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The Adventures of Hugh Trevor

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This was joyful news indeed; or rather something much more exquisite
than joyful. My heart melted when I heard him; I burst into tears, and
replied, 'I would willingly die to serve him.' He then went to bed,
and as evening came on the fever with which he was attacked increased.
The anxiety I felt was excessive, and I was so earnest in my
intreaties to sit and watch by him, that he was prevailed on to grant
my request. From what I can now recollect, I imagine the apothecary
gave him the common remedy, Dr. James's powders. When the medicine no
longer operated he fell into a sound sleep, about eleven o'clock, and
when he awoke the next morning found himself much refreshed and free
from fever.

In the interim my wounds had been dressed, and to make the truth of
my story evident, I took care to shew the bruises, and black and blue
marks, with which my body was plentifully covered. Every favourable
circumstance, every precaution, every effort was now indeed become
necessary; for, late in the evening, I accidentally learned a secret
of the most important and hope-inspiring, yet alarming nature. My all
was at stake, my very existence seemed to depend on the person who it
is true had promised to be my protector, but who, perhaps, when he
should hear who I was, might again become my persecutor. The man to
whom I had attached myself, whose life I had saved, and who had avowed
a sense of the obligation, was no other than my grandfather!

The moment I heard this terrific intelligence, it chilled and animated
me alternately; and, as soon as I could recollect myself, I determined
not to quit his apartment all night. No persuasions could prevail
on me; and when the chambermaid, who sat up with him, attempted to
use force, I was so violent in my resistance that she desisted, and
suffered me to remain in quiet.

When he awoke in the morning I trembled at the sound of his voice. I
remembered the oath he had sworn, which my mother had often affirmed
he would never break. He was totally changed, in my idea, from the
gentleman whose life I had saved the day before. There had not indeed
been any thing particularly winning in his aspect; but then there was
a strong sense of danger, and of obligation to the instrument of his
escape, who interested him something the more by being unfortunate.
But an oath, solemnly taken by a man of so sacred a character? The
thought was dreadful!

His curtains were drawn, and my trepidation increased. 'What, my good
boy,' said he, 'are you up and here already?' 'He has never been in
bed,' answered the chambermaid. 'We could not get him out of the
room.' I replied in a faint voice, such as my fears inspired, 'I hoped
he was better.' 'Yes, yes,' said he, 'I have had a good sleep, and
feel as if I wanted my breakfast; go, my girl, and let it be got
ready.'

The chambermaid obeyed his orders, and he continued--'Why did not you
go to bed, child?'--'It did not become me to leave you'--'How so?' 'I
hope I know my duty better'--'Your duty!'--'Yes, Sir'--'You seem to be
an extraordinary boy; you act with great spirit, and talk with more
good sense than I should expect from your poverty and education'--'So
I ought to do, Sir; though I am desolate, I have been brought up
better than most poor boys'--'Ay indeed!'

The apothecary entered, and, after having paid all necessary attention
to his patient, informed him of the state in which he had found me;
talked of my wounds and bruises, and the cruelty of the man that could
inflict them; repeated several of the anecdotes of his tyranny, which
I had told him, and concluded with remarks on my good fortune, in
having found so kind a protector.

'The boy has saved my life,' said my grandfather, 'and he shall not
want a friend.' 'Are you quite sure of that, Sir?' answered I, with
emphatical anxiety. 'Never, while I live,' replied the rector. 'Nay,
but are you quite quite positive?' 'Do you doubt my word, boy?'--'That
is very wrong of you indeed, child,' said the apothecary.--A thought
suddenly struck me. If he would but take an oath, said I to myself?
The oath, the oath! that was what I dreaded! An opposite oath seemed
to be my only safe-guard. I continued--'I swear, Sir, while I have
life never to forsake you, but to be dutiful and true to you'--'Swear
boy?'--'Yes, Sir, most solemnly.'--I spoke with great fervor--'You are
an unaccountable boy'--'Oh that _you_ would never forsake _me_'--'I
tell you I will not'--'Oh that you never would!'--'Won't you believe
me?'--'Oh that you never never would!'--'The boy I believe wants me to
swear too'--'Ay; do, Sir; take an oath not to disown me; and indeed
indeed I'll die willingly to deserve your favour'--'Disown you'--'Nay,
Sir, but take an oath. You say I saved your life; I would lay down
my own again and again to save it. Do not deny me, do not turn me to
starve, or send me back to be murdered by my barbarous master'--'I
tell you I will not'--'Nay but'--'Well then I swear, boy, I will
not'--'Do you indeed duly and truly swear?'--'Solemnly, boy! I take
heaven to witness that, if you are not guilty of something very
wicked, while I live I will provide for you.'--I fell on my knees,
caught hold of his hand, burst into tears, and exclaimed with
sobs--'God in heaven bless my dear dear good grandfather! He has
forgiven me! He has forgiven me!' 'Grandfather?' 'I am Hugh Trevor.'

