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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
mi'*
W3
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mbp UTsit of 3lubn Jitaiif^tu to Amma^ab
JOHN MANESTY,
THE LIVERPOOL MERCHANT.
BY
THE LATE WILLIAM MAGINN, LL.D.
WITH
illustrations bj) ©eorge Cvuifesfljanfe.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. L
LONDON:
JOHN MORTIMER, ADELAIDE STREET,
TRAFALGAR SQUARE.
1844.
ill 11^
TO
J. G. LOCKHART, ESQ.
THE OLD AND CONSTANT
FRIEND OF HER LATE HUSBAND,
THIS WORK IS DEDICATED,
BY
ELLEN R. ]\L\GINN.
London,— 16 </t August, 1814.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIEST VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
Page
Liverpool as it was and is — The hero introduced —
Merchant life eighty years since 1
CHAPTER II.
Who the Wolsterholmes were, and who was their
successor at Wolsterholme Castle 19
CHAPTER III.
The modem Cymon and Iphigenia 35
CHAPTER IV.
A point of conscience— May an anti-slavery advocate
hold slaves ?— The assembly of the gifted— The
point decided '^^
VI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER V.
Page
The letter and the mystery — John Manesty departs
for the West Indies — A conference between the
nephew and the clerk 81
CHAPTER VI.
A dissertation on cocking — With a cock-fight under
peculiar circumstances — Lancashire gentlemen at
feast and tourney 101
CHAPTER VII.
A dissertation on slavery — The end of the revel . .147
CHAPTER VIII.
A disciple of Chesterfield — A highway robbery in
the good old days 165
CHAPTER IX.
Vulgar robbery objectionable — The amateur high-
wayman traced — The peer discovers his plunderer 179
CHAPTER X.
An interview between father and son — Debate on the
division of the booty — Fatal duel and flight . .189
CHAPTER XI.
Sir llildebrand's guests — Progress of a silent passion —
A rival starts up — True love's greatest difficulty
to hold its tongue— Solid John's return .... 201
CONTENTS. vii
CHAPTER XII.
Page
A second departure for the West Indies .... 223
CHAPTER XIII.
The return — And the accusation 235
CHAPTER XIV.
Suspicions creeping among the saintly — The great
merchant called to account ........ 249
CHAPTER XV.
Religious doubts — Manesty's conscientious perplexi-
ties — He visits Aminadab the Ancient .... 263
JO PIN MANE STY.
CHAPTER I.
LIVERPOOL AS IT WAS AND IS — TUE HERO INTRO-
PUCED MERCHANT LIFE EIGHTY YEARS SINCE,
*' The Mersey," says Camden, " spreading
and presently contracting its stream from
Warrington, falls into the ocean with a
wide channel very convenient for trade,
where opens to view Litherpole, (commonly
called Lirpool, from the water extending
like a pool, according to the common
VOL. I. B
2 JOHN MANESTY.
opinion,) where is the most convenient and
most frequented passage to Ireland ; a town
more famous for its beauty and populousness
than for its antiquity."
What Camden's ideas of populousness
might have been it is hard to say ; but if
in his time he considered Litherpole, or
Lirpool, famous on that account, his re-
verence for its fame would be at present
increased a hundred fold. We iiave an
engraved view of " the West Prospect of
Liverpoole," taken somewhere about a hun-
dred years after the date of his Britannia,
— in 1G80; and in the scanty and scattered
collection of insignificant houses, apparently
intersected but by one regular street, con-
taining witliin its enclosure fields and plan-
tations of trees, and bounded by a stream
JOHN MANESTY. 3
on which seem to float half-a-dozen vessels,
all of the smallest tonnage, most of them
mere barks, we conld hardly recognise the
swelling city adorned with majestic edifices,
traversed by magnificent and crowded
streets, and on its river side flanked by
gigantic docks of almost Titanic masonry.
The flourishing state of Liverpool is not
by any means remarkable for antiquity. It
dates from about the beginning of the last
century ; and however it may shock the
fine feelings of the existing race of the men
philosophizing by the side of the Mersey,
its prosperity had beyond question its origin
in the slave-trade, of which Liverpool,
having filched that commerce from Bristol,
became the great emporium. We shall not
fatigue our readers with statistical details,
b2
4 JOHN MANESTY.
•which, if they seek, they may find in many
a bulky volume of parliamentary reports;
nor weary them by discussing the merits or
demerits of a question now set at rest for
ever. The labours of disinterested philan-
thropists, and of philanthropists whom the
most exalted charity can hardly admit to
be disinterested, have removed the stain of
tolerating slavery from the code of British
law. AYe have at all events got rid of the
word; whether we have got rid of the
thing, may be a matter not worth dis-
cussing. Be it sufficient to say that the
slave-trade crammed Liverpool with wealth ;
and that wealth, by its natural operation,
raised Liverpool into importance.
George Frederick Cooke, in one of those
wild and unaccountable sallies into which
JOHN MANESTY. 5
notliiiig ^iit genius, even in drunkciniess,
can burst, while performing the part of
Eichard the Third, in the Williamson-square
Theatre of Liverpool, amid a hissing and
hooting, well earned for having been so
overcome by the poetry of Shakspeare, or
the punch of the Angel, as to tumble about
the stage, obtained attention by crying,
with his wondrous voice, " Silence, and
hear me!" The call was instantly obeyed.
Moulding his features into his most terrific
scowl, he looked on the astonished audience,
and the indignant representative of the last
of the Plantagenets thus shouted forth :—
" It is hard enough to submit to the de-
gradation of such a profession as that in
which I appear ; but it is the lowest depth
of disgrace to be compelled to play the
6 JOHN MANESTY.
buffoon for the amusement of a set of
wretches, every stone of whose streets,
every brick of whose houses, every block
of whose docks, is grouted and cemented
together by the blood and marrow of the
sold and murdered African."
The audience, by their indignation or their
silence, gave at least a qualified assent to
the truth of this unceremonious remon-
strance ; and the attention which was re-
fused by the merchants of Sydney-lane, or
Goree Dock, to the tame eloquence of a
Wilberforce, or the sober preachings of a
Clarkson, was aroused with feelings of
shame by the fierce denunciation of a tipsy
actor. Men are still alive who actually
traded in slavery on the coast of Africa;
and many will remember the days when the
JOHN MANESTY. 7
watchword, " Liberty and the slave-trade,"
floated proudly upon the election-banners of
General Tarleton. Why should we not re-
member it? It was only in 1807 ; and
that to young people like us counts not
much more than if it were yesterday.
Cooke's savage taunt was of course
nothing more, as well may be believed, than
a ferocious exaggeration; but it is unde-
niable that many honourable and upright
men were engaged in this man-traffic, the
propriety of which they never doubted;
and that few of the most unexceptionable
merchants in Liverpool, though closing
their eyes to what was called " the horrors
of the middle passage," refused to accept
the profits which it retui-ned. We have
now nothing further to add in the way of
8 JOHN MANESTY.
introduction to our story, except tluit tliis
pcculiiir trade having liad its nuiin en-
couragement in this country by the Assiento
contract, and its main discouragement hy
what Jolm Wesley called the Grand Revival
of Heligion, our story fixes itself in the
middle time between both — viz., in 1760.
Just only is it to remark, that many per-
sons in Liverpool conscientiously protested
against this traffic — especially Quakers, and
the more austere dissenters. Just, also, is
it to add, that a general suspicion prevailed
that those same Quakers were deeply en-
gaged in the business. This they declared
to be a calumny, and were believed, as
people wished to believe. But of the mer-
cantile world, some, without making any
noisy professions, conscientiously abstained
JOHN MANESTY. \)
from having anything to do with the cap-
ture and sale of their fellow-creatures ; and
among them was the famous house of llib-
blethwaite, Manesty, and Co., of Pool-lane,
Liverpool. This firm, at the time we write
of, was represented by a single individual,
Mr. John Manesty.
Mr. Manesty was about three or four and
forty years of age when our narrative com-
mences. His countenance was cold and
cahmlating — seldom, if ever, relaxing into
a smile, and almost as seldom darkening into
a frown. In stature, he, like one of
Crabbe's heroes —
'* Grave Jonas' kindred, Sibyl kindred's sire,
Was six feet high, and look'd six inches higher ;'
and his massive head, somewhat (contrary
b3
10 JOHN MANESTY.
to custom, lie wore no peruke) touched with
gray, and rapidly inclining to be bald, was
firmly set on a pair of ample shoulders.
His dress, which never varied, was of snuff-
brown broadcloth, a wide-skirted coat, a
deep-flapped waistcoat, and a close-fitting
pail' of breeches, not reaching much beyond
the knee, where they were secured by a
pair of small silver buckles. These gar-
ments were all of the same colour and
material, and for more than twenty years
he had not allowed any change in their
fashion, which, though an object of scorn
in the eyes of the beaux and macaronies of
the middle of the last century, was com-
fortable and commodious. No ruffles graced
his wrists; no tie or solitaire decorated his
stiff cravat, rolled closely round his mus-
JOHN MANESTY. 11
cular throat ; no ornament whatever was
worn on any part of Iiis person; but all,
from his well-brushed, broad-brimmed hat,
to his woollen stockings of iron gray — and
his shoes, blackened with whatever art,
before the appearance of Day and Martin
in the world of Japan, could command, and
kept tightly close by a pair of the darkest
buckles — was scrupulously clean, stainless,
and without speck. Such, too, was his
repute among his brother merchants; and
when, at Exchange hours, he made his way,
slowly and steadily pacing among the com-
mercial crowd, with his gold-headed cane,
which he carried more as an emblem of his
caste, than for any purpose of supporting
his brawny hand or strong-set limbs, he
seemed, in more senses than one, a pillar of
'Change.
12 JOHN MANESTY.
Of his partners, the ckler Ilibblcthwaitc
liad died some years before, and his son,
who formed tlie " Co.," preferred cock-
fighting, badger-draAving, bull -baiting, and
other refined Lancastrian amusements-
most of which we have bequeathed as lega*
cies on the other side of the Atlantic — to
the dull routine of the desk and counter.
With great pleasure, therefore, he sold his
interest in the firm to his graver partner,
who, as usual in contracts between such
parties, was no loser in the transaction.
We by no means intend to insinuate that
anything passed which was inconsistent
with mercantile honour, for the purchaser
was not more eager to get than the seller to
get rid of the concern on any terms what-
ever. If the money passed was less than
JOHN MANESTY. lo
what Manesty would have disbursed to a
more sagacious or less hasty customer, it
was far more than Dick Hibblethwaitc
required on the moment for the pui-poses of
squandering.
Those who now visit the Liverpool Ex-
change, in Castle-street, and look upon the
spruce and airy second-hand dandies, who
dispose of millions of money — at least, of
bills — in the jauntiest style possible; or sec
them, at all hours of the day, sipping
claret, swilling grog, or guttling down
bitter beer, according as the goddess La-
verna is propitious to her votaries: or who
meet them in the hundreds of coffee-rooms,
bar-parlours, or taps, so profusely planted
all over their borough, flirting with pretty
Miss Eliza, betting at Jem Ward's, making
14 JOHN MANESTY.
tlicir books at litidlcy's, or " tossing " iit
Jack Langan's, must needs be reminded
that these gentlemen no more resemble
their methodical sires of old, than does the
maintenon cutlet or the ressole des rognons
de Zfo??^ represent the haunch of mutton or
the lordly sirloin. In one art they cer-
tainly far surpass their Withers — what that
art is, we leave to Dale-street on one side
of the ocean, and to Wall-street upon the
other, to disclose. Be that as it may,
among the most methodical men, of this
most methodical time, none could be more
methodical than the bUrly merchant whom
we have just introduced to our readers.
John Manesty was, as we have said,
some three or four and forty years of age,
twenty of which he had passed in indefati-
JOHN MANESTY. 15
gable and unceasing commercial industry in
his native town. The Exchange clock it-
self could not have been more punctual and
unvarying in its movements than he. Six
o'clock every morning of winter or summer
found him seated upon the high stool of his
inner office, turning over his books of busi-
ness with a scrutinizing eye, preparatory to
the labours of the day. Eight o'clock every
evening saw him as invariably occupied,
upon the same stool, over the same books,
which had recorded the results of those now
finished labours. Fcav incidents marked
the interval between- those hours.
Writing letters occupied Manesty's time
until eight o'clock, when he sate down to a
hearty breakfast of northern cheer, to which
his temperate habits and robust frame
16 JOHN MANESTY.
enaljled liim to do ample justice. The mul-
tifarious occupations of commerce engaged
liim until dinner, Avliicli, contrary to the
general habit of the Liverpool merchants —
whose custom it was, then, even more than
now, to dine in taverns — was served at
home, and he shared a plain but solid
repast with a single companion. A tankard
of ale, and sometimes a glass of port, was
its only accompaniment; and dinner con-
cluded, he went upon 'Change, to transact
affairs with his brother merchants.
Great was the deference which John
Manesty there met; and for a couple of
hours, bills, bonds, obligations, bargains,
li'eights, insurances, speculations, contracts,
shipments, ladings, entries, consignments,
and a host of other words familiar to mer-
JOHN MANESTY. 17
cantile ear in ii great emporium of trade
and shipping, were despatched by him witli
the rapidity acquired by long practice, and
a decision which is the sure attendant upon
a heavy purse. His dealings were upright,
his engagements punctually observed; and
though in doing business with others who
were not so punctual or so solvent as him-
self, he had no scruple to enforce his claims
in such manner as the law allows and the
court awards, yet the very greatness of his
transactions precluded him from being, in
general, mixed up with needy or embar-
rassed parties, and his wealth often allowed
him to display the semblance, and perhaps
the reality, of generous and kindly dealing
towards the fallen or broken adventurer in
trade.
18 JOHN MANESTY.
At five, tea, followed by an hour's in-
dulgence in smoking, (his only luxury,
and conscientious scruples occasionally re-
proached him for indulging in this slave-
raised weed,) brought the merchant again
to his books; a bread and cheese supper,
sometimes relieved by a glass of hot rum
and water, followed, and ten o'clock con-
signed him to his bed, thence to rise at six
o'clock the next morning and repeat the
labours of the bygone day.
Such was the sober and unvarying life of
Manesty, and many more besides of his
contemporaries.
JOHN MANESTY. 19
CHAPTER 11.
WHO THE WOLSTERHOLMES WERE, AND WHO WAS
THEIR SUCCESSOR AT WOLSTERHOLME CASTLE.
From Manesty's business, as we have
already stated, African traffic was wholly
excluded; he had taken a very decided
part in protesting against the slave trade,
then principally opposed by the dissenters,
which threw him much into their company ;
and though not departing from the church
of England, in which he was reared, he
20 JOHN MANESTY.
seldom attended its services, preferring, in-
stead, to frequent the chapel of the Ecv.
Mr. Zachariah Ilickathrift, called by his
admirers Zealous Zachariah, and by all
whom they would consider the ungodly,
Old Cuff- the- Cushion, l)oth titles being
derived from the energy with which he en-
forced the extreme doctrines of Calvinism,
The house had, indeed, formerly been some
what connected with the West Indies, but
that branch of the business had been en-
trusted to the elder Hibblethwaitc. Manesty
never liked it ; and, on the old man's death,
this dislike was still further increased by
reports of the proceedings of the younger
gentleman, while on a visit to Port Royal,
proceedings which, in the opinions of his
grave partner, were by no means calculated
JOHN MANESTY. 21
to reflect credit on the character of the
firm. This was, indeed, one of the prin-
cipal causes of the dissolution of partner-
ship, after which event Manesty gave up
the West Indian and African connexion
altogether.
When it was pressed upon the merchant
that there were other things besides slaves
to be traded in — as palm oil, or gold dust —
upon the Gambia, he used sternly to reply—
" No — no, it is best not to touch the
thing at all ! Have I no consideration for
the souls of my sailors, whom I should, by
despatching them thither on any mission
whatever, expose to the contamination of
being the associates of murderers, pirates,
and manstealers?"
In all other branches of commerce Ma-
22 JOHN MANESTY.
nesty zealously engaged, and so monotonous
was his life, that for more than twenty
years he was never known to have left
Liverpool for a further distance than Man-
chester, a journey then performed with ease
and expedition in six hours, except some
twice or thrice on short business expedi-
tions to London, and once a year, when he
paid a visit to an estate which, much to
the astonishment of his commercial friends,
he had purchased in one of the wildest
parts of Yorkshire.
Wolsterholme manor was seated amid the
rugged and then almost inaccessible moor-
lands on the Lancastrian border. Before
the union of the kingdoms it could boast
of a castle, the inmates of which were
continually occupied either in border war-
JOHN MANESTY. 23
fare against tlie Scotch, or in the civil con-
tentions of the Plantagenets. The castle
gradually made way for a strong castellated
house, which had the honour of having kept
off Sir Arthur Haslerigge in the war of
Charles and his Parliament : that in its
turn was in more peaceful times succeeded
by a modern mansion, built in the quaint
fashion of the days of Anne ; and the waste
moorland was made to blossom with the
rose in a curious garden, ornamented with
the innumerable devices, which the per-
verse ingenuity of the queer gardeners who
flourished at the commencement of the last
century was fond of puzzling forth.
But that house, at the time of our story,
was almost in ruins. The lands, never
carefully cultivated, had nearly ceased to
24 JOHN MANESTY.
be cultivated altogetlicr, and now afforded
but scanty pasturage for a few straggling
sheep; the garden alone retained some
semblance of its pristine pomp. The house
supplied a dwelling-place, such as it was,
for a poor old man, who liad been under-
gardener, many years bygone, in the days
of the last Wolsterholme, and by his zeal,
exerted to the utmost of his power, the
winding walks were kept in order; the
evergreens clipped and trimmed into their
original shapes of heraldic griffins — the
armorial bearings of the family; the fruit
of bush or tree preserved from totally
perishing ; the flower-knots still disposed in
their whimsical mazes ; the green border of
the long fish-pond — fish-pond, indeed, no
more! for the fish liad long vanished —
JOHN MANESTY. 25
cleaned find cleared — the rose was reared,
the weed uprooted — all with as much care
as if the eyes of its former masters rested
upon the scene.
But there they rested not. With a
fatality common to many of our ancient
families, the Wolsterholmes had always
adopted the losing side : their manors were
confiscated by the Yorkists, and but par-
tially restored by Henry VII. In the days
of his successor, their attachment to the
Romish faith lost them all their influence in
court or county, and many a broad acre
beside, in the mad insurrection known in
history by the name of the Rising of the
North. When the deluded followers of the
standard of the Five Wounds of Christ
hoped that,
VOL. I. C
26 JOHN MANESTY.
" If their enterprise had sped,
Change far and wide the land had seen —
A resurrection from the dead,
A spring-tide of immortal green,"
but were mercilessly taught to see their
mistake by Sir George Beaumont, the Wol-
sterholmes took an active part, and suffered,
some in person, all in estate ; and lastly, in
the Parliamentary war, they as Cavaliers
were made to groan heavily under lines
and sequestrations, for which, when the
days of royalty returned with Charles II.,
it was but sorry recompence, on their pre-
sentation at court, that they were pro-
fusely complimented, heartily shaken by the
hand, heavily laden with promises, laughed
at as country pests by the courtiers, and if
JOHN MANESTY. 27
remembered at all, remembered only as
bores by the king.
These being the annals of their house, it
is no wonder that the Revolution found
them in possession of a sadly dwindled
estate, which possessed few temptations for
the spoiler ; but untaught by experience,
they still clung with constant fidelity to
that White Rose which had been so fatal
to their fortunes. The cowardice of James
was, however, kinder to his followers than
the courage of his father had been ; for his
precipitate flight afibrded his partisans no
opportunity for an English insurrection,
and the followers of William had no pre-
text for dealing as liberally in confiscations
on the eastern as they did on the western
side of St. George's Channel. Wolsterholme
c 2
28 JOHN MANESTY.
Castle, as it was still called, was thus saved
to its owners, who would infallibly have
followed the standard of James, if he had
raised one ; and it became the theatre of
many a political intrigue, with which ap-
pellation tlic " honest men " thought proper
to dignify their drinking bouts.
In 1715, the Sir Thomas of that day
was " out " with the Earl of Mar, and,
obliged to fly to France, he died at St. Ger-
mains, in sad poverty. The relics of this
once great property, now reduced to little
more than this barren waste, were finally
dissipated by his son, also a Sir Thomas,
who, witli the hereditary wisdom of the
family, threw down the last stake of the
Wolsterholmes, and lost it in the cause of
Charles Edward. He, like his father, was
JOHN MANESTY. 29
obliged to fly to the Continent; and enter-
ing the French service, had the good fortune
of being shot dead, before absolute penury,
which had been long staring him in the
face, had actually come down upon him like
an armed man. His only sister, either im-
patient at increasing a burden already too
weighty to be borne, or else, as a few
persons conjectured, yielding to the solicita-
tions of some unprincipled admirer, had
disappeared, none knew whither.
Sir Thomas's younger brother, who, amid
the loud remonstrances of his kindred,
had adopted the Hanoverian side of the
question, obtained a commission in Ligo-
nier's troop, and perished, in some obscure
skirmish in the American plantations, a few
years before Sir Thomas's death. And the
so JOUN MANESTY.
land knew their place no more. Their
honours were attainted, their manor seized
hy the crown. The memory of the family
was still cherished by the peasantry, to
whom they had always been kind, but
there was, for many reasons, an evident
reluctance to speak of the old people, and
they were gradually forgotten as years
rolled away.
On the flight of the last baronet, some
five-and-twenty years before this story be-
gins, the crown agents parcelled the estate —
which, though small in value, was spacious
in acres — into many petty holdings, princi-
pally among the tenants of the late pos-
sessors; but as no bidder appeared for the
manor-house, it was suffered to fall into
decay. Some years afterwards, Manesty
JOHN MANESTY. 31
had occasion to proceed towards that part
of the country, and, on learning these cir-
cumstances, he evinced a most unusual
anxiety to become the purchaser of the
house. The bargain was easily concluded ;
he left the poor gardener as he found him,
in possession, and afforded him a pittance
sufficient for his wants and services.
After this, he gradually purchased the
several portions of the estate at prices
which made his confidential book-keeper
start. He put the miserable dwellings of
his tenants into repair, and shewed himself
as easy and careless in his new character of
a landlord as he was strict and precise in
his old one of a merchant; but as for the
manor-house itself, he would not permit the
slightest alteration or repair, beyond what
32 JOHN MANESTY.
was absolutely necessary to keep it from
tumbling about the ears of its old occupant.
This ruinous dwelling he visited once
a-year, — always alone, — and took posses-
sion of the only habitable apartment in the
house, one communicating by a glass door
with the garden. AVliat was the motive or
object of this visit no one could tell. He
pretended, indeed, that he went to do busi-
ness with his tenantry; but this was no
more than a pretence, for there was no
business to do. The trifling returns of rent
which he might bring back were not of the
slightest importance to a man of his wealth,
and could well have been left to the care of
the humblest clerk in his office, Avithout
diverting from far weightier transactions
the time and attention of the master.
