Illustrations of taxation

CONTENTS.

Chapter I.

A PHENOMENON.

The moral sense of some people is shocked by the sentiment that it is pleasant to stand in safety on the shore to watch the effects of a storm at sea; but perhaps none were ever found to dispute the pleasantness of standing idle on the heights above a shore to watch the proceedings of busy people at sea. There are parts of the coast of Jersey where this luxury may be enjoyed in absolute perfection; where not only the features of nature are full of beauty, but where the spectator is unmolested by the presence of any less happy than himself, and where the industry which he witnesses is sure of its due reward.

Such a station is the height of Anne Ville, which overlooks the thriving village of Gorey in Jersey. It is luxury to sit on the remains of the Druidical temple there, and think of nothing less animating than the congregation of objects near; the bay of St. Catherine behind, where green lanes lead from the very brink of the tide, each to its own snug farm-house and blossoming orchard on the hill-side, and the solitary tower of Archirondel, surrounded on its rocky station by the blue waters of the bay: close at hand, Geoffry’s rock, from which, instead of criminals being cast into the sea, as it is said they once were, white sea-birds take their flight, scared by the laughter of children near their haunts: the noble castle of Mont Orgueil overhanging the waters, and casting upon them the shadow of its ruined battlements, while its mantle of ivy waves in the evening breeze:—the fishing village below, sending out and receiving back the oyster boats which throng about the pier in the season;—the villages on the distant coast of France, when the western sun lights them up into brilliant contrast with the intervening expanse of dark blue; and far beyond these, on the extreme horizon, the dim cathedral of Coutances. To spend a May evening in the centre of this scene is a luxury to a stranger whose heart is not, like that of a native, in one of the farmhouses in the interior, or among the oysters on the beach below. A stranger is pretty secure, however, of having this Druidical seat to himself on a May evening. So many repairs are wanted for the boats, so much sail-cloth and cordage is called for, and so large a portion of supplies is required for the little market of Gorey, towards the close of the oyster season, that the men are more likely to be guiding their creaking carts through the bowery lanes, and the maidens carrying down the hills the produce of their far-famed cows, than to be looking abroad from the heights of Anne Ville.

On such an evening, however, a few seasons ago, some one might be seen keeping a look-out from the poquelaye, (as the Jersey people call a Druidical remain like that at Anne Ville,) whom no one could doubt to be a native. He was a young man of about twenty, whose sallow face bore testimony to his diet being that of a Jersey farmhouse, while his knitted garments pointed him out as the son of one of the thrifty dames of the island who look suspiciously on all manufactures which threaten to supersede the work of their own hands. Aaron le Brocq looked indolent enough as he leaned with his elbows upon the great stone, and his dull eye wandered over the ocean, never once lighting up when a sail caught the yellow ray which slanted from the west: but Aaron came hither on business. Never was cordage so much wanted as now; and Aaron’s stock of hemp was exhausted; and day by day he came hither to watch for the arrival of some one of the friendly vessels which must be on the way to supply his need. There were barks innumerable within sight; but even Aaron’s dull eye could perceive, almost at a glance, that none of those near were what he wanted. Besides the native-built boats, there were many English vessels sailing hither and thither. Several which had been accustomed to navigate the broad, smooth Medway, were now tossing and turning in the currents and eddies caused by the ridges of low rocks which nearly surround the island, and have proved its surest defence during the wars of the two countries between whose grasp it seems to lie. French homeward-bound vessels were gliding between the shores; and a few of other countries, bringing supplies as much needed as hemp, were crossing Grouville Bay on their way to St. Heliers. Aaron would go to St. Heliers too, in the morning, if he saw no vessel before dark which might be supposed to come from the Baltic. He would go and learn what other people thought of this scarcity of hemp.

It is to be supposed that Aaron fell into a reverie about this projected trip to the port, and that he was thinking more of the market-place or custom-house of St. Heliers than of anything within ken on sea or land; for he started as if at the touch of the conjuring rod that he was taught to fear in his childhood, when his friend, Charles Malet, laid one hand on his shoulder, while with the other he pointed southwest, saying,

“There will be no time for growing drowsy at the poquelaye after sunset to-morrow, if yonder vessel be from Riga, as they say she is. She will be in port as soon as we can get there, and perhaps we may find her cargo all gone in the scramble.”

Aaron was on his feet in a moment, wondering how his thoughts could have wandered away so far from the Baltic as to let a sail from that quarter cross the wide bay, and almost disappear behind La Roque Point unperceived by him. But there were many things besides hemp which this ship might be bringing to Jersey; tallow for the candles, or oil for the soap which some of the islanders were enabled to manufacture for a far larger market than their own; or corn for home consumption, while they sent their own to England. This may seem to some an ingenious project, designed to benefit the shipping interest. To permit ships from Russia to sail by the coasts of England, and land their corn in Jersey and Guernsey, from whence an equal supply has at last to be brought to England, seems like a benevolent scheme to give employment to some who would otherwise be paupers. It looks like an approach towards the fulfilment of the aspirations of the ship-owner, that every merchant-vessel should be permitted to sail three times round the island of Great Britain before landing its cargo. But, for whomsoever the plan was first devised,—whether for the ship or land owners of Britain,—its effect is to enrich the inhabitants of Jersey and Guernsey at the expense of the bread-eaters of England. These islands are exempt from the bread-tax, as from all the bad taxes of Great Britain, except tithes. Their inhabitants, being allowed to buy wheat, without restriction, wherever they please, can purchase it at 45s. per quarter, while that which their fields produce is bought by the English labourer at some price between 60s. and 70s. The benefit which accrues to the Jerseyman is the difference between the price he pays, and that which he receives when the amount of duty is deducted;—a benefit marked enough to induce him to call for supplies from a distant shore, and to retain the merchants of his own port in his service. No wonder that any foreign vessel which passed within sight of the heights above Gorey might be supposed to be bringing corn to the port of St. Heliers. No wonder that Aaron was bewildered in a manner which would have stamped him a half-idiot in England, when a perfectly new incident presently occurred.

