'T was Bedford Special Assize, one daft Midsummer's Day:A broiling blasting June,—was never its like, men say.Corn stood sheaf-ripe already, and trees looked yellow as that;Ponds drained dust-dry, the cattle lay foaming around each flat.Inside town, dogs went mad, and folk kept bibbing beerWhile the parsons prayed for rain. 'T was horrible, yes—but queer:Queer—for the sun laughed gay, yet nobody moved a handTo work one stroke at his trade: as given to understandThat all was come to a stop, work and such worldly ways,And the world's old self about to end in a merry blaze.Midsummer's Day moreover was the first of Bedford Fair,With Bedford Town's tag-rag and bobtail a-bowsing there.But the Court House, Quality crammed: through doors ope, windows wide,High on the Bench you saw sit Lordships side by side.There frowned Chief Justice Jukes, fumed learned Brother Small,And fretted their fellow Judge: like threshers, one and all,Of a reek with laying down the law in a furnace. Why?Because their lungs breathed flame—the regular crowd forbye261—From gentry pouring in—quite a nosegay, to be sure!How else could they pass the time, six mortal hours endureTill night should extinguish day, when matters might haply mend?Meanwhile no bad resource was—watching begin and endSome trial for life and death, in a brisk five minutes' space,And betting which knave would 'scape, which hang, from his sort of face.So, their Lordships toiled and moiled, and a deal of work was done(I warrant) to justify the mirth of the crazy sunAs this and t'other lout, struck dumb at the sudden showOf red robes and white wigs, boggled nor answered "Boh!"When asked why he, Tom Styles, should not—because Jack NokesHad stolen the horse—be hanged: for Judges must have their jokes,And louts must make allowance—let's say, for some blue flyWhich punctured a dewy scalp where the frizzles stuck awry—Else Tom had fleered scot-free, so nearly over and doneWas the main of the job. Full-measure, the gentles enjoyed their fun,As a twenty-five were tried, rank puritans caught at prayerIn a cow-house and laid by the heels,—have at 'em, devil may care!—And ten were prescribed the whip, and ten a brand on the cheek,And five a slit of the nose—just leaving enough to tweak.Well, things at jolly high-tide, amusement steeped in fire,While noon smote fierce the roof's red tiles to heart's desire,The Court a-simmer with smoke, one ferment of oozy flesh,262One spirituous humming musk mount-mounting until its meshEntoiled all heads in a fluster, and Serjeant Postlethwayte—Dashing the wig oblique as he mopped his oily pate—Cried "Silence, or I grow grease! No loophole lets in air?Jurymen,—Guilty, Death! Gainsay me if you dare!"—Things at this pitch, I say,—what hubbub without the doors?What laughs, shrieks, hoots and yells, what rudest of uproars?Bounce through the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast!Thumps, kicks,—no manner of use!—spite of them rolls at lastInto the midst a ball which, bursting, brings to viewPublican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too:Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes upliftAt the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils—snouts that sniffedSulphur, such mouths a-gape ready to swallow flame!Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same,Mixed with a certain ... eh? how shall I dare style—mirthThe desperate grin of the guest that, could they break from earth,Heaven was above, and hell might rage in impotenceBelow the saved, the saved!"Confound you! (no offence!)Out of our way,—push, wife! Yonder their Worships be!"Ned Bratts has reached the bar, and "Hey, my Lords," roars he,"A Jury of life and death, Judges the prime of the land,Constables, javelineers,—all met, if I understand,263To decide so knotty a point as whether 't was Jack or JoanRobbed the henroost, pinched the pig, hit the King's Arms with a stone,Dropped the baby down the well, left the tithesman in the lurch,Or, three whole Sundays running, not once attended church!What a pother—do these deserve the parish-stocks or whip,More or less brow to brand, much or little nose to snip,—When, in our Public, plain stand we—that's we stand here,I and my Tab, brass-bold, brick-built of beef and beer,—Do not we, slut? Step forth and show your beauty, jade!Wife of my bosom—that's the word now! What