Tales and Novels — Volume 02 eBook

The transaction was concluded without Mr. Folingsby’s knowing any thing more of the matter, except signing the leases, which he did without reading them; and receiving half a year’s rent in hand, as a fine, which he did with great satisfaction.  He was often distressed for ready money, though he had a large estate; and his agent well knew how to humour him in his hatred of business.  No interest could have persuaded Mr. Folingsby deliberately to commit so base an action as that of cheating a deserving old tenant out of a promised renewal; but, in fact, long before the leases were sent to him, he had totally forgotten every syllable that poor Frankland had said to him on the subject.

CHAPTER II.

The day on which they left their farm was a melancholy day to this unfortunate family.  Mr. Frankland’s father and grandfather had been tenants, and excellent tenants, to the Folingsby family:  all of them had occupied, and not only occupied, but highly improved, this farm.  All the neighbours were struck with compassion, and cried shame upon Mr. Folingsby!  But Mr. Folingsby was at Ascot, and did not hear them.  He was on the race ground, betting hundreds upon a favourite horse, whilst this old man and his family were slowly passing in their covered cart down the lane which led from their farm, taking a last farewell of the fields they had cultivated, and the harvest they had sown, but which they were never to reap.

Hannah, the servant-girl, who had reproached herself so bitterly for leaving the bucket of ashes near the hay-rick, was extremely active in assisting her poor master.  Upon this occasion she seemed to be endowed with double strength; and a degree of cleverness and presence of mind, of which she had never shown any symptoms in her former life:  but gratitude awakened all her faculties.

Before she came to this family, she had lived some years with a farmer who, as she now recollected, had a small farm, with a snug cottage upon it, which was to be this very year out of lease.  Without saying a word of her intentions, she got up early one morning, walked fifteen miles to her old master’s, and offered to pay out of her wages, which she had laid by for six or seven years, the year’s rent of this farm before-hand, if the farmer would let it to Mr. Frankland.  The farmer would not take the girl’s money, for he said he wanted no security from Mr. Frankland, or his son George:  they bore the best of characters, he observed, and no people in Monmouthshire could understand the management of land better.  He willingly agreed to let him the farm; but it contained only a few acres, and the house was so small that it could scarcely lodge above three people.

Here old Frankland and his eldest son, George, settled.  James went to Monmouth, where he became shopman to Mr. Cleghorn, a haberdasher, who took him in preference to three other young men, who applied on the same day.  “Shall I tell you the reason why I fixed upon you, James?” said Mr. Cleghorn.  “It was not whim; I had my reasons.”