Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales

M >> Maria Edgeworth >> Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales


When Mr. Hill's clerk went to demand payment of the note, O'Neill's head
was full of the ball which he was to give that evening. He was much
surprised at the unexpected appearance of the note: he had not ready
money by him to pay it; and after swearing a good deal at the clerk, and
complaining of this ungenerous and ungentleman-like behaviour in the
grocer and the tanner, he told the clerk to be gone, and not to be
bothering him at such an unseasonable time: that he could not have the
money then, and did not deserve to have it at all.

This language and conduct were rather new to the English clerk's
mercantile ears: we cannot wonder that it should seem to him, as he said
to his master, more the language of a madman than a man of business. This
want of punctuality in money transactions, and this mode of treating
contracts as matters of favour and affection, might not have damned the
fame of our hero in his own country, where such conduct is, alas! too
common; but he was now in a kingdom where the manners and customs are so
directly opposite, that he could meet with no allowance for his national
faults. It would be well for his countrymen if they were made, even by a
few mortifications, somewhat sensible of this important difference in the
habits of Irish and English traders before they come to settle in
England.

But to proceed with our story. On the night of Mr. O'Neill's grand ball,
as he was seeing his fair partner, the perfumer's daughter, safe home, he
felt himself tapped on the shoulder by no friendly hand. When he was
told that he was the king's prisoner, he vociferated with sundry strange
oaths, which we forbear to repeat. "No, I am not the king's prisoner! I
am the prisoner of that shabby, rascally tanner, Jonathan Hill. None but
he would arrest a gentleman in this way, for a trifle not worth
mentioning."

Miss Jenny Brown screamed when she found herself under the protection of
a man who was arrested; and, what between her screams and his oaths,
there was such a disturbance that a mob gathered.

Among this mob there was a party of Irish haymakers, who, after returning
late from a hard day's work, had been drinking in a neighbouring
ale-house. With one accord they took part with their countryman, and
would have rescued him from the civil officers with all the pleasure in
life if he had not fortunately possessed just sufficient sense and
command of himself to restrain their party spirit, and to forbid them, as
they valued his life and reputation, to interfere, by word or deed, in
his defence.

He then despatched one of the haymakers home to his mother, to inform her
of what had happened, and to request that she would get somebody to be
bail for him as soon as possible, as the officers said they could not let
him out of their sight till he was bailed by substantial people, or till
the debt was discharged.

The widow O'Neill was just putting out the candles in the ball-room when
this news of her son's arrest was brought to her. We pass over Hibernian
exclamations: she consoled her pride by reflecting that it would
certainly be the most easy thing imaginable to procure bail for Mr.
O'Neill in Hereford, where he had so many friends who had just been
dancing at his house; but to dance at his house she found was one thing
and to be bail for him quite another. Each guest sent excuses, and the
widow O'Neill was astonished at what never fails to astonish everybody
when it happens to themselves. "Rather than let my son be detained in
this manner for a paltry debt," cried she, "I'd sell all I have within
half an hour to a pawnbroker." It was well no pawnbroker heard this
declaration: she was too warm to consider economy. She sent for a
pawnbroker, who lived in the same street, and, after pledging goods to
treble the amount of the debt, she obtained ready money for her son's
release.

O'Neill, after being in custody for about an hour and a half, was set at
liberty upon the payment of his debt. As he passed by the cathedral in
his way home, he heard the clock strike; and he called to a man, who was
walking backwards and forwards in the churchyard, to ask whether it was
two or three that the clock struck. "Three," answered the man; "and, as
yet, all is safe."

O'Neill, whose head was full of other things, did not stop to inquire the
meaning of these last words. He little suspected that this man was a
watchman whom the over-vigilant verger had stationed there to guard the
Hereford Cathedral from his attacks. O'Neill little guessed that he had
been arrested merely to keep him from blowing up the cathedral this
night. The arrest had an excellent effect upon his mind, for he was a
young man of good sense: it made him resolve to retrench his expenses in
time, to live more like a glover and less like a gentleman; and to aim
more at establishing credit, and less at gaining popularity. He found,
from experience, that good friends will not pay bad debts.



