 | THE CULPRIT. Bracebridge Hall, or, The humorists |  |
THE CULPRIT.
Deliver the house of an honest justice.
The Widow.
The serenity of the Hall has been suddenly
interrupted by a very important occurrence. In
the course of this morning a possé of villagers
was seen trooping up the avenue; with boys
shouting in advance. As it drew near we perceived
Ready Money Jack Tibbets striding
along, wielding his cudgel in one hand, and
with the other grasping the collar of a tall fellow,
whom on still nearer approach we recognised
for the redoubtable gipsy hero, Star-light
Tom. He was now, however, completely
to have quailed in the iron gripe of the lionhearted
Jack.
The whole gang of gipsy women and children
came draggling in the rear; some in tears, others
making a violent clamour about the ears of old
Ready Money; who, however, trudged on in
silence with his prey, heeding their abuse as little
as a hawk, that has pounced upon a barndoor
hero, regards the outcries and cacklings of
his whole feathered seraglio.
He had passed through the village on his way
to the Hall; and of course had made a great
sensation in that most excitable place; where
every event is a matter of gaze and gossip. The
report had circulated like wildfire, that old Tibbets
had taken Star-light Tom prisoner. The
ale drinkers forthwith abandoned the tap room,
Slingsby's school broke loose without waiting to
be dismissed, and masters and boys swelled the
tide that came rolling at the heels of old Ready
Money and his captive. The uproar increased
as they approached the Hall; it aroused the
on. The great mastiff barked from the dog-house;
the staghound and the grayhound and
the spaniel came barking from the Hall door, and
my Lady Lillycraft's little dogs barked from the
parlour windows. I remarked, however, that
the gipsy dogs made no reply to all these menaces
and insults; but crept close to the gang,
looking round with a guilty, poaching air, and
now and then glancing up a dubious eye to their
owners; which shows that the moral characters
even of dogs may be ruined by bad company!
When the throng reached the front of the
house, they were brought to a halt by a kind of
advanced guard composed of old Christy, the
gamekeeper, and two or three servants of the
house, who had been brought out by the noise.
The common herd of the village fell back with
respect; the boys were driven back by old
Christy and his compeers; while Ready Money
Jack maintained his ground and his hold of the
prisoner, and was surrounded by the tailor, the
schoolmaster, and several other dignitaries of the
who were neither to be silenced nor intimidated.
By this time the whole household were brought
to the doors and windows, and the Squire to the
portal. An audience was demanded by Ready
Money Jack, who had detected the prisoner in
the very act of sheep stealing on his domains,
and had borne him off to be examined before
the Squire, who is in the commission of the
peace.
A kind of tribunal was immediately held in
the servant's hall; a large chamber, with a stone
floor, and a long table in the centre, at one end
of which, just under an enormous clock, was
placed the Squire's chair of justice, while Master
Simon took his place at the table as clerk of
the court. An attempt had been made by old
Christy to keep out the gipsy gang, but in vain;
and they, with the village worthies, and the
household, half filled the Hall. The old housekeeper
and the butler were in a panic at this dangerous
irruption. They hurried away all the
valuable things and portable articles that were at
lest they should carry off the house clock or
the deal table.
Old Christy, and his faithful coadjutor the
gamekeeper, acted as constables to guard the
prisoner, and appeared to trimph in having at
last got this terrible night-walking offender in
their clutches. By the bye I am inclined to suspect
that the old huntsman bore some peevish
recollection of having been handled rather roughly
by the gipsy in the chance medley affray of
May-day.
Silence was now commanded by Master Simon,
but it was difficult to be enforced in such a motly
assemblage. There was a continual snarling
and yelping of dogs, and as fast as it was quelled
in one corner, it broke out in another. The
poor gipsy curs, who, like arrant thieves, could
not hold up their heads in an honest house, were
worried and insulted by the gentlemen dogs of
the establishment, without offering to make resistance;
the very curs of my Lady Lillycraft
bullied them with impunity.
The examination was conducted with great
mildness and indulgence by the Squire, partly
from the kindness of his nature, and partly, I
suspect, because his heart yearned towards the
culprit, who, as I have before mentioned, had
found great favour in his eyes from the skill he
had at various times displayed in archery, morrice
dancing, and other obsolete accomplishments.
Proofs, however, were too strong. Ready
Money Jack told his story in a straight forward,
independent way; nothing daunted by the presence
in which he found himself. He had suffered
from various depredations on his sheepfold
and poultry yard; and had at length kept watch,
and caught the delinquent in the very act of
making off with a sheep on his shoulders.
Tibbets was repeatedly interrupted in the
course of his testimony, by the culprit's mother,
a furious old beldame with an insufferable tongue,
and who, in fact, was several times on the point
of flying at him, tooth and nail. The wife of
the prisoner, whom I am told he does not beat
above half a dozen times a week, completely interested
by her tears and supplications, and several of the
other gipsy women were awakening strong sympathy
among the young girls and maid servants
in the back ground. The pretty black eyed
gipsy girl whom I have mentioned on a former
occasion as the sybil that read the fortunes of
the general, now endeavoured to wheedle that
doughty warrior into their interests, and even
made some approaches to her old acquaintance,
Master Simon, but was repelled by the latter
with all the dignity of office, having assumed a
gravity and importance suitable to the occasion.