Never did I behold so sudden a change in the human countenance! The
rector's eyes glared at me! There was something ghastly in the sunken
form of his features! My shirt was still red, and my coat spotted with
blood; the hair had been cut away from the wound on my head, which was
covered with a large plaister. My eye was black, and swelled up, and
my forehead too was plaistered above the eye-brow. My body he had been
told was covered with bruises, tears bathed my cheeks, and my face was
agitated with something like convulsive emotions. This strange figure
was suddenly changed into his grandson! It was an apparition he knew
not how to endure. To be claimed by such a wretched creature, to
have been himself the author of his wretchedness, to have had an
oath extorted from him, in direct violation of an opposite oath,
to feel this universal shock to his pride and his prejudices was a
complication of jarring sensations that confounded him. To resist was
an effort beyond his strength. For a moment he lost his voice: at last
he exclaimed, with a hoarse scream--'Take him away'--My heart sunk
within me. The apothecary stood petrified with astonishment. The
rector again repeated with increasing agony--'Take him away! Begone!
Never let me see him more!'

The pang I felt was unutterable. I rose with a feeling of despair that
was annihilating, and was going broken hearted out of the room. At
that instant the figure of my master started to recollection, and with
such terror as to subdue every other fear. I turned back, fell on my
knees again, and clasping my hands cried out, 'For God Almighty's
sake, do not send me back to my master! I shall never escape with
life! He will murder me! He will murder me! I'll be your servant as
long as I live. I will go of your errands; take care of your horses;
drive your plough; weed your garden; do any thing you bid me; indeed,
indeed I will.--Do not send me back to be murdered!'

The excess of my feelings had something of a calming effect on those
of the rector. He repeated, 'Go go, boy, go! I feel myself very ill!'
The apothecary recovered his tongue and added, 'Ay, my good child, you
had better go.'

The altered voice of the rector removed a part of the load that
oppressed me, and I left the room, though with no little sensation of
despondency. In about half an hour the apothecary came down. He had
had a conversation with the rector, who I found could not endure the
sight of me again, under my present forlorn or rather accusing form.
The remembrance however that I had saved his life was predominant. How
his casuistry settled the account between his two oaths I never heard;
on that subject he was eternally silent. He was probably ashamed of
having taken the first, and of having been tricked out of the second.
His orders were that I should go home with the apothecary, with whom
he had arranged matters, should be new clothed, wait till my wounds
were healed, and then, if he possibly could, he would prevail upon
himself to see me.




CHAPTER X


_Hopes in behalf of my mother: The arrival of the rector: I gain
his favour: Am adopted by him: And effect a family reconciliation.
Anecdotes of a school-fellow, and his sister: Grammatical and musical
studies: Causes of discontent between the Squire and the rector:
Tythes and law produce quarrels: The tragi-comic tale of the rats_


Six weeks had elapsed before my wounds, bruises, and black marks,
had totally disappeared; and the scar above my eye still retained a
red appearance. The alteration of my person however, aided as it was
by dress, was so remarkable as to excite surprise among my village
friends. The apothecary prided himself upon the change, persuading
himself that the rector would thank him for the present of so fine a
grandson. His art and care had wrought miracles, I was quite another
creature; the alteration was so prodigious since he had taken me that
he was sure there was not so fine a boy in all England.

