Old friends and new acquaintances

Preface

IT may be considered proper to explain, in reference to the title of this volume, that several of the tales, having previously appeared in various widely circulated periodicals, will, of course, be recognised, by many of my readers, as Old Friends, while the original sketches from my pen, in the same series, being now for the first time introduced to their attention, are, literally speaking, New Acquaintances. Should these be received with the like gratifying meed of popular favour with which the former were honoured, a Second Series of scenes and sketches of a similar

VI

PREFACE.

character may possibly be forthcoming, illustrative of .life and its varieties, especially in the Eastern Counties, where the genuine type of the Saxon race is more peculiarly to be traced than in any other part of England.

A. S.

HALL, SUFFOLK, January 17th, 1860.

A MYSTERIOUS LODGER THIRTY YEARS AGO . 345

I.

THE SMUGGLERS' SONS.

Chapter I

THERE is a solitary little fishing town on the coast of Suffolk, which retains strong traces of having been once a Danish colony, especially in the complexions, names, and habits of some of its inhabitants. There are Swaines, Christians, Petersons, Magubs, Magnuses, Hacons, and Godwins ; a sturdy, red-haired race, big-boned, tall, and choleric, and entirely devoted to nautical pursuits. Formerly they indulged, occasionally, in the piratical propensities of those marine monsters, the sea kings, from whom their descent is, in all probability, derived, till one of our Plantagenet sovereigns, out of his especial grace, granted the town the privilege of a gallows, to keep the unruly red-rovers in order. In later years they have i

A THE SMUGGLERS SONS.

amended their manners and settled down into a worthy community of pilots and merchantmariners, with the exception of a few incurable varlets, who employ their Scandinavian energies in the capacity of smugglers. On especial nights

these bold adventurers skim the moonless waves

i

in long, sharp-keeled boats, painted of a bluish white, with oars of the same indistinct hue, and muffled rests, that they may neither be seen nor heard by the watchful coast-guard, when they put off to meet the loaded lugger from the Dutch shore, in the hope of landing her contraband cargo in some lonely creek, or bight. There is always a party on land as well as at sea, on such nights. Some sly farmer is generally in the secret, who engages to provide carts and horses for "the run," and, if need require, furnishes places of concealment for the goods, on condition of receiving a share of them in return for his services.

Daniel Bloxham, of the Shore-end Wood Farm, was supposed to have amassed a considerable property during the war, by his secret alliance with Harold Peterson, and Magnus Swaine, two of the most daring smugglers on the eastern coast of England. Nine centuries appeared to have had little or no effect in qualifying the fierce blood they had inherited from their Danish ancestors ; they were a pair of determined red- rovers, and had, for many years, carried on their contraband trade in defiance of French privateers and English revenue cutters by sea, and generally contrived to outwit the preventive lieutenant and his armed force, and all the wiles of the custom-house officers by land.

They were well-known characters for forty miles round, and had a numerous connexion of mysterious customers, whom they secretly supplied with genuine Schiedam and Cogniac, also with tea and tobacco of exquisite quality, at less than half the price at which inferior samples of the same could be procured in the regular way.

Harold Peterson and Magnus Swaine rode the finest hunters in the country. In their rough nautical costume, they might literally have been termed a pair of "horse marines." They always rode at headlong speed, and though they often scoured the country in different directions, at the same time, they had only one pair of spurs between them. This was productive of no inconvenience to either of these seafaring cavaliers ; for, be it known to my readers, that a Suffolk smuggler wears but one spur, and this is the outward sign and token whereby the profession of contraband merchant is indicated. If a bold weather-beaten horseman, in a broad low-crowned glazed hat, blue jacket, and huge jack boots, garnished with one spur only, make his appearance on a market-day in any town near the coast of Norfolk or Suffolk, he is sure to bo greeted with winks and signs, and inklings of orders for

" moonshine," from a variety of customers who ought to know better than to have any dealings with persons of his class.

