would do so as well as he could, its revolting points. Accordingly he thus started. observed John," that we are not tied as the church tieth: but I declare the parson could not make her dearer nor nearer to me than she is. Yet, when I drink I am so cruel to her!" "Yes, ma'am, he is very bad to me when he drinks or when he is out of sorts. He beats and kicks me then," said Mary, weeping. "Some how or another, ma'am, as soon as my old dad had me taken from school, where he kept me for a far longer time than I had a mind myself,-in fact, if the truth must be told,-I ran away for good, from the school, and for a long time from home too,-I thought of the line of life to choose, but never could come to a fix till the cursed magistrates fixed me in the county gaol for poaching, just as if that was a crime. Indeed, for some years I was, I know not how often out and in for the like sport, till I cared little what II met my Mary,-the mother of little Mary there; did, or what folks said of me." "Honest industry, and that which feared not the face of man, would have been better," said Sophia, but not without a pang-remembering herself! "True, young lady," said John: "but somehow I got into a line that I either could not, nor would not, go out of. There is such a thing, ma'am, as destiny; but it is too often through our wilful wickedness, and therefore no hidden power is to be blamed, but our own wicked selves." Thus spoke John Dimmock, the son of a not unendowed father, and himself capable of good things, Sophia perceived all this, became somewhat interested in the fellow's fortunes and begged him to proceed. "After being hunted from place to place as a poacher, and prisoned, I say not how often for the same, I resolved to be revenged in a small way and to take my departure for another sphere. Old Sir Thomas Whitworth, my bitterest enemy in these parts, now gone to his account, the old gouty rascal, had a particular favourite walk in his plantations. I knew every step of it; and it was in the very nooks of his plantations where I used to brimstone his pheasants and to snare the hares of his fine preserve. Well! what do I do? I planted a gin of forty-wire power, twisted and darkened as I know how to do it, to catch a hare, putting it exactly across the path which the old fool trod. He did tread it, tottering as he was, -was caught by the flannelled limb,-arrested as he had often made me to be,-thrown down, the dotard, and his ankle dislocated,-dislocated, and he died thereof-the old rascal died, and no doubt went to hell. Ha! ha! ha!" "And you like, John Dimmock," said Sophia, "to look back upon these exploits! Would that you had a better retrospect !"-and then she thought of the things suggested by a retrospect. "No, I don't like to look back," answered the fellow," but what can I do? Let me go on.I left Bagshot-cut my stick-and was off to Kent. I knew Jack Romeshill; and he was now a smuggler on the coast. Poaching and smuggling are brethren; so I joined Jack's crew. Glo. rious fun we had in Kent, but most dangerous." "Glorious! you call it," said Miss Maxwell, "I think it must have been grievous-what say you, Mrs. Dimmock," addressing the restored woman. "My name is not Mrs. Dimmock, ma'am, and therefore I don't care to live. He does not make me his wife, my sweet innocent young lady; he will not wed me, and this is helping to kill me!" Sophia clasped her hands and threw her eyes aloft; Dimmock and the woman thought that all the emotion was about their wickedness:-but it "Yes! it is all true, Miss Maxwell; I always fly against the woman who is my faithfullest and tenderest friend," said John-and he shed tears of remorse.-"Well, as I was saying," continued he, after a pause, “I went to Kent,-it was there and there too it was that I lived a more desperate life than what this Bagshot here witnessed. We had the vile excise and their assistants to contend with. But I'll tell you how I helped to serve one of them out." And the fellow laughed outrageously at the incident which we are about to describe. "Richardson," said John Dimmock, " was the terriblest officer we met with,-strong, and cruel, and never-forgiving. He would hunt you to hell, and through the caverns of perdition, I verily believe. He is the only man that ever made me shudder with horrid oaths. He coins oaths, ma'am, so clever and hearty he is as a blasphemer. Well, ma'am, me and two more of us caught him at fault, that is, unprepared to defend himself or to bother us. We snatched him, we blindfolded him,-we gagged him, so that he could neither speak nor sec. It was night,-a dark, blustering night, and we carried him back and forward for hours, swearing what we should do unto him, till we got him into mortal fear. He trembled like an aspen leaf and we danced with glee to feel him trembling. But devil a word could he speak. To torment him the more we said he must be gagged to prevent him from blasphemy." "Don't you think, John Dimmock, that it was terrible work you were about, and that you must answer for it at the day of judgment?" cried Sophia. "I am sure you are eight ma'am; although we did not think at the time of our wickedness or of what we were to answer