STOKE DOTTERELL; OR, THE LIVERPOOL APPRENTICE.

A HISTORY.

V.

A DECLARATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

WE must be content, for a time, to divide our attention between the shores af the Mersey and Abbey Grange.

Liverpool is itself one of the marvels of a century which has included the noblest triumphs of peace as well as of war; and yet there are many of the inhabitants of that great seaport who seem loth to acknowledge it as their home. If you meet them at a fashionable watering-place, they come "from Lancashire." Their tone, in referring to the past, is, "when we lived in Lancashire." Liverpool may be meant, and Lancashire be its alias; yet there is no place in Europe where there is so much of which a man may be justly proud as in Liverpool.

The great sea-marts of former ages have perished, or are changing only towards decay; while Liverpool is still, as we have ever known it, a spreading hive of vigorous intellect, over which literature has also shed a grace, for it has had its Currie and its Roscoe.

It has an energy, too, that never tires. It has not, like Holland, gained territory from the sea; but it has achieved the costly triumph of forming priceless acres into havens of security and repose for the fleets from every clime which come laden to its crowded port.

Yet we must not blame these deniers of their domicile. Right opinions are slow in their progress; and, even in this fair realm of England, there still are some shallow minds by whom any one contaminated by trade is regarded as an inferior;-a position in which the visitors of a fashionable watering-place would not willingly be placed.

And now to Abbey Grange.

It was, there, a wet day in autumn. The highway, like Cowper's rose, was "just washed by a shower ;" and as Mrs. Pigott and her daughter sat at work in one of the recesses of the windows, not a living creature passed to interrupt their conversation or their thoughts.

"I can scarcely believe," said Helen-" and yet Mrs. Frampton's maid told Ann Fowler that she had it from Mr. Peery himself-but still I can scarcely believe, that Henry could have asked Sir Jonah Foster to use his interest against Blake Whitmore."

"And why not?".

"And why not! my dear mother? Were not Henry and Blake old friends? and did not Blake give my brother a letter, which was certainly the means of placing him in the situation by which he at present chiefly lives?"

"You may be certain, Helen, that as far as that is an obligation, Henry will, some time or other, discharge it; and you have surely not yet to learn that those boyish companionships are scarcely to be regarded as friendships. Blake Whitmore is of an inferior grade in society to Henry, and

"Inferior! Blake Whitmore!" exclaimed Helen, with a warmth that she rarely betrayed; "there is no one, mother, to whom Blake Whitmore is inferior in all that makes a human being estimable."

"Do not allow yourself, my dear child," said Mrs. Pigott, "to think so much or so favourably of Blake Whitmore. Your brother is of opinion that you have attracted the admiration of Sir Jonah Foster and only imagine, Helen, in what a station such a connexion would place us.'

"I should be sorry to suppose that Henry is right,” replied Helen, "even if it were possible to believe it."

"Why, dear?"

"Because Sir Jonah is a selfish, unprincipled man; and there is not a single thought or pursuit in which we could sympathise."

"But consider how much it would do for Henry."

"He has done nothing for Henry yet; or, if Mr. Peery's story be true, he has only aided him to do wrong."

"But Henry thinks that his ultimate views in life almost entirely depend upon Sir Jonah. You know, Helen, that to open a brilliant career for my son is the only earthly object that I care for. And I am sure that you would not be the cause of disappointing us."

"If your happiness, mother, required it, I could sacrifice myself as many others have done. The history of domestic life tells me that woman rarely chooses her own path. It is marked out for her, and she must tread it, cheerfully or wearily, as she may. But I must confess that I see no immediate necessity for such a sacrifice; and I would rather not think it possible that it could ever be required."

"Look!" said Mrs. Pigott, not sorry to change the subject, "how brightly the sun is coming out! The rain has made everything beautiful; and, as I am quite sure that you will be the better for a little exercise, let us walk as far as the edge of the common."

They were induced by the fineness of the evening to go much farther, and even considerably beyond Barton's cottage.