JOHN MANESTY. 33
As nobody suspected Solid John — tlic
name Avhich his acquaintances bestowed on
him behind his back — of sentiment or ro-
mance; as in religion and politics he and
his had been always opposed to the Wol-
sterholmes; as the only link which con-
nected the names of the families was one
that could give rise to no other than angry
or painful feelings; and most especially as
the speculation, as it would be called in
Liverpool, did not yield him anything like
one per cent, for his money, the curious in
these matters, puzzled with guessing, and
knowing that Manesty, like the apparition
in Macbeth, was one that would not be
questioned, Averc obliged to content them-
selves with giving to Wolstcrholme Castle
the nickname of John Manesty's Folly.
c 3
34 JOHN MANESTY.
Of late, however, it was put to some use,
for its garden was made to supply bouquets
and love-knots, and other floral tributes,
which, to the great astonishment of his
grave neighbours, were suddenly seen to
bloom in the sills and bowpots of the dark-
some and dingy windows of Pool Lane,
where for many a long year no other leaves
had been heard to rustle but those of the
cash-book and the ledger.
JOHN MANESTY, 35
CHAPTER III.
THE MODERN CYMON AND IPHIGENIA.
Our readers, we suppose, will take it for
granted that these roses and lilies, and
other triumphs of the flower-bed, bloomed
not especially for Mr. John Manesty; on
the contrary, they were there very much
against his will. They were culled by
younger hands for younger eyes ; and many
a mystery did they contain, intelligible but
to two people — for which said mysteries
36 JOHN BIANESTY.
Mr. JoLin Mauesty had very little sym-
pathy.
In our description of the staid and mono-
tonous life of the merchant, it may he
remembered, we mentioned that he shared
his dinner with a solitary companion, and
the flowers were for him. That companion
vvas his nephew, Mr. Hugh Manesty. Mr.
Hugh Manesty was between two or three
and twenty, a well-grown and a well-knit
youth, of whose personal appearance any
uncle, who regarded such things, might
justly feel proud.
His story may be told in few words.
We have said, the only link which could
be supposed to connect the Manestys with
the Wolsterholmes was a painful one; and
that link was the parentage of Mr. Hugh
JOHN MANESTY. 37
Manesty. Cornet Wolsterliolme, while quar-
tered at Liverpool, had been attracted by
the demure beauty of Miss Hannah Manesty,
whom he saw by mere accident. IIoav the
fail* devotee discovered that she was loved
by the gay cornet is a question which our
readers had better ask their wives and
sweethearts ; here it is sufiicient to say
that it was discovered. And when Wilford
Wolsterholme shortly afterwards departed
with his regiment for America, he was
clandestinely accompanied by a lady Avho
was his wife, and no longer Miss Manesty.
Great was the indignation of that serious
household ! It was supposed that the event
hastened her mother's death; it certainly
sent John, her brother, across the Atlantic,
by his father's command, to seek the fugi-
38 JOHN MANESTY.
tive lady, to compel Wolsterholmc to marry
her, — if that ceremony had not been per-
formed, — and, married or unmarried, to
endeavour to bring her back.
John Manesty's absence extended to two
years, and he returned, not with his sister,
but his sister's infant. Her husband had
been killed, and she — to use the pathetic
words of Scripture — " had bowed herself
down and travailed, for her pains came
upon her." The Ichabod of the house of
Wolsterholmc was brought safely to Liver^
pool by John Manesty, and his father's
death shortly after put the young merchant
in the place of a father to his sister's child.
He carefully fulfilled the duty, according
to his own views. The boy went not to
Oxford or to Cambridge — seats of dissipa-
JOHN MANESTY. 39
tion or Jacobitism, false doctrine, or scien-
tific atheism ; he was not taught the absurd
vanities of dead languages, which profit
nothing in any commerce now known in
the world; the follies of the current lite-
rature he was taught to despise; but for
worldly learning, all that Cocker at least
could impart, was duly implanted in the
mind of the boy. Araby the blest, Italy
the fair, never produced, in the eyes of his
uncle, anything so worthy of wonder and
of love as the numerals of the one and the
double entry of the other.
Hugh's spiritual learning was confined to
the expositions of the Bible by Mr. Cuif-
the-Cushion, to which he had the good
taste — not to use a higher word — as he
advanced in years, to prefer the Bible itself.
40 JOHN MANESTY.
He possessed none of the lighter accom-
plishments : dancing, drawing, music, were
all abominations in the eyes of his uncle.
The cock-fighting and bear-baiting propen-
sities of the then junior partner of the
house were by himself looked upon Avith
disgust; and Hibblethwaite, who with those
odd fancies which it is so hard to explain,
really liked the modest and quiet youth,
after in vain endeavouring to initiate him
in his favourite pursuits, was obliged finally,
with a very hearty oath of regret, to give
him up as a milksop.
Hugh, nevertheless, was not destitute of
some of the graces that become his age, —
for he knew the gallant though sad history
of his paternal family, — and to the almost
instinctive passion of a north-country man
JOHN MANESTY. 41
for horses, he added the not usual elegance
of preferring a knowledge of the use of the
rapier to that of the more locally fashion-
able weapon, the single-stick. His uncle
grimly smiled at this choice of amusement,
hut spoke not. Blood, thought he, will
out. Hunting was proscribed not more by
the rigid principles of the sectarians, with
whom he chiefly communed, than by the
stronger reluctance of the gentry of the
palatinate to permit any trader to follow
the hounds with them. For other sports of
the field his opportunities had been few,
and religion and natural refinement kept
him from the alehouse and the cockpit.
In short, after Hugh came towards man-
hood, deprived by taste and by feeling from
the vulgar enjoyments of the ordinary nicr-
42 JOHN MANESTY.
cantilc population, by shyness and prejudice
from the pursuits and delights of men of
liberal breeding, and by his commercial
position and suspected creed from the society
of the Lancastrian aristocracy, the young
man dwelt almost alone. Ilis uncle's busi-
ness occupied most of the hours of his
week-days; his Sundays were devoted to
the tabernacle ; and there many a Jemima,
a Kesia, and a Kerem-happuch suffered
their sweet eyes demurely to stray from the
hymn-book, to catch a glance of the hand-
some countenance of the heir of the wealth
of Solid John Manesty.
We should have said, that when the
child was brought to England, its grand-
father insisted that it should bear his own
name, and not that of the hated Wolster
JOHN MANESTY. 43
holme. But the soft glances of the godly
sisterhood were thrown away in vain. Hugh
Manesty heeded them not. Some touch,
perhaps, of the old aristocratic blood har-
dened his heart against the disputatious
daughters of dissent, and he shi^ank from
their tea-drinkings as decidedly as from the
ale-drinkings of Dick Hibblethwaite.
What once was a matter of taste had of
late become a matter of feeling. A change
had come over the spirit of his dream ; and
without further preface, he had met with
Mary Stanley. We leave to Burke, or
Lodge, or Debrett, the task of assigning
her station in the noble house of Derby, to
which she belonged. We require no herald
or genealogist to decide that she was an
eminently beautiful and graceful gii^l. Hugh
44 JOHN MANESTY.
Mancsty met her while on a visit of business
to Sir Ilildcbrand, her father's mansion ; for
Sir Hildebrand being longer in pedigree
than in purse, had contrived, in spite of his
contempt of mercantile pursuits, to be on
the wrong side of the books of the elder
Manesty. The baronet was glad to afford
all the hospitalities in his power to the re-
presentative of the house, and he gilded
over the degradation by reflecting that his
guest was not in reality a money-lender,
but the actual representative of one of the
oldest families of the north, and not very
distantly connected with himself.
Whether the story of Cymon and Iphi-
genia be literally true, may be left to the
commentators on Boccaccio, Chaucer, and
Dryden ; but that it is morally true, no one
JOHN MANESTY. 45
who has looked iijoon the progress of youth
can doubt — and Mary Stanley was Iphigenia
to Hugh Manesty. The loutishness of the
countmghouse- clerk, far more disgusting
than the hobnailed clown, was dispelled; a
feeling that there was something better
worth reading than the " Whole Duty of
Man," or the " Ready lieckoner," soon
arose in his mind. A charm was discovered
in poetry before unsuspected; and even the
books, deeply reverenced as they were before,
assumed a new form of reverence. The
Bible was no longer a mine of texts for
controversy, but a volume of beauty, poetry,
and love; and in the " Pilgrim's Progress"
he could afford to forget, while reading that
wondrous allegory, all remembrance of the
persecutions of the perverse cobbler.
46 JOHN MANESTY.
Hugh, moreover, was now connected with
the gentry of the country, and partook of
their amusements ; but he felt the want of
accomplishments and education, and sedu-
lously applied himself to obtain both. Ori-
ginally endowed with talents of no common
order, and urged to perseverance by the
unsparing goad of unceasing love, his pro-
gress was far beyond what we find in schools
and colleges ; and a lapse of two years be-
fore our narrative begins had sufficed to
make Mr. Hugh Manesty what he had
always been in heart and soul, a true and
finished gentleman.
He clung, however, to the desk ; habitual
reverence of his uncle, who possessed that
which Kent says he saw in the face of Lear
— " command," — made him fear to disclose
JOHN BIANESTY 47
a secret to one from whom he knew it would
meet neither sympathy nor respect.
No two men could be more different than
Sir Hildebrand and his uncle. The baronet
hated the merchant, because he was a mer-
chant, because he was of humble origin in
the county, because he was a Whig, because
he was a dissenter, and, worse than all, be-
cause he was rich, and his creditor. The
merchant, as far as his time allowed him,
hated the baronet, because he was an aris-
tocrat, because he was a Tory, because he
was a high-churchman, because he was an
embarrassed man, and his debtor. A mar-
riage would have been spurned by both
sides as totally disproportioned, if it had
been suspected ; but on the part of Sir
Hildebrand, he no more dreamt that his
48 JOnN MANESTY.
daugliter would bestow a thouglit upon a
man engaged in trade, than she would upon
the groom that rubbed down her horse ; and
John Manesty never having entered Eagle-
mont, Sir Hildebrand's seat, liad no oppor-
tunity of observing the conduct of the
young people to each other.
He therefore contented himself with re-
monstrating against the visits of his nephew
to Sir Hildebrand, and the striking and
visible alteration in that youth's bearing.
At first, he was inclined rigidly to forbid
the connexion altogether; but when he ob-
served the pain that it gave, and reflected
on the constant attention, kindly manners,
and willing obedience of the handsome
youth before him, he gave a gruff consent.
Perhaps at heart he felt no real objection
JOHN MANESTY. 49
that the heir of his fortunes slionhl he
taken up as a companion hy the aristocracy
of his native county.
Thus the matter remained; and young
*
Manesty and Mary Stanley continued to
hope on in secret, scarce knowing whether
they loved or not.
VOL. I. D
JOHN MANESTY. 51
CHAPTER IV.
A POINT OP CONSCIENCE MAY AN ANTI-SLAVERY
ADVOCATE HOLD SLAVES ? — THE ASSEMBLY OF
THE GIFTED — THE POINT DECIDED.
This affair gave John Manesty no small
trouble; but a greater was in store for him.
The carelessness of young Hibblethwaite so
managed — or rather mismanaged — the West
Indian business, to which we have alluded,
that it fell into great disorder; one of the
consequences of which was, that the only
d2
52 JOHN MANESTY.
means of liquidation for a very considerable
sum of money, was tlic foreclosing of a
mortgage, and the taking possession of a
large plantation by the firm of Manesty.
But this was a most puzzling predicament :
on the one part, the sum was too large to
be conveniently dispensed with ; on the
other, the conscientious scruples of the anti-
slavery advocate opposed his employment of
slave-labour, or enjoyment of its produce.
'' Even humanly speaking," thought he,
" how can I remonstrate with my brother
merchants, if I myself deal in slavery as
well as they?"
But that thought he soon rejected.
<' Pooh — pooh!" lie said, "what matters
it what other men think, if I can reconcile
my conduct to myself ! The real question
I
JOHN MANESTY. 53
is, Can I conscientiously take possession of
Brooklyn Royal? I own that I feel doubts
and scruples ; self-interest is a pleader hard
to resist, and I can hardly afford to do
without it. I shall consult others com-
petent to decide in this case of conscience.
I know that if I went upon 'Change, I
should be universally laughed at, and told,
with many an oath, that I was a fool. If I
advise with the zealous abolitionists, why,
they are so much pledged to their side of
the question, that I can already anticipate
their answer; and as none of them have
West India estates to sacrifice, they would
the more liberally counsel the sacrifice of
mine. I doubt whether many of them
would, in like circumstances, put their
theories into practice. Consult the vicar —
04 JOHN MANESTY.
pisli ! If it were a matter of fox-lmnting,
or a pipe of Port, I miglit tlieu indeed
consult Dr. Molyneux; besides, did not he
preach a sermon the other day (Heaven
knows who wrote it!) to prove that the
blacks were the descendants of Ham, the
son of Canaan; and that any attempt to
emancipate them was flying in the face of
Scripture, by taking off the curse pro-
nounced by Noah upon his irreverent son
— for which sermon the corporation voted
him a service of plate. No; I will leave
it to the ministers of the independent
churches. If they say Yes, I will take this
unfortunate Bahama property ; if No — I
will not !"
A solemn invitation to a great tea-
drinking of the most gifted men for twenty
JOHN MANESTY. 55
miles round was the result of these reflec-
tions. Thither came godly Mr. Goggleton,
of the Sandemanians, of Shawsbrow ; sainted
Mr. Muggins, of the Swedenhorgians, of
Sawny Pope's Alley; the pious Zachariah
Hickathriffc, or Cuff-the-Cushion, already
mentioned ; the discreet Sanders Mac Nab,
of the Scottish congregation by Goree Dock ;
Ebenezer Rowbotham, of Hale, called by
his enemies Roaring Row, from the energy
of his declamation, of no particular church ;
Samuel Broad, by the same class denoted
Sleek Sammy, of the society of Friends,
perversely called Quakers, testifying in
Bolton; Jehosaphat Jobson, (his real name
was Roger, but for euphony he had altered
it to Jehosaphat, ) of the Ranters of Oldham ;
the great Quintin Quantock, the Boanerges
56 JOHN MAN EST Y.
oi" tlio Baptists of Bullock Sniitliy, and
many others equally revered.
" Great," as the Psalmist says, " was
the company of preachers :" vast the demo-
lition of muffins, crumpets, and sandwiches ;
illimitable the kilderkins of tea that were
swallowed; and if the grace before the meal
was short, its brevity was amply recompensed
by the length of that which followed.
Besides these reverend men, there were
none present but John Manesty himself, and
his nephew. Hugh's visits to the Stanleys
had not increased his veneration for the holy
assemblage by which he was surrounded;
and as the business of the evening was
about to commence, he rose to go away.
" I am of no use here," said he, address-
ing his uncle ; " you know my opinion already
JOHN MANESTY. 57
— I am too young and too inexperienced to
presume to olfer a dogmatic judgment upon
that which divides many just and honour-
able men, and my mercantile education
teaches me to appreciate the value of the
property which is coming under discussion.
I shall only say now, sir, what I have said
to you before, that if the case were mine,
and that I had any doubt about it, I should
have nothing to do with what might make
it appear that I was not acting like a
gentleman. 1 am not saying — far from it
indeed — that your holding Brooklyn Koyal
is inconsistent with that character, but I
think it might be safely left to your own
judgment to decide whether it is or not."
He left the room, and a groan burst from
the congregation.
D 3
58 JOHN MANESTY.
Manesty was evidently displeased. " A
gentleman! — he has had that word in his
mouth too much of late ; I know where he
picked it up, and must look to it. And
yet" — some thought here appeared to be
passing through the mind of Manesty to
which he did not choose to give utterance,
but he broke off by saying — " no matter."
"I do not like the word," said godly
Mr. Goggleton, of Shawsbrow. " I never
thought much of gentlemen,"— a class of
persons with which, it must be admitted,
the respectable divine, who had picked up
his theological attainments while travelling
as a tinman, held very little association.
" Of a verity," said Samuel Broad, who
was a miller of Farnworth, " of a verity, it
savours not of Christian humility to use
JOHN MANESTY. 59
these words of pride. It shews that the
bran of the old Adam hath not been blotted
out, and the leaven of carnal self-seeking
still keeps rising."
" For my part," said an Irish divine,
who had been upon a visit to Mr. Muggins,
at Liverpool, on a mission of a twofold
spiritual nature, partly partaking of the-
ology, but still more concerning the estab-
lishment of a trade in whisky, about that
time beginning to be profitable, — " for my
part," said he, " I don't like one bit o' the
Avord, and I niver did, and I wondher how
them as pride thimsilves upon their birth
and quality, should give thimsilves sich
a name as gintlemiu, as I have raison for
knowing the biggest blackguards in the
world (I mane the attorneys) call thimsilves
GO JOHN MANESTY.
gintlemin, &c. &c., and cause had I to know
it at the time when I lived at the back of
the Poddle, when I used to he pestered
with impertinent letters from them."
Many other observations to the same
effect would no doubt have followed, but
that Manesty cut the discussion respecting
gentlemen short, from a wish perhaps not
to speak ill of the absent. In few words
he formally propounded his conscientious
scruples, and for some minutes there was
silence in the assembly, each waiting for
the other to begin.
It was fu'st broken by Roaring Row.
" As I said," bawled he, " in my sermon
to the few believers in the benighted town
of Hale, witnessing before the door of that
Vanity Fair, which is called the Child of
^^
ge^^^
1
Sai^
^9
^
-
4 N !
dbr Ai^!?.ciiil)li) nf ihr oVifTn')
JOHN MANESTY. 61
Hale, the inmates wlicreof are delivered
over to perdition for tlieir wicked laws and
abandoned customs, I said unto tliem who
steal the carcases of men" — (we pause to
remark, that Eoaring Row was by trade a
butcher) — " and vend them in the shambles
as if they were babes, — are they not all
brethren? are they not all flesh and blood?
It is true they are black; but I have yet to
learn that the colour makes any difference
in the cattle. Is there not a murrain in
the land, by reason of this trade ? Is there
not a rot in the sheep-fold of England?
Touch not it, John Manesty, — touch it not,
pious John — touch not the accursed thing !
It will be a canker in thy substance. The
gain that thou wilt make of it will be loss
unto thy soul's estate ; nay, I have known
62 JOHN MANESTY.
it to be ruin unto the body's estate. Do
we not know that the prosperous slave-
holder, Simon Shackleford, has been re-
duced to bankruptcy, almost beggary, by
the wrath of heaven," — and by accepting ac-
commodation bills upon New York, thouglit
Manesty; but he did not interrupt the
sonorous eloquence of Roaring Row.
We, however, must interrupt it, lest by
continuing in this strain we should be
suspected of attempting to cast ridicule
upon a righteous cause. It was advocated,
no doubt, very often in a similar strain and
style with that which we have here attri-
buted to the bawling butcher, and supported
also by men who may not uncharitably be
suspected of hypocrisy; but we must not
forget that the abolition of this truly in-
JOHN MANESTY. 63
human traffic was urged by men of the
most commanding talent and eloquence, the
most undoubted sincerity, and the most un-
tiring zeal.
In substance the debate took this turn —
all condemned the system, in general, but
justified it in this particular case; but none,
except Mac Nab, who spoke of the expe-
diency of not refusing the gifts of Provi-
dence, and the Irishman who, in a whisper,
was rash enough to venture upon so dan-
gerous a word as "humbug," for which he was
duly rebuked by the assembly, offered any
distinct arguments to justify the anomaly of
a saint being a slave-holder.
At last, after a debate which lasted more
than an hour, during which he had been
wholly silent, up rose Quintin Quantock —
64 JOHN MANESTY.
the Boanerges of Bullock Smithy. He
spoke in a slow, solemn, sonorous voice,
with clasped hands, and eyes continually
uplii'tcd to heaven, and the strong patois
of his native Lancashire rung musically in
the ears of his auditory as these words
issued from his goodly frame : —
" This brethren, is a grave question;
on one side are the earthly good, on the
other the heavenly hopes of a brother dear
unto us all. I shall divide my observations
upon it into seventeen heads. First — Is
making slaves a sin? Secondly — Is trading
in slaves a sin? Thirdly — Is buying slaves
a sin? Fourthly— Is holding slaves a sin?
I shall take these four together. First, as
to making slaves : that clearly is a sin ; for
as godly Zachariah Ilickathrift, whom I
JOHN MANESTY. 65
rejoice to see here present, well remarked
in his sermon, which he hath since printed
and distributed among the churches "
Here old CuiF-the-cushion, who had been
asleep for the last quarter of an hour, woke
up, and said, " I have six copies of it in
my pocket, and the price is only sixpence
the single copy ; but any quantity may be
had for distribution at the Richard Baxter's
Head, in Whitechapel, at two guineas the
hundred."
" Let him send two hundred to-morrow,"
said John Manesty. — " Proceed, Quintin."
" As the godly Zachariah said," continued
Quintin, evidently piqued at the unexpected
slice of luck he had procured for his rival
divine — " in his sermon, which does not
appear to have had the sale Avhich it
6G JOUN MANESTY.
merited, — to prove making slaves a sin is
wasting words, and upon that head, there-
fore, I shall dilate no further. Secondly,
if making slaves be a sin, assuredly trading
in them must be a sin also; for slaves
would not be made unless they were in-
tended to be traded in. For what does
a man make anything for, but to trade
in it?"
" That's a very judicious observation,"
said Mac Nab, taking a pinch of snuff.
" Very much so," agreed the llev. Phelim
O'Fogarty.
" In the third place," went on the orator
of Bullock Smithy, "if trading in slaves
be a sin, buying them must certainly be
so; for who would trade if there was no-
body to buy? If, then, making, trading
JOHN MANESTY. 67
in, and buying slaves be sinful, the question
we have next to discuss is, whether holding
them be sinful; and this can be conve-
niently divided into about fifteen heads —
all of which I shall proceed to discuss.
Before, however, going into a minute con-
sideration of the subject, I shall pay a short
attention to the matter immediately before
us. Slaves are — the sin be on the head of
those that made them so, — but as they are,
they must live — how live? By being fed
on the fruits of the earth, or in the manner
of all mankind. Whence comes the food?
From their own labour: true; but if no
field for that labour be supplied them,
starvation ensues. Set them free to work,
and there is no field. What, then, shall
we say? Arc they to be made free, to
68 JOHN MANESTY.
starve? God forbid! The law is bad, but
it is the hiw; change the law, and things
will be otherwise. Meanwhile the African
is indeed injured, not having food to eat."
Here broke a sigh of sympathy from the
bowels of mercy of sleek Samuel Broad.
This last stroke of the pathetic deeply af-
fected him and many other of the preachers,
who were reminded, by a savoury smell
that permeated the apartment, that they
were, in probability, kept from something
more substantial by this the first of the
fifteen divisions of the question of which
Quintin Quantock was now hot in pursuit.
" As I heard Mr. Clarkson say," con-
tinued Quintin, " the injured African cries
to us, 'Am I not a man and a brother?'
so, I say, would not the African slave, in
JOHN MANESTY. 69
the unfed situation which I have endea-
voured to describe, say, * Am not I a man
with an appetite?'" (Here followed what,
in the French newspaper reports, is called
a sensation.) " Retain, therefore, thy slaves,
John Manesty ! — John Manesty, thy slaves
retain!" (and he smote the table as he said
it.) " Take them, as Philemon was told to
take Onesimus. John Manesty, take thy
slaves ! not as servants, but above servants
as brethren beloved ! The only part
which is to be discussed is that which has
been urged with so much ability by that
gifted man, the righteous Rowbotham, which
is, ' Touch not the accursed thing !' and to
this I shall devote a few preliminary obser-
vations, previous to entering on the first of
the fifteen divisions of my fourth great
70 JOHN MANESTY.
head. Nobody knows better than that great
pillar of light, that it was Achan, the son
of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of
Zerah, of the tribe of Jiidah, who took of
the accursed thing, — and what was it? a
goodly Babylonish garment, two hundred
shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of
fifty shekels. And, you will ask, is not the
taking of a man worse than the taking of a
man's garment? Is not the life of a man
worth more than those shekels of silver and
gold, which, at the present time, would be
about "
" A hundred and twenty-five pounds,"
said Manesty, somewhat impatiently. " Pro-
ceed !"