for. When, ma'am, one is in the way of, and on the road to perdition, he does not reason or think like a man, but just as one that is determined to make his doom after the more and the more sure. It was to be, and therefore it must be,-that is my motto." "What then did you do with the exciseman?" asked Miss Maxwell. "We took him to the beach,-or rather, as we swore,-to one of the cliffs in the neighbourhood, asseverating that we shoula toss him over into the boiling ocean beneath; for it was high tide. And now behold him at the brink of the precipice! "Unloosen his hands,' shouted I, 'and let him have a chance for his life.' His hands were unloosened; and while kicking and struggling most awful, we hands caught the top of the rock, when he laid let him over the edge, gently dropping him till his hold with all the teriors of grim eternity upon him. And there, and then, and thus we left him; his fingers and finger nails dug as far and firm as it was in flesh, blood, and bone to do, into the senseless rock, believing himself suspended over the horrid abyss, and clinging, like one exactly between life and death, by the frail fingers, unable to draw himself up, there to count the most enormous of his numberless sins in the best way he could for meeting God." "He "It was monstrous cruelty!" cried Sophia. "Became of him!" answered John. "It was horrid cruelty, ma'am, I will admit," dropt not beyond ten feet, and was received on said John Dimmock. "But yet how many of us the beautiful soft sandy floor, without a broken by our own wilful deeds are continually suspend- bone, although heart-broken and almost in the ing ourselves or others over the terrors of the bot- agonies of death from monstrous fear. Having tomless pit!" he added, mournfully. "Well, as dropt, he relieved his mouth of the gag, and me and my comrades soon afterwards learned, no doubt vomited volumes of oaths and curses Richardson found that his fingers and arms could against those who had so well served him out." no longer preserve him from the fearful plunge. I say it was monstrously done," again cried The tide had retired, and he would have to alight Miss Maxwell. "How can you lay down your far, far down upon the jagged yawning rocks. He head to sleep and not dream of the cruelty? you thought of this, and could he have spoken, he were in every sense deliberate murderers." would have prayed for the surges of the deep to "I cannot deny it," observed John; "but I receive him, rather than the rocky embrace. He have been oft and horribly suspended in doubt and dropt!" fear. At last I got a sickener; I was tired, too, "And what became of the wretch?" cried of the smuggler's career;-I came home to my father and mother's cottage, down yonder, and for Sophia. some months lived a life of indolence and of re-till for a moment I consider what is to be done proach from them, because they said I was a for you, poor creatures." burden." "Then how and when did you again quit their roof?" asked Sophia, as if she thought that John had arrived at the point with which she was to find herself, or some one to whom her destiny seemed to link her, strangely associated. Having considered within herself for a few seconds, she thus again spoke :— "It appears that you are in danger, should you continue much longer in this dreary place, from the officers of the law, and also that you may in a short time be again tempted to resort to the charcoal, "I did not finally quit the cottage, till that when the brazier being more largely filled and enemy of mine, James Crawford, in a measure skilfully placed, no current of air or unexpected forced and frightened my parents away altogether," intruder like me may divert the suffocation. In said John. "Somehow he stood in fear that these circumstances a thought has struck me, that they would blab and bring him into ugly trouble. may lead to your salvation here and hereafter. Many was the time that he latterly came out to The carriage in which I travelled hitherward tothem, and always with an advice, among other day, is at the stabling down below. I shall now things, that they should turn me out. He feared hasten to the place before it grows quite dark; me somehow; and now he has cause for so doing. come you after me as soon as night has set in. I I bear him a deadly grudge. However I say I did shall wait for you, and then carry you to the not finally quit the cottage till the old people suburbs of London where you will be much deserted it; and till then, when I did go out, it was safer than here. I shall also give you the means only in the darkness of night." of providing comfortably for yourselves somewhere "Why always in the night?" asked Sophia, in the metropolis; you, John Dimmock, promistwisting between her fingers another gold piece. ing me that you will make Mary here your lawful Because, beautiful and good Miss Maxwell," wife, and also that you will never, tipsy nor answered the fellow, "I went out at the fitting sober, lift your hand or foot to her injury.' time for picking up glittering pieces like to that Mary curtseyed and John scratched his head, which you are playing with." wincing, in some measure under the chastisement "Then your career was from less to greater of Sophia's kindly reproof, promising as it apdanger, John," Sophia observed, putting the piece peared, however, with a genuine frankness to do into the woman's hand. and also to refrain as proposed. 