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Updated: June 15, 2025
For the first four weeks that the Vicar lay paralyzed, the neighbouring clergymen had done his duty; but now arose a new difficulty at Drumston. Who was to do the duty while the poor Vicar lay there on his back speechless? "How," asked Miss Thornton of Tom Troubridge, "are we to make head against the dissenters now?
Drumston, in short, was an excellent specimen of a close, dull, dirty, and, I fear, not very healthy Devonshire village in the red country. On this day the main street, usually in a state of ancle-deep mud six months in the year, was churned and pounded into an almost knee-deep state, by four or five hundred hobnail shoes in search of amusement. The amusements were various.
But when she had gone to her room, and was sat a-thinking, she seemed to have had another husband before she was bound up with that desperate, coining, forging George Hawker another husband bearing the same name; but surely that handsome curly-headed young fellow, who used to wait for her so patiently in the orchard at Drumston, was not the same George Hawker as this desperate convict?
"I hope Mary may not have some trouble with her husband still." "What is the name of the place Major Buckley comes from?" I inquired. "Drumston." "And you belong there too?" I knew very well however, that he did not, or I must have known him. "No," he answered; "Okehampton is my native place. But you talk a little Devon yourself, sir."
I satisfied my soul with amazement at the men of war, and the breakwater; and, having bought a horse, I struck boldly across the moor for Drumston, revisiting on my way many a well-known snipe-ground, and old trout haunt; and so, on the third morning, I reached Drumston once more, and stabled my horse at a little public-house near the church.
The child was dry and warm, and fast asleep, if she could get some rest in one of the doorways in the lower part of the town, till she was stronger she could fight her way on to Drumston; so she held on to St. Thomas's, and finding an archway drier than the others sat down, and took the child upon her lap.
"You don't know what you are talking about, man," said Hawker. "Send in and tell him Mr. Hawker, of Drumston, is here." "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Hawker. I have only just come here, and did not know you. Porter, show Mr. Hawker in." They went into the formal bank parlour.
But at that moment the handsome head was raised from the pillow, and my eyes met George Hawker's. Oh, Lord! such a piteous wild look. I could not see the fierce desperate villain who had kept our country-side in terror so long. No, thank God, I could only see the handsome curly-headed boy who used to play with James Stockbridge and myself among the gravestones in Drumston churchyard.
This was all my revenge, and ere my brother could speak, I was gone away to England, where I had money in the funds, accompanied by my faithful Max, whom Mary Hawker's father buried in Drumston churchyard. "So in one day I lost a brother, a mistress, a castle, a king, and a fatherland. I was a ruined, desperate man.
Stockbridge sat immovable and silent as a statue, and I saw that his heart travelled farther than his eye could reach. "Jim," said I, "I wonder what is going on at Drumston now?" "I wonder," he said softly. "Jim," I began again, "do you ever think of poor little Mary now?" "Yes, old boy, I do," he replied. "I was thinking of her then I am always thinking of her.
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