CHAPTER II


On Thursday morning our verger rose in unusually good spirits,
congratulating himself upon the eminent service he had done to the city
of Hereford by his sagacity in discovering the foreign plot to blow up
the Cathedral, and by his dexterity in having the enemy held in custody,
at the very hour when the dreadful deed was to have been perpetrated. Mr.
Hill's knowing friends farther agreed it would be necessary to have a
guard that should sit up every night in the churchyard; and that as soon
as they could, by constantly watching the enemy's motions, procure any
information which the attorney should deem sufficient grounds for a legal
proceeding, they should lay the whole business before the mayor.

After arranging all this most judiciously and mysteriously with friends
who were exactly of his own opinion, Mr. Hill laid aside his dignity of
verger, and assuming his other character of a tanner, proceeded to his
tan-yard. What was his surprise and consternation, when he beheld his
great rick of oak bark levelled to the ground; the pieces of bark were
scattered far and wide, some over the close, some over the fields, and
some were seen swimming upon the water! No tongue, no pen, no muse can
describe the feelings of our tanner at this spectacle--feelings which
became the more violent from the absolute silence which he imposed on
himself upon this occasion. He instantly decided in his own mind that
this injury was perpetrated by O'Neill, in revenge for his arrest; and
went privately to the attorney to inquire what was to be done, on his
part, to secure legal vengeance.

The attorney unluckily--or at least, as Mr. Hill thought, unluckily--had
been sent for, half an hour before, by a gentleman at some distance from
Hereford, to draw up a will: so that our tanner was obliged to postpone
his legal operations.

We forbear to recount his return, and how many times he walked up and
down the close to view his scattered bark, and to estimate the damage
that had been done to him. At length that hour came which usually
suspends all passions by the more imperious power of appetite--the hour
of dinner: an hour of which it was never needful to remind Mr. Hill by
watch, clock, or dial; for he was blessed with a punctual appetite, and
powerful as punctual: so powerful, indeed, that it often excited the
spleen of his more genteel or less hungry wife. "Bless my stars! Mr.
Hill," she would oftentimes say, "I am really downright ashamed to see
you eat so much; and when company is to dine with us, I do wish you would
take a snack by way of a damper before dinner, that you may not look so
prodigious famishing and ungenteel."

Upon this hint, Mr. Hill commenced a practice, to which he ever
afterwards religiously adhered, of going, whether there was to be company
or no company, into the kitchen regularly every day, half an hour before
dinner, to take a slice from the roast or the boiled before it went up to
table. As he was this day, according to his custom, in the kitchen,
taking his snack by way of a damper, he heard the housemaid and the cook
talking about some wonderful fortune-teller, whom the housemaid had been
consulting. This fortune-teller was no less a personage than the
successor to Bampfylde Moore Carew, king of the gipsies, whose life and
adventures are probably in many, too many, of our readers' hands.
Bampfylde, the second king of the gipsies, assumed this title, in hopes
of becoming as famous, or as infamous, as his predecessor: he was now
holding his court in a wood near the town of Hereford, and numbers of
servant-maids and 'prentices went to consult him--nay, it was whispered
that he was resorted to, secretly, by some whose education might have
taught them better sense.

Numberless were the instances which our verger heard in his kitchen of
the supernatural skill of this cunning man; and whilst Mr. Hill ate his
snack with his wonted gravity, he revolved great designs in his secret
soul. Mrs. Hill was surprised, several times during dinner, to see her
consort put down his knife and fork, and meditate. "Gracious me, Mr.
Hill! what can have happened to you this day? What can you be thinking
of, Mr. Hill, that can make you forget what you have upon your plate?"

"Mrs. Hill," replied the thoughtful verger, "our grandmother Eve had too
much curiosity; and we all know it did not lead to good. What I am
thinking of will be known to you in due time, but not now, Mrs. Hill;
therefore, pray, no questions, or teasing, or pumping. What I think, I
think; what I say, I say; what I know, I know; and that is enough for you
to know at present: only this, Phoebe, you did very well not to put on
the Limerick gloves, child. What I know, I know. Things will turn out
just as I said from the first. What I say, I say; and what I think, I
think; and this is enough for you to know at present."

Having finished dinner with this solemn speech, Mr. Hill settled himself
in his arm-chair, to take his after-dinner's nap: and he dreamed of
blowing up cathedrals, and of oak bark floating upon the waters; and the
cathedral was, he thought, blown up by a man dressed in a pair of woman's
Limerick gloves, and the oak bark turned into mutton steaks, after which
his great dog Jowler was swimming; when, all on a sudden, as he was going
to beat Jowler for eating the bark transformed into mutton steaks, Jowler
became Bampfylde the Second, king of the gipsies; and putting a horse-
whip with a silver handle into Hill's hand, commanded him three times, in
a voice as loud as the town-crier's, to have O'Neill whipped through the
market-place of Hereford: but just as he was going to the window to see
this whipping, his wig fell off, and he awoke.