" I have seen six men, and good weight,
too, sould for just that money !" murmured
the Rev. Phelim O'Fogarty.
JOHN MANESTY. 71
" I say," continued Quintin, raising liis
voice, " that man is worth more than man's
garment — man's life more than shekels of
the tested silver and gold. But it was not
for the taking the garment that Achan, the
son of ('armi, ]-)crisned, — a garment for
which, perhaps, our friend. Muggins, here
would not give three and sixpence, at his
shop in Whitechapel" — [this playful allu-
sion to the profession of the reverend divine,
who kept an old-clothes shop, in his tem-
poral moments, excited, as it was intended
to do, a general smile] — " but for the
silver and the gold; for it was said (Joshua,
chap, vi., V. ll>,) ' Ail the silver and gold
and vessels of brass and iron are consecrated
to the Lord ; they shall come into the trea-
sury of the Lord.' By the sin of Aclian,
72 JOHN MANESTY.
part of tliem were prevented from coming
tliere — that is tlie accursed thing, and such
is the doctrine of all the churclies. Now,
righteous Itowbothara," (and here the words
of the Rev. speaker fell from his lips like
oil and honey, his voice was subdued, and
liis lialf-shut eyes resting with holy fervour
and friendship on the glowing nose of the
righteous Howbotham,) "are the slaves in
the hands of John Manestv, in this sense —
in the true sense of the text, taken with
the context — are they the accursed thing?
— are they kept away from the treasury of
the Lord? No. Is the gold and the silver
procured by their labours to be deducted
from that treasury? No. Is there no dif-
ference between Tom Tobin, who, like the
railinof Rabshakeh, abused me, even me ! in
JOHN MANESTY. 7
Q
the market-place of Stockport, last Tuesday,
when with vile tongue, he called me an
ancient hypocrite "
" Yes," whispered Muggins, who had not
enjoyed the joke at his shop, " he called
him an old humbug."
" Tom Tobin, who would waste his ill-
gotten wealth in ways of evil, and John
Manesty, who will devote it to good pur-
poses — who will found chapels, of various
denominations — who will send out zealous
missionaries, clothed and fed and paid, for
the promotion of religion, and will sweeten
the churches from the sugar-cane of his
bounty. Shall not, then, John Manesty
hold these slaves, and hold them for tlie
church and its chosen vessels? Yea, I say
VOL. I. B
74 JOHN MANESTY.
unto thee, rigliteous Rowbotliam — even unto
thee— he shall I"
The eloquence of this appeal, especially
of its latter part, seemed to produce entire
conviction in the minds of his auditory,
and even the disapproving voice of Roaring
Row was lulled to the gentle cooing of a
sucking dove. The Reverend Phelim O'Fo-
garty drew closer to the host, and was
heard to whisper that he had been in the
islands, and found the climate to agree
with him. Though the reverend man did
not deem it necessary at that particular
moment to mention that his experience of
the West Indies was derived from a smug-
gling visit, he having run a cargo of returns
for Connell, Driscoll, Sullivan, and Co., of
Glengariffe, which, in due course of time,
JOHN MANESTT. 75
was safely stranded on the hospitable beach
of Dingle-I-Couch,
" Is that," said Manesty, interrupting
the preacher, " is that your sincere opi-
nion ?"
" It is," said Quintin Quantock, with
solemn emphasis, " mine in all sincerity and
good faith."
" May I, then," asked Manesty, again
turning to the assembled preachers, and
speaking slowly and solemnly, " may I re-
tain the plantation of Brooklyn Royal, and
the slaves thereon, holding them as slaves,
and using their labour for my profit, with-
out hurt to my conscience, and sin to my
soul?"
A loud and unanimous consent, in which
the voice of the righteous rang forth pre-
e2
76 JOHN MANESTY.
eminently sonorous, was the instantaneous
reply. Manesty gave one grim smile. What
passed in his mind we shall not say, but
after a moment's pause, he said in a firm
and decided tone, " In God's name, then,
do I accept the charge." And the preachers
devoutly responded Amen !
" I will now," resumed Quantock, " pro-
ceed to the second part of the fifteenth sec-
tion of my fourth head. In the first place,
then "
At this moment the hall clock struck
eight, and Eebecca, punctual to the moment,
according to the custom of the household,
announced that supper was ready.
" In the first place," continued Quantock,
heedless of the interruption
" I think," said Manesty, rising, " my
JOHN MANESTY. 77
reverend friend, you may defer the conclu-
sion of this discourse until after supper."
" I only wish," said Quintin, " to press
one point. In the fii'st place, then "
" Pardon me, my dear sir," said Manesty,
laying his hand weightily on the preacher's
shoulders, " supper may be spoiled by wait-
ing, but no delay can injure the force of
your arguments, or the eloquence with
which they are enforced."
This remark was received with hearty
approbation by the auditory, particularly
by Broad, who, in spite of his professional
quietude, had for the last half hour exhi-
bited unequivocal marks of impatience.
The preacher yielded to the compliment,
or to the savoury flavour which was making
its way into the room, and the supper
78 JOHN MANESTY.
passed off in the way of all suppers ; but
of the remainder of the discourse of Quintin
Quantock no man hath heard up to the
present hour.
Manesty had obtained his point; the
fiercest of the abolitionists had declared in
favour of his holding the estate. He sent
them away rejoicing, each with a sum to
be distributed in charity amongst their
several congregations ; and if it be sur-
mised, according to an ancient proverb,
that charity began at home, let not the
reader imagine that there was anything
peculiar in this case, such being the custom
long practised in many a church, of many
an age, in many a country. As for Quintin
Quantock, the faithful of Bullock Smithy!
— alas! for the march of refinement, we
JOHN MANESTY. 79
seek for that honoured name in modern
maps to no purpose ! It has vanished ; the
good old designation, combined of the beef
that supported the hearts of the men of
England in battle, and of her forges whence
came the never-conquered arms which they
wielded, has been blotted out, and in its
place, with sorrowing heart, we find the
mincing title of Rosedale — fit but for
albums, where the only forgery is of auto-
graphs, or suburban cottages, into which
the smell of beef rarely penetrates. Justice
requires us to state, that despite the efiemi-
nacy of the name, no change has taken
place in the manners of the inhabitants,
which are still worthy of Bullock Smithy.
When the congregation, we say, of the
Reverend Quintin Quantock, beheld their
80 JOHN MANESTY.
beloved Boanerges clad in a new and goodly-
suit of glossy black, and mounted on a
stout gelding of undeniable action, well
capable of bearing its capacious rider, they
would, if they had known whence came the
raiment and the steed, have learnt that it
is not always imprudent or unprofitable to
give advice in conformity with the prede-
termined resolution of a wealthy patron.
JOHN MANESTY. 81
CHAPTER V.
THE LETTER AND THE MYSTERY — JOHN MANESTY
DEPARTS FOR THE WEST. INDIES A CONFERENCE
BETWEEN THE NEPHEW AND THE CLERK.
As usual, quietness reigned in tlie appa-
rently immovable household of Pool-lane.
The uncle pursued the unvarying tenour of
his way. The nephew's suit with Mary
Stanley appeared to have made no other
progress than that of a more frequent dis-
patch of bouquets from Wolsterholme. I
am sorry that I cannot afford my fair
E 3
82 JOHN MANESTY.
readers a more earnest love tale ; but I beg
tliem to consider that it is ruled in all the
books that the course of true love never
doth run smooth, and that the most matter-
of-fact writers of anything pretending to
romance will not be able to find material
for their trade, unless there be something to
ruffle the waters on which the bark of the
story is wafted. In this case there was
nothing. " I loved her and I was beloved,"
might have been the motto of their ring ;
but having said that, all is said. What
they hoped, it would be hard to tell; but
there is always in such case an angel in
prospect, who, down swooping from the sky,
is at some time, not fixed by the authorities,
to set everything to rights.
It seemed, in fact, as if nothing could
JOHN MANESTY. 83
have disturbed the repose of that tranquil
establishment. Fortune had decreed other-
wise. One morning, when the London
letters were delivered, amongst them came
a missive, uncouth of form, and all but
hieroglyphical of superscription. Manesty
hastily opened it ; and after the most hur-
ried glance at its contents, flung it down
again upon the table.
"Dead!" said he— "dead! — what a
fool!"
" Of whom are you speaking, uncle?"
asked Hugh, astonished at such unusual
emotion. " Who is dead?"
" Dead!" said the uncle. "Yes, he is
dead" — as he read the letter again, dwelling
upon every character as if it deserved the
perusal of a life. "It is no , it is nobody,
84^ JOHN MANESTY.
nephew, of whom you know anything. We
all must die. Let us hope that he died in
the Lord. lie was an old friend of mine."
He left his unfinished breakfast, and re-
mained shut up in his private closet for
more than three hours alone. When he
emerged upon 'Change, nobody could have
discerned any alteration in his manner,
or conjectured that anything had occurred
to derange him. The eye of his nephew
had, however, perceived that something had
broken in upon the calm current of his
usual equanimity, and he referred in the
first place to the books, to find if they con-
tained the name of any correspondent whose
death might affect the firm or grieve his
uncle. He found none.
Foiled in this quest, he went to consult
JOHN MANESTY. 85
Robiu Sliuckleboroiigli, who, for more than
thirty years, had been head clerk of the
house, and who knew all the secrets of the
establishment, and most of those of them
who belonged to it.
" Master Hugh," said Eobin, " I knew
your uncle before you were born, and he is
not a man who likes his affairs to be pried
into. But I do think that there is some-
thing in that estate of Wolsterholme that I
could never fathom the bottom of. Hoav-
ever, it is no business of mine ; and mark
you. Master Hugh, let it be no business of
yours. I suppose somebody is dead of the
"Wolsterholmes, and that is the news he
heard. He hated them mortally, and was
raging enough about it, quiet as he looks
now; but that was all before your time,
86 JOHN IVIANESTY.
Mr. Hugli. I recollect your grandfather,
in whose mouth you would not think butter
would melt — he was so mild and easy —
mad as a baited bull at Preston Cross, when
Miss Hannah — don't be angry, Mr. Hugh —
went over to Wolsterholme House. She
was a pretty girl, then, and, indeed, she
was not much more than a girl to the end
of her life, poor lady ; and your uncle was
sent after her, and farther beyond than
Yorkshire, for your grandfather sent him to
follow her to the plantations, to bring her
back — but what was the use ? The young
people were determined on the match, and
they had it. A troubled man was your
uncle when he brought you back, and no-
body beside — and he took to business.
Hard and stern has he stuck to it ever
JOHN MANESTY. 87
since. We know, Mr. Hugh, who was that
pet sister, and there is no use of saying
who is that pet sister's son."
" My mother's life and death," said Hugh,
hastily, " were, I believe, unfortunate — but
of that 1 do not wish to speak. Whose
death do you think has thus so visibly dis-
turbed my uncle?"
" In plain truth, then," said Robin, "I
know not. No name is in the books, the
instant hanging of the owner of which could
for a moment disconcert us. But passing
from the dead, is no one alive who plays
some discomposing part over the mind of
some younger person connected with the
firm?"
Hugh was two-and-twenty, and at two-
and-twenty people will blush. So Hugh did.
88 JOHN JIANESTY.
" Never mind," said the old man, " it is
all safe with me; but I could guess some-
thing when Dick-o'Joe's-o' Sammy 's-o' Jock's
was sent special upon Spanker, down to
Runcorn, with a large bundle of the latest
fiddlededees of ladies' rattletraps hot from
London ; and when Jem o'Jenny's was
packed off at a rate to break his neck on
the governor's own white-legged nag to
Wolsterholme, to ride fifty miles, and bring
back some rubbishing roses, better than
which could have been bought in St.
John's market for half-a-dozen pence; and
when- ''
" Nonsense !" said Hugh, half angry,
half smiling — " nonsense, Robin — you are
an old fool!".
" At all events," said Robin, " I am not
,4
JOHN MANESTY. 89
a young one. And when," continued be,
taking up the thread of his interrupted
discourse — " and when the plum-coloured
satin suit, which came down from Joseph
Fletchings and Co., of Lombard-street,
London, consigned, not to our house, but
to that of a common carrier in Lime-street,
Joe Buggins, and a notorious rogue he is,
to say nothing of the one-and-two-pence
extra it cost, which would have been saved
if sent in the regular way to Pool-lane,
besides the risk of the goods; and I
thought "
" And I thought," said Hugh, laughing,
" that you need not have made any inquiries
about it. But what can have so manifestly
annoyed my uncle?" muttered he, as he
returned to his desk.
00 JOHN MANESTY.
A few hours sufficed to explain. On tlie
next morning, contrary to the established
custom, he was summoned before breakfast
into his uncle's presence. Some vague and
indefinite thoughts that this summons might
be in some hostile way connected with Mary
Stanley, filled him with dread, which was
most agreeably dispelled when he found that
his uncle's business related to Brooklyn
Eoyal.
" This West India property," said Ma-
nesty, " thrown upon me by chance, and
accepted sorely against my will, has in-
volved me, every hour since I was con-
nected with it, in fresh and fresh annoy-
ance. Here, I find, that my unlucky
partner has so managed matters, that
nothing but utter ruin is to follow, unless I
JOHN MANESTY. 91
go in person to remedy the fruits of his
absurd and unbusinesslike arrangements.
Speaking to him, even if he would give
himself the trouble of attending to me, is
useless, as he is scarcely ever sober. Every
one with whom he has dealt appears to be a
bankrupt or a swindler. You know how
his accounts stand in our books ; and things
are even worse with him than, for his
worthy father's sake, I have let you know :
what they are, then, in the islands, you
may guess. There is, in short, no chance
but my personal appearance and exertions to
set this crooked matter straight. It is more
annoying than you may conjecture. Here
am I, Hugh, for one-and-twenty years living
in Liverpool, and never during that time
one-and-twenty days at a stretch absent
92 JOHN MANESTY.
from it, and I confess that the idea of a
West Indian voyage is anything but com-
for table. I must do it, liowcver, or look
upon this unfortunate estate as lost. I
start to-morrow evening for London."
" To-morrow, uncle !" said Hugh—" so
soon?"
" Yes," replied Manesty, " to-morrow.
I am afraid it may interfere with a certain
fishing excursion; but that may wait.
Now," added he, with great seriousness of
manner, which an attempt at a smile had
for a moment interrupted — " now, Hugh,
my dear nephew, I can confide everything
to your zeal, talent, and integrity. You
will find full instructions in my letter-book,
and you may implicitly rely on Robert
Shuckleborough, who knows intimately all
JOHN MANESTY. 93
tlie mechanical parts of our business. There
are some private papers of mine, shoukl
anything unforeseen occur" — (he dwelt
upon these words with peculiar emphasis,
and, after a short pause, repeated them) —
'' should anything unforeseen occur, which
will be found in my old oak cabinet in the
garden-room at Wolsterholme. I shall go
over there before I depart for London, ar-
range the papers in order, and leave with
you the key."
" Is not this, uncle, a sudden call?"
*' A call, my nephew," replied Manesty,
" for a longer journey may be made upon
us more suddenly. Would that I could as
readily and easily prepare for that journey
as for this !"
A silence followed on the part of both —
it was broken by the uncle.
94 JOHN MANESTY.
" Hugh," said he, " on your personal
honour and mercantile abilities I can
surely depend. From one besetting sin of our
north country youth I know you will wholly
refrain, and I hope that disgrace of any
kind will never be mixed up with your
name. I am not at heart as harsh as I
seem to the world. I shall not, I trust, be
unreasonable in your eyes. Let me, then,
only say this — I am sure that every lady
with whom you are acquainted is worthy of
honour and respect, but there is no need of
haste in selecting any among them as a
partner for life. I shall be some months
absent ; you will give me your word as —
what you called yourself a few days ago —
a gentleman, that nothing of that kind is
decided in my absence."
JOHN MANESTY. 95
The youug man gave the expected assent
with a tear in his eye, but with more soft-
ness in his heart towards his rugged kins-
man than he had ever felt before. The
preparations for departure were made in
the same business like style as everything
else, and when, in about ten days after-
wards, the bonny Jane bent her bows from
Gravesend, on her way towards Kingston,
she bore upon her deck the unexpected
freight of the portly form of Solid John
Manesty.
" So he has gone!" said Eobin Shuckle-
borough. " Manesty and Co. has sailed
for Antigua — Manesty and Co. walking no
more about Liverpool with his broad-
brimmed hat, and snuff-coloured breeches!
I was at 'Change to-day, and it looked
9G JOHN MANESTY.
quite lonesome without Mancsty and Co.
At the stand, by the corner of the old
window, where Manesty and Co. stood,
nobody went up. I should not wonder if
somebody went down. I mention no names,
but many a bill is displaced when John
Manesty 's desk is shut. God grant that
he has got safe to London — it is a
dangerous journey — and got safely out of
it, too — for it is a perilous place ! It was
the spoiling of Dick Hibblethwaite. Mr.
Hugh, ten years ago, he was as good and
as mild as yourself, and now what is he ?
Broken down to nothing. You would not
take his bill at seven and a half; — to think
of that, of a bill with the name of Eichard
Hibblethwaite written across it coming to
that!"
JOHN MANESTY. 97
" I don't tliink," said Ilugli, '^ that my
uncle is under any danger, from the tempta-
tions of London or the perils of the way."
*' Nor I," said the clerk ; " but this I do
know, that when the cat's away, the mice
will play — and that, as I see your plum-
coloured coat on your back, and your bay
mare at the door, the sooner you are off the
better, and I'll make up the books."
The youthful merchant bit his lip, and,
with a slight chagrin, seemed determined to
convince Robin that he was mistaken in his
suspicions, by returning to the desk and
resuming his occupations. But the impa-
tience of his stamping horse, the brightness
of the sun — the — the something else beside,
altered his determination; and to prevent
the interposition of another change of mind,
VOL. I. F
98 JOHN MANESTY.
lie bounded hastily upon his steed, and in a
few minutes lost sight of Liverpool, on his
galloping journey towards the Dee.
" Well," said the head clerk, " I think I
may shut up shop, too. The old bird is flown
after merchandise, which is one species of
roguery — the young bird is hawking after
love, which is another species of roguery.
There is no roguery in my going to smoke
a pipe with old Will Hicklethorp : he and I
have smoked together for more than five-
and-thirty years, and neither of us can
recollect that either he or I was in love.
I wish, after all, that Solid John was back
again. I am too old for young masters,
though Hugh is a good and kind lad indeed.
But," continued he, " he will never be able
to handle the firm like our present com-
JOHN MANESTY. 99
mander. He's the man, Will, for doing
business; and sorely will Liverpool miss
him the day he goes."
Tliese last sentences were addressed to
his old friend Hicklethorp, who, having a
great talent for silence, made no reply or ob-
servation in return. Eobin Shuckleborough
having duly hummed the following lines —
" Tobacco is an Lidian weed,
Springs up at morn, cut down at eve —
Think of this when you smoke tobacco," —
toddled off from his strong-smelling room of
revelry in Juvenal-street, to dream over
the events, the whiffs, and the glasses of
the day in his residence, located in one of
those queer quarters which have since been
metamorphosed into the name of Toxtcth
Park.
f2
JOHN MANESIY. 101
CHAPTER VI.
A DISSERTATION ON COCKING — WITH A COCK-FIGHT
UNDEE PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES — LANCASHIRE
GENTLEMEN AT FEAST AND TOURNEY.
" The mains are fouglit and past,
And the pit is empty now;
Some cocks have crow'd their last,
And some more proudly crow !
In the shock
Of the world, the same we see,
Where'er our wand'rings he —
So here's a health to thee.
Jolly cock !"
Sucn were the sounds that rang from tlic
Bird and Baby of Preston, at about noon
of a fine July day, some eighty years ago.
102 JOHN MANESTY.
Loud was the chorus, and boisterous the
laughing which attended this somewhat
quaint expression of cocking morality. The
company to whom it was sung, filled har,
parlour, tap, outhouse, gallery, porch, — all
the house in fact, — for it was a meet-
ing assembled to determine the last great
Preston match of North Lancashire against
South. All the cockers of the north were
there ; at six in the morning the cocks were
in the pit ; and by eleven, all was decided.
Undoubted pluck had been shewn in byes
and mains on the part of the cocks, and
much money had changed hands on the
part of their backers.
We might easily occupy the time of our
readers by detailing the conversation during
the eventful moment of the contest, but it
JOHN ]\IANESTY. 103
would afford very little variety beyond tlie
usual growling of losers and exultation of
winners, whatever the game may be, both
expressed in the most intelligible and em-
phatic language, blended with admii-atiou
of the gameness or contempt of the dunghill-
hood displayed by the various black lackles
and ginger piles " engaged in feathery
fight," and mixed up with comments on
the ability, dexterity, and honesty, or the
want of those qualifications, displayed by
feeders and setters, delivered in a style
which was more distinguished for candour
than politeness.
Milton declines entering on the details of
the wars of the Heptarchy, on the ground
that they are no better worth describing
than the skirmishes of kites and crows.
104 JOHN MANESTY.
Fortified by so great an authority, we too
decline chronicling the skirmishes of other
pugnacious fowl, trained to war by the
sturdy and unsaxonized descendants of the
Offas and Pendas in their ancient realm
under the dynasty of Hanover. Be it ob-
served, that we are not pronouncing a
magisterial opinion in disparagement of this
venerable diversion.
" If the rust of time can hallow any
sport, that which we are now entering
on (cocking) is in full possession of this
precious bedeckment. It is indeed so old,
that Ave hardly know from whence to derive
its origin. Asia has, hoAvever, the credit
of first fostering it; and it seems to have
been cultivated by the natives among their
earliest games. The first records of China
.JOHN MANESTY. 105
note it: in Persia it was early encouraged,
in conjunction -with liaAvking and (|uail-
figliting; nor was it to Le wondered, that
as man became belligerent, lie would, in
order to extend his conquests, commence
his education by observing the offensive
and the defensive operations of animals,
thereby the better to regulate his own.
" AVlien Themistocles was engaged in
warfare with the Persians, he was struck
with admiration at the bravery and perse-
verance displayed in the battle between the
cocks of that people, which was such as to
occasion him to exclaim to his admiring
army : ' Behold, these do not fight for their
household gods — for the monuments of their
ancestors — not for glory — not for liberty,
nor for the safety of their children, but
f3
106 JOHN MANESTY.
only because the one will not give way
unto the other.' This so encouraged the
Grecians, that they ionght gallantly ^^ [John-
son did not suspect how etymologically pre-
cise was the word on which he stumbled,]
" and obtained the victory over the Persians,
'upon which cock-fighting was by a parti-
cular law ordained to be annually practised
by the Athenians. The inhabitants of Delos
were great lovers of the sport; and Tana-
gra, a city of Ba30tia, the island of Ehodes,
Chalcis in Euboea, and the country of
Media, were famous for their generous and
magnanimous race of chickens, and it does
appear that they had some peculiar method
of preparing the birds for battle. Cock-
fighting was an institution partly political
in Athens, and was continued there for the
JOHN MANESTY. 107
purpose of improving the seeds of valour in
the minds of their youths ; but it was after-
wards perverted and abused, both there
and in other parts of Greece, to a common
pastime and amusement, without any moral,
political, or religious intention, as it is now
followed and practised amongst us."
