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COLIN CLINK. 
 
 BY CHARLES HOOTON, ESQ. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. XL 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 1841. 
 
COLIN CLINK, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Displays Miss Sowersoft's character in a degree of per- 
 fection unparalleled on any previous exhibition. — 
 Fanny's obstinacy incites Mrs. Clink to turn her adrift 
 upon the world. 
 
 Having entered the room, Miss Sowersoft 
 first peeped out to see that no listeners were in 
 the neighbourhood, and then cautiously closed 
 the door, — all the blood in her veins mustering 
 up in red rebellion against poor Fanny, as she 
 stared at that young woman through two di- 
 lated eyes, with something of the expression of 
 a hand-grenade with a newly-lit fusee. 
 
 " Take a chair, Mrs. Clink," said Miss 
 Sowersoft, in a tone which denoted more than 
 her ordinary attention to etiquette, as she still 
 
 VOL. II. B 
 
 •5 s 
 
 347 
 
2 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 kept her eyes on Fanny, in order to make her 
 feel her own insignificance j:he more keenly by 
 the contrast ; " do be seated;" and she drew 
 up another chair for herself, while Fanny was 
 left standing, as best became a servant — and a 
 culprit. " Now, I am quite ready to begin. 
 Have it out of her at once — I would not stand 
 on ceremony with anybody like her ! " 
 
 " What is it, Fanny," asked Mrs. Clink, 
 " that the doctor has been talking to you 
 about ?" 
 
 " I cannot answer that,"" replied Fanny. 
 " I have promised to tell nobody, and I must 
 keep my word." 
 
 ''There! — that's sufficient!*" cried Miss 
 Sowersoft, " that is plenty ! You see what it 
 is. She has promised, and will not explain it. 
 I knew before, as well as if I had heard, how 
 it would all be. She has compromised herself, 
 just as such a young face-proud hussy was 
 sure to do. It is a wonder to me, Mrs. Clink, 
 how you have contrived to keep her respect- 
 able so long." 
 
COLIN CLINK. 3 
 
 " I did not intend to talk to you, Miss 
 Sower soft," replied^ Fanny ; "but I will tell 
 you that I have always been too respectable for 
 what you seem to think." 
 
 " Answer me, Fanny," interposed Mrs. 
 Clink. " I am sure you will answer me." 
 
 " I cannot, ma'am," said Fanny. 
 
 " You positively will not, do you mean to 
 say.?" 
 
 " Indeed I cannot, because I have promised 
 that I would not ; but it is nothing of the 
 least harm." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " exclaimed Miss Sowersoft, " not 
 the least harm! — to be sure not! — oh, no! 
 She is very innocent, no doubt.'' 
 
 " If I discharge you from service unless 
 you do tell me, what then.?" asked her mis- 
 tress. 
 
 *' I cannot help it if you do," said Fanny, 
 as she burst into tears at the bare mention of 
 quitting that place which had been as a home 
 to her nearly all her life. 
 
 " Then I positively insist either that you do 
 
4 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 tell me all about it, or stay with me no longer 
 than until you can suit yourself elsewhere. 
 I do not wish to part with you, — far from it. 
 You have been with me almost all your life, 
 and I should not like to see the day when you 
 turned your back upon my door for the last 
 time; but I cannot have this silence and se- 
 crecy about such an affair as the present. I 
 have known enough, and more than enough, 
 of the ruin and misery that may ensue, to 
 allow of it in any young woman under my 
 care. I cannot have it, Fanny, and will not 
 have it ; so you must make your choice." 
 
 Fanny cried bitterly, and with some diffi- 
 culty made herself understood amidst so many 
 sobs and sighs, as she protested that she dared 
 not tell more than she had told ; that, on her 
 solemn word, it was not about anything that 
 could in the least injure her. 
 
 " Well, I must say I give her credit for 
 what she says," remarked Mrs. Clink, in an 
 under tone, to Miss Sowersoft. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 5 
 
 " Give her a birch rod ! " exclaimed the 
 latter lady. " I wonder how you can allow 
 yourself to be so easily imposed upon ! It is 
 all her artfulness, and nothing else. She is 
 as cunning as Satan, and as deep as the day is 
 long, she is! Ask her what made the doctor 
 say he would do something for her, — let her 
 unriddle that, if she can." 
 
 Mrs. Clink accordingly continued the exa- 
 mination much in the manner already de- 
 scribed, and with about the same success. 
 Fanny resisted all inquiry as strenuously as at 
 first, until at length Mrs. Clink gave her a 
 formal warning to seek out .for another situa- 
 tion, and to leave her present place as soon as 
 she had found one. Fanny replied, that she 
 would go begging rather than betray the trust 
 reposed in her, as she believed that Provi- 
 dence would never let her starve for having 
 done what was right. 
 
 " What a wicked wretch she is ! " Miss 
 Sowersoft exclaimed, when she had heard poor 
 
6 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 Fanny's expression of trust in a more just 
 power than that which now condemned her; 
 " I am sure her horrible wickedness turns me 
 white to hear it." 
 
 This female tribunal having dissolved itself, 
 Fanny was dismissed up stairs again, and the 
 other two ladies remained below to discuss in 
 private the question of Colin's removal home, 
 until such time as his recovery might admit 
 of his return to the labours of the farm. 
 
 It will be quite sufficient to state, as the 
 result of their deliberations, that within eight- 
 and-forty hours afterwards our hero, being 
 somewhat recovered, was laid on a bed 
 placed in a cart, and carried home; that 
 Fanny attended him there during some brief 
 space of time afterwards, until she procured 
 another situation, and left Mrs. Clink's ser- 
 vice at once and for ever ; and that these 
 changes, together with some others of very su- 
 perior importance, which I shall proceed im- 
 mediately to relate, brought about such a 
 
COLIN CLINK. 7 
 
 '^ new combination of parties'" amongst the 
 personages, great and small, who have figured 
 in our pages, as cannot fail, when explained, to 
 throw great light upon the yet dark and ab- 
 struse points of this veritable history. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Diamond cut diamond; the two rogues. A gentleman 
 resolves, without consent asked, to make Fanny his 
 wife. 
 
 After the time spoken of in the preceding 
 chapter, a month of the fairest season of the 
 year passed away, during which our hero, 
 Colin, continued to improve in health and 
 strength much more rapidly than he would, 
 in all probability, have done had he remained 
 at the delightful residence of Miss Sowersoft 
 at Whinmoor. 
 
 The consciousness of being at home, what- 
 ever that home may be, is more to the invalid 
 than a thousand advantages which might per- 
 haps be enjoyed in a strange place. Fanny, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 9 
 
 meanwhile, continued to fulfil her accustomed 
 duties, without receiving any information from 
 Doctor Rowel, as to the nature of the services 
 which he had promised to render in her fa- 
 vour. 
 
 Mrs. Clink's feelings of asperity against 
 Fanny, for her obstinacy in refusing to make 
 known the communications of the doctor, were 
 now, however, so far worn away that she 
 never spoke again of discharging her, and in 
 fact would secretly have been pleased had 
 she only expressed the slightest wish to re- 
 main. But, so far from this, Fanny resolved 
 to leave her place at the earliest opportunity. 
 While Colin remained at home she left the 
 matter in abeyance; but when he returned 
 to the farm, which he reluctantly did at the 
 expiration of eight or ten weeks, she felt no 
 longer the same inducement to stay as before; 
 and accordingly sought, in compliance with 
 her mistress's previous injunction, for another 
 situation. 
 
10 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 This was not long in presenting itself. 
 An old woman, who had long managed the 
 bachelor's household of Mr. Skinwell, the 
 lawyer, happened about this time to die. A 
 gap was left where she had stood ; and, as 
 though for the especial purpose of bringing 
 about a discovery, which it was highly need- 
 ful Fanny should make, she was destined to 
 
 mi it. 
 
 While the villagers of Bramleigh were occu- 
 pied in discussing the cause of the old house- 
 keeper's death, Mrs. Clink and Fanny were 
 surprised one evening with a visit from Mr. 
 Skinwell. Still more were they amazed when 
 he explained his business, namely, to induce 
 Fanny to leave her present situation, and take 
 that which the death of the old housekeeper 
 had made vacant. 
 
 Although Skinwell represented his present 
 visit as in great part the result of accident, 
 he nevertheless, we may imagine, had certain 
 very cogent reasons of his own for desiring to 
 get Miss Fanny Woodruff into his house. In 
 
COLIN CLINK. 11 
 
 fact, certain matters had come to his know- 
 ledge professionally, concerning the said Fanny 
 and her father. 
 
 It should be stated, that after Dr. Rowel 
 had obtained the document from James Wood- 
 ruff, a copy of which has already been given, 
 he still continued in doubt as to the course he 
 should pursue to make himself secure. Wise 
 as his own plans had at first appeared, he so 
 far distrusted them on farther consideration, 
 as to consider it needful to consult Mr. Skin- 
 well professionally on the matter ; but, as he 
 knew the affair to be a very delicate one, he 
 at first put it to that gentleman hypothe- 
 tically. As Mr. Skinwell, however, happened 
 to have his own private reasons for misunder- 
 standing the doctor's hypothesis, he protested 
 he could not comprehend the full merits of 
 the case unless it were put in a more cir- 
 cumstantial manner. After a good deal of 
 beating about the bush, Mr. Skinwell satisfied 
 himself that the doctor referred to a case in 
 which he was himself concerned, and he also 
 
12 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 contrived to ascertain the names of the parties, 
 the amount of property at stake, and the rela- 
 tionship which subsisted between the unfor- 
 tunate man now confined at Nabbfield, and 
 Fanny Woodruff. 
 
 By a little quiet manoeuvring on his own 
 part, Skinwell saw that he could not only pro- 
 tect the alleged lunatic and his daughter from 
 the villany of Doctor Rowel, but serve himself 
 at the same time. 
 
 " My opinion,'' said he, " is this. The con- 
 tract of gift being clearly illegal, you had 
 better put it into the fire ; and, if the patient 
 is now of sound mind, as you have intimated, 
 you are bound to set him at liberty, and restore 
 to him his estate. If, on the other hand, he 
 is unfit to be at large, he and his daughter 
 must be adequately maintained out of the 
 profits of that estate. Your course is as clear 
 as daylight.'* 
 
 But it was not clear to the doctor that — 
 whatever the laiv of the case might be, — he 
 could not contrive other means to effect the 
 
COLIN CLINK. 13 
 
 object he had in view ; and so much he gave 
 the lawyer to understand : at the same time 
 insinuating, that if Mr. Skinwell would assist 
 him in achieving that object, his reward should 
 be in proportion to his service : — a proposal to 
 which that legal gentleman returned a very 
 grave rebuke. 
 
 '* Long as you have known my character, 
 Doctor, I am astonished and indignant that 
 you should have made such a proposal to me. 
 I give my legal opinion plainly and frankly ; 
 but that man very much mistakes me who 
 imagines I will prostitute my professional cha- 
 racter to a base service for the sake of hire. 
 So far from it, sir, I do not hesitate to tell you 
 now, before you leave my office, that, although 
 this communication has been made to me in 
 confidence, and professionally, I do not hold 
 myself bound to keep faith, neither as a lawyer 
 nor a man, in cases of swindling ; and, that 
 if your intentions towards these parties are of 
 such a nature, I shall exert myself to the ut- 
 most of my ability in depriving you of your 
 
14 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 control over them, and restoring them to their 
 rights." 
 
 Doctor Rowel stood confounded, mute, and 
 pale. Who ever thought that Skinwell had so 
 much virtue in him ? The doctor felt that he 
 was a fool for having gone so far. How best 
 should he get out of the scrape ? How avert 
 the lawyer's threatened co-operation witii 
 Woodruff and his daughter Fanny ? The 
 doctor had not much time to think before 
 he was obliged to speak. He recovered his 
 tongue, and stammered out a kind of apo- 
 logetical explanation ; in which he endea- 
 voured to do away with the impression made 
 on Skinwell's mind as to the dishonesty of 
 his intentions : but the fact had previously 
 been too plainly avowed to be thus explained 
 away. 
 
 The doctor and his legal adviser parted 
 in mutual dudgeon, though with very oppo- 
 site feelings ; the former in rage at the de- 
 feat of his project, while upon the mind of 
 the latter a faint hope dawned that he might 
 
COLIN CLINK. i5 
 
 win the hand of Fanny, and so secure the 
 chance of inheriting the estate of Charnwood 
 whenever her father might happen to die (as 
 he doubtless would very soon), after it had 
 been wrested by the tact of Mr. Skin well 
 himself from the hands of Doctor Rowel of 
 Nabbfield. 
 
 Could Fanny and Mrs. Clink have been 
 in the least aware of the motives which actu- 
 ated Skinwell in making them so unusual a 
 call, they would not have felt so much sur- 
 prise ; and the young woman would have 
 given a prompt and decisive denial to his 
 application. But Fanny saw only what seemed 
 to her an offer of advancement, and a release 
 from the thrall in which, to a certain extent, 
 Mrs. Clink continued to hold her. She there- 
 fore hesitated not long in accepting the offer 
 v/hich Mr. Skinwell had made her; and finally 
 consented to enter upon her new duties in 
 about a week. 
 
 This engagement was fulfilled accordingly ; 
 and Fanny remained in the situation until 
 
16 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 a terrible event deprived her suddenly and 
 for ever of her master. Several years, how- 
 ever, elapsed before this occurrence, during 
 which nothing of consequence to our narrative 
 took place. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Which, though perfectly natural, contains matters that not 
 the most ingenious person could foresee. 
 
 In the bar of the little tavern at Bramleigh, 
 Doctor Rowel was seated before a round table, 
 on which stood a glass of cold sherry and 
 water, with a thin biscuit on a little plate be- 
 side it. 
 
 Now, during the former part of his life, 
 the doctor had not by any means been in the 
 general habit of passing his time at such a 
 place, and in such a manner. Latterly, how- 
 ever, fear had made him suspicious ; and dur- 
 ing the few years which I have said elapsed 
 after his attempt to bribe the lawyer, and 
 while Fanny remained in the house of this 
 
18 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 latter worthy, he had been haunted with cer- 
 tain undefinable terrors lest the lawyer should 
 at some time or other discover anything relat- 
 ing to the subject on which they had so seri- 
 ously differed, and on which he could not 
 but feel that he lay very much at Mr. Skin- 
 well's mercy. To be prepared for, and to 
 counteract as far as he could, anything of this 
 kind, Mr. Rowel had mingled somewhat more 
 than hitherto had been his wont with the 
 people of the village; although it was not 
 until this identical evening that he had heard 
 anything tending to involve his opponent, the 
 lawyer, in the charge of having made use 
 against him of the results of that professional 
 and confidential communication between them 
 already described. The information which had 
 thus come to the doctor^s knowledge was of 
 a nature to decide, in his opinion, the exist- 
 ence of a plot on the part of Skinwell to dis- 
 cover the whole secret to Fanny Woodruff, 
 and then, with her concurrence, and in her 
 name, to take proceedings for the liberation 
 
COLIN CLINK. iJi 
 
 of her father, and the recovery of his property. 
 Whether that information was true remains 
 to be seen ; though certain enough it is, that 
 Mr. Skinwell had employed the intervening 
 time in cultivating Fanny's friendship, and 
 rendering himself as agreeable to her as any 
 middle-aged bachelor can reasonably expect to 
 be to a young maid. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the reflections 
 which crowded on the mind of Rowel were 
 bitterness itself, and the more bitter, because 
 he stood indebted to no one save himself for 
 being placed in his present position. In ima- 
 gination he saw himself reduced to the lowest 
 extremity, at which point he began to form 
 resolutions for his own protection against such 
 a dreaded end. He fancied, perhaps, the 
 lawyer might fall sick before his plans were 
 ripe, and that he himself might have to attend 
 him. Would that he might die suddenly ! — 
 that a fever would take him off*, or a plague 
 seize him — or — yes — nobody questions a 
 physician's medicine — if — nay, he dare not 
 
20 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 trust his bewildered brain to think it. He 
 must be mad — worse than mad — to suffer 
 such a thought to cross his mind — and yet it 
 came again and again — it would come. He 
 began to feel fearful of himself, — to doubt 
 whether he could trust himself to do right 
 rather than wrong, should misfortune place his 
 opponent in his power. While Skin well lived, 
 the doctor himself held all he had upon the 
 slender tenure of a dozen words, which might 
 be spoken for the gain they would bring, — or 
 be uttered recklessly in a moment of anger, — 
 or might even drop out thoughtlessly, as one 
 of those true things spoken in jest which they 
 who hear never forget. 
 
 Doctor Rowel looked up, and beheld the 
 village lawyer before him, taking a seat on the 
 opposite side of the table. Rowel did not ac- 
 knowledge his entrance nor his presence, until 
 after a few minutes of dead silence, in which his 
 face became as white as ashes with the secret 
 emotions of his mind. He then abruptly, and 
 with hurried speech, put this question to him, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 21 
 
 " Mr. Skinwell, I have heard something 
 lately respecting you, — and now I wish to 
 know what it is you intend to do about that 
 business of mine ? *''' 
 
 "' Having already given my opinion. Doctor," 
 replied Skinwell, " I have nothing more to say 
 to you." 
 
 " But I have something to say to you,'* 
 
 . responded the physician. "I intend to know 
 
 for what purpose you have had that girl in 
 
 your house so long, before you and I part 
 
 again." 
 
 " Indeed ! " exclaimed Skinwell, sarcasti- 
 cally, though still somewhat flushed to find 
 that his intentions had somehow become sus- 
 pected ; " then you are not the first man, Doc- 
 tor, I can assure you, who has intended a great 
 deal more than he could achieve. Do you 
 imagine, because I am not quite knave enough 
 for you, that I am quite fool enough to make 
 myself accountable to you for what I choose 
 to do ? " 
 
 " I intend to know that,'' repeated Rowel, 
 
22 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 doggedly. " Do you mean to blow to the 
 world what has been made known to you in 
 strict confidence as a professional man ? Be- 
 cause, if that is your principle, I tell you be- 
 forehand, and to your face, that you are a dis- 
 grace to your profession, and a d — d disho- 
 nourable scoundrel to boot." 
 
 "Just hand me three and fourpence," re- 
 marked Skinwell, with the most provoking 
 coolness, " for informing you that by talking 
 in that manner you are laying yourself open to 
 a special action." 
 
 " Do you mean to act the villain ? " demand- 
 ed Rowel, with increased passion. 
 
 " Three and fourpence, Doctor," demanded 
 Skinwell. 
 
 " Ay ! — you 're a mean cold-blooded scoun- 
 drel," continued the doctor, still more enraged. 
 
 Skinwell was somewhat aroused by this 
 abuse, and replied in a more biting temper, 
 " Why, if you really want to know whether 
 I intend to blow you to the world, as you 
 call it, I answer — yes. I am resolved to expose 
 
COLIN CLINK. 23 
 
 your villany, and compel you to do justice in 
 spite of yourself.'* 
 
 *'0h, very well!" cried the doctor, rising 
 from his seat, and striding towards the door, 
 '^ that is enough — say no more— that is all I 
 want. Now I know my man. But I '11 tell 
 you what,"' and he turned half round in the 
 doorway, and looked at his antagonist with the 
 fierce malignity of a demon, " if physic can't 
 beat law to the dogs at last, I '11 grant you 
 free grace to drain me to my last penny." So 
 saying, he hurried out of the house. 
 
 The words which the lawyer had uttered 
 seemed, like an echo a hundred times repeated, 
 to ring in Rowel's ears as a sound that would 
 never die away. He hurried along the village 
 street more by instinct than present knowledge, 
 in the direction of the lawyer's house. On 
 reaching it, he knocked at the door, which was 
 opened by Fanny. 
 
 " Young woman," said he, " you remember 
 what I told you when I first saw you at 
 Whinmoor ? You haAte not mentioned a word 
 
24f COLIN CLINK. 
 
 to any one ? Then take care not to do so on 
 any account. You are in danger. If Skinwell 
 asks you anything, do not utter a word, or the 
 design I had in view for you is ruined. If he 
 tells you anything, do not believe him ; — no 
 matter what it is, tell him you do not believe 
 it. He is a scoundrel, — an unmitigated vil- 
 lain, — and if you stay longer in this house you 
 will be ruined. Trust none of his promises. 
 He may pretend that he wants to marry you, 
 but do not believe him ; and if he says he 
 knows something about you and your family, 
 take no notice of it ; for it will be done merely 
 to get from you what I have told you to do. 
 He may perhaps even go so far as to say he 
 knows where your father is — " 
 
 " My father ! " exclaimed Fanny. '« Why, 
 who knows my father ? " 
 
 " I say he may sa^ so," replied Rowel, '* for 
 he will say anything ; but you must not believe 
 him. The truth is, he has found out that I 
 am doing something for you, and he is deter- 
 mined to stop it if he can. But do not let him 
 
COLIN CLINK. 25 
 
 talk to you. You must leave this house as 
 early as possible. Be cautious, above all 
 things. I will soon see you again." And the 
 doctor walked away. 
 
 " What, under heaven," exclaimed Fanny, 
 as she closed the door after him, " can the man 
 mean ? I am in danger, — and master wants to 
 marry me, — and knows where my father is, — 
 and I must leave here directly ! What in the 
 world am I to do ? for there seems no end to 
 trouble ! " 
 
 And then, according to the regular female 
 rule in cases of difficulty of this kind, she sat 
 down and began to cry ; and as she cried, she 
 called to mind that Mr. Skinwell had, more 
 particularly of late, showed himself unusually 
 kind to her, and more so, indeed, than she 
 ought to suffer. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Skinwell walked in. He 
 had met Dr. Rowel in a part of the road which 
 warranted some suspicion that the latter might 
 have been up to his house, and accordingly he 
 proceeded to question Fanny on the subject, 
 
 VOL. II. c 
 
26 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 After an awkward attempt or two to evade his 
 inquiries, she at length declared, that he came 
 only upon some business which related merely 
 to herself, and therefore she could not ex- 
 plain it. 
 
 " There is no occasion,*' replied he, " to ex- 
 plain it to me. I know it well enough. That 
 man is a scoundrel, Fanny, — worse by ten 
 times ten multiplied than anybody would 
 imagine." 
 
 " The very thing," thought she, " that the 
 doctor said of you." 
 
 " Since so much has come out as this," con- 
 tinued Skinwell, " and my plan is about ripe, 
 I do not hesitate to say that that man has been 
 the ruin oiyou and your family ; and, but for 
 him, you yourself would at this very time have 
 been — there is no knowing — anything but 
 what you are. Depend upon it, my dear, many 
 a better man than Dr. Rowel has died in a 
 hempen neckcloth." 
 
 The girl paid little regard to all this, for it 
 was precisely the same as her friend the doctor 
 
COLIN CLINK. 27 
 
 had declared he would say ; and yet she felt 
 doubtful which of the two to believe, — or were 
 they not alike dishonest ? 
 
 Skinweirs profession had not left him so 
 heedless an observer of human nature, as not 
 to remark that, instead of his disclosures, as he 
 conceived them to be, being received with asto- 
 nishment and wonder, Fanny took compara- 
 tively little notice of them. However, he 
 persevered, — 
 
 " As you and the doctor are so intimate, 
 then," continued he, " of course he has told 
 you something of your own history. Has he 
 ever told you that you have a father living ? " 
 
 Fanny stood mute. 
 
 " He never told you that ? " the lawyer re- 
 peated. 
 
 " Oh no ! " exclaimed Fanny ; " but if I 
 truly have a father, do tell me where he is, 
 and I will do anything in the world for 
 you!" 
 
 Now was the lawyer's time to make his pro- 
 posals, which he did at some length, promising 
 
 c2 
 
28 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 that, in case they were agreed to, he would tell 
 her where her father was — he would liberate 
 him from a dungeon worse than any prison, 
 and recover for him and herself the property 
 that was now unjustly withheld from them. 
 
 Fanny hung her head and blushed, and felt 
 as though she could laugh or cry, or do both 
 perhaps together ; but she could not speak. 
 
 " Well,'* continued Skinwell, " I know what 
 you think, — it is natural enough. I admit 
 that I am a little older than I was twenty 
 years ago, and probably not quite so eyeable 
 to look upon as when I paid more attention to 
 personal appearances ; but the time was when 
 I had my day as well as others, and, in fact, 
 was considered one of the best in Bramleigh." 
 
 Since it is not what a man has been, but 
 what he is, which is considered in these cases, 
 we need not feel surprised that the law- 
 yer's recommendation of himself failed to be 
 considered a recommendation by her to whom 
 it was addressed ; and though the temp- 
 tation offered was great enough, she calmly. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 29 
 
 yet firmly rejected any idea of agreeing to the 
 terms proposed. Her refusal aroused the law- 
 yer's indignation, and, for the time, converted 
 the only man who could prove eminently use- 
 ful to her as a friend into a bitter enemy. He 
 vowed that her father's bones should rot on the 
 floor where he lay, before he would open his 
 lips to assist him ; and, declaring that Fanny 
 would live to repent her determination, he left 
 the room. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Colin takes steps to extricate Fanny from her difficulties, 
 but is interrupted by a fearful occurrence which threatens 
 to make Doctor Rowel triumphant. 
 
 Having in some degree recovered from the 
 terror inspired by SkinwelFs denunciation, 
 Fanny occupied herself in calling together all 
 the fragments of information of which she had 
 thus strangely been put in possession, and in 
 endeavouring so to fit the broken pieces together 
 as to make something like an intelligible whole. 
 In this attempt she necessarily failed. The 
 whole matter was a maze, a mystery, — a jar- 
 gon of seeming truth and certain falsehood, — 
 of things partly consistent and partly contradic- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 31 
 
 tory. In this state of uncertainty she deter- 
 mined to consult Colin upon the steps most ad- 
 visable to be taken ; for though he was now 
 only about eighteen in actual years, yet his 
 early mental developement and his plain manly 
 honesty entitled him to be considered upon an 
 equality with many who were several years his 
 seniors. A note was accordingly despatched 
 by the first convenient carriage to Whinmoor, 
 requesting Colin to pay a visit to Bramleigh 
 at the earliest possible opportunity. 
 
 Such an opportunity very fortunately occur- 
 red within the ensuing week, and on a day 
 which, by a lucky coincidence, Mr. Skinwell 
 himself had chosen for a drive, on business, to 
 the city of York. Ample opportunity was 
 thus afforded the young people to discuss the 
 subject of their meeting. 
 
 Troubled as Fanny had been in her own 
 mind to devise what course to pursue under 
 the seemingly difficult circumstances in which 
 she was placed, she had no sooner related 
 
S2 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 them to Colin, than that youth declared the 
 steps proper to be taken were as clearly chalk- 
 ed out as the track of a plough along the 
 fields. 
 
 " Leave it to me/* and I will find it all out 
 very soon. In the first place, I shall ask my 
 mother whether she ever knew , anything of 
 your father; for it is plain that she must 
 know something of the place you came from. 
 If that does not answer, I should then ask 
 Mr. Skinwell and Dr. Rowel. The truth is 
 all that would be required of them, and 
 surely people cannot very well refuse to tell 
 the truth in such a case as this. But let us 
 try my mother first. Shall I go down to her 
 now.?^' 
 
 To this proposition Fanny assented ; and, 
 while she remained behind in a state of anxious 
 hope and expectation, Colin went onwards to 
 Mrs. Clink's, for the purpose of obtaining the 
 required information. 
 
 A dreary pause of an hour or more, which to 
 
COLIN CLINK. SS 
 
 Fanny's imagination appeared half a day, fol- 
 lowed Colin''s departure. " Now," thought she, 
 after a little interval of time, " he has arrived 
 there; now he is talking about it to his mo- 
 ther ; and now, perhaps, she is telling him 
 what she would never tell me, though I often 
 asked her so particularly about it." And 
 then, again, as time wore away, and one five 
 minutes after another were scored on the side 
 of that great eternity the Past, she thought he 
 must be coming back ; she mistook the foot- 
 steps of every passer-by for his, and every dis- 
 tant external sound as the wished-for herald of 
 his approach. At length, as she began to grow 
 heart-sick with anxiety, he came. 
 
 " Has she told you anything?" asked Fanny 
 the moment she saw him. 
 
 " Not much," he replied, " and that of no 
 great consequence." 
 
 " Ay, I feared it would be so ! Then what 
 is it, Colin ? " 
 
 " She knows nothing whatever of your 
 
 c 5 
 
B4f COLIN CLINK. 
 
 father, that is certain. She never did know 
 him, nor your mother either." 
 
 Fanny sighed, and then asked timidly, 
 
 " Did she say anything about me, then ? " 
 
 " Why, yes, — she did ; though it is not of 
 very pleasant hearing ; and besides, it is not 
 of any consequence, particularly " 
 
 " But do tell me, — you must tell me ! " ex- 
 claimed Fanny. " I do not care what it is ; it 
 cannot hurt me now." 
 
 « Well, then," returned Colin, " the truth is 
 this — '' 
 
 Fanny sat down in a chair; and as she 
 gazed intently on Colin 's features while he 
 spoke, her bosom heaved and fell as though 
 some sentence of punishment was being passed 
 upon her. 
 
 " My mother," continued the youth, " has 
 told me that she first had you when you were 
 three or four years old, as near as she could 
 guess. At that time she lived in a little yard 
 near Park-lane in Leeds, with her sister, who 
 
COLIN CLINK. 35 
 
 died shortly afterwards. One dark night in 
 the autumn, and almost about bed-time, she 
 and her sister heard a stirring and talking 
 amongst the neighbours in the yard, and the 
 crying of a little child. They went out to see 
 what was the matter, and found some women 
 with candles in their hands round a little girl 
 that was lost ; — this child was you, Fanny. 
 Though, how you had been lost, or how you 
 came there, they could not tell. My mother 
 says she asked you if you knew who brought 
 you there, and you said something that they 
 thought meant ' uncle brought me ; ' but they 
 could not be certain about it ; they made out, 
 however, that your name was Fanny Woodruff, 
 as you had been taught to speak that much 
 plainer than anything else. As all the poor 
 people in the yard had families of their own, 
 except my mother and her sister, they took you 
 in for that night ; or, as they thought, until 
 somebody should own you. Next morning the 
 circumstance was made known in all the ways 
 
36 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 they could think of or afford to pay for; but 
 day after day passed on, and week after week, 
 and they were none the forwarder for their 
 trouble, until at last it died away, and became 
 certain, as proved to be the case, that she 
 would have to keep you always. Some people, 
 Fanny, wanted to persuade her to take you to 
 the workhouse," — Fanny burst into tears, — 
 " but my mother had got used to you by that 
 time, and would not do it. Besides, her sister 
 died, and she wished her on her death-bed to 
 keep you ; ' for, perhaps, Anne,' said she to my 
 mother, ' you may find it all out in the end."* 
 My mother," added Colin, " says she believes 
 that dying people very often speak like pro- 
 phets. She resolved, therefore, to keep you 
 from that time to this." 
 
 " And yet," added Fanny in a mingled feel- 
 ing of jest and earnest, " there seems to be 
 small chance of the prophecy coming true." 
 
 Before Colin could reply, a noise without 
 was heard of the tread of numerous feet, min- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 37 
 
 gled with the sound of carriage wheels as they 
 slowly advanced down the road, cracking and 
 crushing the dry gravel. Then came a hurried 
 rap at the door. Fanny flew to it, but it was 
 already opened. A little crowd had gathered 
 outside, and every face looked solemn and 
 anxious. Some peeped down the passage, and 
 others at the contents of a gig which had 
 stopped before the house. She looked out. 
 The shafts were snapped asunder ; the harness 
 broken ; the horse, led by a farming man, was 
 covered with foam and dust and mud. He 
 bled at the mouth, and looked fierce and angry, 
 though subdued. In the gig itself lay the body 
 of her master the lawyer, insensible, and sup- 
 ported on the knee of a second farming man. 
 Fanny ran into the house again, terrified at the 
 sight, and summoned Colin, the lawyer's clerk, 
 and an under servant girl, to his assistance. 
 Shortly afterwards the body was carefully 
 lifted out and carried up stairs. Before this, 
 a man had been despatched to obtain the speedy 
 
38 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 assistance of the proprietor of the lunatic asy- 
 lum at Nabbfield. 
 
 What an opportunity for Dr. Rowel was 
 presented here to stifle Fanny's evidence for 
 ever! 
 
COLIN CLINK. S9 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Relates the triumph of the Doctor, and the manner in 
 which he achieved it. — Lawyer Skinwell's death-bed, 
 and what happened there. 
 
 The evening was warm and fine ; and the 
 gentle slope, on the top of which Dr. Rowel's 
 establishment stood, was coloured with the set- 
 ting light of the sun ; as, with the glass-doors, 
 which opened from his drawing-room upon the 
 lawn, thrown wide back to admit the scarcely 
 stirring air, — the doctor himself sat near it 
 and alone, in an attitude of thought, meditating 
 mischief. A dash of vermilion-coloured light 
 shot athwart the lower part of his person, while 
 the upper portion was covered with that kind 
 of illuminated shadow, that clear obscure, 
 
40 COLIN CLINK, 
 
 which, to the delicate perception of a painter, 
 constitutes one of Nature's greatest beauties. 
 But the thoughts and reflections in which the 
 doctor indulged were deeply at variance with 
 those which the scene before him, and the 
 character of the hour, were calculated to sug- 
 gest. It was not with him — '' how much do 
 I now enjoy .? " but the morose reflection — 
 ''how long shall I enjoy it?" His present 
 happiness was swallowed up in the anticipation 
 of possible coming evil. 
 
 " What matters it," thought he, *' when to- 
 morrow, perhaps, that treacherous villain may 
 make everything known ? Nay, how do I 
 know he has not done so already ? True, I 
 have had him watched. I know everything 
 he has done, and something that he has said ; 
 and this very day again he is gone to York. 
 To-morrow I may wake to be arrested, — to 
 have my house searched, and Woodruff set 
 at liberty." 
 
 As the doctor then mused, the door opened, 
 and a stranger was ushered in. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 41 
 
 " Doctor," said he in a hurried tone, " law- 
 yer Skinwell has just got thrown out of his 
 gig, and is almost killed. He has been in- 
 sensible ever since.'"' 
 
 " Ah ! Impossible ! *' exclaimed Rowel start- 
 ing to his feet with surprise. '* Are you sure, 
 man ? " 
 
 " It is quite true, sir," replied he, as though 
 scarcely knowing what to make of the doctor's 
 strange manner, the latter gentleman regarding 
 him for a moment with an eye of unaccount- 
 able incredulity; for the idea had instantane- 
 ously flashed across his mind that he might 
 be deceived by his own imagination, and that 
 it was only the devil that was tempting him. 
 A minute or two elapsed ; when, recovering 
 himself, he replied in a more subdued and 
 professional tone, " I will be there imme- 
 diately," on which the man disappeared. 
 