It was difficult, even for Mr. Hill's sagacity, to make sense of this
dream: but he had the wise art of always finding in his dreams something
that confirmed his waking determinations. Before he went to sleep, he
had half resolved to consult the king of the gipsies, in the absence of
the attorney; and his dream made him now wholly determined upon this
prudent step. "From Bampfylde the Second," thought he, "I shall learn
for certain who made the hole under the cathedral, who pulled down my
rick of bark, and who made away with my dog Jowler; and then I shall
swear examinations against O'Neill, without waiting for attorneys. I
will follow my own way in this business: I have always found my own way
best."

So, when the dusk of the evening increased, our wise man set out towards
the wood to consult the cunning man. Bampfylde the Second, king of the
gipsies, resided in a sort of hut made of the branches of trees; the
verger stooped, but did not stoop low enough, as he entered this
temporary palace, and, whilst his body was almost bent double, his peruke
was caught upon a twig. From this awkward situation he was relieved by
the consort of the king; and he now beheld, by the light of some embers,
the person of his gipsy majesty, to whose sublime appearance this dim
light was so favourable that it struck a secret awe into our wise man's
soul; and, forgetting Hereford Cathedral, and oak bark, and Limerick
gloves, he stood for some seconds speechless. During this time, the
queen very dexterously disencumbered his pocket of all superfluous
articles. When he recovered his recollection, he put with great
solemnity the following queries to the king of the gipsies, and received
the following answers:--

"Do you know a dangerous Irishman of the name of O'Neill, who has come,
for purposes best known to himself, to settle at Hereford?"

"Yes, we know him well."

"Indeed! And what do you know of him?"

"That he is a dangerous Irishman."

"Right! And it was he, was it not, that pulled down, or caused to be
pulled down, my rick of oak bark?"

"It was."

"And who was it that made away with my dog Jowler, that used to guard the
tan-yard?"

"It was the person that you suspect."

"And was it the person whom I suspect that made the hole under the
foundation of our cathedral?"

"The same, and no other."

"And for what purpose did he make that hole?"

"For a purpose that must not be named," replied the king of the gipsies,
nodding his head in a mysterious manner.

"But it may be named to me," cried the verger, "for I have found it out,
and I am one of the vergers; and is it not fit that a plot to blow up the
Hereford Cathedral should be known _to_ me, and _through_ me?"

"Now, take my word,
Wise men of Hereford,
None in safety may be,
Till the bad man doth flee."

These oracular verses, pronounced by Bampfylde with all the enthusiasm of
one who was inspired, had the desired effect upon our wise man; and he
left the presence of the king of the gipsies with a prodigiously high
opinion of his majesty's judgment and of his own, fully resolved to
impart, the next morning, to the mayor of Hereford his important
discoveries.

Now it happened that, during the time Mr. Hill was putting the foregoing
queries to Bampfylde the Second, there came to the door or entrance of
the audience chamber an Irish haymaker who wanted to consult the cunning
man about a little leathern purse which he had lost whilst he was making
hay in a field near Hereford. This haymaker was the same person who, as
we have related, spoke so advantageously of our hero O'Neill to the widow
Smith. As this man, whose name was Paddy M'Cormack, stood at the
entrance of the gipsies' hut, his attention was caught by the name of
O'Neill; and he lost not a word of all that pasted. He had reason to be
somewhat surprised at hearing Bampfylde assert it was O'Neill who had
pulled down the rick of bark. "By the holy poker!" said he to himself,
"the old fellow now is out there. I know more o' that matter than he
does--no offence to his majesty; he knows no more of my purse, I'll
engage now, than he does of this man's rick of bark and his dog: so I'll
keep my tester in my pocket, and not be giving it to this king o' the
gipsies, as they call him: who, as near as I can guess, is no better than
a cheat. But there is one secret which I can be telling this conjuror
himself: he shall not find it such an easy matter to do all what he
thinks; he shall not be after ruining an innocent countryman of my own
whilst Paddy M'Cormack has a tongue and brains."

