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It Is Never Too Late to Mend

by Charles Reade

This attempt at a solid fiction is, with their permission, dedicated
to the President, Fellows, and demies of St. Mary Magdalen College.
Oxford, by a grateful son of that ancient, learned, and most
charitable house.

CHAPTER I.

GEORGE FIELDING cultivated a small farm in Berkshire.

This position is not so enviable as it was. Years ago, the farmers of
England, had they been as intelligent as other traders, could have
purchased the English soil by means of the huge percentage it offered
them.

But now, I grieve to say, a farmer must be as sharp as his neighbors,
or like his neighbors he will break. What do I say? There are soils
and situations where, in spite of intelligence and sobriety, he is
almost sure to break; just as there are shops where the lively, the
severe, the industrious, the lazy, are fractured alike.

This last fact I make mine by perambulating a certain great street
every three months, and observing how name succeeds to name as wave to
wave.

Readers hardened by the _Times_ will not perhaps go so far as to
weep over a body of traders for being reduced to the average condition
of all other traders. But the individual trader, who fights for
existence against unfair odds, is to be pitied whether his shop has
plate glass or a barn door to it; and he is the more to be pitied when
he is sober, intelligent, proud, sensitive, and unlucky.

George Fielding was all these, who, a few years ago, assisted by his
brother William, filled "The Grove"--as nasty a little farm as any in
Berkshire.

Discontented as he was, the expression hereinbefore written would have
seemed profane to young Fielding, for a farmer's farm and a sailor's
ship have always something sacred in the sufferer's eyes, though one
sends one to jail, and the other the other to Jones.

It was four hundred acres, all arable, and most of it poor sour land.
George's father had one hundred acres grass with it, but this had been
separated six years ago.

There was not a tree, nor even an old stump to show for this word
"Grove."

But in the country oral tradition still flourishes.

There had been trees in "The Grove," only the title had outlived the
timber a few centuries.

On the morning of our tale George Fielding might have been seen near
his own homestead, conversing with the Honorable Frank Winchester.

This gentleman was a character that will be common some day, but was
nearly unique at the date of our story.

He had not an extraordinary intellect, but he had great natural
gayety, and under that he had enormous good sense; his good sense was
really brilliant, he had a sort of universal healthy mind that I can't
understand how people get.

He was deeply in love with a lady who returned his passion, but she
was hopelessly out of his reach, because he had not much money or
expectations; instead of sitting down railing, or sauntering about
whining, what did me the Honorable Frank Winchester? He looked over
England for the means of getting this money, and not finding it there,
he surveyed the globe and selected Australia, where, they told him, a
little money turns to a deal, instead of dissolving in the hand like a
lozenge in the mouth, as it does in London.

So here was an earl's son (in this age of commonplace events) going to
Australia with five thousand pounds, as sheep farmer and general
speculator.

He was trying hard to persuade George Fielding to accompany him as
bailiff or agricultural adviser and manager.

He knew the young man's value, but to do him justice his aim was not
purely selfish; he was aware that Fielding had a bad bargain in "The
Grove," and the farmer had saved his life at great personal risk one
day that he was seized with cramp bathing in the turbid waters of
Cleve millpool, and he wanted to serve him in return. This was not his
first attempt of the kind, and but for one reason perhaps he might
have succeeded.

"You know me and I know you," said Mr. Winchester to George Fielding;
"I must have somebody to put me in the way. Stay with me one year, and
after that I'll square accounts with you about that thundering
millpool."

"Oh! Mr. Winchester," said George, hastily and blushing like fire,
"that's an old story, sir?" with a sweet little half-cunning smile
that showed he was glad it was not forgotten.

"Not quite," replied the young gentleman dryly; "you shall have five
hundred sheep and a run for them, and we will both come home rich and
consequently respectable."

"It is a handsome offer, sir, and a kind offer and like yourself, sir,
but transplanting one of us," continued George, "dear me, sir, it's
like taking up an oak tree thirty years in the
ground--besides--besides--did you ever notice my cousin, Susanna,
sir?"

"Notice her! why, do you think I am a heathen, and never go to the
parish church? Miss Merton is a lovely girl; she sits in the pew by
the pillar."

"Isn't she, sir?" said George.

Mr. Winchester endeavored to turn this adverse topic in his favor; he
made a remark that produced no effect at the time. He said, "People
don't go to Australia to die--they go to Australia to make money, and
come home and marry--and it is what you must do--this "Grove" is a
millstone round your neck. Will you have a cigar, farmer?"

