I recently bought a first edition of Tom Tufton’s Toll, published in 1898, largely because I’m a sucker for old books and highwaymen. It’s not a great novel, but one that evokes atmosphere and much subliminal baggage. It’s one of the joys of reading old books, getting into the mindset of a previous age that bought and enjoyed them.
It helps to know that its author, Evelyn Everett Green (1856 -1937) came from a Methodist family, and wrote over 350 books under several names, specialising in children’s literature, romance novels, and boys’ own adventure. In that respect she continued the late imperial tradition associated with her contemporary Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) and the older, G. A. Henty (1832 – 1902.) She, like them, imbued generations with Victorian values through page turning fiction.
Tom Tufton’s Toll is a case in point. Set in the reign of Queen Anne, it's essentially a story of redemption, how pride and circumstances can ambush a noble heart. Tom has everything, a country house, loving mother and sister and a sweetheart called Rosamund—all lost when led astray by the charismatic Lord Claud.
Lord Claud exerts an almost sexual attraction but more potent. The Toxoplasma gondii parasite can turn a timid mouse into a bold, cat-teasing rodent. Lord Claud has a similar effect on those around him, seducing women and making men reckless and willing to lay down their lives for him. He is man of mystery, a Scarlet Pimpernel and Raffles with a touch of the brilliant Rik Mayall’s Captain Flashheart in Blackadder.
One of the outlaws, Captain Jack, rhapsodises:
‘He looks little older now than in the days he came first to me, his bright hair floating round his face, mounted upon a milk-white charger, clad in suite of white and silver – a very vision of grace and beauty. It was in the dawn of a summer’s morning that I saw him first. The long, level beams of golden sunshine were shining behind him. I never saw a fairer vision. I thought I was looking upon something more than mortals…
…I can see him now- the graceful boyish figure; the fair cheek, fresh and soft as a woman’s; the dreamy blue eyes, which could nevertheless flash and kindle; and the lips that seemed ready for the kisses of love.’
Be still, my beating heart!
On to the plot. Despite the derring do and adventure, it is essentially a story of redemption. Captain Jack, never forgets Tom’s father saving him from the noose and giving him a second chance. (Your father) “spoke to me so earnestly and seriously of the sin of my past life, that my heart was quite changed and softened, and I promised him that if I had but the chance, I would turn over a new leaf and begin life afresh as an honest man.’ He fails and is tempted back to ‘the forest with other wild spirits full of lawlessness and the joy of life.’ And yet, in the end it is a redeemed Captain Jack that nudges Tom back into a more moral life.
But that is much later; for now, Tom is in love with the outlaw’s life and every boy reading it would be too, with its shades of Robin Hood, and The Black Arrow.
For a start the outlaws have a den. They have several. This one is a ruined cottage deep in the forest made suitably comfortable:
'…the stone walls were sound and thick, the thatched roof was warm overhead . . . Quantities of brake fern were always cut and dried in the autumn so that man and beast could lie warm and soft and the old cottage often resounded to the sounds of mirth and laughter …Though the snow lay white and deep without, the larder was well stocked with game, and the fumes of spirits mingled with the appetising odour of roasted venison and the clouds of tobacco smoke . . .'
It's all reminiscent of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan lacking the civilising influence of a ‘Wendy.’
We witness a pivotal adventure that will bring eventually bring disaster and turn Tom into a vengeful Robin Hood. They are set to destroy a villainous miser and redistribute his goods. As the adventure starts, you can almost hear the theme music accompanied by a British Pathe voiceover:
‘The moon had risen and rode high in the sky. A biting frost had the land in its grip. The snow was firm and hard, and crackled crisply beneath the feet of the little cavalcade as it started forth.
They had a matter of six miles to go to reach their destination; but that was nothing to the hardy sons of the forest. They had an adventure in front: wrongs to redress, vengeance to take upon the wicked and oppressive….’
