Checkley

“ He is not Checkley. He has no clerks. He has no visitors. He comes seldom. George, this looks to me suspicious. We met Checkley stealing out of the door. Why does Edmund Gray keep these Chambers? No business done there: no letters brought there: no callers: the man does not live there. The Socialism may be—must be—a blind. Why does the man keep on these Chambers?' ”

“ It is not often that a solicitor's clerk becomes a 'warm' man, but then it is not often that one of the calling deliberately proposes to himself early in life to save money, and lives till seventy-five steadily carrying out his object. If you are good at figures, you will understand how Mr. Checkley succeeded. Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five he had an income which averaged about seventy-five pounds. He lived upon fifty pounds a year. From twenty-five to thirty-five he made an average of one hundred and fifty pounds: he still lived upon fifty pounds a year. ”

“ Checkley, the old clerk, had other and younger clerks with him; but he kept in his own hands the duty, or the privilege, of going to the private room of the chief. He was sixty-seven when last we saw him. Therefore, he was now seventy-five; a little more bent in the shoulders, a little more feeble; otherwise unaltered. In age we either shrivel or we swell. Those live the longest who shrivel; and those who shrivel presently reach a point when they cease to shrink any more till they reach the ninetieth year. ”

“ Checkley hasn't got either. He might be a confederate. He may have stopped the letters. He is miserly—he might be tempted by money. Yet I do not think it possible.'
'No—I cannot believe that,' said Sir Samuel.
'Yet it is quite as difficult to believe such a thing of young Austin. Oh! I know everything is possible. He belongs to a good family: he has his own people to think of: he is engaged—he has always led a blameless life. ”

“ Edmund Gray, and there goes that sweet young thing along of him.—Ah! there's many advantages about being a gentleman. No mistake, I say, about them two.—Now, old man, you look as if you'd had a surprise. Hadn't you better go home and take a drop of something?' [Pg 294]
It was earlier than Checkley generally went to the Salutation. But he delayed no longer. He tottered across the Square, showing very much of extreme feebleness, looking neither to the right nor to the left, his cheek white, his eyes rolling. The people looked after him, expecting that he would fall. ”

“ On that evidence no magistrate would issue a warrant. Sometimes one's head goes round with the bewilderment of it. I've managed to learn something about Checkley in the course of these inquiries. He is quite a great man, Elsie; a tavern oracle in the evening; a landlord and householder and collector of his own rents at odd hours; a capitalist and a miser. But he is not, as thought at first—Edmund Gray.'
They had by this time got round to the house again. 'Go, [Pg 188] now, George,' said Elsie. 'See Athelstan this evening. ”

“ I say that I feel a sense of helplessness, as if everything might be taken from me and I should be powerless to resist.'
'Let us first get back the certificates,' said George, 'and we will find out and defeat this gang, if it is a gang, of confederates. Yes—it is as you say—the ground itself seems sinking beneath one's feet—when one's own investments are sold for nothing by a letter so like your own writing that it would deceive anybody.'
'Done in the office,' Checkley murmured—'in the office. ”

“ Who ever saw a man who didn't want a drink?'
The other man followed, reluctantly—and at sight of him Checkley jumped in his chair. Then he snatched the paper [Pg 54] from the hands of the ancient barrister, and buried his head in it. The action was most remarkable and unmistakable. He hid himself behind the paper; for the man whom the Cambridge scholar was dragging into the room was none other than Athelstan Arundel—the very man of whom Mr. Dering had been speaking that very afternoon: the very man whose loss he had been regretting: the man accused by himself of forgery. ”

“ As night approached he entered the Kendall store, and related the whole affair in a quiet tone to Mr. Bradley. That good old soul could hardly contain himself for righteous indignation; but Checkers cut him short by telling him he was in a hurry.
"There 's two things I want to ask of you, Mr. Bradley," said Checkers. "I want that package of bonds you have for me in the safe, and I want you to cash a check for two hundred dollars—it's just the balance I have in the bank here. I 'm going away to-night—for a while, at least." ”