Harold Peterson and Magnus Swaine had married sisters, and they had each one son, genuine scions of their piratical forefathers. Young Harold Peterson and young Magnus Swaine possessed decided talents and propensities for the paternal profession ; but old Harold and old Magnus, having amassed a considerable share of property, determined to bring up their heirs for gentlemen. "With this aspiring object in view, they sent the lads to a school where Greek and Latin might be acquired by those who had a taste for learning, and everything useful forgotten by those who had not. The arrangements of old Harold and old Magnus were greatly criticised by all the sea-faring population of Shore-end.

" What should old smugglers' sons want with chopping Latin ? " cried Hacon, the pilot.

" They can make the Dutch skippers understand how many tubs of Hollands they want, without that," observed Fisk, the boat-builder.

"Humph!" ejaculated Christian, the ropespinner, " but you know times are not what they were for smugglers ; and old Peterson and old Swaine mean to leave off that trade and set up for gentlemen."

A general burst of laughter followed this observation, and many shrewd sarcasms were uttered by the coterie at the expense of the parents of young Harold and young Magnus ; but all came to the conclusion that " old Peterson and old Swaine had been infected with the pride and ambition of their friend and colleague, Daniel Bloxham, who was bringing up his daughter Margaret for a fine lady, and called her ' Miss Bloxham.' >:

" I remember that Dan Bloxham, a poor boy, with scarce a shoe to his foot," said Snooks, the smith ; " and now he has bought Shore-end farm, and sent his girl to boarding-school, where they say she is learning to play on the music ! "Well, smuggling is a fine trade."

" I never knew a smuggler die a rich man for all that," observed the boat-builder.

" Nor I," said the pilot ; " for let their gains be ever so great, they are contrary to the laws of the land ; and money that is ill gotten, you understand, never seems to do any good. You know the saying too, ' The pitcher never goes so often to the well, but it comes home broken at last.' "

Chapter II

YOUNG Harold and young Magnus, meantime, possessing good memories and quick wits, contrived to pick up the usual stock of Greek and

Latin to be acquired in provincial seminaries ; they also learned a little bad French and awkward dancing ; and having plenty of money to disburse among the ushers and boys, were accounted very good scholars and excellent fellows. During the holidays, they enjoyed the recreation of occasional trips to Rotterdam and Dunkirk, in the paternal lugger, and displayed such ready tact and activity in the business of landing and running of cargoes, that all the subordinates in the firm of Swaine, Peterson, Bloxham, and Co., averred "it was a crying sin to think of making gentlemen of such promising lads." These observations at length made such an impression on the mind of young Magnus Swaine, that he resolutely withstood all old Magnus's plans for his induction into genteel life, and avowed his intention of following no other calling than that of a smuggler.

Young Harold Peterson was a person of a more aspiring spirit ; he allowed himself, at the age of sixteen, to be articled to Mr. Leech, the surgeon, of Scrapeton, which his father told him " was a long step towards becoming a gentleman, since 'the young doctors/ as Mr. Leech's assistants were styled, were invited to evening parties, and admitted to the monthly assemblies at Scrapeton Angel, where they might invite young ladies in book-muslin and white satin, to dance with them if they liked." The promise of these tempting privileges induced Harold the younger to make a legal surrender of Ms time and freedom for the term of five years, and to become a junior spreader of plaisters, roller of pills, and pounder of drugs, in a small square brick-floored den, in Mr. Leech's domicile, which was dignified with the name of the surgery.