 " Now then," thought Rowel, *' is the time ! 
 Had I asked for it, — designed it myself, — 
 I could not have made it better. Thrown out, 
 and insensible. He cannot, therefore, know 
 
42 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 anything of what I do. And as nobody else 
 knows of our differences, nobody will think 
 otherwise than that I am doing for the best. 
 Who shall question my practice? Even if 
 it be inquired into, — if it come to anything 
 that way, — they may arraign my judgment, 
 but can do nothing else." 
 
 The doctor went immediately into his dis- 
 pensary, dismissed his assistant upon some 
 frivolous errand, and closed the door after 
 him. Some minutes he remained compounding 
 drugs with his own hand ; after which he 
 mounted his pony, which had been saddled in 
 the mean time, and rode rapidly off to the 
 lawyer''s house. 
 
 '' Send all these people out ! " somewhat 
 sharply exclaimed the doctor, as, in passing 
 up stairs, he cast his eye upon the numerous 
 assembly of " sympathisers," who had ga- 
 thered in the passage and about the foot of 
 the staircase. Fanny dismissed them, and 
 then, accompanied by Colin, went up stairs 
 into the room in which the unfortunate man 
 
COLIN CLINK. 43 
 
 had been laid upon a bed, and whither also 
 Dr. Rowel had directed his steps. 
 
 In the first place, the lawyer was very 
 copiously bled ; after which the doctor ad- 
 ministered a powder with his own hands, and 
 gave instructions that, in the course of about 
 an hour, if Mr. Skinwell appeared more re- 
 covered, another of a similar description should 
 be given. He then very strictly charged Fanny 
 not to allow any person to visit him, and to 
 prevent him talking in case he should attempt 
 to speak, as silence and quietness were highly 
 essential to any patient in his condition. Pro- 
 mising that he should call again in the course 
 of the night, the doctor then took his leave, 
 though not until he had privately drawn 
 Fanny aside, and fully satisfied himself that 
 Mr. Skinwell had not discovered to her any 
 material portion of that secret which he so 
 greatly dreaded should come to her know- 
 ledge. 
 
 During several hours the unfortunate man 
 continued much the same as before ; but about 
 
44 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 midnight he rallied. There was nobody in 
 the room except Fanny and the servant girl. 
 Colin had taken his leave long before ; and 
 SkinwelPs stripling clerk, who was introduced 
 to the reader at the commencement of this 
 story, and who had now grown up into a tame, 
 spiritless, and crest-fallen man, was sitting be- 
 low in the kitchen, seeking refuge from the 
 whereases and aforesaids of the law in the 
 pleasant pages of Joseph Andrews. 
 
 Mr. Skin well, as I have said, rallied a little. 
 He looked wildly about as though seeking for 
 assurance of the locality of the place he was 
 in, and then feebly beckoned Fanny to bring 
 her ear near him. 
 
 " Who has been to me ? " he whispered. 
 
 " Only Dr. Rowel, sir," answered Fanny 
 assuringly. 
 
 " Then I am a dead man ! " exclaimed the 
 lawyer, bursting into a flood of tears. " Oh 
 Heaven, forgive my sins as I forgive all those 
 who have sinned aorainst me ! " And he forced 
 
COLIN CLINK. 45 
 
 his head into the pillow as though he would 
 bury it out of sight. The foam gathered upon 
 his blue lips, and his teeth snapped together 
 with a sound that made the girl's blood turn. 
 — <' Oh, what has he given me ? my breath is 
 hotter than fire. — The flame eats my heart 
 out ! — water, — water !" 
 
 "No, no!" cried an eager voice behind; 
 "'twill kill him ! " and Dr. Rowel strode across 
 the room. Fanny saw him, and his looks ter- 
 rified her. The sedateness of the experienced 
 physician, which no circumstance of this kind 
 can generally disturb, was all gone. He 
 breathed half-con vulsively through his opened 
 mouth and dilated nostrils; shining beads of 
 water that momentarily glistened in the lamp- 
 light, stood upon his forehead ; and several 
 times successively, as he crossed the room, he 
 passed his hand with instinctive energy over 
 the sides of his temples, so as to cast the 
 hair which clustered there backwards, as 
 though his burning brain sought closer con- 
 tact with the cool common air. He stood by 
 
46 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 the bedside. Skinwell rolled round his eyes, 
 and strove to cry, " You 've poisoned me ! " 
 But the doctor rapidly closed his hand over 
 the sick man's mouth, and drowned his failing 
 voice. 
 
 Fanny stood petrified with horror ; while the 
 servant girl rushed screaming out of the room. 
 The doctor still kept his open hand on Skin- 
 well's mouth, while the dying man strove to 
 set himself free by violent motions of the 
 head and writhings of the body. A stifled 
 call on the name of Fanny at length broke 
 from his muffled lips. 
 
 '' Go out ! leave me ! " fiercely cried Rowel 
 to the horrified young woman ; but she did not 
 obey him. 
 
 " Fanny ! '' again escaped the lawyer's 
 lips. 
 
 The sight, the voice, the desperate sense 
 that came upon her all at once that Rowel 
 was killing his patient, nerved her with more 
 than woman's courage and ten times woman's 
 ordinary strength. She rushed franticly to 
 
COLIN CLINK. 47 
 
 the opposite side of the bed from that on 
 which the doctor stood, and violently seized 
 his wrist. 
 
 " Away, woman ! '' he cried, suddenly turn- 
 ing all his efforts against her, in the endeavour 
 to free his hands and strike her down. But 
 she held him tightly. Curses upon her, 
 whispered almost as from the inmost soul, but 
 deadly and pregnant with hellish meaning, 
 hissed through the doctor's teeth, which 
 showed between his lips clenched like a work- 
 man's vice. Fanny prayed mentally for 
 strength to hold him. As they struggled, the 
 sick man beneath them spoke. 
 
 " Fanny — your father " 
 
 Rowel threw the whole weight of his body 
 upon him to stop that tongue. He could 
 not. 
 
 " Your father is in RowePs — '* 
 
 " It 's a lie ! — a lie ! — a lie ! " cried the 
 doctor in rapid succession, to render the words 
 inaudible. 
 
 Their struggle grew more desperate, and 
 
48 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 Fanny could not hold much longer : the 
 unwonted muscles would not obey her will 
 to gripe. They were overstrained, and grow- 
 ing useless. At the same time the doctor 
 wrenched more furiously than ever. The 
 dying man beneath him gurgled in the throat 
 for breath, and tossed in muscular convulsions 
 beneath the clothes. At last he got himself 
 to the edge of the bed, and by a sudden and 
 last violent eifort, struck himself against the 
 doctor so forcibly as to loosen him from the 
 hands of Fanny, and throw him several paces 
 from the bed. The lawyer threw himself 
 upright, and with his dim half-dead eyes 
 fixed on Fanny, and his finger turning to 
 point at Rowel, he cried with his last breath, 
 " In his madhouse ! — his madhouse ! '' and 
 sunk back to groan and die. 
 
 Fanny stood a moment, and then fell, like 
 a stone, insensible to the ground.. 
 
 Presently the clerk and the maid- servant, 
 were in the room. Doctor Rowel had just 
 folded up the bed-clothes. 
 
'^^'\ <'-;'/' u^ / '/-^^--J i<Uk:^y.?7.-'. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 49 
 
 " Take that girl up/' said he calmly; " she 
 has fainted at this sight of death. Your 
 master is gone, young man. I did not think, 
 at first, he would see the night over. Give 
 her some cold water ; sprinkle her temples, 
 and carry her to bed, and then send for 
 somebody to lay this corpse out. Before 
 morning it will be cold." 
 
 As the doctor said this he gathered up 
 such of the powders as had not been admi- 
 nistered, and put them in his pocket. At the 
 same time Fanny was carried away, according 
 to his directions, and placed on the bed in her 
 own room. Thither Doctor Rowel followed, 
 and employed himself in restoring her. Wl\en 
 Fanny first opened her eyes and saw him 
 bending over her, she shrieked and sunk again. 
 Again she was recovered. 
 
 " Do leave me,'* said she. ** Do go away, 
 or I shall die." 
 
 " But I have something to say to you, 
 my dear," observed the doctor, with an as- 
 sumed sweetness of tone. " Now, quiet 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
50 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 yourself, and endeavour to get over this agita- 
 tion. You will never be better till you get 
 calmer." 
 
 " Then pray leave me," again replied Fanny, 
 " and I may then be quiet. Is master any 
 better?" 
 
 " Yes — yes," the doctor answered ; " but 
 never mind him. You should not have in- 
 terfered with me^ Fanny. He was delirious, 
 — outrageous. I was obliged to hold him 
 down." 
 
 " He said something about my father," 
 observed Fanny in a faint voice. " I heard 
 him say it." 
 
 "Nothing — nothing, I assure you!" the 
 doctor exclaimed. " He was delirious. Now, 
 quiet yourself, and do not talk any more to- 
 night. Say nothing about it; and another 
 day, when you are better, you shall convince 
 yourself, for Mrs. Rowel shall take you all 
 over my house — you shall see everybody in 
 it — and I will prove to you that your father 
 c^not be there. As I told you some time ago. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 51 
 
 I know something about you, and will take 
 care to see you righted as far as I can ; 
 but then you must not listen to the wild 
 nonsense of a man who did not know 
 what he was talking about: it ruins every- 
 thing." 
 
 Fanny was silent ; but she still beheld, as 
 in a vivid picture, the corpse-like figure of 
 the lawyer sitting up in bed, its glazed eyes 
 upon her, and its finger pointing towards 
 that man. She heard the rattle of its horny 
 tongue as it articulated those last words, " In 
 his madhouse ! — his madhouse ! " And she 
 thought of the words of Colin's mother, 
 which had been told to her only a few hours 
 previously, that dying people always speak 
 the truth. But, was he dying.? " Is he 
 dead ? " asked she. 
 
 " My dear," answered Rowel, " do not 
 alarm yourself: but he is dead." 
 
 " O God ! what have I seen ! " cried the 
 affrighted young woman, as she hid her head 
 beneath the bed-clothes, for a spirit seemed 
 
 D 2 
 
52 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 to pass before her when she heard those 
 words, — it was that of her dead master ! 
 
 The doctor departed ; but in that house 
 there was no sleep that night. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 53 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Doctor's reflections on his return. 
 
 " How much safer am I now ? " thought the 
 doctor, as he pursued his way home in the 
 dark, and reflected on all that had just trans- 
 pired, and on the probable consequences of it. 
 "To-morrow there will be a jury, — it cannot 
 be avoided ; and I shall be called to give evi- 
 dence, and Fanny, who saw it all, will be called 
 also. She suspects something, and may tell 
 all until she raises suspicions in the minds of 
 others. Would that she too were out of the 
 way, and then — then I should be finally 
 secure ! " 
 
 But as he thus thought on another death. 
 
54 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 the dread of the last came strongly upon 
 him; and his skin seemed to creep upon his 
 bones. He fancied there was a body lying in 
 the road, and several times he checked his 
 horse to avoid trampling upon it, or turned 
 him suddenly aside in order to pass it by. He 
 could see the shadowy lineaments of the man 
 he had murdered flickering about in the doubt- 
 ful air, with the very folds of the bed-clothes 
 which his own hand had gathered round it, 
 pictured in misty but accurate lines, like an 
 artist's first sketch emerging from a ground of 
 dark and indistinct space. He grew anxious 
 to get home. He wondered how it was that 
 never in his life before had any sight so 
 haunted him, and yet he had seen many worse 
 agonies than that, — many. Yes ; he had seen 
 old sinners die, — stubborn and unrepentant to 
 the last ; he had seen them die, and make no 
 sign of hope of Heaven's grace. And he had 
 seen young maids die of very terror at the 
 thought and name of death. Yet these were 
 
^^\ ^<. ^itfJU'^''^J /^^.66/'^^ 
 
 /lyj>y/t.- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 55 
 
 nothing. They were happiness itself to what 
 he had witnessed that night. When he arriv- 
 ed at home, his wife remarked that he looked 
 pale and ill. 
 
 " No, my dear," he replied, " I am very 
 well indeed, — wonderfully well. I never felt 
 better in my life. I can assure you, you 
 are mistaken." He sat down to his supper; 
 but as he tried to carve, his knife slipped, 
 and he did not try it again. The face of 
 the lawyer seemed to be over the table, dan- 
 cing about in the broad beams of the candle- 
 light. 
 
 " You tremble, Frank ! " cried his wife ; 
 " your hand shakes. How did you leave 
 Skinwell ? " 
 
 " He is dead." 
 
 " Dead ! " 
 
 "Yes, — he is gone. A concussion of the 
 brain has taken him off. It was a terrible fall, 
 indeed.*" 
 
 *' But how sudden ! " exclaimed she. 
 
56 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 " People will die suddenly sometimes,'* re- 
 plied the doctor ; " and especially when pitch- 
 ed headlong out of a gig on a stony road. 
 Now I think of it, let me tell you, my dear, 
 that to-morrow perhaps, or on some early 
 day, I shall want you to show a young 
 woman down in the village here, all over 
 the house. I wish her to see the patients. 
 Do not ask any questions now; 1 have par- 
 ticular reasons for it. I only have to re- 
 quest of you very particularly, when she 
 does come, to make no inquiries of her of 
 any kind, nor to answer any questions she 
 may put to you. It is of great import- 
 ance to yourself as well as to me ; and 
 more so indeed than you can be aware of just 
 now ; so that it is unnecessary to insist further 
 upon it/' 
 
 The wife promised strict compliance with 
 his injunctions, as it was no very unusual 
 thing for her thus to be requested to take a 
 blind part in the performance of some mystery 
 
COLIN CLINK. 57 
 
 or other in the establishment, of which no one 
 knew the purpose save Dr. Rowel himself. 
 By this combination of secrecy with his wife, 
 and of apparent openness and candour to- 
 wards Fanny, he trusted to convince the 
 latter that the communication which the 
 dying man had made respecting her father 
 was false and utterly without foundation. In 
 adopting this bold course, it is evident that the 
 doctor laid himself open to the possibility at 
 least of a discovery; yet it was clearly the 
 safest plan which, under the circumstances, 
 he could adopt. The opinions which his wife 
 entertained respecting the sanity of the unfor- 
 tunate James Woodruff rendered it highly ne- 
 cessary, not only that the name and relation- 
 ship of the visiter to whom he had promised an 
 inspection of his house should be unknown to 
 her, but also that no suspicion should be ex- 
 cited by any attempt on his part to prevent 
 James Woodruff's being seen by Fanny along 
 with all the other patients ; since the very fact 
 
 D 5 
 
58 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 of one of them being purposely withheld would 
 of itself give room for doubt ; while, from an 
 interview between them he had nothing to 
 fear, since in his opinion it was a moral im- 
 possibility that either father or daughter should 
 recognise the other. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 59 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A jury sits on the body of Skinwell. Colin advises Fanny 
 Woodruff upon a subject of some importance. 
 
 A coroner's jury was summoned to hold an 
 inquest at the tavern at Bramleigh, on the 
 body of Mr. Skinwell. The men composing 
 this jury were such ignorant louts, that Doctor 
 Rowel, on being called before them, soon suc- 
 ceeded in so far mystifying their perceptions, 
 that they unanimously determined it to be 
 quite useless to call any other witnesses than 
 one or two of those who saw the accident. 
 The coroner himself was an indolent and super- 
 ficial person, and, under pretence of having 
 other inquests to hold a few miles off, seemed 
 anxious to hurry the present inquiry to a con- 
 
60 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 elusion. Fanny remained outside during the 
 deliberation, and, though it was once or twice 
 suggested that her evidence might prove im- 
 portant, the Coroner peremptorily refused to 
 listen to it, and especially as Doctor Rowel 
 took the liberty of hinting that any statement 
 which she might make could not prove of the 
 least value after his own lucid and profes- 
 sional exposition of the state of the deceased 
 on his being brought home. Accordingly, a 
 verdict of " Accidental Death " was recorded ; 
 and Doctor Rowel returned to Nabbfield highly 
 gratified in secret with the result of the in- 
 quiry. 
 
 But, as the success of guilt affords no plea- 
 sant matter for reflection, I will proceed to 
 relate something concerning a better and more 
 virtuous character. 
 
 The story of Lawyer SkinwelFs death soon 
 spread abroad, and reached the farm at Whin- 
 moor in its progress. When Colin became 
 acquainted with the facts, he necessarily con- 
 cluded that Fanny would again be homeless, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 61 
 
 and that his advice and assistance might prove 
 useful to her. He accordingly seized the first 
 opportunity that presented itself for taking a 
 walk to Bramleigh, which occurred about a 
 week after the dreadful event just related. 
 During that time Fanny had been wishing day 
 and night to see him, but had been too much 
 occupied amidst the circumstances which this 
 unexpected change had brought about, to be 
 enabled to do more than wish for his coming. 
 Everything had, of course, been left in some 
 confusion. Nor were there any known relations 
 of her late master to whom application could 
 be made to take his affairs under their manage- 
 ment. Skinwell had come to the village, un- 
 known, when a young man, and was generally 
 understood to say that indeed, to the best of 
 his knowledge and belief, he was the last of his 
 family. 
 
 Under these circumstances both Fanny and 
 the poor clerk would have felt somewhat em- 
 barrassed in what manner to proceed, had not 
 Mr. Longstaff, the steward, and the landlord 
 
62 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 of the tavern, taken an early opportunity, 
 after the lawyer's death, to call at the house, 
 formally to announce to the poor clerk him- 
 self that they were legal witnesses to a will 
 which the deceased had made some time ago in 
 his favour ; and which, after providing for all 
 debts and expenses, left to him the residue and 
 the business together. The document thus 
 spoken of was soon found amongst his private 
 papers ; and, as nobody came forward to dis- 
 pute and litigate over the poor man's corpse, as 
 is usually the case when anybody has a small 
 matter to leave behind him, the affairs of the 
 household were soon placed in a way for being 
 carried on as usual; and especially as Fanny 
 consented to remain for the present with the 
 lawyer's successor on the same terms as she had 
 formerly agreed upon with him. 
 
 These arrangements had been made when 
 Colin arrived ; and therefore the difficulties in 
 which he expected to find Fanny were entirely 
 obviated. But there was another and a far 
 more dreadful subject to engage his attention, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 63 
 
 which he could not possibly have anticipated, 
 namely, the communication made by the dying 
 man respecting her father, and the horrible 
 scene which she had witnessed at the time that 
 communication was made. Partly from a con- 
 scientious fear of doing any one an injustice, 
 and partly from doubt whether, after all, the 
 doctor really was or was not guilty, she had 
 not hitherto mentioned the subject to any one, 
 though it lay on her mind like a burden which 
 would allow no rest until it was shaken off. If 
 the lawyer had spoken truth, was it not un- 
 just to his memory to make no use of what 
 he had spoken ? And if she really had a 
 father living, and that father was confined 
 in a madhouse, what could she think of her- 
 self were she not to make an effort for his 
 deliverance ? 
 
 On his arrival, Colin thought Fanny looked 
 ill and anxious ; and that she spoke less freely 
 to him than heretofore. He felt surprised to 
 hear her allude to Doctor Rowel in a manner 
 so changed from that in which she had always 
 
64 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 spoken of him formerly. Then it was as a 
 friend, a helper ; one from whom, above all 
 others living, she had the most to hope from, 
 and to whom she ought to feel most grateful. 
 But now she mentioned the very name with 
 dread, and seemed to shudder whenever the 
 recollection of his presence in that house came 
 across her mind. All this raised Colin's cu- 
 riosity, and stimulated his inquiries. Question 
 after question did he put to her, until the vivid 
 recollection of the scene that had passed, and 
 the keener sense of her father's situation, which 
 this conversation awakened, brought her again 
 to tears, and amidst many sobs and interrup- 
 tions she at last related to the horror-stricken 
 youth the whole story of her late master's 
 death-bed communication. 
 
 During the recital Colin turned pale as 
 ashes ; and when it was done, " I 'm sure 
 he murdered him !" he exclaimed, " and we 
 shall find it all true about your father. 
 Think as you like about it, but that doc- 
 tor tried to stop his mouth only to prevent 
 
COLIN CLINK. 65 
 
 him telling you. Take him at his word, Fanny, 
 and let him show you over his house." 
 
 Fanny made no reply. She scarcely heard 
 his words, for in imagination she fancied her- 
 self before the little cell that held her father ; 
 she thought of him as a madman whom she 
 dared not touch, and scarcely even look at ; 
 one who, though her own parent, had not 
 sense enough left to talk even like a little 
 child. And as she thus thought, the tears 
 silently but rapidly rolled down her cheeks. 
 She longed for the time to arrive, but dreaded 
 the trial to which it might expose her. 
 
 Having arranged that they should meet 
 again as early as possible after her visit to the 
 madhouse, Colin took his farewell of Fanny ; 
 and, on quitting the house, proceeded imme- 
 diately in the direction of the old hall of 
 Kiddal, with the intention of carrying out 
 another part of his plan. 
 
(^6 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Colin seeks an interview with Squire Lupton. An unex- 
 pected adventure takes place, which raises him to the 
 station of a hero, and promises great things to come. 
 
 When Colin arrived at Kiddal Hall, Mr. 
 Lupton was quietly reposing himself on a small 
 couch placed near the widely-opened window of 
 his drawing-room, and inhaling the fragrance 
 of the great " wicked weed" from a long 
 Turkish pipe, whose voluminous folds lay like 
 a sleeping serpent on the ground beside him. 
 At some distance from him, close to the door, 
 and unperceived by the squire, stood an indi- 
 vidual of short stature, dressed in a coat that 
 reached nearly to his knees ; inexpressibles 
 that descended to the same point, blue worsted 
 
COLIN CLINK. 67 
 
 Stockings, and laced-iip boots. His hat was 
 placed upon its crown on the floor beside him, 
 as though the owner, in so disposing of it, 
 meditated a stay of some duration. 
 
 " Is that Mr. Lupton?" demanded a gruff 
 voice. 
 
 " Who the d — 1 is that ? " exclaimed the 
 squire, puffing the smoke away from his mouth, 
 and looking eagerly in the direction whence the 
 voice proceeded. 
 
 " Nay — nay, now!*" was the reply he re- 
 ceived, " it signifies nothing to you who / am, 
 for if a man gets justice done him for his 
 crimes, what can it matter to him whose hand 
 does it ? " 
 
 " How did you come in here, fellow ? " again 
 asked the squire. 
 
 " Never mind asking me how I got here," 
 replied the little old man ; " that is my busi- 
 ness and not yours. I am here, and that is 
 enough." 
 
 " But, what are you ? — who are you ? — for 
 what purpose have you come here?" 
 
68 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 " Well — well ! if you ask me what / am, I 
 can tell you ; I am a father. And, if I were 
 to tell you what you are, sir, I should say you 
 are an unprincipled man, and unworthy of 
 your station : a man that, because he has 
 power in his hands, can insult poverty, and 
 betray it to ruin, under the pretence of doing 
 it a service. Does your recollection extend as 
 far back as sixteen or eighteen years ago ?" 
 
 Instead of answering this question, Mr. Lup- 
 ton laid aside his pipe, rose from his seat, 
 and advanced towards the little man in the 
 middle of the room, extending his hand in an 
 authoritative manner. " Come, come, fellow ! 
 go away. Save me the trouble of putting 
 you out." 
 
 " You put me out, sir !" tauntingly replied 
 his strange visiter ; " it is more than you dare 
 undertake to do if all your servants were about 
 you ; and, as it is, remember there is not one. 
 Keep your hands off me, or I shall make you 
 repent it. You have touched too much of my 
 blood already ; and now I have called for some 
 
COLIN CLINK. 69 
 
 of yours. Look to yourself. I '11 be fair with 
 you;^ 
 
 As he thus spoke he drew something from 
 the pocket of his long coat, which Mr. Lupton 
 thought, from the slight glance he caught of 
 it in the twilight, to be a pistol. The sight 
 nerved him to desperation, and suddenly he 
 sprung forwards to strike or seize the man 
 before him. But the latter was too expert ; he 
 slipped aside, and Mr. Lupton fell forwards with 
 the impetus of his motion, almost to the ground. 
 The cocking of the pistol and the opening of 
 the room-door were heard at the same instant. 
 Flash went the deadly powder, slightly illu- 
 minating the apartment, and showing a third 
 party standing against the old man in the long 
 coat, who had struck the pistol aside with his 
 hand, and thus diverted what otherwise would 
 have proved a deadly aim. That third per- 
 son was Colin. He had reached the hall a 
 minute or two before ; and one of the servants 
 who knew him, had conducted him up-stairs, 
 under the belief that the squire was alone, — 
 
70 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 for the old man had obtained admittance 
 secretly. While in the passage outside, how- 
 ever, they overheard the latter part of the 
 conversation just related, which induced Colin 
 to rush in, and thus was he instrumental in 
 saving the life of his own father — though un- 
 known to himself — from the deadly hand — 
 equally unknown to him — of his own grand- 
 father ! 
 
 Jerry Clink had recently returned from New 
 South Wales ; and during all the years of his 
 banishment had kept 
 
 " The patient watch, the vigil long, 
 Of him who treasures up a wrong." 
 
 No sooner did he find that the pistol had 
 failed in its intended work, and that Mr. 
 Lupton, who was a powerftd man, was again 
 upon his legs, than he dashed Colin furiously 
 aside, and retreated towards the window. The 
 squire followed him, and was himself followed 
 also by Colin and the servant. They en- 
 deavoured to pin the old man in a corner, 
 but their first efforts did not succeed. He 
 
COLIN CLINK. 71 
 
 strove to rush between them, and to escape at 
 the door. Lights now glanced along the pas- 
 sage, and on the staircase. Other servants 
 were hurrying forwards, having been brought 
 up by the report of fire-arms. Escape that 
 way was now impossible. What could he do ? 
 There was the window — the only chance. No- 
 body so much as dreamed that he would go 
 out there, for it was twenty feet or more from 
 the ground. He approached it. The resolu- 
 tion and the action were one. In an instant 
 his body darkened the open space as he leaped 
 through, and he was gone ! The spectators 
 stood still some moments, — for into mere spec- 
 tators did this daring and desperate leap trans- 
 form them all. They then ran to the window. 
 There lay a dark substance on the ground 
 beneath, — it moved, — it got up. They watched 
 it ; and, in the height of their amazement, 
 never thought of running out to seize it. Jerry 
 looked up and laughed with derision in their 
 faces as he hastened off. Some of them now 
 ran down stairs in pursuit. It was deep twi- 
 
7:2 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 light, and the desperado was speedily out of 
 sight. He had crossed the lawn, and got 
 into the woods. They followed with guns 
 and staves, but Jerry Clink was safe. 
 
 " And what young man is this?" asked 
 Mr. Lupton, as he turned to gaze at Colin, and 
 by the lights which now shone in the apart- 
 ment beheld a noble, open countenance, and a 
 pair of bold, dark eyes, whose look brought a 
 Hush of heat up in the squire's face, and made 
 him for a moment dream that he gazed into a 
 mirror, so much were they the counterpart of 
 his own. " Whoever you are," pursued the 
 squire, " I owe you much for this brave in- 
 terposition. 1 am indebted to you, young 
 man, perhaps for my life ; certainly for sound 
 bones and a whole skin. Sit down — sit down 
 a moment. But stop ; this will do at present." 
 And he drew out his purse containing nearly 
 ten guineas, and tendered it to Colin, " Take 
 this, until I can do something better for you." 
 
 " No, sir, thank you," replied the youth. 
 " I do not want money ; and if I did, I could 
 
COLIN CLINK. i3 
 
 not take it for only doing right. I came to 
 speak to you, sir, about something else, if you 
 will allow me." 
 
 " Not take it!" exclaimed Mr. Lupton, in 
 astonishment, — " then you were not born in 
 Yorkshire, were you ? " 
 
 '' Yes, sir, I was," answered he: "I was 
 born and brought up in this village, though 
 you do not know me." 
 
 " Indeed ! Why, I do not remember to 
 have remarked you before. Who are you ? 
 What is your name ?" 
 
 " Colin Clink, sir, is my name.'' 
 
 The squire sat down and turned away his 
 face, so that the lad could not see it, as he 
 asked, in an altered and somewhat tremulous 
 voice, if Mrs. Clink, that kept the shop, was 
 his mother ? 
 
 " Yes, sir,'' replied Colin, " she is ; but I 
 never knew my father." 
 
 Mr. Lupton was for some moments silent. 
 He placed his elbow on the back of his chair, 
 and his open hand over his eyes, as if to screen 
 
 VOL. II. E 
 
74 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 them. Something had touched his bosom sud- 
 denly ; but the lad knew not what. At length, 
 and e\'idently with some effort, though without 
 changing his position in the least, Mr. Lupton 
 said, 
 
 " I cannot talk with you now, young man : 
 that fellow has ruffled me. Take that purse, 
 and come again some other time. I shall be 
 from home nearly three weeks. Come again 
 this day three weeks, and I shall have some- 
 thing of importance to talk to you about. 
 Take particular notice, now, and be punc- 
 tual. But what are you doing ? and where 
 do you live ? " 
 
 Colin satisfied him on both these particu- 
 lars. The squire continued, *' Then come as 
 I have appointed, and your situation shall be 
 exchanged for a better. I will make your for- 
 tune : but I cannot talk now. Come again, 
 my boy, — come again." 
 
 Colin stood a few moments in silent sus- 
 pense as to the course to be pursued. The 
 unexpected event which had taken place had 
 
COLIN CLINK. 75 
 
 entirely defeated the purpose for which he 
 had ventured to Kiddal Hall, while the 
 squire's language half confounded him. Should 
 he speak again ? He dared not, except to 
 express his thanks ; retiring therefore from the 
 room, he left the squire's purse untouched 
 upon the table. 
 
 Colin reached Whinmoor shortly before 
 ten o'^clock. 
 
 When Mr. Lupton arose from his reverie, 
 and strode across the room, his foot struck 
 against the bullet that had been discharged 
 from Jerry Clink's pistol. He looked up to 
 the wall ; and, though the blow which at the 
 critical moment Colin had struck diverted it 
 from himself, the squire saw, with a strange 
 sensation, for which he could not account, 
 that it had passed through the canvass, and 
 near the bosom of his wife's picture. 
 
 e2 
 
COLIN CLINK. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Gives a description of Fanny's visit to the madhouse, 
 and of her interview v^ith her father. 
 
 After the lapse of some few days, during 
 which Mr. Lupton left the hall on his pro- 
 posed brief journey, — (though not without 
 first sending a messenger to Whinmoor with 
 a small packet for Colin, which the latter 
 found to contain fifteen guineas, and a repeti- 
 tion of the invitation to appear again at Kiddal 
 on the day previously named,) — Fanny's ar- 
 rangements for going over Doctor RowePs 
 establishment were completed; and according 
 to appointment she set out one morning, early 
 after breakfast, and reached Nabbfield about 
 ten o'clock. As she approached the place 
 
COLIN CLINK. 77 
 
 her heart began to throb violently, and her 
 hands to tremble as she placed them on her 
 bosom, as if by that action to still the poor 
 troubled thing within. She gazed at the 
 building as though every single stone was a 
 separate source of fear to her ; at its melan- 
 choly windows as so many eyes, out of which 
 madness and pain looked upon the pleasant 
 world below. As she passed along the foot- 
 path outside the boundary wall she stopped, 
 and listened. Instead of sounds of woe, which 
 she expected to hear from within, the black- 
 bird and the linnet in the plantations sounded 
 their pleasant notes there the same as else- 
 where. The great and gaudy dragon-fly 
 darted along the sunny wall, and little clouds 
 of gnats flew in innumerable and ever-changing 
 evolutions beneath the pendent branches of 
 the young elms and sycamores by the road- 
 side. When she saw the gateway she first lin- 
 gered, and then stopped, to gather breath 
 and resolution. She could not: she looked 
 again, and then retraced her steps some yards. 
 
78 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 hoping to quiet herself, and grow more calm. 
 She looked up at the sky : it was bright, and 
 vast, and deep, with an intense blue, that 
 seemed as unfathomable as eternity. She 
 thought of her father, and then of another 
 Father who alone could help her and sustain 
 her in all trials. Fanny sunk down upon the 
 bank, and clasped her hands together in silent 
 and spontaneous prayer for assistance to meet 
 the coming trial. She arose strengthened, 
 calm, and assured. 
 
 As the keeper of the lodge-gate opened it 
 to admit her, Fanny inquired, with evident 
 signs of fear, whether the people whom she 
 saw at some distance up the pathway, would 
 do her any injury ? These were several of the 
 partially-recovered and harmless patients, who 
 had been allowed to take exercise in the gar- 
 den. Although Fanny's question was answered 
 in the negative, and she was told not to be 
 in the least afraid of them, she yet advanced 
 up the pathway with a quick-beating heart, 
 and a timorous step. As she approached them, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 79 
 
 several of the people held up their heads, and 
 gazed half-vacantly at her. 
 
 Fanny hurried along with increased rapidity, 
 and reached the doctor's house without inter- 
 ruption. She rung the bell, and stood a long 
 time before anybody answered it, though she 
 knew not it was more than a moment, so occu- 
 pied was her mind with the thoughts of what 
 was about to ensue. " If my father he here,"' 
 thought she, — " if I should see him, and hear 
 him say his name is the same as mine, what 
 in the world shall I do ? How shall I conduct 
 myself? What shall I say to him?" and, as 
 she thus thought the door opened, and Fanny 
 was ushered into an elegantly-furnished room, 
 such as she had not before seen, and at the 
 same time into the presence of the doctor's 
 wife. 
 
 As I have before stated that the visit had 
 been previously arranged, Mrs. Rowel was of 
 course prepared to conduct her almost imme- 
 diately over the estabUshment. As she suc- 
 cessively passed through open rooms in which 
 
80 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 the more harmless patients were assembled, — 
 some laughing and playful, others desponding 
 and weeping over again their troubles of former 
 days, — and thence was conducted down gloomy 
 ranges of cells, the dim light of which just 
 served to show the fairest of God's creations 
 writhing in foul struggle with the demon of 
 madness, — or, yet more remotely, was taken to 
 behold sights which humanity forbids me to 
 describe, but which, once seen, can never be 
 forgotten ; — as all this, I repeat, passed before 
 the affrighted eyes of Fanny, and brought up 
 to her mind still more vividly the picture of 
 her own father, it was with the greatest diffi- 
 culty she could hide her emotion from those 
 who accompanied her. 
 
 Fanny and the doctor's wife now proceeded 
 together, and unaccompanied, down that wind- 
 ing passage which led to the yard where James 
 Woodruff obtained all of daylight and air 
 which he had enjoyed during many years. 
 The door was opened to the dazzling light 
 of Midsummer time, so that Fanny could 
 
COLIN CLINK. 81 
 
 scarcely see, after being so long in the dun- 
 geon-like places of that dreary mansion. But 
 there stood the black old yew-tree, looking as 
 if carved out of ebony, amidst the blaze of 
 a mid-day sun, and under its deep hard shadow 
 lay a man, motionless as might be the monu- 
 mental effigy in some old church aisle ; his 
 eyes upon the bright space above him, and 
 his hands fast bound across his breast. As the 
 noise occasioned by the approach of Fanny and 
 Mrs. Rowel reached his ear, he gently turned 
 his head, and displayed to the gaze of Fanny 
 a countenance pale and thoughtful, surrounded 
 by a profusion of deep black hair, and bright- 
 ened by a pair of eyes of the same hue, that 
 looked like spots of jet set in a face of ala- 
 baster. 
 