As soon as the sea became dusky in the twilight, the two friends turned their backs upon it, in order to pursue their way to the dwelling of Aaron’s father,—a small farmhouse in the valley on the other side the first ridge of hills which stretched north and south. They had not proceeded far over the down when they were accosted by a person whose appearance excited their wonder, while his business surprised them yet more. Scarcely half-dressed, and unattended, though he was blind, he was a mystery to Aaron.

“What sort of charity do you wish me to show you?” he asked, in answer to the beggar’s petition.

“What you please, sir,” replied the beggar: “but I have not had a morsel to-day, and I have no place to lay my head in to-night.”

“How happens that? I’m afraid you have displeased Mr. De la Mare?”

“Mr. who, please, sir?”

“Mr. De la Mare, the hospital governor. You don’t know who he is? How came you here, then?”

Malet had seen more of the world than Aaron. He suggested that the beggar might have come over in some of the oyster vessels from Kent,—perhaps even from London; and that he might never have set foot in St. Heliers.

Would he get into the hospital among the blind? Aaron would take him to St. Heliers the next morning, and try to procure him admission. Stephen did not exactly wish this. He could find his way about, and did not like being shut up. If the gentleman would only bestow a little charity, that was all he asked;—by charity, he meant a little money for present use.

“But what will you do when it is gone?” asked Aaron. “You cannot work, I suppose, without the use of your sight.”

Stephen (for so the beggar called himself) had not been able to do a stroke of work these ten years. He trusted to the charitable and humane to take care of him.

“But you will not take their charity. You refuse the hospital! I don’t see what you would have.”

“He would live by begging, I dare say,” observed Malet, by way of elucidation.

“What! by asking every day for bread! I never heard of such a thing.”

Charles Malet had once been told that this was a very common thing in England. Besides the number of poor who were admitted into charitable houses, like those at St. Heliers, there were many who did not know, any morning of the year, where they should rest at night. Aaron thought this a miserable lot; but Stephen the beggar seemed wonderfully cheerful under it. He did not look ashamed, as a native would have done, of his being only half-clothed;—perhaps the not seeing his tatters had something to do with this. He had certainly been humming a tune, as he ambled along, when the young men were approaching him; and even now, though he spoke of hunger, he seemed ready to break out into singing or joking in the intervals of the piteous looks he assumed. Aaron, as a matter of course, took him home, but felt rather uncomfortable in doing so. He was afraid that his father might be displeased if it should turn out that the beggar was playing off a hoax; and that his mother might be alarmed if Stephen should prove a halfwit, or to be under a spell; and Aaron could scarcely doubt the one or the other to be the case. He took Stephen by the hand, however, and led him on; not failing to remark how marvellously his charge happened to escape hurting his ill-shod feet against the large sharp stones which lay in the road.

An opportunity occurred of introducing the stranger to a part of the family before reaching the farmhouse; an opportunity which Malet was the first to discern. Jersey is a land of trotting brooks. As every dwelling has hills somewhere near it, every dwelling has a stream within reach. There was one at the bottom of Le Brocq’s orchard; and there were the women of the family assembled this evening, when the young men crossed the ridge and descended into the valley—assembled on an occasion of great importance. It was the first day of washing week; and as washing week came but twice a year, it was sure to be a busy time. The profusion of snow-white caps spread on the grass formed the chief light in the landscape, for the grey stone farmhouse, roofed with dark thatch, nestled dimly among the trees; so that even if all had not been alike mantled with ivy, the dwelling would scarcely have been discernible. The brook was more heard than seen, and the high ferns on the opposite side presented the appearance of a smooth green carpet. But few blossoms remained in the orchard to distinguish it from the oak copse which sheltered it towards the east. Little could be distinctly seen but the heaps of linen on the bank, and the moving figures beside it. They were the two daughters of Le Brocq, and a damsel, the servant at the farmhouse. They were finishing their work for the night; and when Malet ran down to them with a lover’s speed, he found Louise rising from her knees beside the little pool which had been her station all day, and declaring that she could see no longer, and that it was time to go home to supper. Anna was meanwhile spreading more linen on the ferns, where it might be bleached by the morning sun; and Victorine, the maid, put the materials of their next day’s work in an appointed place, among the roots of an old oak. The brook, meanwhile, rippled and splashed, carrying down the defilements of soap which had offended it all day, and washing out the pools in which the work had been performed. Stephen made bold to ask his conductor what all this was about, and to declare what shameful waste it would be thought in England to wash linen in a running stream, where as much soap would be lost as would buy much of the linen. Stephen was right; but this was a consideration which the Jersey people had little occasion to regard. Their soap was not taxed either in its materials or its manufacture; and few articles can be obtained with more ease or less cost than soap, when this is the case. Any person in Jersey was at liberty to buy oil or tallow direct from the Baltic ships in the ports, without asking the leave of any custom-house officer. If he chose to buy the cheap potash furnished by the interminable Russian forests, he had no duty to pay. If he found sea-weed enough on the nearest shore to supply this as well as other purposes, he was subjected to no other interference than the injunction to cut it at the right season. He might make his soap when and where, and in whatever quantities he pleased; and the cost of it was next to nothing. No one there was obliged to sigh either at his children’s dirt, or at the cost of keeping them clean. The amount of soap used was little more thought of than that of the water which ran past his own door.