In due time this descendant of the sea kings was initiated into the mysteries of bleeding and drawing of teeth, and became familiar with the nomenclature of the pharmacopoeia; but as for advancing one step towards the rank of a gentleman in virtue of his vocation, that was out of the question. His parentage and connexions were too well known, and he was regarded, by all the elite of the town, as a sort of Pariah, whom it would be loss of caste to admit to the slightest degree of intimacy. His father paid handsomely for his boarding in Mr. Leech's own family, and made frequent offerings of genuine Eau de Cologne and French gloves to the young ladies and their mamma, which procured him civil treatment in the house, if toleration may be called civility. He was even suffered to appear at their evening parties, and to enjoy the satisfaction of losing his money at the loo-table, round which the members of the petty aristocracy of Scrapeton congregated, on such occasions ; but no one ever dreamed of including him in the invitations that were addressed to the surgeon's family ; and, as to his being proposed as a subscriber to the monthly assemblies, it would have been an easier matter to have procured a voucher to a ticket of admission for him to Almacks.

Harold Peterson felt all these things far more bitterly than he would have done the severest hardships and privations. Then, too, his cousin, Magnus Swaine, the young smuggler, a reckless scapegrace, frequently visited the town, and bore so provoking a resemblance to himself, that he was not unfrequently taxed with the commission of his pranks. Harold imagined his exclusion from the society to which he aspired was, in a great measure, occasioned by his connection with Magnus ; and, under the influence of this idea, treated him with studied coldness and contempt, and not unfrequently gave him the cut-direct, when they met in the streets of Scrapeton. Magnus was not of a temperament to take such usage meekly, and the result was mutual hatred — deadly and irreconcilable. This feeling was greatly augmented when Harold Peterson, weary of the monotony and irksomeness of his life at Scrapeton, after serving an apprenticeship to physic and gentility nearly four years, broke from his bondage in consequence of some slight from the young people in his master's family, and returned to Shore-end in a high state of morbid irritability, having just tarried long enough at Scrapeton to become infected with the pride, the folly, and affectation of fourth-rate exelusives in a provincial town. There were resources, if he had chosen to apply himself to them, in the pursuits of science and learning, far superior to the amusements of round games and quadrille parties, in which he had so eagerly desired to participate, and offering, withal, more honourable paths to the esteem of the world, than the paltry ones from which he was elbowed and barred by the petty provincial exelusives who regarded him as an unqualified intruder in their select circle.

Unfortunately, Harold Peterson did not possess the elevation of mind which might have taught him the difference between the vulgar pride of aspiring to their society, and the noble spirit of independence that should have led him to look on such matters with indifference, or to hold himself above them. His father, in his extreme ignorance of the constitution of society, had told him that wealth would purchase everything the world could bestow, and he had put his trust in a presumptuous maxim, instead of seeking to qualify himself for the mark at which his ambition pointed, and therefore his mortification was the more complete.

The exultation of his cousin Magnus aggravated the bitterness of his feelings, and the vulgarity and disreputable nature of his connections rendered his home more distasteful to him than his residence at Scrapeton. Under these circumstances, his wisest plan would have been to have obtained his father's assistance to enable him to finish his medical education in some distant county, where his family might chance to be unknown ; but his father, being naturally exasperated at the manner in which he had rendered his project for advancing him to the coveted rank of a gentleman abortive, treated him with repulsive scorn in their domestic intercourse ; and when, at length, the paternal love and pride of old Harold Peterson led him to suggest this measure to his son, the young man had discovered an attraction in Shore-end sufficiently powerful to bind him to the hitherto detested spot.

Margaret Bloxham, the heiress of the Shore-end Wood Farm, had returned from boarding-school, having attained to womanly stature and appearance, and acquired a smattering of a variety of useless accomplishments, together with notions which, in her station of life, were calculated to render her anything but happy. Her return to Shore- end had preceded that of young Harold Peterson by some months — months which had been spent by her in the gloom and forced seclusion of a home little suited to her taste.

Margaret was possessed of considerable personal attractions ; she had been from childhood the object of young Magnus Swaine's ardent affection ; and that affection, when after an absence of three or four years she returned in the bloom of her seventeenth summer to Shore-end, blazed into passion. Margaret regarded the young smuggler as a fellow of no reckoning, and treated him accordingly ; yet, not without a certain dash of coquettish encouragement, resulting from the secret pleasure her vanity caused her to receive from his attentions, and also because she had no other lover. Magnus took frequent umbrage at her fine-lady airs, and the capriciousness of her conduct to himself; but Margaret always exacted the most unconditional submissions from him, even when she was aware that the provocation had been on her side, and so often reminded him " that he was not a gentleman, and therefore no judge of a lady's conduct and manners," that Magnus, at length, implored his father to make a gentleman of him.