We must not pass off all this learning
upon our readers as our own; we have
taken it from Johnson's Sporting Dictionary
— a grand repertory of everything that a
sportsman can desire — or rather, if we must
deal upon the square, at second-hand from
Delabarre Blaine's Encyclopasdia of Eural
Sports, one of the most beautiful, exact,
copious, and interesting books in the lan-
guage. Let, then, the admirers of cocking
shelter themselves under the authority of
108 JOHN MANESTY.
Tlicmistoclcs, whose panegyric on the wars
of cocks might, witli much propriety, be
transferred to tlie wars of nations, who
seldom engage in them for any real advan-
tage to themselves, " but only because one
will not give way to the other," — of the
Medes and the Persians, the Delians and
Tanagrians, and the various dwellers in the
several isles and cities, empires and conti"
uents, above recounted. They may console
themselves, also, with the countenance of
Henry the Eighth and James the First, of
good Queen Bess (against v^hom " no true
sportsman at least will let a dog bark")
and Eoger Ascham, and others enumerated
in the Encyclopicdia ; and we can, moreover^
relieve them from the apprehension enter-
tained by Mr. Blaine, that their " moral,
JOHN MANESTY. 109
political, and religious" order has fallen
under the grave displeasure of the author
of " Don Juan." " It has been supposed,"
says Mr. Blaine, " from the often quoted
words of Lord Byron —
• It has a strange quick jar upon the ear,
That cocking-
that he disapproved of this sport, and that,
with his accustomed causticity, he therefore
disparaged it." The cocking here men-
tioned is of a very different kind: it is a
cocking where an unfeathered biped is prin-
cipal, not backer; and where the leaden
bullet, not the silver spur, is set to work*
To acquire a taste for this amusement)
Lord Byron informs us that the ear must
become ''more Irish and less nicej" and, if
110 JOHN MANESTY.
nil talcs be true, his lordship's organs of
hearing never acquired such a portion of
llibernianism or nicety, as not to feel a
most particular reluctance to he brought
Avithin earshot of that " strange quick jar."
Eeturning from our digression, we have
only to record that, the battle being over,
the genial spirit of Lancashire prevailed,
and winners and losers sat down together,
the one, to enjoy their triumph ; the others,
to console their defeat, over a most sub-
stantial dinner served at eleven o'clock.
Start not, good reader, in the reign of the
fair Victoria; for as the regular dinner-
time in the country was, in those days,
twelve o'clock, an hour's anticipation was
nothing more serious than the necessity of
an early visit to the opera, which compels
JOHN MANESTY. Ill
you to dine at six instead of seven. The
company was mixed — groom sate with noble,
squire with knight — for gaming of all kinds
speedily levels distinctions ; but it contained
a large proportion of the aristocratic.
Preceding governments had looked upon
meetings, under any pretence, of the north-
ern gentry, with dislike and apprehension ;
but when fear of the Pretender had vanished,
this feeling began to pass away. Still, how-
ever, if anything of a political kind was
suspected, their assemblages were discoun-
tenanced ; and the only reunions on which
they ventured were those connected with
the sports of the field ; and even these were
considered by the more zealous partisans of
the house of Hanover, to be well worthy of
vigilant attention, as being nothing more
112 JOHN MANESTY.
than pretexts for bringing together the yet
unshaken trjiitors, waiting their time for
the triumph of Jacobitism.
Such was not the case in the cocking-
match with which we are now engaged ; if
any Jacobites were present, they confined
their manifestation of feeling amid their
own select sets to the mysterious toast-
drinking, and the significant nods, shrugs,
and winks, which formed the main support
accorded to the "cause" by its partisans
from the day that Charles Edward fled from
Culloden, to its final extinction by a natural
death, symptoms of the rapid approach of
which were strongly visible about the time
of our story.
The singer of the song, whom we have
unceremoniously interrupted, was Sir Theo-
JOHN MANESTY. 113
bald Chillingworth, of Chillingworth in the
Wold, a baronet of an ancient Catholic
family, who, like many of his creed, had
recently taken the oaths to George III. ; a
step which deeply grieved and much scan-
dalized his former friends, hut was excused
by Sir Theobald on the ground of expe-
diency. He took the oaths, he said, to put
his estates out of jeopardy; and in order,
we presume, to shew how prudent was his
regard for the preservation of his property,
he instantly went upon the turf.
The time had passed when his manors
ran any danger from the state or the law;
it is needless to say that the reverse was
the case among his new associates. In
short, he got rid of some fifty thousand
pounds in the first three years; but he still
114 JOHN MANESTY.
kept up his stud, maintaining, with many a
round oath, that as his grandfather had left
him so many slow old aunts to provide for,
he thought it only fair to keep some fast
young horses for himself. By pursuing
this course, he quickly reduced a property
of fifteen thousand a-year to something like
fifteen hundred ; but as the annuitant old
ladies died off* faster than he expected, he
was now, in the tenth year of his turfism,
still able to keep afloat.
He had that morning lost, what was
called a cool hundred, upon cocks which he
had declared to be invincible, especially as
he had been let into the secret. If he could
have heard the laughing conversation of
the breeders on whom he depended, and
who were then drinking in the porch, which
JOHN RIANESTY. 115
proved, amid many knowing winks, that
the birds had heen sold to him for the
express purpose of losing this match, by
trainers, who had indeed let himself and his
friends into the secret, but unfortunately —
on the wrong side !
" It is to be regretted," says Mr. Blaine,
" that even in this sport, as it was formerly
in race-horse training, all was conducted
under a veil of mystery, so it yet remains
with the feeding and training of cocks to
fight Each feeder, trainer, and
setter, has his secrets, but whether they be
* secrets worth knowing' is not quite so
clear."
The makers of cock-matches have their
mystery, indeed; it, however, does not lie
in the feeding and training department,
116 JOHN MANESTY.
being only a branch of that great mystical
science, -which long rendered the pit and
the ring arenas of theft and swindling, and
has at last marked them down as nuisances
to be abated, and which is at present at
work to produce the same catastrophe for
the turf.
Perhaps this cool hundred, to say nothing
of the half-gallon of beer he had swalloAved
in the course of the morning, may account
for the sentimentality of his song, which,
however, in spite of its " pale cast of
thought," was delivered by Sir Theobald in
a voice that drowned the Babel-like clamour
of dissertation upon handling, feeding, phy-
sicking, sweating, sparring, weighing, cutting
out, training, trimming, bagging, spurring,
setting, and so forth, ringing noisily through
the parlour.
JOHN MANESTY. 117
" The mains are fought and past,
And tlie pit is empty now;
Some cocks have crow'd their hist
And some more proudly crow !
In the shock
Of the world, the same we see,
Wliere'er our wanderings be —
So here's a health to thee,
Jolly cock!
" When once we're stricken down.
And the spur is in the throat,
We're surely overcrown
By the world's insulting note,
Fierce in mock !
However game we be.
In our days of strength and glee —
So here's a health to thee.
Jolly cock!
" Then, when eyes and feathers right.
And spurs are sharp and prime,
118 JOHN MANESTY.
In condition foi' the fight,
And sure to come to time
As a clock,
Let us crow out fresh and free,
And not think of what may be-
So here's a health to thee,
Jolly cock!"
" I'll be shot," said he, as he con-
cluded, " if I don't give up cocking ! It's
no fun to be done as I have been this
morning."
" Give up cocking !" said a tall, thin,
pale-faced young fellow, with somewhat of
a small, soft voice, sounding more of London
than of Lancashire — " never, Toby my
boy ! Once booked, booked for life ! Didn't
you know the last Earl of Bardolph ? he is
now about seventeen years dead "
JOHN BIANESTY. 119
" That was in the year when I fought
Broiighton," interrupted a gentleman, whose
name, we regret to say, we cannot collect
from any tradition or record of the time,
but who was known among his companions
by the cognomen of " Broken-nosed Bob."
The accident which gave him claim to the
appellation occurred in a pugilistic turn-up
with the celebrated Broughton, the bruiser —
so were gentlemen of his profession then
called — for which he gave Broughton the
sum of five guineas, a ruffled shirt, and a
gold-laced hat — receiving, in exchange, a
dislocation of the shoulder, a sorely damaged
nose, and what was, perhaps, a full recom-
pence for all, an opportunity of telling, or
attempting to tell, the story for the re-
mainder of his life.
120 JOHN MANESTY.
'' Well," continued Lord Eandy, not
heeding the interruption — " the old buck
was my grand-uncle, and the family were
duly stricken in grief at his departure. We
all took leave of him in due form ; for my
part, I went through the ceremony with
great pleasure, having no more pleasing
reminiscence of my grim-looking relation,
than his occasional bambooing me with a
long cane, with which he used to walk, if I
ever crossed his path in the garden."
" I say, my lord," said a gentleman,
whose leading propensities may be guessed,
by his being known in his own set as
Swipey Sam—" I say, my lord," said he,
stirring a bowl of punch which he had just
brewed — " I say, my lord, didn't he leave
you the Oxendale property ?"
JOHN MANESTY. 121
" He did, Sarn," replied Lord Eandy;
" the Lord rest his soul for it! as Sir Toby
would say ; and it lias gone the gentlemanly
road of all property — over the taLle at
White's ! I mortgaged it to my father, and
I call that a right good hedge !"
There followed a roar of laughter, at the
expense of the Earl of Silverstick, the stiif
father of the loose Lord Randy, who, wish-
ing to keep the family estates together, saw
no better method than purchasing, through
an agent, all the maternal property inherited
by his son, as fast as Randy got rid of it.
It is perfectly unnecessary to say that as
the earl took care to entail each estate as he
purchased it, the agent and the young lord
perfectly understood eacli other.
" However," continued Lord Randy, " the
VOL. I. G
122 JOHN MANESTY.
old fellow was heartily liked by all his ser-
vants and dependents."
" Here's his health !" said Sam.
" And Joe, the groom — who, by the bye,
is the very man that keeps this house, and
was then a younker — asked and obtained
permission to see the old earl, as he lay
upon his dying bed. The scene was, no
doubt, pathetic in the extreme. Joe con-
sidered my uncle, in the language of the
stable, as the way of getting on the road he
was about to go. My uncle, who, of course,
had reared Joe from his childhood, gave
him the best advice to continue in the
career in which he had been trained — the
results of which you may see in Joe's nose,
at this minute."
" He is not a bad fellow, though he has
JOHN MANESTY. 123
done me out of a dozen pieces this morning,
— here's his health!" said Sam.
" Isn't this all true, Joe," said Lord
Randy to the landlord, who had just entered
with a fresh cargo of fluids.
" Ay, my lord," said Joe; "I think I
see the old earl now, lying upon the damask
bed, with the rich green curtains hanging
over him, and your lordship's mother's
family arms worked in gold over the bed-
head, and a table by his side, with a prayer-
book, a posset-cup, the Racing Calendar,
and a tankard of ale, though, poor old
fellow, (saving your lordship's presence,)"
— and here Joe snivelled, and wiped away
a tear, — " he couldn't drink it."
" A bad case," remarked Sam ; " I could
G 2
124 JOHN MANESTY.
almost cry myself. Nonfait qualis''' — and
lie took a glass of punch.
*' And his poor old fiice, God bless it!
worn down like the edge of a hatchet, and
his eye half-awake, half-asleep, and his long
grey hair tossed over the pillow, for he was
too much of a man to wear a nightcap;
and says he —
" ' Who's there?'
" I says, ' I, my lord — it is I,' says I.
" * And who the devil are you?' said
he; for he had always a pleasant way of
speaking.
" * It is Joe, the groom,' said I, ' my lord.'
" So he woke up a bit, and he said,
' Joe,' says he, ' I am booked ; bet any odds
against me, and you are sure. Every race
must have an end, Joe.'
JOHN MANESTY. 125
" And lie strove to drink out of the
tankard, but could not lift it. My heart
bleeds to think of it this moment. So there
were three or four nurse-tenders, and valy-
di-shams, and other such low raggabrash
about the room, for he had taken leave, as
you know, my lord, of his relations, and
would let none of them come any more near
him; he turned these cattle out at once
with a word, and away the lazy vermin went.
" ' Now, Joe,' says he, ' this is a dead
beat, and there's an end: I'm past the post.'
" So I looked astonished like, and did
not know what to say. ' But,' says I,
' don't give up, my lord; there's a great
deal in second wind. You may be in for
the cup yet. I wish I could do aught for
your lordship.'
126 JOHN MANESTY.
" So the old lord he once more brightened
up, and says he to me, ' Joe,' says he,
* could you smuggle a few cocks into this
room, without the knowledge of Lady Silver-
stick?' — that's your lordship's mother, his
niece.
" ' Couldn't I,' says I.
" So I slipped down, and brought 'em up in
a couple of bags, by the backstairs — your
lordship knows them well — they were the
beautifuUest cocks you ever seed. Sir Toby ;
— and I brought 'em into the room, as dark
as night — nobody twigged me.
" So his lordship strove to rise in his
bed. * It is no go, Joe,' says he ; * but
prop me up with the pillows, and parade
the poultry.'
" Well, it would warm the heart of a
JOHN MANESTY. 127
Christian, to see the poor old lord how glad
he was when he saw the cocks — Wasn't
they prime ! I believe you, they were, for
I had picked the best out for his lordship.
" ' Joe,' says he, * cocking is nothing
without betting. Put your hand under my
pillow, and you will find the twenty-five
guineas that is meant for the doctor — have
you any money, Joe?'
" ' I have fivepence-ha'penny, in ha'-
pence, my lord,' says I.
" ' Quite enough,' says his lordship.
' Now, Joe, I back the ginger-pill' (and a
good judge of a cock he was, almost as good
as yourself, Sir Theobald) ' against any
cock in the bag ; my guinea always against
your halfpenny.'
"So to it we went; one match he won,
128 JOHN MANESTY.
one matcli I won — one match I lost, one
match he lost ; and what with one bet and
another, his lordship got my fivepence-
ha'penny out of me."
" That was a cross, Joe," said Lord
Kandy.
'• Honour bright, my lord, it was not,"
replied Joe, quickly; " for I was reared by
my lord, himself, and I could not, when I
once was in it, and the cocks did their
work. So, when his last cock was crow-
ing over mine, says he, ' Joe, you're done —
cleared out ! ' and he took a fit of laugh-
ing — poor old master! it was the last
laugh he had in this world ! His jaw began
to drop, and I got frightened, and I called
in the valy-di-shams. Lord love you ! how
they stared when they saw the cocks dead.
JOHN MANESTY. 129
and the old lord dying. They ran up to
him, but lie took no notice of them, but
beckoned as well as he could for me ; he
took my coppers with his left hand, and
scraped them into his bed from the table-—
as why shouldn't he? for they was fairly
won — and shoved over the green silk purse,
with his five-and-twenty guineas in it, to me.
The guineas, my lord, are long since gone ;
but the purse hangs on the wall opposite
my bed-head, that I may see it when I
wake every morning. I would not give
that old purse for the best breed of cocks
in Lancashire, and that's the best breed in
the world."
" You are a trump, Joe," said Sam,
visibly affected; — " here's your health!"
" And then he cast his eye upon the
g3
130 JOHN MANESTY.
cocks, and the bird lie had last backed gave
one great, loud crow, and the old man's
head sunk on the pillow, and he died."
" A noble end for your ancestor, Lord
Randy," said Sir Theobald, half sneeringly.
" How does your lordship intend to die —
dice-box in hand, I suppose?"
" The less we talk of people's ends in
this company, Toby, the better," replied
Lord Randy; ^' an accident happened to a
friend of yours in Carlisle, some sixteen
years ago."
" I thought, my lord," said Sir Toby,
angrily, " that subject was forbidden
amongst us. My father suffered but the
fate of many gallant men, in a cause which
I would call wrong, or, at least, mis-
guided."
JOHN MANESTY. 131
" I know well what your father would
call you," said Lord Randy, " and that is,
' a Hanover Eat.' "
" What my father would call me," said
Sir Theobald, " I know not, hut I do
know there is no man here that would dare
call me so."
" Pooh, pooh!" interrupted Sam —
" ' Natis in usum l«titia3 scyplus,
Pugnare thracum est.' "
Which some thirty years after the date of
this quarrel was thus translated by Pro-
fessor Porson : —
" ' Pistols and balls for six!' — Wliat sport!
How diflferent from, ' Fresh lights and port!' "
" Toss off your glasses," continued Sam.
132 JOHN MANESTY.
" Here, I give you a toast. Here's ' the
King!' "
" By all means," said Randy ; " I was at
his coronation. Here's ' the King !' hut
not your King, Tohy!"
" If you say that again, Lord Handy,"
said Sir Theohald, in high dudgeon, " I'll
knock you down ! "
" That puts me in mind," said Broken-
nosed Boh, " of the day I fought Broughton,
when "
" Do you say so?" said Lord Randy.
" Are you quite in earnest?"
" Quite!" returned Sir Theohald.
" Then," said Lord Randy, rising, glass
in hand, hut still in an attitude of defence,
" just for the sake of seeing how you will
feet ahout doing that, Tohy, my friend, I
iyton-^ (3TiM.k_?k&Aikl_,
3tch. Mibivlrthuvairr intrrriuUini^ tlir tnjbr hrrmrrn i'nn> IRaii^u
miY .^ir ^1 britbah'i (ihiUiiuinmrtl)
JOHN MANESTY. 133
give ' tlie King, and not your King,' Sir
Theobald Cliillingworth!"
Down went the contents of the glass,
and, in a moment after, down went the
viscount. Sir Theobald was as good as his
word.
Though his lordship's appearance, com-
pared with that of the heavy Lancashire
squires about him, was what, if they had
known the word, they would call effeminate,
he was up in an instant, and ready for the
contest. The delight of the polished com-
pany was intense.
"A ring, a ring!" shouted Sam; " and
here's the health of the best man!"
" On the day that I fought Broughton,"
said Broken-nosed Bob, pushing into the
circle; but the rest of his remark was
134 JOHN MANESir.
lost, for hits were rapidly interchanged,
and in the rally, Sir Theobald went down.
" Come," said he, on getting up again,
" as we are in for it, let us settle how we
are to fight. In the good old manner of
Lancashire, or the new-fangled fashion
which has come from London ? "
" Any way you like," replied Lord Randy.
" Up and down," said Sir Theobald,
" rough and tumble, in-lock and out-lock,
cross-buttock and "
" Any way you like, I say, and do your
damn'dest, I am ready for you."
Such were the manners of the sporting
classes of Lancashire, of all ranks, within
the memory of man. The viscount or the
baronet, in London or in Paris, would,
without reluctance, have drawn the small-
JOHN MANESTY. 135
sword, or cocked the pistol to avenge a
blow ; in their own native shire, they con-
sidered it more manly to clench the dispute
by the arms which nature gave them ; and
the public opinion of the circle by which
they were surrounded, infinitely awarded
the preference to the direct personal con-
flict, as the surest test of proving which
was the better man. It is no part of our
province to decide whether the pistol or the
fist is the more rational instrument to
assert a claim to the title of gentleman.
The combatants went to work in earnest.
We confess ourselves incompetent to de-
scribe, in proper scientific phraseology, this
pugilistic encounter throughout its further
progress, or detail the incidents which gave
such unieignod delight to the spectators;
13G JOHN MANESTY.
still more do we regret that we cannot ex-
press that delight in the ancient dialect
used by the gentlemen themselves. But
we know enough of the lingua Lancas-
trie7isis to render us scrupulous of attempt-
ing an imitation, which we are conscious
would be a failure. It is a good, solid,
dialective variation of the Anglo-Saxon,
which should not be spoiled by the mimicry
of an intruder. Hear it in Oldham or
Ashton-under-Lyne, the chief and yet un-
civilized capitals of this fast-shrinking
tongue ; or read it in the works of honest
Joe Collier, who has, under the name of
Tim Bobbin, imperishably recorded the ad-
ventures of Tummas and the kindness of
Meary. In not moj'e, but less vernacular
English, we shall proceed to tell our tale.
JOHN MANESTY. 137
" Goodness me ! " said Joe, the landlord,
rushing in — " here's a to-do. My lord!
my lord!— Sir Toby! Sir Toby!— Mr.
Kobert! — Sam! — everybody! Is this a
thing — no, no !"
" No interruption, Joe," said Broken-
nosed Bob, who was holding the bottle for
Sir Theobald; "on the day I fought
Broughton, I would not have "
"Good God! My lord! Sir Theobald !—
Sir Theobald! my lord! Will nobody part?
I wish I could see the face of Gallows
Dick !"
" Wished in good time, Joe!" said a
smart young fellow, in top-boots, round
frock, and laced cocked-hat, wlio came
riding into the yard upon a bright chesnut
mare, small in her proportions, but evi-
138 JOHN MANESTY.
dently of first-rate blood, bone, and sinew.
" Wished in good time, Joe ! for here's the
man whom you invoke by that compli-
mentary title. What's the row? What!
Tickletoby, my baronet — what! my long
viscount, is this the way you settle your
bets with one another at the Bird and
Baby? Will you, lout, take the mare? —
softly, there — softly, Jessy! Now then,
gentlemen !" and he jumped into the ring.
Both combatants, on seeing the well-
known slight and agile figure of this half-
jockey, half-gentleman, made a pause, taking
advantage of which, he proceeded to rattle
out —
" A bowl of punch and a couple of buckets
of water! Work has been done I see — let
it be enough for the day. What's the fight
JOHN MANESTY. 139
about — a wench, a liorse, or a main of
cocks?"
" They are fighting about their grand-
fathers," said Sam; " genus et proavos et
quod nonfecimus ipsi. Had not we better,
Dick, adjourn to the tap, and look after
quod facer e possumusf^
" Randy, Randy!— Toby, Toby! stuff-—
stuff! My good fellows, mere nonsense;
listen to me. My lord, your father is on
the road ; I spanked by the old gentleman
about twelve miles off, at , an hour
ago ; and as he was tooling it at the rate
of five miles an hour, it will not be long
before he is up. So wash the filthy witness
from thy face, as I heard Garrick say last
week in some play or other. And, Sir
Toby, the high sheriff told me that Grab,
140 JOHN MANESTY.
the bum-bailiff, would be after you at this
cocking match to-day, which was one of the
reasons why Sir Lauucelot himself did not
wish to come; and you know if you arc
once pinned now, it's all up with the bets
on the Leger."
Something in the eloquence of this light-
weight orator seemed to touch the parties.
After a few sulky seconds, — for neither had
hit sparingly, — the bowl having made its
appearance, the mist cleared away, and the
conversation resumed its usual hearty and
clamorous tone.
" A song, Dick Hibblethwaite ;" said
Sam, who had by tacit consent assumed the
presidency of the board. " Here's your
health, Dick ; I've known you now for many
a day, and I never heard of your refusing
'
JOHN MANESTY. 141
a glass, or being backward in a stave. Sing
anything you like — indoctum sed duke
hihenti.^^
*' May I die of thirst," said the gentle-
man thus called upon, " if I sing a song or
answer a health unless I am properly pro-
posed in a speech" — a resolution highly
approved of by the company, and, with
unanimous vociferation, Sam was instantly
proclaimed public orator.
Samuel Orton was second son of Sir
Samuel Orton, of Ortonfells, who, after the
preliminary passages of education, had en-
tered a gentleman commoner of Pembroke
College, Oxford, and there proceeding
througli those mysterious avenues that lead
to the seven sciences, emerged, in due
course of time, a master of arts. He had
142 JOHN MANESTY.
taken some honours in his progress, and
had imbibed a considerable quantity of
learning, and a still more considerable
quantity of punch. His collegiate date was
about the time that Gibbon says the monks
of Maudlin were immersed in Tory politics
and ale, and when Gray gives somewhat
the same account of their Whig rivals of
Peterhouse. In both these exciting stimu-
lants, as dealt forth on the banks of the
Isis, did Sam deeply dip; and if he never
wrote the " Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire," nor the " Elegy in a Country
Churchyard," yet many a decline and fall
had it been his lot to experience in his
proper person, and many a maudlin tear
had he shed over departed flagons in a
country pothouse.