Now, Paddy M'Cormack had the best reason possible for knowing that Mr.
O'Neill did not pull down Mr. Hill's rick of bark; it was M'Cormack
himself who, in the heat of his resentment for the insulting arrest of
his countryman in the streets of Hereford, had instigated his fellow
haymakers to this mischief; he headed them, and thought he was doing a
clever, spirited action.

There is a strange mixture of virtue and vice in the minds of the lower
class of Irish: or rather, a strange confusion in their ideas of right
and wrong, from want of proper education. As soon as poor Paddy found
out that his spirited action of pulling down the rick of bark was likely
to be the ruin of his countryman, he resolved to make all the amends in
his power for his folly--he went to collect his fellow haymakers, and
persuaded them to assist him this night in rebuilding what they had
pulled down.

They went to this work when everybody except themselves, as they thought,
was asleep in Hereford. They had just completed the stack, and were all
going away except Paddy, who was seated at the very top, finishing the
pile, when they heard a loud voice cry out, "Here they are! Watch!
Watch!"

Immediately all the haymakers who could, ran off as fast as possible. It
was the watch who had been sitting up at the cathedral who gave the
alarm. Paddy was taken from the top of the rick and lodged in the watch-
house till morning. "Since I'm to be rewarded this way for doing a good
action, sorrow take me," said he, "if they catch me doing another the
longest day ever I live."

Happy they who have in their neighbourhood such a magistrate as Mr.
Marshal! He was a man who, to an exact knowledge of the duties of his
office, joined the power of discovering truth from the midst of
contradictory evidence, and the happy art of soothing or laughing the
angry passions into good-humour. It was a common saying in Hereford that
no one ever came out of Justice Marshal's house as angry as he went into
it.

Mr. Marshal had scarcely breakfasted when he was informed that Mr. Hill,
the verger, wanted to speak to him on business of the utmost importance.
Mr. Hill, the verger, was ushered in; and, with gloomy solemnity, took a
seat opposite to Mr. Marshal.

"Sad doings in Hereford, Mr. Marshal! Sad doings, sir."

"Sad doings? Why, I was told we had merry doings in Hereford. A ball
the night before last, as I heard."

"So much the worse, Mr. Marshal--so much the worse: as those think with
reason that see as far into things as I do."

"So much the better, Mr. Hill," said Mr. Marshal, laughing, "so much the
better: as those think with reason that see no farther into things than I
do."

"But, sir," said the verger, still more solemnly, "this is no laughing
matter, nor time for laughing, begging your pardon. Why, sir, the night
of that there diabolical ball our Hereford Cathedral, sir, would have
been blown up--blown up from the foundation, if it had not been for me,
sir!"

"Indeed, Mr. Verger! And pray how, and by whom, was the cathedral to be
blown up? and what was there diabolical in this ball?"

Here Mr. Hill let Mr. Marshal into the whole history of his early dislike
to O'Neill, and his shrewd suspicions of him the first moment he saw him
in Hereford: related in the most prolix manner all that the reader knows
already, and concluded by saying that, as he was now certain of his
facts, he was come to swear examinations against this villanous Irishman,
who, he hoped, would be speedily brought to justice, as he deserved.

"To justice he shall be brought, as he deserves," said Mr. Marshal; "but
before I write, and before you swear, will you have the goodness to
inform me how you have made yourself as certain, as you evidently are, of
what you call your facts?"

"Sir, that is a secret," replied our wise man, "which I shall trust to
you alone;" and he whispered into Mr. Marshal's ear that, his information
came from Bampfylde the Second, king of the gipsies.

Mr. Marshal instantly burst into laughter; then composing himself, said:
"My good sir, I am really glad that you have proceeded no farther in this
business; and that no one in Hereford, beside myself, knows that you were
on the point of swearing examinations against a man on the evidence of
Bampfylde the Second, king of the gipsies. My dear sir, it would be a
standing joke against you to the end of your days. A grave man like Mr.
Hill! and a verger too! Why you would be the laughing-stock of
Hereford!"

Now Mr. Marshal well knew the character of the man to whom he was
talking, who, above all things on earth, dreaded to be laughed at. Mr.
Hill coloured all over his face, and, pushing back his wig by way of
settling it, showed that he blushed not only all over his face, but all
over his head.

"Why, Mr. Marshal, sir," said he, "as to my being laughed at, it is what
I did not look for, being, as there are, some men in Hereford to whom I
have mentioned that hole in the cathedral, who have thought it no
laughing matter, and who have been precisely of my own opinion
thereupon."