George consented, premising, however, that hitherto he had never got
beyond a yard of clay, and after drawing a puff or two he took the
cigar from his mouth, and looking at it said, "I say, sir! seems to me
the fire is uncommon near the chimbly." Mr. Winchester laughed; he
then asked George to show him the blacksmith shop. "I must learn how
to shoe a horse," said the honorable Frank.

"Well, I never!" thought George. "The first nob in the country going
to shoe a horse," but with his rustic delicacy he said nothing, and
led Mr. Winchester to the blacksmith's shop.

While this young gentleman is hammering nails into a horse's hoof, and
Australia into an English farmer's mind, we must introduce other
personages.

Susanna Merton was beautiful and good. George Fielding and she were
acknowledged lovers, but marriage was not spoken of as a near event,
and latterly old Merton had seemed cool whenever his daughter
mentioned the young man's name.

Susanna appeared to like George, though not so warmly as he loved her;
but at all events she accepted no other proffers of love. For all that
she had, besides a host of admirers, other lovers besides George; and
what is a great deal more singular (for a woman's eye is quick as
lightning in finding out who loves her), there was more than one of
whose passion she was not conscious.

William Fielding, George's brother, was in love with his brother's
sweetheart, but though he trembled with pleasure when she was near
him, he never looked at her except by stealth; he knew he had no
business to love her.

On the morning of our tale Susan's father, old Merton, had walked over
from his farm to "The Grove," and was inspecting a field behind
George's house, when he was accosted by his friend, Mr. Meadows, who
had seen him, and giving his horse to a boy to hold had crossed the
stubbles to speak to him.

Mr. Meadows was not a common man, and merits some preliminary notice.

He was what is called in the country "a lucky man"; everything he had
done in life had prospered.

The neighbors admired, respected, and some of them even hated this
respectable man, who had been a carter in the midst of them, and now
at forty years of age was a rich corn-factor and land-surveyor.

"All this money cannot have been honestly got," said the envious ones
among themselves; yet they could not put their finger on any dishonest
action he had done. To the more candid the known qualities of the man
accounted for his life of success.

This John Meadows had a cool head, an iron will, a body and mind alike
indefatigable, and an eye never diverted from the great objects of
sober industrious men--wealth and respectability. He had also the
soul of business--method!

At one hour he was sure to be at church; at another, at market; in his
office at a third, and at home when respectable men should be at home.

By this means Mr. Meadows was always to be found by any man who wanted
to do business; and when you had found him, you found a man
superficially coy perhaps, but at bottom always ready to do business,
and equally sure to get the sunny side of it and give you the windy.

Meadows was generally respected; by none more than by old Merton, and
during the last few months the intimacy of these two men had ripened
into friendship; the corn-factor often hooked his bridle to the old
farmer's gate, and took a particular interest in all his affairs.

Such was John Meadows.

In person he was a tall, stout man, with iron gray hair, a healthy,
weather-colored complexion, and a massive brow that spoke to the depth
and force of the man's character.

"What, taking a look at the farm, Mr. Merton? It wants some of your
grass put to it, doesn't it?"

"I never thought much of the farm," was the reply, "it lies cold; the
sixty-acre field is well enough, but the land on the hill is as poor
as death."

Now this idea, which Merton gave out as his, had dropped into him from
Meadows three weeks before.

"Farmer," said Meadows, in an undertone, "they are thrashing out new
wheat for the rent."

"You don't say so? Why I didn't hear the flail going."

"They have just knocked off for dinner--you need not say I told you,
but Will Fielding was at the bank this morning, trying to get money on
their bill, and the bank said No! They had my good word, _too_. The
people of the bank sent over to me."

They had his good word! but not his good tone! he had said. "Well,
their father was a safe man;" but the accent with which he eulogized
the parent had somehow locked the bank cash-box to the children.

"I never liked it, especially of late," mused Merton. "But you see the
young folk being cousins--"

"That is it, cousins," put in Meadows; "it is not as if she loved him
with all her heart and soul; she is an obedient daughter, isn't she?"

"Never gainsaid me in her life; she has a high spirit, but never with
me; my word is law. You see, she is a very religious girl, is Susan."

"Well, then, a word from you would save her--but there--all that is
your affair, not mine," added he.

"Of course it is," was the reply. "You are a true friend. I'll step
round to the barn and see what is doing." And away went Susan's father
uneasy in his mind.