JOHN MANESTY. 143
Sam, in short, had been destined for the
fat living of Everton-cum- Toffy ; but as the
incumbent, whose succession had been pur-
chased when he was seventy, had most
unreasonably persisted in living on beyond
ninety, Sam, though somewhat past thirty,
had not as yet taken orders. He had,
therefore, nothing to do but to cool his
everlasting thirst with whatever fluid (ex-
cept water) was at hand ; and being of one
of the best families in the palatinate, with
sufficient money in his pockets to pay his
way, endowed with perfect good nature, and
gifted with the faculty of decided compliance
with the frailties and foibles of every indi-
vidual whom he chanced to meet, it was no
wonder that he became a general favourite
among the careless and the gay. He once
144 JOHN MANESTY.
had been a tolerably good scholar, and '^ the
scent of the roses would hang round him
still ;" for, even in the midst of his tipsiness,
bits and scraps of classicality tumbling forth
would still denote the artium magister.
" Men of Athens," said he, rising, with
punch-ladle in hand, which he waved like
a sceptre over the Lancashire squirearchy,
" first, I invoke the gods and goddesses all
and sundry ; next, do I pray you to hear
me patiently concerning this Hibblethwait-
ides, a native of the island of Liverpool.
Born was he of parents who bestowed not
upon him the gifts of the Muses, but those
of Plutus, a nobler deity."
" Far nobler!" said Lord Randy.
" I drink your health, my lord," said
Sam, suiting the action to the word.
JOHN MANESTY. 145
'^ Forests and woods and chases they had
none to give — battlements of stone none
were his — tracts of moorland to him fell
not any — and he therefore," said Sam,
taking another glass, and looking round slily
on the company — " he therefore never lost
them. Member of an ancient commercial
firm, Ilibblethwaite Richard, as they put it
in the directory first, and then, partner of
the house of Hibblethwaite, Manesty, and
Co., cut the concern, leaving to the middle
member the disgust and disgrace of inquir-
ing into the price of corn and cotton ! from
which time, he, no longer Hibblethwaite
Richard, but Dick Ilibblethwaite, or Gal-
lows Dick, hath joined us, and become a
gentleman. One blemish, however, not to
laud him as a faultless character, which the
VOL. I. H
14G JOHN MANESTY.
world never saw, my lords and gentlemen,
he retained ; the habit of paying bills, and
looking generally in vain for payment in
others — I therefore have great pleasure in
announcing to him that he has lost this
morning fifty-four pounds to my friend,
Broken-nosed Bob, and of drinking his very
good health. Richard Ilibblethwaite, Sir,
this respectable company drinks your very
good health — Potaturi te salutant!'^
c-,... , ■
^,^j,^_^^ , i^.<ni?-Lev;:;l
^; .^.s-^
JOHN MANESTY. 147
CHAPTER VII.
A DISSERTATION ON SLAVERY— THE END OF
THE REVEL.
"Yes, Sam," said young HibWethwaite,
for he it was, the junior partner of the
house, whom we have mentioned in a prior
chapter, " I am very much obliged to you
for the compliment — I don't think that
betting is worse thievery than merchandise.
I have lost fifty-four guineas, have I ?
rather a bad morning's speculation. How-
n2
148 JOHN MANESTY.
ever, tliat's all riglit. Well, it may be
very pleasant, but I am sorry I did not
stick to old ^lancsty, after all. Yon, my
bucks, have here, in the course of the last
couple of years, done rae out of perhaps
five or six thousand pounds. Much good
may it do you ! But that cool, calculating,
canting, slate-faced fellow, did me out of
fifteen thousand pounds in a single morn-
ing. Pie gave me twenty-four thousand
for a business that was well worth sixty
thousand; and that twenty-four thousand
pounds "
" Has," said Sir Theobald, " in due pro-
portion been properly laid out in taking
care of us."
"Well," said Dick, "I grudge it not;
have it among you, boys ; but I do grudge
JOHN MANESTY. 149
a sixpence to Maiiesty. I am told lie is
going to the West Indies, and I wish to
God, Dick Hoskins may have him by the
back of the neck; he'll shake the money
and the methodist out of him."
"Dick Hoskins?" said Sir Theobald,
" and who is Dick Hoskins?"
"Not to know him," replied Hibble-
thwaite, "'argues yourself unknown,' as
the * Paradise Lost' man used to say, when
old Soap- the- Suds taught me that rubbish,
in what he used to call his academy in
Seacombe — not know Dick Hoskins?"
"I plead guilty," said Lord Randy, "to
the same ignorance. Who is your friend?"
"My friend!" said Dick. "He is no
particular friend of mine ; he is the friend
of all mankind. He is a slave-snapper on
150 JOUN MANESTY.
the coast of Guinea, and some people in
tlie West Indies — where the weather is
warm, and they use hot language — call
him a pirate. Am I to make a speech ?"
" No, no !" said Sam. " You make a
bad speech, but sing a good song. Here's
your health !"
" Well, then, here goes !" said Dick
Hibblethwaite. Throwing his eyes up to
the ceiling, and tapping the time on his
boot with his riding-whip, he sang one of
the old songs of the day.
"Well sung, Dick," said Broken-nosed
Bob, " and a right good tune. The day I
fought Broughton "
"You mean the day. Bob," said the
songster, "on which you paid Broughton
five pounds for bestowing on you a well-
JOHN MANESTY. 151
deserved thrashing; but if anybody wants
to know what sort of fellow Dick Hoskins
is, I can tell, for I met him to the leeward
of the Keys of the Bahamas, six years ago,
and a jolly day we had of it. Not to talk
nonsense, boys, we all knew what he was.
He was, and he is, a pirate — a robber on
the sea — Lord Randy, just as you gentle-
men of the Chocolate House, are on land."
" Pass the personality," whispered Randy,
" and go on, Dick."
" I think," continued Hibblethwaite, '' he
is a first-rate manufacturer in his way. He
doesn't snap slaves, not he ; my old partner
could not at all accuse him of that. No ;
he waits lying quiet about Cape, in order
to avenge the injured Africans, by seizing
the vessels in which their captors have
confined them."
152 JOHN MANESTY.
" lie is a gentleman," said Sam. " Here's
his health!"
*' And having clutched the inhuman
villains, he treats them with the tender
mercies of making them walk the plank."
"I say, Dick," said Sir Roger Saddle-
worth, a huge squire, with thick eyebrows,
red ears, and a mouth always open, " what
do you mean by walking the plank ?"
*' A pleasant operation," replied Dick,
*' something between murder and suicide.
They run out a plank, about eight feet
long, from the ship's side, taking the lar-
board for luck, and a man is made to walk
up to the end of it, standing over the sea.
Then he is left to his freedom of will, for
just one minute, at the end of which, if he
choose, he may drop and take his chance of
JOHN MANESTY. 153
the sharks; or, if not, two ineii-at-arms,
standing at the other end of the phink,
fire at him, and bring him down, and no
mistake."
" And which," inqnired Sir Ptobert, " is
the choice usually made?"
" In nine cases out of ten, I understand,"
replied Dick, " the man drops in the sea.
He hopes for escape, however remote the
chances, and clings to the hope, until the
shark snaps him asunder, or the gurg-
ling waves keep him down. The pirates
always prefer their customers dropping in
the sea, as tlicy think thereby the sin of
murder is taken off their tender con-
sciences."
" A sneaking end, after all," said Lord
Eandy. " For my j)art, I'd stand at the
h3
154 JOHN MANESTY.
end of the plank, and let them fire, if for
no other reason hut that of bidding them
go to hell!"
" Taking the message there yourself, my
lord," said Sir Theobald. " But what sort
of fellow is this Dick Hoskins?"
"Why, nothing particular; not much
taller than myself — a good-humoured, dare-
devil, hard-drinking sort of fellow, with a
foxy head, and an eye that would see from
here to York Castle."
"i)^ omen avertant,^ muttered Sam,
half asleep. "Hadn't we better call for
another bowl of punch ; and pray, Gallows
Dick, don't talk of York Castle, for our
debts will bring us there soon enough, if
nothing else does."
" When Dick Hoskins," continued Hibble-
JOHN MANESTY. 155
thwaite, "gathers a sufficient quantity of
blacks, or, as they call them in the busi-
ness, the ' cattle,' he makes for the Missis-
sippi, where he is sure of a market."
"Why not at the plantations, and sell
them openly in Virginia at once?" said Sir
Toby. " An uncle of mine has an estate
on the banks of the Potowmac, on which
he holds twelve hundred slaves of his own,
and he buys and sells them without reserva-
tion."
" Because," said Dick, " there are per-
sons in the colonies called judges and juries,
who make a nice distinction between piracy
and slaving ; and as they would bring
Dick's profession under the former charac-
ter, it is probable they would suspend his
labours, by suspending himself! But the
156 JOUN MANESTY.
Georgia and the Carolina people arc not so
particular. As for hunting a vessel there,
you may as well hunt a mouse upon Salis-
bury plain ; the Bayons, as they call them,
are scattered through the sea in hundreds,
and it would take the British navy to
follow a vessel. So Dick brings his goods
there, and sells them to the planters on
both sides of the river; and as the colonies
are new, and hands wanted, he need never
look long for a market."
" It must be a queer sight," said Sir
Eoger Saddleworth, " to see men sold at a
market. How do they go?"
" By weight," said Dick ; ''I have
weighed a good many of them."
" IIoAV do you sell?" asked Sir Koger.
'' Just as you sell a beast in York Mar-
JOHN MANESTY. 157
ket. The fair way is to say at once,
' Round and sound, a dollar a pound.' "
" How muck is that, Dick ?" said Lord
Randy.
" About three guineas a stone," was the
reply. " Thirty to thirty-live pounds an
average man."
" A capital price," said Sir Theobald.
'* Let us sell Sam, he is asleep; or as Dick
is growing prosy in his stoi'ies, let us enliven
the day by putting up our relations. Here
goes for Lord Silverstick !"
" You wont get much for him, if bought
by the pound," said Lord Randy, smiling;
" he's too thin. I know his weight well,
for I've pinched him tight pretty often;
but, by the bye, if you could catch him
just now, and sell him with his coach and
158 JOUN MANESTY.
six, and his little attorney, and the bag of
guineas he has got under the cushion, you
would not make such a bad bargain."
"You don't mean that," said Hibble-
thwaite, with some vivacity.
" I do mean it," said Lord Randy. " I
know that he has at least a couple of thou-
sand guineas with him, divided into those
nice little bags, labelled with the charming
inscription of — ' £200' peeping out of their
corners."
" I certainly," said Sir Theobald, " would
like to settle a few accounts I owe Master
Shark."
" And I," said Sam, " would like to settle
some accounts I owe many other people.
Here's bad luck to them — the dunning
villains !"
JOHN MANESTY. 169
The inferior portion of the company had,
by this time — it had now reached three
o'clock — thinned gradually away, overcome
by beef, beer, and tobacco ; and the parlour
guests were almost alone. They too had,
under the same influences, decreased to a
small number, consisting principally of the
gentlemen already introduced to the reader.
Broken-nosed Bob was smoking his pipe in
silence, ruminating, in all probability, on
the day he had fought Broughton; — Sam
had fallen asleep with his glass in hand,
empty, however ; — Lord Kandy, all life and
spirits, seemed as if he was just beginning
to spend the evening ; — Sir Roger Saddle-
worth, on the contrary, considerably mud-
dled with all he had swallowed and smoked,
looked, from having turned his peruke the
160 JOHN MANESTY.
wrong way, as if he were about to close it ;
— Sir Tlieobakl, upon whom no potation
could by any possibility take effect, ready for
anything; — and Dick Hibblethwaite, who
appeared to have had a long ride, and was
rather jaded; but he revived at the last
words of Lord Kandy, and with something
like vivacity said —
" What is he going to do with all that
money, and that lawyei', Kandy ? I hope it
is for you, as that will pay me part of the
eight hundred that are over due."
" I don't think it will come to me," re-
turned Lord Randy. " Dick, you have not
yet forgotten the vulgarity of your commer-
cial education. The money is for use; it is
to complete the purchase of Park Holme,
which I have directed to be put up, ten days
JOHN MANESTY. 161
hence. He thinks I don't know who is to
be purchaser, as if I and old Lanty Latitat,
as "we call him, had no communication on
such subjects. This week's work, one with
another, including this morning, has cost me
more than half a thousand guineas, and that,
you know, must be met."
" It is a pity," said Dick, " that so much
money as that should be rolling along the
road, with so very little care taken of it."
" That's the opinion of your friend, Dick
Hoskins," said Sir Theobald. "Faith!
your ancestors or my own. Sir Koger, would
have had very little scruple in easing our
friend's father of the responsibility of such a
charge, and taking it into their own keeping
in a strong castle."
"Ah, the good old times!" said Dick.
1C)2 JOHN MANESTY.
" But tliey rob nowhere now, except further
up towards Loudon, on the road, and in the
ways of business; in these parts, at the
Exchange of Liverpool, and all other ex-
changes that ever I was upon. But, seri-
ously, I should like some of that money,
Lord Randy, as I am very short, and I have
lost fifty-four yellow-boys, to pay here, —
pay one of the hundreds to-morrow ?"
" Pay it yourself, to-night, out of the
money that is in the coach, before it comes
to me," said Lord Randy; "for that's your
only chance of getting any of it. How far
off did you leave the earl?"
" I should say, by his style of travelling
— ^five miles an hour, and stopping at every
inn — he must now be about three-quarters
of an hour off."
JOHN MANESTY. 163
" Horse and away, then, my boys !" said
Lord Randy; "you can't do any harm hy
frightening an old fellow. I'll ride the other
way, for I can't be in it myself, as he was
my mother's husband, whatever relation he
may be to me."
His lordship then went to the window,
and throwing it up, said —
"Armstrong, my horse!" then turning
round to Sir Robert Saddleworth and Sir
Theobald, added, with a laugh — " Gentle-
men, don't disgrace your ancestors! and
Dick, as a matter of business, I shall expect
one of the bills back to-morrow, cancelled.
Broken-nosed Bob, for due value of myself,
Samuel the Thirsty, and other persecuted
Christians, to your care I entrust little
Snap, the attorney; give him what you
164 JOHN MANESTY.
boiiglit of Brougliton, and remember the
glorious clay you fought the Bruiser !"
" On that (lay " said Bob.
" No matter now," cried Lord Eandy ;
" my horse is at the door. Dick, pay the
bill." And thus saying, the volatile noble-
man emei'ged from the apartment, and in a
moment afterwards, the clattering of his
horse's hoofs were heard upon the Northern
Koad.
JOHN MANESTY. 165
CHAPTER VIII.
A DISCIPLE OP CHESTERFIELD — A HIGHWAY
ROBBERY IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS.
The stately horses of the stately carriage of
the stately Lord Silverstick were moving at
a stately pace towards the good town of
Preston. Preston itself, proud as it is
called, could not have been prouder than the
equipage that was moving towards it. The
coach was heavy, square-cornered at the
top, and conical at the bottom, lumg upon
166 JOHN MANESTY.
some indescribable frame for tormenting
horses, harnessed heavily, and driven by a
coachman, of whom a three-cornered hat,
and a red nose, were the chief character-
istics. The party inside consisted of a small,
dapper, elegantly thin, and carefully-dressed
elderly gentleman. Lord Silverstick, and his
lordship's companion, a still smaller man,
with a very weasel-expression of face, whose
name was Snap, and whose business that of
an attorney ; he was his lordship's man of all
work. There was a strong perfume of musk
in the coach, and his lordship held in his
hand a volume bound in blue paper, which,
we believe, was Dodsley's last miscellany.
" As my Lord Bishop of Gloucester says,"
remarked Lord Silverstick, "in his truly
sagacious and erudite notes upon Shaks-
JOHN MANESTY. 167
peare, '■ The art of a critic, in some sort,
transcends the genius of a poet.' So I,
Mr. Snap, in my last conversation with my
elegant friend Lord Chesterfield, remarked
that gout, or as you, unacquainted with the
language of the refined world, might call it,
taste, shews itself at present far superior to
the false and barbarous notions of a Homer,
or a Shakspeare. The best judges "
Snap, who, for the last fifteen miles, not
understanding a word of the subject, had
thought it better to be silent, now saw at
last a chance, and chimed in, — " Lord
Mansfield, my lord, and "
"Ah, I know what you are going to
observe," said the earl, smiling, " as Mr.
Pope has it —
" ' How sweet an Ovid was in Murray lost.'
1G8 JOHN MANESTr.
But it was not of tliose judges I was speak-
ing, Mr. Snap, but of critical judges, whose
opinion it is that the Henriade of Monsieur
De Voltaire, wliich commences with —
" ' Je chant ce hcros qui regne sur la France ;'
but it is needless to go on quoting a poem
which must be engraven on the memory of
every man of taste. I have just come from
Leasowes, where I left the amiable Mr.
Shenstone. He has put many beautiful
things on his grounds "
" Three mortgages, to my knowledge,"
said Snap.
" I did not mean," said the earl, smiling
benignly, " to allude to those temporary in-
cumbrances, which are the fate of all men
of genius ; but how beautiful are his inscrip-
JOHN MANESTY. 169
tions ! Dr. Hurd — he is the author of an
Essay on Mutation, and between you and me
— but do not mention it, Snap — is marked
for a speedy bishopric, as a small recom-
pence for liis talents in orthodoxy — had
some connexion in ornamenting these vistas
with their characteristic inscriptions. Do
you remember the epitaph on Miss Dolman?"
" I do," said Snap, "perfectly well; but
forget it at this present moment."
" It is beautiful," said his lordship ; "Lord
Chesterfield pronounced it sublime. I wrote
it — Mr. Shenstone he had it printed — and
I assure you it is much admired.
" * Heu qiianto minus est cum aliis versari quam
tui meminisse.' "
" Yes," said Snap, " it is fine Latin. I
VOL. I, I
170 JOHN MANESTY.
am pretty sure tlie passage is quoted in
Coke upon Lyttleton."
His lordship looked with compassion
upon his man of business. " It is not,"
said he, " in that celebrated legal work.
As I was saying, the Earl of Chesterfield,
who is the most elegant man in London,
much admires Leasowes. Taste, my dear
sir — taste is everything."
" Of course, my lord," said Snap, " I
have not the honour of knowing the dis-
tinguished nobleman of whom your lord-
ship is speaking ; but I have heard that
he is, in some respects, a dissipated cha-
racter."
" My dear sir," said the earl, throwing a
compassionate look on his companion, " you
must make allowances for the diiferent ranks
JOHN MANESTY. 171
of life ; as the bard of Avon ruggedly ex-
presses it —
" ' That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Wliich in the soldier is flat blasphemy ;'
so refined gallantry must not be confounded
with low intrigue, or the amour of a noble-
man with the debauchery of a cobbler. A
degree of refinement is now spreading itself
through all ranks of life; and the fop-
peries of what is called religion, seem to be
pretty well understood among those ranks
that have a right to think. 'If,' as my
friend Lord Chesterfield observes, ' a gentle-
man brings superior skill or experience to
bear upon basset or whist, such methods,
whatever the vulgar may think of appro-
priating to himself the purses of the less
i2
172 JOHN MANESTY.
skilful in the less venturous, will not, by
any man trained in the proper seminaries
of elegance and refinement, he confounded
with the vulgar ' "
" Stand and deliver!" said a sharp voice,
accompanied by the music of a muzzle of a
pistol, dashing through the pane of the
window glass ; and a smart and active figure
galloping up on a light sorrel nag was visible
to the startled gaze of the elegant earl and
his companion, now quite awakened.
The dull fall of a postillion knocked off
the leaders ; the sudden jerk of the horses
quickly pulled up ; the rush of four or five
horses to the door; the instantaneous flight
of the attendants, sufiiciently indicated that
the Earl of Silverstick was now in the hands
of the Philistines. Snap curled himself up
JOHN MANESTY. 173
in an agony of terror ; but to clo his lord-
sliip justice, lie did not lose his politeness,
and scarcely his elegant self-possession, even
for a moment. The door was now thrust
open by a tall, stout fellow, who, without
another word, seized Snap by the back of
the neck, and dragged him out of the car-
riage, shaking him by the neck and throw-
ing him on the ground, as you may see a
Newfoundland dog serve a cat.
" You cursed lawyer," said he, "I only
wish the twelve judges, chancellor and all,
were here with you;" with which indignant
speech he flung Snap out into the centre of
the road.
Lord Silverstick, somewhat alarmed at
the fate of his companion, but still with
perfect self-possession, drew his sword, but
174 JOUN MANESTY.
an eJBfoctual pass was parried, or ratlier put
^^Ji ^y tlie riding whip of another brawny
ruffian, and the light weapon taken instantly
out of his hand. His lordship looked very
pale, but still smiled; and endeavoured,
though somewhat bunglingly, to turn off a
fine sentence on the surprising company by
which he was so suddenly surrounded.
"Gentlemen, your peculiarity of profes-
sion precludes the precision of etiquette.
You want my money — it is under this
cushion ; but for rudeness there is no excuse.
Use your victory with moderation. Lord
Chesterfield, on the day I met him — - — "
" That puts me in mind," said the man
who had torn his sword from him, " 6f the
day on which I fought "
The door on the other side opened
quickly —
JOHN MANESTY. 175
" My lord, I must trouble you to step
out," said the dashing wight that had first
come up, and this invitation was enforced
by the click of a pistol-lock. The old earl
stepped down rapidly. The money was
taken from the cushion in a moment, pos-
tillions and coachmen tied together neck
and heels on the coach-box, the earl re-
placed in the carriage with much polite-
ness, and the principal thieves retired to
consult, leaving the prisoners under the
guard of one of their brotherhood, who had
taken scarcely any share in these proceed-
ings, apparently from a peculiar tendency
to an oscillatory motion, which displayed
itself on his advancing.
Some five or six minutes elapsed before
they returned, during which period, in his
176 JOHN MANESTY.
most Chestcrficldian phrases, tlic earl ex-
pressed his sense of the extreme iinpolitc-
ness of the whole proceeding ; adding, how-
ever, cpigrammaticall}^, that the rudeness
of the principle, so far as he was concerned,
was alleviated by the politeness of the per-
formers. This remark appeared to touch
the mind of the worthy who had been left
on guard.
" Have you anything to drink in this
coach, old gentleman?" he said.
" I suppose my servants have not ne-
glected to place something of the kind
under the seats ; but, to my own knowledge,
I must confess I am ignorant."
" What an affected old jackass," thought
the guard; " I never could have been igno-
rant of anything of the kind : but I may as
JOHN MANESTY. 177
well try, and as the servants arc tied, I
may as well do butler myself." Fumbling
about tbe coacb, be soon found what be
wanted. " Here's your bealtb, old Silver-
stick," said be; "don't be down-bcartcd.
Toss off tbis yourself."
" Permit me to request you will be so
kind as to excuse me," said the earl, politely
declining the offered draught ; "I never
touch anything of the kind."
" 'Tis that that makes you so white and
so thin," said the other. " Drinking's the
only cure "
" Touch not the accursed thing," said a
beautifully loud voice at the coach window ;
" wine is a mocker — strong drink is raging."
