The Carbonels Part 24

The Seven Ionian Islands had been put under the protection of England since they had been set free from the Turkish dominion, and the Governor, Sir Thomas Maitland, (King Tom as he was often called), was very active in building, making roads, and improving them in every way possible. He wanted an English officer to superintend his doings in the little isle of Santa Maura, and being acquainted with Major Sandford, Dora's husband, the proposal was made that Captain Carbonel should undertake the work for two or three years, bringing out, of course, his family with a handsome salary. It was a most opportune offer, giving him the means of renewing Greenhow, of a visit to the sister, and of restoring his wife's health, which had been much tried by her child's death, little Mary's delicate state, and the alarm of the riots. So it was gladly accepted, and the departure was to take place as soon as the trials were over, for a special commission had been appointed to try the rioters; and poor Sophy was much distressed at having so evidently recognised Dan Hewlett when she found that "rioting and arson," that is, burning, made a capital offence, so that it was a matter of life and death.

But there was another to whom this same discovery made a great difference--namely, Dan Hewlett himself. When he found that his life was at stake, he declared himself willing to turn King's evidence, if his pardon were secured to him, and this was really important, as he was able to identify Jack Swing, who really was the chief mischief-maker, being a young clerk whose head had been turned by foolish notions about liberty for the people, and who really acted more generously, and with less personal spite, than most of his unhappy followers. However, Dan was content to purchase his own life by denouncing the leader whom he had followed, and he was promised safety after the trial should be over, until which time he must remain in prison at Minsterham.

Captain Carbonel had consulted George Hewlett, when arranging the ruins at Greenhow, as to what had best be done for John, whose services he could not forget. George considered for a night, and the next day said--

"Well, sir, I beg your pardon, but the best thing as could be done with that there John would be to put him somewhere to learn the cabinet-making. He is a right sharp, clever hand, and knows pretty well all I can teach him; and he would get on famous if he had the chance.

And it bain't so comfortable for him here. Some of 'em owes him a grudge for bringing the soldiers down on 'em, and calls him an informer; and it will be all the worserer for him when his father comes home--the scamp that he is! I'm ready to wish my name wasn't the same. Wuss shame by far than to be strung up to turn agin him as he was hand and glove with!"

"I am quite of your opinion, Hewlett; and I fully think John would be best out of the way, poor fellow. I will inquire for a good master for him."

"Thank you, sir. I would have had the boy up to sleep at my place, but he won't leave his poor aunt. He be the chief comfort she has, poor thing. But she won't be here long anyway; and if ever there was a good woman, 'tis Judith Grey."

It was quite true. Mr Harford, who had come home on Sat.u.r.day, walked over to Poppleby, partly for the sake of saying that Judith was certainly near the close of her trials, and that it was her great wish to see one of the dear ladies again, though she durst not ask one of them to come into Dan's house. Indeed Mr Harford had only drawn the expression of her desire out of her with difficulty.

Mrs Carbonel was not well enough for a trying interview, so it was Sophy who drove from Elchester with her brother-in-law, grave and thoughtful, and only wis.h.i.+ng to avoid everybody; for she could not yet forget how no one had shown any grat.i.tude, nor desire to s.h.i.+eld those who had been so long their friends. The Poppleby doctor had been sent to see Judith, and had p.r.o.nounced that the old disease had made fatal progress, accelerated by the hysterical convulsions caused by the night and day of suspense and anxiety, and the attack on her nephew, as well as the whole of Dan's conduct. He did not think that she could last many more days.

So Sophy arrived at the well-known cottage, and was met at the door by Molly, with her ap.r.o.n to her eyes, and a great deal to say about her poor sister, and "it wasn't her wish"; but Mr Harford, who was on the watch, began to answer her, so as to keep her from going upstairs with the visitors. Little Judy, now a nice, neat girl of fourteen, was sitting by her, but rose to go away when the lady came in.

Judith was leaning against pillows, and the pink flush in her cheeks and her smile of greeting prevented Sophy from seeing how ill and wasted she looked, thin and weak as were the fingers that lay on the coverlet.

"Why, Judith, you look much better than I expected. You will soon be as well as ever."

Judith only smiled, and said, "Thank you, ma'am! I hope Mrs Carbonel is better."

"Yes. She is getting better now, and she is very sorry not to come and see you; but perhaps she may be able before we go away."

"And little Miss Mary, ma'am?"

"She has been quite another creature since we have been at Poppleby--not at all fretty, and almost rosy."

"I am glad. And you are going away, ma'am?"

"Yes; off to a beautiful island in the Mediterranean Sea, close to all the places where Saint Paul preached. You know Dora is at Malta, where he was s.h.i.+pwrecked."

"Yes, ma'am; I like to know it. You will give my duty to her, Miss Sophy, and thank her--oh! so much,"--and Judith clasped her hands--"for all she and you and Mrs Carbonel have been to me. You seemed to bring the light back to me, just as my faith was growing slack and dull."

"Yes; I will tell her, Judith. I don't like leaving you, but it won't seem long till we come back; and we will send you those beautiful Maltese oranges."

