Colin Clink

“ Wait in the corner beneath, and a rope-ladder will be let down, by which you can climb to the top and escape. This is written by your daughter's friend, Colin Clink, who will do his best to get you out; so do not be afraid of being betrayed.
“Fanny has seen this, and she prays God night and day that you will be able to agree to it. Do not be afraid, as Colin is sure to come (happen what may, short of death) at the time appointed. The third night, mind,—or any night after, at ten o'clock.” ”

“ I am Colin Clink. Now, you cowardly, drunken scoundrel, what have you not deserved at my hands?”
“Oh! what, you are he, are you?” gurgled
Mr. Palethorpe. “Just let me go a minnit, and I 'll show you!”
“Come, then!” said Colin, and he pulled the said Mr. Palethorpe to the edge of the causeway. In the next moment he deposited him in the middle of a large dam which had been made in the gutter close by for the convenience of some bricklayers, who were repairing an adjoining house, telling him to “sit there, and sober himself ”

“ Miss Zowerzoft's my meesis—and a very good meesis she is, I am happy to say. She knows me very well, and I know her. I wish she were here!”
“Well—well!” cried Colin; “but what have you come to London about?”
“Why, what do you think, now?” asked Palethorpe, with a peculiarly knowing look. “What do you think? Just guess. I'll bet a shilling you can't guess, if you guess all night. No—no; no man knows my bizziness but myself. My name's Palethorpe, and I know two of that. Can you tell me, do you know anybody named Colin Clink here i' Lunnun?”
“I do,” said our hero. “I know him well.” ”

“ Colin himself, like most other boys, true to the earliest propensity of our nature, preferred a life passed in fields and woods, amongst horses, dogs, and cattle, to that of a dull shop behind a counter; or of any tedious and sickly mechanical trade. So far that was good. What he himself approved, he was most likely to succeed in; and with success in field-craft, he might eventually become a considerable farmer, or raise himself, like Mr. Longstaff, to the stewardship of some large estate. Visions, never to be realised, now rose in vivid distinctness before the mental eye of Mistress Clink. ”

“ Rowel, to have to call upon you on such a case of secrecy as the present. You are aware, doctor, that I have a boy about me over at the farm—”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted the doctor, “I know him well. Palethorpe, you mean?”
“Oh no, sir!—oh no!—not him—by no means. He is a middle-aged man, and a very honest one. No, no. I mean the boy that you attended a while ago—Colin Clink. That boy, sir, I am sorry to say, is as vicious and bad a character as ever crossed a threshold. I am sure, if he escapes the gallows at last, it will only be because he was born to be drowned. ”

“ These matters being thus disposed of, Colin seized his opportunity to re-introduce the question regarding old Jerry Clink.
“With respect to him,” replied Mr. Lupton, “though I am astonished to find he is still alive, instead of hearing, as I had anticipated, that his body had been picked up off Lime-house, I am too sensible of his feelings, and the cause of them, to entertain against him any ideas of retaliation. My own security is all I must provide for,—that I am bound to do ”

“ Palethorpe was intently engaged in putting the cutlets out of sight, Mr. Longstaff introduced the subject of his visit in a brief conversation with the mistress of the house. He gave the lady to understand that he had taken the trouble of riding over on purpose to name to her a boy, one Colin Clink, who, he believed, would just suit the situation she had vacant. He was now about fifteen years old, but as strong as an unbroke filly; he had sense enough to learn anything ”

“ Clink had taken little Colin out of his cradle, and wrapped him warmly round with all the clothes it contained. She then led Fanny into the inner room, which was occupied as a bed-chamber.
“Come, Fanny,” said she; “if there be still less charity under a bare sky than under this stripped roof, we cannot do much worse. Put on all the clothes you have, child, for perhaps we may want them before morning.” ”

“ Colin's eyes as he lay were fixed, as it might have been the eyes of a picture, on the doctor's countenance.
“I don't know, I'm sure, sir,” replied Fanny: but after a few moments' hesitation, added, “I suppose it was because I had no friends.”
“No friends!” the doctor repeated,—“why, where's your father and mother?”
“I never knew them, sir.”
“Indeed! never knew them!”
“No, sir!” and Fanny sobbed at the very recollection of her childhood's helplessness.
“Humph!” ejaculated the doctor; “you scarcely seem to have been born for a servant. Where did Mrs. Clink find you?” ”