a tradeWe drove! None said us nay: nobody loved his lifeSo little as wag a tongue against us,—did they, wife?Yet they knew us all the while, in their hearts, for what we are—Worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged—search near and far!Eh, Tab? The pedler, now—o'er his noggin—who warned a mateTo cut and run, nor risk his pack where its loss of weightWas the least to dread,—aha, how we two laughed a-goodAs, stealing round the midden, he came on where I stoodWith billet poised and raised,—you, ready with the rope,—Ah, but that's past, that's sin repented of, we hope!Men knew us for that same, yet safe and sound stood we!The lily-livered knaves knew too (I've balked a d——)Our keeping the 'Pied Bull' was just a mere pretence:Too slow the pounds make food, drink, lodging, from out the pence!There's not a stoppage to travel has chanced, this ten long year,No break into hall or grange, no lifting of nag or steer,Not a single roguery, from the clipping of a purse264To the cutting of a throat, but paid us toll. Od's curse!When Gipsy Smouch made bold to cheat us of our due,—Eh, Tab? the Squire's strong-box we helped the rascal to—I think he pulled a face, next Sessions' swinging-time!He danced the jig that needs no floor,—and, here's the prime,'T was Scroggs that houghed the mare! Ay, those were busy days!"Well, there we flourished brave, like scripture-trees called bays,Faring high, drinking hard, in money up to head—Not to say, boots and shoes, when ... Zounds, I nearly said—Lord, to unlearn one's language! How shall we labor, wife?Have you, fast hold, the Book? Grasp, grip it, for your life!See, sirs, here's life, salvation! Here's—hold but out my breath—When did I speak so long without once swearing? 'Sdeath,No, nor unhelped by ale since man and boy! And yetAll yesterday I had to keep my whistle wetWhile reading Tab this Book: book? don't say 'book'—they're plays,Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze,But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare!Tab, help and tell! I'm hoarse. A mug! or—no, a prayer!Dip for one out of the Book! Who wrote it in the Jail—He plied his pen unhelped by beer, sirs, I'll be bail!"I've got my second wind. In trundles she—that's Tab.'Why, Gammer, what's come now, that—bobbing like a crabOn Yule-tide bowl—your head's a-work and both your eyesBreak loose? Afeard, you fool? As if the dead can rise!265Say—Bagman Dick was found last May with fuddling-capStuffed in his mouth: to choke's a natural mishap!''Gaffer, be—blessed,' cries she, 'and Bagman Dick as well!I, you, and he are damned: this Public is our hell:We live in fire: live coals don't feel!—once quenched, they learn—Cinders do, to what dust they moulder while they burn!'"'If you don't speak straight out,' says I—belike I swore—'A knobstick, well you know the taste of, shall, once more,Teach you to talk, my maid!' She ups with such a face,Heart sunk inside me. 'Well, pad on, my prate-apace!'"'I'vebeen about those laces we need for ... never mind!If henceforth they tie hands, 't is mine they'll have to bind.You know who makes them best—the Tinker in our cage,Pulled-up for gospelling, twelve years ago: no ageTo try another trade,—yet, so he scorned to takeMoney he did not earn, he taught himself the makeOf laces, tagged and tough—Dick Bagman found them so!Good customers were we! Well, last week, you must knowHis girl,—the blind young chit, who hawks about his wares,—She takes it in her head to come no more—such airsThese hussies have! Yet, since we need a stoutish lace,—"I'll to the jail-bird father, abuse her to his face!"So, first I filled a jug to give me heart, and then,Primed to the proper pitch, I posted to their den—Patmore—they style their prison! I tip the turnkey, catchMy heart up, fix my face, and fearless lift the latch—Both arms a-kimbo, in bounce with a good round oathReady for rapping out: no "Lawks" nor "By my troth!""'There sat my man, the father. He looked up: what one feels266When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night,And in the day, earth grow another something quiteUnder the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone."'"Woman!" (a fiery tear he put in every tone),"How should my child frequent your house where lust is sport,Violence—trade? Too true! I trust no vague report.Her angel's hand, which stops the sight of sin, leaves clearThe other gate of sense, lets outrage through the ear.What has she heard!