Unto the Third and Fourth Generation

Front matter

Unto the Third and Fourth Generation.

By Hall Caine,

Chapter I

I.

At Euston station at 9 p.m. on Sunday, the twenty third of December, 18—, I leaned out of the window of a carriage of the Scotch train, and Sir George Chute shook hands with me from the platform.

“Good by, Robert,” said Sir George. “Mind you come to me the very moment of your return. I shall be anxious to hear everything. Our good friends at Cleator are half strangers to both of us, you know—well, to me, at all events. My kind regards to Miss Clousedale—to Mrs. Hill, too—good by! Good by!”

I waved my hand to him as the train sped away from the platform. He had dined with me that night in my rooms at the Temple, and had come to Euston to see me off. Sir George was five and twenty years my senior, but nevertheless my closest friend. In earlier life he had been the friend of my father. Forty years before they had been fellow clerks in the office of a country attorney. Their courses then fell apart. Sir George Chute had become the most prosperous solicitor in London, and my father, Sir Robert Harcourt, was an Indian judge. But though separated by half the world, their friendship had been maintained. I myself was born in India, and when at fourteen I was sent to England to begin my education at a public school, it was Sir George who established me at Harrow. In due time he sent me on to Oxford, and afterwards opened up to me my career at the bar. I had been five years a junior, and my success was due in great part to Sir George. He was more than my friend—he was my foster father.

But the debt I owed him included a claim that touched me closer than any material obligations. He had been the means by which I had come to know Lucy Clousedale. Lucy had come up to London from her home in Cumberland to consult him as a solicitor in relation to the mining estate which was her inheritance. She was two and twenty, and both her parents were long dead. Her only companion throughout life had been an old nurse, who was a maiden lady, but was always addressed as Mrs. Hill. The friendlessness of the orphan girl had touched Sir George, and he had invited her to his house in Cheyne Walk. It was there that I had met her. To meet her was to admire her, for surely no lovelier woman ever lived. Her health, her sweetness, her simplicity, her naturalness, her freshness, had made a deep impression. This was early in May, and during the next month or two she had been invited everywhere. Lucy spoke with a slight northern accent, and sang old English songs. Everything was new to her, and everything was wonderful. It will not wrong the truth to say that in that home of the neurotic woman she had been the success of the hour.

I was a happy man, for our acquaintance had ripened into friendship, and our friendship into love. Before she left London at the end of June, Lucy had promised to be my wife. We were not to be married until the following spring, but I was to visit her at home at Christmas. Her last evening in London we spent together at Sir George Chute's. It was a sweet and happy time. The soft glow of a London sunset lay along the sleepy Thames as we sat in the balcony and looked towards the old Battersea Bridge. Before the lamps were lit she sang “Sally in our Alley." I had one pang only—the thought of our six months' separation.

But that was over at length. The long tale of my duties at the courts was at an end for the present. Christmas was near, and I was in the train for Cumberland. I lay back in my seat, and beguiled the first hour of my journey with a packet of old letters from my breast pocket. Most of them were from Lucy—the daintiest little things in the neatest penmanship. I noticed for the second time that in this regard two of the

letters were unlike the rest. The handwriting was irregular, and the sentences were jerky and inconsequent. Sir George had chanced to see one of the two as it lay on the table at my chambers. “Not so well, eh?” said Sir George. He fancied himself as an expert in that direction. And he was right. Temporary indisposition had been the explanation. Lucy herself had said so.

The only letters of my old packet that were not Lucy's were from my father. I had written to tell him of my forthcoming marriage, and he had answered with as much cordiality as I had a right to expect. He trusted that my determination was wise, that my action was not premature, that I saw my course clear before me. The only significant passage was in the nature of a warning: “Above all, my dear boy, let me hope and trust that the woman who is to be your wife and my daughter comes of a good and healthy stock. Living in this country, where natural selection in marriage is hampered by consideration of caste, I see more plainly than ever how terrible are the consequences of heredity, not only in actual physical taint, but also in the countless forms of bad habits that are equivalent to disease.”