 " And is he," remarked Fanny, as she turn- 
 ed towards her conductress, " is he as wild as 
 those men we have seen in the cells.?" 
 
 " The doctor," replied Mrs. Rowel, " says 
 he is quite insane ; though for myself I some- 
 times think he talks as properly and sensibly 
 
 E 5 
 
82 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 as you or I might do. But then Mr. Rowel 
 says that no dependence is to be placed upon 
 that, because people who are quite out of 
 their senses will sometimes appear as reason- 
 able in their conversation as any other per- 
 son." 
 
 This declaration somewhat startled Fanny's 
 faith in the virtue of common sense ; and, as 
 if seeking for an illustration of this strange 
 doctrine in the person before her, she again 
 turned to the yew-tree. She started. Those 
 coal-black eyes were still upon her, fixed, and 
 apparently full of some mysterious meaning. 
 She dreaded lest the madman should be medi- 
 tating wrong against her, and instinctively 
 seized the arm of the doctor''s wife. 
 
 " Do not be alarmed," observed the latter 
 encouragingly ; '' he will do you no injury in 
 the world. He looks more frightful than he 
 is a great deal ; his hair makes him look so : 
 but he and I have had many conversations 
 together. I will try if he will speak, and then 
 you can hear how these mad people talk. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 83 
 
 James ! " raising her voice, " how do you do 
 to-day?" 
 
 He rolled round on his back, and by a 
 sudden and peculiar action, which long cap- 
 tivity and experience alone could have ren- 
 dered familiar to him, leapt instantaneously 
 up without the assistance of his arms. Fanny 
 shrunk convulsively within the door, in dread 
 lest he should approach her. 
 
 '' Stand still, my dear," remarked her com- 
 panion ; " there is not the least danger from 
 him. Now, do be assured, and come for- 
 ward." 
 
 Fanny obeyed with trembling, especially 
 when she saw the man advance towards them 
 with the intention, apparently, of addressing 
 either her or her conductress. He spoke, how- 
 ever, in the first instance, to the latter. 
 
 *' Good morning, good lady, and to your 
 young companion. How bright and beauti- 
 ful the day is! How does the world look 
 beyond these walls? Beautiful, I dare say; 
 glorious far beyond any thought of mine, for 
 
84 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 I have almost forgotten what robe the earth 
 wears in summer time. Yet it is full of de- 
 light even on this arid sand, and between 
 these burning walls. And so,- young lady,"' 
 — and James Woodruff turned his dark eyes 
 upon Fanny's countenance as he spoke in a 
 more jesting, yet melancholy strain, — " you 
 have come to look at me as a curiosity and 
 a show ?" 
 
 " Oh, no, sir !" exclaimed she in a hurried 
 tone, and with her face deepening with blushes, 
 " I — I — I am very glad to see you, sir." 
 
 " Are you ? " exclaimed Woodruff earnestly. 
 " Then Heaven bless that heart, and reward 
 you with its choicest gifts, for feeling glad to 
 see such an unfortunate thing as I I Glad to 
 see me ! Why, that is more than any one 
 has said these many years ! Forgive me, 
 young woman ; but in your face I see over 
 again the good angel that delivered Peter 
 from his dungeon, and it is a blessing to my 
 eyes to look upon one like you. I am not 
 mad, young lady ; indeed I am not. Nay, do 
 
COLIN CLINK. 85 
 
 not shrink. I would dash this head against 
 the wall sooner than dream of injury to you. 
 I had a wife once at your age: your youth 
 brings her back again, till I could think she 
 had come from heaven to plead for me ! I 
 have been here twenty winters, — I have given 
 up all my land and money — everything but 
 life — for liberty, and have still been basely 
 deceived ! Now do not, for the love of God, 
 and of justice ! do not doubt me. I am not 
 mad. I never was. I was stolen from my 
 home, and from my daughter — a child — a little 
 child." 
 
 Fanny's brain grew dizzy. She clung to her 
 companion for support. 
 
 " Let us go, my dear," said Mrs. Rowel. 
 " You cannot bear it. James, why do you 
 talk so?" 
 
 " I will not go!" cried Fanny eagerly, and 
 struggling hard to rally herself " Tell me 
 your name — your name!" added she, address- 
 ing the captive. 
 
 '' Woodruff I " cried the poor prisoner. 
 
86 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 Fanny's glazed eyes were fixed on him lor 
 an instant, — she sprung forwards with a shriek, 
 and fell at full length on the ground, and as 
 though dead, at his feet ! 
 
 Mrs. Rowel and the unfortunate James 
 Woodruff stood equally astonished. The lat- 
 ter attempted to raise Fanny : he couid not — 
 his arms were bound — and he laughed. But 
 the next instant, as he requested the mistress 
 of the mansion to do so, he stooped over the 
 insensible body before him, and burst into a 
 flood of tears. 
 
 "Who is she?" he demanded. "What 
 soul of beauty is it ? " 
 
 " I do not know, James," replied the lady; 
 " she is a stranger to me."*' 
 
 " Would that I could touch her cheek with 
 my finger ! " said Woodruff. '' She is good — 
 good indeed ! " 
 
 In the mean time Robson had answered the 
 call of Mrs. Rowel, and come to her assist- 
 ance. 
 
 " Carry her into the house. Or, stay fetch 
 
COLIN CLINK. 87 
 
 water," said she ; " she had better be reco- 
 vered here ;" and Robson was accordingly de- 
 spatched for a glass of water, with which he 
 soon returned. It was applied to her lips, 
 and partially sprinkled on her forehead. After 
 a time she began to recover ; she opened her 
 eyes, looked round, and spoke — " Where is 
 he?" 
 
 " Here ! I am here, young lady," replied 
 Woodruff, as he looked her earnestly in the 
 face to fix her attention. " What of me ? " 
 
 " My father ! " exclaimed Fanny, as she 
 again sunk into a state of insensibility. 
 
 « Father ! '' repeated Woodruff,—" my fa- 
 ther ! I her father ! She my daughter ! '' 
 He strove to wrench his arms free to clasp 
 her to his bosom, but again he could not. 
 
 " Take her away, Robson,'* said Mrs. Rowel. 
 *' What does all this mean ? Take her away ! 
 — take her away ! '" 
 
 And Fanny was carried back by the strong 
 man to the room into which she had at first 
 been introduced ; while James Woodruff re- 
 
88 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 mained standing upon that spot, gazing on 
 that ground where his child had laid, as 
 though the great world contained in it no 
 other place which, even to him, deserved for 
 a moment to be looked upon. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 89 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Is so very necessary between the ninth and eleventh that 
 it could not possibly be dispensed with. 
 
 When Fanny was sufficiently recovered, Mrs. 
 Rowel questioned her very particularly upon 
 the circumstances that had occurred, and exhi- 
 bited a great deal of laudable curiosity to be 
 fully enlightened touching the mystery that 
 had been enacted before her. Fanny would 
 fain have kept it to herself; but too much 
 had already passed in the presence of the 
 doctor's wife to render such a line of conduct 
 altogether practicable. Nevertheless, it was 
 not until a faithful promise of secrecy had 
 been made on the part of Mrs. Rowel, that 
 Fanny was induced to communicate to her so 
 
90 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 much of her story as was needful to render 
 something like an intelligible whole. In this 
 account she omitted any mention of the rource 
 from whence the information respecting her 
 father had been obtained; and also forbore 
 making the most distant allusion to the death 
 of her late master, or to the part which she 
 secretly believed the doctor had taken in that 
 event. 
 
 The lady listened to her narrative with great 
 astonishment, and when it was concluded, seiz- 
 ed both her hands in an affectionate manner, 
 and exclaimed, " Then, my dear, you are my 
 niece : — the doctor is your own uncle, for 
 your mother and he were brother and sister!" 
 
 This information, as may be readily sup- 
 posed, astonished Fanny, though it did not 
 affect her so much as the discovery of her 
 father made just before. She thought of her 
 own uncle being a murderer ; — she regretted 
 ever having mentioned the subject to Colin, 
 and resolved never to allude to it again before 
 any one. She dreaded the very thought that, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 91 
 
 bad as he was, her own uncle should owe to 
 her his degradation, and an ignominious death 
 on a public scaffold. The thought of all this 
 she could not endure; and, in order to avert 
 the possibility of danger from any unexpected 
 quarter, she now begged of the doctor's wife to 
 hide from her husband the fact that she had 
 discovered her father in those cells, lest it 
 might lead to a still worse danger, the bare 
 possibility of which she dreaded to think upon. 
 Mrs. Rowel not only promised to do all this, — 
 a promise which eventually she fulfilled, — but 
 also gave Fanny the fullest assurance that she 
 would exercise her utmost endeavours in the 
 attempt to prevail upon her husband to set 
 James Woodruff at liberty. For all this 
 Fanny returned her most heartfelt thanks, and 
 then took her leave. 
 
 For some time afterwards she could take no 
 rest, no food, think of nothing in the world 
 except her father. She felt eager to see Colin 
 and inform him of what had occurred, but 
 found it impossible to do so until some few 
 
92 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 days after, when she took the opportunity 
 afforded by a Sunday afternoon to hasten over 
 to Whinmoor. 
 
 As she passed down the fields, she felt fear- 
 ful of again encountering Miss Sowersoft, and 
 tried to plan several little ways for seeing Colin 
 unknown to her. In the midst of her reveries 
 she suddenly beheld old George sauntering 
 along the hedge side, with his hands on his 
 back, and a bit of hawthorn blossom stuck in 
 the button-hole of his coat. To him Fanny 
 applied ; and as the old man most readily 
 undertook to execute her wishes, she waited in 
 the fields until he sent Colin out to meet her. 
 Together, then, they slowly traversed the fields, 
 while Fanny detailed her extraordinary stcry, 
 and listened with additional wonder to that 
 which the youth in turn related respecting his 
 adventure at Kiddal Hall, and the great assist- 
 ance which, in consequence, the squire had 
 promised to afford him. This mightily revived 
 Fanny's hopes ; for in the person of ^Ir. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 93 
 
 Lupton she fancied she now saw one who would 
 aid in the liberation of her father. 
 
 But Colin somewhat clouded these fair 
 visions, when, after some thought, he told her 
 that as, in consequence of Mr. Lupton being 
 from home so long, it would be impossible to 
 communicate the matter to him, he would not 
 wait until the time was passed, and leave her 
 father in such a horrible place so much longer, 
 but would try a plan of his own contrivance 
 for effecting his liberation. 
 
 Having explained his scheme, and succeeded 
 in quieting Fanny's distrust as to its execution, 
 Colin bade her farewell, and promised to see 
 her again in a few days. 
 
94 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Plot and counter-plot. — The difference between two sides 
 of the same question curiously illustrated. 
 
 As Mrs. Rowel very strictly kept her word 
 with Fanny, and contrived to evade telling the 
 doctor any portion of the discovery that had 
 been made, that gentleman remained in the 
 happy belief that his project to convince his 
 niece of the deceased lawyer's falsehood had 
 entirely succeeded. James Woodruff was 
 therefore allowed to spend the day out of 
 his cell, as usual. 
 
 Early one morning, shortly after the inter- 
 view between himself and his daughter, already 
 recorded, he was pacing mechanically up and 
 down the yard, revolving in his agitated and 
 
COLIN CLINK. 95 
 
 confused mind the inexplicable doubts attend- 
 ing all that had recently occurred, when he was 
 momentarily startled from his reverie by ob- 
 serving something white skim above the wall, 
 make a seeming pause in the air, and then fall 
 to the ground within his inclosure. Woodruff 
 advanced towards it, and beheld a piece of 
 paper folded up like a letter. He eagerly 
 stooped to pick it up ; but his arms were 
 bound in that accursed ligature, which made 
 him more helpless than a child. He threw 
 himself wildly on the ground, and gathered it 
 up with his mouth; still he had no hands to 
 open it. He looked angrily round, but could 
 not discover anything that might aid him. He 
 placed it between his knees; — the attempt 
 failed, and the little packet dropped again to 
 the ground. Again he gathered it up, and 
 rose to his feet ; he placed it against the wall, 
 and with tongue and lips contrived, after much 
 trouble, to force it open. Again he sat on the 
 ground, placed it on his knee, and read as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
96 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 " The young woman who came to see you is 
 your own daughter, Frances Woodruff. Be 
 of good heart, as she is making all possible 
 exertions to liberate you. In order to effect 
 this, it is necessary that you contrive some 
 pretext for staying out in your yard until ten 
 o'clock at night, or later, on the third night 
 after this. If you should not succeed, then try 
 each night afterwards successively until you do 
 succeed. You will then see a head over the 
 north-east corner of the wall of the yard where 
 the yew-tree stands, and opposite the thickest 
 part of the east plantation. Wait in the corner 
 beneath, and a rope-ladder will be let down, by 
 which you can climb to the top and escape. 
 This is written by your daughter's friend, 
 Colin Clink, who will do his best to get you 
 out ; so do not be afraid of being betrayed. 
 
 " Fanny has seen this, and she prays God 
 night and day that you will be able to agree to 
 it. Do not be afraid, as Colin is sure to come 
 (happen what may, short of death) at the time 
 
COLIN CLINK. 97 
 
 appointed. The third night, mind, — or any 
 night after, at ten o'clock."" 
 
 Poor James could scarcely believe his eyes. 
 He almost doubted at first whether he was not 
 at length really growing insane, and whether 
 the circumstances which he fancied had so re- 
 cently occurred were not mental delusions, con- 
 sequent on his burning desire to be at liberty. 
 Could it indeed be possible that the glorious 
 hour was so near at hand ? — that his daughter 
 was alive ? — that he had seen her, — a beauti- 
 ful young woman, like what his own wife was 
 when first he took her to his home ; — that she 
 was aiding him once more to tread the earth 
 free ? — that he might again have a home, — 
 be revenged on the man who so cruelly wrong- 
 ed him, — and, once more reinstated in his 
 house at Charnwood, enjoy that greatest of all 
 earthly blessings, a father's pride in the beauty, 
 the virtue, and the heroism of his child ? 
 
 These thoughts were almost more than he 
 
 VOL. II. F 
 
98 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 could bear, and he wept aloud, as he mentally 
 offered up a prayer of gratitude to Heaven for 
 all its goodness to him. 
 
 Afterwards, in order to prevent the possi- 
 bility of any discovery, he tore up the letter 
 into the most minute fragments with his teeth, 
 and buried them in a hole which he made with 
 his foot, near the trunk of the old yew-tree. 
 Nevertheless he was not safe. There were 
 enemies without, of whom he knew nothing, 
 and treachery was at work to undermine 
 Colin's project. 
 
 It was stated some few pages back that 
 Fanny and Colin were sauntering in the fields 
 on the old farm at Whinmoor, when the former 
 related her discoveries at Nabbfield, and the 
 latter explained to her the plan he had formed 
 for assisting her father to escape. Now, at the 
 time when he was earnestly engaged in doing 
 this, Miss Sowersoft was standing behind 
 an adjacent hedge, having stealthily crept 
 there with her shoes off, in order to gratify 
 a certain irrepressible curiosity to know what 
 
COLIN CLINK, 99 
 
 object Fanny could have in coming so far to 
 see Colin, old George having announced her 
 arrival. Although Colin frequently, and very 
 fortunately, spoke in too low a voice for Miss 
 Sowersoft to catch the meaning of the projected 
 attempt, and also mentioned so few of the de- 
 tails of his plan, that she could scarcely make 
 head or tail of it ; yet so much reached her at- 
 tentive ear as sufficed to form in her mind the 
 ground-work of some very horrible suspicions 
 of Colin's honesty. The great fertility of her 
 genius in matters of this description soon 
 enabled her to make out, from the broken 
 discourse she had heard, that Colin was no 
 better than a thief, and that he actually medi- 
 tated committing a burglary upon the premises 
 of Dr. Rowel some night in the course of the 
 ensuing week ; while Fanny was doing neither 
 more nor less than aiding and abetting him in 
 his nefarious attempt. But as her information 
 was not of a sufficiently positive kind to justify 
 her in acquainting the constable, and getting 
 him immediately apprehended, she came to the 
 
 F 2 
 
100 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 conclusion that Dr. Rowel ought at least to be 
 put upon his guard, in order that he might 
 station proper watchmen in his neighbourhood 
 to seize the culprit whenever he might make 
 his appearance. This matter also afforded such 
 an excellent opportunity for her to revenge 
 herself upon Fanny for what she had formerly 
 said before the doctor's face, on the occasion of 
 Colin's illness, that she could not think by any 
 means of allowing it to slip by. Accordingly, 
 some time before the night arrived which Colin 
 had appointed for his trial, Miss Sowersoft 
 might have been seen marching with import- 
 ant step up the gardens before the doctor's 
 establishment, with the intention of commu- 
 nicating to that gentleman in person some 
 hints of the imminent danger that threatened 
 his property. 
 
 On her introduction to him, she announced 
 the object of her visit in the following manner. 
 " It is a most unpleasant thing to me, Dr. 
 Rowel, to have to call upon you on such a case 
 of secrecy as the present. You are aware, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 101 
 
 doctor, that I have a boy about me over at the 
 farm — '' 
 
 " Yes, yes," interrupted the doctor, " I 
 know him well. Palethorpe, you mean ? " 
 
 " Oh no, sir ! — oh no ! — not him — by no 
 means. He is a middle-aged man, and a very 
 honest one. No, no. I mean the boy that you 
 attended a while ago — Colin Clink. That 
 boy, sir, I am sorry to say, is as vicious and 
 bad a character as ever crossed a threshold. I 
 am sure, if he escapes the gallows at last, it 
 will only be because he was born to be 
 drowned. He has been hatching mischief of 
 one sort or another every day since he came 
 into the world, and now he has got to such a 
 pitch — '' 
 
 Here Miss Sowersoft bent her head towards 
 the doctor, and whispered during the space of 
 ten minutes, in so low a voice that nobody save 
 the doctor himself could catch a word of what 
 was said. 
 
 " You amaze me ! " exclaimed the doctor. 
 
 '' I assure you, doctor," she reiterated, '* I 
 
102 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 believe every word I have said is as true as 
 
 that you sit there." 
 
 The doctor thanked Miss Sowersoft for her 
 information, assured her two or three times 
 over that he would make the best use of it, and 
 very politely ended the conference by wishing 
 her good morning. 
 
 Never, I verily believe, did any mischief- 
 maker feel a greater degree of self-satisfaction 
 than did Miss Sowersoft, as she returned to 
 Whinmoor. What revenge should she not 
 take when Colin was caught in the very fact of 
 house-breaking, and when Fanny would be im- 
 mediately involved in the same crime ! The 
 thought was so inspiriting, that she tripped 
 along with a degree of briskness which would 
 have induced any one who did not see her face 
 to believe her at least twenty years the junior 
 of herself. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 103 
 
 CHAPTER Xir. 
 
 Colin prepares for his undertaking, and exhibits great 
 stubbornness of temper in withstanding many difficul- 
 ties. 
 
 From the time at which James Woodruff 
 had received the little packet, up to the event- 
 ful night when the attempt to extricate him 
 from confinement was to be made, Colin had 
 busily employed all his spare hours in manu- 
 facturing in secret such articles for his purpose 
 as he conceived he should require. This he 
 was the better enabled to do, from having ac- 
 companied Fanny on a visit of inspection to 
 the place, when, by the top of the old yew- 
 tree being visible above the high wall, she was 
 enabled to point out to him the exact spot in 
 
104 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 which her father was confined, and where his 
 attempt must necessarily be made. 
 
 On the afternoon preceding the appointed 
 night, Colin asked for leave to go to Bramleigh 
 on particular business ; and at the same time 
 stated, that, as it might detain him rather late, 
 he should very probably have to remain there 
 all night. Much to his surprise, Miss Sower- 
 soft immediately granted his request with a 
 more than ordinary grace ; at the same time 
 remarking very pleasantly, " that if his busi- 
 ness there was but honest and good, she hoped 
 he would succeed in it, as everybody ought to 
 do; but if people went about unprincipled 
 jobs of any kind, it was very right and just 
 that the evil spirit they served should betray 
 them in the end." 
 
 At any other time Colin might not have 
 noticed these remarks ; but, under present 
 circumstances, they sunk deep into his mind. 
 He feared that his design had, by some means 
 or other, become, if not wholly known, at least 
 suspected ; and during the next half hour. 
 
COLIN CLIiNK. 105 
 
 instead of setting out, he sat down upon the 
 step of the open house-door, considering what 
 course he ought to pursue. The doubts which 
 then arose in his mind were not so much the 
 result of fear as of cautious forecast, touching 
 the probable result of his enterprise. If by 
 any means it had been found out, his wisest 
 course would be to abandon it for the present, 
 and either wait some more favourable oppor- 
 tunity, or leave the whole matter in abeyance 
 until his visit to the Hall, on the Squire's 
 return, afforded him a chance of explaining 
 the circumstances to that gentleman, and of 
 gaining, if possible, his assistance. Yet, if he 
 did so, what would Mr. Woodruff think ? He 
 would wait in horrible anxiety hour after hour, 
 still depending upon the word of him, who said 
 that nothing short of death should prevent his 
 coming. These reflections decided the ques- 
 tion. Colin rose up, and within ten minutes 
 was some distance on his road. 
 
 Another circumstance disturbed him. Be- 
 fore leaving the house, he saw Mr. Palethorpe, 
 
 F 5 
 
106 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 with his best inexpressibles on, preparing him- 
 self apparently for a short journey ; and, on 
 Colin's putting the question to him, he observed, 
 with a malicious grin, that he also was going to 
 Bramleigh. The youth turned pale, and red, 
 and pale again, as shame and fear alternately 
 predominated, though he pursued his way 
 with undiminished resolution, conscious that 
 he had engaged in a good cause, and resolv- 
 ed rather to fail in it than to commit him- 
 self in falsehood, through the foolish dread 
 of some undefined and perhaps imaginary 
 danger. 
 
 Colin arrived at his mother's house about 
 six o'clock in the evening, and, by previous 
 appointment, met tliere with his friend Fanny. 
 Together they put everything into a state of 
 preparation ; while Colin, as a precautionary 
 measure, in case anything unfortunate should 
 happen, obliged the young woman to take 
 three guineas of the fifteen which Mr. Lupton 
 had sent him, and the whole of which he had 
 brought in his pocket, in case it should be re- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 107 
 
 quired for the service of Mr. Woodruff* wlien 
 he had got out of the mad-house. 
 
 As hour after hour passed by, the young 
 couple grew indescribably anxious and restless. 
 Fanny dreaded that some unforeseen evil would 
 befall Colin, and with tears in her eyes now 
 begged him to give up the design, and wait 
 until the Squire's return enabled them to do f>o 
 much more securely. To this he replied in 
 few words, that what he had promised to do he 
 would do, happen what might. 
 
 " Then," said Fanny, " let us tell your mo- 
 ther all about it. I dare say she means the 
 best for both of us, after all ; and then, per- 
 haps, she may think of something to help you 
 in the attempt.'' 
 
 Mrs. Clink was accordingly informed, very 
 much to her amazement, of the principal heads 
 of this affkir, so far as already known to the 
 reader, and also of the business which, in con- 
 sequence, Colin now had upon his hands. This 
 last she considered highly chimerical and dan- 
 gerous; she prophesied it would lead to nothing 
 
108 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 but trouble to himself; declared positively that 
 twenty better methods could readily be devised; 
 and concluded by assuring her son, that if he 
 did not rehnquish it at once and for ever, he 
 would surely live to repent it before another 
 week was over his head. Colin's reply again 
 was, that no representations whatever could 
 induce him to alter his purpose ; and he began 
 to get ready, and tie up his simple apparatus 
 for climbing the wall. 
 
 At half-past nine o'clock he was ready to set 
 out. Somehow, he knew not why, Colin felt 
 that he must bid his mother and Fanny a more 
 serious adieu than usual. His mother kissed 
 him, and Fanny, — she, when in the shadow of 
 the door, kissed him too, and asked a thousand 
 blessings on his head. He promised, in case 
 he succeeded, to be back with Mr. Woodruff 
 in the course of an hour and a half; and, 
 having again shaken hands with Fanny, he 
 passed out into the street. 
 
 That hour and a half passed heavily by, 
 during which Mrs. Clink and Fanny talked 
 
COLIN CLINK. 109 
 
 the matter over again, reflected, speculated, 
 hoped, and feared. Colin did not come. 
 
 Eleven o''clock struck — he was not there ; 
 they looked out, but could see nothing ; lis- 
 tened, but could hear nothing. 
 
 Twelve came — midnight — he did not return. 
 Fanny could not be restrained by Mrs. Clink 
 any longer, and she went up alone to the scene 
 of his enterprise, trusting there at least to 
 ascertain something. All was silent as the 
 grave. One solitary light alone, as of some 
 one retiring to quiet rest, was visible in the 
 mad-house, and that was all. But while she 
 stood, she heard a horseman enter the stony 
 yard, as though he had come from the Whin- 
 moor road. The light of a lantern glanced 
 along the walls above, and then vanished in 
 the stables. She hastened, terrified, back again 
 — Colin was not there. The whole night passed 
 — morning broke — the world grew light and 
 gay — but he did not come again. 
 
110 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Colin's attempt to liberate Fanny's father fiom the mad- 
 house, with the adventures that befell him there- 
 upon. 
 
 When Colin had taken leave of his friends, 
 and passed out of his mother's house, he 
 found the night, as he thought, peculiarly 
 adapted for his purpose. The air was dark 
 and troubled, vexed with contending winds, 
 which blew, as it seemed, now from one quar- 
 ter of the heavens, and then again from its 
 opposite, while drops of rain occasionally came 
 on the blast, succeeded by momentary showers 
 of hail. Though summer-time, the weather 
 felt as though it had suddenly changed to 
 that of March, so cold and ungenial was the 
 blast. 
 
COLIN CLINK. Ill 
 
 He pursued his way for some distance 
 along a dark lane, fenced high with thick 
 hawthorn on each side, and traversed by deep 
 ruts, here and there containing puddles of 
 water, which reflected some Uttle light as they 
 caught the sky, and deceived him with the 
 idea that something white was lying in his 
 road. From this lane he crossed a stile and 
 several fields, as offering the most direct route 
 to the back part of the grounds around the 
 doctor's house. When arrived there, he stop- 
 ped outside the plantation, in order to assure 
 himself that no person was about. Nothinp- 
 living stirred at that hour. He forced his way 
 through a thorny gap in the fence, and soon 
 found himself at that north-east corner of the 
 yard-wall which he had particularly specified. 
 He now uncoiled his rope, and cautiously 
 threw up that end of it to which a grappling- 
 hook was attached. After a few efforts it 
 caught firm hold, and, as the distant clock 
 struck ten, he ascended to the top of the wall ; 
 though, as he fancied this elevation would 
 
I 12 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 bring him in relief against the sky, he crouch- 
 ed as closely as possible, in order to avoid be- 
 ing seen, should it unluckily so chance that any 
 individual of the establishment was about. 
 
 "Are you there?" asked Colin, in a low 
 but earnest voice, as he peeped down into 
 the yard. 
 
 " Yes," answered one from below, in a simi- 
 lar tone. '' All right. Make haste !'* 
 
 Colin's heart leaped within him for joy. Now 
 was he well rewarded for all his pain and trou- 
 ble: — to think that he had succeeded at last, 
 notwithstanding all his mother's and Fanny's 
 fears ! Hastily he drew up the hempen lad- 
 der after him, and, sitting upon the tup of the 
 wall, fixed it on the other side, in order to en- 
 able James Woodruff to ascend. 
 
 " Put your feet in, and hold by the sides," 
 said Colin, as he saw dimly that the figure was 
 coming up. 
 
 " Yes, yes," replied he. «' Stop there till I 
 get safe to the top." 
 
 And in the next minute, when the body was 
 
COLIN CLINK. 113 
 
 half above the wall, Colin received a heavy 
 blow on the head from a short bludgeon, ac- 
 companied by a fierce exclamation and an oath, 
 that if he did not surrender that instant his 
 brains should be blown out ! Regardless of 
 the height of the wall, he instantly dropped, 
 and, though half stunned, and sprained in the 
 leg besides, he endeavoured to make off. The 
 fellow who, it was now evident, had been sta- 
 tioned in the yard on purpose to draw him into 
 this trap, — poor Woodruff had been kept in his 
 cell, — was afraid to risk his limbs or his neck 
 by following Colin's example ; but, instead of 
 so doing, he began to bawl lustily for assist- 
 ance. Colin heard two blunderbusses fired, 
 and afterwards the crash of pursuers through 
 the plantations behind him. Conscious that 
 the injury he had received from the fall would 
 prevent him from escaping them by flight, he 
 raised himself up against a gate-post, with his 
 arms close against his sides. In this situation 
 he had the pleasure, two minutes afterwards, of 
 both hearing and seeing a couple of stout fel- 
 
114 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 lows rush past within a yard of him, one of 
 whom, by his voice and language, Colin recog- 
 nised to be Mr. Palethorpe. Within a short 
 period, having " lost scent," they returned, 
 and lingered a few moments about the gate, 
 as though irresolute which way to take. Dur- 
 ing this brief interval he plainly overheard the 
 following conversation. 
 
 " Dang him, I wish we'd hit him ! It would 
 have saved us all this trouble." 
 
 " Ay, ay, and hit him I will," replied Pale- 
 thorpe, " if I can once get sight of him. Meesis 
 was quite right, you see, in what she overheard 
 him say — a young vagabone ! She told me 
 afore I came out, if I did get a shot at him, to 
 pepper him well ; and so I will. If we kill 
 him in trespass and burglary, I think the la'w 
 will stand at our backs. Dang him ! — we lost 
 sound of him somewhere here about, and I 
 should not wonder if he 's crept under some of 
 these bushes. Fll fire in, and chance it." 
 
 No sooner said than done. Off went the 
 blunderbuss into the thick underwood, for the 
 
COLIN CLINK. 115 
 
 moment making the spot whereon they stood as 
 light as day, and illuminating Colin's figure as 
 brilliantly as though he had stood beneath the 
 flaring light of a gas-burner. Luckily the two 
 men stood with their backs towards him, or he 
 must inevitably have been detected. The re- 
 port over, they listened ; but a few frightened 
 birds, blindly flapping their wings amongst the 
 trees, were all that could be heard. Palethorpe 
 loaded again, and then made a proposal, which 
 was agreed to by his companion, that they 
 should take a circuit of the plantation, and 
 then get on to the road. 
 
 The opportunity thus affbrded to Colin was 
 made the best use of by him, and he endea- 
 voured to steal off in the direction of his mo- 
 ther's house. But, when he had cleared the 
 plantation fence, he again heard his pursuers 
 beating about in the road between him and 
 that place, so that he deemed it most advis- 
 able to take the direction of Whinmoor. In 
 that direction the coast seemed clear ; and, ac- 
 cordingly, keeping closely under the darkness 
 
116 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 of the hedge-side, he set off at his best speed. 
 For the period of three quarters of an hour or 
 more he pursued his way unobstructed ; and 
 as at the expiration of that time he had reached 
 the Leeds and York highway, about a mile 
 beyond which the old farm was situated, he 
 began to congratulate himself upon his escape. 
 Here he slackened his pace in order to reco- 
 ver breath and strength, both of which were 
 well-nigh exhausted by his previous exertion. 
 
 As he rose to the top of a gentle hill, which 
 the highway crossed, the sound of a horse's 
 hoofs upon the hard road, though at a con- 
 siderable distance, struck his ear. It came 
 from the direction in which he had come, and 
 seemed to be getting nearer. Was it any one 
 pursuing him? His fears told him it must be 
 so. Instead, therefore, of pursuing the road 
 any farther, he leapt the fence, and hurried by 
 a shorter cut over the fields in the direction of 
 Miss Sowersoft's house. As he advanced the 
 gusty wind again and again brought along 
 with it the sound of violent galloping. It was 
 
COLlxN CLINK. 117 
 
 gaining rapidly upon him ; but he was now 
 nearer the house, and the horseman, if destined 
 to the same place, would, he knew, be obliged 
 to keep the beaten road, which would take him 
 nearly a mile farther than that which Colin 
 himself had taken. As he crept quietly into 
 the farm-yard he perceived a light in one of 
 the lofts. The door was open, and a waggon 
 stood beneath. Abel and old George were 
 loading it with hay, for the purpose of send- 
 ing it during the night to York ; in order to 
 be in that city sufficiently early on the follow- 
 ing morning. There was no time to lose ; and 
 to stay at the farm to be taken prisoner would 
 be quite as bad as though he had allowed him- 
 self to be taken at first. He therefore walked 
 boldly up, and briefly told them that while he 
 was at Bramleigh a plot had been laid by Pale- 
 thorpe to entrap him ; that he had threatened 
 to shoot him if he could catch him ; that it 
 was with the greatest difficulty he had escaped ; 
 and that even now he believed they had sent 
 some one on horseback to pursue him. 
 
118 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 All this being to their own knowledge pretty 
 characteristic of the aforesaid Palethorpe, they 
 did not hesitate in agreeing to Colin's proposal 
 that he should get into the waggon, have the 
 hay-trusses piled around and over him, so as 
 not to exclude the air, and in this manner to 
 convey him to York. In order to bind them 
 the more strongly to their promises of strict 
 silence and secrecy, Colin gave Abel one of his 
 guineas, to be afterwards divided between the 
 two. He then jumped into the waggon, and in 
 a few minutes was very effectually put out of 
 sight. In a few minutes afterwards a horse- 
 man dashed into the yard, and demanded of 
 them whether Colin had come home. Abel 
 denied that he was under any roof there; 
 and, after undergoing a strong test of his 
 powers of equivocation, contrived, very much 
 to Colin's satisfaction, to persuade the pursuer 
 to go home again. 
 
 Some time afterwards the horses were tackled 
 on, the waggon began to move, and a tedious 
 journey of more than six hours' duration 
 
COLIN CLINK. 119 
 
 brought them within the old walled city of 
 York, at about seven o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Having deposited his waggon in the market- 
 place, Abel now invited Colin, who had made 
 his way out of the vehicle when some two 
 miles off the city, to accompany him to a 
 public-house. This request the lad complied 
 with ; and, while making his breakfast ob- 
 tained ink and paper from the landlord, and 
 wrote a short letter to his mother, and an- 
 other to Fanny, explaining the circumstances 
 which had led to his absence and flight, and 
 promising to write again as soon as he had 
 rci-olved in what place he should settle for the 
 present, as he did not consider it safe to re- 
 main permanently, even at the distance he 
 then was. These he gave in charge to Abel, 
 who vowed to deliver them both safe and 
 speedily. He then inquired of Colin whether 
 he did not intend to go back again ? 
 