The individual whom we have already mentioned by the name of Blind Barton was an old sailor, who had been almost entirely deprived of sight while on the coast of Africa. He had returned home with no means of supporting himself except a small allowance from the Merchant Seaman's Hospital; and had scarcely arrived in England when his wife died, leaving him an only child to provide for and protect. The cottage he at that time lived in was required for some local improvement, and Barton was reluctantly compelled to leave it. He often said that he would never occupy another, and his present dwelling was principally scooped by himself out of the soft sandstone, and fronted with turf and clay. It was kept scrupulously clean by frequent coats of whitewash; but, except a single room which was entirely lined with plank, it was a mere hovel. Still, with its covering of ivy and of roses, it looked well in a painter's sketch-book; and, as it stood near one of the roads which led across the common, the passer-by often paused to admire it. Soon after he had finished his humble abode he became quite blind; and his daughter Bessie and himself were chiefly supported by her skill as a lace-maker and embroideress.

As Mrs. Pigott and her daughter passed the cottage, on returning homewards, Sir Jonah Foster came out of it; and, as if nothing was more easy than to deceive, "What could ever have possessed a man," said the baronet, "even though blind and poor, to live in such a dog-hole as that? I have just been asking him if he could tell me anything of Jim Darrell and his associates. They rob me of more game than would feed a whole court of aldermen.”

Mrs. Pigott, affecting to believe that this had really been the object of his visit, eagerly responded to the remarks which followed, on the wickedness of poachers, the inefficiency of the laws, and the cruelty of depriving a man of wealth of anything so essential to his comfort and happiness.

"But they are encouraged," continued Sir Jonah; "there are people who go about the country paying their fines and taking them out of prison. One of these persons took a fellow out of Ilbury gaol the other day; and when I wrote to him to know why he had interfered in a county where he had no property, the only answer he could give me was that the man had a wife and nine children, and that if he remained in prison they must either starve or go to the Union. I thought it rather impertinent."

"I think so too," said Mrs. Pigott.

"We have some of these persons," continued Sir Jonah, " even upon the bench-I mean in the commission for the borough-a kind of militia magistrates. There's Mr. Camp, for instance, the retired draper. When a poaching case is brought before him, if it appears a bad one, he requests somebody else may hear it; and if it should admit of any doubt he is sure to dismiss it. But he is an extraordinary fellow altogether. Did I ever tell you what he said of my old friend Sir John Howard—or I might almost say to him, for he was in the next room? It was capital. We had met at the Union to choose our chairman for the year; and the Vicar of Plumstock rose to move the reappointment of Sir John, saying that he thought him a most fit and proper person. And I,' said Camp, rising immediately afterwards, 'do not think him a fit or proper person; for one-half the time he occupies the chair he is asleep, and the other half he is in a passion.'-Pretty well to have been said by a retired draper to a Howard!"

"It seems incredible," said Mrs. Pigott.

"Yet it is as true," said Sir Jonah, "as the fact that I have prolonged an agreeable walk till it is much later than I could have supposed."

Sir Jonah took his leave of Mrs. Pigott at the door of Abbey Grange; and waving his hand to Helen-a familiarity which brought the longdeparted crimson to her cheeks-he said he would have the honour of calling upon them the next morning.

"If ever the hand of God has written legibly upon the human face, that man," said Helen, "is a villain."

"For Heaven's sake! my child," exclaimed Mrs. Pigott, "in what strange book have you found such notions as these?"

"In the book, mother, which tells us that the rattlesnake gives us warning of our danger. We seldom go wrong from ignorance. It is our own folly and wickedness which lead us astray."

"I fancy, Helen, that these are some of Mr. Blake Whitmore's Aug.-VOL. CIV. NO. CCCCXVI.

2 F

Germanisms," said Mrs. Pigott. And, as some strangers who were passing by the house were descanting upon it as an abode where it was scarcely possible to be unhappy, the mother and daughter were taking their evening meal in silence; and there was a brief cold parting for the night.

Helen prayed to be strengthened through the difficulties which she saw were surrounding her; but she was one of those dispositions that seem to court domestic martyrdom by their readiness to sacrifice self-happiness to the happiness or the wishes of those around them.