Stephen seemed much disposed to join the group beside the brook,—another proof to Aaron that he was not aware of the state of his costume. He was not allowed to descend, as he wished; but must submit to be led across a back field, and through the orchard, that he might reach the house, and be clothed before he was presented to the family. Aaron could not think of showing him in a state of such degradation as that in which he had found him.

“Who is this?” inquired Le Brocq, who was drawing cider from the cask which was niched near the door. “How can De la Mare let any one come to such a pass?” Then, as Stephen came within hearing, the farmer told him he should be welcome to supper and shelter for the night, and that he might depend on being forwarded to St. Heliers the next morning. In an aside, he desired his wife to fetch an old garment of his, wherewith to clothe Stephen, instead of using any of Aaron’s good clothes for the purpose.

Mrs. Le Brocq wanted to know when the girls were coming. It was too dark for them to see what they were about; and the soup was ready; and she was sure Louise would be over-tired if she staid at her work so long. She was comforted with the news that they would presently come in, and that Malet was with Louise, to take care of her.

By the time that Stephen was dressed, and seated somewhat nearer than he liked to the great fire of vraic (a sea-weed which is used, first for fuel and then for manure, in Jersey), the young washerwomen appeared. Mrs. Le Brocq and Anna took charge of the supper table, while Louise, who was, or was fancied to be, rather delicate, was tended by her lover, and Victorine was at every one’s call, besides having to lay down a bed for Stephen, as the hour of rest approached.

Stephen seemed less disposed for mirth at the supper table than when he was first met in his destitute condition. Hungry as he was, he could not eat the soup, made of lard and cabbage, which the rest of the party seemed to relish as if it had been made of gravy meat, and peas. After many attempts, he gave it up; and was so nauseated that he had little relish left for the bread, cheese, and cider with which Mrs. Le Brocq compassionately supplied him. He was sensible of the incessant motion of knitting needles all around him, in every interval of eating. All the four women were indeed knitting when doing nothing else; and Stephen felt rather awkward in the midst of so much industry. Nobody was very merry; there seemed to be some cause of discontent among the party, though Aaron showed that he was well pleased at the prospect of obtaining on the morrow the materials which would enable him to supply his customers with ropes.

“I am glad some luck has befallen you,” observed the mother, “since Charles is never to have any. I wonder whether there be another lad in the island so shiftless as he; to have courted my Louise, and not have a home to take her to.”

Le Brocq shook his head and muttered; Charles looked abashed, and Anna said, hesitatingly, and only loud enough for her sister and Charles to hear, that such ill-fortune could not, she trusted, last long. Such a thing had never happened before, she believed, as a sober man being disappointed of a settlement three times over. She hoped it would please God that the hand of the diligent should make riches, and that Charles would not lose heart.

Charles had lost heart many times lately; and now he left his supper unfinished, and sat pondering the charms of the various cottages of which he had missed the acquisition. He was not in poverty, being employed with Aaron in ropemaking, but the parents of Louise would not let him have her till he could take her to a home as comfortable as that which she must leave. He began sometimes to fear that he should be sent about his business, as being no proper match for Louise. Stephen made such advances of sympathy as the little conversation enabled him to do. He took up his glass of cider, and turning to Malet, begged to drink to the young man “finding something to set his hand to,” and to his “carrying the day with his lass, at any rate,” and he should be pleased to be at the wedding.

Malet thanked him kindly; and Stephen went on to suggest that it was a thousand pities to lose heart and let the time go by. Charles should do as people in England did, marry when the young lady was in the mind, and see what would come of trusting.

“And what comes of it in England?” inquired Malet, lending an attentive ear.

Stephen made rather a lame story of the happy consequences of this sort of trust, except on the point that he was quite sure of,—that there was always the parish to depend on at last. He helped out his explanation with a song about love and banishing care, which Malet would have ventured to praise very highly, but that Mrs. Le Brocq began to look angry. She muttered something about seeing Charles, some day or other, borrowing another man’s coat and craving another man’s supper, and then singing songs about not caring.

Charles showed by a gesture that there was the main difference between Stephen and himself, that the one was blind and the other not. Le Brocq was offended by his wife’s gross breach of hospitality; Louise was crying; and all went wrong. Stephen took the liberty of beginning another song by which he hoped to make every body laugh and grow good-humoured; but before it had had time to operate, he was obliged to break off by the entrance of some person whose horse he had heard stop before the door.

“If you are come to supper, Mr. Janvrin,” observed Le Brocq, “I am afraid you will not enjoy yourself as we could wish. If you had come half-an-hour earlier——”

“I am come on business; and when I tell you that I was at St. John’s this morning, and am now come from St. Martin’s, you will guess what I am here for.”

“Well; out with it! What is in hand now?”

“Why, you know very well. You heard of the rate laid upon you and your neighbours, for the help of the government in the new improvements.”

“But I offered horse and cart and man for a week. That is enough for my share, surely.”

“For the new road. Yes. But the States call for money, too, as you must be aware: and here is what you must pay,” showing his list.

Le Brocq said something about the many calls on people for money in these days,—what with daughters marrying, and governments making new roads. Nevertheless, he sent Aaron for his money-bag, and counted out the sum, while the tax-gatherer refreshed himself with the remains of the supper. When Stephen heard the clink of the coin, he observed that the people in his country would never submit to pay taxes in this manner. It would be as much as the tax-gatherer’s life would be worth to ride about the country, taking money out of people’s pockets like a footpad. Janvrin wondered what the gentleman could mean; and Aaron inquired whether the English paid no taxes.

