Various
Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846
Frank and Vernon both expressed a wish to hear the tale, which the squire, who was a rare hand at telling a story, proceeded forthwith to recount; but as, for reasons we forbear mentioning at present, he glossed over some important parts, and touched but lightly on others equally material, we purpose, instead of recording the tale in his own words, to state the facts precisely as they occurred, the subject of which will form the contents of the two next following chapters.
Chapter VIII. – The Squire's Tale
In a town that shall be nameless, but which was situate somewhere or other in the West of England, there lived some years since – no matter how many – a young man, called Job Vivian, who practised as a surgeon, apothecary, and so forth. He was about two or three and twenty years of age when he first commenced his professional career in this place, and very shortly afterwards he married the girl of his affections, to whom he had been sincerely attached from his very boyhood; and as they were both exceedingly good-looking – in fact, she was beautiful – they of course made what the world terms an imprudent marriage. But Job himself thought very differently, and amidst all the cares and vicissitudes that attended several years of his wedded life, he never passed a day without breathing a prayer of thankfulness to Heaven for having blessed him with so excellent a helpmate. But though rich in domestic comforts, all the rest of Job's affairs, for a long time, went on unprosperously. He certainly acquired sufficient practice in the course of a few years to occupy a great portion of his time, by night as well as by day, but then it was not what is termed a paying practice. In fact, nearly the whole of his business was either amongst the poorer classes, who couldn't pay, the dishonest, who wouldn't, or the thoughtless and dilatory, who, if they did so, took a very long time about it. In spite, therefore, of all his labour and assiduity, the actual amount he received from his practice fell short of his yearly expenditure, which obliged him to dip into his small independent property, consisting of a few houses in an obscure part of the town; which, as he became every year more heavily involved, he was erelong compelled to mortgage so deeply, that what between some of his tenants running away without paying their rent, the costs of repairs, and money to be paid for interest, a very small portion of the annual proceeds ever reached Job's pockets; and at last, to complete the whole, a virulent fever broke out in the very midst of this precious property, of so obstinate and dangerous a kind, as for some months to defy the skill of all the medical men of the place, nearly depopulating the whole neighbourhood, which in consequence became all but deserted.
Just at this critical time poor Job Vivian received a notice from his mortgagee – a rich old timber merchant, who lived and carried on his business in the same town with him – to pay off his mortgage; which he being unable to do, or to obtain any body to advance the required amount on the security of property which had then become so depreciated in value, the sordid worshipper of mammon, though rolling in wealth, and not spending one-tenth part of his income, and with neither wife nor children to provide for, nor a soul on earth he cared a straw for, was resolved, as he was technically pleased to term it, to sell up the doctor forthwith; to accomplish which he commenced an action of ejectment to recover the possession of the premises, though Job had voluntarily offered to give them up to him, and also an action of covenant for non-payment of the mortgage money, whilst at the same time he filed his bill in Chancery to foreclose the mortgage; which combined forces, legal and equitable, proved so awful a floorer to a sinking man, that, in order to get clear of them, he was glad at the very outset, not only to give up all claim to the property, but even to consent to pay £100 out of his own pocket for the costs said to have been incurred in thus depriving him of his possessions.
These costs proved an unceasing millstone about the unfortunate doctor's neck. In order to pay them, he had been obliged to leave more just demands undischarged; and thus he became involved in difficulties he strove in vain to extricate himself from. Yet in spite of all this, Job and his good little wife were a far happier couple than most of their richer neighbours. The constant hope that things would soon begin to take a more prosperous turn, reconciled them to their present perplexities; there was but one drawback they considered to render their bliss complete; and Job used to say, that he had never met with an instance of a man who hadn't a drawback to perfect happiness in some shape or other and that, take it for all in all, they had, thank God, a pretty fair allowance of the world's comforts.
"So we have, my dear Job," said his pretty little wife Jessie, in reply to a remark of this kind he had been just then making – "and only think how far happier we are than most of the people around us. Only think of Mr Belasco, who, with all his money and fine estates, is so unhappy, that his family are in constant dread of his destroying himself."