 '* Not till I know that everything is safe," 
 replied the youth, *' or else it would have 
 been useless to come here." 
 
']20 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 " Then what do you intend to do? or where 
 does V mean going?" again asked the man. 
 
 " I am quite undecided yet," remarked 
 Colin ; *' but I shall find out a place some- 
 where, depend upon it." 
 
 " Well, lad," said Abel, " if I could do 
 aught for thee, I would ; but I mean leaving 
 our missis's myself as soon as I can. I '11 
 either list, or go to Lunnun very soon, for 
 it 's beggarly work here." 
 
 The thought struck Colin, — should he go 
 to London? He had money, very luckily 
 sufficient to keep him awhile ; and, so far off, 
 he would be safe enough. When there, as 
 he dared not return to Bramleigh to pay 
 his promised visit to Kiddal Hall, he could 
 write to the Squire, and tell him what had 
 happened, which would do quite as well; and 
 doubtless enable him, with Mr. Lupton's as- 
 sistance, not only very shortly to triumph 
 over his persecutors, but give him suffici- 
 ent power to effect successfully that great 
 object, the attempt to achieve which had so 
 
COLIN CLINK, 1:21 
 
 unexpectedly led to his present unpleasant 
 situation. 
 
 He finally took his leave of Abel in the 
 market-place, and then rambled alone and 
 thoughtfully about the town, until within an 
 hour or two of mid-day. 
 
 VOT. II. 
 
IS^ COLIN CLINK, 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Country notions of London. — A night-journey to the 
 Metropolis, and Colin's arrival there. 
 
 The good people of the Great City possess 
 but a slight idea of the light in which they 
 and the modern Babylon are regarded by the 
 remote and rustic natives of the provinces. 
 Colin partook largely of the general sentiment 
 respecting that wonderful place, and its, in 
 many respects, scarcely less marvellous people. 
 To him, in common with every other child 
 of village or hamlet, however remote, the 
 name of London had been familiar almost 
 from the cradle. He knew not the time when 
 he knew it first ; and the idea presented by it 
 was that of some great, undeiined, and un- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 123 
 
 known place, which had no equal in the world, 
 nor resemblance — (save in that it was com- 
 posed of buildings and endless streets) — 
 to anything he had ever seen. It was a vast 
 spectre, without shape, and measureless, loom- 
 ing in the misty atmosphere of a doubtful 
 mind, like the ideal pictures of cities and the 
 wonderful palaces of gnomes and genii, after 
 reading some marvellous Arabian tale. Then, 
 with the rustic inhabitants of every remote 
 place, anything uncommon or superior is al- 
 ways presumed to have come from London ; 
 and to say that it came thence, is at once to 
 confer upon it a higher ideal value. Many 
 a worthless trinket brought by some wander- 
 ing pedlar is purchased, and afterwards mira- 
 culously preserved from juvenile spoliation 
 amidst the wreck of all other toys, merely 
 because it came from London. The very ap- 
 pearance in a village of an individual of more 
 than usual gentility, startling the bumpkins 
 with a " sight" on some fine summer's morn- 
 ing, is of itself taken as presumptive evidence 
 
 G 2 
 
124 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 that he very probably came from London. 
 Any innovation or improvement in dress or 
 manners is promptly and naturally supposed 
 to have had its origin in London. London 
 is the place, in short, where everything is 
 great, — where everything of the best is made, 
 — where all the first people of the \vorld 
 do congregate, — where it is very needful to 
 look sharp about you lest your very eyes 
 get picked out without your knowing it until 
 they are gone, — where the most cunning thieves 
 are always at your elbow, • — where every- 
 thing worth seeing is to be seen, and worth 
 hearing to be heard, — where anybody may 
 chance to succeed, though he could succeed 
 nowhere else, — and where, finally, for some 
 one or other or all of these causes, every 
 man, woman, girl, and boy express a wish 
 to go to before they die. 
 
 Thus is London generally regarded by the 
 rural people of the provinces; and thus was 
 it in degree that Colin thought, as he paced 
 about the quiet streets of York. What to 
 
COLIN CLINK. 125 
 
 do when he should get there he did not know ; 
 but go somewhere he must. There was still 
 room left for many more in London than him- 
 self. Accordingly he walked into a coach- 
 office, and, after making some inquiries, took 
 his place by a coach which, though it travelled 
 an indirect route, had the advantage of beinsr 
 about to start in half an hour. That interval 
 he employed in writing another letter home, 
 expressive of the intention he had just formed, 
 and stating that he should write again as soon 
 as he arrived in London. 
 
 The public vehicle being now nearly ready, 
 Colin climbed awkwardly up and took his 
 seat; and, after all the important preparations 
 incident to such an occasion had been duly 
 made, an expert ostler ingeniously twitched 
 off the horses' coverings as they were starting, 
 and within a short time Colin was whirled 
 away on this his first day of foreign travel. 
 
 Never having been on a public stage be- 
 fore, Colin felt delighted. The pleasant and 
 rapid motion, and the continual change of 
 
126 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 scenery, almost made him wonder why those 
 people who could afford it did not ride on the 
 top of a public coach every day of their lives. 
 Village, town, and then long spaces of cul- 
 tivated fields, alternately came on the horizon, 
 and were left behind; foot-passengers by the 
 road-side appeared to him almost at a stand- 
 still, and the speed of such irritable curs as 
 barked and ran after the horses, little greater 
 than that of a mole. Towards evening, how- 
 ever, these things lost much of their attraction, 
 and he began to grow weary. With weariness 
 came despondency, and he almost felt as though 
 he was lost. 
 
 The sun went down somewhere in the direc- 
 tion of the home he had left last night. What 
 were his mother and Fanny doing now ? What 
 doubt were they not in, and what misery en- 
 during through his (to them) unaccountable 
 absence ! It was evident enough, too, that 
 Palethorpe knew him, — and that his design 
 had been found out. What evil reports would 
 they not spread concerning him, to the dis- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 1^7 
 
 may and shame of Fanny and his mother ! 
 Mr. Liipton, also, might hear them, and per- 
 haps refuse to take any notice of his letters ; 
 though he himself, were he there, could ex- 
 plain all this to everybody*'s satisfaction. Tears 
 both of sorrow and vexation swam in his eyes, 
 and he wished it was but possible the coach- 
 man could drive him back again. Night came 
 on, and at a great town (Leicester, I believe) 
 two flaring lamps were put up, which cast 
 upon the ground a sharp light on either side, 
 as though they flew with a pair of fiery wings. 
 Passers-by, tree-trunks, and mile-stones shot 
 out of the darkness before, and into that be- 
 hind, almost before they could be seen ; while 
 occasionally might be observed other bright 
 ray less lights, glancing through the hedges, or 
 staring boldly down the road before them, like 
 the eyes of a monstrous dragon. Then came 
 the rattle of another coach, a shout of recog- 
 nition between the coachmen, a tip upwards of 
 the whip, and all was dark again. The pas- 
 sengers were silent, and Colin grew doubly 
 
128 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 melancholy. The coachman now and then 
 looked round at his fares, as much as to say 
 he very much doubted whether he was driving 
 a hearse or not ; yet all sat as quiet as corpses. 
 He asked " the box " if he were cold ? The 
 box said " No," and then turned up his coat- 
 collar, and pretended to go to sleep. The 
 coachman sung himself a song, and beat his 
 whip-hand upon his left shoulder to keep the 
 blood stirring. The guard shouted to him, 
 and he shouted back again — " The bag of 
 corn was to be left at So-and-so, and old Joe 
 was to see and send that harness back in the 
 morning." 
 
 Colin took no interest in all this, so he 
 shut his eyes, and, after awhile, fell asleep. 
 The horn blowing for a change of horses 
 awoke him again. Again he went to sleep, and 
 the same pleasing tune was played in his vexed 
 ears, and on the same occasion, repeatedly 
 during the night. When morning broke, he 
 was chilled almost to death : his feet felt as 
 though undergoing amputation : he could 
 
COLIN CLINK. 129 
 
 never have believed it was so cold in summer 
 at any part of the twenty-four hours as he now 
 found it. The night had been fine and dry, 
 and daylight began with only a few thin 
 clouds. He longed for a ray of the sun, and 
 watched his increasing light with desire un- 
 felt before. As he rose, however, the mists 
 gathered, thicker and thicker as it grew 
 lighter. Then they swept like a storm over 
 the hills in front, and filled the valleys with 
 a damp fog as thick as any in November. At 
 two or three hours after sunrise, all was clear 
 again ; and he basked delightfully in the 
 burning heat. They now began to pass droves 
 of sheep, and herds of cattle, hundreds toge- 
 ther, and often recurring, yet all bent the same 
 way as themselves : they were going to London 
 to be devoured. None seemed to come back 
 again. They ascended a steep hill ; and to the 
 right Colin saw the longest-bodied church, 
 with the shortest tower he had ever seen in his 
 Hfe : it was St. Alban's. Here a man of 
 business, escaped from the metropolis the night 
 
 g5 
 
130 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 before, and now fresh from sleep and break- 
 fast, and with a " shining morning face," gave 
 the coachman a familiar nod and word, and 
 jumped up, to return to his ledger. The 
 stable-boys looked at CoHn, and regarding him 
 as a " green 'un," winked at each other, and 
 smiled. The coachman took no notice of him, 
 as being considerably beneath his observation. 
 But Colin, without troubling himself concern- 
 ing other people's thoughts of him, looked at 
 the long signs about posting at so much per 
 mile, and at those which advertised Messrs. 
 Mangel Wurzel and Go's Entire, and won- 
 dered what in the world they meant. Another 
 hour or two passed, and the road seemed to 
 our hero to be alive with all kinds of vehicles 
 describable and nondescript. Dog-horses draw- 
 ing lumbering old coaches, and dog-carts filled 
 with country-baked bread, intermingled with 
 spring vehicles, carrying soda-water, and car- 
 riers' carts laden with crockery, were jumbled 
 together in all the glorious confusion and dust 
 of a dry summer morning. Occasionally some 
 
V 
 
 COLIN CLINK. 131 
 
 butcher's boy, without his hat, would drive 
 from amongst them, as though his very life 
 depended on his speed, and shoot a-head, until, 
 in character with all of his fraternity, he out- 
 stripped everybody, and, after the fashion of 
 the good deities of the Heathen mythology, 
 vanished in a cloud of his own raising. 
 
 The coach approached a high archway in 
 the road. Through it Colin saw what he took 
 to be a mass of horizontal cloud ; and, peering 
 above it in solitary grandeur, like one lone 
 rock above a wilderness of ocean, the dome of 
 a great cathedral. To the left, on descending 
 the hill, stood what he took to be a palace ; 
 and still farther on, iu Holloway and Isling- 
 ton, so many things of a totally new character 
 presented themselves to him, that he scarcely 
 believed himself in the same world as he was 
 yesterday. The turnpikes, and the Angel Inn, 
 the coaches and cabs, the rabble and noise, the 
 screaming of hawkers, the causeways lined 
 with apple-women and flower-girls, the run- 
 ning and scrambling of men carrying bundles 
 
132 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 of newspapers, as they bawled to the pas- 
 sengers of outward-bound stages, " Times, sir ! 
 — Chronicle! — Morning Post!'* the swearing 
 of coachmen, the thrashing of drovers, the 
 barking of dogs, and the running of frightened 
 sheep and over-goaded cattle, formed alto- 
 gether such a Babel as made him for the time 
 utterly forget himself. 
 
 " City, young man, or get down here?" 
 demanded the coachman. 
 
 " Where are we ? " asked Colin. 
 
 " Islington. Where are you going to ? " 
 
 " London," replied Colin. 
 
 " I say, Jim," remarked the coachman to his 
 friend the guard, " that 's a neatish cove now, 
 isn't he, to come here ? " 
 
 *' Wot do I care, d — his eyes ! Pick up 
 that basket, and go on, without you mean to 
 stop here all day ! " 
 
 Whereupon the driver folded up his way- 
 bill, and elbowed his passage through a crowd 
 of miserable, perishing, be-coated and be- 
 capped night- travellers, who blocked up the 
 
COLIN CLINK. 133 
 
 causeway with trunks, carpet-bags, and hat- 
 boxes. Their pallid visages and heavy eyes, 
 indeed, conveyed to the spectator no indif- 
 ferent idea of so many unfortunate ghosts just 
 landed on the far side of the Styx. 
 
 " So you are for London, young *un, are 
 you ? " asked the coachman, when again on 
 his seat. 
 
 " Yes, sir," repled Colin, " and I suppose we 
 are not far from it, now ? " 
 
 " Jim ! " shouted the coachman, as he leaned 
 half round to catch a glimpse of the guard, 
 *' this chap wants to know how far he is from 
 London, if you can tell him ! " And this 
 humorous remark he rounded off with a weas- 
 ing chuckle, that appeared to have its origin 
 in a region far below the thick superstratum 
 of coat and shawl with which the coachman 
 himself was covered. He then deliberately 
 eyed Colin from head to foot several times, 
 with a look of great self-satisfaction, and again 
 inquired, — 
 
^S4< COLIN CLINK. 
 
 " Wot did your mother send you from home 
 for ? " 
 
 ** Nobody sent me," said Colin; '* I came of 
 my own accord." 
 
 " Wot, you 're going i* sarvis, then ? or, 
 have you come up to get made Lord Mayor ? " 
 
 Our hero had felt sufficiently his own lone- 
 liness before; but this last observation made 
 him feel it doubly. He coloured deeply. 
 
 " Come, I didn't mean that," said the 
 driver, — " it was only a joke to raise your 
 spirits. I don't want to spile your feelin's, 
 young man." 
 
 '*I assure you, sir," replied Colin, with 
 emotion, " I have no place to go to, and I 
 do not know a single soul in London. When 
 I get off this coach, I shall not know where 
 to turn, nor what to do ! " 
 
 "Then wot did you come for?" inquired 
 the coachman. 
 
 " To get a place," said Colin. 
 
 " And you don't know where to put up ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
COLIN CLINK. 135 
 
 "Humph ! Well, m'happen I can tell you. 
 How much money have you got ? " 
 
 Colin satisfied the inquirer on this parti- 
 cular ; and in return received the coachman's 
 promise to direct him to a respectable house, 
 at which he might put up until he had done 
 one of two things, either obtained a situation 
 or *' got himself cleaned out." 
 
1S6 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The *' Yorkshire House."— Its company. — And an 
 adventure. 
 
 In the course of some subsequent conversa- 
 tion, Colin's friend the coachman ascertained 
 that his "green" passenger came from some 
 place in the county of York, and instantaneously 
 concluded, by a peculiar process of reasoning, 
 that our hero ought of necessity to put up 
 at a " Yorkshire House." He forthwith re- 
 commended him to a tavern of some notoriety 
 in the city, backing his recommendation with 
 the assurance that, as he was but raw in 
 London, it would be better for him to be 
 amongst his own countrymen. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 137 
 
 In the "Yorkshire House," then, we will 
 suppose him. His first business, after having 
 refreshed himself, was to call for ink and 
 paper, and indite an epistle to Squire liUpton, 
 giving him not only an explicit statement of 
 the cause of his precipitate retreat from Bram- 
 leigh, and his consequent inability to attend 
 at the Hall on the appointed day, but also 
 detailing the horrible scene of the lawyer's 
 confession respecting the situation of James 
 Woodruff, which had led to his recent at- 
 tempt, and compelled that retreat. This being 
 done, and duly despatched, he hastily pre- 
 pared himself, fevered and confused in brain 
 as he was by the long night-journey, to take 
 a turn in the streets. He longed, as every 
 stranger does who first enters this mighty 
 city, to wander among its endless maze of 
 houses, and witness the vastness of its resources. 
 He passed down one of the by-streets into 
 Cheapside ; wondered at the numbers of cara- 
 vans and carts, the coaches and cabs, which 
 
138 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 blocked themselves to a temporary stand-still 
 in the streets branching from either side ; mar- 
 velled what all the vehicles that shot along 
 could be employed for; where the contrary 
 and cross currents of human beings could all 
 possibly be setting in ; or how the enormous 
 evidences of almost inconceivable wealth, dis- 
 played on all sides, could ever have been 
 thus accumulated. As he ruminated, the crowd 
 every now and then half spun him round, now 
 one way, now another, in the endeavour to 
 pass or to outstrip him. Some belated clerk, 
 hurrying to his duty, put a forcible but in- 
 offensive hand upon his shoulder, and pushed 
 him aside; the butcher's boy (and butchers* 
 boys are always in a hurry) perhaps poked 
 the projecting corner of his wooden tray or 
 the shank of a leg of mutton into his ear; 
 the baker drove a loaf into his ribs ; the porter 
 knocked his hat off with a box on his knot, 
 accompanying the action with the polite ex- 
 pression of " By your leave ; " the merchant 
 
COLIN CLINK. 139 
 
 pushed it into the gutter in order to avoid tread- 
 ing upon it, and the policeman, standing by the 
 lamp-post, smiled as sedately as a wooden doll, 
 whose lower jaw is pulled down with a string, 
 and, when advice was useless, kindly told him 
 to " take care of his hat." 
 
 By the time he had passed through Fleet 
 Street, and had returned along Oxford Street 
 and Holborn, his head was in a whirl. In the 
 course of a few short hours his senses had 
 received more numerous and striking impres- 
 sions than had been made upon them proba- 
 bly during the whole course of his previous 
 life. London seemed to him a Babel, and 
 himself one of those who were lost utterly in 
 the confusion of tongues, — tongues not of men 
 merely, but of iron and adamant, rattling 
 together their horrible jargon, until his ears 
 sounded and reverberated like two shells be- 
 side his head, and his brain became bewildered 
 as if with (that which he had happily never 
 yet experienced) a night's excess. 
 
140 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 About seven o'clock in the evening he re- 
 turned to his inn. Having placed himself 
 quietly in a retired corner of the parlour of 
 the " Yorkshire House/' and immediately be- 
 neath a sloping skylight extending the whole 
 breadth of the room, — a position which very 
 strongly suggested the idea that he was sitting 
 under a cucumber frame, — Colin amused him- 
 self by making silent remarks upon the scene 
 before him. Sundry very miscellaneous-looking 
 personages formed the principal figures of the 
 picture, and were relieved by numerous acces- 
 saries of mutton-chops, biscuits, broiled kid- 
 neys, pints of stout, and glasses of gin-punch ; 
 the whole being enveloped in an atmosphere 
 of such dense smoke, as gave a very shadowy 
 and mysterious character to every object seen 
 through it. 
 
 "There's a fly on your nose, Mr. Prince," 
 remarked a lean hungry-looking fellow; "a 
 blue-bottle, sir, just on the end there." 
 
 The individual thus addressed was a sinister- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 141 
 
 looking man, who, it afterwards appeared was a 
 native of Leeds, in which he had formerly car- 
 ried on business, and contrived to scrape toge- 
 ther a large fortune. In mercantile phrase- 
 ology, he was a " thirty thousand pound man ;" 
 and, though an ignorant and surly fellow, 
 on account of his property he was looked 
 up to by everybody as ignorant as himself. 
 On hearing his friend Hobson's remark, Mr. 
 Prince suddenly seized the end of his own 
 nose, and grasped it in his hand, as he was 
 in the regular habit of doing whenever the 
 fly was mentioned, while with a very shallow 
 assumption of facetiousness he replied, *' Then 
 1 've got him to-night, by Go* ! "" 
 
 Every individual in the company who knew 
 his business properly now forced a laugh at 
 the great man's witty method of doing things, 
 while Hobson replied, " I think not, Mr. 
 Prince. He's too 'fly** for you again." 
 
 " Look in your hand, Mr. Prince,'" suggested 
 a thick-headed fellow from the East-Riding, 
 
142 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 not unlike a bullock in top-boots. Mr. Prince 
 thanked him for the hint ; but declined adopt- 
 ing it, on the score that if he opened his hand 
 he should lose him. 
 
 '' Put him in Hobson's glass,'^ said an- 
 other. 
 
 " Well," replied Hobson, '■' as we all know 
 Mr. Prince is very poor, I '11 give him six- 
 pence if he will." 
 
 This hint at Mr. Prince's poverty was ex- 
 ceedingly relished both by the Prince him- 
 self and all the toadeaters about him. Its 
 ingenuity seemed to delight them, as did 
 also the reply made by the great man him- 
 self. " I doubt whether you ever had a six- 
 pence to spare in your life." 
 
 Another mechanical laugh was here put 
 in at Hobson's expense, which that gentleman 
 not relishing quite so well as he would have 
 done had the insinuation been made at the 
 expense of any other person, he repelled it 
 by challenging Mr. Prince to produce, there 
 and then, as many sovereigns upon the table 
 
COLIN CLINK. 143 
 
 as any other man in the company. This 
 touched Mi\ Prince in a delicate place, and 
 he growled out with a horrible oath, that 
 he could buy Hobson and all his family up 
 with only the simple interest of his capital. 
 At the same time he put his hand in his 
 breeches-pocket, and drew forth a broad-bel- 
 lied greasy black pocket-book, which he slap- 
 ped heavily on the table, as he swore there 
 was more money in it than Hobson had ever 
 even so much as seen together before. Hobson 
 flatly denied it, and offered to bet glasses 
 round that it did not contain twenty pounds 
 more than his own. 
 
 " Done ! " roared Mr. Prince, as his clenched 
 fist fell on the table, with a weight which made 
 all the pipes and glasses upon it dance a mo- 
 mentary hornpipe. A comparison of pocket- 
 books was immediately instituted. Mr. Prince's 
 was declared to contain one hundred and 
 seventy bank-notes more than Hobson's, and 
 Hobson was called upon for the grog. This 
 being more than he expected, he endeavoured 
 
144 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 to evade the bet altogether, by insinuating 
 that he should not believe Mr. Prince's notes 
 were good, unless he looked at them himself. 
 Several voices cried together " No, no ! " and 
 the rest vented their opinions in loud excla- 
 mations of " Shame, shame ! — Too bad ! " and 
 the like. 
 
 Mr. Prince felt the indignity oiFered to his 
 pocket-book most keenly. He looked unut- 
 terable things at Hobson, and bellowed loud 
 enough to have been heard as far as Lad 
 Lane, that " he would not trust a single far- 
 thing of his money in the hands of such a 
 needy, starving, penniless bankrupt as he was." 
 Many of those present felt that this language 
 was not exactly warrantable; but there were 
 no cries of shame in favour of Mr. Hobson. 
 
 At this interesting period of the discussion, 
 Colin*s eyes chanced to be fixed very earnestly 
 on the countenance of Mr. Prince, which that 
 gentleman remarking, he forthwith turned 
 suddenly on the young man with this abrupt 
 demand : — 
 
COLIN CLINK. 145 
 
 " What are you staring at, eh ? Did you 
 never see a man's face before.*' 
 
 " Yes," very quietly replied Colin ; "I 
 have seen many merHs faces before." 
 
 " What do you mean by that, eh ? " cried 
 Prince. " What does he mean ? " addressing 
 the company. " Come, come, young man, 
 1 11 soon teach you how to know your betters." 
 And he strode towards Colin, with the ap- 
 parent intention of practically illustrating the 
 system he maintained. The latter instantly 
 rose on his feet to meet him. All eyes were 
 now turned towards these two, while the squab- 
 ble with Hobson appeared for the time to be 
 wholly forgotten. 
 
 " Beg my pardon, sir ! " bellowed Prince. 
 
 " I shall beg no man's pardon whom I have 
 neither injured nor insulted," coolly answered 
 Colin. 
 
 " I say, beg my pardon, sir ! " repeated 
 Prince. " Do you mean to take the law of 
 me if I strike you .? Say no, and I '11 knock 
 you down.'* 
 
 VOL. II. H 
 
146 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 " No!" replied Colin, " I shall appeal to 
 no law except that of my own force. If you 
 strike me, I shall probably strike you again, 
 old as you are." 
 
 Smash went Mr. Prince's fist at Colin s 
 face ; but the latter parried the blow adroitly, 
 and by a cool " counter " succeeded in press- 
 ing Mr. Prince's nose very much closer to 
 his face than nature herself had intended it 
 to be. Cries of " Shame !" again arose against 
 Colin, and some attempts were made to seize 
 and turn him out. These, however, were 
 prevented by other portions of the company, 
 who exclaimed loudly in favour of fair play, 
 and against any interference. In the mean 
 time Mr. Prince grew furious, and raised his 
 stick to strike Colin with the determination of 
 a butcher about to knock a bull on the head. 
 The youth again parried the intended blow, 
 and turned the weapon aside by receiving it 
 in a slanting direction on his right arm. In 
 order to close with him on the opposite side. 
 Prince now jumped on the table; but this 
 
COLIN CLINK. 147 
 
 manoeu-vre the young man avoided, and at 
 the same instant a shower of broken glass fell 
 upon him. Colin's enraged assailant's stick 
 had gone through the lid of the " city cucum- 
 ber-frame,"" and some half dozen fractured 
 squares attested his powers of mischief. A 
 loud laugh echoed from every part of the 
 room, which put Mr. Prince in a perfect 
 whirlwind of passion. He plunged at his 
 young opponent as though he meditated crush- 
 ing him by the mere weight of his body ; but 
 as the coolness of the latter enabled him to 
 take advantage of the slightest circumstance 
 in ^his favour, he slipped aside at the critical 
 moment, and his antagonist's head went with 
 the power of a paviour's rammer against the 
 wall. This terminated the fight. Mr. Prince 
 lay on the floor, and groaned with pain and 
 vexation, until he was picked up, and placed, 
 almost as inanimate as a sack of potatoes, in 
 his chair. 
 
 In an instant afterwards a gentleman, dressed 
 in a dark-blue great-coat, and who, as Colin 
 
 u 2 
 
148 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 thought, was so very rich in that particular 
 article of clothing as to lay himself under 
 the necessity of having them numbered on 
 the collar, made his appearance in the room ; 
 and at the instance of the landlord stepped 
 forwards, and collared our hero, with the in- 
 tention of conveying him to the station-house. 
 Against this proceeding several friendly indi- 
 viduals protested, and joined vehemently in 
 the opinions expressed by a stout young 
 Welshman, who sat with a pipe in his mouth, 
 that " Py cot ! it was too bad to meddle with 
 him instead of the old one." This timely in- 
 terference saved Colin for the present, and 
 the policeman was obliged to retire. 
 
 Deeply fatigued as our hero was from pre- 
 vious want of rest, he early retired to his 
 apartment, and soon fell into a slumber of 
 many hours' duration. On rising in the morn- 
 ing, what was his astonishment to find a roll 
 of paper like bank-notes lying near him, for 
 the presence of which he knew not how to 
 account ? 
 
COLIN CLINK. 149 
 
 After some hesitation he dressed, and rang 
 for the servant. 
 
 " That roll of paper," said he, when she 
 appeared, " lay on my chair when I woke. 
 It was not there last night, and it does not 
 belong to me. How it came there I know 
 not. The papers appear to be bank-notes. 
 You had better take them to your master, 
 and inquire whether any person in the house 
 has lost them." 
 
 The girl looked surprised; but took them 
 up, and followed his advice. 
 
 Very soon after Colin heard a hue and cry 
 raised below-stairs ; and after a few minutes, 
 a rush of people towards his room. 
 
 " Is this him .?" demanded a man, with a 
 belt round his body, and a glazed rim on 
 the edge of his hat- crown. 
 
 "That's him!" replied the servant-girl. 
 " He gave them to me." 
 
 " Come, young man, I want you," said the 
 policeman, seizing Colin roughly. " Come 
 along with me." And, in spite of ail his en- 
 
150 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 treaties and protestations, he was hurried away. 
 It appeared that Mr. Prince, who occupied a 
 room on the same floor as his young anta- 
 gonist, had identified the notes as his own, 
 and declared that Colin must have robbed 
 him. 
 
 After the lapse of a very short period, Colin 
 stood before the grave magisterial authorities 
 sitting at Guildhall, with Mr. Prince as his 
 accuser. The charge having been heard, 
 Colin replied to it with all the fearlessness, 
 determination, and indignation, which the con- 
 sciousness of innocence is sure to inspire. He 
 related the occurrences of the previous even- 
 ing, and concluded by expressing his firm be- 
 lief that the money had been placed upon his 
 chair in order to bring him into trouble. 
 When searched, ten sovereigns and some sil- 
 ver had been found upon him. He was asked 
 to account for the possession of so much mo- 
 ney ? To this question he flatly refused to 
 answer, as well as those bearing upon his 
 own character and employment ; who he was ; 
 
'/£/ • >-)^^t:>ci{^^ii'iz/z^y^y: 
 
COLIN CLINK. 151 
 
 where he came from ; and what place he had 
 left when he arrived at the Yorkshire House. 
 
 In this dilemma an idea struck the subtle 
 brain of Mr. Prince. He felt now perfectly 
 secure of his victim. He owned the sove- 
 reigns also, and declared they w^ere part of the 
 money which had been abstracted during the 
 night fro:.i his pocket-book. Here, however, 
 he overstepped the mark. Colin instantly re- 
 quested that the landlord of the inn might 
 be called to witness that the money was in his 
 possession at the time he arrived there, and 
 many hours before it could even be pretended 
 that he saw the individual who now stood 
 forwards as his accuser. To this fact the 
 landlord honestly bore testimony, — a piece 
 of evidence which caused the face of Colin's 
 accuser to assume the tint of a thundercloud 
 with the sunshine on it — ht looked black and 
 white at the same time. Boots also declared 
 that on going up-stairs to leave the gentle- 
 men's boots at their doors, he saw some per- 
 son come out of the young man's room, who 
 
152 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 certainly bore very little resemblance to the 
 occupant of that room himself. After some 
 further investigation Mr. Prince was accom- 
 modated with a reprimand from the bench, 
 and the case was dismissed. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Colin makes an acquaintance, and is put in a way of being 
 introduced to his sister, a " public singer." 
 
 The temptations of the Yorkshire House 
 were not sufficiently great to induce Colin 
 to remain in it after the conclusion of the 
 foregoing adventure. Having returned to 
 discharge his shot, he bade good Vye to the 
 place altogether, and again betook himself to 
 the streets, with the double idea of looking 
 about him, and of seeking out another home. 
 In the course of the afternoon he contrived 
 to pick up an acquaintance at a small public 
 house where he called, in the person of a 
 tall, thin young man, not unlike a pea-rod 
 split half-way up: clad in a blue coat, par- 
 
 h5 
 
154 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 tiallj out at elbows, and so short in the arms 
 that his wrists and great red hands hung out 
 full a quarter of a yard, like fly-flappers ; 
 while his trowsers, — an old-fashioned, striped, 
 summer pair, — allowed his ankles to descend 
 below them, in no contemptible imitation of 
 a pair of stilts. His sallow countenance 
 strongly resembled in shape a boy's humming- 
 top. From certain conversations which Colin 
 had with him, it appeared that this miser- 
 able being, whose name was Wintlebury, was 
 but about two-and-twenty years of age, and 
 had been brought up as assistant to a poor 
 painter of window-blinds, scenes for licensed 
 concert-taverns, and such like, then resident 
 in some obscure back street near the Com- 
 mercial Road. As his master was himself half- 
 starved upon the productions of his genius, 
 the lad — who came in but second — very 
 naturally starved outright ; and one night, 
 in the mere desperation of hunger, fell upon 
 some chops, which had been prepared for the 
 family's supper, and devoured them. On the 
 
COLIN CLINK. 155 
 
 discovery of this atrocious act, he was turned 
 out of the house at ten o'clock, and left to 
 wander about the streets. His only friend was 
 his sister, who sang and performed some minor 
 parts at the threepenny tavern concerts, so 
 numerous at the eastern end of the town ; and 
 whose finances, unfortunately, were not in a 
 much better condition than his own. Sickness 
 had ruined her ; and she paid much more to 
 keep herself alive, than her living ordinarily 
 cost her : he therefore could not find in his 
 heart to apply to her. That night he walked 
 the streets, till, tired and worn out, he sat 
 down about two o'clock on the steps of Guild- 
 hall, and fell asleep. Here he was appre- 
 hended and lodged in the watch-house ; taken 
 to the police-office the next day, and com- 
 mitted to prison for sleeping in the open 
 air ; — a sentence the term of which had ex- 
 pired but a short time before. 
 
 As Colin had yet a round sum left, and, as 
 the day advanced, began to feel something like 
 the want of a dinner, he adopted the advice 
 
156 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 of Wintlebury, and walked with him into 
 one of those bow-windowed shops in which a 
 display of greasy-looking hams, varnished pork- 
 pies, and dry boiled-beef, is usually made; 
 while a savoury steam ascends through the 
 bars of the area-gate, as a sort of hint to the 
 nose of the passer-by that in the region above 
 he may make his dinner. Having regaled 
 himself and his companion with an ample 
 repast, Colin discharged the bill, and they 
 wandered into the town. As neither of them 
 knew where to put up at night, Wintlebury, 
 advised Colin, for economy's sake, to look out 
 for a private lodging ; and recommended him 
 to apply at the identical house where his own 
 sister lodged ; as he thought the mistress most 
 probably would have one sort of room or an- 
 other unoccupied. 
 
 To this proposal Colin consented. They 
 walked in the directio.i of Shoreditch, and did 
 not halt until they arrived at the door of a 
 house in the Mile End Road. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 157 
 
 " All right!" said Colin's companion, — 
 " there *s a paper in the window." 
 
 Just as Wintlebury had ceased to agitate the 
 knocker, Colin — whose eyes were downwards 
 — saw a dirty face popped close to the panes 
 of the low kitchen window, with a pair of 
 white eyes turned up to catch a glimpse of the 
 applicants. 
 
 Mrs. Popple soon made her appearance ; 
 and having ascertained the object of the visit, 
 proceeded to conduct them into the house. As 
 the party ascended the stairs, Mrs. Popple in- 
 formed Colin that he would find her upper 
 room a most delightful retreat. He might 
 there read his book in peace ; or, if he were 
 so disposed, might play his flute, violin, trom- 
 bone, tambourine, or even drum, without fear 
 of complaint from any of the other lodgers, 
 who really agreed so well together, that it was 
 almost like paradise itself to live in such a 
 social community. The window of it also 
 overlooked all the backs of the surrounding 
 
158 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 houses, while a skylight in front opened di- 
 rectly upon the heavens themselves. Colin re- 
 plied, that he neither played on any musical 
 instrument, nor did he particularly admire 
 such heavens as he had hitherto seen over Lon- 
 don. He did not think the attic was likely to 
 suit him. As he threw a careless eye around, 
 he observed a black stump-bedstead, one decent 
 chair, and three rush-bottomed ditto ; while in 
 one corner stood an old oak chest, made, pro- 
 bably, in the early days of George the First, 
 and large enough almost to be converted, if 
 occasion required, into a family burying-place. 
 On the whitewashed walls were scratched with 
 the artistical finger-nails of previous occupants 
 various ill-proportioned figures. 
 
