day: and so the injustice and cruelty of men drove me to a sanctuary,
me and my livelihood. Blame the Trades, blame the public laws, blame the
useless police: but you can't blame me; a man must live."

"Why not set up your shop in the village? Why wantonly desecrate a
church?"

"The church was more secret, and more safe: and nobody worships in it.
The wind and the weather are allowed to destroy it; you care so little
for it you let it molder; then why howl if a fellow uses it and keeps it
warm?"

At this sally there was a broad rustic laugh, which, however, Mr. Raby
quelled with one glance of his eye.

"Come, don't be impertinent," said he to Little.

"Then don't you provoke a fellow," cried Henry, raising his voice.

Grace clasped her hands in dismay.

Jael Dence said, in her gravest and most mellow voice, "You do forget
the good Squire saved your life this very night."

This was like oil on all the waters.

"Well, certainly I oughtn't to forget that," said Henry, apologetically.
Then he appealed piteously to Jael, whose power over him struck every
body directly, including Grace Carden. "Look here, you mustn't think,
because I don't keep howling, I'm all right. My arm is disabled: my back
is almost broken: my thigh is cut. I'm in sharp pain, all this time: and
that makes a fellow impatient of being lectured on the back of it all.
Why doesn't he let me go? I don't want to affront him now. All I want is
to go and get nursed a bit somewhere."

"Now that is the first word of reason and common sense you have uttered,
young man. It decides me not to detain you. All I shall do, under the
circumstances, is to clear your rubbish out of that holy building,
and watch it by night as well as day. Your property, however, shall be
collected, and delivered to you uninjured: so oblige me with your name
and address."

Henry made no reply.

Raby turned his eye full upon him.

"Surely you do not object to tell me your name."

"I do."

"Why?"

"Excuse me."

"What are you afraid of? Do you doubt my word, when I tell you I shall
not proceed against you?"

"No: it is not that at all. But this is no place for me to utter my
father's name. We all have our secrets, sir. You have got yours. There's
a picture, with its face to the wall. Suppose I was to ask you to tell
all the world whose face it is you insult and hide from the world?"

Raby turned red with wrath and surprise, at this sudden thrust. "You
insolent young scoundrel!" he cried. "What is that to you, and what
connection can there be between that portrait and a man in your way of
life?"

"There's a close connection," said Henry, trembling with anger, in his
turn: "and the proof is that, when that picture is turned to the light,
I'll tell you my name: and, till that picture is turned to the light,
I'll not tell you my name; and if any body here knows my name, and tells
it you, may that person's tongue be blistered at the root!"

"Oh, how fearful!" cried Grace, turning very pale. "But I'll put an end
to it all. I've got the key, and I've his permission, and I'll--oh, Mr.
Raby, there's something more in this than we know." She darted to the
picture, and unlocked the padlock, and, with Jael's assistance, began to
turn the picture. Then Mr. Raby rose and seemed to bend his mind inward,
but he neither forbade, nor encouraged, this impulsive act of Grace
Carden's.

Now there was not a man nor a woman in the room whose curiosity had not
been more or less excited about this picture; so there was a general
movement toward it, of all but Mr. Raby, who stood quite still, turning
his eye inward, and evidently much moved, though passive.

There happened to be a strong light upon the picture, and the lovely
olive face, the vivid features, and glorious black eyes and eyebrows,
seemed to flash out of the canvas into life.

Even the living faces, being blondes, paled before it, in the one
particular of color. They seemed fair glittering moons, and this a
glowing sun.

Grace's first feelings were those of simple surprise and admiration.
But, as she gazed, Henry's words returned to her, and all manner of
ideas struck her pell-mell. "Oh, beautiful! beautiful!" she cried. Then,
turning to Henry, "You are right; it was not a face to hide from the
world--oh! the likeness! just look at HIM, and then at her! can I be
mistaken?"

This appeal was made to the company, and roused curiosity to a high
pitch; every eye began to compare the dark-skinned beauty on the wall
with the swarthy young man, who now stood there, and submitted in
haughty silence to the comparison.

The words caught Mr. Raby's attention. He made a start, and elbowing
them all out of his way, strode up to the picture.

"What do you say, Miss Carden? What likeness can there be between
my sister and a smith?" and he turned and frowned haughtily on Henry
Little.

Henry returned his look of defiance directly.

But that very exchange of defiance brought out another likeness, which
Grace's quick eye seized directly.