“More fire than lustre had his eye, his form
Less grace than grandeur.”
“Why am I summoned here, to mix with thine
My secret words, within the horrid cave
Of Moma?”
Near one of the entrances to ?haven, the chimneys and slating of a miserable looking row of houses, appear quite at the feet of the traveller; consequently, on a level with the road which runs along the brow of the hill, in the side of which the backs of the houses are sunk, while their faces front the valley.
About an hour after the conclusion of the events related in our last chapter, but still before day-break, a horseman approached at a rapid pace along the road just described.[217] He turned the animal suddenly down a narrow rugged abrupt descent, which brought him immediately in front of the said row of houses.
The rider stopped, and, loosing his foot from the stirrup at the side nearest the miserable dwelling, close to which his horse now stood, kicked the door. It opened, and a figure appeared, the outlines of which, as shewn by the light from behind, were easily to be recognised, as those of the female equestrian. From the length of time, however, which has elapsed, it may not be quite so easy to trace in her that bold strolling thief and beggar, whom we have seen in the very first chapter of this history, treat poor Edmund so cruelly. Yet she is the same individual. By origin she was, what in Cumberland is called, a bottom lass; the most opprobrious of terms, meaning one of those creatures, found to swarm in that region of darkness, denominated, in the country of which we speak, “the bottom.” Creatures[218] who, if they can claim a mother for the first few weeks after their birth, rarely can a father.
We are not aware that the profligate being whose history we are thus tracing back, was ever christened; yet, in some way or other, she had obtained the appellation of Jin of the Gins.
Jin, notwithstanding her lack of noble birth, happened to possess, in extreme youth, some natural beauty; and by that circumstance was promoted, at the early age of seventeen, to the rank of nominal wife to a travelling tinker. With him, for a few years, she travelled, begged, pilfered, and drank.
During this period it was that Edmund had, for the sake of his fine clothes, become her prey. Shortly after having abandoned him, she was caught in the act of achieving a more than usually daring robbery, for which she must have been hung, had she not escaped[219] from the magistrates before she could be committed to the county jail. On this occasion she returned, at about three and twenty, to her old asylum, the bottom; where, shrouded in coal-dust and darkness, she has, up to the present period, which brings her to about the age of three or four and forty, laboured at bottom-work in the bowels of the earth, and often beneath the bed of the ocean, amid hundreds of her own description.
To account for the equestrian prowess of Jin of the Gins, we must here remark, that near to ?haven, and not far from the row of houses just described, there is a broad covered way, leading down to the works by a descent so gradual, that horses, cars, and even waggons can enter by it; while daily may be seen emerging from it troops of colliers, mounted on such animals as in a late chapter we have described, accoutred too with chains which, like the traces of a just-loosed carriage-horse,[220] trail on either side, ready to hook to cars, waggons, &c.
But to return to the scene which was just commencing. The rider, in answer to whose summons we left Jin in the act of opening the door, on the threshold of which she now stood, accosted her thus, “Well, Jin of the Gins, how is it with you?”
“Nane the bether for yeer axin,” she retorted.
“Is Sir Sydney come?” continued the querist.
“Comed!” she repeated, “Aye, and maire nor him.”
Our traveller threw his bridle to the gentle groom, whistled, advanced a foot over the threshold, and paused in the act, till he heard an answering whistle from within. He then proceeded, and entering a miserably small earthen-floored apartment, on the side of the passage, stood before Julia’s late conductor. This mysterious personage was still wrapped in[221] his boat cloak. He sat leaning on a little rickety round table, whereon was placed a lantern which suffered but little of the light it contained to escape, having, in place of glass, sides of rusty tin, perforated with small holes like those of a colander.
“You have secured her, then?” said the traveller, as he entered.
“Where is Lord L.?” inquired the stranger, without rising or noticing the question put to him.
“Pursuing on a wrong track,” replied the traveller.
“Have you brought the title-deeds?” demanded the stranger, in a tone that few would have liked to have answered with a negative. The traveller unbuttoned his great coat and took off his hat. It was Henry!
“I have,” he replied, after a moment of hesitation, and slowly undoing a button or two of the inner coat.
[222]
“Give them to me, then!” said the stranger fiercely.
Henry drew a parcel of parchments halfway from his breast, then paused.
“What do you hesitate about, Sir?” said the stranger.
“I do not mean,” commenced Henry, “to sell the Craigs at present.”
“What of that?” said the stranger.
“You shall have the half of the rents,” continued Henry, in an expostulating tone, “and when, at Lord L.’s death, she inherits her proportion of his estates, then the Scotch acres may go to the hammer, and you shall have the whole of the money they bring.”
The stranger, while with his eyes fixed on the face of the speaker, he listened, had been slowly extracting a brace of pistols from his pockets, and laying them on the table.
“And pray what security have I for all this unless the title-deeds are in my own possession?”[223] he demanded scornfully, and with affected coolness. Then, with a sudden yell of rage, resembling the neigh of a wild horse, and grinning in a terrific manner, he vociferated, “Lay down the parchments, Sir!” striking the table as he spoke so violently with his clenched hand, that the lantern spun round like a child’s top; and one of the pistols leaping to the ground, went off.
Henry took the packet from his breast, and laid it down in silence.