“ Checkynshaw continued to walk back and forth, absorbed in thought.
"The key of the safe is not in the drawer, sir," replied the clerk.
The banker tried the safe door, and then felt in all his pockets. The safe was locked, but he had not the key. He went to the vault himself, but with no better success than the clerk had had.
"The puppy!" muttered the banker. "He has stolen that key!"
Mr. Checkynshaw's lips were compressed, and his teeth were set tight together. He paced the room more rapidly than before. ”

“ Corn aint wuth nawthin; farmers is feedin' their wheat to th' hogs, and cotton ye could n't give away." Again there was a silence, and again the "devil's-horse" narrowly escaped a deluge.
"By the way, whar 've ye got them Gov'ment bonds o' yourn?" Checkers came out of his reverie at the question.
"Mr. Bradley 's got them put away in the safe for me at the store," he answered.
"Mm-hmm!" mused the old man; "I was kinder wonderin' whether ye ever give any on 'em away, like ye done th' place here;" and he glanced at Checkers cunningly out of the corner of his eye. ”

“ Every one knows the result of the fatal fight fought within sight of Chester walls, when most of the knights and squires, the flower of Cheshire chivalry, lay dead on the stricken field. Woeful was the day for Cheshire men. Henry captured the Baron of Kinderton and Sir Richard Vernon, and beheaded them. Even some who fought on the King’s side fell in battle, including Sir John Calveley and Sir John Massey. Moreover, the stern Henry was wroth against the county, and every man felt that his head was in jeopardy. ”

“ In one of the earliest chapters of this book you have read of the 'making of Cheshire'. We have brought the story of Cheshire down to the present day, but Cheshire is not yet 'made'. Many and wonderful changes there have been since our ancestors shot wild beasts with their flinty arrow-heads, and devoured raw flesh in the pits and caverns of Alderley Edge. The people of Cheshire, who have struggled through long centuries to win for themselves light and liberty, have never turned their faces backwards. With steadfast purpose and unfaltering steps they march forward on the way of progress. ”

“ I have heard a countryman express this peculiarity in these words: “The common people live in the lanes, but the quality (that is, the well-to-do farmers) live up in the fields.”
With regard to Cheshire families in the dim past, Camden the antiquary of the sixteenth century wrote: [49] “Cheshire is the great nursing-mother of the gentry; for there is no other English county that formerly supplied the King’s army with more nobility, or that could number more knightly families.” ”

“ Its geographical position has thus made it a meeting-place of nations, and you will see in later chapters that all the peoples that have helped to make our national history have in turn realized the importance of its position, and have fought desperately for its possession. Briton and Roman, Angle and Saxon and Dane, Welsh and Norman have all left some mark of their presence in the county, and from these many elements is derived the blood that flows in the veins of nearly all Cheshire boys and girls of to-day. ”

“ Then we returned to dear old London, Lady Thorold having taken up her abode in a small house in Upper Brook Street.
Our most devoted friend to-day is Henry Whichelo—Harry, as he likes us both to call him. He knows everything of the past, yet no syllable of our secret will ever pass his lips. Not a week goes by but he dines at our table, full of his quiet humour, yet sometimes as we sit smoking together in the evening, the subject of those strange happenings—how fresh they still are in the memory of both of us—comes uppermost in our conversation. ”

“ Like most men of fifty or thereabouts, and like every man who finds himself at that age a bachelor rector of a remote country parish, Parson Chichester had collected a number of small habits or superstitions—call them which you will: they are the moss a sensible stone gathers when it has ceased rolling. He smoked a pipe in the house or when he walked abroad, but a Manila cheroot (he belonged to the age of cheroots) when he rode or drove; and he never rode on a Sunday, but either walked or used a dog-cart. ”

“ The old family of the Chykes, Cheikes, or Chekes, held the manor of Mottestone from 1370 to 1600, from whom the manor passed to the Dillingtons and Leighs of North Court. Sir John Cheke of their family was professor of Greek in Cambridge, and in 1544 was tutor to Edward VI.
"But when he doth find out, certes he groweth angry?" asked Ralph.
"Nay, what care we for his anger? Even I, small as I am, can teach him a lesson in all things, saving the care of his person and the filling of his skin." ”