 Colin at length decided to become " the 
 monarch of all he surveyed" for the space of 
 one week. In the mean time Wintlebury had 
 taken the opportunity of seeing his sister, and 
 had received two free orders from her for a 
 concert at the Condor Tavern that evening. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 159 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A Peep at a Tavern Concert, — Colin falls in love, parts 
 w^ith his money, and gets into difficulties. 
 
 The entrance to the " saloon'^ of the Tavern 
 where the Concert was to be held lay through 
 a dram-shop. As Colin and his companion 
 passed the bar, the latter familiarly recognised 
 several shabby-genteel and dissipated-looking 
 young men, who stood there drinking gin-and- 
 water, and talking exquisite nonsense to a 
 pretty-faced toy-like bar-maid, whose principal 
 recommendation with her master consisted in 
 the skill with which she contrived to lure and 
 detain at the bar all such simpletons as usually 
 spent the greater portion of their spare time 
 amidst such scenes. By the side of the pas- 
 
160 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 sage, and near the door of the saloon, was 
 pasted up a small paper, on which was the fol- 
 lowing announcement: ''On Sundays, sixpence, 
 value given." 
 
 The " value given" consisted of about a 
 dozen spoonsful of either gin or rum, with 
 very hot water, to make it appear strong, — 
 or of a pot of ale or stout, at the discretion 
 of the customer. 
 
 Very much to Colin's astonishment, — as well 
 it might be, considering that he had never be- 
 fore seen aught of the kind more extensive 
 than a country inn, — he was suddenly ushered 
 by his companion into a " saloon," containing 
 about from three to five hundred persons, ar- 
 ranged on forms placed across the room, each 
 form having before it a narrow raised ledge, 
 not unlike those sometimes seen in the pews of 
 churches, on which to lodge the respective 
 pots, bottles, and glasses of the company. 
 Down the avenues, which ran longitudinally, 
 for the convenience of passage, certain indivi- 
 duals were calh'ng shrimps, screwed up in 
 
COLIN CLINK. 161 
 
 conical white packages of one penny each ; 
 while the perfume, if such it could be called, 
 from some scores of pipes and cigars, ascended 
 in multitudinous little clouds above the heads 
 of the company, and covered as with a filmy 
 atmosphere the frescoed landscapes with which 
 the walls above were bountifully decorated. 
 At the remote end of the room appeared a 
 stage and proscenium on a small scale, after 
 the fashion of a Minor Theatre. 
 
 Shortly after Colin and his friend had taken 
 their seats, a gentleman commenced playing 
 an overture upon an instrument which had 
 been highly admired there ever since its intro- 
 duction, as it formed within itself a magnifi- 
 cent combination of organ, piano, clarionet, 
 and bagpipe, and possessed besides the ad- 
 ditional advantage of occasionally producing 
 tones at its own will and pleasure to which 
 those of no other instrument in the world might 
 be compared, and of which no adequate con- 
 ception can be formed, unless the reader has 
 enjoyed the exquisite delight of hearing a " fan- 
 
162 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 tasia extempore"" played on the hinges of some 
 unoiled door, as it gradually, and in varying 
 time, declined from a wide open position to 
 the door-cheek. 
 
 As I have not the most distant intention of 
 wearying either the reader or myself with a 
 detailed description of the night's entertain- 
 ment, I shall merely observe, that after the 
 curtain drew up, a succession of songs, comic, 
 patriotic, and sentimental, was introduced, 
 and sung by various members of the pro- 
 fessional company. Amongst these appeared 
 one, on seeing whom Wintlebury exclaimed 
 to his companion, "That's my sister!" 
 
 Colin looked. A beautiful-complexioned 
 girl was on the stage, — bright-eyed, lively, and 
 attractively attired in the showy costume of a 
 theatrical Neapolitan maid. After a brief pre- 
 lude on the famous Orchestrseolophonagpipe, 
 she sung, apparently not without effort, but 
 with the most bewitching assumption of mo- 
 desty telling its troubles to the moon, a song 
 
COLIN CLINK. 163 
 
 the burden of which ran " Too many lovers 
 will puzzle a maid !" 
 
 "Encore! — encore!" enthusiastically cried 
 a gentleman, who was sitting a few seats in ad- 
 vance, as he clapped his hands madly together, 
 and tossed his legs at random under the seat 
 before him, " admirable, bi'gar ! — me quite 
 consent vith dat. Too many is too much !" 
 
 " Hangcoor ! " repeated a young sailor, con- 
 siderably more than half-seas over, as he un- 
 consciously re-charged his pipe, as though he 
 were ramming down the wadding of a gun, 
 " hangcoor ! — Go it agen, Bess, or whatever 
 your name is. Hangcoor ! " 
 
 This word, under a dozen different pronun- 
 ciations, ran round the room, while Miss Har- 
 riet Wintlebury made a profound courtesy, 
 and proceeded to repeat her song. 
 
 As Colin gazed, and gazed again, turned 
 away his eyes, and as instantly fixed them 
 upon the same beautiful object again, his 
 bosom burned, and his cheeks grew flushed, — 
 
164 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 he felt as though in the presence of a being 
 whom he could think scarcely inferior to the 
 angels — at least, he had never in his life seen 
 woman as she is before. For what were the 
 simple beings under that name whom he had 
 met in the out-of-the-way country nook he had 
 so recently left ? What was his late mistress, 
 Miss Sowersoft ? — what the maids on the farm ? 
 — what even Fanny herself? — mere plain, dull, 
 plodding, lifeless creatures of the feminine gen- 
 der, and nothing more. But this enchantress ! 
 — his heart leaped up, and in that one moment 
 he felt more of the deep yearning of love than 
 ever in the course of his whole life he had felt 
 before. 
 
 " Let us go nearer," he whispered to his 
 companion ; and in the next minute they were 
 forcing their way down one of the passages 
 between the forms towards the other end of 
 the room. Before they had succeeded in ob- 
 taining a seat on the last form, close under the 
 stage-lamps, Miss Harriet had concluded her 
 
COLIN CLINK. 165 
 
 melody, and retired amidst considerable ap- 
 plause. Until the period of her reappearance the 
 time occupied by other performers seemed to 
 Colin endless. Under other circumstances, the 
 novelty and freshness of such an entertainment 
 would have beguiled his attention deeply, and 
 resolved hours into the seeming space of but a 
 few minutes ; but now the sense of pleasure 
 derived from this source was rendered dull and 
 pointless by comparison with that far keener 
 delight, that tumultuous throng of hopeful 
 passions, which had so suddenly and strangely 
 taken possession of his bosom. At length she 
 came again, — he started, astonished. Could it 
 be the same ? The clear bright complexion — 
 (or what had seemed at the further end of the 
 room to be so) — now looked opaque and 
 earthy ; the white was dead white, and the red 
 as abruptly red as though St. Anthony had 
 been busy with his pencil, patching those 
 cheeks with fire ; while the substratum of bone 
 and flesh looked worn into a shape of anxious 
 
166 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 pain, that gave the lie direct and palpable to 
 the colourable pretensions of the surface. And 
 then the handsome bust, which at a distance 
 seemed so beautiful, now appeared a most 
 miserable artistical mockery of nature ; and the 
 fixed meaningless gaze, — the mouth formally 
 extended in order to display the teeth, — the 
 dead lack-lustre stare at the remote end of the 
 room, calculated to produce an impression on 
 the more distant portion of the audience, — all 
 combined deeply and strongly to impress the 
 horrible conviction on the mind, that this poor 
 creature, in spite of all assumptions and deco- 
 rations to the contrary, was a very poor, worn- 
 out, deplorable creature indeed ! It forced 
 upon the spectator something like the idea of a 
 death's head endeavouring to be merry, — a 
 skull fitted with glass eyes, and covered with a 
 thin painted mask of parchment, striving to 
 laugh and look happy, in order to be consistent 
 with the laughter and the happiness around it. 
 Add to this the hollow faint voice, -^ (the mere 
 
COLIN CLINK. 167 
 
 echo of the sound it once had been,) — pumped 
 up from lungs that seemed to have lost all 
 power, — to have decayed until scarcely any 
 portion remained, —and we shall feel impress- 
 ed, as Colin was, with a fearful, almost a ter- 
 rible, sense of the poor uses to which humanity 
 is sometimes put, and of the deep wretchedness 
 often existing among those whose occupation 
 in life is to look gay, whatever they may feel. 
 
 In truth, consumption was feeding on her, 
 seemingly deep and irremediable. Yet she 
 struffffled on : what else could she ? Still she 
 Strove, still fulfilled her occupation every 
 night, still sung, still tried to look merry, 
 although her heart was all out of heart, and 
 her bosom was filled with fear and anxiety 
 from the dread sense of approaching death — 
 too surely at hand — and she unprepared ! 
 Perhaps to come to her on that very stage, 
 — perhaps then ! And all this to gain a morsel 
 of daily bread ! 
 
 Although reflections of this nature crowded 
 
168 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 on Colin*s mind in a heavy throng, as he gazed 
 on the poor made-up form before him, still he 
 could not entirely free himself from the impres- 
 sion which her appearance had previously pro- 
 duced upon him. That which was artificial, 
 and affected to others, was not so to his percep- 
 tions, for his inexperience would not allow him 
 to see it. The appearance of modesty was to 
 him real modesty; of grace, was grace ; of light- 
 heartedness and joy, as real as though a single 
 care had never entered that bosom since the 
 day it first stemmed the rude tide of the world. 
 And as for the rest, — just as with every other 
 imperfection which may exist in the object of 
 any lover's hopes — so was it with hers. 
 Through familiarity they were soon over- 
 looked ; and, like the shadows on the moon, 
 though they chequered, they did not extin- 
 guish the general light. 
 
 At the conclusion of the performance Mr. 
 Wintlebury borrowed ten shillings of Colin, — 
 promising to pay him again as soon as he could 
 
COLIN CLINK. 169 
 
 get into work, — and they parted for the 
 evening. Our hero returned to his humble 
 bed in Mrs. Popple'^s garret, to pass a rest- 
 less night amidst strangely-mingled visions 
 of tavern concerts and beautiful singing 
 ladies. 
 
 As, in his present state of feeling, there was 
 nothing which in his heart Colin so much de- 
 sired as an opportunity of obliging his second- 
 floor neighbour. Miss Wintlebury, it luckily 
 happened that in the course of a very short 
 time she failed not to afford him various 
 opportunities of so doing, having in all pro- 
 bability been taught her cue by the bro- 
 ther. After some trifling requests, such as 
 borrowing tea, &c., she at last ventured, 
 though very reluctantly indeed, to ask the 
 loan, just for three days, of four pounds fif- 
 teen, if he could possibly do her that great 
 obligation, in order to satisfy the impudent 
 demands of the apothecary, the tea-dealer, 
 the baker, and the butcher, who severally 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
170 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 and respectively had peremptorily cut off the 
 supplies. 
 
 All these friendly applications Colin re- 
 sponded to with unparalleled promptitude, 
 although the last one so very materially en- 
 larged the hollow of his purse, that he began 
 to marvel how he himself should contrive to 
 clear his way as far as to the end of the next 
 fortnight. 
 
 This position of affairs somewhat aroused 
 him from the idle day-dream in w^hich he had 
 been indulging. It was time, high time, that 
 he set about doing something to earn a subsist- 
 ence ; for, besides the amount he had thus 
 expended in supplying the wants of others, he 
 had also lessened his stock very rapidly by 
 attending nightly at the concert-room to hear 
 his mistress's voice, which he thought the 
 finest in the world, and to rejoice over the 
 popular applause with which she there seldom 
 failed to be greeted. For, singular as it may 
 appear, he had never yet met with her in their 
 own house, nor exchanged a single word with 
 
COLIN CLINK. 171 
 
 her in private upon any occasion whatever. 
 His personal introduction yet remained to be 
 made. 
 
 Several subsequent days he spent in vari- 
 ous futile endeavours to obtain employment. 
 Some, who otherwise would have engaged him, 
 wanted a character from his last place. He had 
 none to give ; and, therefore, was denied the 
 opportunity of earning one. Others required 
 a person partially acquainted with their busi- 
 ness ; and so his services could not be rendered 
 available. Meantime he had not neglected to 
 call once or twice at the Yorkshire House, and 
 inquire whether any letter had arrived there 
 directed for him. No. The Squire had not 
 written in reply to the letter he had despatched 
 from that place, and all hope of deriving assist- 
 ance from that quarter seemed, of course, en- 
 tirely banished. " Doubtless," thought he, 
 " Mr. Lupton has heard some b^ld accounts of 
 me, and has wholly given me up." In this 
 conjecture our hero was, however, totally mis- 
 taken. Mr. Lupton had not yet returned from 
 
 I 2 
 
172 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 the excursion of a few weeks' duration, of 
 which he spoke when Colin was at the Hall; 
 and, consequently, had not seen the letter in 
 question. Neither, had he done so, would his 
 return have been of any avail in this particular 
 instance ; since it most unfortunately happened 
 for Colin that on the day but one following the 
 arrival of his epistle, it so fell out that Doctor 
 Rowel was called to attend the Squire's house- 
 keeper upon the attack of a sudden illness. On 
 this occasion, while left in the drawing-room 
 alone, the doctor's eye chanced to alight upon 
 a number of unopened letters lying on the 
 table, in readiness for the owner of the mansion 
 on his arrival ; and amongst them he espied 
 one, on the corner of which was written the 
 name of " Colin Clink/' He hastily took it 
 up ; stole a glance at its contents by shining it 
 against the sun ; and, finding it to contain cer- 
 tain very serious statements touching himself, 
 he took a bold step at once, and, regardless of 
 consequences, put it into the fire. Before the 
 servant returned to conduct him up stairs, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 173 
 
 every vestige of the letter had totally disap- 
 peared. Thus had Doctor Rowel not only for 
 the time being saved himself, but also obtained 
 that knowledge of which he stood in much 
 need, — the knowledge of Colin's place of re- 
 treat and particular address. Of these he in- 
 stantly resolved to make the earliest possible 
 use. 
 
 Disappointed in all his expectations, and de- 
 feated in every endeavour to obtain the means 
 of making a livelihood, Colin returned to his 
 little domicile, and on the spur of the moment 
 wrote a very dolorous letter to his mother and 
 Fanny, in which he set forth all his recent dis- 
 asters, and the trouble he was now in, add- 
 ing, that unless something or other to his 
 advantage turned up very shortly he should 
 scarcely know which way to turn himself for 
 a living. 
 
 And yet, when he thought the matter more 
 calmly over again, after the letter was de- 
 spatched, and could not be recalled, he plucked 
 up heart, and for another evening at least 
 
174 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 drove away care by retiring to the Condor 
 
 Tavern, and taking his accustomed place 
 
 within easy sight of the adorable Harriet 
 
 Wintlebury. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 175 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Colin is pursued, and who his pursuer was. — A strange 
 set-out, and a very pathetic parting. 
 
 During the time the transactions recently 
 related were progressing, a strange hubbub 
 had been raised at Whinmoor touching Colin's 
 disappearance. Palethorpe waxed desperate, 
 and Miss Sowersoft's temper curdled like an 
 embryo cheese. Dire vengeance against him 
 was threatened. York Castle and bread and 
 water were the mildest things prescribed for 
 him; although, in their opinion he well de- 
 served a halter. Mrs. Clink and Fanny had 
 been heartily abused by Palethorpe for having 
 *•' backed him up in burglary, and afterwards 
 connived at his running away from his work.'' 
 
176 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 The fact was, this worthy felt doubly enraged 
 because he had missed an excellent chance of 
 having a shot at him, and now swore that, if 
 ever he could lay hands upon him again, he 
 would very nearly bray him into a pulp. 
 
 At this portentous period it was that Dr. 
 Rowel made his appearance at the farm, (after 
 his discovery of Colin's letter at Kiddal Hall,) 
 and by all the arguments in his power raised 
 the wrath of its inhabitants still higher against 
 the young man, and even went so far as to pro- 
 mise, that as he was himself also an injured 
 party, he had no objection to pay half Pale- 
 thorpe^s expenses, if he would go after the 
 culprit to London, — whither, according to 
 certain private information he had received, 
 Colin had directed his flight. Palethorpe 
 snapped at the offer as a hungry wolf might 
 at a bone. He had long wished to see 
 London, and a capital opportunity was here 
 presented. He vowed that he would ferret out 
 the lad before he came back again, though he 
 should dive to the bottom of the Thames for 
 
COLIN CLINK. 177 
 
 him ; and proposed to set out on the following 
 day, to avoid farther loss of time. 
 
 This proposal being acceded to, nearly the 
 whole night was expended by the attentive 
 mistress in rigging him out for his journey. 
 The chaise-cart was got ready early next morn- 
 ing to convey Palethorpe and his luggage to 
 the coach-office at Leeds; and an old half-pint 
 bottle filled with brandy and water, together 
 with immense sandwiches, were secretly in- 
 veigled by Miss Sowersoft into his top-coat 
 pocket. 
 
 Having duly inquired whether everything 
 was ready, Mr. Palethrope was called into the 
 parlour by his mistress, whoj having shut the 
 door, set her candle down on the table, (for it 
 was not yet dayhgbt,) and began to talk to 
 him in a tone more than usually serious. 
 
 " You are going," said she, " a long jour- 
 ney, — a very long journey. I hope to hea- 
 ven we shall see you safe back again. I 'm 
 sure I shall hardly sleep o' nights for know- 
 ing you are not in the house ; but where- 
 
 I 5 
 
178 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 ever you are, now do remember what I say, 
 and take care of yourself. We don't know 
 what different places are till we see 'em ; 
 and I 'm sure I almost feel afraid — when it 
 comes to this last minnit — "^ Here she tucked 
 up the corner of her apron, and placed it in 
 close proximity with the corner of her eye. 
 " I raelly feel afraid of trusting you there by 
 yourself." 
 
 Palethorpe was here about to explain at large 
 his own capabilities for governing his own ram- 
 pant self, had not Miss Sowersoft derived ad- 
 ditional vigour from the attempted interrup- 
 tion, and proceeded : 
 
 " I know you are plenty old enough to keep 
 out of harm's way, — that is certain ; but then 
 there are so many dangers that nobody can 
 foresee, and temptations hung out be3'ond any 
 single man's capacity to resist — I am afraid. 
 I'm sure it would take a great load off of my 
 mind if I was going along with you,— a very 
 heavy load, indeed. Ay, dear ! " 
 
COLIN CLINK. 179 
 
 '' Oh, never heed, meesis," replied Pale- 
 thorpe ; " I shall get back as safe and sound 
 as a rotten pear. A rotten pear, says I ! — no, 
 I mean as sound as a roach — trust me for that. 
 I ar'n't going a-gate of no temptations, that 's 
 flat. Bless me ! I should think there 's both 
 ale enough, and opportunities for folks to get 
 married enough, i' Yorkshire, without goin' all 
 the road to Lunnun for 'em ! " 
 
 " Well," replied his mistress, " you are 
 very discretionary at home. I say nothing 
 about that ; but perhaps, you know, when 
 you 're surrounded by so many things to dis- 
 tract your considerations, you might — a — a — . 
 I 'm sure I hardly know how to express my- 
 self fully ; but all I mean to say is, that after 
 all, you know,— and do as we will to the con- 
 trary, yet somehow, as I was going to say, 
 men will be men sometimes, and women wo- 
 
 men 
 
 !»' 
 
 As Miss Sowersoft uttered this very sagaci- 
 ous remark, she began to sob rather hysteri- 
 
180 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 cally, and seemingly to demand the support of 
 Mr. Palethorpe's arm. This he promptly of- 
 fered ; a few more words in a consolatory tone 
 escaped his lips ; the maid in the passage out- 
 side thought she heard a sound something 
 like a kiss ; and in another minute the head 
 farming-man hurried desperately out. He was 
 afraid of being too late at Leeds, and in his 
 hurry to rush through the dairy to get into 
 the chaise-cart which stood in the yard, he 
 kicked over a pan of new milk, and plunged 
 his other foot into a tub of hot hog- wash, both 
 of which had just before been placed upon 
 the ground by the said maid. 
 
 " Dang your stuff!" exclaimed he, dashing 
 his foot against the overturned vessel; " what, 
 in the divil's name, isn''t there room enough 
 in Yorkshire to set your things down, with- 
 out cramming 'em under people^s feet like 
 that.?" 
 
 The maid laughed in his face, and Miss 
 Sowersoft called lovingly after him not to 
 
COLIN CLINK. 181 
 
 mind it ; while Palethorpe leaped into the ve- 
 hicle, and ordered Abel to drive as fast as he 
 could into Briggate. 
 
 On the following day he opened his wonder- 
 ing eyes for the first time upon London. 
 
182 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Curiously illustrates the old saying, that a man may " go 
 farther to fare worse." 
 
 No sooner had Mr. Palethorpe arrived, than 
 following Dr. Rowel's directions, he marched 
 off in a very business-like manner to the York- 
 shire House, and inquired for Colin Clink. 
 No such person was there ; although one of 
 the female servants told him she believed a 
 young man of that name had made a short 
 stay at the house some w^eks ago, and had 
 called once or twice since ; but he had left long 
 ago, and gone they knew not whither. 
 
 This information brought the pursuer to a 
 dead stop. His scent was lost all at once ; and 
 
COLIN CLINK. 183 
 
 as he had not made provision out of the wits 
 of other people for any disappointment of this 
 kind, while his own were very backward in 
 coming to his assistance, he suddenly felt that 
 all was over. Moreover he found London to 
 be a very different place to what he had ex- 
 pected ; and for a stranger to set about find- 
 ing a lost man there, seemed worse even than 
 hunting for a needle in a bottle of straw. 
 Instead, therefore, of troubling himself just 
 then any farther about the matter, he thought 
 he would first sleep upon it, and in the mean 
 time go about and see the sights. First he 
 wended his way to the top of the Monument, 
 having previously very carefully perused the 
 inscription as its base. After that he ascended 
 into the lantern of St. PauFs. He then tra- 
 velled down to the Tower, and very narrowly 
 escaped walking into the ditch just where there 
 chanced to be a rail broken, while his eyes 
 were turned up in curious scrutiny of the 
 White Tower. He much longed to go in, but 
 dared not, for fear of the soldiers, as he was 
 
184 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 not hitherto aware that it was guarded so 
 stoutly by a military force. When he got 
 back into St. Martin's le Grand, and looked up 
 at the Post Office clock, he was about to pull 
 out his watch and compare dials, but, to his 
 dismay, found that somebody had saved him 
 the trouble by pulling it out before him. In 
 his confusion he instinctively endeavoured to 
 wipe his nose, but discovered that one of his 
 best handkerchiefs was gone too. In this dou- 
 ble dilemma he stared about him some minutes 
 very oddly, and not a little to the amusement 
 of certain cabmen, who stood hard by observ- 
 ing his motions with visages wide awake. He 
 began to be afraid of remaining any longer in 
 the street, and accordingly hurried back to the 
 Yorkshire House, where he endeavoured to con- 
 sole himself under his losses by taking an extra 
 quantity of Burton ale and gin-and-water. 
 
 These little bits of experience made him 
 afterwards so very cautious, that whenever he 
 walked out he was continually engaged in 
 cramming his hands, first one and then the 
 
COLIN CLINK. 185 
 
 other, into his coat-pockets, then into his 
 breeches, in order to be assured that his 
 money was safe; for he held it as a maxim, 
 that no man who knew what he was about 
 would leave his cash in a box which any- 
 body might unlock, at a public house where 
 strangers were running in and out, and up and 
 down stairs, all day long. He accordingly, 
 for the greater safety, carried his whole stock 
 about with him. 
 
 In this manner he wiled away nearly a week, 
 waiting chances of meeting with Colin acci- 
 dentally, and hoping that he might luckily call 
 again at the Yorkshire House; in which case 
 he had made provision for securing him, by 
 leaving word that, if he did come, he was to 
 be told that a very well-known acquaintance 
 from the country had arrived, who wished to 
 see him upon most particular business. But 
 time passed on, his trap caught nothing, and, 
 after eight or nine days' stay, he found himself 
 no forwarder, save in the amount of wonder- 
 ful things he had seen, and the quantity of 
 
186 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 money he had expended, than he was when he 
 parted with Miss Sowersoft. Disastrous as all 
 this was, it is not to be wondered at that his 
 courage evaporated very rapidly, and, in fact, 
 became so very nearly dried wholly up, that he 
 made up his mind, after many efforts, to sneak 
 back again into the country, invent the best 
 tale he possibly could, in order to satisfy his 
 •' meesis " and the doctor, and sit down once 
 again to his beer and bacon on the quiet farm, 
 renouncing London, and every attempt to 
 catch Colin Clink, at once and for ever. 
 
 Fortune, however, which, as we are told, 
 ever watches over the brave, would not suffer 
 him to go thus far, and undergo the fatigues 
 and dangers of such a journey, merely to 
 come to such an inglorious conclusion. And 
 as Palethorpe manfully determined to have a 
 good last night of it before he left town, and 
 see for himself what life in London really was, 
 the frail goddess took that favourable opportu- 
 nity of adding a striking incident to the tail- 
 piece of his chapter of accidents, — an incident 
 
COLIN CLINK. 187 
 
 which, as it brought him very unexpectedly 
 into the presence of Colin, and otherwise is 
 worthy of particular note, I shall give in a 
 chapter by itself. 
 
188 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The singular meeting of Colin and Palelhorpe. — A jolly 
 night, and the results of it, with one of the most remark- 
 able discoveries on record. 
 
 On the last afternoon of his intended stay in 
 town, Mr. Palethorpe rambled as far as Re- 
 gent's Park, and into the Zoological Gardens, 
 where he amused himself some time by tempt- 
 ing the bears with a bit of bun, without allow- 
 ing them to get near enough to lay hold of it ; 
 a piece of dexterity on his own part w^hich 
 made him laugh heartily twenty times over ; 
 for the cleverness of it seemed to him excel- 
 lent. When weary of that, he repaired to the 
 monkey-cage, in anticipation of some excellent 
 sport ; but there he found many much more 
 

 ;,-h-.r-i a.^Y^r\,^^r ic/ii 
 
COLIN CLINK. 189 
 
 able fellows than himself; and, in endeavour- 
 ing to outwit a great baboon with a walnut, 
 got one of his ears nearly twinged off, highly 
 to the delight of a whole company of boys who 
 stood by, and whose laughter and jeers even- 
 tually caused him to beat a retreat out of the 
 gardens. 
 
 Having taken a pretty accurate survey of the 
 West End, he descended Regent Street in the 
 evening, and about nine o'clock might have 
 been seen wending his way with indecisive step 
 down Coventry Street, from the Piccadilly end, 
 with a considerable amount of Barclay and 
 Perkins's stout in his head, — porter being such 
 a rarity to him, that he thought it as well to 
 make the best of it while he enjoyed the oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 On the right hand side of Coventry Street 
 he accidentally espied a fishmonger's shop. 
 Palethorpe always enjoyed a good appetite for 
 oysters whenever he could get them, and, as he 
 had fixed his eyes upon a leaden tank full, he 
 walked into the shop aforesaid, and requested 
 
190 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 the man to open him a lot. As fast as he 
 opened them, Mr. Palethorpe swallowed them ; 
 while, as long as he continued to swallow, the 
 man continued to open, keeping silent count of 
 the number taken all the while, until in a loud 
 voice he at last proclaimed a numerical amount 
 of five dozen. Mr. Palethorpe then bid him 
 desist, and, with great reluctance at the 
 moment, paid the demand of a crown for his 
 supper. Somehow, however, his stomach rais- 
 ed certain very cogent objections against thus 
 suddenly being converted into an oyster bed, 
 and demanded the instant administration of 
 a dram. This, however, he could not pro- 
 cure there, but was invited to walk into the 
 room behind, where he might take wine at 
 his leisure. Although Palethorpe did not 
 much relish the notion, he did not feel in the 
 best possible condition for quitting the shop 
 and going elsewhere; and therefore, almost as 
 a matter of necessity, adopted the waiter's sug- 
 gestion. Pushing open a door, therefore, with 
 an oval glass in it, he found himself all at once 
 
COLIN CLINK. 191 
 
 in one of the finest public apartments he had 
 yet entered. 
 
 At first he felt almost doubtful whether he 
 had not made a mistake, and walked into a 
 chapel, — the gallery round the walls and the 
 pew-like seats very strongly favouring the idea. 
 This notion was, however, very soon put to the 
 rout by an individual, whom he had mistaken 
 for a pew-opener, approaching him with the 
 polite inquiry, what wine would he please to 
 take. 
 
 " Oh, ony'll do. One sort is just the same 
 as another to me, for I know no difference," 
 replied Palethorpe. 
 
 " Pint of sherry, perhaps, sir? Very well, 
 sir." And before the Yorkshireman could find 
 time to express either his acquiescence or his 
 dissent, the waiter had disappeared to execute 
 the order of his own suggestion. 
 
 When he returned, Palethorpe took the wine 
 in silent dudgeon. Of course he had the ap- 
 pearance of an animal too remarkable not to 
 attract attention anywhere in London, but 
 
192 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 especially so in the particular region where for- 
 tune had now condescended to cast him. 
 
 As far as he could discern anything of the 
 matter, the company appeared of the highest 
 respectability, if not, in fact, almost too good 
 for him. But then, as everybody conducted 
 themselves in the most free and easy manner 
 possible, he was not long in making himself 
 perfectly at home. The ladies, who were 
 beautifully dressed, and decorated with various 
 sorts of flowers, struck him with particular 
 admiration. All that disagreeable crust of 
 reserve, in which country people are so very 
 prone to encase themselves, was here worn 
 quite clean off; and he found no more trouble 
 in entering into conversation with these ladies 
 than he did at home in talking to his horses. 
 Two of them politely invited themselves to his 
 wine, and, without waiting permission, drank 
 it off to his good health, and suggested to him 
 to call for more. They playfully tweaked his 
 nose, put his hat on their own heads, and 
 invited him to partake of his own drink so very 
 
COLIN CLINK. 193 
 
 kindly and pressingl}^, that at last it would 
 scarcely have been known whether they or he 
 had in reality paid for it. 
 
 About midnight, and at the particular re- 
 quest of a young lady who was taking leave, 
 Palethorpe was prevailed on to escort her 
 home ; a piece of politeness which he felt most 
 competent to discharge by calling a cab, as his 
 own legs had by this time in great part lost 
 the faculty of carrying the superstructure of 
 his body with that precise degree of perpen- 
 dicularity which is commonly considered essen- 
 tial to personal comfort and safety. 
 
 From that moment up to the occurrence of 
 the following incident, his history is wrapped 
 in the most profound and mysterious dark- 
 ness. 
 
 On this eventful night, the intended last 
 night of all Mr. Palethorpe's experiences in the 
 metropolis, as fortune would have it, Colin 
 had treated himself with a sight of Vauxhall 
 Gardens ; and, as he remained to see the fire« 
 works at the conclusion, he did not get away 
 
 VOL. n. K 
 
194 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 very early. Add to this the time necessarily 
 occupied in taking refreshment, and walking 
 all the way from the Gardens towards London 
 Bridge, and we shall not expect to find him 
 at the top of Newington Road, on his way 
 home, earlier than between one and two in the 
 morning. As our hero walked rapidly down 
 Blackman Street, he observed a man, clothed 
 in a short, square-lapped coat, of a broad 
 country-cut, staggering along before him very 
 much as though he meditated going head fore- 
 most at every object that presented itself on 
 either side of the road. Occasionally he came 
 ^o a full stop, and see-sawM his body back- 
 wards and forwards, until the impetus gained 
 one way either compelled him to recede a 
 few paces, or plunged him again desperately 
 forwards. Now he seized a lamp-post, as 
 though it were some dear, newly-recognised 
 friend ; and then made a furious sally to reach 
 some advanced point of the wall on the other 
 'hand. Altogether his motions were so whim- 
 sical that Colin slackened his pace in order to 
 
COLIN CLINK. 195 
 
 keep behind, and thus enjoy the fun. The 
 street was perfectly silent ; not a soul besides 
 themselves was about, and he had the farcical 
 performer therefore altogether to himself. He 
 did not enjoy the spectacle, however, very 
 long. Scarcely had the man staggered a hun- 
 dred yards farther before he went down on all 
 fours ; and, as he found himself incapable of 
 risino^ again, he seemed by his actions, as 
 though he finally submitted to fate, and made 
 up his mind to nestle there for the remainder 
 of the night. Since, however, Colin never 
 was the lad to leave a fellow-creature helpless, 
 without offering his assistance, he hastened 
 forwards, and taking him by the shoulder, 
 bade him get up and go home. 
 
 " Where 's meesis ? " demanded the sot. " I 
 want a posset, and a posset 1 11 have, or be 
 dang'd to me ! " 
 
 Colin immediately recognised the voice. 
 Bursting into a loud laugh, he raised the 
 prostrate man's face towards the light, and 
 beheld the features of his old and inveterate 
 
 K 2 
 
196 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 enemy, Palethorpe. What in the world 
 could have brought him to town ? Al- 
 though Colin more than half suspected the 
 real occasion, he determined to ascertain the 
 truth. 
 
 " And, where have you come from, my 
 man ? " demanded Colin. 
 
 " Come from ! " repeated Sammy. " I '11 
 tell you where I come from. I co — co — come 
 from Whin moor — Whin moor, I say, in York- 
 shire. Miss Zowerzoft 's my meesis — and a 
 very good meesis she is, I am happy to say. 
 She knows me very well, and I know her. 
 I wish she were here !" 
 
 "Well — well!" cried Colin; "but what 
 have you come to London about ? " 
 
 " Why, what do you think, now ? " asked 
 Palethorpe, with a peculiarly knowing look. 
 " What do you think .? Just guess. I '11 bet 
 a shilling you can't guess, if you guess all 
 night. No — no ; no man knows my bizziness 
 but myself. My name's Palethorpe, and I 
 know two of that. Can you tell me, do you 
 
COLIN CLINK. 197 
 
 know anybody named Colin Clink here i* 
 Lunnun ? *' 
 
 '' I do," said our hero. " I know him 
 well." 
 
 " You do ! " exclaimed Samuel, trying to 
 start up and stare in his face, but sinking 
 again in the eiFort ; " then yo 're my man ! 
 Gis hold on your hand, my lad. Dang his 
 carcase ! I '11 kill him as sure as iver I touch 
 him ! I will — I tell you. 1 11 kill him dead 
 on th' spot." 
 
 " But you mean to catch him first,"" said 
 Colin, " don't you?" 
 
 " What do you mean ? Catch him ! I 
 mean to catch him ! Be civil, my lad, or else 
 I shall put a spur in your sides afore you go." 
 