—which, heard shall never be again.Better lack food than feast, a Dives in the—wainOr reign or train—of Charles!" (His language was not ours:'T is my belief, God spoke: no tinker has such powers.)"Bread, only bread they bring—my laces: if we brokeYour lump of leavened sin, the loaf's first crumb would choke!""'Down on my marrow-bones! Then all at once rose he:His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see:Up went his hands: "Through flesh, I reach, I read thy soul!So may some stricken tree look blasted, bough and bole,Champed by the fire-tooth, charred without, and yet, thrice-boundWithdrerimentabout, within may life be found,A prisoned power to branch and blossom as before,Could but the gardener cleave the cloister, reach the core,Loosen the vital sap: yet where shall help be found?Who says 'How save it?'—nor 'Why cumbers it the ground?'Woman, that tree art thou! All sloughed about with scurf,Thy stag-horns fright the sky, thy snake-roots sting the turf!Drunkenness, wantonness, theft, murder gnash and gnarl267Thine outward, case thy soul with coating like the marleSatan stamps flat upon each head beneath his hoof!And how deliver such? The strong men keep aloof,Lover and friend stand far, the mocking ones pass by,Tophet gapes wide for prey: lost soul, despair and die!What then? 'Look unto me and be ye saved!' saith God:'I strike the rock, outstreats the life-stream at my rod!Be your sins scarlet, wool shall they seem like,—althoughAs crimson red, yet turn white as the driven snow!'""'There, there, there! All I seem to somehow understandIs—that, if I reached home, 't was through the guiding handOf his blind girl which led and led me through the streetsAnd out of town and up to door again. What greetsFirst thing my eye, as limbs recover from their swoon?A book—this Book she gave at parting. "Father's boon—The Book he wrote: it reads as if he spoke himself:He cannot preach in bonds, so,—take it down from shelfWhen you want counsel,—think you hear his very voice!""'Wickeddear Husband, first despair and then rejoice!Dear wicked Husband, waste no tick of moment more,Be saved like me, bald trunk! There's greenness yet at core,Sap under slough! Read, read!'"Let me take breath, my lords!I'd like to know, are these—hers, mine, or Bunyan's words?I'm 'wildered—scarce with drink,—nowise with drink alone!You'll say, with heat: but heat's no stuff to split a stoneLike this black boulder—this flint heart of mine: the Book—That dealt the crashing blow! Sirs, here's the fist that shookHis beard till Wrestler Jem howled like a just-lugged bear!You had brained me with a feather: at once I grew awareChristmas was meant for me. A burden at your back,268Good Master Christmas? Nay,—yours was that Joseph's sack,—Or whose it was,—which held the cup,—compared with mine!Robbery loads my loins, perjury cracks my chine,Adultery ... nay, Tab, you pitched me as I flung!One word, I'll up with fist.... No, sweet spouse, hold your tongue!"I'm hasting to the end. The Book, sirs—take and read!You have my history in a nutshell,—ay, indeed!It must off, my burden! See,—slack straps and into pit,Roll, reach, the bottom, rest, rot there—a plague on it!For a mountain's sure to fall and bury Bedford Town,'Destruction'—that's the name, and fire shall burn it down!O 'scape the wrath in time! Time's now, if not too late.How can I pilgrimage up to the wicket-gate?Next comes Despond the slough: not that I fear to pullThrough mud, and dry my clothes at brave House Beautiful—But it's late in the day, I reckon: had I left years agoTown, wife, and children dear.... Well, Christmas did, you know!