"And poor Sir Charles Deacon," interposed Job, "a man so devotedly fond of good eating and drinking as he is, and yet to be compelled to live on less than even workhouse allowance for fear of the gout – and then that silly Lord Muddeford, who's fretting himself to death because ministers wouldn't make him an earl – Mrs Bundy, with her two thousand a-year, making herself miserable because the Grandisons, and my Lord and Lady Muddeford, and one or two others of the grand folks, every one of whom she dislikes, won't visit her. Then the squire at Mortland is troubled with a son that no gentleman will be seen speaking to; and the rich rector of" – Job nodded his head, but didn't say where – "has a tipsy-getting wife – and poor Squire Taylor's wife stark mad – Mr Gribbs also, with his fine unencumbered property, has two idiot children, and another deaf and dumb, and the other – the only sane child he has, is little better than a fool. Then the Hoblers are rendered miserable by the disobedience and misconduct of their worthless children; and the Dobsons are making themselves wretched because they've no such creatures to trouble themselves about. The only man of property I can name in the whole country round who seems free from care, is our fox-hunting squire at Abbot's Beacon, who really does enter into the life of the sport, has plenty of money to carry it on with, and has besides one of the nicest places I think I ever saw."
"But then," interposed Job's better half, "his wife, every body says, doesn't care a fig for him."
"Then a fig for all his happiness," said Job; "I wouldn't change places with him for ten thousand times ten thousand his wealth and possessions, and a dukedom thrown into the bargain;" and Job told the truth too, and kissed his wife by way of confirmation; for he couldn't help it for the very life of him, Job couldn't.
"And then only to consider," said Mrs Job Vivian, as she smilingly adjusted her hair – and very nice hair she had, and kept it very nicely too, though her goodman had just then tumbled it pretty considerably – "only think what two lovely children we have; every one who sees them is struck with their remarkable beauty." This was perfectly true, by the way, notwithstanding the observation proceeded from a mother's lips.
"And so good, too, my dear Jessie," continued Job; "I wonder," he proudly said, "if any father in the land, besides myself, can truly boast of children who have had the use of their tongues so long, and who yet, amidst all their chattering and prattling, have never told a falsehood – so that, amidst all the cares that Providence has been pleased to allot us, we never can be thankful enough for the actual blessings we enjoy."
"We never can, indeed," said Jessie. And thus, in thankfulness for the actual comforts they possessed, they forgot all the troubles that surrounded them, and, happily, were ignorant of how heavily they would soon begin to press upon them.
And now, we must state here, that, although generally unfortunate in his worldly undertakings, a young colt, which the young doctor had himself reared, seemed to form an exception to the almost general rule, for he turned out a most splendid horse; and as his owner's patients were distributed far and wide over a country in which an excellent pack of hounds was kept; and Job himself, not only fond of the sport, but also a good rider, who could get with skill and judgment across a country, his colt, even at four years' old, became the first-rate hunter of the neighbourhood; so much so, indeed, that a rich country squire one day – and that at the very close of the hunting season – witnessing his gallant exploits in the field, was so pleased with the horse, that he offered Job £150 for him.
Now, Job thought his limited circumstances would never justify his riding a horse worth £150; yet he was so much attached to the animal he had reared, that, greatly as he then wanted money, he felt grieved at the idea of parting with him, and, at the instant of the offer, he could not in fact make up his mind to do. Promising, therefore, to give an answer in the course of a day or two, he returned home, by no means a happier man in the consciousness of the increased value of his steed; nor could he muster sufficient courage to tell his wife, who was almost as fond of the horse as he himself was, of the liberal price that had been offered for him. But the comfortable way in which Jessie had gotten every thing ready for him against his return, dispelled a great portion of his sadness; and her cheerful looks and conversation, added to the pleasing pranks of his little children, had all but chased away the remainder, when he received a summons to attend a sick patient, living at least three miles away, in the country.