And here a violent hiccup broke short
the quotation.
i3
178 JOHN MANESTY.
Not a word more passed ; but Lord Silver-
stick's guardian discharged the contents of
a pistol at the voice with an aim, which,
luckily for the quotcr of King Solomon,
was very remarkably unsteady. It served,
however, to change the interruption from
a sermon to a cry for mercy, which, with
the effects of the shot, brought the others
of the party immediately round the coach.
The custos of the party jumped out with
the discharged pistol in one hand, and the
bottle in the other. A single crack of the
whip from the more active of the party
sent the already frightened interloper flying
at the best of his speed.
JOHN MANESTi:. 179
CHAPTER IX.
VULGAR ROBBERY OBJECTIONABLE THE AMATEUR
HIGHWAYMAN TRACED THE PEER DISCOVEBS
HIS PLUNDERER.
Our gentlemen of the road, having decided
upon leaving nothing in Lord Silverstick's
carriage that was worth carrying away, now
hastened off to the " Bird and Baby," to
meet Lord Randy, leaving their trusty ally,
Dick Hibblethwaite, to watch over the fallen
earl and his attendants, and in due season
180 JOUN MANESTY.
to liberate them — gratitude to the son
prompting this gentlemanly tenderness for
the father.
A virtuous deed is rarely unrewarded;
and accordingly Dick was duly recompensed,
after the lapse of a few minutes, during
which he was arranging in his mind the
mode and order of emancipation consistent
with his own safety, by an elegant disserta-
tion in his lordship's best manner, on the
necessity of observing the rules of Chester-
field in every pursuit and relation of life,
lie lamented the extremely un-Chesterfieldiau
nature of the fracas. The loss of the
money, &c — this he was too polite to ex-
press concern for; he only felt pained by
the reflection that there had been so gross a
deviation from those established rules of
JOHN aiANESTY. 181
etiquette which even that dass of persons
vulgarly known as highwaymen could never
be pardoned for forgetting.
" Such a redeeming grace is there in the
principles of that great master, whom I
flatter myself I have the honour to follow,"
pursued the earl, "that I am not certain
but that a robber sedulously observing
them, might so far exalt himself in the esti-
mation of all cultivated minds "
But here, insensible to the exhortation,
Dick, who had liberated the postboys, un-
ceremoniously interrupted Lord Silverstick,
by announcing that his lordship was at that
instant free to depart, and lecture on polite-
ness in any county in Christendom. With
one touch of the spur he was out of sight,
leaving the earl to the contemplation of
182 JOHN MANESTY.
another breach of etiquette, — which was,
the deep sleep which had fallen upon Mr.
Snap, — that gentleman having taken advan-
tage of the discovery of a stray half-bottle
of brandy, to drink, in one overwhelming
draught, confusion to the robbers.
Roused by an intimation from his patron,
that to the " Bird and Baby," as the nearest
respectable inn, it had become desirable to
proceed. Snap in his turn delivered an
harangue, anticipatory, in a very small
voice, of the coming thunders of the law,
which presently brought the party to the
inn-door. Here, a sensation was instantly
produced; the landlord's profound respect
for his distinguished guest being succeeded
by a shock of horror at hearing the news of
the robbery; of which event the ostlers
JOHN MANESTY. 183
Spread the exciting intelligence so rapidly
through the house, that it penetrated like
air into the very apartment wherein the
chevaliers d^indiistrie, who had just before
been joined by the gallant Dick, were fes-
tively assembled.
Consternation was the feeling, and de-
parture was the word ; but unhappily, Dick
(such is the fate of good-nature) was recog-
nised by his voice, while ordering his horse,
by one of the ungrateful postillions whom
he had stayed behind to liberate. To de-
nounce him as one of the robbers was easy,
but to obtain credence in this case difficult.
The landlord was ready to swear to the
honour of his guest; and Dick was not
without many friends just then, ready to
render him a similar service. The postboy
184 . JOHN MANESTY.
was therefore laughed at, and the gay party
of horsemen took their departure.
But there was one person left behind —
besides the postboy — who silently believed
the tale, and admitted the identity. This
was no other than that zealous person,
whose exhortation to Sam Orton, touching
strong drink, had startled the party on the
highway, while the latter gentleman was
acting as guardian to Lord Silverstick. It
was Ebenezer — Ebenezer Rowbotham. The
strong suspicion, once lodged in the mind of
that moralist, was as good as gold to him—
and like gold, not to be lightly flung away.
First ascertaining the office held by Snap,
and the connexion between him and the
plundered nobleman, Ebenezer cautiously
intimated the existence of a secret j but as
JOHN BIANESTY. 185
to the nature of it, indeed, the impatient
and manifold questions of the lawyer elicited
no explanation.
" Verily," said the good man, "it is not
for a minister of peace to create confusion
and anarchy between the brethren on earth."
A bribe, however, after a little decent
delay, did its work, and the information
given led to the landlord being summoned
into the presence of the earl, his attorney,
and his witness. From mine host, the in-
quirers learnt the character of the company
and the events of the morning — involving a
mention of Hibblethwaite, and eliciting an
inquiry from Uowbotham as to his claim to
the appellation of " Gallows Dick." The
reply in the aflSrmative to this query, was
the signal for one of those vehement and
186 JOHN MANESTY.
fiery harangues by wliicli the distinguishing
designation of the orator, " Banting Row,"
had been so deservedly obtained.
Dick's enormities since he impiously
quitted the fold of Seal-street and the firm
of Manesty being duly celebrated, the host
completed his narrative of the movements of
his guests ; and at its conclusion, he having
intimated that the party of roysterers were
even then at a neighbouring inn, (a fact
which they had confided to him, that he
might send Lord Eandy after them on his
lordship's arrival,) Eowbotham and Snap
repaired to the hostelry in question, where
by simply secreting themselves near the
open window of a room in which a lively
conversation was being carried on, they,
after a due exercise of patience, in the
JOHN MANESTY. 187
easiest and most natural manner in the
world, became perfectly convinced that the
gentlemen- revellers were the robbers of the
earl, and that Lord Randy himself was not
wholly iinimplicated in an act of plunder,
more daring, if not more direct, than earls
usually experience at the hands of their
affectionate and duteous heirs.
With this news, the respectable pair of
listeners returned to the astonished and be-
wildered Lord Silverstick. That noble earl,
however, hearkened to the unpleasant tidings
with as much composure, and as conformably
to the strict rules of etiquette, as the great
Chesterfield himself could possibly have
done ; and then, by severe admonitions, and
much more effective appeals to that sense of
interest which was particularly strong in
188 JOUN MANESTY.
both Ills hearers, he prevailed upon them to
promise to observe silence touching this dis-
covery, and to suppress all mention of the
name of his sou, then and for ever, in relation
to so rude and vulgar a proceeding as a
highway robbery.
Handing a gratuity to the good Ebenezer,
he occupied his lawyer in drawing up a
deed, which, when completed, gave to Lord
Kandy the formal and perfectly legal posses-
sion (if he should happen to get it) of that
said sum of two thousand pounds, which it
was pretty clear, would never find its way
back into his own.
JOHN MANESTY. 189
CHAPTER X.
AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN FATHER AND SON DE-
BATE ON THE DIVISION OF THE BOOTY FATAL
DUEL, AND FLIGHT.
By this time, Lord Randy, according to
agreement made some hours previous, ar-
rived at the " Bird and Bahy ;" but instead
of the message which his flashy friends,
who liad flown so judiciously, had left for
liini in the landlord's keeping, that func-
tionary, obedient to a command of the
190 JOHN MANESTY.
earl's, apprised the new comer that a great
nobleman was anxious for an interview
with his lordship, and the next instant, a
valet, not unfamiliar to his eyes, intimated
that his father the earl desired his presence
up-stairs.
As soon as the young lord recovered his
breath, which fairly left him as this an-
nouncement entered his ears, he signified,
with all the grace he could muster, his
prompt compliance; and, ushered into the
presence of the dignified author of his
being, who received him with a stately
coolness, he formally tendered his condo-
lence to the earl on the unfortunate and
disgraceful event of which he professed to
have just cursorily heard below-stairs,
adding a fervent wish that his lordship
JOHN MANESTY. 191
would instantly suffer him to depart, that
he might endeavour to trace the villains,
and bring them to condign punishment.
" The only way," returned Lord Silver-
stick, with amiable composure, and a bland
smile — " the only way in which you can
effectually trace the villains to the bar of
justice, without incurring the degradation
of a midnight pursuit, to the utter sacrifice
of all personal dignity, would be by taking
upon yourself the honourable duty of play-
ing * king's evidence' on the occasion."
Lord Randy, all things considered, put
on a very creditable air of astonishment,
touched with a pretty expression of anger
at the unheard-of insinuation. He pro-
ceeded to descant on the topic of the wrong
thus done to him by his revered parent, in
192 JOHN MANESTY.
a manner so energetic, and witli such a
disorderly rapidity of utterance, that his
noble father was truly shocked.
" Lord Chesterfield," said he, quietly,
" whose law is the true code of all polite-
ness, never advocated force of expression or
hastiness of language. I must beg you,
therefore, to desist. I do not mind the
denial of your guilt, but your gesticulations
and rapid utterance offend me in the last
degree."
Lord Silverstick then explained how the
tale of plunder had been overheard, and by
whom— and the consequent necessity of the
assignment (already effected) of the stolen
sum to Lord Eandy, to stop the loquacity
of the lawyer and the saint.
" I would not," said the excellent Lord
Ml
JOHN MANESTY. 193
Silverstick, " have this affair transpire for
tlie world. Apart from the robbery, and
the immoral character of the parties, I
should be shocked that my Lord Chester-
field should ever hear that you had selected
for your companions such ill-mannered per-
sons, the greatest boors in Lancashire."
Poor Randy, clearly convicted, could deny
nothing ; but listened quietly while the earl
went on to explain that the two thousand
pounds thus stolen, was a sum intended
as the purchase-money of the estate which
Lord Randy intended to sell — that he
had designed originally, having bought
the property, to return it as a present to
his son— but that this parental pleasure he
must now forego, as his agent was unpre-
pared to meet another demand. His lord-
VOL. I. K
194 JOHN MANESTY.
ship suggested, however, hut in much
politer phraseology, that Lord Randy should
instantly set to work to secure to himself as
large a share of the plunder as he possihly
could ; and then taking leave of his son, as
Lord Chesterfield would have parted from
his, announced his intention of departing in
the morning on a visit which he designed
to do himself the pleasure of paying to his
cousin Sir Hildebrand Stanley, in Cheshire.
This meeting and parting were agreeable
neither to Snap nor Ebenezer. The former,
however, was comforted with the promise
of a large fee from Lord Randy, on con-
dition of prevailing upon the earl to com-
plete the purchase of the estate according
to the first arrangement; and the latter
was soothed with the reflection that he was
JOHN MANESTY. 195
pretty sure of obtaining a larger reward
from Manesty, for his secret affecting Dick
Hibblethwaite and his associates, than Lord
Silverstick had given him for his silence.
He determined, therefore, to sound Manesty
on the subject, and with that laudable pur-
pose in view, he started for Liverpool.
Before we can yet escape with the reader
into other company, which is awaiting us
elsewhere, we are constrained to follow Lord
Randy on his prudent mission to secure a
share of the booty — a share all the more
necessary to console him now that he had
discovered the melancholy fact, of which
Morality, not yet in full possession of its
estate, would do well to take especial notice,
that, in assenting to the robbery of his
father, he had been in reality the in-
k2
196 JOHN MAXESTY.
stigator of a robbery committed upon him-
self.
On repairing to the appointed place of
meeting, whicli he readily found the next
morning, he discovered the party reYiving
after their revel of the night, and was re-
ceived with a roar of welcome. They
described the glorious exploit, and dwelt
upon the golden gains with a feeling little
below rapture. He applauded their spirit,
their courage, their cleverness — vowed that
if instead of coming of gentle blood they
had all been born to be hanged, the affair
could not have been managed better; and
concluded by handsomely promising every
hero in company the sum of fifty pounds,
in token of admiration and esteem. But
.srenerous feelin.sr like this is not understood
JOHN :\UNEsiy. 197
in all companies, and a scene of extraor-
dinary confusion immediately ensued.
Let it be understood that this disorder
arose not in any degree from surprise at his
lordship's liberality, or reluctance to share
the money which they had received as his
agents; but from indicrnation at the insiir-=
nihcance of the per centage. Many mouths
were open, but only one voice came forth.
All in a breath asked him what he meant.
Sam Orton, moved in an extreme degi-ee by
the audacity of the case, felt compelled to
call for a tumbler of punch, and diink a
speedy downfal to all monopolists. Sir
Toby swore, Sh* Eoger stared, and Dick
was quite positive that his friend wa^
merely jesting — or had gone stark mad.
In vain did all together represent that his
108 JOHN MANESTY.
lordsliip had been perfectly safe, while they
ran all the risk, and that whether they gave
him a farthing, or a guinea, or nothing,
depended upon their friendship and gene-
rosity — although they had arranged pre-
viously to present him with a round five
hundred. This was in vain. Lord Randy
reminded them in reply, that if he chose
to give evidence, their necks were in jeo-
pardy — informed them of the intended ap-
propriation of the money, produced the
deed of assignment, and argued at such
length, that the day had drawn to an end
ere the quarrel rose to its height. This
came in the form of a challenge from Sir
Toby.
Sam Orton, seconded by an extra tumbler
of punch, acted as the second of the chal-
JOHN MANESTY. 190
lenger, and Dick Hibbletliwaite as the friend
of Lord Bandy. Swords were tlie weapons.
They met next morning in an adjoining
field, and the combat was long and skilfully
sustained, until, at length. Lord Randy,
pressed hard himself, but not desirous of
such success, terminated all Sir Toby's fol-
lies, vices, and vexations, by running him
through the heart. The poor baronet's
death was instantaneous, but not more quick
in coming than the consternation that sprang
up among the surviving group.
Li those days, duelling did not attract
quite so large a share of public attention
and anxiety, as in these later times it is apt
to do ; and a fatal rencounter would often
happen without creating any particular sen-
sation beyond the limits of the neighbour-
200 JOHN MANESTY.
hood witnessing it, or the family suffering
by its sad end. Yet all, nevertheless, agreed
that Lord Randy's only safe course consisted
in flight, and he himself was of the same
opinion. Dick Ilihblethwaite slipped his
share of the now blood-stained booty into
his hand, to meet present emergencies, and
hurried him off to Liverpool, there to lie
secreted until an opportunity for escape
should offer. With the other second he re-
mained upon the spot, to hear the coroner
issue his warrant for the apprehension of
the guilty absentee, and to put in bail to
answer for his own part in the sudden and
lamentable tragedy.
JOHN MANESTY. 201
CHAPTER XL
SIR HILDEBRAND S GUESTS — PROGRESS OP A SILENT
PASSION A RIVAL STARTS UP — TRUE LOVE's
GREATEST DIFFICULTY TO HOLD ITS TONGUE —
SOLID John's return.
Young Manesty continued, during the ab-
sence of his uncle, to be a frequent, indeed
a constant guest, of the good old master of
Eaglemont; Sir Ilildcbrand's attachment to
him being strengthened by experience of his
conduct and observation of his character.
202 JOHN MANESTY.
But by one dweller in that noble mansion —
so gossijDs, at least, would say — Hugh was
invariably met with a still warmer welcome,
though it never was trusted perhaps to
words ; and all might notice far more accu-
rately that the beautiful Mary Stanley
appeared to have no disrelish for the gentle
but manly discourse of the youthful visitor.
The baronet, little suspecting what other
eyes were seeing, or fancying they saw, cul-
tivated the young man's acquaintance ; not
dreaming, even, that any one connected with
trade could ever conceive the idea of an
alliance with his lofty house, but feeling
pleasure in opportunities of patronising the
nephew of one to whom he was under pecu-
niary obligations.
On one occasion, when he had joined, as
JOHN MANESTY. 203
lie frequently did in Sir Ilildebrand's field
sports, Hugh's horse stumbled and threw
him. His hurt appeared serious, and he
was carried to the hall with sorrow depicted
on every countenance. As they bore him
in, there was an arrival at the hall-door —
a guest of some distinction of presence, who
was warmly greeted by the sorrowing master
of the mansion, and much less warmly —
with marked coldness rather — even amidst
the agitation and distress which the accident
to Hugh had occasioned — by its youthful
mistress.
The new comer, the first ceremonials of
greeting over, inquired relative to the in-
valid ; and on learning his name, an expres-
sion of anything but pleasure passed over
his face. Having ascertained that the young
201< JOHN MANESTY.
guest was related to " Solid Jolin," the
questions rather pointedly addressed were,
— how long tlicy had been acquainted with
him, how often he visited, how long he
stayed — and the closing remark, conveyed
in a quiet and subdued voice, was, an inti-
mation of his surprise that such a person
should for a moment have been allowed to
remain an inmate at Eaglemont !
The person thus arriving, and exhibiting
with so little disguise his unfavourable
opinion of Hugh, was Colonel Stanley, a
nephew of Sir Ilildebrand. Whatever sense
of family importance might attach to the
race of the Stanleys, Avas to the very full
participated in by the colonel, who inherited
besides, an aptitude for not under-rating in
any degree his own personal merits. He
JOHN MANESTY. 205
had but a slender stock of that suavity
which throws such a grace on aristocracy ;
nor was his character or bearing rendered
more amiable by his professional associations,
or his pursuits in the gay world, which were
of a somewhat bold and dissipated turn even
in the first flush of youth — a flush that
might now be said to have partially faded.
Colonel Stanley took up his residence at
the hall; and if those people who always
will be talking, imagined symptoms of
attachment on the part of Hugh to Mary
Stanley, they might have spoken freely,
without any influence of the imagination,
of the passion with which it was evident she
had, in a very short time indeed, inspired
the colonel. His attentions to her became
marked and constant; and the military
20G JOHN MANESTY.
lover bad, it was quite clear, the favouring
wishes, or at least the quiet approval of
Sir Hildebrand himself.
But this was all. The decided coolness
with which he had at first been received by
the beautiful object of his adoration and
his hopes, never warmed upon any occasion
into cordiality; and formal politeness was,
and promised to be, the only return accorded
to his passion.
Hugh Manesty, in the meantime, operated
upon, perhaps, as beneficially by the con-
stant inquiries vouchsafed by Mary, as by
the measures taken by the surgeon, recovered
rapidly, and again made his appearance in
the family circle. The necessary introduc-
tion to Colonel Stanley took place, and was
characterized by extreme restraint and
JOHN MANESTY. 207
hauteur on the part of the high-born officer
— a manner which Hugh was not slow to
observe, though cautious in interpreting.
The cause of the evident dislike with
which he was regarded, soon flashed upon
his understanding, when Hugh discerned the
apparent object of the colonel's visit, and
the designs which he cherished with respect
to Miss Stanley. Something in Hugh's
heart — a feeling not tinctured by vanity or
presumption in the least — told him that he
himself, though he could hardly dare hope
to be a dangerous rival, might nevertheless
be looked upon as one by the restless and
suspicious eyes of Mary's relative and
admirer.
It was this discovery, and the surmise
which followed it, that determined him to
208 JOHN MANESTY.
be totally blind if possible to the cold in-
diflference, or even tlic marked rudeness, of
Colonel Stanley; and Avitliout forfeiting his
own self-respect, to win the regard of others
rather by the exercise of a superior sense,
than an impatient and resentful spirit, in
his unavoidable intercourse with his friend's
guest.
Thus matters stood when Lord Silver-
stick arrived at Eaglemont, to gild the
refined gold of the polite circle assembled
there. The incident aiforded a diversion
for a moment to the antipathy which Colonel
Stanley continued to display, and which
soon settled with almost equal earnestness
upon the earl himself, whose exquisite
notions of politeness clashed fatally with
his own, and threw into awkward relief his
uncourteous and intolerant demeanour.
JOHN MANESTY. 209
Lord Silverstick was too sensitive on all
such points not to notice tliis peculiarity in
the military member of the Stanley family ;
and was, for the same reason perhaps, struck
with the true politeness and sensible spirit
of Hugh Manesty, towards whom he soon
evinced a partiality. This, on the other
hand, had its influence upon the slighted
son of trade, who, seeing the earl's good-
breeding and complaisance to all, while
they were particularly manifested towards
himself, observed at the same time the
peculiar foible of the old nobleman, and
rather than hurt his feelings by needless
contradiction, bent to the humour which he
found amusing as well as amiable.
The good understanding between these
two opposite persons, to say nothing of the
progress which both had very palpably
210 JOHN MANESTY.
made in the good graces of the fair creature
to whom he was assiduously paying court,
stung Colonel Stanley as often as he wit-
nessed proofs of it. It inflamed his feeling
of jealousy and aversion to Hugh, and gave
to his jeers and taunts, when these could
be quite safely hazarded, a sharper point
and a more inveterate aim. He affected,
where he could, to laugh at the " toadyism"
of the young trader, and pityingly remarked
that it was natural such a person should pay
his court to a Lord Silverstick, with the
view of obtaining a securer footing in re-
spectable society.
The object of these insults was quite un-
able all this time to guess at their extent.
What he knew of them he seemed totally
indifferent to, choosing, in consistency with
JOHN MANESTY. 211
his resolution, to avoid the colonel, and
address him but upon compulsion, rather
than by an open rupture hasten his depar-
ture, and doom himself to take a final fare-
well of the Stanley family— in other words,
of kind, gracious, and enchanting Mary.
While he thus steadily persevered, it was
plain that Colonel Stanley was, by his un-
scrupulous, yet often insidious, attacks on
the young man, destroying every hope of
improving his suit with Miss Stanley, while
her sympathy for Hugh as naturally in-
creased. Yielding to her father's wishes,
and caught in the nets which the colonel
was incessantly spreading, she was obliged
too frequently to have her disagreeable
cousin for her companion in her daily rides.
Sir Ilildebraud insisting upon retaining the
212 JOHN MANESTY.
genial company of Hugh, wlio was rarely
permitted to be alone with her for a
moment.
Sometimes, however, to escape the colonel,
she would propose to accompany the earl
in his daily drive ; and then it was that she
never failed to experience a throb of inward
delight, in listening to an elaborate contrast
drawn between the un-Chesterfielddike rude-
ness of her cousin, and the polite manners
of her father's young visitor, of whose strik-
ing resemblance to somebody or other — (the
name, influenced possibly by some instinct
or maxim of politeness, the earl never men-
tioned) — whom he had the honour of know-
ing in his youth.
More than once he cautioned her, in a
grave but delicate manner, against thinking
JOHN MANESTY. 213
of a union with Colonel Stanley, assuring
her that Sir Hildebrand would never pro-
mote such an alliance if he knew it to be
contrary to her wishes ; and more than
once, in trembling but yet earnest maidenly
tones, did Miss Stanley assure him that her
feelings towards her cousin had singularly
little resemblance to those of love. It was
for this reason, perhaps, that Lord Silver-
stick continued to suspect that she secretly
favoured the inclinations of the colonel.
The good baronet, in the meantime, grew
more in love with the design he had formed
the union of Mary with his nephew ; and
in one of his morning rambles, brooding
upon the thought, with Hugh Manesty for
his companion, he suddenly opened up his
whole mind upon the subject to that agi-
214 JOHN MANESTY.
tated young gentleman himself. Hugh,
true to the promise he had made to his
uncle at their separation, was silent — though
his heart swelled almost to bursting with its
precious secret — regarding his own attach-
ment ; yet, with parched lips, and in uneasy
tones, he ventured to suggest that Miss
Stanley, if undesirous of such an alliance,
should never be coerced ; and with an inti-
mation that her earthly happiness might
possibly be destroyed merely to secure her
cousin's, excused himself from further con-
verse on so delicate a subject.