“Pay taxes! to be sure they do. How should such a fine country get on without taxes? But, bless your soul, paying taxes there is the easiest thing in the world. There’s no trouble whatever in it. The government takes all the trouble, and the people don’t so much as know when they are paying taxes.”

The family all thought this must be charming; and Aaron whispered to Malet that, after all, it might be better for him to go to England: for taxes were a consideration to a man who was going to marry. But Malet wished to hear a little more first. How was it that taxation was such an easy matter in England?

“O, I only know I never paid a tax in my life. I have not paid a tax these ten years. Why, yes: some people pay them; but it is only by giving a trifle more,—nothing worth speaking of,—for things that they buy.”

“Like our duty on spirits,” observed the collector, nodding to Malet, who was all ear.

“That is a very good plan,” observed Le Brocq. “I always liked that plan of laying a tax on spirits.”

“Well you may,” observed the collector, laughing: “for I believe you have never had a gallon of spirits in your house since its roof was on.”

“O, it’s a wise tax,” replied the farmer. “So the government in England is kept up by a tax on spirits.”

“They must drink a deal of spirits,” said Malet, “or there must be other dues;—harbour fees, like ours, or the like.”

Stephen did not deny that the spirit-tax was not the only one: but whatever the others might be, it was only laying a farthing or two here and there which nobody minded paying; and which, indeed, none knew that they paid. What were the taxed articles? Malet inquired.—O, there were several. Lace and silk stockings, he had heard: and a gentleman in Kent was saying that hops paid some sort of charge. Malet and Louise looked at each other. This would suit them exactly. They had never seen silk stockings or lace, except in the shop-windows at St. Heliers; and they drank cider.—Well: anything else? Any common articles? Mr. Janvrin asked. Bread or sugar, timber or linen, soap or tobacco? Any of these? Why, some of them: but the merest trifle! and it was uncommonly pleasant to live in a free sort of way, without any tax-gatherer to come to the cottage-door, and ask for so many shillings out of the poor man’s earnings.

“Uncommonly pleasant,” repeated Le Brocq, with a sigh, as Janvrin pocketed the money on the table, and made an entry in his book. “I think I shall ask one of the Constables to speak to the Bailly, and try whether we can’t get the States to think of taxing us as easily as the English. An uncommonly pleasant way it must be, to be sure.”

“Uncommonly pleasant,” observed Janvrin, “if the poor man does not pay pounds without knowing it, instead of shillings when he is asked. Your guest said something about footpads: but I had rather be robbed by a footpad than by a pickpocket.”

The girls asked their mother what was a footpad, and what was a pickpocket. She frowned, and whispered to them not to ask: it was something very bad indeed. They blushed, and could only hope that nobody had heard their question.

Upon Stephen’s half-smiling and saying, with a turn of the head towards Janvrin, that every man was in honour bound to defend his own occupation, but that he was proud to say, the English had no relish for getting out their money-bags when the government bade them, and preferred paying their little matter of tax their own way, the good-will of the family towards Janvrin was visibly overclouded. Nobody pressed him to stay; and when, on his departure, he once more mentioned that Le Brocq’s cart and horse would be expected to appear on the new road the next Monday morning, the farmer looked very grave in giving his assent.

Stephen was abundantly questioned about England before he was allowed to go to rest: and when, at length, Aaron led him to the corner where he was to sleep, and promised to leave no stone unturned to get him into the hospital, Malet was mourning with Louise that he had wasted so much time in seeking an establishment in Jersey; and the farmer determined that he would not close his eyes till he had calculated how much money he had paid over to the States since he began housekeeping, without reckoning the use the island had had of his horse and cart, as often as improvements had been carried on in his parish.

Chapter II.

A LEGACY.

When Aaron stole to the bedside of his guest, early the next morning, to rouse him for his journey, he was surprised to find nobody there. Not only had the guest disappeared, but half the bedding,—the whole of which would not much encumber a strong man. The only supposition that could be entertained was that Stephen had gone out, with a blanket in addition to his scanty clothing, to please himself with the morning sunshine; an amusement to which there was no impediment of locks and bolts, in this any more than in the neighbouring farmhouses. But Stephen was not to be found in orchard or field; nor did he answer when his name was called, though everybody in the house was wakened by the shout. Louise appeared with her milk-pails, and Anna tripped down to the brook. Mrs. Le Brocq appeared at the window, knitting, and the farmer came out to harness his team, while Victorine swept the kitchen, and prepared to light the fire. Everybody appeared but Stephen. A general admiration of his talents prevailed when it was remarked as a singular thing that a blind man should be able to find the door, and pursue his way over ground that he had traversed but once. The fear was lest he should have lost himself, got entangled in the copse, or soused in the brook;—or,—suppose he should have fallen down the quarry! If he had escaped all these dangers, he must be as acute about finding his way as he had shown himself about taxation, and love and marriage. While this admiration was being expressed, up came Anna from the brook, with a gentle reproof prepared for Victorine, for carrying away the bleaching linen from the place where they had been left the evening before. There was no place where they could bleach more favourably, and Victorine had received no orders to remove them. It was not long before the conviction was forced upon everybody that the linen was stolen. The most valuable part of the clothing of the family was gone. Nearly eighty of the best caps belonging to the four women of the household were carried off, and so many other useful things that the maidens might do nothing but spin, knit, and sew, from this time till Christmas, and yet be obliged to have three or four extra washes. It was a dreadful misfortune. Louise leaned her head against the cow she was milking when the tidings were brought to her. Let Charles be as fortunate as he might, her wedding might be considered as deferred for an indefinite period. Anna hoped against hope that some happy explanation would arise. It seemed impossible that any one should be so wicked as to take, without payment, what did not belong to him. Father and son and Victorine were off in different directions to look for traces of thieves in the fields and highways. Not a cap was to be seen dropped on the grass, nor any shirt frolicking by itself on any bush. Victorine turned back panic-struck, only too well convinced of what she now thought she had suspected all along,—that the guest of the last night had arrived from a far more distant place than England, and that he needed no ship to bring him over the sea. She trembled to think what sort of feet might have been enclosed in her young master’s shoes, and what might have been the effects of his eyes, if he had not happily chosen to keep them shut. Aaron did not know that he could do better than pursue his way to St. Heliers, where it was possible that he might meet with either Stephen or the thief, if they should, after all, not happen to be the same person. So he harnessed a strong little horse of his father’s to the cart, drove to his rope-walk, wished that Malet would not be so late in the mornings, but would be at his business in time to help people with advice when they were in a hurry, and drove off. He had not gone far when his sister’s voice hailed him. She was running after him with a list of messages from his mother about articles that he was to purchase in the market at St. Heliers, and with a request that if he should be able to learn anything about the lost property, he would take particular care to recover Louise’s share first, as poor Louise was in sadder distress than anybody else.

