The Carbonels

CHAPTER FIFTEEN. SCALES OF JUSTICE.

"Thou hast appointed justices of peace to call poor men before them

for matters they were not able to answer."-Shakespeare.

When the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares was spoken, the Blessed and only Wise foresaw the extreme difficulty of rooting out the tares without injuring the wheat, when the work is done by the ignorant or hasty hands of the servants.

So it was at Uphill. Captain Carbonel was made a county magistrate, and thus had more power in his hands, and his most earnest wish and prayer was to use it for the good of the parish. But things were very difficult. At the vestry, the farmers agreed with him that Barton and Morris ought not to have additional parish relief, great strong men as they were, who had both refused extra hours of labour offered by farmers, of a kind they did not like, and now demanded help on the score of their large families. In fact, it had become the custom to demand relief for every fresh child that was born, and the men were often idle in consequence. There were men with many children who had never come on the parish, because they were trustworthy and sober, and their wives were thrifty. Each magistrate could point to several of these, and each knew how the small and struggling ratepayers were oppressed. Nor could it be fair that these men should be maintained in idleness or dawdling at the expense of the hard-working small shopkeepers.

Every gentleman on the bench who had weakly yielded before, and had given an order to whoever tramped over to ask for it, was very glad to have some one who would speak out, and take the burthen of unpopularity. So the order was not given, and Barton and Morris walked home disappointed, but not till they had each taken a pint or two of beer at the "Blue Lion" on their way home, uttering many curses on "that there Gobbleall." Captain Carbonel did not hear those same curses, but as he rode home he saw the two men stagger out of the "Blue Lion," refreshed not only by their own pints, but by those of sympathisers. And the sight did not make him sorry for what he had done, knowing well that George Hewlett, Cox the cobbler, and Mrs Holly, the widow with a small shop, were almost borne down with the rates, and not seeing why they should toil that Billy and Nanny Barton should lounge and drink.

Billy Barton, however, did more. He joined an expedition which Dan Hewlett was already organising with Joe Todd, as much for revenge as profit, to have a night of poaching in Mr Selby's woods, in which there were a number of fine pheasants, not so many as at present where preserves are strictly kept, but poaching was more profitable in some ways, since in those days poulterers were not allowed to sell game openly, but gave a higher price to men who could contrive to convey it to them, and then sold it at a great profit to pretentious people, who had no friends to give it to them, but who wanted to show it at their dinner-parties. Tirzah Todd, as usual, was the means of disposing of most of these gains. Her lively ways made poulterers and servants inclined to further her dealings.

She was a great deal too sharp to carry any save her lawful wares to Greenhow Farm; but in the last year since the Carbonels had come, especially since the captain had been a magistrate, the trade had been less prosperous and required more caution. Once Captain Carbonel had found a wire for a hare in his hedge, and had made it known that he should prosecute any one whom he caught out. He was no eager sportsman himself, but he had a respect for the law.

The poachers arranged a raid upon the Selby woods, in which Joe Todd, Dan Hewlett, and Billy Barton all took part. The first of these was too sharp to be caught by the keepers. He had all the litheness and cunning of his gipsy blood, and was actually safe in the branches of a tree overhead, while Dan, having put his foot into a rabbit-hole, was seized by one keeper, with his gun and a bag of spoil, and Billy Barton, in his bewilderment, ran straight into the arms of another, with a pheasant's tail poking up his short smock-frock as it stuck out of his pocket.

Of course Mr Selby could not commit for an offence against himself, so Hewlett and Barton were hauled off to Captain Carbonel, while their wives begged to see madam, and they were conducted to the verandah, for the justice business was going on in the large kitchen. No doubt they expected, though Nanny had read no novels, that the magistrate would sit enthroned in the most public place in the house, that the women would weep, that the ladies, with softened hearts, would throw themselves before him, like Queen Philippa at Calais, and beg off the victims. Of what could, should, or ought to be done, they had no notion; and of course they were both in terrible distress, Nanny crying passionately into her apron, and protesting-whenever she could get voice between her sobs, that if the good lady would get the good gentleman to forgive him this time-he would never, never do so no more. While Molly Hewlett, who had some remnants of old respectability about her, was trying her utmost to induce Mrs Carbonel to intercede.

It was the first time. He was led to it. It was for sport. He had never done it before. To be sure madam would not let 'em be hard on poor Judith's brother. No Hewlett-no, nor any Grey-had ever been in prison before! He was just drove to it, because that there George would give him no work! She and her poor children would have to come to the workhouse, and poor Judith! Nanny, too, began to cry out about her poor children and the parish.

Meanwhile Mrs Carbonel had been trying to get in a word to make them understand that the matter did not rest with the captain, and that he had no choice at all in the question but to commit them to gaol to take their trial. He had no power to let them off, and she could do nothing, though she was sincerely sorry for the wives; but they neither heard nor tried to hear, and as the cart was driven up by Master Pucklechurch, the keeper, and the constable Cox, to the back door for the handcuffed prisoners, weeping and wailing of the loudest arose, and the women darted round to embrace their husbands, evidently expecting Mrs Carbonel to assure them that she would charge herself with the support of their families while they were in prison.

She was so much distressed, and so pitiful, that she was just going to do something of the kind, but her husband's gesture stopped her. Billy Barton howled more loudly than his wife, and, as he could not raise his hands to his face, presented a terrible spectacle, though the captain declared there were no tears to be seen. Dan stood grim, stolid, and impassive, and if he spoke at all, it was in a muttered oath at the noise his wife was making. It was a great relief when the cart was driven off, followed by the two women, and Captain Carbonel exclaimed-

"Poor creatures! That Barton is a fool, but Mr Dan is something worse."

"Oh, those poor women! Why would you not let me speak, Edmund, and promise that they should not starve?"

"The parish will take care of that, Mary; you need not be afraid."

"It sounds so hard-hearted," said Dora and Sophy to each other.

But Edmund did not prevent, nor wish to prevent, their going to see Judith, nor taking with them much more solid food than she was in the habit of eating. Thick sandwiches and lumps of cold pudding were likewise conveyed to the Barton children at school, so that probably they fared much better than was their usual habit.

Judith said she was sorry that Dan should go for to do such a thing, but she was less indignant than Dora expected, and she cried, though more quietly than her sister, when he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. It was to be said for Molly Hewlett, that enough of her old training remained about her to keep her a sober woman, but Captain Carbonel saw Nanny Barton reeling out of the "Blue Lion" on the day of the conviction, much the worse for the treatings she had enjoyed by way of consolation.

If George Hewlett had any strong feelings about his brother's disaster, he did not communicate them; he went about his work just as usual, and whistled as much as ever. But he took Johnnie, who was only eleven years old, into his workshop, and gave him eighteenpence a week for doing what he could; and he turned out handy, diligent, and trustworthy, so as to be fully worth the money, and thus to stay on when his father came out of prison.

Dan was much the same man as when he went into gaol, save that his hatred to Captain Carbonel had increased.