In the mean time I had written to my mother, whose cottage was about
ten miles across the country, from the village where the apothecary
lived. He would not permit me to go to her, it might offend the
rector; but he agreed that, if she should by chance come to me, there
could be no harm in my speaking to my mother. He too understood
casuistry. She accordingly came to see me, and was overjoyed at what
had happened; it might lead to a general reconciliation: especially
now that my brother and sister were both dead. They had been carried
off by the small-pox; and she rightly enough conjectured that the
rector would not be the less prone to pardon her for being clear of
further incumbrance. She enjoined me to intercede in her behalf, and I
very sincerely promised to speak as soon as I dared.

The day at last came on which the rector was to pay his visit, and
examine how far I was fit to be his grandson. My terror by this time
had considerably abated: he having taken thus much notice of me, I
scarcely could believe myself in danger of being rejected. I was not
however without trepidation, and when the well known post chariot
drove up to the door my heart sunk within me.

The apothecary had two sons, one a year older, and the other some
months younger that I was. The eldest was deformed, and his brother
squinted abominably. Curiosity had brought them and the whole family
into the parlour, to be spectators of the interview. My grandfather
entered; I was dressed as genteelly as every effort of the village
taylor could contrive; an appearance so different from that of the
beaten, bruised, and wounded poor elf he first had seen, with clouted
shoes, torn stockings, and coarse coating, dripping with water, and
clotted with blood, was so great as scarcely to be credible. The
ugliness of my companions did but enhance the superiority of my look;
he could not be mistaken in which was his grandson, and the pleasure
my pre-eminence inspired excited a smile of no little approbation. For
my part I had conceived an affection for him; first I had saved his
life, then he had relieved me from distress, and now was come to own
me as his grandson. The change of my present situation from that in
which I had endured so much misery gave me ineffable pleasure. The
entrance of the rector, who had been the cause of this change, and the
smile with which he regarded me went to my heart. I kneeled, my eyes
flowing in tears, and begged his blessing. He gave it, bade me rise,
and thus made me one of the happiest creatures existing.

The rector stayed some time to settle accounts with the apothecary,
after which the postillion was called, leave was taken, and I found
myself seated beside my grandfather, in that fortunate post chariot
from which I had so happily extricated him.

How extreme are the vicissitudes of life! What a reverse of fortune
was here! From hard fare, severe labour, and a brutal tyrant, to
plenty, ease, and smiling felicity. No longer chained in poverty and
ignorance, I now had free access to the precious mines of knowledge.
Far from being restrained, I had every encouragement to pursue
inquiry; and the happiness of the change was at first so great as
almost to be incredible. But the youthful mind easily acquires new
habits, and my character varied with the accidents by which it was
influenced. Yet, to use my father's language, the case-hardening I
had received tempered my future life, and prepared me to endure those
misfortunes with fortitude which might otherwise have broken my
spirit.

From the day that I arrived at the rectory, I increased so fast in my
grandfather's favour that he scarcely knew how to deny me a request. I
was soon bold enough to petition for my mother; and though the pill at
first was bitter, my repeated importunities at length prevailed, and
the rector agreed that, when his daughter should have sufficiently
humbled herself, in terms suited to his dignity and her degradation,
she should be permitted to kneel at his footstool for pardon, instead
of perishing like an out-cast as she deserved.

It was not to be expected that my mother should object to the
conditions; the alternative was very simple, submit or starve. Beside
she had been too much accustomed to the display of the collective
authority, accumulated in the person of the rector, to think
of contest. His government was patriarchal, and his powers
plenipotentiary. He was the head of his family, the priest of the
parish, the justice of peace for the hundred, and the greatest man
of miles around. He had no rival, except the before-mentioned Squire
Mowbray, whom, if divines can hate, I certainly think he hated.

Of the claims of my late master over me, as his apprentice, I never
heard more. Perhaps there was no indenture, for I do not recollect
to have signed one; but if there were he certainly was too conscious
of his guilt to dare to enforce his right, now that he found me
acknowledged and protected by a man so powerful as my grandfather. It
is possible indeed that he should never have heard what became of me;
though I consider that as very improbable. While I was at Oxford, I
was informed that he died raving, with a fever in the brain.