I was a little surprised, at first, to find honest
Slingsby, the schoolmaster, rather opposed to his
old crony, Tibbets, and coming forward as a
kind of advocate for the accused. It seems that
he had taken compassion on the forlorn fortunes
of Star-light Tom, and had been trying his eloquence
in his favour the whole way from the village,
but without effect. During the examination
of Ready Money Jack, also, Slingsby had
stood like “dejected pity at his side,” seeking
exacerbation of his ire, or to qualify any harsh
expression. He now ventured to make a few
observations to the Squire in palliation of the
delinquent's offences, but poor Slingsby spoke
more from the heart than the head, and was evidently
actuated merely by a general sympathy
for any poor devil in trouble, and a liberal toleration
for all kinds of vagabond existence.
The ladies, too, large and small, with the
kind-heartedness of the sex, were zealous on the
side of mercy, and interceded strenuously with
the Squire, insomuch that the prisoner, finding
himself unexpectedly surrounded by active
friends, once more reared his crest, and seemed
disposed for a time to put on the airs of injured
innocence. The Squire, however, with all his
benevolence of heart, and his lurking weakness
towards the prisoner, was too conscientious
to swerve from the strict path of justice. There
was abundant concurring testimony, that made
the proof of guilt incontrovertible, and Star-light
Tom's mittimus was made out accordingly.
The sympathy of the ladies was now greater
than ever; they even made some attempts to
mollify the ire of Ready Money Jack; but that
sturdy potentate had been too much incensed
by the repeated incursions that had been made
into his territories by the predatory band of
Star-light Tom, and he was resolved, he said,
to drive the “varment reptiles” out of the
neighbourhood. To avoid all further importunities,
as soon as the mittimus was made out,
he girded up his loins, and strode back to his
seat of empire, accompanied by his interceding
friend, Slingsby, and followed by a detachment
of the gipsy gang; who hung on his rear, assailing
him with mingled prayers and execracrations.
The question now was how to dispose of the
prisoner; a matter of great moment in this
peaceful establishment, where so formidable a
character as Star-light Tom was like a hawk
entrapped in a dove cote. As the hubbub and
examination had occupied a considerable time
it was too late in the day to send him to the
out of repair, from long want of occupation.
Old Christy, who took great interest in the affair,
proposed that the culprit should be committed
for the night to an upper loft of a kind of tower
in one of the outhouses, where he and the
gamekeeper would mount guard. After much
deliberation this measure was adopted; the premises
in question were examined and made secure,
and Christy and his trusty ally, the one
armed with a fowling piece, the other with an
ancient blunderbuss, turned out as sentries to
keep watch over this donjon keep.
Such is the momentous affair that has just
taken place, and it is an event of too great moment
in this quiet little world not to turn it
completely topsy-turvy. Labour is at a stand.
The house has been a scene of confusion the
whole evening. The mansion has been beleagured
by gipsy women, with their children on
their backs, wailing and lamenting. While the old
virago of a mother has cruised up and down before
the house, shaking her head and muttering
paroxysm of rage, brandishing her fist at the
Hall, and denouncing ill luck upon Ready Money
Jack and even upon the Squire himself.
Lady Lillycraft has given repeated audiences
to the culprit's weeping wife at the hall door; and
the servant maids have stole out to confer with
the gipsy women under the trees. As to the
little ladies of the family, they are all outrageous
at Ready Money Jack; whom they look upon
in the light of a tyrannical giant of fairy tale.
Phoebe Wilkins, contrary to her usual nature,
is the only female that is pitiless in this affair.
She thinks Mr. Tibbets quite in the right; and
thinks the gipsies deserve to be punished severely
for meddling with the sheep of the Tibbets'.
In the mean time the females of the family
have evinced all the provident kindness of the
sex, ever ready to soothe and succour the distressed,
right or wrong. Lady Lillycraft has had a
mattress taken to the outhouse, and comforts
and delicacies of all kinds have been taken to the
prisoner; even the little girls have sent their
vagabond has never fared so well in his life before.
Old Christy, it is true, looks upon every
thing with a wary eye; struts about with his
blunderbuss with the air of a veteran campaigner,
keeps every one at bay, and will hardly allow
himself to be spoken to. The gipsy women
dare not come within gunshot, and every tatter-demalion
of a boy has been frightened from the
park. The old fellow is determined to lodge
Star-light Tom in prison with his own hands,
and hopes, he says, to see one of the poaching
crew made an example of.
I doubt, after all, whether the worthy Squire
is not the greatest sufferer in the whole affair.
His honourable sense of duty obliges him to be
rigid, but the overflowing kindness of his nature
makes this a grievous trial to him. He is
not accustomed to have such demands upon his
justice, in his truly patriarchal domain; and it
wounds his benevolent spirit, that, while prosperity
and happiness are flowing in thus bounteously
misery upon a fellow being.
He has been troubled and cast down the whole
evening; took leave of the family on going to
bed with a sigh, instead of his usual hearty and
affectionate tone; and will in all probability have
a far more sleepless night than his prisoner. Indeed
this unlucky affair has cast a damp upon the
whole househould; as there appears to be an
universal opinion that the unlucky culprit will
come to the gallows.
Morning. The clouds of last evening are
all blown over. A load has been taken from
the Squire's heart, and every face is once more
in smiles. The gamekeeper made his appearance
at an early hour, completely shamefaced
and chapfallen. Star-light Tom had made his
escape in the night; how he had got out of the
loft no one could tell; the Devil must have assisted
him. Old Christy was so mortified that
he would not show his face, but had shut himself
up in his strong hold at the dog-kennel, and
relieved the Squire, is that there is very
little likelihood of the culprit's being retaken,
having gone off on one of the old gentleman's
best hunters.
| THE CULPRIT. Bracebridge Hall, or, The humorists | |