“You will go to Gorey,” she suggested. “Some of the English may think there is no harm in taking our caps, and will give you them back again.”

“Ask Charles to go there. It will be as much as I can do to make this harness hold out, if I go as straight as an arrow and back again. I had better have kept the last coil of cord I sold to young François; this is as rotten as if the tow had never been twisted.”

It was provoking that the harness should break at this moment; and Aaron showed that it was. He twitched the horse’s head in its straw collar, knotted the rope rein with some very petulant gestures, told his sister that she deserved to be run over for coming in the way of the long axle of the cart, and finally urged on his rumbling vehicle without a word of farewell.

His haste did not, however, prevent his pausing on some high ground, where an opening in the ridge of hills afforded him a glimpse of the sea, and a distant view of the pier at Gorey. The English oyster-boats were departing for the season. A little fleet of them was standing out from the bay; and in one of them might have been found, as Aaron suspected, the lost property and the blind thief,—if blind he were. The sight of such means of escape stimulated the youth to his pursuit, if indeed it were yet possible to hunt out the guilty from any retreat between Grosnez and La Roque, and bring him to justice.

No person in the least resembling Stephen was to be seen on any of the quays of St. Heliers, nor in the pretty market-place. Mr. De la Mare had not heard of any blind stranger being in the neighbourhood. The vessel from the Baltic was in the harbour,—all safe, and bringing hemp, as Aaron desired. As it was still too early in the morning for the transaction of business on the quay, he thought it best to make his purchases in the market-place, telling every person he met of the family loss. Several people from the country had already taken their places under the piazzas, and had set out their butter, eggs, and vegetables; and the butchers’ carts were being unpacked in the centre. Every one was soon in possession of the story. While the early housewife was arguing with the butcher whether she should pay 3d. or 3½d. per lb. for his prime beef, she stopped to shake her head over the depravity of the age, in which an open theft had come to be committed in return for hospitality. The maid-servant, who took in the tale with open mouth, while the market-woman counted eggs at 4d. a dozen into her basket, promised to mention the circumstance wherever she went. The townsman who had risen early that he might have the first choice of fish, spoke of alarming the magistracy and rousing justice.—Then, when Aaron stepped to a shop or two within sight, to buy two pounds of three shilling tea (his mother made a point of having the best tea), and a supply of fine sugar at 4d., half the little boys that were abroad followed him, as if expecting that the thief would be found under the counter or in one of the canisters; and the shopman put on a countenance of concern; and the head of the firm looked mysterious; and altogether the impression was very profound.

All was known at the custom-house before Aaron betook himself thither to inquire about the arrival and departure of vessels. Every man in the establishment,—the principal, the comptroller, and the two subordinates,—was eager to question Aaron as he approached with an air of peculiar gravity. The unlading of Christiana deals upon the quay had proceeded without their notice, while engrossed with the tale of the Le Brocqs’ misfortunes;—not that it was any part of their duty to watch the unlading of Baltic timber; for here the people were allowed to get their timber from any part of the world they pleased, and to give no more than the natural price. They were neither compelled to pay the King for the liberty of using foreign timber at all; nor obliged, by the high duty put upon Christiana deals, to take up with the inferior wood of Canada. The custom-house officers looked upon the landing and sale of timber with their hands in their pockets, and as if they had no more concern in the matter than in a bargain about a bunch of asparagus.

Equally indifferent were they about the proceedings of the vessel which brought hemp and tallow. Indeed, the bustle of the port of St. Heliers,—a bustle which increases from year to year,—takes place altogether among the buyers and sellers. Tax-gatherers have little concern in the matter. When the harbour-master has collected the harbour dues, and the custom-house officers have ascertained that no wine or spirits are on board, or have levied that single tax, the government is satisfied, and no further impediments exist. The Jersey people could not possibly stand more in need of hemp than the English. Without rigging for her merchant-ships, England is impoverished: without cables and sails for her vessels of war, she is defenceless. How did she then supply this great necessity? But little hemp is grown at home; and, in order to obtain more, government adopted the means precisely adapted to defeat the end. Instead of facilitating to the utmost the obtaining of an article from abroad which is deficient at home, difficulties were thrown in the way of getting it from abroad, in order to force the production at home: a very high duty was laid on imported hemp. This made it less expensive to buy sail-cloth and ropes ready made from abroad than to manufacture them at home; and thus our manufacturers were ruined. It also stimulated the use of iron cables, so that the government found that there is a slip between the cup and the lip,—between laying on this tax and receiving the produce. The result of the whole was that government derived little from the tax; our manufacturers could not make their business answer; and we employed foreigners to prepare our ropes for us, while those at home, who would do the work cheaper, were standing idle. If government would have admitted hemp free, the multitude who were standing idle, and the larger multitude who paid for the collecting of the tax and for the dearness of the article, would have been thankful to subscribe the 70,000l. which was all that found its way into the Treasury. It is but lately that the consequences of such a policy have been recognised by the government and the country, and the duty on undressed hemp repealed; but it is now fully acknowledged that the country need never have paid the high prices demanded for hemp manufactures from 1808 to 1814, or any of the burdens which this absurd tax has imposed till now. It is to be hoped that this conviction will lead to the repeal of other taxes as bad in principle, and almost as mischievous in practice: but custom-house officers still interfere between the English builder and the timber of the Baltic, and demand so heavy a tax upon every cask of tallow or oil that is on its way to the soap-boiler as to involve hundreds or thousands in the factitious guilt of a breach of the revenue laws.