I left the Scotch mail at Penrith at three in the morning, but Lucy's home was in the iron district of Cleator Moor, and I had to change at a second junction before reaching the last stage of my journey. This junction was in the heart of the Cumberland hills. Day had not yet dawned when I got there; thick snow lay on the ground, the morning was cold, and I had half an hour to wait for the local train. With the help of a porter I found my way into the waiting room of the little wooden station house. A brisk fire was burning there, and a group of miners were sitting on the benches about it, smoking their clay pipes, with their elbows on their knees, and their lamps hanging from their wrists. They made room for me at the fire, but went on with their talk without regard to my presence. I asked if they were going by the train to Cleator. They answered “Yes,” and that they worked at the Clousedale mines, in the pit known as "Owd Boney." I learned that “Owd Boney.” meant “old bone of contention,” and that the popular nickname had reference to the pit's history. Also I gathered that the men lived in the neighboring town of Cockermouth, and were that morning starting afresh on their fortnightly “shift.”

“But Christmas Eve?” I said. “Surely you take a holiday at Christmas?”

They laughed and answered that all seasons were alike to the miner.

“Sunday or Monday, it's all t' same,” said one. “Th' engine at t' pit head doesna stop for t' church service.”

“And t' boiler at t' bottom is as thirsty as owd Geordie Clous'al hisself,” said another, and then they laughed, and puffed and spat in a chuckling chorus.

The train steamed up and whistled; I got into the same carriage with the miners, and we ran into the mining country. Over the snow covered dales the day was now dawning. The mountains were falling behind us, and we were coming on to a broad stretch of moorland. I could see ahead, in the increasing gray light, the wooden gear of many pit shafts, and the smoke and flame from the squat chimneys of the smelting houses. The snow was thinner at every mile, and the bare ground was red and black, as if with cinders and the refuse of iron ore.

“You spoke of old George Clousedale,” I said. “What is he?”

“A dead man,” said one of the miners.

“What was he?”

“The owner of 'Owd Boney,' and half the pits of Cleator.”

“Any relative of Miss Clousedale of Clousedale Hall?” I asked.

“Lucy?” said several voices together.

“Well, yes, Lucy, if you like.”

“Thirsty owd Geordie Clous'al was Lucy's grandfadder.”

I was curious, but I was also vexed. “Men,” I said, “it's only right to tell you at once that Miss Clousedale is a friend of mine, and that I'm now on my way to visit her.”

They understood me instantly, and made amends with manly simplicity. “No disrespect to Miss Lucy, sure. Nobbut good will to the young lady, sir. We're eating her bread, and we've nowt agen her.”

Nothing further was said until we came within a mile of the village, which I had seen lying on the moor top under a canopy of smoke. Then one of the miners leaned over to the carriage window, and pointed to a house which we were rapidly passing.

“Yon's Clous’al Hall, sir,” he said.

I jumped up and looked out. The house was a large square mansion of modern date and of no particular character, standing deep in its own grounds, behind thick clumps of trees, which were all leafless. The sun had broken out, and a watery gleam lay along the slate roof and part of the grass of the lawn. Smoke was coming from the chimneys, and just at the moment somebody was raising the white blind of one of the windows. Such was the home of Lucy. As the train passed, I noticed that not far from the gate of Clousedale Hall there was a small group of cottages, with a little public house at their nearest corner. The train ran so close that I could read the sign. It was the “Clousedale Arms.”

We drew up at the station, and I looked around to see if there was any one to meet me. It was still as early as half past eight, and the morning was chill, but spite of reason I had half cherished the hope that Lucy herself would have driven down. At least I thought Mrs. Hill might be there. I saw neither. There was no carriage, no trap, no recognizable servant of any kind. When the miners had trooped away the platform would have been empty but for myself and the servants of the railway. I hailed the porter.

“Anybody here who can carry my bag to Clousedale Hall?” I asked.

“Then mebbe you're the gentleman that's expected,” he said, and diving into his jacket pocket, he produced a letter.

It was addressed “Robert Harcourt, Esq.,” and was not in Lucy's handwriting. The letter was from Mrs. Hill, and was dated 9 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 23.

Dear Sir:

I am sorry to tell you that Lucy has suddenly become ill, and that the doctor thinks it necessary that she should have absolute quiet and rest during the next few days. There is no danger of any kind, and therefore I trust you will not feel anxiety, still less alarm. But, under the circumstances, I am reluctantly compelled to ask you not to come to Clousedale Hall at present. I have taken the liberty of engaging rooms for you at the Wheatsheaf in the village, where I trust you will be comfortable until such time as I can properly and safely give my dear one the great happiness of asking you to remove your quarters to this house. With every apology, disappointment, and regret, I am, dear Mr. Harcourt,

“Take my bag to the Wheatsheaf, porter,” I said.

He took it up and trudged off, and I followed him. I was pained, dazed, and bewildered.

Chapter II

II.