66 Thanks, kind Miss Maxwell!" cried John: "If," said Miss Maxwell, "no other advan"may you never feel the want of the needful. I tage should result from my journey of this day have many a time felt it, and have had to help but your well-being and well-doing, I shall be myself, when there was no one to come to my as- amply repaid for my trouble and expense." sistance, or the assistance of those poor creatures. Everything was carried out as proposed, till the But what are we to think of those people,-those party came within the lights of London; and then fine gentlemen that take to the road, when there they separated,-Sophia's last words being,is no necessity or starving temptation to the crime?" Meet me John Dimmock, at the east end of St. Ay, what would you say to that, Miss Maxwell?" Paul's Churchyard to-morrow evening, precisely Why, I should say that it was impossible that at the hour of six; till then, farewell." any such heinous wickedness and folly could stain John Dimmock promised punctuality; and they the present age." parted, Sophia overjoyed at the result of her day's adventures. 66 "Hear me, ma'am, and answer me too, if you please," cried the fellow. "Do you remember having read of the robbery of the Honourable Captain Stewart, he that is the suitor of the lovely sister of Crawford,-one night last summer in the neighbourhood of Hounslow?" "I think," answered she, "I have some faint recollection of that affair." CHAPTER XXXIX. The nearer grew the peril imminent, "I was a LET us Old Poem. "Well then," continued Dimmock, how return to Arnold and James witness of the same piece of business, as I by chance Crawford, whom we shall find in earnest dishappened to be behind the hedge on the roadside cussion with each other in a private room at a where the assault and the robbery took place. Two West-end hotel. of the highwaymen I knew: one of them an old "That damned and damning letter, James, villain who was lately cast for death at the Old which the fiend Sophia Maxwell has filched from Bailey, but who poisoned himself, as you may re-Dimmock, is our ruin!" exclaimed Arnold sudmember; and another, not half his age, the very denly. "Never can I forgive you the heedlessJames Crawford of whom it is said you have thought ness, the senseless facility with which you have so much. The third and most active of the robbers allowed us and our magnificent schemes to be I never had seen before, and cannot give you any thwarted by a silly girl with whom, like any other clue to his name or circumstances. However, he lad, you have merely had an amour. Infernal was a middle-aged person, and whether in daylight folly! or moonlight he should ever come within reach "And the clever stratagem of the drugged of my eyes, I should to a certainty be able to oranges! How have you bettered the matter by point him out." that clumsy and palpable attempt at a cowardly "All this is very extraordinary," observed murder?" demanded James. "The latter was Sophia, affecting the least possible surprise, though, bad enough, and all along appeared to me the in reality profoundly astonished: "but I must invention of a person that must already have think of going towards London; yet cannot start believed himself involved in desperate circum stances instead of being entitled to talk of mag- "Ah! there it is," cried Crawford; "and I can nificent schemes and certain success. In truth, only explain her hate and unceasing pursuit of instead of abusing me for having carelessly let us, without coming to a final effort at public exthe document escape my hands, I should charge posure of what she knows and what she suspects you with the grossest forgetfulness of your ever-of our ways, in this manner:-she has a twofold vaunted sagacity, for having penned it at all." principle of action. First, the fear of her amour It was thus that Crawford answered his ex- and illicit intimacy with me being made known, perienced Mentor. is equal to her spirit of vindictiveness; "Stripling! replied Arnold, “ you are quite evenly balanced indeed are the two things that, as incapable of fathoming my plans, nor am I to she herself has asseverated to me, if I spare her, have them criticised by you. All that you had she will spare me." -SO to think of is to attend to my orders, my instruc- "But why then does she not cease her damnable tions now you have ruined us every way." provocation, remaining at home, or busying her"All I have had to think of was to attend to self somewhere else?" asked Arnold, not fully your orders and instructions!" exclaimed the satisfied with the explanation; adding these words, "what have I reaped for having however, with some degree of hopeful expression : young man ; once followed your lessons? Dark day was that "You do not think, then, that if we refrain from in which I first listened to you, that on which making an exposure of her faux-pas, that she you first came within reach of my eye-sight, will venture to divulge the nature of