"But did you tell these gentlemen that you had been consulting the king
of the gipsies?"

"No, sir, no: I can't say that I did."

"Then I advise you, keep your own counsel, as I will."

Mr. Hill, whose imagination wavered between the hole in the cathedral and
his rick of bark on one side, and between his rick of bark and his dog
Jowler on the other, now began to talk of the dog, and now of the rick of
bark; and when he had exhausted all he had to say upon these subjects,
Mr. Marshal gently pulled him towards the window, and putting a spy-glass
into his hand, bade him look towards his own tan-yard, and tell him what
he saw. To his great surprise, Mr. Hill saw his rick of bark re-built.
"Why, it was not there last night," exclaimed he, rubbing his eyes. "Why,
some conjuror must have done this."

"No," replied Mr. Marshal, "no conjuror did it: but your friend Bampfylde
the Second, king of the gipsies, was the cause of its being re-built; and
here is the man who actually pulled it down, and who actually re-built
it."

As he said these words Mr. Marshal opened the door of an adjoining room
and beckoned to the Irish haymaker, who had been taken into custody about
an hour before this time. The watch who took Paddy had called at Mr.
Hill's house to tell him what had happened, but Mr. Hill was not then at
home.

It was with much surprise that the verger heard the simple truth from
this poor fellow; but no sooner was he convinced that O'Neill was
innocent as to this affair, than he recurred to his other ground of
suspicion, the loss of his dog.

The Irish haymaker now stepped forward, and, with a peculiar twist of the
hips and shoulders, which those only who have seen it can picture to
themselves, said, "Plase your honour's honour, I have a little word to
say too about the dog."

"Say it, then," said Mr. Marshal.

"Plase your honour, if I might expect to be forgiven, and let off for
pulling down the jontleman's stack, I might be able to tell him what I
know about the dog."

"If you can tell me anything about my dog," said the tanner, "I will
freely forgive you for pulling down the rick: especially as you have
built it up again. Speak the truth, now: did not O'Neill make away with
the dog?"

"Not at all, at all, plase your honour," replied the haymaker: "and the
truth of the matter is, I know nothing of the dog, good or bad; but I
know something of his collar, if your name, plase your honour, is Hill,
as I take it to be."

"My name is Hill: proceed," said the tanner, with great eagerness. "You
know something about the collar of my dog Jowler?"

"Plase your honour, this much I know, any way, that it is now, or was the
night before last, at the pawnbroker's there, below in town; for, plase
your honour, I was sent late at night (that night that Mr. O'Neill, long
life to him! was arrested) to the pawnbroker's for a Jew by Mrs. O'Neill,
poor creature! She was in great trouble that same time."

"Very likely," interrupted Mr. Hill: "but go on to the collar; what of
the collar?"

"She sent me--I'll tell you the story, plase your honour, _out of the
face_--she sent me to the pawnbroker's for the Jew; and, it being so late
at night, the shop was shut, and it was with all the trouble in life that
I got into the house any way: and, when I got in, there was none but a
slip of a boy up; and he set down the light that he had in his hand, and
ran up the stairs to waken his master: and, whilst he was gone, I just
made bold to look round at what sort of a place I was in, and at the old
clothes and rags and scraps; there was a sort of a frieze trusty."

"A trusty!" said Mr. Hill; "what is that, pray?"

"A big coat, sure, plase your honour: there was a frieze big coat lying
in a corner, which I had my eye upon, to trate myself to: I having, as I
then thought, money in my little purse enough for it. Well, I won't
trouble your honour's honour with telling of you now how I lost my purse
in the field, as I found after; but about the big coat--as I was saying,
I just lifted it off the ground to see would it fit me; and, as I swung
it round, something, plase your honour, hit me a great knock on the
shins: it was in the pocket of the coat, whatever it was, I knew; so I
looks into the pocket to see what was it, plase your honour, and out I
pulls a hammer and a dog-collar: it was a wonder, both together, they did
not break my shins entirely: but it's no matter for my shins now; so,
before the boy came down, I just out of idleness spelt out to myself the
name that was upon the collar: there were two names, plase your honour,
and out of the first there were so many letters hammered out I could make
nothing of it at all, at all; but the other name was plain enough to
read, any way, and it was Hill, plase your honour's honour, as sure as
life: Hill, now."