Breakfast was ready for me at the inn, but I could not touch it until I had written to Lucy. I told her with what concern I heard of her illness, how I hoped for her speedy recovery, how grievous was my disappointment at not seeing her immediately on my arrival in her country, with much beside of too intimate a nature to be repeated here. After this letter had been despatched by hand, I sat down to breakfast, and the landlady herself waited upon me as I ate. She was a worthy Cumberland woman in middle life, very staid and serious, but somewhat more talkative than the generality of her race. Her name was Tyson; her husband was something of a sportsman; they were living on the Clousedale property.

Mrs. Tyson had much to say about Lucy, whom she had known since earliest childhood, of her goodness to the poor, her personal sweetness to everybody, her generosity (exhibited in many ways), and generally of the qualities of mind and heart which had endeared her beyond all others to the people of the district wherein she had been born and reared. It did not surprise me that, as seen in the eyes of those who had known her longest and most intimately, my darling proved to be as good as she was beautiful. I gathered that she was interested in various local institutions for the social welfare of the people—in workmen's clubs, an evening ragged school, and a branch of the Rechabite order, which she had helped to establish. It appeared that, at her own cost—the parish church lying two miles away in the dale—she had even gone so far as to build and endow a little chapel of ease for the use of the community that had grown up on the moor top, around the pits which her family had worked for generations. The landlady was warm in her relation of these good offices; and when I inquired about Lucy's health, if it had ever hitherto given cause for anxiety, she answered no, that only twice before, as far back as they could remember, had she been at all unwell, and both attacks had been within the past six months.

“Nothing serious, surely?” I said.

“Nay, not that I know of,” said the landlady. “But the poor young lady seemed that glad to be better that she nivver knew how to be good enough to anybody the moment she was gotten round. And a cruel pity it was to see her white face going from house to house with her basket and her purse. It was then that she got her new Scotch parson to start the Rechabites. The sweet little body went over the moor herself, persuading the miners to take the pledge—and a good thing for some of them, too, for all it's the wife of a publican that says so.”

My night long journey had wearied me,

and I went to bed and slept soundly. Some time late in the afternoon I awoke, and then it occurred to me that it might, perhaps, set at rest the anxiety which I could not help but feel if I were to go to see Lucy's doctor. On this errand, after I had taken some dinner, I set out at the direction of the landlady. The doctor was not at home. He was at the public dispensary in the village. I learned that this dispensary was another of Lucy's charities. The outer room was filled with women and children waiting their turn to enter the room within. In the moment I stood among them while my card was taken to the doctor, I heard my dear one's name coupled with praises and blessings.

“It'll be made up to her.” said one woman.

“The Lord will pay her back,” said another.

The doctor's name was Godwin. At first sight it occurred to me that he hardly justified it. I found him a hard faced man, with a square head and gray, steely eyes. He had been educated in Germany, and I learned afterward that he took pride in being abreast of all modern developments of his science. This, and his resolute personal character, had given him a certain superiority over old fashioned country practitioners, though he was understood to be an atheist, and certainly never attended church.

I explained that I was a friend of Miss Clousedale's, and he seemed to have been aware of our relations. I inquired if her illness was at all serious, and he answered me less promptly than I had expected.

“No, not serious—not at present,” he said.

As he volunteered no further explanation, I made bold to ask if Lucy's trouble was some girlish ailment. After a moment he answered yes, and was silent again.

“Some nervous complaint, no doubt?” I said, whereupon he said “Yes” once more, repeated my words mechanically, and then looked up quickly and asked if I was making any stay in the district.

I was nettled by his reserve, and told him that Lucy was to be my wife, that I had come expressly and by old appointment from London to visit her; that, by the wish of her nurse, and, as I understood, by his own wish also, I was now staying at the inn in the village; but that I was looking forward to changing my quarters to Clousedale Hall as soon as he could assure me that my presence there would be no disadvantage to his patient.

“It will be some days still,” he said.

I thought the man was treating me with scant courtesy, and I made no disguise of my annoyance. On leaving, I went the length of hinting that perhaps I should think it necessary to telegraph for a specialist. My threat had no effect. The man saw me to the door with frigid politeness, and all but the silence of a sphinx.

Going back by the main street of the village, I passed in the gathering darkness of the winter evening a little red brick Gothic church, standing in the midst of a closely populated district of very poor cottages. It was the chapel of ease that had been built and endowed by Lucy. I recognized it by its foundation stone, which bore a gilt lettered inscription in my dear one's honor. There were lights burning, the door was open, and I glanced within. Some ladies were decorating the windows, and the timbers of the open roof, from ladders held by two or three miners.