Breaking from the baronet, to spare him-
self a further trial of his resolution, Hugh
encountered Lord Silverstick. Strange to
say, that nobleman was in search of him,
intent on gratifying his particular dislike
JOHN MANESTY. 215
of the brusque manners of the colonel, by
engaging his young friend in some fair plot
for preventing the match, unless, indeed,
which he feared was the case, the lady was
already entangled to some extent by her
wily cousin. This fear disconcerted poor
Manesty more than the hopes of Sir Hilde-
brand had done ; and with less outward
observance of the earl's maxims of etiquette
than usual, he started off suddenly, deter-
mined to seek some early opportunity of
touching tenderly on a subject now so
openly spoken upon — of introducing it even
in Mary's own presence, and to her ear
only.
Nor — for true love runs very smoothly
sometimes — was such an opportunity long
wanting. The light air and tone which he
216 JOHN MANESTY.
assumed, wlicn tlie moment came and tlie
subject was glanced at, could not for a
single moment conceal tlie earnestness of
the feeling with which he spoke, and Avhich
redeemed every word he uttered from in-
delicacy or presumption. By Miss Stanley,
at least an equal earnestness was openly ex-
pressed, without the pretence of conceal-
ment — a bright flush upon her brow pro-
claimed her indignation that any idea of
her contemplating such an alliance should
have arisen ; and the decision of her tone —
most musical, but now not most melancholy
to the ear of Hugh — sealed, beyond all
question, the destiny of her gallant cousin
and wooer.
The feeling of delight in Hugh's heart
could not but lighten up his face. It flashed
JOHN MANESTY. 217
at once into his eyes — and as those of Miss
Stanley turned and met their expressive
gaze, he felt that he had almost violated a
sacred promise ; while, so well did she un-
derstand that look that she almost fancied
his voice had accompanied it, making the
same confession.
Yet not a word was spoken ; not a hint,
not a whisper of what was doubtless throbbing
in the hearts of both, passed between them ;
and Hugh departed for Liverpool, satisfied
with the glory and pain of his silence, and
caring less than ever for the contempt of
the colonel.
His visits to Eaglemont were too welcome
to Sir Ilildebrand, and of course too de-
lightful to himsell", not to be continued at
short intervals. At each repetition, he
VOL. I. L
218 JOHN MANESTY.
found the same tokens of untiring passion
displayed, the same advantages enjoyed,
by the colonel; and, of course, although
pretty confident that the enemy was unsuc-
cessful still, he was not wholly free from
those fits of superfluous trembling and alarm,
those spasms of jealous apprehension, which
age after age have formed a portion of the
private property of every lover placed in an
embarrassing position. One device he gladly
availed himself of — one little means of con-
veying to Mary some explanation of his
strange conduct, without breaking a particle
of his promise to John Manesty. The grand
county ball was just approaching.
" Mind, Hugh," observed the old baronet,
in a bantering vein, to his young friend.
Miss Stanley being then and there present,
JOHN MANESTY. 219
" there are to be many beauties at this ball,
and I advise you to look with both eyes in
all directions. Depend on it, with that
gallant air and winning speech of yours, a
partner may be made prize of, to last you
longer than the night."
If the face of the young lady, who was
just then leaning, with the most natural
grace in the world, over the back of her
father's chair, betrayed, by smile, or blush,
or downcast look, any sign of her having
heard the remark, Hugh Manesty beheld it
not. His eyes were bent in an opposite
direction, as, with admirable readiness, he
said, after a pause —
" I should not, believe me, have been so
long apparently insensible to the charms of
the Cheshire damsels, had not my uncle
l2
220 JOHN MANESTY.
been cruel enough to make me promise not
to be tempted into the solicitation of any
lady's hand in marriage for the space of
three years. One, only one year of this
probationary term has expired. I must
even submit for the remainder of the time
to be deemed heartless, and insensible to
the dazzling beauty of the Lancashire
witches — to the exquisite feminine softness
of the lovely dames of Cheshire."
This was uttered rather happily, with a
seemingly easy air, which was, nevertheless,
extremely hard for the young speaker to
assume. He then ventured to add, in a
tone rather deepened, and with a glance at
Mary, momentary, but not unobservant —
" Although, if my heart could but be
read, it might perhaps tell a different — a
far different tale,"
JOHN MANESTY. 221
There were, ou that occasion, no more
words, and no more looks; but from the
hoiu', thenceforward, a different, a more
assured and consistent idea, took possession
of Miss Stanley's mind, and her demeanour
to her father's visitor was ever alike-
cordial, friendly, hut disengaged. A quiet
and intelligent confidence, approaching to
happiness, took possession of both ; and so
they continued to meet and to part, until
one day when on a visit at the abode
wherein his soul always dwelt though he
were absent in person, Hugh's parting was
a sudden one ; — he was sununoned to Liver-
pool to meet his uncle, John Manesty, on
his return from Jamaica.
I
JOHN MANESTY, 22
o
CHAPTER XII.
A SECOND DEPARTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES.
When Manesty, after nearly a year's ab-
sence, returned, there was no alteration iu
his conduct. He arrived on the first of
October, as it might be, and on the second,
was at desk and 'Change as usual. He
had not been as successful as he had wished,
in winding up the affairs of Brooklyn
Royal, but they wore a better aspect than
when ho had left Liverpool. He sincerely
224 JOHN MANESTY.
wislied that lie was out of the concern alto-
gether, but he did not see his way clearly as
yet. During his absence, the industry and
energy of his nephew had done everything
that he could desii'e, and the affairs of the
firm were more prosperous than ever. His
own expedition, too, had made an amend-
ment in its sorest quarter, and what had
been for some years a matter of rare occur-
rence, or rather of no occurrence, it had
yielded some return. He took his place
without ceremony among the merchants of
Liverpool; and the vacancy occasioned by
the absence of " Manesty and Co." upon
'Change, was, to the great delight of Robin
Shuckleborough, filled up by the substantial
apparition of its representative.
So things waxed and waned; but again a
JOHN MANESTY. 225
cloud came over the spirit of Manesty.
" This West Indian estate," said he to his
nephew, " will make me mad. Here is
another troublesome thing, which can be
managed by me alone."
" Cannot I go?" asked Hugh, inquiringly.
The uncle paused for a moment, and
looked sadly in his face.
" No, dear Hugh, you cannot. The as-
sociations which our family, or at least my
family, has with the Antilles, are anything
but agreeable; and you would there learn
much that would grieve you. And without
wishing to confound you with that scape-
grace Richard Hibblethwaite, I cannot forget
that he was sent out there a youth of much
promise, and you see what he is. He learned
it all in the West Indies. I do not say, my
T O
L o
226 JOHN MANESTY.
dear iieplicw, you would follow so pernicious
an example; but I do not wish that the
same risk should be run again. I'll go my-
self, but this shall be the last time. I'll
now wash my hands of it altogether."
Hugh was well aware that remonstrance
was vain; and perhaps the young mer-
chant was not very seriously disinclined to
take upon himself the dignity of so wealthy
a house, or to be disencumbered of the
watchful eye of his uncle. Again, then,
Manesty went, and was again absent for the
same space of time. Things had been more
prosperous during the last year, in point of
money matters ; but what seemed to please
him most was, that he had now certainly
arranged to free himself on fair and con-
scientious terms of the plantation.
JOHN MANESTY. 227
" I thought," said he, " my last visit was
to conclude ; there must be one more, and
then I am free from the nuisance alto-
gether."
Another year, and the parting visit to
Brooklyn was to be paid.
" There are footpads and mounted high-
waymen on the road, dear uncle," said
Hugh, as they were discussing the contin-
gencies of the journey. " A man was
robbed close by Grantham, three weeks ago.
Had not you better wait until you can get
company to travel on this dreary road from
Liverpool to London? Mr. Buckleborough
and his brother are about to start with two
servants, in three days from this, could not
you wait to join them? or, though Ayl-
ward's coach is tedious enough in all con-
228 JOUN MANESTY.
science, yet in these dark nights, I think
anything is better than riding alone such a
wearisome way."
" Are not the parts of Mentor and Tcle»
machus somewhat reversed in this case?"
said the ekler Manesty, smiling as much as
his features could be persuaded to do.
" Fear not for me. I am no longer young;
but he would be a highwayman of some
enterprise, who would come within reach of
this hand, and if he employed other weapons
than those whicli nature gives, — there, too,"
he continued, opening a pistol-case, " I am
not unprepared to match with the lawless."
" But it is said that there arc gangs on
the road, and "
" And I must use care and precaution to
avoid them. That leave to me. If I fall
JOHN MANESTY. 229
in their way, I fear me, I should be much
more embarrassed by the presence than by
the absence of worthy Mr. Buckleborough
and his companions of the road."
He mused for awhile. "It is the last
time, Hugh — positively the last time — that
I make this voyage, which, except that it
has been, in a certain sense, advantageous in
money matters, was always hateful to me.
You have kept— honourably kept, the pro-
mise you made to me almost three years ago.
Do not speak, Hugh ! Perhaps many months
will not elapse, when, if I find that what id
now floating through your fancy is in reality
fixed in your heart, you will find that though
I cannot fill up your dreams of romance^
I may assist you in turning your just desires
and wishes into reality. But you do not
230 JOHN MANESTY.
know what is the bar between you and the
lady of your regard, of whom it would be
mere ajQfectation on my part if I pretended
to remain ignorant."
"A bar, uncle!" said Hugh. "A bar!
— what bar? There can be no bar !"
" Rest quiet for a few months," replied
the uncle ; " and if you then wish to marry
her on whom your heart is now fixed
But I am very sleepy, and must start early
in the morning. Good night, Hugh; you
will find everything ready for your daily
business. May God bless you!" he con-
tinued, pressing his hands upon the glossy
head of his nephew, " and now retire. I
write from London."
Hugh imagined that the hands of his
uncle, as he gave him the parting benedic-
JOHN MANESTY. 231
tion, were hot and feverish, and that some-
thing like an approximation to a tear trem-
bled in his stony eye; he made the usual
valedictions, and left the room. Something
in his uncle's manner told him that the
abandonment of this worrying West Indian
property, was to be the precursor of his
giving up business altogether ; that the heir
of the baronetage of Wolsterholme might
reclaim under Whig auspices the honours
that Tory politics had lost ; that the riches
of Pool-lane might resuscitate the former
glories of the manor-house and estate so
unaccountably purchased and retained by
his uncle; that let but a few months pass,
everything would be as his heart could wish;
that Mary Stanley . In thinking of
all which, he fell fast asleep, to dream of
232 JOHN MANESTY.
what Eobiii would have called its last
item.
His uncle did not go to sleep. " I have
much to do," muttered he to himself, " and
much to think of. Never again " lie
rang a hell, and a servant instantly ap-
peared.
" Bring hot water, and tumblers, Seth,"
he said, " and pipes, with tobacco from the
canisters marked, B.B. 2-1. I believe the
rum is in the cupboard — see if it is ; and
the sugar, and the lemons. They are so.
Has the old man come?"
" Near an hour ago," said Seth, fervently,
" he hath been testifying to us in the count-
ing-house."
" He is aged," said Manesty, " and re-
quires these comforts; I want them not.
Tell him I am alone."
JOHN MANESTY. 233
Seth zealously complied, and iu a few
minutes Aminadab the Ancient sate by the
board of John ^lanesty. The old man — he
was near ninety — remained not long; but
long did his host muse on what he had said.
In the morning, day-dawn saw him on his
route for London.
JOHN MANESTY, 235
CHAPTEK XIII.
THE RETURN— AND THE ACCUSATION.
Three or four months after his return,
Manesty was one Sunday after service seated
on the top of the steps leading to his house,
and enjoying as much of sun as the struc-
ture and atmosphere of Pool-lane permitted
to enter into its gloomy recesses, while he
calmly smoked his pipe. His solid features
rarely permitted any expression of what was
passing within to escape ; but he seemed to
23G jonr^ manesty.
he ill a mood of peculiar calmness. He was
completely alone, and few passengers dis-
turbed the silence of tlie way.
He was drawn from the abstraction of
thoughts, whatever they might have been,
by the noisy voice of a drunken man. He
looked in the direction whence it proceeded,
and saw a very tipsy sailor, scarcely able to
stand, staggering towards his house, uttering
senseless oaths and idle imprecations, as he
pursued his unsteady course. This was no
more a strange sight in Liverpool, in the
opening days of the reign of George the
Third, than it is in these of his grand-
daughter — and ]\Ianesty paid it small atten-
tion. The sailor, however, made his way
up to the steps on which the merchant was
sitting, and after looking upon him for a
JOHN MANESTY. 237
moment with the lack-lustre and wandering
glance of drunkenness, steadied himself by
grasping the rails, and exclaimed, with a
profusion of oaths, which we decline repeat-
ing—
"It is he ! I can't be mistaken ; no —
not ' in a hundred years. I say, old chap,
tip us your fist."
"I think," said Manesty, gravely, "friend,
that you might have been employing your
Sabbath more graciously."
" More graciously !" hiccuped forth the
drunken sailor; " why, I have employed it
as graciously as yourself I saw you cruis-
ing into the preaching shop in Seal-street,
and I said, it is he. But I was not sure, so
I went in among the humbugs, and there
were you with a psalm-singing phiz, rated
238 JOHN MANESTY.
high among the ship's company of the crazy
craft."
" I think you had better get to bed,
friend," said Manesty. " I certainly was in
Seal-street, listening to the prayers and
sermon of Mr. If you were there,
they appear to have had but little eflfect
upon you. At all events, pass quietly on
your way; I am not a person easily to be
trifled with, and I know you not."
" But I know you," said the drunken
sailor; "and "
" It is very possible," said Manesty.
" And if you do, you know me as a man of
some authority and command in Liverpool ;
and if further annoyed, I may find the
means of keeping you quiet, until your
sense, if you have any, returns. Pass on."
JOHN MANESTY. 239
The sailor looked up the lane and down,
with all the caution of tipsy cunning. It
was perfectly clear. No person was to be
seen but themselves.
" Pass on !" said he, " but I will not
pass on, until you and I have had a glass
together. Command in Liverpool, have
you? Ay! devil doubt! You have com-
mand wherever you go."
" You are becoming unbearable," said
Manesty. " I shall call my servant to
fetch a constable."
" Fetch a constable !" said the sailor,
bursting into an uncontrollable fit of
laughter. " Fetch him, by all means, my
old boy. I know the ground where you
would not be in such a hurry to send for
constables. Zounds! to think that Bob
Blazes should be sent to quod by "
240 JOHN MANESTY.
Here again he looked up and down tlie
street, and still they were alone as before.
" Sent to qnod," continued he, in an
undertone, '' by Dick Iloskins."
" I find," said IManesty, quietly, " that I
must rid myself of this nuisance. Friend,
the only excuse, such as it is, for your gross
impertinence, is your drunkenness. Ileze-
kiah," said he, speaking through the
window, " go over to the castle, and tell
Steels, the head constable, or any of his
people who may be in attendance there, to
come to me at once. I want their assist-
ance."
Hezekiah was soon seen issuing forth
upon the errand, and the rage of the sailor
seemed to be aroused.
'' So Hezekiah is the name of the master-
JOHN MANESTY. 241
at-arms now. I remember when it was
Bloody Bill — many a long league off.
You'll get rid of me, you say ; I don't doubt
it a bit, commodore. I am not the first
who stood in your way you got rid of.
But this an't no way to hail a hand as has
stuck by you in thick and thin. What,
d'ye think I'd peach ? I comed in all love
and friendship ; and you might have walked
the quarter-deck among them snufile-snouted
land-pirates, without a word from Bob
Blazes. But as you are a-calling for beaks
and law-sharks, there's an end. I shake
my feet off the dust, as I heard the lubber
say to-day, in the hencoop where he was
boxed. It an't quite convenient for me
this blessed minute to be grabbed for any-
thing nohow, so I'll be off from your plant
■ VOL. I. M
242 JOHN MANESTY.
in time ; but you may be sure that it wont
be long before all the Mersey knows that
Mr. John Muddlesty the saint, is Mr. Dick
Iloskins the pirate."
He made a convulsive rush from the lane,
which Manesty shewed no inclination to
stop, just in time to escape the return of a
couple of constables, with Hezekiah. His
master despatched the party to the cellar,
simply observing, " that as the annoyance
was over, it was of no consequence to
pursue its cause." He sate down at dinner
at his usual hour, and the incident seemed
to have no effect in ruffling his ordinary
course of Sunday arrangements.
It had, however, and that a most material
one. He was told before his dinner was
well concluded, that a brother in the faith.
JOHN MANESTY. 243
Ozias Rheinenberger, one of the leading
Moravians, wished to speak with him.
Robin Shuckleborough, who usually shared
his patron's Sunday dinners, rose at the
announcement to depart. Hugh was absent
elsewhere.
"It is needless, Robin," said Manesty;
"he cannot have anything to say in the
way of business on the Sabbath; and in
aught else I have no secrets whatever. Bid
IVIr. Rheinenberger walk up stairs."
The features of the Moravian were plain,
and inexpressive. There was a look of
meekness, native or acquired, that won
those who believed it honest, and repelled
those who were inclined to consider it
hypocritical. His lank hair was plastered
over his pale brows, and his dress and
m2
244 JOHN MANESTY.
general appearance was such as to denote
him one careless of the fopperies of the
world. He was in a branch of trade which
threw him mncli in the way of Manesty,
who had on many occasions been to him of
considerable service in promoting or ex-
tending his commerce. On the occasion of
his present visit he seemed to be sadly de-
pressed in mind.
" Sit down, Ozias," said the host; " have
you dined ? There is enough left after the
knife and fork of Robin and me to make
your dinner."
" I have dined," said Ozias, with a sad
tone.
*' Will you have a glass of wine, then?"
asked Manesty. " Something appears to
have put you out of spirits. Shuckle-
JOHN MANESTY. 245
borough and I were coutenting ourselves
with ale; but, Eobm, take the keys and
open that garde-de'Vin, and "
" I had rather not take any wine," said
Ozias, in the same melancholy voice; "in
short, I have something to say to thee,
John, which concerns thy private ear. If
our friend — — "
" No," said Manesty, to the departing
Eobin; " do not stir. On trade I speak
not on Sundays ; — speak as you will about
all else beside."
Ozias paused, and shuffled upon his
chair ; but he recovered in a short time.
" The straightforward road is ever the
best; those who travel by devious ways
are apt to lose the true track. Here is a
strange story spreading all through Liver-
pool "
246 JOHN MANESTY.
lie paused again, and his chair was
shaken as before.
" Proceed," said Manesty, quietly.
" Hast thou," asked Ozias, " seen a
strange sailor this morning?"
" I have," was the reply, " outside this
house. He accosted me with some absurd
impertinence, dictated by drunkenness — for
the man was excessively di'unk ; and when
I sent Hezekiah for a constable, not more
to get him out of my way, than to have the
incapable fellow taken care of, until he had
slept off his liquor, he made a staggering
run out of the lane. I did not think it
worth while to send in pursuit, and have
not heard anything more about him since.
It is about an hour and a half ago since he
was here. What of him?"
JOHN MANESTY. 247
" Mucli," said Ozias, with a sigh. " He
has spread everywhere, far and wide, that
he has seen you beyond seas, and that you
are identified with "
" Dick Hoskins, the pirate," interrupted
Manesty. " Yes, as well as I could gather
from his all but inarticulate gabble, that
was his accusation."
JOHN MANESTY. 240
CHAPTER XIV.
SUSPICIONS CREEPING AMONG THE SAINTLY — THE
GREAT MERCHANT CALLED TO ACCOUNT.
" I WISH I came across liim," quotli Kobin
Sliuckleborougli, " and I'd lodge such a
fellow as that in the stocks. The old
punishment of slitting the tongue of vaga-
bonds like that was the best."
" No, Robin," said Manesty, " the best
way is to let them speak on. But where
has he told this story?"
" In general," replied Ozias Rheincn-
M 3
250 JOHN MANESTY.
berger, " among the shipping along the
quays; but he made his way to Seal-
street, where, having contrived to get into
the committee-room, he told eight or ten
of the membership there met, that he had
sailed with thee for four months during the
past and current year ; that he was close by
thee when that scar on thy forehead was
given ; that he has known thee on and off
upon the seas for twenty years ; and that,
in the African bark, ^ Juno,' now for sale
or charter, lying at Gravesend, there are
fifty people that could say the same."
"And this tale was believed?" said
Manesty, with a contemptuous sneer.
" If it was," broke in Eobin Shuckle-
borough, " the elders of Seal-street — begging
your pardons, Mr. Manesty and Mr. Rhein-
JOHN MANESTY. 251
enbcrger, I was born and reared churcli of
England, and church of England, if God
gives me grace, will I die, so I do not think
much of talking my mind out about the
dissenters, — I say, if they believe any such
a cock-and-bull trumpery as this, they are
asses fitter to bray over a thistle in a field,
than to preach over a Bible in the pulpit.
This is now Sunday, October the 16th,
1764 — new style — and it is certainly true,
that my honoured master, young Mr. John,
as I shall always call him, if he and I live
on together till he is threescore and ten,
left Gravesend on the 15th of June, 1760,
bound for Kingston, on board the ' Bonny
Jane,' 120 tons register, Moses Mugg, mas-
ter; arrived in Liverpool, on the 19tli of
February, 1761, per the 'Lightning' coach^
252 JOHN MANESTY.
after a three days' rapid journey ; sailed
Irom Ilfracombe, by Bristol, on the 2nd of
January, 1762, by the American sloop,
* Clipper,' bound for Barbadoes, 95 tons
register, Jonadab Sackbag, mate, acting as
commander; that "
" Pr'ythee, Robin," said Manesty, smil-
ing, " spare this minute chronology of my
voyages."
" Pardon me, sir," exclaimed the zealous
book-keeper, "but I can prove from our
books, that you have been absent just eight
months in '60, '61, nine months in ^Q2j
ten months in '63, '64; and does not our
letter-book minutely state to a day, or
almost, what you were doing during the
time? Dick lloskins, indeed! I'd have
Dick Hoskinsed him, if he dropped across
my path."
JOHN MANESTY. 253
" Nay, Robin," said his master, " do not
be so warm. I believe a better answer to
this piece of absurd nonsense, will be found
in the fact, from the year '39, when I re-
turned from an unhappy errand to the plan-
tations, with poor little Hugh, then about
two years old, until the date in 1762, which
you remember with an accuracy I cannot
rival "
" It was the 16th of October, between six
and seven in the morning ''
" So be it; from the middle of '39, to the
close of '62 — three-and-twenty years. I was,
let me see, absent from Liverpool, once in
'43, when I had to go to London, about the
bankruptcy of ' Ing, Tring, and Co.,' where
I remained precisely a fortnight; in '46,
when the Wolsterholmc affairs were going
254 JOHN MANESTY.
to perdition ; and I went with a vain hope
of saving something for my poor sister's
boy, and I stayed there then "
" Eight days and six hours," supplied
Robin, "from the moment we alighted at
the ' Bull,' in Holborn, to the moment we
started from the same. I was with you,
sir, if you recollect."