Early the next morning Sir Jonah Foster was true to his appointment. We have heard a friend, who has travelled much over “continental Europe," express a belief that some valuable ethnological coincidences might have been demonstrated by a collection of the different kinds of gingerbread which he had met with in various places from Holland to Bohemia. It was not difficult, he said, to suppose why the kind that was made in Amsterdam should also be made in Edinburgh; but it was less easy to explain why that which was made at Nüremberg should also be made upon the borders of North Wales-as our schoolboy recollections abundantly testify-and so of others.

In like manner a very edifying paper might be written on the different modes in which men have declared themselves to the object of their affections.

At a remote period of English history, "in the days when there were dandies in the land," a captain of hussars merely said carelessly at the end of a quadrille, "Fanny, girl, will you marry me?" and left the rest to be accomplished by friends and solicitors.

Sir Jonah made his declaration, at the close of his promised visit, dropping upon one knee on the stone floor of the entrance-hall at Abbey Grange; and having disburdened himself of his feelings, he kissed the unresisting hand of Helen, and hastily departed as if he had been committing a crime-and he could not have chosen a mode of departure more proper for the occasion.

As the following morning was warm and bright, the casement before which Helen sat was thrown open; and when Sir Jonah Foster rode past, he accosted her carelessly, saying that he knew the way to the stable-yard, and, as they had no man, he would put up his horse himself.

He had not the slightest notion that any one to whom he had offered his hand and fortune could think of refusing them; and taking his seat by Miss Pigott, “I had long been anxious," he said, "to tell you what my feelings were."

"I wish, Sir Jonah, that you had never done so."

"Helen!" he exclaimed, in immense amazement, "what can you possibly mean?"

66

'I mean, sir, that if your feelings towards me are those of affection, I regret, on many accounts, that I cannot return them."

"And why not?"

"Because we can never be united."

"I do not see that."

"Never, except in misery and disappointment," said Helen.

"There

is no sympathy between us-nothing that could shed over our union even the most distant hope of happiness."

"Am I to understand, then, that, after all, you refuse me?"

"I would say it in more gracious language, Sir Jonah; but I have no other meaning. I repeat that our union is impossible."

Sir Jonah Foster rose from his seat, and, with a slight bow and convulsed features, left the room.

"Helen!" said Mrs. Pigott, as she hastily came in, "you don't know what you have done, or how it may affect us all."

"I feel that I have done right," replied her daughter; "but I am agitated and unwell, and you must let me be in my own room for the rest of the day."

When Sir Jonah had remounted his horse, he entered a lane behind Abbey Grange, which led to his own residence.

"Why, what's the matter with the man?" said an old farmer, who was coming into the road from one of the fields; "what the Dickins does he mean by spurring his horse and pulling at its head in that way? I wonder how he'd like to be brought before himself for cruelty to a brute animal. He has fined many a poor man, as I know, for less than that. But them young justices have one law for themselves and another for them as comes before them. Well, for my part, I never seed the use of making a man what he's not fit for."

And, while the farmer was soliloquising, Sir Jonah continued spurring his horse and nervously twitching its bridle; and it was more by its own instinct than by his guidance that it took him to the entrance-gates of Knight's Carey.

There is another of the personages of our history of whom we have for some time lost sight.

VI.

THE LAWYER'S HOME.

BLAKE WHITMORE had left his father's house with a heavy heart. It is said by an anonymous poet that there is not, in the long catalogue of human misery,

A pain severer than the pang we feel

When friendship fails, or love seems doomed to die;

and the exile from Stoke felt its truth at that moment as deeply as if it had been expressed with all the grace and vigour of the most gifted bard of whom royalty ever made a laureate.

But his mind was too well disciplined to allow the more important work of life to be interfered with by a baffled affection. His feelings were deep rather than violent; and though he had been compelled to change his scene of action, he was as determined as ever to pursue the career of persevering industry which he had long marked out for himself.

He took with him only one letter of introduction, and that was from his father to Mr. Fairfield, his agent in London, which he lost no time in presenting.

Like all men, and particularly London men, devoted to their affairs, Mr. Fairfield had an impatience of unprofitable conversation during the hours of business.