Meadows went to the "Black Horse," the village public house, to see
what farmers wanted to borrow a little money under the rose, and would
pawn their wheat ricks, and pay twenty per cent for that overrated
merchandise.

At the door of the public-house he was met by the village constable,
and a stranger of gentlemanly address and clerical appearance. The
constable wore a mysterious look and invited Meadows into the parlor
of the public-house.

"I have news for you, sir," said he, "leastways I think so; your
pocket was picked last Martinmas fair of three Farnborough bank-notes
with your name on the back."

"It was!"

"Is this one of them?" said the man, producing a note.

Meadows examined it with interest, compared the number with a
memorandum in his pocketbook, and pronounced that it was.

"Who passed it?" inquired he.

"A chap that has got the rest--a stranger--Robinson--that lodges at
"The Grove" with George Fielding; that is, if his name is Robinson,
but we think he is a Londoner come down to take an airing. You
understand, Sir."

Meadows' eyes flashed actual fire. For so rich a man, he seemed
wonderfully excited by this circumstance.

To an inquiry who was his companion, the constable answered _sotto
voce_, "Gentleman from Bow Street, come to see if he knows him."
The constable went on to inform Meadows that Robinson was out fishing
somewhere, otherwise they would already have taken him; "but we will
hang about the farm, and take him when he comes home."

"You had better be at hand, sir, to identify the notes," said the
gentleman from Bow Street, whose appearance was clerical.

Meadows had important business five miles off; he postponed it. He
wrote a line in pencil, put a boy upon his black mare, and hurried him
off to the rendezvous, while he stayed and entered with strange
alacrity into this affair. "Stay," cried he, "if he is an old hand he
will twig the officer."

"Oh, I'm dark, sir," was the answer; "he won't know me till I put the
darbies on him."

The two men then strolled as far as the village stocks, keeping an eye
ever on the farm-house.

Thus a network of adverse events was closing round George Fielding
this day.

He was all unconscious of them; he was in good spirits. Robinson had
showed him how to relieve the temporary embarrassment that had lately
depressed him.

"Draw a bill on your brother," said Robinson, "and let him accept it.
The Farnborough Bank will give you notes for it. These country banks
like any paper better than their own. I dare say they are right."

George had done this, and expected William every minute with this and
other moneys. And then Susanna Merton was to dine at "The Grove"
to-day, and this, though not uncommon, was always a great event with
poor George.

Dilly would not come to be killed just when he was wanted. In other
words, Robinson, who had no idea how he was keeping people waiting,
fished tranquilly till near dinner-time, neither taking nor being
taken.

This detained Meadows in the neighborhood of the farm, and was the
cause of his rencontre with a very singular personage, whose visit he
knew at sight must be to him.

As he hovered about among George Fielding's ricks, the figure of an
old man slightly bowed but full of vigor stood before him. He had a
long gray beard with a slight division in the center, hair abundant
but almost white, and a dark, swarthy complexion that did not belong
to England; his thick eyebrows also were darker than his hair, and
under them was an eye like a royal jewel; his voice had the Oriental
richness and modulation--this old man was Isaac Levi; an Oriental Jew
who had passed half his life under the sun's eye, and now, though the
town of Farnborough had long been too accustomed to him to wonder at
him, he dazzled any thoughtful stranger; so exotic and apart was
he--so romantic a grain in a heap of vulgarity--he was as though a
striped jasper had crept in among the paving-stones of their
marketplace, or a cactus grandiflora shone among the nettles of a
Berkshire meadow.

Isaac Levi, unlike most Jews, was familiar with the Hebrew tongue, and
this and the Eastern habits of his youth colored his language and his
thoughts, especially in his moments of emotion, and above all, when he
forgot the money-lender for a moment, and felt and thought as one of a
great nation, depressed, but waiting for a great deliverance. He was a
man of authority and learning in his tribe.

At sight of Isaac Levi Meadows' brow towered, and he called out rather
rudely without allowing the old gentleman to speak, "If you are come
to talk to me about that house you are in you may keep your breath to
cool your porridge."

Meadows had bought the house Isaac rented, and had instantly given him
warning to leave.

Isaac, who had become strangely attached to the only place in which he
had ever lived many years, had not doubted for a moment that Meadows
merely meant to raise the rent to its full value, so he had come to
treat with his new landlord. "Mr. Meadows," said he persuasively, "I
have lived there twenty years--I pay a fair rent--but, if you think
any one would give you more you shall lose nothing by me--I will pay a
little more; and you know your rent is secure?"