our affairs?” Ruined every way by me, do you dare to say? "No; she will not rashly denounce us to the It has been ruin to me, and will, I have now a world, or volunteer to witness against us, at least foresight, be direful ruin and destruction to my till she has accumulated other and still more terfamily, the hour in which I listened to the slightest rible proofs to our deep damnation; for then I of your teachings." would not have any longer hope. Indeed if you There was too much truth in the youth's ener- persevere in filling her hands with such tangible getic statement to admit of a reply from the proofs of a conspiracy against her life, as has been crest-fallen wretch by whom he had been undone ; done, I cannot say how speedily she may be and too little advantage to be gained in any way goaded to the last act of revenge." by prolonging angry recrimination, for Arnold to irritate his pupil further. He therefore, with the dexterity peculiar to him, burst into a loud fit of laughter, declaring that it was only for a moment that he was confounded and put out of "Has she been drugging herself, do you conhumour; was sorry that he had spoken rather sharply to James, but that they were both too jecture, Crawford?" inquired the arch-impostor. hasty; that it would never do to have a house "I should think not," answered the other, "aldivided in itself; that he now saw how easily though I believe she would stop at nothing, they might extricate themselves, and silence the rather than have the world or her father to know syren, who had been the means of so inveigling that she was no longer the innocent and pure girl that she was when first I met her. I have them. Arnold winced, and James proceeded : "I was in hopes that her shame by this time would have proclaimed itself, but am now convinced to the contrary." "It is, my dear friend," said Arnold, "a subject had too many times of late been confronted by not incurious in itself, this same girl's history her, not to observe that her shape and her comsince you were first introduced to the Maxwells," plexion are as perfectly maidenly in appearance But as to the other principle, giving a new turn to the discourse, and affecting as ever they were. the metaphysician. "At first you found her a or motive, of her vindictive perseverance, of which spoilt, inexperienced, unthinking, and amorous I spoke girl. Now she is an acute, sensible, strong- "Yes: : you talked of a two-fold reason," obminded, and resolute woman, as beautiful as served Arnold. ever, but a perfect devil,-malignant, rancorous, "I did," said Crawford; "and this is the fertile in resources, and having the perseverance second, be you assured. Her pride has been of the most resolute and devoted, even when the terribly aroused by my treatment of her, and end to be obtained is some mighty triumph in the the discovery of certain points in our affairs,→ so fate of empire. How, James, can you account terribly aroused, in fact, as to awaken every for the sudden transformation? latent energy in her nature. Having obtained a But James was not yet in a humour to philo- certain clue, by means of which she has been sophise about such a subtle theme, bearing in enabled to trace our course further and further mind certain of Arnold's harsh charges, and also whenever she set her mind upon the pursuit, not forgetful of the perilous condition to which she has at length got a successful curiosity to he and his tutor had brought themselves. He take the place of what was her all in all a little therefore only replied to the above speculation time ago: the amorous passion has yielded to the of the arch-impostor words to this effect:- prying passion; she has need in the desolation of "All that we have experienced as yet from her hopes and desires in one engrossing way, Sophia Maxwell's vengeful spirit is, I fear and to have activity and satisfaction in another,verily believe, but a sample and the beginning of that other being extremely agreeable to the female her persecution." heart. To pry into our history and the cha"Nonsense! James," cried Arnold; we two racters of each one of our friends is quite a roare surely not long to be foiled even by such a mantic occupation for the fiend, nor have we got vixen. And yet she seems to be a most perse- to the end of her discoveries. When she finds vering enemy, as I have already said. Strange that no more can be gathered, nothing else that she does not at once do her worst! divulged, then down she will come upon us with all the fell and accumulated vengeance of the "Oh! good and sweet lady," cried John Diminsulted and injured woman." mock, "it seems so easy to look decent and to The conclusion at which the naturally clear- do right, when one is once in the straight way, sighted and intelligent James Crawford had ar- that surely I shall never go astray again. I know rived, was any thing but consolatory. It was the bitterness as well as the temptations of the only to the intent of having the evil day put past. The whole is like a horrid dream from indefinitely off, sooner or later to have them ar- which I am just awakening; and I trust that I rested in their infamous career with the sudden- shall never