"This really is very provoking," said Job; "and the worst part of the business is, that I can do no good whatever – the poor creature is too far gone in consumption for the skill of the whole faculty put together to save her life; and, bless me, my poor Selim has not only carried me miles and miles over the road to-day, but, like an inconsiderate blockhead, I must gallop him after the hounds, across the country. But there, I suppose, I must go; I ought not to stay away from doing an act of charity, because I am certain not to be paid, or perhaps even thanked for my pains. Had it been a rich patient, I should have started readily enough, and so I will now for my poor one. But as Selim has had something more than a fair day's work of it, I must even make a walk of it, and be thankful I've such a good pair of legs to carry me."
Job had a very good pair of legs, and the consciousness of this gave him very great satisfaction; and so, having talked himself into a good humour, and into the mind for his work, and fearing lest pondering too long over the matter might induce him to change his resolution, he caught up his hat, and at once prepared to make a start of it; but, in his haste, he tripped over two or three steps of the stair, and falling down the remainder, sprained his ankle so badly, as to render his walking impracticable. Determined, however, not to abandon a duty he had made up his mind to perform, and having no other horse at his command, Selim was again saddled, who, even with only an hour's rest and grooming, looked nearly as fresh as if he had not been out of his stable for the day. Never was a man more pleased with a horse than Job was with the noble animal he then bestrode, and deeply did he regret the urgent necessity which compelled him to part with him. "Had it not been for that old miserly fellow in there, I might still have kept my poor Selim," said Job to himself, as he rode by a large mansion at the verge of the town; "that £100," continued Job, "he obliged me to pay him or his attorney, for taking away the remnant of my little property, is the cause of those very embarrassments which compel me to sell this dear good horse of mine."
Just as he had so said, an incident occurred which stopped his further remarks; but, before we mention what this incident was, we must state what was occurring within this said house at the time Job was in the act of riding past it.
The proprietor and occupant of this mansion – one of the best in the place – was, as our readers may have already suspected, the selfsame old timber merchant who had dealt so hardly with our friend Job, by taking advantage of a temporary depreciation in the value of his mortgaged property to acquire the absolute ownership – well knowing, that, in a very short time, the premises would fetch at least three times the amount of what he had advanced upon them; in fact, he sold them for more than four times that sum in less than six months afterwards: but that is not the matter we have now to deal with. We must therefore introduce our readers into one of the front rooms of this mansion, in which its master, (an elderly person, with the love of money – Satan's sure mark – deeply stamped upon his ungainly countenance,) was closeted with his attorney; the latter of whom was in the act of taking the necessary instructions for making the rich man's will – a kind of job the intended testator by no means relished, and which no power on earth, save the intense hatred he bore to the persons upon whom his property would otherwise devolve, could have forced him to take in hand.
"'Tis a bitter thing, Mr Grapple," said the monied man, addressing himself to the attorney, "a bitter thing to give away what one's been the best part of one's life trying to get together; and not only to receive nothing in return, but even to have to pay a lawyer for taking it away."
"But I'm sure, my good friend, you'll hardly begrudge my two guineas for this," observed the lawyer – "only think what a capital business I made in getting you into all Job Vivian's property."
"Well, but you got a hundred pounds for your trouble, didn't you?" observed the timber-merchant impatiently.
"Yes, my dear sir; but none of that came out of your own pocket," interposed the attorney.
"And didn't you promise nothing ever should?" rejoined the old man; "but never mind – business is business – and, when upon business, stick to the business you're on, that's my rule; so now to proceed – but mind, I say, them two guineas includes the paper."
"Oh yes, paper of course!" replied the man of law, "and nothing to pay for stamps; and this will enable you to dispose of every penny of your money; and, my dear sir, consider – only for one moment consider your charities – how they'll make all the folks stare some day or other!"