Fired by Captain Jack, Tom Tufton assumes his role as ‘Robin Hood’ and gives his name to the book: ‘Tom Tufton’s Toll.’
He robs with purpose stealing only from ‘respectable’ thieves, and as for women, Tom and the newly rescued Captain Jack are Victorian gentlemen:
"There are women of many sorts in this world,” said Tom, with thoughtful mien – "good women like my mother and Rachel, and like Rosamund; and there are women such as I have seen in London – painted, mincing butterflies with no more soul than the winged insects themselves…." (but I could never rob a woman using force.)
"Right, Tom, right, " answered Captain Jack. “Never use force towards a woman, be she no better than she should; for it is womanhood in her, not the frailty of women that we reverence.”
He observes Tom’s face in the firelight, the formerly generous and reckless features now leavened with bitterness and hate for injustice. Tom throws back his head and declares:
"I have been a highway robber, a freebooter, a slayer of men, but I have been the champion of the oppressed. I have seldom gained by my robberies. I have taken gold to give to the needs of others. I have punished evil doers…If God wishes to condemn me to hell for that, I will go at his bidding.”
Here is the doomed romantic hero but one that Evelyn in the form of Captain Jack will now admonish. He confesses his unworthiness to preach but quotes from the Bible: we must not do evil so that good may come from it.
Tom remembers his dead father’s godly face and there ‘surged up in his heart a loathing of much in his past – of his pride, his self-sufficiency, his determination to judge for himself and be a law to himself.’
From there one, the message is unremitting. Tom returns to his mother, his sister, Rachel and sweetheart, Rosamund. He asks his mother, should he stay the fugitive or hand himself in? His mother buries her face in her hands:
'She remained a long time without motion, her heaving shoulders alone betraying the violence of the storm raging within.’ At last, she looks up ‘and there was a strange and yearning intensity in her eyes.’
“Stay here, my son,’" she said; "let us have done with hiding and subterfuge. Meet your foes like a man; meet them in your father’s house. . .. And yet, Tom, it is hard – oh my son, it is hard!"
The consequences are capture, trial and judgement. Tyburn and the noose await, but only after a final visit from the fair Rosamund
“You shall not die! You shall not die!” cried Rosamund in an agony of passionate weeping. “Tom, Tom, hold me fast- hold me fast! You shall not die! God will never suffer it. It must not be – it cannot be!”
'He bent his face over hers and kissed her hair, her neck, her wet cheeks. She suddenly threw back her head and returned his kisses with hot feverish lips.’
After Rosamund's gone, the Chaplain approaches.
“Have courage, my good Tom,” said the chaplain kindly, his hand upon Tom’s shoulder. “Let us believe that all is ordered for our good. You have turned from evil course; you have repented in dust and ashes. Your peace is made with God. What does anything else matter? This life is but a span and hairbreadth; beyond us is the unfathomable depth of eternity.”
As to whether there is a happy ending or not, I’ll leave that hanging. I’m still getting over those ‘hot feverish kisses.’
What is interesting is Lord Claud. In him Evelyn Everett Green created a template for the modern fantasy hero: Elric of Melnibone, Gaynor Prince of the Damned. Claud is amoral and charismatic with a touch of the satanic.
‘He is a strange being. He seems to me to be like a man without a soul. He can go on his way without fear or qualm. He evades peril, yet never shirks his share. He leads men into the valley of death, but he ever escapes himself. It is as though he has some compact with the princes of the powers of the air …’ And yet Evelyn, though describing the template, does nothing with it or him. His role is essentially deus ex machina, beyond that nothing, leaving a modern reader wanting more from his ‘strange’ smiles, and ‘pale chiselled features.’
What is equally interesting is the book’s publication date of 1898. Raffles was written in 1898, Peter Pan, 1902/1904, and the Scarlet Pimpernel in 1902. All are more fully developed but remain essentially Lord Claud in different guise. There must have been something in the air.
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