I have mentioned the encouragement I received to pursue inquiry:
one of the first things the rector thought of was my education. Now
that he had owned I was indeed his grandson, it was fitting that
his grandson should be a gentleman. In the parish committed to his
pastoral guidance was a grammar school, that had been endowed, not
indeed by Squire Mowbray or his ancestors, but, by the family that
in times of yore had held the same estate. The pious founder had
vested the government not entirely in his own family, and its
representatives, but in that family and the rector for the time being.
This circumstance, and many others of a parochial nature, conduced to
a kind of partition of power, well calculated to excite contempt in
the wealthy Squire, who was likewise lord of the manor, and inflame
jealousy in heaven's holy vice-gerent, whose very office on earth is
to govern, and to detect, reprove, and rectify, the wanderings of us
silly sheep.

To this school I was immediately sent; and here, among other
competitors was the Squire's eldest son, Hector Mowbray. He was two
years older than I, and in the high exercise of that power to which he
was the redoubted heir. To insult the boys, seize their marbles, split
their tops, cuff them if they muttered, kick them if they complained
to the master, get them flogged if they kicked and cuffed in return,
and tyrannize over them to the very stretch of his invention, were
practices in which he daily made himself more and more expert. He was
the young Squire, and that was a receipt in full for all demands.

I soon came to understand that he was the son of a great man! a very
great man indeed! and that there was a prodigious difference between
flesh and blood of a squire's propagating, and that of ordinary breed.
But I heard it so often repeated, and saw it proved in such a variety
of instances, that I too was the grandson of a great man, ay so great
as openly to declare war against, or at least bid defiance to, the
giant power of Magog Mowbray (it was an epithet of my grandfather's
giving) I say, I was so fully convinced that I myself was the son
of somebody (pshaw! I mean the grandson) that no sooner did young
Hector begin to exercise his ingenuity upon me, than I found myself
exceedingly disposed to rebel. I had been bred in a hardy school.

At my first admission into this seminary, I did not immediately and
fully enter into the spirit and practice of the place; though I soon
became tolerably active. At robbing orchards, tying up latches,
lifting gates, breaking down hedges, and driving cattle astray, I
was by no means so great a proficient as Hector; nor had I any great
affection for swimming hedgehogs, hunting cats, or setting dogs at
boys and beggars; but at climbing trees, running, leaping, swimming,
and such like exercises, I was among the most alert.

My courage too was soon put to the proof, and my opponents found that
I entered on action with very tolerable alacrity; so that not to
mention sparrings and skirmishes, from which having begun I was never
the first to flinch, I had not been a year at school, before I had
been declared the conqueror in three set battles. The third was with
a butcher's boy, in defence of Hector, who for once instead of giving
had suffered insult, but who, though older and stronger than I was,
had not the courage to attack his hardy antagonist. My victory was
dearly earned, for the boy was considerably my superior in age and
strength, and bred to the sport. But this defence of him, and the fear
of having me for a foe, induced Hector to court my favour, and often
to invite me to Mowbray Hall.

Nor did the whole of my fame end here; the first day I entered the
school I was allowed to be the best English scholar, excepting one
Turl, a youth noted for his talents, and who while he remained there
continually kept his place in every class, as head boy. But this was
no triumph over me, for beside having been so long at school, he had
three or four years the advantage of me in point of age. Neither
did my thirst of inquiry abate, and I had now not only books but
instructors; on the contrary, my eagerness increased, and my progress
both in Latin and Greek was rapid. The rector was astonished at it,
and was often embarrassed by the questions which my desire of learning
impelled me to put.

Among my other acquirements, I became a practical musician. The rector
could strum the bass tolerably, and his friend the lawyer could play
the violin, in which however he was excelled by the clerk of the
parish. I retained some remembrance of what I had formerly studied,
and felt a great desire to learn; the rector encouraged it, and as the
clerk is always the very humble servant and slave of the parson, he
was inducted my music master. I loved the art, so that in less than
twelve months I had made a sufficient progress to join in Corelli's
and even Handel's trios, and thus to strengthen the parsonage-house
band.