 " You brute ! " exclaimed Colin, seizing him 
 by the collar on each side of his neck, and 
 holding his head stiff up with his knuckles, 
 — " look at me. I am Colin Clink. Now, you 
 cowardly, drunken scoundrel, what have you 
 not deserved at my hands ? " 
 
 " Oh ! what, you are he, are you ? " gurgled 
 
198 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 Mr. Palethorpe. " Just let me go a miniiit, 
 and 1 11 show you 1 " 
 
 " Come, then ! " said Colin, and he pulled 
 the said Mr. Palethorpe to the edge of the 
 causeway. In the next moment he deposited 
 him in the middle of a large dam which had 
 been made in the gutter close by for the con- 
 venience of some bricklayers, who were repair- 
 ing an adjoining house, telling him to " sit 
 there, and sober himself; and the next time 
 he tried to catch Colin Clink, to thank his 
 stars if he came oif no worse." So saying, he 
 left him to the enjoyment of his " new patent 
 water-bed," and his meditations. 
 
 Near the Borough town-hall Colin met a 
 policeman, whom he informed of the hapless 
 condition of a poor drunken countryman some 
 distance down the street, and requested him 
 to go to his assistance. He then made off at 
 the best speed he could, and soon baffled all 
 pursuit amidst the intricate turnings of the 
 city. True, he lost his way ; still he reached 
 his lodgings before four o'clock. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 199 
 
 To return to Mr. Palethorpe. He had not 
 vet seen even a tithe of his troubles. The 
 sequel of this last adventure proved richer 
 than all the rest. Between two and three 
 o'clock in the afternoon of the following day 
 he crept very stealthily into the parlour of 
 his inn, as '' down in the mouth " as a beaten 
 dog. He called for writing materials, and ad- 
 dressed a strange scrawl to the Commercial 
 Bank in Leeds, where it was known he had 
 deposited about three hundred pounds. He 
 afterwards retired to his bed-room, from which 
 in a short time he issued with a bundle in his 
 hand ; and, after making certain confidential 
 inquiries of the shoe-black, walked forth in 
 the direction of Rosemary Lane. It seems 
 pretty certain that John Boots directed him 
 thither as one of the most eligible places in 
 the City for the disposal of all sorts of worn- 
 out or superfluous wearing-apparel, and one 
 to which poor gentlemen in difficulties not 
 unfrequently resorted. However that may be, 
 the fact itself is positive, that on the eve- 
 
200 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 ning of the second Saturday after his arrival, 
 Mr. Palethorpe was seen in a very dejected 
 mood, pacing along Rosemary Lane, towards 
 Cable Street, with a bundle tied up in a blue 
 and white cotton handkerchief, under his 
 arm. 
 
 As his eyes wandered from one side of the 
 street to the other, he observed, idling at 
 doors, or along the footway, a generation of 
 low, dark men, who, by the peculiar cut of 
 their countenances might readily have been 
 mistaken — especially by lamplight — for lineal 
 and legitimate descendants of the old race of 
 Grecian satyrs. Inhabiting places in which 
 no other description of person could breathe, 
 and carrying on their congenial trades in 
 " Clo' — old clo' ! " these people, with their fa- 
 milies, live and thrive on the filth of all the 
 other parts of the unapproachable city. No- 
 thing comes amiss to them : the oldest gar- 
 ment has some profit in it, and the merest 
 shred its fractional value. Their delight seems 
 
COLIN CLINK. 201 
 
 to be in a life amidst black bags, and the 
 rags of every other portion of the great 
 community ; while the aspect of the region 
 they inhabit— as if to keep all the rest from 
 being put out of countenance — is desolate, 
 dark, slimy, and enveloped in an atmosphere of 
 eternal smoke. The very air seems pregnant 
 with melancholy reminiscences of the faded 
 glory of by-gone men, women, and times. 
 The tarnished embroidery, the sooty red suits, 
 the flabby old silks, the vamped-up hessians, 
 what spectres do they not evoke as they dangle 
 (ghostly mementos of departed greatness) be- 
 side the never-washed windows ; or flap like an 
 old arras, with every gust of wind against the 
 besmeared and noxious walls ! Where, per- 
 haps, the legs of some gallant captain once 
 found a local habitation, there the dirty Israel- 
 ite now passing along feels ambitious to encase 
 his own. The handkerchief of a bishop in- 
 vites a ''shopVy's" nose; the last rejected 
 beaver of the Lord Mayor awaits the accept- 
 
202 COLIN CLINK, 
 
 ance of some rascally cranium, which the Lord 
 Mayor would give half his dignity to " nab," 
 and *' pop in quod/' Even some vanished 
 great one's walking-stick, now sticks in the 
 black corner of the Jew's shop, waiting to be 
 once again shaken by the handle, even though 
 it be but during a brief proud hour on Sunday, 
 by the lad who yesterday hawked cedar pen- 
 cils through the streets at a halfpenny a piece. 
 
 "Buy, sir.? — buy.?— buy.?" Mr. Pale- 
 thorpe replied in the negative to a man who 
 thus addressed him, but volunteered to sell. 
 He produced the contents of his handkerchief; 
 and before ten minutes more had elapsed his 
 best blue coat with gilt buttons, and a second 
 pair of corduroys, became the property of the 
 Jew, at one-third less than their value. The 
 reason of this strange proceeding was that 
 during the preceding night's glorification the 
 Yorkshireman had, — in some way totally in- 
 comprehensible to himself, — been eased of 
 absolutely every farthing he possessed. He 
 had, therefore, no alternative but to raise a 
 
COLIN CLINK. 203 
 
 little ready cash upon his clothes, until he 
 could receive from the bank in Leeds, where 
 he had deposited his scrapings, enough to set 
 himself straight again and pay his passage 
 home. 
 
 Several times had the sun rolled over the 
 head of this side of the world after the scene 
 above- described, when, one rainy evening, 
 about dusk, as Miss Sowersoft was casting a 
 weary and longing eye across the soddened 
 fields which lay between Snitterton Lodge and 
 the high road, to her inexpressible pleasure 
 she beheld the well-known figure of Mr. Pale- 
 thorpe making its way towards the house. 
 
 '* Well, here you are again ! '' she exclaimed, 
 as he flung down his top-coat, and demanded 
 a jack to get his boots off. " How have you 
 gone on ? I see you hav'n't brought him with 
 you, at all events." 
 
 Although Miss Sowersoft had made an in- 
 quiry the moment Mr. Palethorpe entered the 
 house, she now refused to hear him talk until 
 he had satisfied his appetite. This achieve- 
 
204i COLIN CLINK. 
 
 ment occupied, of course, considerable time. 
 He then, in the midst of an open-mouthed and 
 anxious rural audience, consisting of every 
 individual, man, maid, and hoy, upon the 
 farm, related — not his own adventures, but 
 the imaginary adventures of some person very 
 closely resembling himself, who never lived, 
 and whose peregrinations had only existed in 
 the very little world of his own brain. 
 
 His expedition had been most successful; 
 for, although he had not exactly succeeded in 
 discovering Colin's retreat, — a mishap attri- 
 butable to the enormous extent of London, and 
 not to his own want of sagacity, — yet he had 
 astonished the natives there by such specimens 
 of country talent as they were very little pre- 
 pared for. He pulled out a new watch. 
 " Look there," said he. " I got that through 
 parting with the old *un, and a better than 
 that niver went on wheels. I bought some 
 handkerchers for about half-price, and see'd 
 more of liUnnun in ten days than many folks 
 that have been agate there all their lives." 
 
COLIN CLINK. 205 
 
 "Then you went 'top o' th' Moniment?" 
 demanded old Georore. 
 
 o 
 
 " To be sure I did ! " exclaimed Palethorpe, 
 " and St. Paul's Cathedral as well." 
 
 " I hope you did not get dropped on, any- 
 how," remarked Miss Sowersoft, inquiringly ; 
 for she really burned to know whether any of 
 the fears she had expressed at his setting out 
 had been realised. 
 
 " No, dang it ! not I," replied Palethorpe, 
 in a misgiving tone, though with a great as- 
 sumption of bravery. Yet upon that subject, 
 somehow, he could not expatiate. He felt 
 tongue-tied in spite of himself; and then, as if 
 desirous of escaping any farther explanation 
 touching what he had individually done or not 
 done, he got up and went to the pocket of his 
 great-coat, from which he drew a Sunday news- 
 paper that he had purchased as the coach was 
 starting, and presenting it to Miss Sowersoft — 
 " Here," said he, " I \e brought you th' 
 latest news I could lay my hands on, just to 
 let you see what sort of things they do i' th' 
 
206 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 big town. I hav'n't look'd at it myself yet, so 
 you 've the first peep, meesis." 
 
 Miss Sowersoft took the newspaper very 
 graciously, and opened it. Strange news in- 
 deed she very soon found there. While Pale- 
 thorpe was yet maintaining all the dignity of a 
 hero, and stuffing his audience with marvellous 
 accounts of his own exploits, Miss Sowersoft's 
 eye fell upon a report under the head of 
 " Police Intelligence,'' entitled, " A York- 
 SHiREMAN IN LoNDON." She read it ; but with 
 such avidity and such a sombre expression of 
 countenance, that the eyes of every one present 
 were irresistibly attracted towards her, and 
 even Mr. Palethorpe's efforts to speak passed 
 almost unobserved. At length Miss Sower- 
 soft uttered a loud hysterical shriek, and fell 
 back in her chair. 
 
 Palethorpe instinctively snatched at the 
 newspaper ; but, as Abel had seized it before 
 him, only a portion of it reached the fire, into 
 which it was instantly hurled. The part re- 
 maining in the grasp of the farming-man con- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 207 
 
 tained the awful cause of Miss Sowersoft's 
 calamity. A fight might have ensued for the 
 possession of that fragment also, had not Abel 
 dexterously slipped round the table before 
 Palethorpe could reach him, and, snatching up 
 a lighted lantern that stood on the dresser, 
 escaped into a hayloft ; where, having drawn 
 the ladder up after him, he sat down on a 
 truss, and, while Palethorpe bawled and 
 threatened vainly from beneath, deliberately 
 read as follows : — 
 
 " A YoRKSHiREMAN IN LoNDON. — Ycstcrday 
 a stupid-looking ' son of the soil' from York- 
 shire, whose legs appeared to have been tied 
 across a barrel during the previous part of his 
 life, and who gave his name Samuel Pale- 
 thorpe, was brought before their worships, 
 charged by policeman G. 95, with having 
 been found dead drunk in Blackman Street, 
 Borough, between one and two o'clock that 
 morning. When found he was sitting bolt- 
 upright in a pool of lime-water about twelve 
 inches deep, which had been made in the 
 
^08 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 gutter by some bricklayer's labourers em- 
 ployed in mixing mortar near the spot. His 
 hat was crushed into the form of a pancake, 
 and was floating beside him ; while he was 
 calling in a stentorian voice for assistance. 
 From the very deplorable statement he made, 
 with tears in his eyes, it appeared that, after 
 rambling about town the greater part of the 
 previous day, in search of the ' lions * of Lon- 
 don, during which time he had imbibed an 
 immense quantity of heavy-wet, he repaired to 
 a well-known house in the neighbourhood of 
 the Haymarket, and regaled himself until mid- 
 night with wine and cigars. While there he 
 picked up an acquaintance in the person of 
 a ' lady,' (as he described her,) ' with a plum- 
 coloured silk gown on, and one of the hand- 
 somest shawls he ever saw in his life.' As 
 the ' lady ' was very communicative, and 
 was very polite, and told him that she 
 wished to marry, he naturally concluded 
 she might entertain no very deeply- rooted, 
 objection to himself. In order, therefore. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 209 
 
 to make a beginning in his courtship, he 
 eventually consented to accompany her home. 
 He believed her to be what she appeared, 'a 
 lady,' and was over-persuaded by the hope 
 of marrying a good fortune. One of the magi- 
 strates here expressed his astonishment that 
 any man arrived at the age of the prisoner, 
 (he appeared nearly forty-five,) even though 
 brouglit up in the veriest wild in England, 
 could possibly be such a fool as the individual 
 before him represented himself. Mr. Pale- 
 thorpe replied that he had several times read 
 of ladies falling in love with cavaliers, and 
 he thought such a thing might happen to 
 him as well as to anybody else. (Laugh- 
 ter.) 
 
 " ' And what happened afterwards ? ' asked 
 the magistrate. 
 
 " Mr. Palethorpe. — * I don't know very 
 well, for I 'd a sup too much. I ar'n't used to 
 drink sich strong wine : but we went over a 
 bridge, I think, becos I remember seeing some 
 lights dance about ; but where we went to 1 
 
210 COLIN CLIiNK. 
 
 know no more than this man here' (pointing to 
 the policeman). 
 
 " ' How much money did you spend ? ' 
 
 " ' Whoy, unfortinately, I 've lost every far- 
 thing I had.' 
 
 " ' And how much had you about your per- 
 son when you set out ? "* 
 
 " ' Please, sir, I had seven pounds in goold, 
 and about twelve shillin' in shillin's, besides 
 some ha'pence.' 
 
 " ' Do you think you Ve been robbed, or 
 did you spend it on the lady ?' 
 
 " ' I don't know, sir, — but it 's all gone.' 
 
 " ' We]], as you seem to have paid pretty 
 dearly for your pjleasure, I shall not fine you 
 this time, but I should advise you to take 
 better care the next time you come to London.' 
 
 " The prisoner left the court very chop- 
 fallen, while one of the spectators as he passed 
 whistled in his ear the tune of 
 
 " ' When first in London I arrived, on a visit — on a visit ! ' " 
 
 Before Abel had perused half the above ex- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 211 
 
 tract he was in ecstasies : and when he had 
 done he cut it out of the paper with his pocket- 
 knife, in order the easier to preserve it for 
 future use. The story soon became known 
 throughout the country side, as Abel made 
 a point of reading it aloud at every public- 
 house he called at, and on every occasion when 
 the hero of it chanced to displease him. 
 
 The gist of the joke, however, seemed, in the 
 general opinion, to consist in the fact that Mr. 
 Palethorpe himself had unwittingly brought it 
 all the way from London in his own pocket, 
 for the edification and amusement of the com- 
 munity. In fact, from that day until the end 
 of his life, that worthy never heard the last of 
 his expedition to London. 
 
 But, how did he settle matters with his mis- 
 tress ? That question may be solved when 
 other events of greater importance have been 
 described. 
 
212 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Something strange on the staircase, with a needful reflec- 
 tion or two upon it. 
 
 By this time Colin's resources had become 
 so low that but thirteen shillings remained to 
 him of all he had brought from home ; and 
 of that small sum about one-half would be 
 due to his landlady in the course of a few 
 days. Yet he continued his kindness towards 
 the poor singer on the second floor, and only 
 the day previously had exchanged his last 
 sovereign on her account. The feelings with 
 which her appearance had first inspired him 
 he could not wholly shake off; although 
 he had since become acquainted with va- 
 rious circumstances which pointed out to 
 
COLIN CLINK. 213 
 
 him imperatively the necessity of at once set- 
 ting such a connexion aside, and forgetting 
 even that it had ever existed. He half formed 
 a resolution to do so ; and, in order to carry 
 it the better into effect, made up his mind 
 to quit the house altogether — a step he could 
 the more readily take now, as he had not hi- 
 therto so much as even seen Miss Wintlebury 
 except on the stage; and she, on the other 
 hand, could know no more of him than his 
 ever-ready and unassuming kindness might 
 have informed her of. These thoughts crowded 
 his mind as he sat at breakfast, and during 
 several hours subsequently presented them- 
 selves under every possible phase to his re- 
 view. About twelve o'clock in the day, as 
 he was descending the stairs to the street, 
 his sight was crossed on the first landing he 
 reached, by a kind of vision in a white dress, 
 which flitted from Miss Wintlebury's chamber 
 to her sitting-room. Its hair was tightly 
 screwed up in bits of newspaper all over its 
 head, very strongly resembling a clumsy piece 
 
214 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 of mosaic. Its face was of a horrible cream- 
 colour, and as dry as the hide of a rhinoceros. 
 Its eyes dim and glazy. Its neck and shoul- 
 ders — with respect to the developement of 
 tendons and sinews — not greatly unlike an 
 anatomical preparation. This surprising ap- 
 pearance no sooner heard Colin's footsteps 
 approaching than it skipped rapidly into the 
 sitting-room, and without turning at the in- 
 stant to close the door, sat hastily down at 
 a small table, on which stood a black teapot, 
 and one cup and saucer, as if with the inten- 
 tion of taking its breakfast. 
 
 Somewhat alarmed, Colin hastened down, 
 and was very glad to find Mrs. Popple on her 
 hands and knees at the door, applying pipe- 
 clay to the step. Of her he immediately in- 
 quired the nature of the apparition he had 
 seen ; and was most shocked indeed when he 
 found by her reply, that he had actually mis- 
 taken Miss Wintlebury herself for her own 
 ghost. Still the fact was scarcely credible. 
 Surely it was not possible to patch up such 
 
COLIN CLINK. 2\0 
 
 a shadow, into the handsome figure whicli 
 had first inspired him with love; and the 
 recollection of whose seeming beauties still 
 attended upon his imagination with the con- 
 stancy of a shadow in the sun. 
 
 " Ah, sir ! " exclaimed Mrs. Popple ; " but 
 you ain't any conception what a poor creatur' 
 she is. I can carry her about this house like a 
 doll, she *s so light and thin. She walks about 
 more like a sperit than anything substantive 
 — that she do. I often think of turning her 
 out of house altogether, for I 'm afraid I 
 shall never get my rent of her; but then, 
 again, when I 'm going to do it, a summut 
 seems to whisper to me, and say, ' Missis 
 Popple — Missis Popple, let her alone a bit 
 longer.' And that is the way we go on." 
 Saying which, with a heavy sigh, she scrubbed 
 away at the stones. Colin stood mute. 
 
 " She's dyin', sir, as fast she can," added 
 the landlady. " I niver see an indiwidiwal 
 in a more gallopin' consumption in my life. 
 I expect noat no less than having her corpse 
 
216 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 thrown on my bands every week that goes over 
 my head." 
 
 Could he altogether give up the poor 
 creature of whom this was said ? And yet, 
 wias it possible he could love her ? Colin 
 felt perplexed, puzzled. Like many other 
 gentlemen, therefore, when placed in a similar 
 predicament, he parted company with Mrs. 
 Popple, without saying anything in reply, 
 lest by speaking he should possibly chance 
 — as was not very unlikely — to sav worse 
 than nothing. 
 
 As the strange shock his feelings had sus- 
 tained gradually wore off, his previously form- 
 ed resolutions as gradually grew weaker. 
 Irresistibly inclined to look on the best side 
 only, he began to reason himself into the 
 belief that the lady was not so bad as his 
 own eyes, and Mrs. Popple's tongue, had re- 
 presented. He had seen her, unluckily, under 
 circumstances sufficiently disadvantageous to 
 reduce to a very ordinary standard even one 
 
COLIN CLINK. 217 
 
 of the greatest beauties living: and, as for 
 his landlady's remarks, what did they amount 
 to in fact ? Since people always magnify what 
 they talk about into a ten times more hideous 
 affair than, according to the natural size of 
 the subject, it would otherwise appear, just as 
 our opticians exhibit monsters a foot long on 
 paper, which on closer inspection are found 
 too insignificant in reality to be even visible 
 to the unassisted eye. Perhaps Miss Wintle- 
 bury might soon be recovered — soon grow 
 strong again, and eventually be enabled to 
 make a fortune by that voice which now 
 scarcely found her in bread. Thoughts of 
 this nature occupied his mind all day, and 
 until his return home, at about six in the 
 evening. 
 
 Shortly afterwards a circumstance occurred 
 no less unexpected on his part than it will 
 prove surprising to the reader; and which, 
 as it finally settled the question of his love 
 for the public singer, as well as another 
 
 VOL. II. L 
 
 i 
 
218 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 question of great importance to an individual 
 in whom we have felt some concern during 
 the previous part of this history, 1 shall lose 
 no time in proceeding to relate. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 219 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A most uncommon courtship, a bit of jealousy, and a very 
 plain declaration. 
 
 Not long had Colin been at home before 
 a message was sent up by Miss Wintlebury, 
 begging the favour of a few minutes' conversa- 
 tion with him as early as it might be convenient 
 to himself. Poor Colin blushed to the eyes 
 as he heard the request, and in a manner so 
 hurried that he scarcely knew his own words, 
 replied that he would wait upon her imme- 
 diately. He took some time, nevertheless, in 
 adapting and adjusting his dress to his own 
 taste, which he now discovered had suddenly 
 become very particular ; but, at length, when 
 he grew ashamed of hanging back any longer, 
 he summoned a desperate resolution, and, like 
 
 L 2 
 
220 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 the leader of a forlorn hope, went on to his 
 mistress's door as though on an expedition 
 of life or death. 
 
 For the fourth time he found Miss Harriet's 
 appearance changed ; though this fourth ap- 
 pearance seemed the most true one. She was 
 yet young, and had been handsome ; just as a 
 primrose cropped a week since, and dangling 
 its head over the side of a jar has been hand- 
 some, but is so no longer. Her cheeks were 
 slightly — very slightly painted ; for custom is 
 custom still, even by the coffin side. Her 
 countenance was naturally intelligent, and had 
 been improved in expression by indulgence in 
 the love of literature. The proportions of her 
 figure were comely enough, and such as would 
 not have matched ill beside even so well-formed 
 an one as was Colin's. 
 
 " I am afraid you will think me very bold, 
 Mr. Clink,"' observed Miss Wintlebury, after 
 the first forms of their meeting had been gone 
 through ; " but I wished to thank you per- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 221 
 
 sonally for your exceeding kindness towards 
 one who is a mere stranger to you. I feel it 
 the more because, unfortunately for me, I have 
 so rarely met with anything of the kind. I 
 think my poor mother — and she has been gone 
 these many years — was the only creature that 
 ever loved me in this world ! "''' 
 
 Here her voice grew tremulous, and her ut- 
 terance half convulsive. 
 
 *' I do not scruple to say so much now, 
 because in the condition in which I am — I 
 know I am — I am dying, and that is all about 
 it; — in that condition, I say, no scruples pre- 
 vent me uttering what otherwise I should be 
 ashamed to own, because, with my feet almost 
 in the grave, I feel secure against any imputa- 
 tions which else the world might bring against 
 me. But, having almost done with the world, 
 and feeling under no apprehension that any- 
 body will look upon me in any other light 
 than as a departing guest about to close the 
 door upon her own back for ever, I am not 
 
222 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 ashamed to speak as a woman openly : for 
 openly I must shortly speak before a far 
 greater Being than any here." 
 
 Colin sat, with his eyes fixed on the ground, 
 mute and motionless, — striving to divert his 
 feelings by counting the pattern flowers on the 
 carpet ; but he could scarcely see them, his 
 eyes were full. With difficulty he swallowed 
 his grief as Miss Wintlebury continued, 
 
 " To-night, now, I am unable to go through 
 the exertion of pleasing those drunkards yon- 
 der, as usual. Nor is this the first warning 
 I have had that the poor concert of my life 
 is close upon its finale.'* 
 
 Accustomed as the young woman appeared 
 to be to contemplate her own death within the 
 little oratory of her own bosom, she yet dis- 
 played that feminine weakness of being unable 
 to allude to it in words before another person 
 without shedding tears. 
 
 " I hope, Miss," began Colin, but he could 
 not get on, — " I hope, ma'am " 
 
 "It is not for myself!" she exclaimed re- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 223 
 
 solutely, and as though determined to outface 
 those tears, — " no, not for myself. That is 
 very little worth crying for, indeed." 
 
 She smiled with a ghastly expression of self- 
 contempt, and continued, 
 
 " It is, sir, because I have it not in my 
 power to repay you for your kindness to me. 
 I must die in the debt of a stranger, for all 
 help is now going from my hands. These 
 few dresses and trinkets " 
 
 And as she sobbed out the words she placed 
 her hand upon a small heap of theatrical robes 
 and decorations which lay beside her. 
 
 *' These are all — and a very poor all they 
 are — I have to repay you with, besides a 
 buckle that I have here upon my band, which 
 my mother gave me ; and that I wish you to 
 take off and keep when I am dead : but I 
 must have it till then. I cannot part with it 
 before." 
 
 She paused, and gazed upon the trinket of 
 which she spoke as though the thoughts it 
 awakened congealed her into stone ; for not a 
 
22i> COLIN CLINK. 
 
 muscle of her countenance moved, and nothing 
 showed she was alive save the rapid tears which 
 dropped in painful noiselessness from her eye- 
 lashes to the ground. 
 
 " No, that is not quite all," she resumed, 
 almost in a whisper; " there is a necklace that 
 was given me at school one Midsummer holi- 
 day : you shall have that, too. And I should 
 like you to give it — I know you will forgive 
 me saying so, won't you ? Give it — if she be 
 not too proud — give it — if there be any one 
 in the world you love, give it her, and ask her 
 to w^ear it for my poor sake ! ''' 
 
 Colin vvas unused to the great sorrows of 
 the world ; his nature would have its way ; he 
 could contain his heart no longer, and burst 
 into an agonizing and audible fit of grief. 
 When his words came he begged her to desist ; 
 he refused to take anything from her as a 
 recompense for what he had done ; and, in 
 as encouraging a tone as he could assume, he 
 bid her cheer up, and hope for the best. He 
 said she might yet recover, and be happy — 
 
COLIN CLINK. 225 
 
 why not ? He would be her friend for ever, 
 if she would but pluck her heart up, and look 
 on things more cheerfully. 
 
 And, as he said this, — he knew not how he 
 did it, or why,— but he kissed her forehead 
 passionately, and pressed her hand within his 
 own, as though those fingers might never be 
 unclenched again. 
 
 At that moment the room door was very 
 unceremoniously opened, and two persons stood 
 before him, 
 
 Mrs. Popple had entered first, leading for- 
 wards Fanny Woodruff! 
 
 ''Colin t" exclaimed the latter in a tone of 
 mingled astonishment and reproach, and at 
 the same time retreating precipitately from 
 the room, while Miss Wintlebury sharply re- 
 proved her landlady for this rudeness, and 
 Mr. Clink himself as suddenly assumed much 
 more of the natural aspect of a fool than any 
 person would have believed his features at all 
 capable of. At length he spoke ; and, rushing 
 out after Fanny, exclaimed, 
 
 L 5 
 
226 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 " You shall not go ! I have done no wrong ! 
 Come back— come back ! " 
 
 " Sir ! "' replied Fanny, with the determined 
 voice of a highly-excited spirit, " I have not 
 accused you of anything, and, therefore, you 
 need not defend yourself. But, indeed, Colin, 
 I never expected this ! " 
 
 " What— what have I done ? " 
 
 *' Nothing, perhaps, that you have not a 
 perfect right to do if you think proper ; but, 
 however, I will not be troubled about it — 
 I will not ! " She applied her handkerchief 
 to her eyes. " I am sorry for having inter- 
 rupted you ; but, since you are so much better 
 engaged than with me, I will never trouble 
 you again as long as I live ! " 
 
 " Will you hear me ? " demanded Colin. 
 
 " It is of no use. I am satisfied. You 
 have a right to do as you think proper." 
 
 " Of course I have, so long as I do right ? '* 
 
 " Right ! " 
 
 " Yes, right. I have not injured you. I 
 never told you I loved j/om— never ! " 
 
COLIN CLINK. ^^7 
 
 Those words startled Fanny as with the 
 shock of an earthquake; shattering to frag- 
 ments in one instant that visionary palace of 
 Hope, which her heart had been occupied for 
 years in rearing. She looked incredulously 
 in his face, as though doubtful of his identity, 
 and then burst into a flood of tears. 
 
 " True," she murmured, " you never did — 
 never ! I have betrayed myself. But here, 
 sir," and she assumed as much firmness of 
 manner as possible, while she held a small 
 packet out for his acceptance. " Take this ; 
 for I came to give it you. It is all your mo- 
 ther and I " Her breathing became heavy 
 
 and convulsive. " We read your letter, and 
 — Oh, save me ! save me ! " She fell insen- 
 sible into the arms of Mrs. Popple, who in- 
 stantly, at Colin's request, carried her into 
 Miss Wintlebury's room, and placed her on 
 the sofa. 
 
 The packet had fallen from her hand. It 
 contained the three guineas which Colin had 
 formerly given to her, besides two from his 
 
228 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 mother, and the whole amount of Fanny's 
 own savings during the time she had been 
 in service, making in all between eight and 
 nine pounds. 
 
 Her unexpected appearance is readily ex- 
 plained. On perusing the melancholy news 
 contained in that letter of Colin's, to which 
 Fanny had alluded, she and his mother in- 
 stantly formed the very natural conclusion 
 that, bad as he had described his situation 
 to be, he would endeavour to make the best 
 of it to them ; and that, therefore, to a posi- 
 tive certainty it was very much worse than 
 his description would literally imply. A thou- 
 sand imaginary dangers surrounding him, 
 thronged upon their minds, which, they con- 
 cluded, nothing short of a personal visit could 
 modify or avert. Nothing less, indeed, could 
 satisfy their feelings upon the subject ; and 
 hence it was agreed between them that, in- 
 stead of writing to him, Fanny should under- 
 take the journey, carrying with her all the 
 
COLIN CLINK. 229 
 
 money for his use which their joint efforts 
 could procure. 
 
 The attentions of Mrs. Popple and Miss 
 Wintlebury soon brought the young woman 
 again to herself. 
 
 " Let me go ! " said she. " I will return 
 home to-night ! I cannot stay here ! I can- 
 not bear it !" 
 
 " No, Fanny," observed Colin, " that you 
 shall not. You have mistaken me much — 
 very much ; when, if you knew all, you 
 would be the first in the world to applaud 
 me for what I have done." 
 
 " I shall never be happy any more ! " sighed 
 Fanny almost inaudibly. 
 
 " I hope, young lad}^," said Miss Wintle- 
 bury, addressing her, " that / have not been 
 any cause of unhappiness to you ? Because 
 if so, perhaps it will be some comfort to you 
 to know that I 'cannot continue so long. Look 
 at me. Surely this poor frame cannot have 
 excited either man's love or woman's jealousy ; 
 
230 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 for no one could be so weak as to dream of 
 placing his happiness on such a broken reed, 
 nor any one so foolish as to take alarm at 
 a shadow, which a few days at most — perhaps 
 a few hours — must remove for ever." 
 
 Fanny heard this discourse at first with 
 indifference; but now she listened earnestly, 
 and with evident surprise. Miss Wintlebury 
 continued, 
 
 " If — for so it almost seems — you foolishly 
 imagine that I stand between that young gen- 
 tleman and yourself, be assured you are deeply 
 mistaken. Death, I too well know, has be- 
 trothed me; and I dare not, would not, ac- 
 cept another bridegroom. Now be at peace, 
 and hear me but a moment longer. I know 
 not who you are, though you and Mr. Clink 
 are evidently acquainted ; but if there be any- 
 thing between you both, — if you love him, 
 or he you, — all I say is, may Heaven bless 
 you in it, — bless you ! With one like him 
 you could not fail to be blessed. A nobler, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 231 
 
 or a more generous and feeling creature never 
 looked up to heaven." 
 
 Overcome both by her bodily weakness and 
 her feelings the poor girl sat down, and co- 
 vered her face with her hands as she sobbed 
 bitterly. During some minutes not a word 
 was uttered ; nor until the last speaker again 
 rose, and took Fanny's hand, and led her 
 across the room towards Colin, who stood by 
 the fire-place, looking as grave and immoveable 
 as though he were cast in lead. 
 
 " Come," said she, " forget me, and let me 
 see you friends." 
 
 Suiting the action to the sentiment ex- 
 pressed, she placed Fanny's hand in Colin's. 
 He gazed on her a moment, then clasped 
 her in his arms, and kissed her a thousand 
 times. 
 
 That night the three supped together, and 
 were happy. And, as Fanny had not as yet 
 taken any place of abode, she shared Miss 
 Wintlebury's apartments ; while Colin passed, 
 
'232 COLIN CLINK, 
 
 amidst endless anxiety and excitement, an al- 
 most totally sleepless night. 
 
 Fanny did not choose to I'emain in town 
 much longer than the occasion of her visit 
 rendered absolutely essential ; but during that 
 time she related to Colin everything that 
 could possibly interest him respecting the 
 home he had left behind. 
 
 Amongst other matters of less importance, 
 she surprised and astonished him with the 
 information that, shortly after his own flight 
 from Bramleigh, her father had been removed 
 by Doctor Rowel from Nabbfield, and carried 
 by night to a distant part of the country. 
 But, as some particulars of this movement 
 will require to be laid before the reader in 
 the course of some subsequent chapter, I shall 
 not trouble him with Fanny's statement, or 
 Mr. Clink's remarks in reply, here ; merely 
 observing that the latter earnestly impressed 
 upon her the necessity, both on her father's 
 account, and his own too, of her applying 
 
COLIN CLINK. 2SS 
 
 at Kiddal Hall, and informing Mr. Lupton 
 of the whole circumstances of the transaction 
 at as early a period as possible. 
 
 All this Fanny promised to perform imme- 
 diately on her arrival at Bramleigh. But 
 when the period of departure came she re- 
 turned thither with a heavy heart. The de- 
 claration made by Colin that he had never 
 loved her (for so she interpreted it) still weigh- 
 ed heavily upon her bosom ; nor did his sub- 
 sequent kindness of behaviour, although it 
 pleased for the moment, tend to any permanent 
 alleviation of her feelings of sorrow derived 
 from that source. The difference between her 
 visit to town and this departure seemed to 
 her like that to one who goes out in sunshine, 
 with a glad day before her, but returns under 
 clouds, and with no prospect but that of dark- 
 ness at night. While, perplexed as Colin 
 had partially felt between what he thought 
 to be his duty, and his inclination, he so 
 far discovered — if not to his positive satis- 
 
2Sif COLIN CLINK. 
 
 faction, — at least the entire absence of any- 
 thing like real regret at Fanny's departure. 
 In the mortification and agony of spirit con- 
 sequent on her discovery of that fact, Fanny 
 determined resolutely to banish Colin from 
 her mind in every shape, save as a friend, 
 for ever. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 235 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL 
 
 The reader is courteously introduced into a bone and bottle 
 shop, and made acquainted with Peter Veriquear and 
 the family of the Veriquears. A night adventure. 
 
 In a bye-lane leading out of Hare Street, 
 which, as my readers must be informed, is 
 situated about the middle of the parish of 
 Bethnal Green, there resided a certain trades- 
 man, one Peter Veriquear by name ; into whose 
 service, as a man of all work, our hero, Mr. 
 Clink, may now be supposed to have entered. 
 By the recommendation, vote, and interest of 
 Mistress Popple, who had some acquaintance 
 with the Veriquears, it was that he obtained 
 this eligible situation ; a situation which found 
 him a sort of endless employment of one kind 
 
236 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 or other, day and night, at the rate of six 
 shillings per week, bed and board included. 
 
 When Colin first applied about the place, 
 Mr. Veriquear replied, 
 
 *' If you want a situation, young man, that 
 is your business, and not mine. If I have a 
 place to dispose of, I have ; and if I hav'n't, 
 why of course I hav'n't. That is my business, 
 and not yours." 
 