"Ay, ay, you're right," said the client, a faint smile for the first time that day enlivening his iron features. "Folks will stare indeed; and, besides, 'tis well know'd – indeed the Scripturs says, that charity do cover a multitude of sins."
"To be sure they do; and then only think of the name you'll leave behind to be handed down to posterity. Such munificent bequests nobody hereabouts ever heard of before."
"There's a satisfaction in all you say, I confess," observed the intended donor of all these good gifts; "and who can then say I wasn't the man to consider the wants of the poor? I always did consider the poor." So he did, an old scoundrel, and much misery the unhappy creatures endured in consequence.
"And then," resumed Mr Grapple, "only consider again the tablets in which all your pious bequests will be stuck up in letters of gold, just under the church organ, where they will be read and wondered at, not only by all the townsfolk for hundreds of years to come, but also by all the strangers that pass through and come to look at the church."
"Very satisfactory that – very!" said the intended testator; "but are you still sure I can't give my land as well as my money in charities?"
"Only by deed indented, and enrolled within six months after execution, and to take effect immediately," replied the attorney.
"By which you mean, I suppose, that I must give it out and out, slap bang all at once, and pass it right away in the same way as if I sold it outright?"
Lawyer Grapple replied in the affirmative; at which information his client got very red in the face, and exclaimed, with considerable warmth – "Before I do that, I'd see all the charities in – " he didn't say where; and, checking himself suddenly, continued, in a milder tone – "That is, I could hardly be expected to make so great a sacrifice as that in my lifetime; so, as I can't dispose of my lands in the way I wish, I'll tie 'em up from being made away with as long as I can: for having neither wife, chick, nor child, nor any one living soul as I care a single farthing about, it's no pleasure to me to leave it to any body; but howsomever, as relations is in some shape, as the saying is, after a manner a part of one's own self, I suppose I'd better leave it to one of they."
"Your nephew who resides in Mortimer Street, is, I believe, your heir-at-law?" suggested Mr Grapple.
"He be blowed!" retorted the timber-merchant, petulantly; "he gave me the cut t'other day in Lunnun streets, for which I cuts he off with a shilling. Me make he my heir! – see he doubly hanged first, and wouldn't do it then."
The attorney next mentioned another nephew, who had been a major in the East India Company's service, and was then resident at Southampton.
"He!" vociferated the uncle, "a proud blockhead; I heerd of his goings on. He, the son of a hack writer in a lawyer's office! he to be the one, of all others, to be proposing that all the lawyers and doctors should be excluded from the public balls! I've a-heerd of his goings on. He have my property! Why, he'd blush to own who gid it to him. He have it! No; I'd rather an earthquake swallowed up every acre of it, before a shovel-full should come to his share."
"Then your other nephew at Exeter?" observed the attorney.
"Dead and buried, and so purvided for," said the timber-merchant.
"I beg your pardon, sir – I had for the moment forgotten that circumstance; but there's his brother, Mr Montague Potts Beverley, of Burton Crescent?"
"Wuss and wuss," interrupted the testy old man. "Me give any thing to an ungrateful dog like that? Why, I actelly lent he money on nothing but personal security, to set him up in business; and the devil of a ha-penny could I ever screw out of him beyond principal and legal interest at five per cent; and, now he's made his forten, he's ashamed of the name that made it for him – a mean-spirited, henpecked booby, that cast his name to the dogs to please a silly wife's vanity. He have my property! I rather calculate not! And so, having disposed of all they, I think I'll leave my estates to some of brother Thomas's sons. Now, Grapple, mind me; this is how I'll have it go. In the first place, intail it on my nephew Thomas, that's the tailor in Regent Street, who, they says, is worth some thousands already; so what I intends to give him, will come in nicely; – failing he and his issue, then intail it on Bill – you knows Bill – he comes here sometimes – travels for a house in the button line; – failing he and his issue, then upon Bob the letenant in the navy; he's at sea now, though I be hanged if I know the name of the ship he belongs to."
