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TITLE: TALES & NOVELS, VOL. 2
AUTHOR: MARIA EDGEWORTH
EBOOK: E06269 (O'Briens Book Cellar)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

TALES AND NOVELS

MARIA EDGEWORTH.

VOL. II. POPULAR TALES.

1857.

PREFACE.

Some author says, that a good book needs no apology; and, as a preface
is usually an apology, a book enters into the world with a better grace
without one. I, however, appeal to those readers who are not gluttons,
but epicures, in literature, whether they do not wish to see the bill of
fare? I appeal to monthly critics, whether a preface that gives a view
of the pretensions of the writer is not a good thing? The author may
overvalue his subject, and very naturally may overrate the manner in
which it is treated; but still he will explain his views, and facilitate
the useful and necessary art which the French call _reading with the
thumb_. We call this _hunting a book_, a term certainly invented by a
sportsman. I leave the reader to choose which he pleases, whilst I lay
before him the contents and design of these volumes.

Burke supposes that there are eighty thousand readers in Great Britain,
nearly one hundredth part of its inhabitants! Out of these we may
calculate that ten thousand are nobility, clergy, or gentlemen of the
learned professions. Of seventy thousand readers which remain, there
are many who might be amused and instructed by books which were not
professedly adapted to the classes that have been enumerated. With this
view the following volumes[1] have been composed. The title of POPULAR
TALES has been chosen, not as a presumptuous and premature claim to
popularity, but from the wish that they may be current beyond circles
which are sometimes exclusively considered as polite.

The art of printing has opened to all classes of people various new
channels of entertainment and information.--Amongst the ancients, wisdom
required austere manners and a length of beard to command attention; but
in our days, instruction, in the dress of innocent amusement, is
not denied admittance amongst the wise and good of all ranks. It is
therefore hoped that a succession of stories, adapted to different ages,
sexes, and situations in life, will not be rejected by the public,
unless they offend against morality, tire by their sameness, or disgust
by their imitation of other writers.

RICHARD LOVELL EDGEWORTH.

[Footnote 1: This Work was originally published in three volumes.]
CONTENTS

  LAME JERVAS                       1
  THE WILL                          55
  THE LIMERICK GLOVES               101
  OUT OF DEBT OUT OF DANGER         129
  THE LOTTERY                       161
  ROSANNA                           195
  MURAD THE UNLUCKY                 245
  THE MANUFACTURERS                 281
  THE CONTRAST                      317
  THE GRATEFUL NEGRO                399
  TO-MORROW                         421

LAME JERVAS

CHAPTER I.

Some years ago, a lad of the name of William Jervas, or, as he was
called from his lameness, Lame Jervas, whose business it was to tend the
horses in one of the Cornwall tin-mines, was missing. He was left one
night in a little hut, at one end of the mine, where he always slept;
but in the morning, he could no where be found; and this his sudden
disappearance gave rise to a number of strange and ridiculous stories
among the miners. The most rational, however, concluded that the lad,
tired of his situation, had made his escape during the night. It was
certainly rather surprising that he could no where be traced; but after
the neighbours had wondered and talked for some time about it, the
circumstance was by degrees forgotten. The name of William Jervas was
scarcely remembered by any, except two or three of the oldest miners,
when, twenty years afterward, there came a party of gentlemen and ladies
to see the mines! and, as the guide was showing the curiosities of the
place, one among the company, a gentleman of about six-and-thirty years
of age, pointed to some letters that were carved on the rock, and asked,
"Whose name was written there?" "Only the name of one William Jervas,"
answered the guide; "a poor lad, who ran away from the mines a great
long while ago." "Are you sure that he ran away?" said the gentleman.
"Yes," answered the guide, "sure and certain I am of that." "Not at all
sure and certain of any such thing," cried one of the oldest of the
miners, who interrupted the guide, and then related all that he knew,
all that he had heard, and all that he imagined and believed concerning
the sudden disappearance of Jervas; concluding by positively assuring
the stranger that the ghost of the said Jervas was often seen to walk,
slowly, in the long west gallery of the mine, with a blue taper in his
hand.--"I will take my Bible oath," added the man, "that about a month
after he was missing, I saw the ghost just as the clock struck twelve,
walking slowly, with the light in one hand, and a chain dragging after
him in t'other; and he was coming straight towards me, and I ran away
into the stables to the horses; and from that time forth I've taken
special good care never to go late in the evening to that there gallery,
or near it: for I never was so frightened, above or under ground, in all
my born days."