When I got back to the Wheatsheaf, I asked if there was any message from Clousedale Hall. There was no letter, but a gentleman was waiting to see me. It was the clergyman. His name was McPherson, and he was a middle aged Scotchman of severe aspect. He had come to tell me that my letter had been received, but that Miss Clousedale was not well enough to reply to it. Then, on his own account, he proceeded to advise the postponement of my intended visit.

“Is her illness so serious?” I asked.

“I fear it is,” he answered.

“What is her illness?”

He hesitated a moment, and then said,

“I cannot rightly say.”

“Has she ever had it before?”

“Twice before.”

“And she recovered on both occasions?”

“By the grace of God, yes—for the time, at all events."

My anger was rising. This man, like the doctor, was keeping me at arm's length.

“And you advise me," I said, “to go back to London?”

“For the present,” he replied.

“Without seeing her?”

“To see her would be impossible.”

“Is it her own wish?"

He hesitated again, then answered falteringly, “Yes—I think so—that was my inference.”

My patience was well nigh exhausted before I saw the man out of the house. Another man was then coming in at the door—a big, lusty, deep chested fellow, with a game bag over his shoulder and a gun under his arm. It was Tyson, the landlord. He saluted me as we passed in the hall. There was something open and fearless in the air of the man that appealed to me at the moment, and, having parted from my parson, I followed my landlord into his little red parlor at the back of the bar. He gave me a cheery welcome, and began to joke about my visitor, called him “Mr. Sky Pilot,” and said it was the first time his reverence had deigned to cross the threshold of the Wheatsheaf. I learned that Mr. McPherson was a fanatical teetotaler, and that this was understood to be the qualification that had led to his appointment by the patroness of his living.

“No wonder, nowther,” said Tyson, “seeing the lesson she's been getting all the days of her life, poor lady.”

“What lesson?” I asked.

“Nay, hast a nivver heard tell of owd Geordie Clous'al?”

I remembered the talk of the miners in the train. “Thirsty owd Geordie, as they called him?” I said.

“The verra same man,” said my landlord. “Miss Lucy's for breaking the curse, I reckon.”

“What curse?” I asked.

“Then you're not knowing owt of the Clous'al history, sir?”

I had to confess that though Miss Clousedale was my friend, my intimate friend, I knew nothing about her family. Mrs. Tyson was laying her husband's tea. “Psha, John,” she said, “don't bother thy head with such owd wife's stories.”

I drew my chair to the fire. “A story of a curse!” I said. “I must hear it at all costs.”

Tyson laughed. “Thoo must take it as it comes, then,” he said, and while he munched his great mouthfuls, he told his tale.

Old George Clousedale, the grandfather of Lucy, and the founder of the fortunes of the Clousedale family, was a hard and cruel master. It was told of him that if he saw a poor widow picking cinders from the refuse of the smelting house to warm her old bones on a wintry day, he would drive her away with threats and oaths. One Sunday morning two of his miners were walking home from the church in the valley, when, crossing the beck, they kicked up a red stone. It was good, solid iron ore. This was a find that promised great results. The men agreed to say nothing of their discovery until such time as they could take out royalties and begin mining on their own account.

One of the two was faithful to his bond; the other broke it secretly. While the first was borrowing money towards his visit to the lord of the manor, the second went to the house of his master, told all, and accepted a bribe of twenty pounds. Within a week George Clousedale had bought up the royalties of another mine, and was sinking another shaft.

The miner who had been betrayed was mad with rage. He went in search of his faithless partner, and thrashed him within an inch of his life. The man was arrested, and George Clousedale was the magistrate by whom he was tried. He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment.

The poor fellow was young, and had been the only support of his mother. When he was sent to Carlisle the old woman went up to the house of George Clousedale, and asked for the master. He came out to her in the hall, and she railed at him as a traitor and a tyrant. Losing himself at her insults, he snatched a riding whip from the wall, struck her on the head, and told her to be off to hell, and never dare to show her face in his house again. The woman drew herself up to him and cried, “You brutal ruffian, it's yourself that will go to hell, but before you go you will have the fire of hell in your body, and feel a thirst that can never be quenched! You will drink and drink till you die, and your children will drink, and your children's children will drink, and your great grandchildren, forever and ever!”

“But,” I said, “you don't mean to tell me the curse came true?”

