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shout from the filthy mob, where the mention of your name enabled me at once to detect the quarter in which this base attack had originated. When I looked round, I saw that treacherous villain, Hunsden acting as fugleman. I detected you in close conversation with Hunsden at my house a month ago, and I know that you were at Hunsden’s rooms last night. Deny it if you dare.”
“Oh, I shall not deny it! And if Hunsden hounded on the people to hiss you[73], he did quite right. You deserve popular execration; for a worse man, a harder master, a more brutal brother than you are has seldom existed.”
“Sirrah! sirrah!” reiterated Crimsworth; and to complete his apostrophe, he cracked the whip straight over my head.
A minute sufficed to wrest it from him[74], break it in two pieces, and throw it under the grate. He made a headlong rush at me, which I evaded, and said:
“Touch me, and I’ll have you up before the nearest magistrate.”
Men like Crimsworth, if firmly and calmly resisted, always abate something of their exorbitant insolence; he had no mind to be brought before a magistrate, and I suppose he saw I meant what I said. After an odd and long stare at me, at once bull-like and amazed, he seemed to bethink himself that, after all, his money gave him sufficient superiority over a beggar like me, and that he had in his hands a surer and more dignified mode of revenge than the somewhat hazardous one of personal chastisement.
“Take your hat,” said he. “Take what belongs to you, and go out at that door; get away to your parish, you pauper: beg, steal, starve, get transported, do what you like; but at your peril venture again into my sight! If ever I hear of your setting foot on an inch of ground belonging to me, I’ll hire a man to cane you.”
“It is not likely you’ll have the chance; once off your premises, what temptation can I have to return to them? I leave a prison, I leave a tyrant; I leave what is worse than the worst that can lie before me, so no fear of my coming back.”
“Go, or I’ll make you[75]!” exclaimed Crimsworth.
I walked deliberately to my desk, took out such of its contents as were my own property, put them in my pocket, locked the desk, and placed the key on the top.
“What are you abstracting from that desk?” demanded the mill-owner. “Leave all behind in its place, or I’ll send for a policeman to search you.”
“Look sharp about it, then,” said I, and I took down my hat, drew on my gloves, and walked leisurely out of the counting-house – walked out of it to enter it no more.
I recollect that when the mill-bell rang the dinner hour, before Mr. Crimsworth entered, and the scene above related took place, I had had rather a sharp appetite, and had been waiting somewhat impatiently to hear the signal of feeding time. I forgot it now, however; the images of potatoes and roast mutton were effaced from my mind by the stir and tumult which the transaction of the last half-hour had there excited. I only thought of walking, that the action of my muscles might harmonize with the action of my nerves; and walk I did, fast and far. How could I do otherwise? A load was lifted off my heart; I felt light and liberated. I had got away from Bigben Close without a breach of resolution; without injury to my self-respect. I had not forced circumstances; circumstances had freed me. Life was again open to me; no longer was its horizon limited by the high black wall surrounding Crimsworth’s mill. Two hours had elapsed before my sensations had so far subsided as to leave me calm enough to remark for what wider and clearer boundaries I had exchanged that sooty girdle. When I did look up, lo! straight before me lay Grovetown, a village of villas about five miles out of X – — . The short winter day, as I perceived from the far-declined sun, was already approaching its close; a chill frost-mist was rising from the river on which X – — stands, and along whose banks the road I had taken lay; it dimmed the earth, but did not obscure the clear icy blue of the January sky. There was a great stillness near and far; the time of the day favoured tranquillity, as the people were all employed within-doors, the hour of evening release from the factories not being yet arrived; a sound of full-flowing water alone pervaded the air, for the river was deep and abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow. I stood awhile, leaning over a wall; and looking down at the current: I watched the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear and permanent impression of the scene, and treasure it for future years[76]. Grovetown church clock struck four; looking up, I beheld the last of that day’s sun, glinting red through the leafless boughs of some very old oak trees surrounding the church – its light coloured and characterized the picture as I wished. I paused yet a moment, till the sweet, slow sound of the bell had quite died out of the air; then ear, eye and feeling satisfied, I quitted the wall and once more turned my face towards X – — .
Chapter VI
I re-entered the town a hungry man; the dinner I had forgotten recurred seductively to my recollection; and it was with a quick step and sharp appetite I ascended the narrow street leading to my lodgings. It was dark when I opened the front door and walked into the house. I wondered how my fire would be; the night was cold, and I shuddered at the prospect of a grate full of sparkless cinders. To my joyful surprise, I found, on entering my sitting-room, a good fire and a clean hearth. I had hardly noticed this phenomenon, when I became aware of another subject for wonderment; the chair I usually occupied near the hearth was already filled; a person sat there with his arms folded on his chest, and his legs stretched out on the rug. Short-sighted as I am, doubtful as was the gleam of the firelight, a moment’s examination enabled me to recognize in this person my acquaintance, Mr. Hunsden. I could not of course be much pleased to see him, considering the manner in which I had parted from him the night before[77], and as I walked to the hearth, stirred the fire, and said coolly, “Good evening,” my demeanour evinced as little cordiality as I felt; yet I wondered in my own mind what had brought him there; and I wondered, also, what motives had induced him to interfere so actively between me and Edward; it was to him[78], it appeared, that I owed my welcome dismissal; still I could not bring myself to ask him questions, to show any eagerness of curiosity; if he chose to explain, he might, but the explanation should be a perfectly voluntary one on his part; I thought he was entering upon it.
“You owe me a debt of gratitude,” were his first words.
“Do I?” said I; “I hope it is not a large one, for I am much too poor to charge myself with heavy liabilities of any kind.”
“Then declare yourself bankrupt at once, for this liability is a ton weight at least. When I came in I found your fire out, and I had it lit again, and made that sulky drab of a servant stay and blow at it with the bellows till it had burnt up properly; now, say ‘thank you!’”
“Not till I have had something to eat; I can thank nobody while I am so famished.”
I rang the bell and ordered tea and some cold meat.
“Cold meat!” exclaimed Hunsden, as the servant closed the door, “what a glutton you are; man! Meat with tea! you’ll die of eating too much.”
“No, Mr. Hunsden, I shall not.” I felt a necessity for contradicting him; I was irritated with hunger, and irritated at seeing him there, and irritated at the continued roughness of his manner.
“It is over-eating that makes you so ill-tempered,” said he.
“How do you know?” I demanded. “It is like you to give a pragmatical opinion without being acquainted with any of the circumstances of the case; I have had no dinner.”
What I said was petulant and snappish enough, and Hunsden only replied by looking in my face and laughing.
“Poor thing![79]” he whined, after a pause. “It has had no dinner, has it? What! I suppose its master would not let it come home. Did Crimsworth order you to fast by way of punishment[80], William!”
“No,
hounded on the people to hiss you – (
A minute sufficed to wrest it from him – (
or I’ll make you – (
treasure it for future years – (
considering the manner in which I had parted from him the night before – (
it was to him – (
Poor thing! – (
order you to fast by way of punishment – (