" I had forgotten it," replied his master;
" again, in '52, with a deputation from the
corporation, on some nonsense now not
worth remembering; and, in '57, on that
troublesome business with which you,
Ozias, were somewhat connected, you recol-
lect "
Ozias did not blush — for it would have
been impossible that his body could have
mustered a sufficiency of blood for such a
JOHN MANESTY. 255
phenomenon — but he looked somewliat con-
fused. This visit of '57 was, in fact, con-
nected with some serious embarrassments of
his own, and Manesty had rescued him from
bankruptcy.
" Manchester, or Bolton, or Rochdale, or
some other of our neighbouring marts," con-
tinued Manesty, " are the ordinary limits of
my travels ; except my visit of a week, for
some few years past, to breathe the fresh air
at Wolsterholme Place, or whatever else
you may have been pleased to call it "
" Amounting, on a rough calculation,
which will, however, be found pretty near
the truth/' said Robin, pencil in hand, *' to
two-and- thirty days in London; say six
visits per ann. to the towns about, setting
them down at three days each, which is
256 JOHN MANESTY.
over tliG mark — eighteen days a-year, for
oiiG-ancl-twenty years — three hundred and
seventy-eight days; fresh air excursions to
the Yorkshire border for twelve summers, a
week a-piece, seventy-two days; the sum,
Mr. Rheinenberger, is four hundred and
eighty-four days in all (errors excepted),
during tAventy-one years, being on an
average, twenty-three days per ami., with a
slight fraction over; and "
" Thou needst not continue in thy calcu-
lations, friend Eobin," replied Ozias, " all
Liverpool will be witness that every hour of
John Manesty could be accounted for during
the years you mention. And as for the
voyages of the last three years "
" Cannot they be accounted for, too ?" said
Manesty. " They can as surely be told
JOHN MANESTY. 257
hour by hour, as those which have given
employment to the arithmetic of Eobin.
But the thing is too ridiculous. Hoskins
has been a pest upon the waters since the
year '38 — the year before I left America —
perhaps longer; not a year has elapsed
without our hearing of his depredations ;
and here have I — to say nothing of my
character, or standing — here have I, during
all the time, been as it were chained to my
desk in Pool-lane, and because business of a
kind, in which, as Robin there well knows,
I was most reluctant to engage "
" I can vouch for it well, sir," interposed
Eobin. " I remember your saying to mc, as
well as if it was yesterday "
" Never mind ; because I am miserably
against my will dragged across the Atlantic,
258 JOHN MANESTY.
there are found men with whom I * ate of
the same bread, and drank of the same cup,'
ready to give ear, if not credence, to the
hiccuping of a drunken sailor, confounding
me, perhaps, from some fancied personal
resemblance, with an atrocious pirate, who
was committing murders and robberies upon
the ocean, while I was sleeping quietly on
my pillow, or toiling peacefully over my
ledger."
This was a burst of unusual length and
earnestness from such a speaker, and Ozias
made no reply. He had never heard of the
French proverb, " Qui s' excuse^ s^accuse"
but its principle flashed strongly upon his
mind. The silence was broken by Manesty.
"And who in Seal-street gave heed to
this drunken mariner?"
JOHN MANESTY. 259
" None," said Ozias, " that I know of,
gave heed ; but none, also, could refuse to
give ear. To avoid scandal to us and
trouble to you, we got the man away with
much difficulty, and placed him in safety at
the ' Blackamoor's Arms,' in , where
he has been staying since last night. He is
now in a drunken slumber, from which he
will not arouse himself for several hours,
and then Habakkuk Habergam "
" Habakkuk Habergam !" cried Manesty,
with evident displeasure, looking signifi-
cantly at Eobin, " what did he say?"
" Nothing more," said Ozias, " than that
in the morning it would be well to visit him
while he was sober, and so put an end to
the noise, or bring the man to condign
punishment."
2 GO JOHN MANESTY.
" Ilabcrgam," said Eobiii, in deep indig-
nation, "is as black-mouthed a bankrupt
hound "
" Do not indulge in invectives, Eobin,"
remarked Manesty, mildly, but still looking
at his clerk, in a manner not to be mis-
understood; "to-morrow morning, turn to
his account as early as maybe, and have it
adjusted as speedily as possible. A man
who is so anxious to institute investigation
into the business of other people, where he
has no concern, cannot object to inquiries
being made into the state of his own, where
he has."
" I can pretty well guess," said Robin,
" how the matter stands, and I'll cut out
work enough for Humbug Habakkuk to
occupy him to-morrow, without pimping
JOHN MANESTY. 261
after what is saying or doing by the black-
o;iiards of the ' BLackamoor's Arms.' Such
a thief as that "
Ozias looked hard at Manesty, who
understood the look to signify that he
wished them to be alone. It was no great
difficulty to get rid of Robin, who left the
room in deep dudgeon against the brother-
hood of Seal- street, whom he consigned to
the spiritual bondage of Satan, and against
Habakkuk Habergam in particular, whom
he doomed in thought to the temporal
bondage of Lancaster Castle. His prayers
were more efficacious — at least, more imme-
diately so, in the latter than in the former
case — for though we may charitably hope
that the congregated independents escaped
the fiery fate anticipated by Kobin, it is
262 JOHN MANESTY.
certain that two days did not elapse before,
through his exertions, and those of his
attorney, the stronghold of the Dukes of
Lancaster contained the corpus of the hap-
less Hahakkuk.
JOHN MANESTY. 263
CHAPTEE XV.
RELIGIOUS DOUBTS — MANESTY's CONSCIENTIOUS PER-
PLEXITIES — HE VISITS AMINADAB THE ANCIENT.
OziAS waited until the noisy slamming of
the hall door announced the angry exit of
Shuckleborough.
" I have heard," he then commenced at
once, " all that thy zealous clerk, and all that
thyself hath said; and I am well aware that
this tale of the man calling himself Blazes
must be wholly untrue ; hut it is not to he
2G4 JOHN MANESTY.
put down by violence and anger, such as
that wliicli Eobert tlireatened and mani-
fested. But I should be unworthy of the
friendship which thou hast ever shewn — of
the religious union in which we have so long
lived — if I did not tell thee that, since thine
acceptance of the plantation of Brooklyn
Royal, thy brethren in the Lord have been
anxious for thy soul's estate."
" I accepted it, as you well know, Ozias,
much against my will ; and after consulting
the most famous lights of religion burning
around."
" Thou didst not consult thine own con-
science, John, which is a light more precious
than that of the seven golden candlesticks
burning before the altar."
" Of that," replied Manesty, solemnly,
JOHN MANESTY. 265
" you nor any other man can be a judge.
You know not, nor will any one know, until
the great clay of the unveiling of secrets,
how my conscience balanced its account."
"Be it so, then ; but this, I know, and
all Liverpool knows it, too, that though it
has suited thee to describe this West Indian
estate as all but bankrupt, thy prosperity
hath been of late yearly on tlie increase, far
beyond the bounds of what thine ordinary
business could afford any ground for war-
ranting — and that during the last three or
four years we know that the transactions in
which thou hast engaged must be supported
by funds fur more ample and extended than
any which thy regular trade could have
supplied."
" If those persons," said Manesty, "who
VOL. I. N
266 JOHN MANESTY.
take the trouble of calculating what ought
to be the gains of a man who understands
his business, would expend a portion of their
time on learning what business really is, we
should have fewer entries in the Gazette. I
am yet to learn that men who lose money in
trade, are qualified to judge of the courses
pursued by men who make it."
"It is not exactly by such that the ob-
servation was made — but be it so," said the
meek Moravian.
" Say it out, then, at once !" was the
answer of Manesty to the implied charge.
" You think, then, that I am, what this fel-
low, Blazes, as you call him, has told you,
the pirate Hoskins?"
" I think nothing of the kind !" said
Ozias ; " and I know it to be impossible, but
JOHN MANESTY. 267
many of thy friends fear that thou hast, in
some underhand manner, which they are
loth to trace, lent thyself to traffic with men
as wild and as wicked as he, and shared in
their ungodly gains. This may not have
come to thine ears before, but it hath been
long talked of in Liverpool, and especially
since thy recent voyages. And here comes
this man who swears he saw thee on the
West coast of Africa — there known by the
name of a bloodthirsty pirate."
" I can scarcely keep patience," said
Manesty, "to hear this flagrant nonsense.
Have you not known this man upon the sea
for more than twenty years?"
" I have !" replied Ozias; " and therefore
I believe nothing of this part of the story,
which I set down as the mere ravings of an
n2
268 JOHN MANESTY.
intoxicated fool; but the other suspicion
hfith been much lieiglitened by his produc-
tion of a scrap of paper, addressed, as he
says, to himself, ordering a long boat to be
ready with early tide, and the live stock to
be discharged as soon as possible. The
paper is very greasy and dirty, smelling
strongly of tobacco and spirits; but if the
hand-writing be not thine, John Manesty,
never did two persons write characters more
resembling each other than the writer of
that paper and thou."
" It is very possibly mine," said Manesty.
" Some order to bring Irish cattle here on
shore, which this fellow has picked up."
" It is hardly that," answered the Mora-
vian — " but be it so. The paper is not
like that which thou wouldst have used
JOHN MANESTY. 269
here. Perhaps its begrimed state may
account for that, and be it so ; but he says
that he has many others — and particuhirly
some dozens of letters and communications
which were found on the person of a despe-
rate pirate, named Tristram Fiennes, killed
in a drunken fray on the coast of Florida,
about four years ago, which are of the same
handwriting; and it is the purpose of the
select committee of elders to have before
them this man. Blazes, to-morrow, and pro-
cure from him all that he knows or pos-
sesses. It was this that brought me here,
for I would not have thee taken at advan-
tage. The idle story of this sailor I cast to
the winds. May God have strengthened
thee to resist methods of piling up wealth
scarcely less contaminating of sin to the
270 JOHN MANESTY.
soul tlian the open violences of those whom
the world calls outcast. If thou hast fallen
into the pit, may God be a light to thy feet
to see thy way out of it — and under all cir-
cumstances, whether to support thee, my
brother, under the injury of falsehood and
calumny, or the deeper sadness of thine own
consciousness of having done what thy soul
cannot justify unto thyself, if my aid can be
anything of value, remember how strong is
thy claim on the gratitude of Ozias Rhein-
enberger."
He ceased. The tear, mantling in his
small grey eye, kindled it into dignity — and
a strong emotion lit up all his plain features,
inexpressive now no longer. The habitual
meekness of his face was exalted into a hal-
lowed look of devout compassion which no
JOHN MANESTY. 271
hypocrite could assume. He fixed it for au
instant on Manesty — who for some moments
had remained profoundly silent, not attend-
ing to what was said, as if stricken with a
sudden blow — and then rushed from the
presence of his unheeding companion, heavy
of heart.
Manesty remained in the same position
for nearly half-an-hour after the departure
of Ozias.
" He's a kind-hearted fellow, that!" was
his fii'st exclamation J " but he suspects that
there is some shadow or foundation of truth
in this story, impossible as he feels it to be
on the whole. Others may come to the
same conclusion without the same charitable
feelings towards me. Success in any pursuit
is enough to raise up hosts of enemies ; and
272 JOHN MANESTY.
the very testimony I have borne against this
trade, in which I am tlius accused of parti-
cipating, will render their venom more ran-
corous. This must be met — met at once —
met like a man. Why cling those fancies
to my brain? Am I not, by the world in
which I live, and by the world in which it
is scarcely suspected that I have lived,
looked up to as a man of sound sense, of
solid judgment, and firm decision ? Is not
my opinion daily, hourly, consulted on those
matters which come home most to the busi-
ness and bosoms of men? — and why not
decide in a case which so nearly concerns
myself ? Alas, I know that I have decided,
and only desire that my decision should be
ratified by the voice of another — that from
another man's tongue I may hear loudly
JOHN MANESTY. 27
o
pronounced that counsel wliicli I dare not
whisper to myself. It is now two o'clock,
and I shall have ample time to return by
sunset. Yes — I will go— the ride of itself
will be of use in bracing my nerves, and re-
cruiting my jaded spirits."
In a few minutes, after leaving word with
Hezekiah to tell Mr. Hugh that he was sud-
denly called away, and would not, in all pro-
bability, return till night, he was urging his
mare onward with hasty pace on the road
that led to the marshes of Ulverstone — the
journey he had to perform was about thirty
miles, and it was completed in two hours
and a half.
The summer sun was beginning to dc^
clinc, wlien he found himself at the door of
a solitary house of small dimensions, situ--
N 3
274 JOHN MANESTY.
ated by the side of a desolate mere. It
was the lonely dwelling of Aminadab the
Ancient, and he it was whose counsel
Manesty had ridden forth to seek. As he
approached, he heard the old man's voice
loudly reading the Bible, and expounding
its texts, as it would seem by his tone, with
angry comment, though, except a very
young girl, who was in the kitchen, and out
of reach of exhortation, for which, if she
had heard, she would not have felt the
slightest respect, no one but himself was iu
the house.
No lock or latch secured its outer door^
and Manesty, having tied up his horse,
entered without any ceremony. The old
man, bent over his Bible, did not perceive
his entrance, but continued his fierce de-
JOHN MANESTY. 275
niinciations of the foes of tlie Lord in a
furious commentary on the sixty-eighth
Psalm. He had reached the twenty-third
verse, when Manesty arrived, and was re-
peating with intense emphasis — " That thy
foot may he dipped in the blood of thine
enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the
same." Something either in tone or text
made the new comer start, and he hastily
broke off the coming exposition by laying a
gentle pressure of his finger on the old
man's sleeve.
Aminadab closed his Bible, and imme-
diately rose to greet his visitor.
" Is it thou, John," said he — " thou,
John, my son? I expected thee not, but
welcome are thy feet upon the mountains,
or wherever else my lot may be cast. Thou
27G JOUN MANESTY.
lookest jaded and worn. The fare I can
offer thee is coarse compared with that
which thine own mansion affords — but such
as it is, who can be more welcome to share
it than thou."
" I have no need," said Manesty, " of
your hospitality, Aminadab, which I have
known of old would be cheerfully given — I
want thine advice. Not food carnal, but
food spiritual, do I lack; and to whom
could I come for a goodly supply of things
sustaining to the soul with such surety as
to thee!"
" Ninety years and one," said the old
man, " have passed over this hoary head,
and to the sound of flattery mine ears are
clogged as with wax. Ask what thou wiltj
John, and according to the light vouchsafed
JOHN ItUNESTY. 277
to me will I speak. Speak otherwise I
could not, wert thou Balah, the son of
Zippor, offering me, by the hands of the
princes of Moab, houses of silver and of
gold."
Manesty was, however, in no haste to
speak — something seemed to choke his
utterance. The question which came at
last did not seem anything formidable to a
practised controversialist. It was one of
those questions of dogmatic theology a thou-
sand times asked in ages by-past, and a
thousand times to be asked in ages to
come.
" Can the elect," said he, " fall from a
state of grace?"
He had not long to wait for an answer.
"It is with grief I hear the question
278 JOUN MANESTY.
propounded," said Aminadab, "from tlie
lips of one who was all but reared at my
feetj as Saul at those of Gamaliel. Thou
shouldst have been not a disciple to inquire,
but a master in Israel to answer. They
cannot."
" Those, then, that were once in a state
of grace are ever in a state of grace?"
" For ever."
'* And they cannot by any means fall
into sin?"
" Never."
" And their salvation is always sure?"
" Always. But why, John Manesty, my
son," said the old man, looking somewhat
amazed — " why dost thou come to ask me
of things which could be answered by babes
and sucklings? Are not these the first
JOHN MANESTY. 279
plain rudiments of the most ordinary
theology? Before the foundations of the
world were laid, the names were written in
the hook of life of those who were chosen to
inherit salvation. Not to obtain salvation,
but to receive as a gift — to take it as the
heritage bequeathed to them by their
father, a garnered treasure not won by
themselves. How, then, is it that you ask
whether they can so sin as to bring upon
themselves damnation."
" They seem to sin, at least, Aminadab,"
said Manesty, doubtingly, though this su-
pralapsarian doctrine was the favourite of
his heart, and now sounded agreeably upon
his ear.
" They may so seem," said the unbending
theologian, " but of what moment is their
280 JOHN MANESTY.
seeming? Nay, they do sin, if we look
upon their actions with the eyes and pro-
nounce upon them witli the tongue of the
world. But can the acts of man control
the decrees of God? Are we to set up the
works of the created against the laws of the
Creator? What is written is written — it is
written by the finger of God. Can the
weak and wayward wanderings of frail man
blot it out again? Is He in his ways to be
guided by the merits or demerits of man?
Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord,
or being his counsellor hath taught him?
To talk calmly, can these newly devised
instruments control the steam? Can the
spinning-jenny say unto the engine, ' My
wdll is not thy will, thy might is less than
my might?'"
JOHN MANESTY. 281
" It is well," said Manesty ; *' such I
knew was thy doctrine. But still, as we
live in the world, while we pass through it,
what the word of the world and the law of
the world says must be attended to."
" Of a truth," said Aminadab, " we are
here in carnal vesture, doing carnal things.
We must eat, we must drink, we must
sleep — things in no respect connected with
the business of salvation — and we must
proceed onward in our way allotted to be
trodden. These are the things which are
called indifferent."
" Of these, good fame, in what people
term society, is one?" asked Manesty.
" Surely. The poor things of this poor
world we may not care for, but we may not
do without, and without repute they arc
not to be attained."
282 JOHN MANESTY.
" If, tlicn," said Manesty " I beg your
pardon, Aminabad : I shall alter my mind,
I declined your proposed refreshment just
now, but a faintness has come over me.
Have you any wine in the house?"
" None, my son," said the old man —
" but I have some bottles of the brandy and
some of the ale which thou hast sent me
as oil to the flickering lamp of my waning
life."
Manesty chose the ale, which the slip-
shod girl speedily placed before him. He
drank a copious draught.
" If, then," he said, wiping a perspiration
which had rapidly formed on his forehead —
" if, then, a saint is so stricken in his good
fame in the world as to render his useful-
ness questionable, or perhaps to destroy it
JOHN MANESTY. 283
altogether, is it justifiable that he should
resist the slanderer with weapons of
strength?"
"It is so. It is granted to us to use
such weapons to defend our lives, and even
when life is not attacked, to wield the spear
and draw the sword to maintain the cause
of the Lord. In like case, then, when that
which may cost us our lives, or that which
we hold dearer than our lives — then, too,
may we uplift instruments of punishment
or vengeance. When Shimei, the son of
Gaza, a Benjamite of Bahurim, cursed David
with a grievous curse in the day when he
went to Mahanaim, did not the man of God
lay it upon Solomon as a dying command-
ment — on him to whom he said, ' Thou art
a wise young man, and knowest what thou
284 JOHN MANESTY.
ouglitest to do' — to bring down liis hoary
head to the grave with blood? Did not
Elisha, as he went from Jericho to Beth-el,
call forth two she-bears out of the wood,
who tare the two-and-forty children of the
city who mocked him by the way ? Yea, the
whole scripture is full of wrath against the
railing tongue which scorns the saints — as to
thee, no doubt, John Manesty, is known."
" Have we, then, warrant," asked Ma-
nesty, " to do as was done in these old
days ?"
" No days," said Aminadab, " are old.
To us there seems to be time, and year to
follow year in the constant rolling of the
sun. But He who made the sun hath no
measure of time. What he permitted in
the days of David — in the days of Elisha —
JOHN MANESTY. 285
in the days when Jeremio.h changed the
name of Pashur, the son of Immer the
priest, to Magar-Missabib, making him a
terror to himself and all his friends, because
he smote the prophet on the cheek — that
doth he permit now. This do I speak
carnally, as to carnal men. But if I spoke
in the language befitting a testifier of the
truth, then should I dismiss from my mouth
the vain and sinful words of what we were
permitted to do. We are not permitted to
do anything. What is done is ordained.
As well mightest thou think, with thy feeble
palm, to stop the waters of the Mersey,
when they come raging to and fro down in
murky flood, over its swallowing sands, by
the boisterous east wind, or by thy will or
by thy deed to check the careering wheels
286 JOHN MANESTY.
of the cherubim seen by Ezekiel by the
river of Chebar. Shall the axe boast of
itself against him that heweth therewith?
or shall the saw magnify itself against him
that shaketh it? As if the rod should
shake itself against them that lift it up ; or
as if the staff should lift itself as if it were
no wood."
" The elect, then, unto salvation," said
Manesty, with great and earnest solemnity,
" who are assailed by the reprobate unto
eternal death, may by any means remove
those reprobates from the earth without
peril."
" Peril of temporal things, if, then, there
be peril," said Aminadab, " is to be thought
upon with such care as may be — of that
the magistrate, who beareth not the sword
JOHN MANESTY. 287
in vain, must be the judge. He will see
with such blinking lights as the dry bones
of the law afford to his blear-eyed visioji.
But," said the old man, rising and grasping
a long staff
The sun in its most western slope was
bestowing its parting beams upon Ulver-
stone Mere, and the old man so sate in his
parlour as to catch the fast diminishing of
its declining ray. As he rose it covered
him all over with a yellow light, gilding
his hoary head, and giving fiercer expres-
sion to the eye, which still, when aroused
to the joy which controversialists feel when
they confute, or fancy they are confuting,
antagonists worthy of their skill, gleamed,
or rather glittered with fii^e supplied from
the ever-burning furnace within ; his figure
! i
288 JOHN MANESTY.
became erect, and he leant upon his staff,
not as a stay to his feet, but a sceptre to
his lianu. - ^sx^.^.. t^\.'^'-^'^-a« f^- •■«" ''^„
'' But," said he, *' as for the decrees of
the Lord, there is in them no heeding of
the laws of man. They who think they
make these laws — they who put them into
effect — are but vessels in the hand of the
potter — vessels of no more value or power,
than those whom they, from the ermined
bench, send to the squalid dungeon."
He struck his staff vigorously on the
floor.
" Whatever thou purposest to do, John
Manesty, do thou, and that quickly. It was
revealed to me in the visions of the night
that thou shouldst come, and I was spoken
with to say that the work to which thou
JOHN MANESTY. 289
wert appointed was wending its way to the
end. The doctrine I preach is sure; sure
as — nay, far surer — than the granite foun-
dations of the earth. Go thou on thy way
rejoicing, and to rejoice."
He ceased for a while.
" But I shall never see thee again, John
Manesty, — never again in this cobweb
world. Go, however, secure of purpose
and undoubting of salvation. Go to thy
work, but go undoubtingly, for if Samuel
was not merely justified, but commanded
to hew Agag the Amalekite in pieces before
the Lord, in Gilgal, because the bleating of
sheep and the lowing of oxen offended the
ears of holiness, how much more worthy of
being destroyed is the man that bleatcth
mischief and loweth unrighteousness."
VOL. I.
290 JOHN MANESTY.
The brows of the old man were knit with
a. savage frenzy, and his eyes shot forth a
more burning flame.
" Truth fast, is my doctrine — truth fast
as truth itself — which is, after all, but an
idle word to keep us the further away from
him who is truth. The blessing of Jehovah-
Jireh be upon thee ! Thou hast now heard,
my son, the last words which thou ever wilt
hear from the lips of him, who, in the days
of his vanity, was known as Sir Ranulph de
Braburn — for more than two generations
testifying as Aminadab Smith, which
lengthened years have changed into the
title of Aminadab the Ancient. Go and
speed."
He cast his staff aside and grasped the
hand of his excited visitor, who fervently
JOHN MANESTY. 291
returned the fervent pressure. Other words
beside those which had been just spoken
were now exchanged. The okl man sank
into his chair, and Manesty mounted his
horse to ride hastily homeward.
END OF VOL. I.
T. C. SaviU, Printer, 107, St. Martin's Lane.
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