“Have it as you like, sir,” said Tyson, “but in less nor six weeks and Geordie Clous'al was tak'n with a burning heat of his inside, and he drank, and drank, and drank, and in a matter of twelve months he was dead.”

“What children had he?”

“Only a son—young Geordie, as we caw'd him. Young Geordie laughed at the owd tale as they telt of, but at forty he was seized with the same burning thirst, and at fifty he was in a drunkard's grave.”

“And—and Lucy—Miss Clousedale?” I asked.

“She was nobbut a bairn when her fadder died, and they've tak’n time by the forelock, and brought her up teetotal,” the inn keeper said.

I laughed, Tyson laughed, his wife laughed, and we all laughed together. “A good old witch story,” I said. “I wonder who ever makes up these queer, gruesome yarns.”

But the thing possessed me. I came back to it again and again. The pit that had been the first cause of the quarrel was the one known as “Owd Boney.” It brought wealth to the Clousedale family, and was the chief source of Lucy's fortune. Her father died rich, but his last years were years of pain and terror. The unquenchable thirst which tormented him came in periodical attacks which grew more and more frequent, appearing first at intervals of six months, then of three, and then of one. Thus in narrowing circles the burning fever encompassed the man like a deadly serpent, and closed in and throttled him at the end.

My landlord's story might have interested me at any time, but at that moment it seemed to have a horrible fascination. Under other circumstances I might have speculated on the power of imagination to induce the fate it dreads; but the creeping mystery of Lucy's illness made it difficult to think dispassionately. I hardly dared to formulate the fears that were floating in my soul.

Eventually I made up my mind to “sleep on it,” and so went off to bed. Some hours later I awoke from a fitful and troubled sleep, and heard the singing of hymns in the street outside. I had forgotten that it was Christmas Eve.

Chapter III

III.

The only decision the morning brought me was that I should write to Mrs. Hill asking permission to call. This I did, with many expressions of solicitude, and no concealment of the disquietude caused by the clergyman's summary message. I proposed to go up to Clousedale Hall in the course of the afternoon, but asked for an answer in the mean time encouraging me to do so.

It was Christmas morning, and the bells were ringing for service. I went to church. The pew under the pulpit was empty—it was Lucy's pew. They had decorated it with ivy and holly and some sprigs of flowering gorse. There was a large congregation, chiefly of miners and their children. The minister was the Rev. Mr. McPherson, my visitor of the night before. Between the second lesson and the sermon he asked for the prayers of all present for their dear friend, the donor and patroness of their church, who at that hour of rejoicing lay sick at home. Many heads were bowed instantly—there could be no question of the response.

As I was coming out at the close, somebody touched me on the arm. It was an elderly man of a cheerful face, and with small, twinkling eyes behind large spectacles. He told me his name was Youdale, and he was the manager of the Clousedale mines. There was to be the usual Christmas dinner for poor children given by Miss Clousedale at the church schools—would I care to be present? We went along together. The school house was thronged with the little mites, all very ragged, very dirty, very odorous, very noisy, but very happy in spite of their condition. Grace was sung, and then numbers of steaming “hot pots” were brought in. The youngsters were stretching themselves with repletion before the dishes had been emptied. Thanks were offered, and then my friend of the spectacles got up on two forms to deliver an address. He began by regretting the absence of their beloved benefactor, who out of the kindness of her heart had provided this Christmas meal for the children, but by reason of illness could not partake of the good things herself. Let them pray that God would be gracious to her and bring her safely out of the valley of the shadow to be a guide and a blessing to all who loved and revered her. A young schoolmistress sat down at a harmonium, and then the little folks shambled up and sang “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.” It was more than I could bear, and I stole out unobserved.

That evening I had a terrible shock. All the afternoon I had waited in pain for the reply to my letter addressed to the nurse. It did not come, but towards nightfall there came a letter from Lucy herself. It was penned in the same irregular hand which had struck me so painfully in the two letters received in London. It was written in the same jerky and inconsequent sentences. I cannot attempt to transcribe it. Every syllable burned itself into my brain with a finger of fire, but I will not dare to set it down. It begged, it prayed, it supplicated me not to come to the house. It craved my indulgence, my forgiveness, my everlasting forgetfulness of one who was unworthy of my love and devotion. She was ill, very ill, but she was also worse than ill. I must let her escape from our engagement. It had been the joy and the charm of her life, but now it was the terror and torment of her existence. She must break it, I must go back to London, we must never think of each other again. God forgive her and pity her; God be good to me and keep me and preserve me.