“ Colin Clink's boyhood and character. A trap is laid for him by Mr. Longstaff, into which his mother lets him fall: with other matters highly essential to be told.
HAD not the days of omens and prognostications in great part passed by at the enlightened period in which our story commences, it would inevitably have been prophesied that the child, by whose very birth the passions of jealousy and revenge had been so strongly excited, and which had gone far to cloud the mind of the lady of Kiddal House, was predestined to create no common stir when he became a man. ”

“ The landscape that lay far below appeared a black gulf, over which the soughing of the wind sounded like the fitful panting breath, the expiring complaints, of some vast unseen creature of the darkness, whose existence might thus be shadowed to the ear, though not to the eyes, of man. But when associated with the melancholy subject which weighed heavily on all hearts, its influence became far more sensibly felt; and Colin could not but feel as though nature had conspired with death to impress the loss that had just been sustained more solemnly upon the mind. ”

“ In another instant a female servant of the squire of the parish stood by the bedside.
Mistress Clink fell back upon the pillow, while her face for a moment blushed scarlet, and then became again as white as ashes.
“Don't rate the poor child, if you please, ma'am,” said the woman. “Poor thing! it's only a bag of bones at best.”
“Oh, I'm ill!” sighed Mistress Clink.
“Ay, dear! you do look ill,” responded the woman. “I 'll run and fetch the doctor; but, if you please, ma'am, master has sent this little basket of things for you.” ”

“ To go in there, and see that wench a mother before she is a wife,—her character gone for ever,—ruined,—lost!—why, I say, sink me to perdition this instant! if I don't redden his own hearthstone with his own blood, though I wait for it to the last day of my life. As sure as he sees the day, I'll make his children fatherless—I'll have my knife in him!”
“Stop! stop! Mr. Clink!” cried Mrs. Mallory, laying her hand upon his shoulder, “do cool yourself, and do not threaten so terribly.” ”

“ And bang went his ponderous fist on Colin's organs of Secretiveness and Acquisitiveness, until his head sung again throughout, like a seething caldron.
“That's right!” cried Miss Sowersoft; “make him feel; drag him up; my face burns with shame at him; I'm as hot as a scarlet-fever, I am—a young scoundrel!”
And Colin was pulled up on to the level of the garden, more like a half-killed rat than a half-grown human being.
“We'll know how this is, meesis,” said Mr. Palethorpe, when he had fairly landed his cargo. ”

“ When Colin informed his employer of his adventure, and the consequence to which it had led in rendering it necessary that he should quit his service,—“Very well,” said Veriquear, “if you wish to leave me, that is no business of mine. As you came, so you must go. I am sorry to part with you; though I don't know what business it is of mine to grieve about it. You have your objects in the world, and I have mine; so I suppose we must each go his own way about them. Only if you consider yourself right in leaving so suddenly, I shall make it my duty not to pay you this week's wages.” ”

“ Children should be taught to discriminate a little between truth and downright impudence, as well as to keep their mouths shut about anything they may happen to overhear, whenever their masters or mistresses are talking in the confidentiality of privacy.”
Mrs. Clink confessed herself ignorant of what Miss Sowersoft alluded to, but observed, that if she intended the remark to apply to Colin, she was confident he would never be guilty of so mean a thing as to listen to the private conversation of any two persons in the world. ”

“ Mistress Clink was at no loss to conjecture at once that in this couple she beheld the future master and mistress of her son Colin. Nor can it be said she was mistaken: the truth being that, after the departure of Mr. Longstaff from Snitterton Lodge on the preceding day, it had occurred to Miss Sowersoft that, instead of taking the chaise-cart, as had been intended, it would be far pleasanter to take the longest-backed horse on the premises, and ride on a pillion behind Palethorpe. ”

“ Colin himself could not sleep, but lay awhile lost in thoughtful abstraction, until at length he was startled by the sound of heavier and more hasty feet in Mr. Lupton's chamber; just as though, in turning round, a man should suddenly encounter one whom he did not wish to see, and hastily fall back to avoid a closer meeting. ”