" I thought," said old Magnus, " it was your intention to live and die a smuggler, my boy."

" I have changed my mind since then," said the young man ; " neither would I wish to be a pestle-and-mortar gentleman, like that sneering puppy Harold Peterson, to be looked down upon by all the mushroom gentry in a country town, till I grew as big a fool as the upstarts by whom my company was scorned, and learned to despise my own flesh and blood. No ; I will be qualified at once by entering the army ; that is the way

THE SMUGGLERS SONS.

daring fellows, from among the people, rose to be knights and nobles in the old time."

" Humph ! " cried his father, " but there were no smugglers in those days, only a set of robbers and cut-throats, as I have heard ; and, now-a-days, soldier officers are the proudest fellows on the face of the earth ; and to tell you the truth, Magnus, I think you would do better in the marines, where people are not quite so stuck up as in the army."

" Anything, anything, that may entitle me to be called a gentleman," cried Magnus.

Chapter III

DURING the war a commission in the marines was not a difficult thing to obtain, neither were the expenses of officers in that service such as to preclude persons of an inferior grade from joining them; so, before either Margaret Bloxham or the Petersons were aware of his intentions, young Magnus Swaine was converted into a junior officer of a corps of marines in a seventy-four, under sailing orders. Previously to this preferment, his cousin Harold had conceived the intention of rivalling Magnus in the good graces of Margaret Bloxham ; and, during his absence, so far succeeded in his design that Margaret signified her resolution of never marrying any one but him ; whereupon her father and old Harold Peterson entered into a compact, or family treaty, the articles of which were that the young people should marry, and young Harold assist in carrying on the farm with Daniel Bloxham, and become the active agent in that department of the smuggling concern which had hitherto devolved on him.

Magnus Swaine, the elder, protested against this arrangement, urging the prior claims of his son to the hand of Margaret Bloxham ; but she boldly asserted " her right to change her mind if it seemed her good ; " and her father said "his girl was free to please herself as to which of the cousins she wedded." There was no gainsaying this ; nevertheless, old Magnus was mal-content, and talked of withdrawing his share of the property from the firm, and abandoning the business of a smuggler. " Peace was proclaimed," he said, " and his son, Lieutenant Swaine, was coming home, and would take it very ill of him if he did not cut the connexion altogether, after such unhandsome usage as he had experienced from them all."

The importance of conciliating their offended coadjutor was deeply felt by the elder Peterson and Daniel Bloxham; they proffered him an additional share in the profits of the run provided he would join them in the next venture, they having been offered an unusually valuable cargo on the other side of the water, on advantageous terms. Magnus Swaine, however, positively refused to have either part or lot in the affair unless the engagement between young Harold and Margaret were broken off.

" Suppose we say it is, just to humour him," suggested Daniel Bloxham, who felt the danger of a split with a person so deep in all the secrets of the junto as Magnus Swaine. " We shall get exchequered if we do not," pursued he.

" No, no ; Magnus Swaine is not the fellow to turn informer," observed old Harold Peterson.

"Nevertheless, it will be better to put the wedding off for a few weeks, and tell him I have other views for Margaret," said Daniel Bloxham; " we'll go talk to the young people about it."

His representation had the desired effect, and the lovers agreed to assume an appearance of estrangement — an appearance, however, that failed to deceive old Magnus, and he persisted in his refusal to have either part or lot in the projected venture from Holland.

" Mayhap you'll blow us up with the Preventives, out of spite, because Bloxham's girl prefers my boy to yours, Magnus," said old Peterson.