Judith smiled that beautiful smile again. "Ah, Miss Sophy, you have been very good, and helped me ever so much; but my time is nearly over, and I shall not want even you and madam where I am going. I shall see His face," she murmured; and lifted up her hands.

Sophy was rather frightened, and felt as if she had done wrong in talking of oranges. She did not know what to say, and only got out something about Johnnie and a comfort.

"Yes, that he is, Miss Sophy, and little Judy too. The boy, he is that shy and quiet, no one would believe the blessed things he says and reads to me at night. He _be_ a blessing, and so be Judy, all owing to the Sunday School."

"Oh! to you, Judith. You made him good before we had him, though Mary and Dora did help," said Sophy, with rising tears.

"And oh! I am so thankful," she said, clasping her hands, "for what the captain is doing for the boy."

"He deserves it, I am sure," said Sophy.

"It will keep him easier to the right way, and it would be harder for him when I am gone, and his father come home! And Mr Harford, he says he will find a good place for Judy. She is a good girl, a right good girl."

"That she is."

"And, maybe, Mrs Carbonel and you, when you come home, would be good to my poor sister. She've been a good sister to me, she has, with it all, but it has all been against her, and she would be a different woman if she could. Please remember her."

"We will, we will if we can."

Then Judith went on to beg Sophy to write to her former mistress, Mrs Barnard, with all her thanks for past kindness. That seemed to exhaust her a good deal, and she lay back, just saying faintly, "If you would read me a little bit, miss."

The Prayer-Book lay nearest, and Sophy read, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace," as well as she could amid the choking tears.

She felt as if she were lifted into some higher air, but Judith lay so white and still that she durst not do more than say, "Good-bye, dear Judith." She was going to say, "I will come and see you again," but something withheld her. She thought Judith's lips said, "Up there."

She bent down, kissed the cheek, now quite white, and crept down, pa.s.sing Molly at the turn.

Two days later Mr Harford came to say that Judith was gone. Her last communion with Johnnie, and with George Hewlett, had been given to her the day before, and she had not spoken afterwards, only her face had been strangely bright.

The Carbonels could only feel that her remnant of life had been shortened by all she had undergone for their sakes, and Edmund and Sophy both stood as mourners at her grave, Sophy feeling that her life had been more of a deepening, _realising_ lesson than anything that had gone before, making her feel more than had ever come yet into her experience, what this life is compared with eternal life.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THE GOLDEN CHAINS.

"A form unseen is pulling us behind, Threads turn to cords, and cords to cables strong, Till habit hath become as Destiny, Which drives us on, and shakes her scourge on high."

_Isaac Williams_.

Captain Carbonel lost no time after Judith Grey's funeral in sending John Hewlett to his new master, Mr Jones. The place was the Carbonels'

old home, in a county far-away from Uphill. George had wished the lad to go to a cabinet-maker whom he knew at Minsterham, but he was convinced by the captain's advice to let him be quite away from the a.s.sizes, which would not only be pain and shame to him, but would mark his name with the brand of the same kind as that of an informer. This Mr Jones was well-known to the Carbonel family as an excellent man--a churchwarden, and sure to care for the welfare, spiritual as well as bodily, of those commended to him.

And it happened, not unfortunately for John, that, in the captain's handwriting, his rather uncommon name was read as Newlett, and for some time after he arrived he never found out the mistake, and was rather glad of it when he did so, since no one connected him with the rick-burner who gave evidence against his leader.

Dan himself came home to find that he was held in more utter disgrace than for all his former disreputable conduct, which only pa.s.sed for good-fellows.h.i.+p. If he had been hanged, or even transported, he would only have been "poor Dan Hewlett," and his wife would have had all the pity due to widowhood; but everybody fought shy of him, and the big lads hooted at him. He could not get work, Judith's pension had failed, and they lived scantily on what Farmer Goodenough allowed Molly to earn, as an old hand, to be kept off the parish. Little Judith was apprenticed to Mrs Pearson, according to the old fas.h.i.+on which bound out pauper girls as apprentices to service, and which had one happy effect, namely, that they could not drift foolishly from one situation to another, though, in bad hands, they sometimes had much to suffer. But Mrs Pearson was a kind, conscientious mistress, and Judy was a good girl, so that all went well.

Dan slouched about, snared rabbits and hares, and drank up the proceeds thereof at little public-houses where he was not known, or where the company was past caring about his doings. At last, he was knocked down in the dark by the mail-coach, and brought home in a cart, slowly dying.

Mr Harford came to see him, and found his recollections of old times reviving, when he had been Dame Verdon's best scholar. "I could beat old George any day at his book. And, then, I was church singer, and had the solos," he said, evidently thinking sadly of his better days. "And my wife, she was that tidy--only she did put too much on her back!"

The screen, which Judith had of late years kept with the panel with the laburnums on the back side, had by accident been now turned so that he saw them; and, when Mr Harford came the next day, he broke out--

"Them flowers! Them flowers, sir!"

Mr Harford could not understand.

"Them golden chains, sir. They was at the bottom of it."

Mr Harford understood still less.

"They talk of devils' chains, sir, and how they drags a man down. Them was a link, sure enough. That paper there, sir, I keeps seeing it at night by the rushlight, and they gets to look just like chains."