“ Rowel came in, yet, Mrs. Clink, it was impossible for me to be aware how soon it might be needful for me to break my own rule. You know that servant of yours is a very likely person, Mrs. Clink, for any gentleman to joke with; and, though I do not mean to insinuate anything—I should be very sorry to do so, indeed; but still, doctor though he is—in fact, to tell you the truth,”—and Miss Sowersoft drew her auditor to the farther side of the room, and spoke in a whisper,—“it is highly fortunate I had the presence of mind to listen at the door ”

“ Lupton at Kiddal?”
“Never, that I am aware of,” answered Colin.
The Squire fell into a fit of musing, during which he beat his foot upon the ground abstractedly, as though all things present were momentarily forgotten.
“Well!” he again exclaimed, as if starting afresh to life, “there is that Doctor. We must catch him somehow. He is a scoundrel after all, I am afraid; though it seems a pity to hang the poor devil, too. ”

“ Under every possible view of the case, and considering that no conceivable good could come of a formal parting, I must beg of you to regard your interview, this morning, with Jane as the last. It is better that you do not see each other again.”
“Oh no, sir, no!” exclaimed Colin, “you cannot mean that. It is impossible. When I left her but now to come to you, I had not half told her what I intended to say, and I promised to be back again as soon as I had seen you. She begged of me not to be long, because with all her grief she could not bear to be alone. ”

“ The maid laughed in his face, and Miss Sowersoft called lovingly after him not to mind it; while Palethorpe leaped into the vehicle, and ordered Abel to drive as fast as he could into Briggate.
On the following day he opened his wondering eyes for the first time upon London.
CHAPTER XIX.
Curiously illustrates the old saying, that a man may “go farther to fare worse.”
NO sooner had Mr. Palethorpe arrived, than following Dr. Rowel's directions, he marched off in a very business-like manner to the Yorkshire House, and inquired for Colin Clink. No such person was there ”

“ It would be unnecessary to tell in detail the immediate circumstances that afterwards took place. These can be quite as well imagined as described. Suffice it simply to state, that Mr. Woodruff was soon raised from the ground, and placed on the bottom of Jerry Clink's bed; that a bottle of the old man's spirit was soon discovered by Roger Calvert in a cupboard, and brought forth, in order that a needful portion of it might be applied in the restoration of the poor captive to consciousness. ”

“ As Colin attentively listened at the mouth of this ventage, he distinctly heard old Jerry snoring in his sleep sufficiently loud to have kept any bedfellow—had he been blessed with one—awake; and at every inspiration growling not unlike some jealous bull-dog when just aroused to the consciousness that his master's property is about to be invaded. ”

“ Such was the character of the young lady with whom it may now be said Colin was indeed in love. Below him in height, she yet was sufficiently tall to give dignity to an elegant figure; while a light and brilliant complexion, associated, as it usually is, with hair and eyes of a hue which the pencil of nature colours in admirable correspondence, but which in words can scarcely be properly described, gave no fairer a representation exteriorly than the jewel of a soul within most amply deserved. ”

“ She then continued, “I beg your pardon, sir, but I am not Miss Sowersoft now. I am sure I never expected to say that I regretted being Mrs. Palethorpe!”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Colin. “How is that?”
“Oh, sir!” rejoined Mrs. Palethorpe, “I do not wish to remind you of those circumstances—unfortunate circumstances I am sure they were—which brought me into connexion with you in your juvenile days; but I am sure you cannot forget what a brute that man was from first to last: you must be aware that it was next to impossible for anybody to live in the same house with him even at that time. ”

“ The candle being extinguished, Colin could see nothing save a small square of dim light where the window was. Below stairs he could hear the muttering of voices, as Miss Sower-soft still endeavoured to restore the beauty of Mr. Palethorpe's countenance; and in the false floor over his head the sound of rats, who were at work in the roof, making noise sufficient over their labours to keep awake, during the whole night, any person less accustomed to that kind of nocturnal entertainment than the inhabitants of country-houses usually are. ”