exchange the comforts of this day's ness of the thunder-bolt, crushing them and honest and virtuous resolves for the riot and the flinging them to endless perdition. ruin of wild adventure." "It was a good thing," said Arnold, after a pause, "that we got rid of those infernal Dimmocks-I mean that they consented so readily to leave the country." "Be strong in your resolutions, and attend to my interest in you, and a considerable share of happiness and respectability may yet be yours. Meanwhile follow me," said Sophia. Yes," returned Crawford; "and heaven send She bent her steps towards Smithfield, and that they may not take it into their heads to having next entered Cloth Fair, conduced them come back. Old Dimmock considers himself to through a narrow passage to a neat and readyhave been cheated out of a fair share of the plun- furnished apartment, the rent for the week having der got from the public; but he has still had previously been paid by her, and the proper arsome decent sums-and this last which we gave rangements entered into for securing ordinary him as an inducement to depart with his old wife, comforts for persons in humble circumstances. was no small drain on us. Well-they are gone, Tidy clothing was soon provided also for the at all events for the present; and this is at least three; and then she left them, saaying that her a subject for congratulation, amongst all our fears visits would be frequent, so long as she found and annoyances. By the way, did I mention to they were deserving of her kindness. Tears were you that a few nights ago, when I returned home, all that the poor people could show in testimony I heard that you had called and also Mr. Hunter; of their gratitude as the lovely young lady quitted and that on the same evening, and at the same the room. hour too, a young lady had likewise called, who, "We shall visit the parson without delay, my by the description given by my hall-porter, I feel dear," said Dimmock," and have that done convinced was that fiend Sophia." which should have been seen to before I enticed "No, you did not mention the circumstance," you from your excellent father's roof. But better said Arnold, fixing a penetrating glance upon his late than never, than ks be to that angel, in companion, as if to read the secrets of his in-whose heart God has put it to come to our great most soul, then withdrawing his eyes, appa-[relief." rently satisfied with the result of his scrutiny. We should avail ourselves of an opportunity to "If it were Sophia," added Crawford, who had observe that Mr. Maxwell's affairs and business not noticed the manner in which Arnold had in every way assumed a prosperous complexion. looked at him, "she now seems resolved to ferret He began to trade cautiously but somewhat exme out even in my own dwelling. But perhaps tensively, as soon as a final settlement of his I am mistaken, and it was some one else." "Most likely," observed Arnold drily. The two friends then separated. CHAPTER XL. Confront this man, and, if ye dare, deny Old Poem. embarrassments with his creditors could be obtained,-quitting the hotel where he had been domiciled from the time of his acquittal at the Old Bailey Sessions, and hiring a private house of moderate pretensions in the vicinity of Finsbury Square, whither Sophia immediately went, to be his home-loving child, his companion, his housekeeper. Nevertheless, with the due performance of her domestic duties, Sophia never for once-now that We now return to Sophia Maxwell-the object she was so deep into the pursuits-contemplated of such alarm and hatred on the part of the im- giving up her prying and persecution, to the conpostors. fusion and humiliation of Crawford and his colHaving brought old Dimmock's son, with the league. She with the eagerness of female curiosity child and its mother, from Bagshot to London, and the wronged heart's rancour, beheld with a Sophia had arranged an appointment, as the sort of triumphant rejoicing how successfully she reader will remember, with these poor people, to might employ young Dimmock; and while chatake place in St. Paul's Churchyard, on the fol- ritably resolving on doing all in her power for the lowing evening; and both parties were punctual, renovation of his character and condition, she was the man and the woman evincing a lively sense of also determined that he should be made to aid gratitude, and really considerably improved to her in her efforts to bring the impostors to a most the eye by the sound night's rest which they had signal and infamous end. enjoyed in a comfortable bed, by the sufficiency Having made some trial of Dimmock's conduct of nourishment of which they had partaken in the and character, now a married citizen, and percourse of the succeeding day, and by the hope of suaded in the course of her clear insight, that he having a settled decent manner of life set before was susceptible of being made a good member of society, she had him first of all installed in her Sophia was glad to see the poor people, and father's warehouse as porter and errand man, spoke of their altered looks with approval and Mr. Maxwell by this time trading in the wine encouragement. business, them. |