Aaron had a favourite phrase at his tongue’s end, whenever he was out of his father’s sight. Le Brocq had carried his authority over his son a great deal too far:—so far that Aaron was in a state of unremitting bondage to one person, while he was apt to carry his freedom to an extreme in every other presence. ‘What is that to you?’ was his invariable reply when questioned by sister, friend or stranger;—an expression which would never have occurred to him, if he had not been racked with questions by the only person whom he could not refuse to answer. His sisters were so well aware of his sensitiveness to the tone of interrogation that whatever was uncertain was put by them into a form of conjecture; and even Victorine appeared to be thinking aloud whenever she wanted to know anything which she believed her young master could tell. Custom-house officers cannot be expected to show such consideration for individual peculiarities, and it would have been scarcely safe to have allowed Aaron to go down to an English port to transact business about hemp or tallow. Ladies going to France now find it vexatious to be asked, “What have you in that bag?” “What do you carry in this little box;” and gentlemen turn restive under the inquiry what fills out their pockets, and whether they carry anything in their boots. Such inquisition, intolerable as it is, is less vexatious by half than that which the English merchant, priding himself on the dignity of his vocation, has to undergo when the amount of his purchases, and the value of his merchandise have to be investigated, and made known to those who ought to have no concern in the matter, that they may watch whether he discharges his duty to the state. These sufferers may not say (what they are incessantly prompted to exclaim,)—“What is that to you?” they may not make as free as Aaron did on the quays of St. Heliers.

The comptroller accosted him with,

“Your concern is with her,—yonder,—I see.”

“What’s that to you?”

“Why, no more than that I can tell you, within a minute and a half, how soon she will be alongside the wharf. You won’t have to wait long, I fancy; for there are half a score of people come in from the country at the first news of her being moored off the old castle. You must have found it a great vexation to be waiting for hemp when the time of the fishery was passing away.”

“What’s she?” inquired Aaron, pointing to a vessel which was making her way out of the harbour, before the anxious eyes of a group of men, now resting from the toil of putting the finishing stroke to her lading.

“What’s that to you?” replied the comptroller, smiling. “I see you do not like other people to take a fancy to your words. Well, then, she carries stone to the port of London; and a fine voyage she is likely to have with this wind:—a better one than the Riga vessels that have been in the Channel this fortnight, I fancy, and cannot get here. They will be all coming at once when you will want them less than you have done. But you have always a good market for cordage in England, I suppose.”

Aaron muttered that whether he sent his ropes to England or anywhere else, people in all places wanted cordage, and always would want it, he supposed.

“No doubt; and when one hears of young men’s sisters being seen turning the wheel in the rope-walk, and of young men themselves standing every evening by the poquelaye to look for ships that bring hemp, one can’t help, if one cares for the island, hoping that the manufacture is prospering.”

“Certainly; if one is thinking of the island. But what is to become of the island, if it is to be overrun with thieves? You heard of our being robbed last night.”

“Yes. Some London rogue that came by an oyster-boat, no doubt. What have you lost by him?”

“What’s that to you?”

“Why, really, Mr. Aaron, I don’t see how you are to find your property again, if you have an objection to say what you have lost. I must leave you to find the thief in your own way, and wish you good morning.”

“Well; but that is not what I meant to say,—if you think you can help me to the thief.”

“Nobody could, if many were to take up your way of speaking. Only conceive, now! ‘Pray, sir, have you any knowledge of the people that came by the Medway boats?’—‘What’s that to you?’ ‘Have you happened to see a blind man pass your way, Mr. So-and-so?’—‘What’s that to you?’ ‘Where was it——?’”

Aaron half-laughed, and wished people would never be tiresome with their questions, and then——

“And then you would not make it a great mystery whether the thief took two pairs of stockings or six. Well, if I find Mr. Stephen and his booty in an empty wine-cask, I will make bold to let you know, if you will only allow me to ask whether the property belongs to you.”

Aaron gravely thanked him, when the comptroller began saying one thing more before they separated.

“Just bear this hint in mind, Mr. Aaron. Don’t be tempted to go and follow any business in England, till you have taken as great a fancy for being questioned as you have now taken against it. This is the country for you,—where nobody fingers your tow, or counts your strands or measures your cables. Don’t be persuaded to go and live in England.”

Aaron stared. He had never had a thought of even crossing to England for a week’s pleasure. Had his companion heard of any scheme——? What could put it into his head to offer such a caution?

“What’s that to you?” answered the comptroller, laughing as he retreated. “Only mind what I say.”

Aaron was not fond of minding what anybody said. He had had enough of that kind of observance enforced by his father. He looked dogged; and if any one had on the spot offered him a passage to England, he would probably have gone, at all hazards.