 Colin hinted something about what Mrs. 
 Popple had said. 
 
 "Well!" exclaimed Veriquear, "if Mrs. 
 Popple told you so, she did. That is Mrs. 
 Popple's business, and neither yours nor mine." 
 
 " Then I am mistaken, sir.^" 
 
 " / did not say you were mistaken. But, if 
 you think you are, that is your own business, 
 and not mine." 
 
 " Then what, sir,**' asked Colin, somewhat 
 puzzled, " am I to understand .^" 
 
 " Why," replied Veriquear, " I shall say 
 the same to you as I do to all young men, — 
 understand your own business, if you have 
 
COLIN CLINK. 2S1 
 
 any, and, if you hav'n't, understand how to 
 get one,— that is the next best thing.*" 
 
 " And that," rejoined our hero, " is exactly 
 what I am desirous of doing." 
 
 " Well, if you are, you are ; that is your 
 own concern." 
 
 " You seem to be fond of joking," remarked 
 Colin, as the blood mounted to his cheeks. 
 
 " No, sir," answered Veriquear, more stern- 
 ly, " the man is not born that ever knew me 
 joke in the whole course of my life. I have 
 my own way, and that is no business of any- 
 body's. Other people have theirs, and that is 
 none of mine." 
 
 " But can you give me any employment, sir?" 
 
 " Well, I suppose young men must live 
 somehow, though that is their own concern ; 
 and I must find 'em work if I can, though 
 that is mine." 
 
 After some further conversation, in which 
 Mr.Veriquear's character displayed itself much 
 as above depicted, he arrived, through a very 
 labyrinthine path, at the concluson that Colin 
 
238 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 should be employed upon his establishment ac- 
 cording to the terms previously stated. 
 
 Though Mr. Veriquear's premises stood no- 
 minally two stories high, and occupied a front- 
 age some forty feet long, the roof scarcely 
 reached to the chamber-windows of certain 
 more modern erections on either side. The 
 front wall, — a strange composition of timber, 
 bricks, and plaster mingled together in very 
 picturesque sort, — had in times gone by par- 
 tially given way at the foundation, and now 
 stood in an indescribably wry position. Hav- 
 ing forcibly pulled the whole mass of tiling 
 along with it, the ridge of the roof resembled 
 the half-dislocated backbone of some fossil alli- 
 gator, while a weather-beaten chimney, with 
 great gaps between the bricks, which stood at 
 one end, leaned sentimentally towards a dead 
 gable, like Charlotte lamenting the sorrows of 
 Werter. The windows, which were small and 
 heavy, seemed to have been inserted according 
 to the strictest laws of chance; for, exactly in 
 those places where nobody would have expect- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 239 
 
 ed them, there they were. By the side of the 
 door Haunted some yards of filthy drapery, 
 which flapped in the faces of the passers-by 
 whenever they and a gust chanced to meet 
 near the spot ; and old bottles, secondhand 
 ewers and basins, bits of rag, and various 
 other descriptions of valuable " marine stores," 
 decorated a window which might, without much 
 injustice, have been supposed to be glazed 
 with clarified cow's-horn. Above, a huge doll, 
 clad in long-clothes of dirty diipty, and sus- 
 pended to a projecting iron by the crown of 
 the head, swung in the blast like the effigy of 
 some criminal on a gibbet-post. At the edge 
 of the causeway, which had never been paved, 
 and directly opposite the entrance to Mr. Veri- 
 quear's establishment, was placed a board ele- 
 vated on a moveable pole, on which was paint- 
 ed, in attractive letters, " Wholesale and retail 
 Rag, Bone, and Bottle Warehouse." 
 
 Into this miserable den Colin permanently 
 introduced himself for the first time one night 
 between eight and nine o'clock. Some portion 
 
240 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 of that evening he had spent with Miss Wintle- 
 bury, and had taken his adieu of her and the 
 habitation she was in together, only after he 
 had prevailed upon her to accept one of three 
 sovereigns which alone he had retained out of 
 the larger sum brought for his use by Fanny. 
 
 It was dusk when he arrived at his new 
 abode. There was no light in the shop, save 
 what little found its way thither from the fad- 
 ing heavens, which now were scantily spotted 
 with half-seen stars. Peter Yeriquear stood 
 solemnly against the door-post, staring into 
 the gloom, and blowing through his teeth a 
 doleful noise, compounded both of singing and 
 whistling, but resembling neither, either in 
 tone or loudness. Colin felt low-spirited, 
 though he strove to seem joyful. 
 
 *' It grows dark very fast, sir,*" said he, ad- 
 dressing Mr. Veriquear as he entered. 
 
 " Yes," replied that gentleman, " it does ; 
 but I can't help that. What Nature chooses to 
 do is no businesss of ours.'* 
 
 " Certainly," rejoined Colin ; " but I said 
 
COLIN CLINK. 241 
 
 SO only because it is customary to express some 
 kind of opinion/' 
 
 " Well, that, of course, is your own con- 
 cern ; but, for my part, I never make it my 
 business either to damn or praise the weather. 
 Nature knows her own affairs, and manages 
 them just the same without my meddling." 
 
 As Peter said this, he turned and led into 
 the shop his new assistant. Groping his way 
 along in the direction of a distant inner door- 
 way, through which the dim remains of a fire 
 were visible, Colin first jostled against a stand, 
 which rattled with the concussion as though 
 all the bottles in the United Kingdom had 
 been jingled together ; and then, in his endea- 
 vour to steer clearer on the contrary side, fell 
 prostrate on to a prodigious heap of tailors* 
 ends, strongly resembling in size a juvenile 
 Primrose Hill. 
 
 " I think it's my business to get a light,"** 
 observed Veriquear. *' Stop where you are 
 till I come again." 
 
 Colin wisely maintained his position, in ac- 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
212 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 cordance with the sensible advice given him, 
 lest, by making another endeavour in the dark, 
 he should fall foul of a stack of bones, and 
 thus exchange for a less comfortable anchorage. 
 In cases of this kind, he well knew that a soft 
 bottom is the best. 
 
 When Peter returned with a candle, Colin 
 obtained a dim vision of the objects about him. 
 The place was so black, for want of white- 
 wash, that its limits seemed almost indefinable 
 every way, save overhead, and there the close 
 proximity of his crown to the rafters reminded 
 him that no less care would be required in 
 humouring Mr. Yeriquear's house than in 
 pleasing its master ; while the quality and 
 amount of its contents almost led him to be- 
 lieve he had entered some grand national closet, 
 in which was deposited all the unserviceable 
 stuff, the scraps, odds and ends of the general 
 community. The reason of this was, that 
 Peter Veriquear dealt in almost everything he 
 could turn a penny by, and, being somewhat 
 large in his speculations, always had a vast 
 
COLIN CLINK. 243 
 
 mass of property in substance upon his pre- 
 mises. 4 
 
 As a new emigrant to the wilds of North 
 America betakes himself to an accurate survey 
 of his locality before he pitches his tent, and 
 commences operations, so, wisely, did Peter 
 Veriquear conduct Colin over the whole of his 
 territory that night, in order that he there- 
 by might become acquainted early with the 
 wide field of his future labours. Through a 
 dirty unpaved yard behind, he conducted him 
 over various shed-like warehouses, stored with 
 every imaginable description of rags, sorted 
 and unsorted, with bottles of all degrees of 
 bodily extension, from the slender pale-faced 
 phial to the middle-sized *■' mixture" and the 
 corpulent " stout;" and on the ground-floor, 
 into a deathly region of bones, which made the 
 moveless air smell grave-like, and stored the 
 prompt imagination with as many spectres of 
 slaughtered cattle and skeleton horses, as might 
 garnish the magic circles of twenty German 
 tales. 
 
 M 2 
 
244 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 In a wide rambling loft, accessible through 
 this place by a step-ladder, and open to the 
 laths of the roof on which the tiles were hung. 
 Colin observed a small bed and a chair or two, 
 with a broken piece of looking-glass fixed on 
 the wall with nails, in order, as it might appear 
 from the deserted character of the place, that 
 the tenant, if weary of being alone, might con- 
 template a representative of himself, in lack 
 of better company. 
 
 " Is this room occupied ?" asked Colin. 
 " When there is anybody in it, — as there 
 ought to be every night," replied Veriquear. 
 " It is my business to keep these premises 
 safe, the same as it is other people's to rob 
 them if they could." 
 
 " Why, surely, sir,'* objected Colin, with 
 some slight astonishment, " nobody would 
 think of stealing such things as there are 
 here!" 
 
 " What is worth buying and selling is 
 worth stealing. / should think so, if it were 
 my affair to rob; just as I think it worth 
 
COLIN CLINK. 245 
 
 guarding, being my business to hinder rob- 
 bery." 
 
 "Then, shall I sleep here?" demanded 
 Colin. 
 
 " Well," responded Mr. Veriquear, " I sup- 
 pose you will, if you can. You want sleep, 
 like me, I dare say ; but that you must 
 manage yourself. / can't make you sleep, — 
 so it's no concern of mine." 
 
 Our hero said nothing, but he thought the 
 Fates could not have been in one of the most 
 amiable of humours when they delivered him 
 into the hands of Mr. Peter Veriquear. 
 
 Returning from this dim perambulation, the 
 merchant led his assistant down a flight of 
 brick steps into an underground kitchen, where 
 a supper, consisting of a round mahogany- 
 coloured cheese, which Colin mistook for a huge 
 cricket-ball, three gaunt sticks of celery, and a 
 brown loaf was placed upon a small round oak 
 table, having one stem in the centre, and three 
 crooked feet at the bottom, after the fashion of 
 a washerwoman's Italian iron. The family of 
 
246 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 the Veriquears was here assembled. Mrs. Veri- 
 quear, a sharp-nosed pyroligneous-acid-looking 
 woman, sat on a low chair by the fireside, 
 nursing a baby ; a child of eighteen months 
 old slept close by her in a wicker basket, which 
 served at once for cradle and coach-body, as 
 occasion might require, it being ingeniously 
 contrived to fit a frame-work on four wheels, 
 v\'hich stood up stairs, and thus served to carry 
 the children about on a Sunday ; while two 
 other youngsters were squabbling on the hearth- 
 stone about their respective titles to a three- 
 legged stool ; and another, the eldest, was 
 penning most villanous pot-hooks on the back 
 of a piece of butter-paper, under the casual but 
 severe superintendence of his worthy mother. 
 Farthest removed from the fire, as well as the 
 candle-light, sat one who was iii the family, 
 though not of it, a maiden of nineteen. Miss 
 Aphra Marvel, a niece of INIr. Veriquear, who 
 had been bequeathed to him by her father 
 upon his death-bed, along with a small tene- 
 ment worth about fifteen pounds a-year, the 
 
COLIN CLINK. 247 
 
 income from which was considered as a set-off' 
 against the cost of her board and bringing up. 
 But could her departing parent have fore- 
 known the great and multifarious services 
 which his daughter was destined to perform in 
 the family of his wife's brother, it is more than 
 probable he would have acknowledged the 
 propriety of charging fifteen pounds per annum 
 as a compensation for her labour, rather than 
 have left that sum in yearly requital of her 
 cost. From twelve years of age to the pre- 
 sent time, her duty it had been to make the 
 fires, sweep the house, wash and nurse the 
 babies, as they succesively appeared upon the 
 Veriquear stage of the world, wait on Mrs, 
 Veriquear, prepare meals, make the beds, mend 
 all the little masters' clothes, and, in short, do 
 all and everything which could possibly require 
 to be done ; and yet she was regarded by her 
 mistress and the children (whom she indus- 
 triously instructed to that end) as an inter- 
 loper, who was partly eating the bread out of 
 their mouths every day, and consequently con- 
 
248 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 tributing to the eventual diminution of that 
 stock which ought to be applied exclusively to 
 the advancement of their own prospects in 
 after-life. 
 
 When Colin entered, Miss Aphra cast her 
 eyes momentarily up, and half blushed as she 
 resumed her sewing. The children stared in 
 wonder at him, as they might at the sudden 
 appearance of a frog in the kitchen. The 
 baby caught sight of him, and began to squeal 
 like a sucking pig ; while Mrs. Veriquear cast 
 an ill-tempered eye upon him, as much as to 
 say she wanted none of him there; and then 
 shook her infant into an absolute scream with 
 the exclamation, — 
 
 *' What are you crying at, you little fidget ! 
 He's not going to hurt you, I'll take care of 
 that. Hush — hush — hush-sh-sh !" And away 
 went the rocking-chair at a rate quite tanta- 
 mount to the extreme urgency of the occasion. 
 
 When they sat down to supper, it was dis- 
 covered that Master William had picked out 
 the hearts of two sticks of celery, and extracted 
 
COLIN CLINK. 249 
 
 a plug three inches long, by way of taster, 
 from the Dutch cheese. This being a case 
 that imperatively demanded the application of 
 summary punishment, Colin got nothing to 
 cat until Mr. Veriquear had risen from the 
 table, and applied a few inches of old cane to 
 the lad's shoulders, which he did with this 
 brief preparatory remark, 
 
 " Now, my boy, as you have made it your 
 business to pull that plug out, it becomes mine 
 to try if I can't plug you." 
 
 Master William howled like a jackal before 
 he was touched; his younger brother Ned 
 cried because Bill did ; and Mrs. Veriquear 
 stormed at her husband, because he could not 
 thrash the lad without making noise enough 
 over it to wake the very dead. Miss Marvel 
 looked as solemn during this farce as though 
 it had been a tragedy ; while Colin squeezed 
 his nose up in his handkerchief as forcibly 
 as though a lobster had seized it between 
 his nippers, in order to prevent IMrs. Veri- 
 quear seeing how irreverently his fancy was 
 
250 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 tickled at this exhibition of domestic enjoy- 
 irients. 
 
 Uninviting as his dormitory over the ware- 
 houses had previously appeared, the character 
 of the kitchen and its inhabitants seemed so 
 much more so, that it was with comparative 
 delight he heard the clock of Shoreditch church 
 strike ten, as a signal for him to take pos- 
 session of a tin lantern provided for the occa- 
 sion. Accordingly, carrying a bunch of keys 
 in his hand, wherewith to lock himself in, 
 he strode across the yard to his solitary and 
 comfortless chamber. 
 
 During the first few hours which had elapsed 
 after Colin had retired to his ghostly-look- 
 ing dormitory, it was in vain he tried to coax 
 and persuade himself to sleep. That fan- 
 tastical deity, Somnus, seemed determined to 
 contradict his wishes ; and therefore he lay 
 with his eyes wide open, counting how many 
 chinks he could see between the tiles over his 
 head, and listening to the musical compli- 
 ments which passed between some friendly 
 
COLIN CLINK. 251 
 
 torn and tabby cats, whose tails and backs 
 were evidently elevated in a very picturesque 
 manner outside the ridge above him. 
 
 It could not be far off one o'clock, when a 
 very distinct sound, as of something stirring 
 below stairs, reached his ears. Though by no 
 means naturally timid, the young man's heart 
 suddenly jumped as though taking a spring 
 from a precipice. Possibly the noise might 
 be occasioned by the rats taking advantage 
 of this untimely hour of the night to make 
 free with Mr. Veriquear's bones ; or the cats 
 outside were in pursuit of the aforesaid rats ; 
 or the wind was making itself merry some- 
 how amongst the bottles; or the doors or the 
 shutters were undergoing a process of agitation 
 from the same cause. Whatever might origi- 
 nate the sound, however, it was now repeated 
 more distinctly. There was evidently on the 
 premises something alive as well as himself. 
 Was it possible that he could have got into a 
 wrong place, and that they meditated murder- 
 ing him for the sake of his body ? He thought 
 
252 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 of a pitch-plaster being suddenly stuck over 
 his mouth by some unseen hand, as he lay there 
 on his back in the dark. It was horrible, and 
 the conceit aroused him to determination. He 
 cautiously slipped out of bed, and, clad in 
 nothing more than his stockings and shirt, 
 groped his way blindly to the step-ladder, 
 which he silently descended. 
 
 Having reached the floor of the room be- 
 low, be for the first time bethought himself 
 that he had no weapon of defence, not even 
 a common stick. But the great bone-heap 
 was hard by, and from such armoury he soon 
 possessed himself with the thigh-bone of a 
 horse, which he contrived, without material 
 disturbance, to draw out from amongst a choice 
 collection of other similar relics. Again the 
 noise which had alarmed him was repeated, 
 and carried conviction to Colin's mind that 
 Mr. Veriquear's precautions against robbers 
 were more needful than he had previously 
 believed ; for that there were thieves about 
 the premises he now no more doubted than 
 
COLIN CLINK. 253 
 
 he doubted his own existence. Determined 
 to resist the knaves, and, grasping his bony 
 cudgel with uncommon fervour, he placed him- 
 self in an offensive attitude, and stood pre- 
 pared for he knew not what. 
 
 Not the famous fighting gladiator of an- 
 tiquity, nor yet the modest statue dubbed 
 Achilles in Hyde Park, the admiration and 
 delight of our astonished countrymen and 
 women, looks more threatening and heroic 
 than did Colin, as, clad in the simple but 
 classic drapery of his under-garment, he bran- 
 dished a tremendous bone, and defied his un- 
 seen foe. 
 
 At that moment the fragmentary skull of 
 some old charger, which lay on the window- 
 sill at the farther end of the warehouse, seem- 
 ed to become partially and very mysteriously 
 illuminated, while the shadowy form of a man 
 standing hard by became also indistinctly vi- 
 sible amidst the gloom. Colin maintained his 
 standing in breathless silence, with his eyes 
 steadily fixed upon the figure. 
 
25 i COLIN CLINK. 
 
 In the course of a few moments it turned 
 slowly round, and began to advance gravely 
 towards him, but whether or not with any 
 intention of accosting him either by word or 
 blow, he could not yet divine. Shortly it 
 reached within arm's length of him, and was 
 about to address doubtless some very myste- 
 rious speech to his ear, when the thought 
 flashed on the young man's mind like light- 
 ning that now or never was the time ; so 
 raising his drumstick of a bone, he took aim, 
 and, before a single protest against his mea- 
 sure could be entered, nearly felled the in- 
 truder to the earth. 
 
 "Don't strike! — don't strike!" cried the 
 individual thus unexpectedly attacked. ''I'm 
 Veriquear ! — I 'm Veriquear ! " 
 
 " Certainly," thought Colin, " you are very 
 queer indeed ! " — for he instantly recognised 
 the voice as that of his employer, " I 'm 
 very sorry — " 
 
 " All right ! — quite right !" said Veriquear, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 25i} 
 
 drawing a dark-lantern from a pocket behind 
 him, and throwing a bundle of rays like a 
 bunch of carrots on the figure of his assistant. 
 " It was decidedly your business to do as 
 you have done ; and I ""m very much obliged 
 to you — " 
 
 " You are very welcome," interrupted Colin. 
 
 " For if you had not made it your duty to 
 defend the place, I should have turned you 
 away at a minute's notice to-morrow morning. 
 I have done this on purpose to try your cou- 
 rage a little ; only I meant to catch you in 
 bed, instead of where you are." 
 
 " But I regret having struck you," protested 
 Colin. 
 
 " As to that,'' replied Peter, " that, you 
 know, is ;i/our business ; and if I like to run 
 the risk of getting a beating, why, that, of 
 course, is mine. Only I never yet had a 
 man in my employ that I did not try in the 
 same way ; and many a one have I discharged 
 because they would not turn again. It 's no 
 
256 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 use having a dog that won't bark, and bite 
 too, if he is wanted ; so I always put them 
 to the proof in the first instance."* 
 
 His hearer did not particularly admire Mr. 
 Veriquear's sagacious method of trying the 
 mettle of his men ; but, inasmuch as it had so 
 far ingratiated him into the favour of his 
 employer, he did not lament the occurrence 
 of a rencontre which, though it had promised 
 seriously at the outset, terminated so harm- 
 lessly. He accordingly betook himself again 
 to his pallet, and slept out soundly the re- 
 mainder of the night ; while Mr. Veriquear 
 departed by the same way he had come, highly 
 gratified with the courage of Colin, and re- 
 joicing in the hard blow that he had so ably 
 bestowed upon his shoulders. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 257 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 A Sunday sight in London. — Colin meets with his best 
 friend, and receives a heart-breaking epistle from Miss 
 Wintlebury. 
 
 It was not during the six days only, but on 
 Sundays also, that Colin found employment at 
 Peter Veriquear's. As regularly as the Sabbath 
 came, he was converted into an animal of 
 draught and burden, by being placed at the 
 pole of that cradle-coach already alluded to, 
 and engaged during stated hours in giving 
 his employer''s young family an airing amongst 
 the delightful precincts of Hoxton New Town 
 and the Hackney-road. On one of these occa- 
 sions he very luckily, though accidentally, met 
 with a gentleman whom he very much wished 
 
^58 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 to see, and to whom, also, I shall have much 
 pleasure in re-introducing the reader. 
 
 The day was uncommonly cold, consider- 
 ing the time of the year. Colin's face, as 
 he breasted the blast, strongly resembled a 
 raw carrot ; while behind him sat four little 
 red-and-blue looking animals, muffled up into 
 no shape, and each " tiled'' with an immense 
 brimmed hat, which gave them altogether much 
 the appearance of a basket of young flap-mush- 
 rooms. 
 
 "Don't cry, my dear!'' said Cohn, as he 
 suddenly caught hold, and half twinged the 
 cold button-like nose off the face of each in 
 succession, — " Don't cry, dears, — and you 
 shall have some pudding as soon as the baker 
 has baked it. We shall soon be at home, 
 Georgy. There, wrap your fingers up. See 
 what a big dog that is ! " 
 
 A tap on the shoulder with the end of a 
 walking-cane interrupted his string of excla- 
 mations, and at the same moment a voice, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 259 
 
 which he had somewhere heard before, ad- 
 dressed him with — 
 
 " And do not you remember whose dog 
 he is ? " 
 
 Colin turned hastily round,, and beheld 
 Squire Lupton standing on the edge of the 
 curb-stone. If his cheeks were red before, 
 they became scarlet now ; for, though his 
 occupation involved nothing censurable, he 
 blushed deeply, and for the moment could 
 not utter a word. 
 
 "What!" exclaimed Mr. Lupton, as he 
 gazed in admiration on the contents of the 
 four-wheeled basket, " so young, and such a 
 family as that ? God bless my soul ! — why, 
 surely they are not all your own ? " 
 
 Colin did the best he could to clear himself 
 of such an awful responsibility, avowing that 
 he had no participation whatever in the affair, 
 beyond what his duty in drawing them about 
 might be considered to involve. Of this, in- 
 deed, the Squire did not require any very 
 
260 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 powerful proof, as he had given utterance to 
 the remark more as a piece of pleasantry, than 
 with any idea that it would be considered as 
 meant in earnest. 
 
 As the streets of London do not at any time 
 offer any very peculiar facilities for private 
 conversation, and especially upon such import- 
 ant matters as those which both the Squire 
 and Colin felt it necessary to be discussed be- 
 tween them, a very brief colloquy was all that 
 passed on the present occasion, though suffici- 
 ently long to inform Mr. Lupton how poor a 
 situation the young man had been obliged to 
 accept since his arrival in town, merely to find 
 himself in the most common necessaries of life. 
 On the other hand, Colin ascertained that the 
 Squire's absence from Kiddal, just after his 
 last singular interview with him there, was in 
 consequence of a visit which he was under 
 the necessity of making to the metropolis, 
 and to which was entirely owing his very 
 fortunate, but accidental, meeting with him 
 at the present moment. Before they parted, 
 
COLIN CLINK. 261 
 
 Mr. Lupton charged him, on his return home, 
 to give Mr. Veriquear immediate warning to 
 quit his service the following week, or as early 
 as possible, as he had another mode of life in 
 view for him, which he hoped would tend 
 much more materially to his comfort and fu- 
 ture happiness. 
 
 In the mean time, he requested him to wait 
 upon him the following evening at a certain 
 hotel at the west end of the town which he 
 named, and where they might discuss all ne- 
 cessary matters in quiet and at leisure. 
 
 When Colin informed his employer of his 
 adventure, and the consequence to which it 
 had led in rendering it necessary that he 
 should quit his service, — 
 
 " Very well," said Veriquear, " if you wish 
 to leave me, that is no business of mine. As 
 you came, so you must go. I am sorry to part 
 with you ; though I don't know what business 
 it is of mine to grieve about it. You have 
 your objects in the world, and I have mine ; 
 so I suppose we must each go his own way 
 
Q62 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 about them. Only if you consider yourself 
 right in leaving so suddenly, I shall make it 
 my duty not to pay you this week's wages." 
 
 Colin protested that as circumstances had 
 altered v/ith him, he considered that a matter 
 of very little consequence, and would willingly 
 forego any demand which otherwise he might 
 make upon him. Mr. Veriquear felt secretly 
 gratified at the sacrifice his man thus frankly 
 volunteered to make ; and, by way of requital, 
 told him not only that he might consider him- 
 self at liberty to depart on any day of the 
 ensuing week that he pleased, but also added, 
 
 " And if at any time it should so happen 
 that I can be of any service to you, apply to 
 me ; but mind you, it must not be about other 
 people'^s business. If it is any business of mine, 
 I'll meddle; but your business, you know, is 
 your own. Other people's is theirs ; and mine 
 is mine, and nobody else's." 
 
 Most probably Colin would that evening 
 have called at Mrs. Popple's and communi- 
 cated the agreeable intelligence, of which his 
 
COLIN CLINK. 263 
 
 head and heart were alike full, to poor Miss 
 Wintlebury, had he not been arrested, just as 
 he was on the point of setting out, by a small 
 packet addressed to himself, which some un- 
 known hand had left at the door, and within 
 which, on opening, he found a trifling article 
 or two of remembrance, and the following 
 note : — 
 
 " My dear friend, 
 
 " It is with great satisfaction I sit down to 
 write these few lines, informing you of the 
 good news, that yesterday my father arrived 
 from the country, bringing the intelligence that 
 a comfortable small fortune had been left him 
 by my uncle very unexpectedly, and that he 
 has this day taken my brother and myself back 
 again to our native place to pass the rest of 
 our lives, and in hopes that thereby my own 
 may be prolonged. But my poor dear father 
 will be deceived ! He knows not what ang-uish 
 I have gone through, and he never shall know. 
 Nevertheless, the country will be to me like a 
 
264 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 new heaven for the short time I am permitted 
 to enjoy it ; though the horrors of my past life 
 will never cease to darken the scene. 
 
 " I can scarcely express the delight I feel in 
 being enabled, through this reverse in our con- 
 dition, to enclose a sum which, I trust, will 
 leave me your debtor only in that gratitude 
 which no payment can wipe away. 
 
 " The other trifles perhaps you may keep, if 
 not too poor for acceptance ; but as I know 
 that our continued acquaintance could end 
 only in deeper misery to us both, I deem it 
 the only wise and proper course to withhold 
 from you all knowledge of our future place 
 of abode; and if you will in one thing more 
 oblige me, never attempt to seek it out. I am 
 bound speedily for another world, and must 
 form no more ties with this. 
 
 " Heaven bless you and yours ! And that 
 you may be lastingly happy, as you deserve, 
 will be the prayer, to the end of her days, of 
 
 " Harriet." 
 
COLIN CLINK. 265 
 
 A ten-pound note, a ring, and a brooch were 
 enclosed. 
 
 Colin immediately repaired, on reading this, 
 to his late lodgings, in hopes of seeing the 
 writer before her departure ; but he was too 
 late. The contents of the letter were verified ; 
 and he could not obtain from the landlady the 
 most remote information as to what part of the 
 country she had retired. 
 
 VOL. ir. 
 
266 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 Colin's interview with Squire Lupton, and what it led lo 
 — A bait to catch the Doctor. 
 
 On reaching the hotel, according to appoint- 
 ment, Colin found Mr. Lupton seated in a 
 private room up-stairs, with a table neatly 
 spread for two beside him, but as yet containing 
 nothing beyond the requisite materials for hand- 
 ling that dinner, which was brought up at the 
 Squire's summons very shortly after his arrival. 
 During their repast the young man could not 
 avoid being continually reminded with what 
 kind familiarity he was treated by his wealthy 
 entertainer, — a degree of familiarity which 
 seemed the more unaccountable to him, per- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 267 
 
 haps, simply because all his previous ideas of the 
 manners of the higher classes of society had 
 been derived almost solely from casual observa- 
 tion of that high bearing and seeming auste- 
 rity of feeling, which sometimes exists in their 
 common intercourse with the rustic inhabitants 
 of a country district. 
 
 To be sure, he had once rendered the 
 Squire an essential service, by saving him 
 from severe personal injury, if not possibly 
 from a premature death ; but that service he 
 thought might be equally well rewarded with- 
 out all this personal association with, and con- 
 descension to, one who possessed no qualifica- 
 tions save those which nature had given him, 
 for admission into a kind of society of which, 
 up to this time, he could not possibly know 
 anything. But Mr. Lupton seemed to take 
 pains even to render him easy in his new situa- 
 tion, — to make him at home, as it v^^ere, and 
 cause him to feel himself as essentially upon 
 a level in all things with himself. 
 
 N 2 
 
268 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 Though Colin could not account exactly for 
 all this, it had its due effect upon him. By the 
 time their meal was over, and at the Squire's 
 most pressing solicitations he had imbibed 
 various glasses of sherry during the repast, 
 he found himself as much at liberty, both 
 in limb and tongue, as though he had been 
 seated in Miss Sowersoft's kitchen, with 
 no higher company than herself and Pale- 
 thorpe. 
 
 As Mr. Lupton evinced considerable anxiety 
 to know what had brought him to London, 
 and Colin himself on his part felt no less desir- 
 ous to explain every circumstance connected 
 not only with himself, but also those bearing 
 upon the infamous conduct of Doctor Rowel, 
 touching the affair of Lawyer Skinwell and 
 James Woodruff, two long after-dinner hours 
 scarcely sufficed for the detail of a narrative 
 which, in all its particulars, caused in the mind 
 of Mr. Lupton the utmost astonishment. 
 
 The freedom with which Colin expressed his 
 
COLIN CLINK. 269 
 
 own sentiments respecting the death of the 
 lawyer, and the hand which he firmly believed 
 Doctor Rowel had had in that event, somewhat 
 raised the Squire's doubts of the joung man's 
 prudence, though at the same time it went far 
 to convince him of the propriety, if not the 
 absolute necessity, of placing the Doctor him- 
 self in some place of security, until a more full 
 and searching investigation could be gone into. 
 That he was open to a serious charge was 
 evident ; and, supported as that charge was 
 by the corresponding conduct he had pursued 
 with respect to James Woodruff, the Squire 
 could come to no other conclusion than that 
 it was his clear duty, both as a man and a 
 magistrate, to have the Doctor apprehended as 
 soon as possible. 
 
 While Colin related in quiet and unassum- 
 ing language his own scarcely less than heroic 
 attempt to set Woodruff at liberty, together 
 with the disasters which had pursued him 
 afterwards in consequence thereof, Mr. Luj - 
 
270 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 ton's countenance grew now grave, now ex- 
 pressive of admiration, and anon slightly and 
 apparently involuntarily convulsed with emo- 
 tions which he would not express, though he 
 could not conceal. His lips quivered, and 
 his eyes were occasionally forcibly closed, as 
 though to force back the generous tears which 
 were welling up from his bosom. In truth, 
 the father's heart was touched. He felt where 
 another man would not, and admired as the 
 height of nobleness and magnanimity what 
 other men might barely have commended 
 merely as a good action, which anybody 
 else would have done if placed in similar 
 circumstances. 
 
 All this time, too, he kept supping his 
 wine and cracking his walnuts, picking his 
 almonds, and demolishing his dried fruit 
 with a degree of unconscious industry, that 
 could not but have proved highly inter- 
 esting and edifying to any observing spec- 
 tator. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 271 
 
 When Colin had concluded, the Squire 
 looked earnestly in his face during a few 
 moments; he cast them to the ground again, 
 and said nothing ; he filled his glass, and 
 Colin's too, but with an effort, for his hand 
 slightly trembled as he did it ; again he 
 looked at him, and again his eyes were earth- 
 wards. 
 
 " My dear boy ! " said he, but the v>^ords 
 faltered on his lips, — " my dear boy ! I am 
 proud of you ; but your presence makes 
 me ashamed. I bitterly regret it — deeply 
 and bitterly — and yet I ought not, when 
 it has given me such a noble mind as this ! " 
 
 He paused a moment, and then, as though 
 with some sudden determination to shake off 
 certain unwelcome and misplaced reflections, 
 observed — 
 
 " But, come, — drink your wine. I was 
 not thinking much what I was talking about. 
 Let us to business. I told you some time 
 ago I should do something for you. What 
 
212 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 I have heard to-night has not lessened 
 that determination. In the first place, have 
 you left that vagabond place you were liv- 
 ing in?" 
 
 Colin replied, that he had informed Peter 
 Veriquear of hfs intention to leave, and was 
 at liberty to take Ris departure at any hour. 
 
 " Then leave to-morrow,"" observed Mr. 
 Lupton. " I will find you fitting apartments 
 elsewhere. Do you like reading?*' 
 
 " Much more," replied the young man, 
 " than my opportunities have enabled me 
 to gratify." 
 
 " I am glad to hear it. You shall have 
 books, and fit yourself for better things than 
 you seemed to be born to. But never mind 
 that, — never mind that. And money ? I sup- 
 pose the bottle-merchant has not filled your 
 pockets to the neck." 
 
 Colin observed in answer, that he had ten 
 pounds in his pocket, though not through the 
 hands of Peter Veriquear. At the same 
 
COLIN CLINK. ^73 
 
 time he related to the Squire in what manner 
 he had come by it, and how Miss Wintle- 
 bury's conduct on this occasion had convinced 
 him she was a most worthy and estimable 
 young woman. 
 
 " Have nothing to do with a girl Uke that," 
 said Mr. Lupton. " 1 have seen similar things 
 before now, and known many a man pay d — d 
 expensively for a poor and frail commodity. 
 No, my boy ; take my advice, and think no- 
 thing more about her. She may be all very 
 well, perhaps ; but many others are better. 
 I like charity ; but the world renders it need- 
 ful for people to hold their heads on their own 
 level. As I shall make something of you, 
 you must look higher. There is more in 
 store for you than you can anticipate. I have 
 no other than — Well, never mind. But the 
 law knows me, my boy, as the last of my 
 family ; for, unluckily, my marriage has been 
 like no marriage. Did you ever see Mrs. 
 
 Lupton at Kiddal?" 
 
 N 5 
 
274 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 " Never, that I am aware of/' answered 
 Colin. 
 
 The Squire fell into a fit of musing, during 
 which he beat his foot upon the ground ab- 
 stractedly, as though all things present were 
 momentarily forgotten. 
 