"I do," was the answer.

"Thank you, sir! well, then--"

"Well, then, next Lady-day you turn out bag and baggage.

"Nay, sir," said Isaac Levi, "hear me, for you are younger than I. Mr.
Meadows, when this hair was brown I traveled in the East; I sojourned
in Madras and Benares, in Bagdad, Ispahan, Mecca and Bassora, and
found no rest. When my hair began to turn gray, I traded in Petersburg
and Rome and Paris, Vienna and Lisbon and other western cities and
found no rest. I came to this little town, where, least of all, I
thought to pitch my tent for life, but here the God of my fathers gave
me my wife, and here He took her to Himself again--"

"What the deuce is all this to me, man?"

"Much, sir, if you are what men say; for men speak well of you; be
patient, and hear me. Two children were born to me and died from me in
the house you have bought; and there my Leah died also; and there at
times in the silent hours I seem to hear their voices and their feet.
In another house I shall never hear them--I shall be quite alone. Have
pity on me, sir, an aged and a lonely man; tear me not from the
shadows of my dead. Let me prevail with you?"

"No!" was the stern answer.

"No?" cried Levi, a sudden light darting into his eye; "then you must
be an enemy of Isaac Levi?"

"Yes!" was the grim reply to this rapid inference.

"Aha!" cried the old Jew, with a sudden defiance, which he instantly
suppressed. "And what have I done to gain your enmity, sir?" said he,
in a tone crushed by main force into mere regret.

"You lend money."

"A little, sir, now and then--a very little."

"That is to say, when the security is bad, you have no money in hand;
but when the security is good, nobody has ever found the bottom of
Isaac Levi's purse."

"Our people," said Isaac apologetically, "can trust one another--they
are not like yours. We are brothers, and that is why money is always
forthcoming when the deposit is sound."

"Well," said Meadows, "what you are, I am; what I do on the sly you do
on the sly, old thirty per cent."

"The world is wide enough for us both, good sir--"

"It is!" was the prompt reply. "And it lies before you, Isaac. Go
where you like, for the little town of Farnborough is not wide enough
for me and any man that works my business for his own pocket--"

"But this is not enmity, sir."

Meadows gave a coarsish laugh. "You are hard to please," cried he. "I
think you will find it is enmity."

"Nay! sir, this is but matter of profit and loss. Well, let me stay,
and I promise you shall gain and not lose. Our people are industrious
and skillful in all bargains, but we keep faith and covenant. So be
it. Let us be friends. I covenant with you, and I swear by the tables
of the law, you shall not lose one shilling per annum by me."

"I'll trust you as far as I can fling a bull by the tail. You gave me
your history--take mine. I have always put my foot on whatever man or
thing has stood in my way. I was poor, I am rich, and that is my
policy."

"It is frail policy," said Isaac, firmly. "Some man will be sure to
put his foot on you, soon or late."

"What, do you threaten me?" roared Meadows.

"No, sir," said Isaac, gently but steadily. "I but tell you what these
old eyes have seen in every nation, and read in books that never lie.
Goliath defied armies, yet he fell like a pigeon by a shepherd-boy's
sling. Samson tore a lion in pieces with his hands, but a woman laid
him low. No man can defy us all, sir! The strong man is sure to find
one as strong and more skillful; the cunning man one as adroit and
stronger than himself. Be advised, then, do not trample upon one of my
people. Nations and men that oppress us do not thrive. Let me have to
bless you. An old man's blessing is gold. See these gray hairs. My
sorrows have been as many as they. His share of the curse that is upon
his tribe has fallen upon Isaac Levi." Then, stretching out his hands
with a slight but touching gesture, he said, "I have been driven to
and fro like a leaf these many years, and now I long for rest. Let me
rest in my little tent, till I rest forever. Oh! let me die where
those I loved have died, and there let me be buried."

Age, sorrow, and eloquence pleaded in vain, for they were wasted on
the rocks of rocks, a strong will and a vulgar soul. But indeed the
whole thing was like epic poetry wrestling with the _Limerick
Chronicle_ or _Tuam Gazette_.

I am almost ashamed to give the respectable western brute's answer.