The fancy possessed him all day. While engaged in the purchase of his hemp, he made inquiries of the Russians whether they had been in England, and how they were treated there, and after what fashion purchases of hemp were made in the ports. He was in the midst of a reverie, deciding that it could be no more really necessary to answer impertinent questions in England than anywhere else, when he was stopped on his way out of town by an officer of justice who wanted a description of Stephen’s costume; and then by a housewife who had a mysteriously-obtained cap to show, which she supposed might be one of the missing stock. Over hill and over dale he jogged and jolted, letting his horse carry the cart after its own fancy, while he reviewed in his mind all the trades and professions he had heard of as being practised in England; and recalled the countenances of two Isle of Wight men who had looked far from being harassed to death. He was pretty sure it must be very possible for him to live in England: and what the comptroller could mean by so earnest a caution, given at this very time, he could not imagine.

The first person he saw on his arrival in the neighbourhood of home was Victorine. She was awaiting him on the orchard bank; and very sorry she was that she could venture no further on the road by which he was to approach; but the thief of the preceding night was as a lion in the path. No one of the women had this day gone out of screaming distance; and it was rather a stretch of boldness to have attained the orchard bank. There had been terrors to be sustained;—a toad had made the grass move in one place; and a large black bird, (Victorine did not look again to see of what species,) had rustled in the hedge, and flown out before her eyes; and a gruff voice had been overheard in the ditch on the other side;—a voice which made her heart beat so that she could hear nothing else, or she would soon have discovered that it was the grunting old sow. The greatness of the occasion alone enabled her to take her stand, notwithstanding all these alarms.

“Mr. Aaron,” cried she, “there is news at home. Mr. Aaron, the uncle is dead.”

“What uncle? Whose uncle? Our uncle? What uncle?”

“Uncle Anthony is dead. I thought I would tell you, sir; lest you should see the mother first, and fear something worse. Have you got news of our caps?”

Aaron did not answer the last question, he was so busy trying to remember who uncle Anthony was. He remembered having heard the name in childhood, and believed that the person it belonged to lived somewhere a great way off; but no passing thought of either name or person had been in his mind for so many years, that he was ill-prepared to take the news as it seemed to be expected that he should.

He found his mother moving about with a countenance of the deepest solemnity, and the same step that she would have used in a sick-room. Le Brocq was quiet and thoughtful, and Malet evidently in gay spirits.

“We have had a great loss, Aaron,” declared the mother. “You remember our uncle Anthony.”

“Did I ever see him, mother?”

He was told that this was a very ungrateful question, for that uncle Anthony had been his godfather. When it pleased God to send afflictions, it became people to be more sensible of them than Aaron seemed to be. By way of setting an example, Mrs. Le Brocq gave all the house-business in charge to Victorine, and sat down with her knitting to sigh very heavily, and look up reproachfully as often as any one spoke. Anna saw Aaron’s perplexity, and its near approach to a sulky fit, and found an opportunity of whispering a little desirable information.

“Uncle Anthony was father’s uncle, and he gave mother a tea-chest when she married; and he was your godfather, and lived near London; and he wants us to go and live there now.”

“But I thought he was dead.”

“So he is: but he left a letter, which I suppose father will tell you about. I am afraid we do not know how to take this dispensation as we ought: but pray God those may be supported that will miss him more than we can!”

“What does father look so grave for? Is it sorrow? or is he thinking of London?”

“Charles let drop that he should like to go to London; and he says ’tis like a providence, after what passed last night. Such a business offered! and so pressing! Father is turning it over, perhaps.”

“Why for Charles more than me? Everybody is thought of before me.”

“You would not have thought so if you had known how father was calling for you, three or four times before you came home. Whatever he may be thinking, he is not forgetting you.—But, Aaron, don’t be eager after changes. We are over-apt to like changes; but see the grave faces that we have had since this time yesterday, when our changes began!”

A change was meanwhile working to which Anna could not object, any more than her brother. Her father’s heart was opening towards Aaron under the influence of a strong excitement. He held out the letter at arm’s length, with the encouraging command, “Read that.” Aaron read as follows:—

“Dear Nephew—The reason why you have never heard from me for these seventeen years past is because I had a son and daughter of my own, as you know, to care for; and you were too far off to do me any good in the way of attention, which I always remembered in your favour when in want of it when my son turned disobedient. Also I remembered the overalls your wife knitted for me, and always determined you should hear of them again, sooner or later. But I had no mind to give up my business to anybody else before I had done with it myself; and for this same reason, though I am writing this letter now, I don’t mean that you should have it till after my death. Never mind my missing being thanked by you! I can fancy all you would say very well, and set it down to your credit.

“You are to come and take my business, instead of living in your outlandish place any longer, which is only a place for such as are half French in their hearts,—confound them! You have nothing like this Lambeth neighbourhood, let me tell you; and the sooner you come and see, the better. Indeed, the business can’t wait long for a master, though Studley will do very well to take care of it for the few weeks after my burial till you come. But make haste, lest you miss more than you think for. There is little in the pottery business that you may not learn, and teach your little boy after you, with Studley to help you: and it is a very pretty concern, and one which it is a mystery to me that my son should have sneezed at, and gone abroad, I do believe to get away from me, where he is doing very well, they say, with his wife and family in America; and so nobody can allege I do an unkind thing in showing my displeasure against him by leaving my business to one who never disobeyed me. My daughter, I should have said, died twelve years ago, and is buried in the same churchyard with my wife.