 " Well ! " he again exclaimed, as if starting 
 afresh to life, " there is that Doctor. We 
 must catch him somehow. He is a scoundrel 
 after all, I am afraid ; though it seems a pity 
 to hang the poor devil, too. I should like to 
 lay hold of him without any trouble, and I '11 
 tell you how we will do it. I will write down 
 to him in the course of a day or two, inviting 
 him here on especial business. He will suspect 
 nothing, and come up of course. You shall 
 have an opportunity of meeting him face to 
 face. We will hear what he has to say for 
 himself, in contradiction of your statement ; 
 and if I find him guilty, means shall be pro- 
 vided beforehand, and kept in readiness to 
 seize him." 
 
COLIN CLINK. 275 
 
 This excellent proposition, then, for en- 
 trapping the wily Doctor having been finally 
 decided upon, with the understanding that 
 Colin should early be apprised of his arrival 
 in town, in order to have an opportunity of 
 reiterating his statement to that gentleman's 
 face, he received a hearty shake of the hand 
 from Mr. Lupton, and took his leave. 
 
 In accordance with the Squire's wishes, Co- 
 lin took his leave the very next day of the Veri- 
 quear family, and repaired to a comfortable 
 suite of apartments in the neighbourhood of 
 Bedford Square, which Mr. Lupton had en- 
 gaged for him. Neither did that gentleman 
 forget to despatch him to a tailor's, for the 
 purpose of being, like an old vessel, tho- 
 roughly new-rigged. 
 
 Some few days afterwards, a note from the 
 Squire informed him that Rowel had taken 
 the bait, and would be at his hotel at seven 
 in the evening. 
 
 Elated with the hope not only of now se- 
 
216 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 curing Woodruff's liberation, but also of 
 getting the Doctor punished as he deserved, 
 Colin set out at an early hour on his expedi- 
 tion, and arrived at the appointed place some 
 twenty minutes before the time fixed for 
 RoweFs appearance. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 277 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 The Doctor caught, and caged. — Wood ruffes removal, and 
 where to. 
 
 Not long did they wait. Scarcely had the 
 clock struck seven before the professional gen- 
 tleman of whom they were in expectation was 
 introduced into the room. 
 
 He addressed himself very familiarly to the 
 Squire, but scarcely cast a look upon Colin, 
 whom, " disguised as a gentleman," he did not 
 seem to recollect, until such time as Mr. Lup- 
 ton formally introduced him to the Doctor by 
 name. Then, indeed, he started, and looked 
 perplexed in what manner to regard the young 
 man, whether as friend or foe. 
 
 " Happy to see you, Mr. Clink," said he. 
 " I have been anxious to meet with you now 
 
278 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 for some time past. If I am not mistaken, you 
 are the same gentleman who did me the honour 
 to climb the wall of my premises by night, a 
 while ago ? " 
 
 " The very same, sir," replied Colin. 
 
 "Ah!— indeed! Well, that's plain, at all 
 events. You hear that, Mr. Lupton ?" 
 
 The Squire assumed an air of astonishment 
 at the scene before him, in order to encourage 
 the Doctor in what appeared likely to prove a 
 somewhat ludicrous mistake. It was evident 
 he fancied he had unexpectedly got Colin " on 
 the hip," and was drawing from him a confes- 
 sion of his guilt before the very face of a 
 witness and a magistrate ; while the well- 
 played expression of Mr. Lupton''s countenance 
 tended powerfully to confirm the notion. 
 
 " But, sir," said the Doctor, very blandly 
 addressing the last-narped gentleman, " you 
 have business with me, which I wqll not inter- 
 rupt. Only, as I have a serious charge to 
 make against this young gentleman, and have 
 most unexpectedly met with him here — " 
 
COLIN CLINK. 279 
 
 " I beg by all means you Avill proceed," ob- 
 jected the Squire ; " and be assured, if you 
 have any charge to make against him, I shall 
 most gladly hear it ; for I have taken him into 
 my confidence, in consequence of certain good 
 qualities which seemed to be displayed in him. 
 And if I am deceived — " 
 
 " Sir," said the Doctor, gravely, " I deeply 
 fear you are. You know who he is, of 
 course ? " 
 
 "Why, sir, who is he?" demanded Mr. 
 Lupton, with feigned amazement. 
 
 " Who is he, sir ! I '11 tell you, sir, who 
 he is. That young man, sir, — he, sir, — ^he is 
 neither more nor less, sir, than the son of a 
 little huckster woman in your own village, sir. 
 I know it for a fact ; for I attended his mother 
 myself." 
 
 " And what then, Doctor ? " 
 " Besides that, Mr. Lupton, he is an inci- 
 pient housebreaker. I charge him with having 
 made a burglarious attempt on my premises at 
 Nabbfield, for which he was obliged to fly the 
 
280 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 country ; and you, sir, with all due deference, 
 as a magistrate, will see the propriety of put- 
 ting his person in a position of security." 
 
 " Then you feel convinced his intention was 
 to rob you ? " asked the Squire. 
 
 " Nay, sir," replied the Doctor, " the thing 
 speaks for itself. A young man forms a plan 
 to enter my premises : comes at ten o'clock at 
 night, — a burglarious hour, according to law ; 
 climbs my outer wall by a rope-ladder — " 
 
 " It seems more like a love affair," inter- 
 rupted the Squire. 
 
 " So I thought myself," answered Rowel, 
 " at first ; because I found some fragments of 
 a letter, which had previously been thrown 
 over the wall ; but I could make nothing ma- 
 terial of them." 
 
 " Have you those fragments by you ? " 
 
 " I have a copy of them, which I kept in 
 case of need," said the Doctor. 
 
 " Perhaps you will read it, Mr. Rowel, for 
 my satisfaction,'' observed Mr. Lupton. 
 
 " Certainly," replied he ; and drawing from 
 
COLIN CLINK. 281 
 
 his pocket-book a paper containing some scat- 
 tered portions of the letter which Colin Clink 
 had addressed to James Woodruff, and the torn 
 fragments of which Rowel had detected after 
 James had buried them in the earth, he handed 
 it in the following shape to the Squire : — 
 
 " The young woman is necessary 
 
 in your yard until ten o'clock at 
 
 night. If you should try 
 
 — — — until you do succeed — — — 
 stand — — — thickest — — — in the 
 
 corner. Colin Clink will do his 
 
 best to get Fanny will be able — 
 
 any night at ten o'clock." 
 
 No sooner had Mr. Lupton perused this 
 precious fragment than he pronounced the 
 whole to have been unequivocally a love affair. 
 There could be no doubt about the matter re- 
 maining in the mind of any commentator of 
 ordinary sagacity who weighed well the gene- 
 ral drift of the text in hand. 
 
282 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 Rowel objected to this interpretation, and 
 persisted in expressing his opinion that the 
 young man harboured no good motives ; al- 
 though, in fact, he felt secretly as assured of 
 the real object of the attempt as was Colin 
 himself. 
 
 '• But perhaps," said he, addressing Colin, 
 " perhaps you will so far oblige Mr. Lupton 
 as to explain what really were your motives 
 on that occasion ? " 
 
 " He need not be at that trouble," observed 
 Mr. Lupton, " or at least not until I have 
 asked you. Doctor, a few questions which, I 
 dare say, you can readily answer if you 
 please." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; certainly, sir. Ask anything 
 you think proper. I shall have great pleasure 
 indeed in affording you every information in 
 my power. And allow me to add, my good 
 sir, how deeply I feel the honour you have 
 done me in demanding my attendance, while 
 you are surrounded by so much of the first 
 talent, knowledge, and experience that tiie pro- 
 
COLIN CLINK. 283 
 
 fession can boast of. I trust the case is not a 
 very serious one. Allow me, sir." 
 
 And the Doctor drew up his chair near that 
 of Mr. Lupton's, and solicitously extended his 
 fingers in order to feel his pulse. The last- 
 named gentleman pretended not to observe this 
 invitation, as he remarked, in reply to the 
 Doctor's concluding words. 
 
 " I am afraid, Mr. Rowel, the case is a very 
 serious one indeed. '' 
 
 "Indeed! Let us hope for the best. It is 
 of no use to be down-hearted. Now, sir, ex- 
 plain the symptoms, if you please." 
 
 '' The first symptom, then," replied the 
 Squire, "is this : — that youth with whom you 
 have been talking appears to have well founded 
 reasons for believing, that for many years you 
 have kept imprisoned in your house, as a lu- 
 natic, a man of perfectly sound mind, who 
 never ought to have been there." 
 
 The Doctor's countenance underwent a sud- 
 den change, as this remark came so unexpect- 
 edly upon him. 
 
284f COLIN CLINK. 
 
 " Sir ! '*'' he exclaimed, " you are not se- 
 rious ? " 
 
 " I certainly am not joking," replied Mr. 
 Lupton. 
 
 " Then am I to believe it possible," rejoined 
 the Doctor, " that you, sir, can have descended, 
 I may say, so far as to listen to the idle tales 
 and ridiculous nonsense which such a boy as 
 this may have picked up amongst the gos- 
 sips and old women of a village, about matters 
 of which they cannot possibly know anything ? 
 It surely, sir, cannot be needful for me to 
 disabuse your mind of prejudices of this kind, 
 — to inform you how the suspicions and con- 
 jectures of the ignorant and vulgar are apt 
 to attach to any professional man, associated 
 so peculiarly as I am with a very unfortunate 
 class of patients."" 
 
 " I anticipate all you would say," observed 
 the Squire, " and sufficiently appreciate the 
 force of your remarks. At the same time I 
 should be glad to know whether you have 
 
COLIN CLINK. ^285 
 
 or have not a patient named Woodruff con- 
 fined on your premises?" 
 
 " Emphatically, then, sir," replied the Doc- 
 tor, " I HAVE NOT." 
 
 " And never had ? "' 
 
 " That I will not say." 
 
 " You have removed him ? " 
 
 " There is no such individual in my care." 
 
 " Is heat liberty.?" 
 
 " I think, Mr. Lupton," replied the Doctor, 
 very smoothly, " you will allow that, without 
 offence, I may decline, after what has been 
 said, to give any farther explanation of a 
 purely professional affair, for which I do not 
 hold myself responsible, save as a matter of 
 courtesy, to any man or any power in exist- 
 ence." 
 
 " Sir,*" replied the Squire, more seriously, 
 " where any reason exists for even the slightest 
 suspicion, — I do not say that wrong has been 
 done, but that it ma^/ possibly exist, — 1 beg 
 to state, that the responsibility you disclaim 
 
286 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 cannot be set aside, and, if need be, must 
 absolutely make itself be felt ; and that some 
 suspicion I do entertain, it is needless to scruple 
 at avowing." 
 
 '^ Did I not feel assured," answered Rowel, 
 " from the many years during which I have 
 enjoyed the honour of Mr. Lupton's acquaint- 
 ance, that he can scarcely intend to offer me 
 a deliberate insult, the course I ought to 
 adopt—" 
 
 " Whatever course you may think proper 
 to adopt,"" interrupted the Squire, " will not 
 alter mine. A very remarkable disclosure has 
 been made to me respecting a patient in your 
 keeping, as well as regarding the death of 
 the late lawyer of Bramleigh." 
 
 Those words startled and excited the Doctor 
 in an extreme degree. They seemed to strike 
 him as might a sudden sickness that turns 
 the brain giddy ; and starting from his chair, 
 with his eyes fixed fiercely on Colin, he ad- 
 vanced towards him, exclaiming, 
 
 "What other falsehoods, you villain, have 
 
COLIN CLINK. S87 
 
 you dared to utter concerning me or mine? 
 If there be law, sir, in the land for such infa- 
 mous slander, such base defamation as this, 
 I '11 punish you for it, you rogue, though 
 it cost me my very life ! Have you dared 
 to say that / had anything to do with Skin- 
 well's death, sir ?" 
 
 " I have said to Mr. Lupton, what I will 
 say again," replied Colin, " because I believe 
 it to be true, and that is, that you helped 
 to kill him." 
 
 '' It 's a lie ! — a lie ! — a d — d lie ! you slan- 
 derous vagabond ! " 
 
 The Doctor would inevitably have commit- 
 ted a personal assault upon Colin of a very 
 violent nature, had he not in the very midst 
 of his rage been still restrained from so doing 
 by certain prudential reasons, arising from 
 the evident strength and capability of the 
 young man to turn again, and, in every human 
 probability, convert the chastiser into the 
 chastised. He therefore contented himself with 
 fuming and fretting about the room as might 
 
288 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 some irritated cur, yet haunted with the spec- 
 tre of a tin-pot appended to his tail. In the 
 midst of this, the " very whirlwind of his 
 passion," he snatched up his hat, as though 
 unexpectedly seized with an idea of the pro- 
 priety of taking his leave; but Mr. Lupton 
 had kept an eye upon him. 
 
 " Not yet, sir, if you please," observed the 
 Squire, interposing himself between the Doctor 
 and the door. " I must perform an exceed- 
 ingly unpleasant office; but nevertheless, Mr. 
 Rowel, it has become my duty to tell you 
 that, for the present, you are my prisoner." 
 
 " I deny it, sir ! " exclaimed the Doctor. 
 " I am no man's prisoner ! " 
 
 " That we will soon ascertain," replied Mr. 
 Lupton, as he rapped loudly on the table, 
 while the Doctor used his best endeavours to 
 force his way out. 
 
 Before he could resort to any violence in 
 order to effect this object, the door was thrown 
 back, and two servants of the law entered. A 
 warrant, which Mr. Lupton had taken care to 
 
COLIN CLINK. 289 
 
 have prepared beforehand, was produced by 
 one of them, and in the course of a very com- 
 fortable space of time the Doctor was placed 
 in a coach, and driven on his way to certain 
 particularly appropriate lodgings, which the 
 country has provided for ladies and gentlemen 
 who chance to have been so unlucky as to be 
 inveigled into the commission of offences of 
 a criminal nature. 
 
 The removal of James Woodruff from the 
 Doctor's establishment at Nabbfield has been 
 before briefly alluded to ; while the declaration 
 made by that worthy to Mr. Lupton that he 
 had no such person confined on his premises, 
 has borne evidence to the fact. 
 
 It was quite true. For, after the attempt 
 which Colin had so unsuccessfully made to 
 effect Mr. Woodruff's escape. Doctor Rowel 
 became convinced — as the secret was out — 
 that his troublesome charge would no longer 
 be safe within the precincts of the asylum 
 at Nabbfield. He therefore seized the earliest 
 opportunity that the needful arrangements 
 
 VOL. II. o 
 
290 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 would permit, to convey him secretly by night 
 from thence to the residence of the Doctor's 
 own brother, — an old-fashioned brick mansion 
 of very ample dimensions, which stood upon 
 the borders of a heathy waste, which formerly 
 constituted one of the finest portions of the 
 old forest of Sherwood, in the northern part of 
 Nottinghamshire. 
 
 It was even still studded with the dying 
 remains of ancient oaks, which had sheltered 
 many a bold archer in times gone by, but which 
 now sufficed only to give additional dreariness 
 to the solitary landscape, that stretched in pic- 
 turesque undulations, but open as the ocean 
 north and eastwards for many miles. 
 
 The removal, however, of James Woodruff 
 from his previous confinement to this place had 
 not been effected without Fanny's knowledge ; 
 and, for the possession of this fact, it is be- 
 lieved, she was indebted to the friendly agency 
 of Mrs. Rowel. Not knowing in her present 
 dilemma what other step to take, Fanny was 
 no sooner made acquainted with the removal 
 
COLIN CLINK. 291 
 
 which Rowel contemplated, than she forthwith 
 communicated it to her master, the young man 
 who had succeeded to the business of the de- 
 ceased Mr. Skin well, one Sylvester by name ; 
 and a man who, though but a crest-fallen 
 looking affair outside, had yet, when occasion 
 needed, a pretty considerable amount of spirit 
 at command within. No sooner was he inform- 
 ed of the particulars of the affair than he vo- 
 lunteered his immediate assistance. He and 
 Fanny were fully prepared on the intended 
 night of Woodruff's removal, quietly to fol- 
 low the vehicle that contained him until it 
 should arrive at its ultimate destination ; after 
 having ascertained which, they would be pre- 
 pared to take the most prompt steps within 
 their power to insure his restoration to his li- 
 berty, property, and friends. In accordance 
 with this arrangement they had acted, and at 
 a convenient distance had followed in a gig, 
 and, as they thought, unobserved. On Syl- 
 vester's subsequently making application at 
 the house already described, and to which he 
 
 o 2 
 
292 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 had seen the carriage containing Woodruff 
 driven, he found Doctor Rowel there, who ex- 
 pressed great surprise at seeing him, and on 
 being informed of the nature of his mission, at 
 once frankly declared that Mr. Sylvester was 
 totally mistaken. In proof whereof, and to es- 
 tablish his own innocence the more completely, 
 he conducted him up-stairs into a chamber 
 where lay a gentleman sick in bed, and who 
 the Doctor averred, was the identical person he 
 had brought in his carriage the night before, 
 and whom he had thus removed to his bro- 
 ther's for the benefit of the purer air of the 
 forest. Beyond this Sylvester saw nothing to 
 warrant Fanny's suspicions; while the girl 
 herself declared on seeing him that that man 
 certainly was not the father of whom they 
 were in search. In fact, so admirably had 
 the Doctor managed matters, that Fanny be- 
 gan to think herself that she was labouring 
 under some very strange mistake; more es- 
 pecially when, on the question being put to 
 him, the sick man himself concurred in the 
 
COLIN CLINK. 293 
 
 statement made by the Doctor, and solemnly 
 averred that he had, as previously stated, been 
 brought from Nabbfield the preceding night. 
 And so far he spoke the literal truth ; for, in 
 fact, the sick man was no other than Robson, 
 the Doctor's assistant, fitted with a very con- 
 sumptive and deranged-looking night-cap, a 
 bedgown slipped over his shirt, and a big 
 bottle of hot water at his heels to make him 
 look like an invalid ; while James Woodruff 
 himself, very shortly after his arrival, had 
 been again removed — in consequence of the 
 Doctor's suspicions that he was followed — to 
 another and a more secret place in the very 
 heart of the waste, where, it was confidently 
 trusted, he might be safely kept the remainder 
 of his days, beyond the possibility of human 
 discovery. 
 
 In consequence of the success of the Doctor''s 
 stratagem, Fanny and Mr. Sylvester returned 
 disappointed and out of spirit to their home. 
 
 Such, in substance, was the brief story re- 
 lated by Fanny to Colin on the occasion of her 
 
294f COLIN CLINK. 
 
 visit to town ; and which he had a few days 
 before communicated to Mr. Lupton. 
 
 Whether the arrest of Doctor Rowel, when 
 it became known amongst his friends, and to 
 the brother, of whom we have above spoken, 
 might not have precipitated some tragical con- 
 clusion or other of Woodruff's life, — is doubt- 
 ful, perhaps highly probable ; had not a singu- 
 lar and very mysterious communication con- 
 cerning him been made to Colin, and from a 
 quarter equally mysterious, some month or so 
 after the occurrences above described. 
 
COLIN CLINK. 295 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 London Bridge, and an unexpected scene upon it. 
 
 It was about four o'clock — sometime before 
 daylight — one morning, nearly a month after 
 the events last described, that Mr. Lupton and 
 Colin might have been seen wending their way 
 along the chilly and silent streets, in the di- 
 rection of London Bridge. Saving the delibe- 
 rate footfalls of the night-watch, the far-heard 
 rattle of some early carriage over the resound- 
 ing pavement, or perhaps now and then the 
 smothered asthmatical cough of some poor old 
 creature or other turned out thus early, in 
 cloak and covered chair, to sit with charcoal 
 fire and coffee in the streets, there were no 
 
296 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 audible signs that any soul existed there be- 
 sides themselves. London was asleep. This 
 Goliah of earthly cities had lain itself down 
 wearied, and for a time lost itself in forgetful- 
 ness of all the world. Its labours suspended, 
 its pleasures wearied into pains, and laid all 
 aside, its virtue dreaming innocently, its vice 
 steeped painfully in the burning phlegethon of 
 disturbed stupor, like a half-dreamed hell ; its 
 happy, hopeful of the morrow ; its miserable, 
 dreading the approach of another sun. While 
 itself, the carcass of the great city, lay stretch- 
 ed athwart the banks of the broad river, as, 
 overpowered with the mighty labours which it 
 had achieved within the last four and twenty 
 hours, and unconsciously receiving strength 
 from repose for that additional exertion, whose 
 repetitions day by day, year by year, and age 
 after age, no man can count to the end. 
 
 " Five o'clock exactly," said Colin, " is, I 
 think, the time appointed, and on the city side 
 of the bridge." 
 
 As he said this he drew from his pocket the 
 
COLIN CLINK. 297 
 
 communication to which allusion was made at 
 the conclusion of the last chapter, and again 
 perused it. 
 
 The reader must here be informed that the 
 letter now in Colin's hands had been addressed 
 to him in the first instance at Mr. Veriquear's, 
 and thence had been forwarded to his pre- 
 sent residence. It came from some anonymous 
 correspondent, evidently residing not far from 
 the place to which James Woodruff had been 
 carried ; but as its contents will perhaps better 
 explain themselves than would any description 
 of mine, I will give it : — 
 
 " Sir, — I am given to understand that you 
 feel some interest in the fate of a Mr. James 
 Woodruff. That man is now in my power, 
 either to liberate or to detain for life, according 
 as you may answer this favourably or unfavour- 
 ably. You HAVE AN OBJECT TO CARRY OUT, SO 
 
 HAVE I. If you are prepared to serve me, I 
 will put this Woodruff into your hands in 
 return : if not, neither you nor his daughter 
 
 O 5 
 
298 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 may ever see him more. Meet me alone at the 
 north end of London Bridge, at five o'clock on 
 the morning of the — th, and I will explain 
 particulars. At that time it will be as secret 
 there as in a desert, and you will feel more 
 secure. You will know me to be the writer 
 of this when you see a man make a cross with 
 his finger in the air.'' 
 
 This strange communication Colin had laid 
 before Mr. Lupton ; and the only probable 
 conjecture they could form respecting it was, 
 that it had been written by Doctor Rowel's 
 brother, who, — having heard of the imprison- 
 ment of that gentleman, — had resorted to this 
 expedient in the hope of compromising the 
 matter by, as it were, exchanging prisoners, and 
 perhaps stipulating for all farther proceedings 
 against the Doctor being stayed. To be sure, 
 there were objections to this interpretation, 
 but, nevertheless, it seemed altogether the only 
 plausible one they could hit upon. 
 
 However, as Mr. Lupton suspected that 
 
COLIN CLINK. 299 
 
 very possibly some treachery might be con- 
 cealed under this uncommon garb, and that it 
 was a plot on the part of the Doctor's friends to 
 be revenged on Colin, — he himself determined 
 to accompany him ; but on their arrival near the 
 place appointed to fall back, in order to avoid 
 suspicion, though still keeping sufficiently near 
 to distinguish a preconcerted signal which Colin 
 was to give in case of need. 
 
 The bridge was now at hand. Over the 
 parapet to the left, and considerably below 
 them, long rows of lights, illuminating the 
 walls and doorways of life-deserted warehouses, 
 filled with merchandise from all parts of the 
 world, pointed out the site of that thronged and 
 noisy gully Thames Street. Before them, far- 
 ther on, lost in mist, and yet lingering smoke, 
 which gave to sky, buildings, and water, one 
 common neutral colour, rose beyond the water 
 one solitary tower, looming darker than all 
 around it, but relieved still farther back by a 
 flush of dull, mysterious light, which, though 
 it showed nothing distinctly, yet emphatically 
 
SOO COLIN CLINK. 
 
 marked the existence, to an undefined extent, 
 of many an unseen mass of building like that 
 by which they were immediately surrounded. 
 And now they are on the bridge alone. It is 
 not yet five. The sight is magnificent. Be- 
 hold these two sides of a mighty city separated 
 by a scarcely-seen gulf, on which streams of 
 light, reflected from night-lamps afar off, ripple 
 as though so many of the pillars of fire that 
 lighted the Israelites of old were on the waves. 
 Up the great stream, or down it, — the uprear- 
 ing of men's hands, — house, church, and palace 
 appear alike illimitable. All those mean and 
 minor details, which confound the eye and 
 distract the attention during daylight, are now 
 swallowed up and resolved into one broad 
 whole. The dense and unmeasured mass of 
 building which meets the sight every way, seems 
 resolved into a solid. Line on line and height 
 on height extending away till lost utterly in 
 the far obscurity of the void horizon. Without 
 any great strain of the imagination this scene 
 might be mistaken for a splendid dream of 
 
COLIN CLINK. 301 
 
 Tyre or Palmyra, or of Babylon on the 
 Euphrates, great cities of old, whose giant 
 memories loom in the mind as images that 
 cannot be fully compassed from their very vast- 
 ness. While under our feet flows the ghastly 
 river, the dull, deceptive stream that has borne 
 on its bosom the wealth of kingdoms ; that has 
 found in its bed a thousand last resting-places 
 for human misery, when the link that bound 
 unhappiness and life together became too galling 
 to be any more endured ; and that in its stormy 
 wrath has swallowed happiness suddenly, when 
 jollity forgot in its temporary delirium that 
 boats are frail, and that but a slender plank, 
 which a wave might founder, stood between 
 itself and a deep grave. 
 
 As Colin cast a scrutinizing eye around, in 
 the hope of meeting with his appointed and 
 unknown correspondent, the city clocks far and 
 near, some together, and some after each other, 
 chimed five. Almost with the last stroke of 
 the bell footsteps were heard rising upon the 
 city side of the bridge. A bricklayer's labourer. 
 
302 COLIN CLINK, 
 
 with a short pipe in his mouth, passed by ; and 
 then a woman, — if woman she could be called, 
 — torn, dirty, and deplorable to look upon, 
 staggering forwards under the influence of the 
 last night's excesses : but neither made a sign. 
 Behind them followed an old man, roughly 
 clad in the costume of the poorer classes of the 
 residents of our country villages, saving that a 
 long coat supplied the place of smock-frock, 
 while his nether extremities were finished off 
 with quarter boots, tightly laced up to the 
 ankles with leathern thongs. 
 
 An unaccountable feeling, which displayed 
 itself in his flushed features, shot through 
 Colin's veins as the first momentary sight of 
 this man came across him. Had he seen him 
 before ? It almost seemed so ; but when ? 
 where? on what occasion? 
 
 The old man hesitated a moment or two as 
 he gazed on Colin, and then cast a searching 
 glance around, in order to ascertain whether he 
 was alone. The figure of Mr. Lupton was 
 dimlv visil^e at some distance. Colin leaned 
 
COLIN CLINK. 303 
 
 idly against the wall with his eyes fixed intently 
 on the old man, who now again approached 
 him. In another moment the sign was made — 
 the cross in the air — and our hero advanced 
 and accosted him. 
 
 " I believe, sir, you wish to speak to me : 
 you sent a letter addressed to me a short time 
 ago." 
 
 " Nay — nay, now !" replied the old man, 
 " what occasion have you to tell me that ? 
 If I wrote you a letter I know it without 
 your explanation ; and your appearance here 
 is a sufficient assurance to me that you have 
 duly received it. Do you know who I am?" 
 
 " I do not,'** said Colin, *' though it seems 
 to me as though I had seen you before some- 
 where or other." 
 
 " Humph ! well — well !" exclaimed the old 
 man, " then you are now talking to old Jerry 
 Clink, your own grandfather." 
 
 " Your name Clink!" ejaculated the young 
 man, astonished, '' and my grandfather !" 
 
 " Now, why ask me again .? HavVt I just 
 
304 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 now answer''d 'em. And if you can't believe 
 me the first time, 1 'm sure you won't on a 
 repetition." 
 
 " But is it possible ? 1 never knew I had a 
 grandfather." 
 
 " Ay, ay, I see how it is," replied Jerry ; 
 " 1 'm a poor man, and you are apeing the 
 gentleman. But I risked my life once to be 
 revenged for you, only some busy meddler 
 came across and baulked me. I'll do it yet 
 though ; and I want you to help me. The 
 cause is yours as well as mine; for the injury 
 is of a mother to you, though of a daughter to 
 me: and the man who will not defend his 
 mother's honour, or revenge her disgrace, 
 ought to be cast into the bottomless pit for 
 everlasting !" 
 
 Colin stood astonished at this speech. He 
 scarcely knew what he said, but faltered 
 out, " Who, sir, has dared to say anything to 
 my mother's dishonour, or to bring her into 
 any disgrace ? " 
 
COLIN CLINK. 305 
 
 The old man tapped him with serious signi- 
 ficance on the shoulder as he replied, " Your 
 father, my boy, — your father ! " 
 
 " How ! " exclaimed the young man in a 
 tone of deep excitement : " who is he ? for I 
 never knew who was my father." 
 
 ''You!" replied Jerry bitterly, "ought 
 never to have been born ! " 
 
 " What can you mean, man, by all this ? " 
 demanded Colin. 
 
 " I tell you," answered the old man, " your 
 father is a villain, and you — you are — but 
 never mind. Since you are born, and are 
 alive, show that you are worthy to live by pro- 
 perly resenting your mother's everlasting in- 
 juries. My vengeance has been untiring, but 
 it has not succeeded yet. Together we can do 
 anything. True, the man must be called, as 
 he is, your father. What then ? The punish- 
 ment of such fathers cannot come from better 
 hands than their own sons. As they sow the 
 wind, let them reap the whirlwind." 
 
306 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 *' What is it ? " demanded Colin, inter- 
 rupting him, " that you would propose to 
 me?" 
 
 " See you," said the old man, drawing closer, 
 " you are in love with a girl, named Fanny 
 Woodruff. Nay, nay, do not interrupt me. I 
 know better than you do. I tell you you love 
 her, and can never marry any one else. Her 
 father is confined as a madman. He is now in 
 my power. I am his keeper. You want to 
 liberate him, and rightly too. He has told me 
 all about it, and I believe him. Now, let me 
 see the spirit of a true man in you ; take up 
 your mother's cause, and never forgive till you 
 are revenged, and he shall by me be set at 
 liberty. Join hand and heart with me against 
 the villain called your father." 
 
 " Who is he ? " again demanded Colin. 
 
 " Lupton of Kiddal,'* answered Jerry. 
 
 " Mr. Lupton my father ! " 
 
 " The same. I shot at him once." 
 You .? " 
 
 " I, with this same right hand." 
 
COLIN CLINK. 307 
 
 " And I," added Colin, " prevented it, and 
 saved jou from the gallows." 
 
 The old man stood mute — confounded. His 
 whole countenance changed with deadly fury, 
 and in the next moment he rushed upon Colin 
 with apparently the desperate intention of 
 forcing him over the balustrades of the bridge. 
 
 A moment sufficed for his signal call, which 
 brought Mr. Lupton instantly to the spot. 
 The mutual recognition between Jerry and 
 himself was but the process of a moment ; 
 and, while the latter strove all in his power 
 to secure the former without violence, Jerry 
 as desperately and madly aimed to bury in his 
 bosom a long knife, which it was now dis- 
 covered he held opened in his hand. The 
 combined exertions of Mr. Lupton and Colin 
 were, however, too much for him, and would 
 eventually have achieved his capture, had not 
 Jerry, with a degree of reckless desperation and 
 agility, which struck both his assailants with 
 momentary horror and astonishment, leaped 
 the wall of the bridge on finding himself at 
 
S08 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 the point of being taken, and casting his knife 
 and coat from him, in an instant plunged 
 headlong from about the centre of one of the 
 arches into the Thames. 
 
 It was a wild leap, an insane flight into 
 the arms of death. There was no splash in 
 the water, but a dull, leaden sound came up, 
 as when a heavy weight is plunged into a 
 deep gulf. It was as if the water made no 
 aperture, and threw up no spray ; but gulfed 
 him sullenly, as though such prey was not 
 worth rejoicing over. 
 
 Father and son seemed petrified into mere 
 statues; not more from what they had seen 
 than — in the case of the latter, at least — he 
 had heard from the lips of the suicide. For 
 that a suicide he was who could doubt ? Who 
 might take that giddy leap, and live ? 
 
 During a brief space they dared not even 
 cast their eyes down the fearful height ; the 
 deed had paralysed them. But, as Colin's 
 eyes were fixed intensely on the waves, a some- 
 thing living seemed to struggle through and 
 
COLIN CLINK. o09 
 
 across a ripple of light. Could it indeed be 
 the old man ? He dared not hope, and could 
 say nothing. 
 
 Boats were subsequently got out, the river 
 was traversed, and both banks were searched, 
 in hopes of finding him ; but all the efforts of 
 the boatmen proved ineffectual. 
 
 The cause of Mr. Lupton's kindness was a 
 secret to Colin no longer. But in how dif- 
 ferent a relative position did he seem to stand 
 to that gentleman now to what he had done 
 formerly ; so recently, even, as one brief hour 
 ago ! Within that space what painful truths 
 had passionately been cleared up to him ; what 
 difficulties and embarrassments thrown on al- 
 most every hand around his future conduct 
 towards nearly every person with whom he was 
 Connected, and in whose fate his heart was 
 most deeply interested ! But the case of his 
 old grandfather, so resolutely bent on spill- 
 ing the blood of his own father, out of a 
 stern principle of mistaken justice, seemed to 
 him the worst. He foresaw that, unless it had 
 
310 COLIN CLINK. 
 
 SO happened that Jerry was drowned, — an event 
 which he scarcely knew whether to feel satis- 
 fied under, or to regret, — all his address would 
 be required in the time to come to settle the 
 hostility between that man and his father, with- 
 out the bitter and ignominious consequence 
 resulting, which would doom him to behold 
 his mother's parent expiate upon a public 
 scaffold his double crime of having twice deli- 
 berately attempted the assassination of Mr. 
 Lupton. So deeply was he overwhelmed with 
 the fearful transactions of the morning, that 
 he begged the Squire to allow him a day or 
 two'*s quiet and reflection before he undertook 
 the duty of explaining to him what had passed 
 between the old man and himself. But it was 
 on one condition only that Mr. Lupton con- 
 sented to acquiesce in this request. That con- 
 dition was — to be then and there told who his 
 assailant could possibly be. Colin hesitated 
 awhile, but at length burst into tears as he 
 uttered the words — " My mother's father ! " 
 The Squire turned pale as ashes when those 
 
COLIN CLINK. 311 
 
 words reached his ear, while a very sensible 
 tremor shook his whole frame. He grasped 
 Colin's hand, but said nothing. Those words 
 called up something in each mind, which now 
 made both dumb. They shook hands repeat- 
 edly, and parted. 
 
 END OF THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
LONDON : 
 PRIMED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY, 
 
 Bangor House, Shoe Lane. 
 
''4 
 
 14 DAY USE 
 
 ^^KN^OBSKBKOM WHICH BOKKOWBD 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 HiiCElVSD. 
 
 LD 2lA-60m-7 '66 
 (G4427sl0)476B 
 
 funeral Library 
 Berkeley 
 

 
 "'"lllilHIIiiiliilii 
 ££31fllD15M 
 
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