The stranger, upon hearing this story, burst into a loud fit of
laughter; and, on recovering himself, he desired the ghost-seer to look
stedfastly in his face, and to tell whether he bore any resemblance to
the ghost that walked with the blue taper in the west gallery. The miner
stared for some minutes, and answered, "No; he that walks in the gallery
is clear another guess sort of a person; in a white jacket, a leather
apron, and ragged cap, like what Jervas used to wear in his lifetime;
and, moreover, he limps in his gait, as Lame Jervas always did, I
remember well." The gentleman walked on, and the miners observed, what
had before escaped their notice, that he limped a little; and, when
he came again to the light, the guide, after considering him very
attentively, said, "If I was not afraid of affronting the like of a
gentleman such as your honour, I should make bold for to say that you be
very much--only a deal darker complexioned--you be very much of the same
sort of person as our Lame Jervas used for to be." "Not at all like our
Lame Jervas," cried the old miner, who professed to have seen the ghost;
"no more like to him than _Black Jack to Blue John._" The by-standers
laughed at this comparison; and the guide, provoked at being laughed at,
sturdily maintained that not a man that wore a head in Cornwall should
laugh him out of his senses. Each party now growing violent in support
of his opinion, from words they were just coming to blows, when the
stranger at once put an end to the dispute, by declaring that he was the
very man. "Jervas!" exclaimed they all at once, "Jervas alive!--our
Lame Jervas turned gentleman!"

The miners could scarcely believe their eyes, or their ears, especially
when, upon following him out of the mine, they saw him get into a
handsome coach, and drive toward the mansion of one of the principal
gentlemen of the neighbourhood, who was a proprietor of the mine.

The next day, all the head miners were invited to dine in tents, pitched
in a field near this gentleman's house. It was fine weather, and harvest
time; the guests assembled, and in the tents found abundance of good
cheer provided for them.

After dinner, Mr. R----, the master of the house, appeared, accompanied
by Lame Jervas, dressed in his miner's old jacket and cap. Even the
ghost-seer acknowledged that he now looked wonderful like himself. Mr.
R----, the master of the house, filled a glass, and drank--"Welcome home
to our friend, Mr. Jervas; and may good faith always meet with good
fortune." The toast went round, each drank, and repeated, "Welcome home
to our friend Mr. Jervas; and may good faith always meet good fortune."
Indeed, what was meant by the good faith, or the good fortune, none
could guess; and many in whispers, and some aloud, made bold to ask for
an explanation of the toast.

Mr. Jervas, on whom all eyes were fixed, after thanking the company for
their _welcome home_, took his seat at the table; and in compliance with
Mr. R----'s request, and the wishes of all present, related to them his
story nearly in the following manner:

"Where I was born, or who were my parents, I do not well know myself;
nor can I recollect who was my nurse, or whether I was ever nursed at
all: but, luckily, these circumstances are not of much importance to the
world. The first thing which I can distinctly remember is the being set,
along with a number of children of my own age, to pick and wash loose
ore of tin mixed with the earth, which in those days we used to call
_shoad_, or _squad_--I don't know what you call it now."

"We call it _squad_ to this day, master," interrupted one of the miners.

"I might be at this time, I suppose," continued the gentleman, "about
five or six years old; and from that time till I was thirteen I worked
in the mine where we were yesterday. From the bottom of my heart I
rejoice that the times are bettered for youngsters since then; for I
know I had a hard life of it.

"My good master, here, never knew any thing of the matter but I was
cruelly used by those under him. First, the oldwoman--Betty Morgan, I
think, was her name--who set us our tasks of picking and washing the
_squad_, was as cross as the rheumatism could make her. She never picked
an ounce herself, but made us do her heap for her among us; and I being
the youngest, it was shoved down to me. Often and often my day's wages
were kept back, not having done this woman's task; and I did not dare
to tell my master the truth, lest she should beat me. But, God rest
her soul! she was an angel of light in comparison with the _trap-door
keeper_, who was my next tyrant.

"It was our business to open and shut certain doors, that were placed
in the mine for letting in air to the different galleries: but my young
tyrant left them every one to me to take care of; and I was made to run
to and fro, till I had scarcely breath in my body, while every miner in
turn was swearing at me for the idlest little fellow upon the surface of
the earth; though the surface of the earth, alas! was a place on which I
had never yet, to my knowledge, set my foot.

"In my own defence, I made all the excuses I could think of; and, from
excuses, I went on to all kinds of deceit: for tyranny and injustice
always produce cunning and falsehood.

"One day, having shut all the doors on my side of the mine, I left three
open on my companion's side. The men, I thought, would not go to work on
that side of the mine for a day or two: but in this I was mistaken; and
about noon I was alarmed by the report of a man having been killed in
one of the galleries for want of fresh air.


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