Social life in England, 1750-1850Foakes-Jackson, F. J. (Frederick John)
History
Social life in England, 1750-1850
Foakes-Jackson, F. J. (Frederick John)
England -- Social life and customs -- 18th century; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
Now comes the undoubted fiction in the story. Margaret Catchpole
particularly requested that her husband’s name should be concealed, if
her adventures were ever published, in order that her children might
not know she had been a convict. Consequently we must assume that
the honest lover called John Barry of Levington, the parish next to
Nacton, is fictitious, and probably that he and his brother Edward are
introduced to heighten the romance.[13] Anyhow, in the story Laud was
severely wounded by John’s brother Edward, who commanded the preventive
men on Felixstow Beach, and was supposed to have been killed. Margaret
nursed Laud in his concealment into convalescence; and later on when
she was in service at a Mrs. Wake’s he attempted to carry her off by
violence. She was, however, protected by the faithful John Barry and
a strange old fisherman nicknamed Robinson Crusoe. John Barry was
seriously wounded. On his recovery he proposed to Margaret, who refused
him; and, in desperation, the rejected lover emigrated to the Colony
of New South Wales, Australia.
In May, 1793, Margaret entered into service with Mrs. Cobbold of the
Cliff, Ipswich. The house still stands adjoining the well-known brewery
on the shore of the river Orwell. Even to this day it lies at the
fringe of the business part of Ipswich, at the end of the docks and
quays; beyond it is country and the well-wooded banks of the beautiful
river. The girl was under-nursemaid, and also helped the cook in the
evening. She soon manifested exceptional abilities; for not only did
she learn all the lessons which the children had to prepare, but on
three occasions she saved the life of members of Mrs. Cobbold’s large
family. She rescued two little boys, George and Frederick (the latter
my grandfather), from the fall of a wall, which would inevitably have
crushed them; she saved another, Henry, in Ipswich, when he had fallen
into deep water; and when an older boy, named William, had gone alone
down the Orwell to shoot ducks and his boat had been overturned, it
was by her courage and resource that the lad was recovered in a state
of insensibility. On the latter occasion Laud reappears suddenly. He
had been pressed into the Navy and was now necessarily leading a more
reputable life, and Margaret could avow her partiality for her lover
without shame. In 1794 Laud fought in Lord Howe’s victory of the 1st of
June and apparently distinguished himself highly in the action, being
one of the crew entrusted with bringing home a valuable prize. In the
story Laud is represented as a man naturally with good impulses, but
weak and unstable; and the villain of the piece is the sailor who was
Laud’s mate in his smuggling days--one Luff.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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