People who hate each other do yet visit and keep up an intercourse,
according to set forms, purposely to conceal their hatred, it being a
hideous and degrading vice, of which all men are more or less either
ashamed or afraid. To preserve these appearances, or perhaps from the
impulse of vanity, the rector admitted of my excursions to Mowbray
Hall. For my own part, I found a motive more alluring than the society
of Hector, that frequently occasioned me to repeat these visits. His
sister, Olivia, two years younger than myself, was usually one of our
parlour playmates. Born of the same mother, living in the same family,
accustomed to the same manners, it is difficult to account for the
very opposite propensities of this brother and sister. Every thing the
reverse of what has been recited of Hector was visible in Olivia. He
was boisterous, selfish, and brutal; she was compassionate, generous,
and gentle: his faculties were sluggish, obtuse, and confined; hers
were acute, discriminating, and capacious: his want of feeling made
him delight to inflict torture; her extreme sensibility made her
fly to administer relief. The company of Olivia soon became very
attractive, and the rambles that I have sometimes taken with her, hand
in hand over Mowbray Park, afforded no common delight. She too was a
musician, and already famous for her fine voice and execution on the
harpsichord. I accompanied her on the violin, and sang duets with her
so as to surprize and even charm the Squire, and throw the visitors at
Mowbray Hall into raptures.

This sweet intercourse however was terminated by the bickerings,
back-bitings, and smothered jealousies, between the Squire and my
grandfather, which at length burst into a flame. The Squire had
succeeded to his estate and manor by the death of a very distant
relation, and by this relation the rector had been presented to his
living: he therefore considered himself as under no kind of obligation
to the Squire; while the latter on the contrary, the advowson being
parcel and part of the manor, held the manor, and himself as owner of
the manor, to be the actual donor.

To all this was added another very serious cause of discontent, that
of tythes; a cause that disturbs half the villages in the kingdom,
and that frequently exhibits the man who is sent to preach peace, and
afford an example of mild forbearance and Christian humility, as a
litigious, quarrelsome and odious tyrant; much better qualified to
herd with wolves than to be the shepherd of his meek master. It is
sufficiently certain that neither Christ nor his apostles ever took
tythes; and the esquires, farmers, and landholders, of this christian
kingdom, would in general be better satisfied, if their successors
were to follow so disinterested and laudable an example.

My grandfather had accepted his rectory at the same commutation that
the former incumbent had enjoyed it; and, while the patron to whom
he owed the presentation was living, he contented himself with his
bargain as well as he could: but, soon after the accession of Squire
Mowbray, considering that tie as no longer a clog to his conscience,
he began to inquire very seriously into the real value of his first
fruits and tythes, personal, predial, and mixed: that is, his great
tythes and his small. The calculation inflamed his avarice, and he
purchased and read all the books on the subject of tythes he could
collect. Being fond of power, and having discovered (as he supposed)
that the man who knows the most quirks in law has the greatest
quantity of power over his simple and ignorant neighbours, he was
a tolerably laborious and successful student of these quirks. I
say, tolerably; for it seldom happens that the rector is the most
industrious person in the parish.

It was thus that, after having made the whole hundred tremble at his
authority, in the exercise of his office of justice of the peace, he
next hoped to conquer the Behemoth, Magog Mowbray himself. His own
fears of being vanquished and the advice of his friends had indeed,
for years, prevented him from proceeding to an open rupture with his
parish, and the Squire at its head: but his irritability had been
gradually increasing ever since the departure of my uncle Elford. The
progress of his avarice at first was slow; but it gained strength as
it proceeded, and there was now no one whose opinion had sufficient
weight with him to keep it longer quiet. His friend the lawyer, it is
true, might have had some such influence over him; but the lawyer had
been duly articled to the most famous, that is the most litigious,
attorney in the country, and was himself his very famous successor; a
practitioner of the first repute.

The Squire, by a trick he thought proper to play, contributed not
a little to kindle the smothering embers. My grandfather having
announced his intention of demanding a commutation of nearly double
the sum, or of being paid his tythes in kind--first his tythes _de
jure_, and next his tythes by custom; enumerating them all and each;
corn, hay, hops and hemp; fruits, roots, seeds and weeds; wool, milk,
chickens, ducklings, and goslings, or eggs; corn rakings and pond
drawings; not forgetting agistment and _subbois_, or _sylva caedua_;
with many many more of the sweets of our prolific mother earth, which
I would enumerate if I did but recollect them, and for which men so
often have been and still are impleaded in Court Christian--these
particulars, I say, being recapitulated and set forth in terrible
array, by the rector, excited in the whole parish so much dread of the
rapacious vulture, who was coming with such a swoop upon them, that
high and low, young and old, rich and poor, all began to tremble.

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