"What! you quote Scripture, eh? I thought you did not believe in that.
Hear t'other side. Abraham and Lot couldn't live in the same place,
because they both kept sheep, and we can't, because we fleece 'em. So
Abraham gave Lot warning as I give it you. And as for dying on my
premises, if you like to hang yourself before next Lady-day, I give
you leave, but after Lady-day no more Jewish dogs shall die in my
house nor be buried for manure in my garden."

Black lightning poured from the old Jew's eyes, and his pent-up wrath
burst out like lava from an angry mountain.

"Irreverent cur! do you rail on the afflicted of Heaven? The Founder
of your creed would abhor you, for He, they say, was pitiful. I spit
upon ye, and I curse ye. Be accursed!" And flinging up his hands, like
St. Paul at Lystra, he rose to double his height and towered at his
insulter with a sudden Eastern fury that for a moment shook even the
iron Meadows. "Be accursed!" he yelled again. "Whatever is the secret
wish of your black heart Heaven look on my gray hairs that you have
insulted, and wither that wish. Ah, ah!" he screamed, "you wince. All
men have secret wishes--Heaven fight against yours. May all the good
luck you have be wormwood for want of that--that---that--that. May
you be near it, close to it, upon it, pant for it, and lose it; may it
sport, and smile, and laugh, and play with you till Gehenna burns your
soul upon earth!"

The old man's fiery forked tongue darted so keen and true to some sore
in his adversary's heart that he in turn lost his habitual
self-command.

White and black with passion he wheeled round on Isaac with a fierce
snarl, and lifting his stick discharged a furious blow at his head.

Fortunately for Isaac wood encountered leather instead of gray hairs.

Attracted by the raised voices, and unseen in their frenzy by either
of these antagonists, young George Fielding had drawn near them. He
had, luckily, a stout pig-whip in his hand, and by an adroit turn of
his muscular wrist he parried a blow that would have stopped the old
Jew's eloquence perhaps forever. As it was, the corn-factor's stick
cut like a razor through the air, and made a most musical whirr within
a foot of the Jew's ear. The basilisk look of venom and vengeance he
instantly shot back amounted to a stab.

"Not if I know it," said George. And he stood cool and erect with a
calm manly air of defiance between the two belligerents. While the
stick and the whip still remained in contact, Meadows glared at
Isaac's champion with surprise and wrath, and a sort of half fear half
wonder that this of all men in the world should be the one to cross
weapons with and thwart him. "You are joking, Master Meadows," said
George coolly. "Why the man is twice your age, and nothing in his hand
but his fist. Who are ye, old man, and what d'ye want? It's you for
cursing, anyway."

"He insults me," cried Meadows, "because I won't have him for a tenant
against my will. Who is he? A villainous old Jew."

"Yes, young man," said the other, sadly, "I am Isaac Levi, a Jew. And
what is your religion" (he turned upon Meadows)? "It never came out of
Judea in any name or shape. D'ye call yourself a heathen? Ye lie, ye
cur; the heathen were not without starlight from heaven; they
respected sorrow and gray hairs."

"You shall smart for this. I'll show you what my religion is," said
Meadows, inadvertent with passion, and the corn-factor's fingers
grasped his stick convulsively.

"Don't you be so aggravating, old man," said the good-natured George,
"and you, Mr. Meadows, should know how to make light of an old man's
tongue; why it's like a woman's, it's all he has got to hit with;
leastways you mustn't lift hand to him on my premises, or you will
have to settle with me first; and I don't think that would suit your
book or any man's for a mile or two round about Farnborough," said
George with his little Berkshire drawl.

"He!" shrieked Isaac, "he dare not! see! see!" and he pointed nearly
into the man's eye, "he doesn't look you in the face. Any soul that
has read men from east to west can see lion in your eye, young man,
and cowardly wolf in his."

"Lady-day! Lady-day!" snorted Meadows, who was now shaking with
suppressed rage.

"Ah!" cried Isaac, and he turned white and quivered in his turn.

"Lady-day!" said George, uneasily, "Confound Lady-day, and every day
of the sort--there, don't you be so spiteful, old man--why if he isn't
all of a tremble. Poor old man." He went to his own door, and called
"Sarah!"

A stout servant-girl answered the summons.

"Take the old man in, and give him whatever is going, and his mug and
pipe," then he whispered her, "and don't go lumping the chine down
under his nose now."

"I thank you, young man," faltered Isaac, "I must not eat with you,
but I will go in and rest my limbs which fail me, and compose myself;
for passion is unseemly at my years."

Arrived at the door, he suddenly paused, and looking upward, said: