by Tom Hood.
Originally published in Belgravia (John Maxwell) vol.1 #3 (Jan 1867).
I was the second sub-clerk at the Cowford Office when the postmaster, Mr. Dwerryman, was compelled to resign rather suddenly through ill health. As a consequence the first sub-clerk, Chaundy, and I had to do the chief's work between us until a fresh appointment was made. It was thought in the office that Chaundy was likely to get, not the Cowford Office, but that of Moilingam, the postmaster of which would probably be transferred to Cowford. He was the likeliest candidate for our vacancy, though Chaundy had been recommended for it by Dwerryman, who was a man much thought of at head-quarters. It was supposed that Chaundy was sure to get some sort of promotion; and I think it puffed him up a little, for he seemed to give himself the airs of a superior, and certainly made me do the lion's share of the work.
I didn't care. I was poor and a sub-clerk, and I never expected to be anything else. Indeed, I scarcely desired to be anything else. And why? Because I was in love. That is a thing to make most men ambitious; but it only made me, if not contented, at all events submissive under poverty. I had fallen in love with the heiress of one of the richest landowners in the county; and I knew no possible position within my limited sphere would or could ever qualify me to become a suitor for her hand. Dreams of ambition therefore did not trouble me. Had the office of postmaster-general or secretary been vacant, and made the prize of a severe competitive examination, I would have given the best years of my life, poor scholar as I was, to study for the contest, in order to try and win a position that would make me worthy of her. Failing, I should have come back without a murmur to my high stool, with a bold face and a broken heart.
She was a lovely girl—such a merry bright glimpse of sunshine! We first became acquainted—if I may so term her condescending ever after to bow to me—on one St. Valentine's-day, when I stamped some twenty valentines for her. When she was gone I looked them over—not without a pang of jealousy, which was allayed when I found they were either to schoolfellows or old gentlemen—her godfather, her uncles, and that sort of thing. A more innocent batch of valentines never swelled her Majesty's revenue.
How a man like her father could ever have had so charming a daughter, I can't understand. Mr. Darke was a harsh proud man, stern on the bench, and heartless at the board. He was severity itself with all tramps and beggars, and he preserved his game with the utmost strictness. There was a fierce hatred and a feud of long standing between him and the poachers, who were tolerably plentiful. He was not the sort of man I was at all disposed to ask for leave to pay my addresses to his daughter.
So I bowed to fate; cherished Mary's image in my heart of hearts; and used to comfort myself in the intervals of business by reciting mentally Shelley's lines about
"The love of the moth for the star."
Besides this I had but one delight,—that of collecting foreign stamps for her. She happened one day to ask for one that was lying on the office-ledge; and I kept a watch for them ever afterwards. How grateful I was to the mania I had once scorned and despised! This humble passion of mine had existed nearly two years under these not highly favourable circumstances, and, what is more, instead of diminishing it was increasing. Meantime Chaundy and I went on as two sub-clerks rolled into one postmaster, and no appointment was announced.
Early in December there was always a great ball at Cowford, whereat all classes met, and were supposed to fraternise. It was the event of the season in the county. Mr. Darke was one of the patrons, and occasionally honoured the ball with his presence and that of "his lovely and accomplished daughter," as the local journal gushingly styled her. This year he had not announced his intention of going, and it was generally supposed therefore that he would not be present. He had just made a fierce raid on the poachers; and was reported to head his watchers nightly in person, being determined to put down the gang, two of the ringleaders of which had just been sentenced to long imprisonments through his instrumentality.
One afternoon, about three days before the ball, I was looking out of window. My desk was just at the junction of the office in which letters were received, orders issued, and transactions with the public generally conducted, with the inner room in which the sorting was done, and the internal affairs of the office were arranged. These two rooms formed two sides of the small court or vestibule, which was open to the public; and the window where I sat was just in the angle, lighting the inner office, so that, by looking over the ground glass with which the window was glazed half-way up, I could see in profile all applicants at the outer office.
The other clerks were at tea—a meal I did not care for; and I had, just as an occupation, cleared the box and sorted the letters, and then returned to my desk. As I mounted the stool I saw one of Mr. Darke's servants post a letter.
He was only a stable-help, and had but lately entered Mr. Darke's service; yet I knew him, for it was a silly fancy of mine to watch all Mary's surroundings with minute care, and picture to myself where I should have made alterations and improvements, supposing I had been rich enough to make her mine.
I noticed that the fellow peered round, as if anxious to see if he were observed. Not noticing my face at the window, owing to the deepening twilight, he seemed reassured and slipt a letter into the box. There was something so odd about this that I at once went to the box and took it out: perhaps I half expected it was from Mary. It was in a wretched scrawl, probably the fellow's own, and was addressed "J.M., Post-office, Cowford (To be called for)." I hurried to a window which gave a view of the street, and just caught sight of the man climbing into a cart which was standing outside the poulterer's, a few doors off. I knew it to be the gamekeeper's cart, in which game was brought into the town for sale. As I watched, I saw the keeper come out of the shop, mount the cart, and drive off. The help had evidently taken advantage of his absence to steal off and post his missive.
I don't know why I took any further notice of the letter. Having ascertained it was his, I ought to have dismissed all thought of it. But somehow I did not. I watched anxiously to see who would claim it. The claimant appeared next day: a couple of rough-looking fellows—railway labourers to all appearance—came in, and one of them asked for a letter for "JM." Having obtained it, they drew aside into a corner and opened it;and the corner happened to be the one where my window was. With the utmost precaution against making any noise to alarm them, I raised the sash about an inch and listened.
The first words I caught were, "will go to the ball, and he won't return till latish."
"That's the time for me! That's the time, as he's comin' back agin," remarked the listener in a hoarse whisper.
"There'll be none with him but young miss, for there's none stopping here. Willis"—(that was the coachman's name, I knew)—"will drive the chestnuts. This is all I know; I shall post it when I'm in town with keeper, and sha'n't be in again till next week."
"That'll do," said the man, when he had finished reading; "we'll finish off th' ball for'n wi' a dance he won't loike!"
"Yes, durn un!" said the other; and with that the two moved off.
This discovery of mine settled a doubt that had been perplexing me. I had been undecided whether to go to the ball or not. The expense, and a feeling that I could not hope to do more than see Mary, without speaking to her, had deterred me. Now I felt I might go and warn her father of his danger; and by so doing perhaps not only do a service to the woman I loved, but perhaps be rewarded by exchanging a few words with her; by hearing her thanks; by—but I dared not dream of such happiness as dancing with her.
So I purchased a ticket; and when the momentous time arrived went to the ball with a beating heart, and a terrible sensation of choking in my throat. I took my station near the entrance until Mr. Darke arrived. Before long his carriage drove up, and he and Mary alighted. As he turned to tell the coachman at what hour to fetch him, I saw a man push forward through the crowd, as if to hear what time he named, and then disappear. It was the man who had claimed the letter addressed "J.M."
This gave fresh strength to my resolution—which was needed, for I had begun to think I was dreaming, or had been mistaken, or exaggerated the case. Such a feeling was not unnatural under the circumstances; but the sight of the poacher—for I had no doubt he was one, and that was why he wished to revenge himself on Mr. Darke—had the effect of reviving all my previous convictions.
It was not without some nervousness that I asked Mr. Darke to step into one of the windows, and give me a few minutes' conversation. He looked a little surprised, but stiffly consented; and when we had found a retired seat in one of the bow-windows, I told him about the letter, and my conjecture that the stable-help had either entered his service to aid the poachers in their scheme of revenge, or had been bribed by them to give them information. At first he proposed to take a couple of policemen in his carriage, and try to capture the ruffians; but I pointed out that he would alarm his daughter—perhaps expose her to danger, supposing the poachers had fire-arms.
"Quite right. Thank you! I had forgotten that, and more—that if she once fancies I am in danger, she will be frightened to death whenever I am away from home. What do you propose?"
"Can you return home by any other route?"
"Yes, by two others, involving a circuit of a couple of miles or so."
"Then go by one of those. Miss Darke will be too tired to observe it; besides, it will not be light enough."
"But I should like to catch the scoundrels."
"I can identify them both, and will go to the railway and make inquiries and look about me to-morrow. You can have them taken into custody; and probably after a day or two in the lock-up they will make a clean breast of it, and give up the names of the others."
"Yes, perhaps best so," said Mr. Darke after some minutes' reflection. "But how can I thank you for this?"
I declined any special thanks, alleging I was only doing my duty; but the squire was very warm and pressing in his gratitude, inquired what I was, where I came from, and how I was employed. On learning that I had no friends or relatives in the town, he insisted on my coming to dine with him on Christmas-day.
"And I hope we shall be able to drink confusion to these rascals," he said in conclusion.
I suppose he was in a particularly good temper this evening; for he introduced me to his daughter as a friend of his who had rendered him a most important service. He little suspected that she knew who I was, and was terribly puzzled to think how a post-office clerk could have laid her father under such an obligation.
I mustered courage to ask her to dance with me, and she consented. But why try to describe the unexpected happiness of the evening? I can only say, when I had handed her into the carriage and watched it drive off, I walked home as if I had come into a new life and a brighter world.
Though I did not get home till between two and three, I was at the office again by six to receive the mails from the district. I was tired; but I determined that no one—especially Chaundy—should be able to accuse me of neglecting work.
One of the earliest carts to arrive was that of the Fentleby district. The driver came in looking like a ghost, and stammered out that an attempt had been made to rob him, and that he had been fired at.
Chaundy not being in the office, I examined the man, and took down his answers in writing. On inquiry, I found that his route had brought him past Grasslands, Mr. Darke's house, and that he had been fired at between there and Cowford, at a very ugly part of the road, where it ran beside a canal, on an embankment. The more I questioned him, the more mysterious the affair appeared. He had seen no one, and there was not a bush or a stone to hide a man just where he was fired at; but as he was jogging along—not noticing much, he said, but probably half asleep in reality—he saw a flash and heard the report of a pistol. Fortunately the old horse was steady and knew the road; so he only sprang forward at a quickened pace. Had the animal shied or swerved, the driver might have been upset into the canal or hurled over the bank into the fields below—quite a sufficient height to have led to some serious fractures, if not a broken neck.
I told our man to go home and keep the affair quite quiet; went to Chaundy, and handed over the report of the occurrence to him, and told him I would take the cart and go and inspect the scene of the attempted robbery; for such, as Chaundy agreed with me, appeared to be the real solution of the matter.
I took a pair of large horse-pistols, which were kept in the chief's room as a sort of demonstration of our defensive force, loaded them, borrowed a greatcoat of one of the men, and drove off to the scene of the adventure.
It was a keen, cold, but still morning. As I was whirled through the fresh air, all the cobwebs spun in the late hours at the ball were blown out of my brain, and I felt invigorated both physically and mentally. Much of the bewilderment into which the driver's story had thrown me melted, as the morning mists were doing; and by the time I reached the spot I had a pretty clear view of the case.
The poachers had waited and waited for Mr. Darke's return, in ignorance of his having taken another road, and supposing the ball to have been kept up, as had sometimes occurred, until a very late or rather early hour. About the time when the mail-cart passed, they had, however, come to abandon all expectation of falling in with Mr. Darke; and either the sight of the mail-bags had excited their cupidity, or—as seemed more likely, no pursuit having been made—they fired the shot as a joke to alarm the postman.
When I reached the exact spot, I dismounted, and carefully examined the ground. The dew was still on the grass, but there was not a footprint to be seen on it. I went over every inch of the bank, and the border of the fields below, with as much minuteness as a well-trained pointer; then I examined the bank of the canal, and, crossing by a lock a little way below, went over the farther bank with equal care. There only remained the road to examine. No vehicle had passed over it since the previous night except the mail-cart, the tracks of whose wheels were freshly marked. As I followed them with my eye, I noticed a little spot of ground slightly blackened, and caught a glimpse of bright metal. I hastened to the place, and found a strange-looking object, made apparently with two pieces of tin or zinc which bore the traces of a recent explosion. This, then, was some clue to the mystery.
I walked along the road, scrutinising it carefully, and about twenty yards farther found another of these "infernal machines," not exploded. Farther on, I came on the track of a child, which had crossed the road from the canal-bridge to the fields. I could see that the child had stopped in one place; for the footprints were repeated, one over the other, and there were the marks of a hand in the dust, where little fingers had scraped it in the act of picking something up. I looked across the fields and saw a small lad "keeping birds." He was the only one astir, so I hailed him and asked him if he had found anything like what I held in my hand; and he at once produced one from his pocket, saying he found it in the road. I gave him sixpence, which was of more value to him—and safer, even supposing he laid it all out in sweets—than the explosive article I took from him.
Then I mounted the cart again and drove on towards Grasslands, but did not see anything more. In order to test whether the things I had found would sound like a pistol, I selected a safe and quiet bit of the road, laid one down, and drove over it. It exploded with a flash and sound very like a pistol. Being prepared for it, I saw whence the flash came; but the dozing driver was hardly likely to observe so much as that.
As I was driving on, I was surprised by the sudden appearance of Mr. Darke's keeper.
"Hold hard!" he cried, stopping the horse. "Was that you shooting? That's the second this morning. What have you got in the trap?"
I did not choose to explain matters to him; and he clearly suspected me of poaching, and vowed he'd take me before his master. To this I had no objection; so he jumped into the cart, and we turned round.
To make a long story short, Mr. Darke was roused, and came down, to find me virtually in custody. A few words explained how it was. The keeper was sent away,—not without praise, though, for his vigilance,—and then I related my discovery to Mr. Darke. He at once recognised in my "infernal machines" the fog-signals in use on railways.
He insisted on my coming in and taking breakfast before I prosecuted the search farther, and I readily consented. Mary came down in a charming morning-wrapper, and presided, and—the danger being over—was told all about it.
It was determined that the mail-cart—which was an unusual conveyance, and might attract needless attention—should be put up at Grasslands, and that I should go on to the nearest railroad in Mr. Darke's dog-cart.
On reaching the station, I found from the station-master that there was a most unpardonable carelessness about the fog-signals; they were not served out to particular men, but kept in a box accessible to anyone about the station. The plate-layers, he told me, were the men who used them oftenest; and I found that a party of them were laying fresh rails about a mile off.
I drove to the nearest point to the place he named, and made my way across country to the gang on the line. I recognised my two friends of the post-office among them; and a mode of procedure at once suggested itself to me. It was not strictly legal, perhaps, but it answered my purpose. I went to the ganger, or foreman, and told him I wanted two of his men on a charge of murder. He did not seem inclined to assist me, and told me I must help myself. Luckily I had the pistols with me. I went up to the two men, told them I was a police-officer, and that I had come to take them up on a charge of murdering Mr. Darke. They seemed a little taken aback, but denied the charge stoutly.
"You laid fog-signals on the road last night to frighten his horses, and they upset him into the canal, and he's drowned," said I; "so it's murder, my lads. Come along!"
There seemed some inclination to resist the capture, so I took out the pistols.
"Look here," said I; "if I can't take the two I want, lads, I shall shoot the first two that come to hand; and they'll be the first that interfere. You'd best keep quiet, all of you; for there's a warrant out against you all for poaching,"—I saw most of them look uncomfortable at this,—"and if I give you a bad word, it will go hard with you."
This had its effect, coupled with the appearance of the pistols; and I got my men off and marched them in front of me to the road, where I made them get into the dog-cart. The groom drove, and I sat behind with the pistols cocked; and in this form we went back to Grasslands.
I sent the porter on from the lodge, where I made an excuse for a minute or so's delay; and by the time we reached the hall, in accordance with the instructions I had given him, all the blinds were drawn down, and Mr. Darke kept out of sight.
The clergyman, who was a magistrate, was sent for; and we examined the prisoners, who broke down completely and confessed all, giving up their accomplices. They had intended to frighten the horses, as I had supposed, without thinking much about the probable consequences—except with the vague notion that they would not be guilty of murder, even if the worst happened. The stable-help turned out to be the son of one of them.
When we had terrified them sufficiently, we called in the real constables, who had been sent for, and they were given into their custody,—Mr. Darke walking in presently, much to their alarm—surprise—but ultimately satisfaction.
I have not much more to tell. On my return to the office, I found Chaundy had sent off a graphic report to head-quarters, full of blunders, exaggerations, and misstatements—being founded, in fact, solely on what the driver had said. I therefore did not utter a syllable about my doings, but quietly sent off a report of my own, enclosing a document which I had got Mr. Darke to draw up, as magistrate, to confirm my account.
The authorities placed themselves in communication with Mr. Darke; and the result was that in a week the appointment of a new postmaster to Cowford was made; and the new postmaster was not Chaundy: it was I!
I went over to thank Mr. Darke for his part in the matter. He was out; so I thanked Mary. She congratulated me on my promotion, and said she supposed I should marry now. I said no. She inquired why. I at once explained, and made a confession of my audacious love. She—well, she gave me a good reason why I should marry, and furthermore told me whom I was to marry—Miss Mary Darke to wit, and no other.
Mr. Darke came in soon after, and I told him all. He was furious at first; but Mary remonstrated with him for his ingratitude, and pointed out that she should be twenty-one in three months, when she should assert her right to become postmistress of Cowford. The squire relented, and we triumphed. We were married soon after Christmas-day, and have lived as happily as the prince and princess of a fairy-tale ever since.
That's how I won Polly—I always call her Polly now, because our eldest girl is called Mary; and she is three years old, and therefore must be treated with respect; and it wouldn't do to have two Marys in the house.
That, I repeat, is how I won Polly and the postmastership,—which latter I didn't keep; for the squire makes us a handsome allowance, and I am reading for the Bar. I got my father-in-law to use his influence for Chaundy, who ultimately was appointed postmaster, with a hint not to be too clever in future.