“ Checkynshaw spoke to me about you. He wishes to see you at half past two o'clock."
"Mr. Checkynshaw!" exclaimed Leo, wondering what the head of the well-known banking house could want with an individual so insignificant as himself.
"He wants a boy."
"Does he want me?"
"I suppose he does."
"But, father, I shall lose my medal if I leave school now," added Leo.
"You must not leave now; but you can see Mr. Checkynshaw, and explain the matter to him. He is a great man, and when you want a place, he may be able to help you." ”

“ Scarcely any churches were built in Cheshire in the latter part of the fourteenth century, though the chancel of West Kirby was put up in the reign of Richard the Second. The carved heads on one of the window-hoods are those of Richard and his queen. Labourers were very scarce, owing to the ravages of the terrible calamity known as the Black Death, and the men who returned from the wars had no fancy for doing the work of the mason and the builder. Men refused to work; wages and the price of bread rose so high that a limit had to be set to them by law. ”

“ Lord Newton lives at Lyme Park, the ancient home of the Leghs, and the Earl of Crewe at Crewe Hall. Lord Ashton of Hyde has only recently taken a seat in the House of Lords. He was made a baron at the coronation of King George the Fifth.
When great industries took root in Cheshire new names appeared, and some of the most honoured families in Cheshire now are those that have been closely associated with the workers of the county. We hear a great deal nowadays of 'the dignity of labour', and we think it no disgrace to rise to position and power by a life of toil. ”

“ But in the following year the King was pleased to pardon the county, and extracted a fine of 300 marks from the city.
The valour of Cheshire men has shone forth on many [p. 13] a battlefield. Look at that gallant feat of arms at the battle of Poictiers, when Lord Audley and his four Cheshire knights, Sir John Delves, Sir Thomas Dutton, Sir Robert Foulshurst, and Sir John Hawkstone won for themselves undying fame. Sir Piers Legh of Macclesfield, from whom are descended the Leighs of Lyme, had the lordship of that place granted to him for taking the Count of Tankerville prisoner. ”

“ With great difficulty I persuaded Sir Francis that to the Cheshire and Norfolk people it must be a matter of profound indifference whether Gyas or Cloanthus inspected their schools. Granted that Cheshire suffered loss, yet how pleasant to think of the joy of Norfolk. He grudgingly agreed, and in due course it was arranged. On October 1, 1877, I took charge of the Chester district.
We read at times in the history of great men that after some turning-point in their career they “never looked back.” I am not a great man, and in one sense I often looked back. ”

“ For this reason Cheshire was called a County Palatine, that is, a county whose ruler exercises all the powers of an independent prince, save only that he owns allegiance to his overlord the king. And the sword, the 'sword of dignity', as it was called, was no light one. You may see it if ever you visit the British Museum, a mighty two-edged weapon four feet long, with its inscription in Latin engraved beneath the hilt, 'Hugo comes Cestriae,' Hugh Count of Chester. ”

“ The story was unknown to Arthur Duck, fellow of All Souls, who wrote Chicheley’s life in 1617. It is only the usual attempt, as in the cases of Whittington, Wolsey and Gresham, to exaggerate the rise of a successful man. The first recorded appearance of Henry Chicheley himself is at New College, Oxford, as Checheley, eighth among the undergraduate fellows, in July 1387, in the earliest extant hall-book, which contains weekly lists of those dining in Hall. ”

“ Even to this day the tree is thought to possess the power of bringing good or evil. A superstitious Cheshire labourer will not, if he can help it, cut down an ash tree for fear it should bring him misfortune, and churn staves made of ash are used by farmers' wives to prevent the butter from being bewitched.
It is in fact from the Angles and Saxons that we have inherited the priceless possession of our English tongue. The oldest traces of our language in a written form in Cheshire may be seen in the Grosvenor Museum at Chester. ”