“You may be thankful that I have lived to this time to get up a pretty business for you. The stone pottery is a very different affair now from what it was when I first came into it, forty years ago. Not but that it was in one respect more flourishing twenty years ago than it is now;—viz., in soda-water bottles, of which we used to send out a great number till cut out in that respect by the glass, which is more secure of being clean, they say, and does not sweat, as stone used to do, though we have now cured the sweating. It is a pity, too, that glass is preferred for beer that is sent abroad. I don’t mean ginger beer or spruce beer, both which are bottled in stone, as being less apt to burst; and the people in Van Diemen’s Land and other foreign parts are very fond of such brisk drinks, as you will find to your profit. We made 130 cwt. with E X upon them last year. But this is a poor test, since a bare twelfth of our article is duty-paid. We send as many figured jugs to Ireland as ever; and what we make for ink and blacking is prodigious. There is an increase in spirit casks and large oil bottles; and the state of chemicals has improved in our favour since I took the business; so that I should scarcely have believed then what I should some time sell to chemists, and also for filtering. So here, you see, is a pretty sort of business, and only, I assure you, ten or eleven to divide it among them in London, and only sixty-nine in all England: and if prices have come down somewhat, it is quite as much because the clay can be got cheaper, and coals are lower, as on account of the meddling of the glass-bottle makers,—which you will perhaps wonder at my owning, considering what a grudge we owe these last: but I am for fair play on all occasions. So now you know what you have to expect, except about the house. It is a pretty pleasant house, joining the pottery, and opening into the yard: and there being only outhouses behind for some way, it is what I call airy; and the furniture you will find just as I leave it. So all will be ready for you to come directly.

“I think this is all at present. You may expect me to say something serious, as people generally do when they are settling their affairs to leave the world. But I am not particularly ill, though I have taken this opportunity of writing this letter, and finished my 75th year yesterday; and those things come time enough when the time comes: and my business now is, being of sound mind, to arrange matters for you, in case of my being cut off suddenly. So I shall just leave this open, in case of having anything to add at any future time.”

It appeared that nothing had occurred to be added in any future time, for this was all. Anna was sorry for it. While her father was talking about the letter being that of a good, kind, old soul, she was turning it round to find in some of its odd corners some word of relenting towards his disobedient son. Aaron waited in silence an intimation that Malet was to be presented with this “pretty business” in a country where people paid the merest trifles in taxes, and without being aware of it. The idea had even struck him that he would work upon Malet to let him become a partner, and thus free himself from his father’s strict rule, and settle himself where, as he grew older, no one would make him pay down money for the use of the State.

Malet looked blank when Le Brocq announced his intention of going to St. Heliers to-morrow, to inquire about a passage for England. The young man was asked the cause of his surprise. Why should any time be lost?

“Do you mean to go?” asked all the family.

Certainly. What else should he do? Malet should rent the farm, and take Aaron’s rope-walk, if he would. Aaron would be wanted at the pottery. Malet would fain have discovered that he should be wanted too. No one who had seen and heard Stephen thought anything so hard as to have to live in Jersey, when there was such a place as England to go to. Even with the certainty before them of being able to marry immediately, Malet and Louise looked grave. Any one would have thought that their marriage had been put off for a twelvemonth at least.

“You shall have the farm at a reasonable rate, in consideration of its being a place for my wife and Anna to come back to, if anything should happen to me before I have settled well in this business in London. You shall have the six acres for 40l., and no other charges but for the orchard; and you shall be married directly, that we may be gone. We will settle about Aaron’s rope-walk to-morrow, when I have questioned him a little more about it.”

Aaron did not slip away, as he usually did when there was talk of questioning. He was too happy in the prospect of living in England to throw any impediment in the way of getting rid of his rope-walk.

“And what are we to pay for the orchard, pray?” asked Louise, repiningly. “I’m sure I shall have no time to make cider, if you all go away and leave me.”

“Victorine will stay; and that will be just so much more help than your mother had when we married,” replied Le Brocq. “I shall not ask above 3l. an acre for the orchards, and cider enough for our own drinking, which I expect you will send us every year.”

“Anna and I shall make our own cider, I suppose,” declared Mrs. Le Brocq, forgetting her solemnity in the interest of the topic. “It will be a long way to send cider.”

Not farther than cider was sent every season, her husband replied; and he doubted whether it would be quite convenient to make cider on the premises of a Lambeth pottery; but as Mrs. Le Brocq was sure that, wherever she went, she should have an orchard at the back of the house, the point was left to be determined after their arrival.

There must now be entire silence, for the farmer was about to study over again the letter from uncle Anthony’s lawyer in which the foregoing epistle was enclosed. Louise therefore withdrew to meditate over her milk-pail, and Anna to take in the linen from the green bank, lest there should be a further theft this night. As she passed the hydrangeas at the door, and the flowering myrtles that half-concealed the paling, she felt sad at the prospect of leaving them;—at the prospect of leaving these particular hydrangeas and myrtles, not of quitting the region of flowers; for she never doubted there being a green path to the house in Lambeth, and a vine growing up to the thatch, and blossoming shrubs clustering on every side. She hoped they should all be happier when they were rich; but she could scarcely see how: for Louise must be left behind, and Victorine; and her mother’s head-ach and pain in the shoulder might perhaps continue, however rich they might be. But if Aaron should look lighter, and father be as kind to him as to Louise and herself, they should certainly be all much happier; and perhaps the being rich might bring this about. At any rate, it was God that raised up as well as brought low; and so all must be right: but this was a dear place to be obliged to leave. Aaron silently devoured his mess of conger eel, stewed with milk and young green peas, and grew in his own estimation every moment. When Victorine had done serving him, she placed herself where she might watch the family party, and perhaps discover what made her mistress sigh as she had never heard her sigh since the late king died.