The stranger drew it towards him, unfolded it, and corrected its tendency to relapse into its former folds, by laying his pistols on either margin, picking up for the purpose the one which had fallen. He then proceeded to open the door of the lantern, whence poured a powerful but partial light on the writings, and on his own countenance, as he bent over them in the act of examining their contents. A fur travelling cap, with a band tight to the[224] forehead, displayed, fully, features of terrific strength, and which, at the same time, presented a horrible sort of caricature of manly beauty, distorted almost to wildness by the habitual exaggeration of every desperate feeling. The scrutiny of the documents occupied some time, during the whole of which Henry stood, and was silent. The stranger having completed his task, refolded the parchments, and placed them in his breast; then, closing the lantern, and restoring thus the scene of conference to its former state of twilight, he re-charged the pistol, which had gone off in its fall, placing it with its companion in his pockets, and while doing so, said in a somewhat pacified tone: “These deeds will not enable me to sell the estate without your concurrence; though, their being in my hands, will secure me against your doing so without mine. I shall be perfectly satisfied, at present, with half the[225] rents; but, that I may have no doubt or difficulty in receiving the said moiety, you must, as soon as the marriage shall be proved——.”
“Have you procured witnesses?” interrupted Henry.
“I have: they are to meet us at ?.”
“Will they swear direct, that the ceremony was performed without unwillingness on her part, or compulsion on ours?”
“Certainly! What else are they paid for?”
“And that will be sufficient?”
“Together with the certificate of the clergyman and clerk.”
“The clergyman is my old chum—of course?” said Henry. “He would, I know, have no scruples, were she gagged and handcuffed at the altar!”
“Of course not,” replied the stranger. “But, to return to my subject: As soon as the marriage shall have been proved, so as[226] to entitle you to a legal controul over the property, you must employ a proper agent, give him sufficient powers and directions, to one-half of each year’s rent to an address through which I can receive it without reference to you, and the other half to an address by which you can receive it, without making your actual residence known (that is, should concealment long continue necessary). Have you any hope of reconciling Julia herself?”
“Not the slightest!” returned Henry. “When, indeed, she has been my wife,” he continued, “long enough to be, perhaps, a mother, she may not choose the publicity of a trial. Indeed, by that time, neither my aunt, nor even Lord L. himself, could wish, I should think, to go to extremities with so near a relation: even were the whole truth to come out. In short, it could answer no desirable purpose! Lord L. must know that his daughter would be more respectable in[227] the eyes of the world as my wife, and supposed to be willingly so, than by seeking any redress the law could then give her, were it even possible to procure full evidence that the marriage was compulsory, which I expect we shall render impossible: so that I have no fears on that score. The three notes this evening (for I left my fellow behind on pretext of bringing my luggage) passed examination. I shall, therefore, have no difficulty, while abroad, in keeping up a regular correspondence in her name with all her friends. In short, when the numberless circumstances, however trivial in themselves, which I have now for so long caused to bear on the one point, receive this last crowning evidence, there will not remain the shadow of a doubt on the mind of any one, that Julia has only waited to be of age to elope with me. I expect, in fact, that the conviction on the mind of every one will be so strong, that they will not think it necessary[228] to examine into any thing; and that one-half the precautions we have taken will prove quite unnecessary. It is not at all unlikely, too, that after a time she may, for the sake of being permitted to return to this country, and reside near her friends, consent to declare, personally, I mean, to her own family, that she married me willingly; in which case, we could take up our residence at the Craigs.”
“In short,” continued Henry, “once she is in my power, I can compel her to do any thing! How is she to help herself I’d be glad to know?”
“Fitz-Ullin is expected in the Sound, I find,” said the stranger, “what a confounded untimely blow that old beldam’s confession was! By the bye, I shall expect to be repaid the sums I have been obliged to give Jin of the Gins, to keep her silent till after your marriage; and now that she has been forestalled, (which was always what she feared,) and can[229] never get any thing from either party, her demands for compensation will be exorbitant. Those, however, you must satisfy, now that you will have funds.”
“How long is it now,” said Henry, “since she first consulted you on the possibility of making a market of her secret, without getting hanged.”
“A few weeks,” replied the stranger, “previous to that cursed masquerade at Arandale, when I wrote to you on the subject of the admission ticket.”
“That then was the first intimation you had,” said Henry, musing. “Had it not been,” he added, after a short silence, “for the fortunate chance of Ormond shooting himself, all must certainly have been lost.”
“There was too much left to chance in that business,” retorted the stranger. “That night at Arandale should have rid us of all anxiety on the subject. I ought to have answered his[230] first question by blowing out his brains! And that, before I palsied my arm with that cursed fencing! Never, certainly, were there time and place so well calculated for committing an act of the kind with perfect impunity. Since then, it has never been possible to get near him, with any thing like a chance of escape. I deserved, however, to fail for using such pitiful half measures, where so much was at stake.”
“I never thought his removal so very necessary,” observed Henry.
“Fool!” replied the stranger, “How, if the public disclosure had been made under almost any other circumstances? When can you come to ??” he added.
“I must first,” replied Henry, “join the Euphrasia, to avoid, in case of failure, any thing like proof against me. It is impossible for her to have the most remote guess who you are, so that were she even to escape, while she had not yet seen me, all would still be safe![231] In short, we had better not meet even for a moment, till we meet at the altar.”
The stranger paused, as if considering the subject; then, standing up, said, “True! you set out immediately.”
Henry replied in the affirmative; and thus they parted.