" If so be I had such a thought, it is not very likely I should own it," returned Magnus, drily.

"We shall venture it, howsomever," said

Peterson, " and if ill-luck befall us, we shall know whom to thank."

" If you bespeak ill-luck for' yourselves, don't go to blame me if it chance to happen," returned Magnus.

"That fellow will turn traitor," observed Peterson to his son and Daniel Bloxham.

" I shall get exchequered then," said Daniel ; " for he knows all the vaults and hiding places on the farm as well as I do. Something ought to be done to stop his tongue."

" You see, fair means have no effect on him," said Peterson ; " yet I were loth to do anything very particular — you understand; for we have been true brothers and trusty friends these fiveand- thirty years that we have roved the salt seas and scoured the land together.

' When a moonlight night "Was our delight,

In the season of the year.' "

" What signifies that," rejoined Bloxham, " if he means to betray us all to the sharks ? Three thousand tubs of Schiedam, five hundred of Cogniac, fifty bags of gunpowder tea, eighty of bohea, and twenty of shag tobacco, fifteen of pigtail, are in my big vault under the west sheep-walk. A pretty haul that would be for the revenue sharks."

" Oh, never fear the vault ; we still owe him a fifth on that stock, which can't be paid till we touch the gold," said Peterson.

" True," returned Bloxham ; " but if anything happened to him in the meantime, that would all be profit, and our secret safe."

" No such thing," said young Harold ; " his son knows the ins and outs of the concern as well as old Magnus, and he is expected home in a day or two, as I hear. Of course, as he wears the king's livery, he will be hand and glove with the Preventive lieutenant."

" Then," said Bloxham, " we have got into a pretty considerable scrape, as the Yankees say; and the only way to get out of it, will be to let young Magnus marry my girl."

" That is only shifting the match to another train," replied Harold, " for I will blow you up myself to the Preventives if you break faith with me about Margaret."

"Dare to utter another word of that kind, and I shoot you where you stand," cried his father, grasping one of the pistols he always carried in his breast pocket.

" I believe it will be the best job you can do for me," said Harold ; " it has been the sorrow of my life that ever I had a father of your fashion."

" Only hear the ungrateful villain, Bloxham^ when I was at such an expense in trying to make a gentleman of him, and he crossed all my plans then, and now nothing must serve him but lagging here like a lubber, to be the fire-brand of our concern, by fixing his mind on his cousin's girl, and bringing us into a split with his uncle Magnus, to our utter ruin."

" No, no, that must not be," said Bloxham ; " I see no reason why I should give my girl to Harold, any more than to old Swaine's boy."

" Only that Margaret loves me, and has sworn never to marry another."

" A parcel of boarding-school stuff, learned out of what d'ye call 'em Novelty books, what you bring her from Scrapeton, to help make a fool of her. I tell you, when Magnus comes home in his fine officer's dress, she will soon send you to the right-about, young man."

" Will she though ? " ejaculated Harold.

" Yes will she ; I know the girl a little better than you, and we shall see if it won't be so."

Daniel Bloxham proved himself a correct judge of his daughter's stability of character. The first appearance of young Magnus in his uniform as a marine officer, with the improved air and manners which three years spent in the society of military and naval gentlemen had given him, and above all his title of Lieutenant Swaine, decided her to conform to her father's wish, and become his wife. A general reconciliation then took place between old Magnus, his brother-in-law, and Daniel Bloxham ; and it was agreed 2 that the marriage should be solemnized at the first convenient opportunity.

" But what is to be done with your son Harold in the meantime ? " said Bloxham to old Peterson, " for in my humble opinion he is a perilous fellow to deal with."

"He shall go over to Holland with me to freight the lugger, and in the meantime you can amuse yourselves with the wedding at the "Wood Farm ; only be sure to let us have everything in readiness against our signal for the run," said Peterson.

Bloxham and Magnus Swaine shook hands with him upon it, and Harold was informed — not of Margaret's change of purpose, but of his father's intention of taking him, as the second in command, in the lugger.

Harold looked dark and sullen at the intimation, and said " his business was to help his father-in-law with the run, he thought."

" Your business is to obey my orders, young man," said his father, sternly, " and not to play the mutineer or the skulk."

" There is no law against me if I do," returned Harold; "and to tell you plainly, I have no liking to the expedition."

"Why not, you mutinous dog?" demanded his father, angrily.

" Because there is a king's officer in the secret, and if he does his duty either way he is a traitor."

" If you mean my son," interposed old Magnus Swaine, " I'd have you know there is no traitor's stuff about him ; and if you say there is, he'll make you eat your words."

"You are all in league against me, I see," said Harold ; " and I'll not trust myself on the high seas, in company with such a gang of saltwater thieves."

" You will stay on shore and inform against us, will you ? " cried his father, grasping him fiercely by the arm ; " but know that we will have you with us, dead or alive," added he, lowering his voice, and speaking through his shut teeth ; " and remember, if there be no law for smugglers, they have a law among themselves."

" Don't be a fool, Harold," said Bloxham ; " you know your father is not a man to be trifled with."

" Neither am I," muttered Harold as the group separated in consequence of the approach of some of the town's people.

Chapter IV

HAROLD strode across the fields, rushed 'through the wooded path that led to Bloxham's house ; and, bursting into the little parlour which Margaret called her boudoir, he stood before her, pale with agitation and anger. Margaret, who was arranging some flowers in a china vase, and neither expected nor desired his company, proceeded with her employment, with a provoking air of indifference.

" There was a time," said Harold, " when if I entered this room, I was considered worthy of a welcome, Margaret."

" Do you expect me to place a chair for you, too ? " returned Margaret.

" Civility, to say nothing of affection, required you to invite me to sit down, at any rate."

" So you can, if you like ; but now don't tease me to talk to you till I have finished arranging these flowers."

Harold snatched the flowers from her, dashed them on the ground, and fiercely trampled them under his feet.

Margaret, between terror at his violence, and anger at his rudeness, burst into tears, and sobbed out, " I never was treated so ill in my life, and I won't bear it, I can tell you ; but it is a good thing you have shown your temper in time for me to escape the wretched fate of being wedded to such a ruffian."

" Oh yes ! " exclaimed Harold j with a scornful laugh, "you want to pick a quarrel with me, Margaret, as an excuse for your own falsehood, vain, heartless flirt, that you are ! "

" And you call me names too, you ill-mannered fellow," cried Margaret; "but if your cousin Magnus were here, he would protect me."

" If I had found him here, one or other of us had been a dead man ere this," said Harold.

Margaret turned pale, and trembled at the terrible expression of his eye, as he uttered these words.

" Margaret," continued he, after a pause> " are not you my betrothed wife ?"

She was silent.

" Answer me," he cried. " Did you not tell your own father, in my presence, that you would never marry any other man than me ? "

" What then ? "

" Are you not perjured and forsworn ? "

" I was perjured and forsworn to my true love Magnus, when I suffered myself to be enticed by your nattering words."

" Can you deny that you endeavoured to attract my attention by all manner of coquettish wiles ? "

" Dear me, Harold, how foolishly you talk. I never wanted any of your attentions ; but you were always waylaying me in my walks, and walking home with me from church, till I was entangled into something like an engagement."

" Something like an engagement ! Grant me patience ! why we were all but man and wife three weeks ago ; and then you were all love and tenderness for me, and ready to give up friends, fortune, and every earthly consideration, for my sake. Margaret Bloxham, in the name of all you hold sacred, what has wrought this change in you ? "

" It is no use entering into a discussion on the subject, especially as I don't want to hurt your feelings, Harold, by saying anything that might appear unkind."

" Oh, you are vastly considerate, Miss Bloxham ; but the fact is, you have fallen in love with the glitter of an epaulette, and have made up your mind to jilt me."