Mr Grapple observed that this was unimportant, and then asked if he should insert the names of any other persons.
"I don't know, really, or very much care whether you does or not," replied the timber-merchant. "My late brother Charles," he continued, "left three sons; but what's become of they all, or whether they be dead or alive, any of them, I can hardly tell, nor does it very much signify; for they were a set of extravagant, low-lived, drunken fellows, every one of them, and not very likely to mend either."
"Then, perhaps you'd rather your heirs at-law should take?" remarked the attorney.
"No, I'll be hanged if I should!" answered the vender of deals and mahogany; "so put in all brother Charles's sons, one after t'other, in the same manner as they before – let me see, what's their names? Oh, George first, then Robert, and then Richard, and that's the whole of they."
"I believe, sir," said the attorney, "before I can do so, I must beg the favour of a candle, for it's growing so dark I am unable to see what I write."
"Then come nigher to the winder," said the testator, pushing forward the table in that direction – "Hallo!" he exclaimed, "what can all this yer row and bustle be about outside?" – and, looking into the street, he discovered poor Selim lying prostrate in the middle of the road, from whence some persons were raising up Job himself, who was stunned and bleeding from the violence of his fall. A young lad had accidentally driven his hoop between the horse's legs, which threw the unlucky animal with such violence to the ground as to fracture one of its fore-legs, and inflict several other dreadful injuries, far beyond all power or hope of cure. But the man of wealth contemplated the passing scene with that species of complacent satisfaction, with which men like-minded with himself are ever found to regard the misfortunes of others, when they themselves can by no possibility be prejudiced thereby. This selfish old villain, therefore, instead of evincing any sympathy, was highly amused at what was going on, and every now and then passed some remark or other indicative of those feelings, of which the following, amongst others, afford a pretty fair specimen: —
"Well," he said, "pride they say must have a fall, and a fine fall we've had here to be sure. Well, who'd a-thought it? But what I say is, that for a man that can't pay his way as he goes – and his twenty shillings in the pound whenever he's called upon for it – what I mean to say is, if a fellow like he will ride so fine a horse, why, it serves him parfectly right if he gets his neck broke. Oh, then, I see your neck ar'n't broke this time, after all! Getting better, b'aint you? – pity, isn't it? Oh dear! what can the matter be? I'll be hanged if he isn't a-crying like a babbey that's broke his pretty toy. Ay, my master, cry your eyes out, stamp and whop your head – 'twont mend matters, I promise ye. Clear case of total loss, and no insurance to look to, eh! And that's the chap as had the himpudence but t'other day to call me a hard-hearted old blackguard, and that before our whole board of guardians, too – just because I proposed doctoring the paupers by tender, and that the lowest tender should carry the day – a plan that would hactelly have saved the parish pounds and pounds; and he – that blubbering fellow there – hactelly, as I was a-saying, called me a hard-hearted old blackguard for proposing it. Oh! I see; here comes Timson the butcher, what next then? Oh! just as I expected – it's a done job with my nag, I see. Steady, John Donnithorne, and hold down his head. Come, Timson, my good man – come, bear a hand, and whip the knife into the throat of un – skilfully done, wasn't it, doctor? Oh dear! can't bear the sight; too much for the doctor's nerves. Ay – well, that's a good one – that's right; turn away your head and pipe your eye, my dear, I dare say it will do ye good. It does me, I know – he! he! he! Hallo! what have we here – is it a horse or is it a jackass? Well, I'm sure here's a come-down with a vengeance – a broken-knee'd, spavined jade of a pony, that's hardly fit for carrion. Oh! it's yours, Master Sweep, I s'pose. Ay, that's the kind of nag the doctor ought to ride; clap on the saddle, my boys – that's your sort; just as it should be. No, you can't look that way, can't ye? Well, then, mount and be off with ye – that's right; off you goes, and if you gets back again without a shy-off, it's a pity." And the hard-hearted old sinner laughed to that degree, that the tears ran down in streams over his deeply-furrowed countenance.