—Soon I had met in the valley and tried my cudgel's strengthOn the enemy horned and winged, a-straddle across its length!Have at his horns, thwick—thwack: they snap, see! Hoof and hoof—Bang, break the fetlock-bones! For love's sake, keep aloofAngels! I'm man and match,—this cudgel for my flail,—To thresh him, hoofs and horns, bat's wing and serpent's tail!A chance gone by! But then, what else does Hopeful dingInto the deafest ear except—hope, hope's the thing?Too late i' the day for me to thrid the windings: butThere's still a way to win the race by death's short cut!269Did Master Faithful need climb the Delightful Mounts?No, straight to Vanity Fair,—a fair, by all accounts,Such as is held outside,—lords, ladies, grand and gay,—Says he in the face of them, just what you hear me say.And the Judges brought him in guilty, and brought him outTo die in the market-place—St. Peter's Green's aboutThe same thing: there they flogged, flayed, buffeted, lanced with knives,Pricked him with swords,—I'll swear, he'd full a cat's nine lives,—So to his end at last came Faithful,—ha, ha, he!Who holds the highest card? for there stands hid, you see,Behind the rabble-rout, a chariot, pair and all:He's in, he's off, he's up, through clouds, at trumpet-call,Carried the nearest way to Heaven-gate! Odds my life—Has nobody a sword to spare? not even a knife?Then hang me, draw and quarter! Tab—do the same by her!O Master Worldly-Wiseman ... that's Master Interpreter,Take the will, not the deed! Our gibbet's handy close:Forestall Last Judgment-Day! Be kindly, not morose!There wants no earthly judge-and-jurying: here we stand—Sentence our guilty selves: so, hang us out of hand!Make haste for pity's sake! A single moment's lossMeans—Satan's lord once more: his whisper shoots acrossAll singing in my heart, all praying in my brain,'It comes of heat and beer!'—hark how he guffaws plain!'To-morrow you'll wake bright, and, in a safe skin, hugYour sound selves, Tab and you, over a foaming jug!You've had such qualms before, time out of mind!' He's right!Did not we kick and cuff and curse away, that night,When home we blindly reeled, and left poor humpback Joe270I' the lurch to pay for what ... somebody did, you know!Both of us maundered then 'Lame humpback,—never moreWill he come limping, drain his tankard at our door!He'll swing, while—somebody....' Says Tab, 'No, for I'll peach!''I'm for you, Tab,' cries I, 'there's rope enough for each!'So blubbered we, and bussed, and went to bed uponThe grace of Tab's good thought: by morning, all was gone!We laughed—'What's life to him, a cripple of no account?'Oh, waves increase around—I feel them mount and mount!Hang us! To-morrow brings Tom Bearward with his bears:One new black-muzzled brute beats Sackerson, he swears:(Sackerson, for my money!) And, baiting o'er, the BrawlThey lead on Turner's Patch,—lads, lasses, up tails all,—I'm i' the thick o' the throng! That means the Iron Cage,—Means the Lost Man inside! Where's hope for such as wageWar against light? Light's left, light's here, I hold light still,So does Tab—make but haste to hang us both! You will?"I promise, when he stopped you might have heard a mouseSqueak, such a death-like hush sealed up the old Mote House.But when the mass of man sank meek upon his knees,While Tab, alongside, wheezed a hoarse "Do hang us, please!"Why, then the waters rose, no eye but ran with tears,Hearts heaved, heads thumped, until, paying all past arrearsOf pity and sorrow, at last a regular scream outbrokeOf triumph, joy and praise.My Lord Chief Justice spoke,First mopping brow and cheek, where still, for one that budged,Another bead broke fresh: "What Judge, that ever judgedSince first the world began, judged such a case as this?271Why, Master Bratts, long since, folk smelt you out, I wis!I had my doubts, i' faith, each time you played the foxConvicting geese of crime in yonder witness-box—Yea, much did I misdoubt, the thief that stole her eggsWas hardly goosey's self at Reynard's game, i' feggs!Yet thus much was to praise—you spoke to point, direct—Swore you heard, saw the theft: no jury could suspect—Dared to suspect,—I'll say,—a spot in white so clear:Goosey was throttled, true: but thereof godly fearCame of example set, much as our laws intend;And, though a fox confessed, you proved the Judge's friend.What if I had my doubts? Suppose I gave them breath,Brought you to bar: what work to do, ere 'Guilty, Death,'—Had paid our pains! What heaps of witnesses to dragFrom holes and corners, paid from out the County's bag!Trial three dog-days long!Amicus Curiæ—that'sYour title, no dispute—truth-telling Master Bratts!Thank you, too, Mistress Tab! Why doubt one word you say?Hanging you both deserve, hanged both shall be this day!The tinker needs must be a proper man. I've heardHe lies in Jail long since: if Quality's good wordWarrants me letting loose,—some householder, I mean—Freeholder, better still,—I don't say but—betweenNow and next Sessions.... Well! Consider of his case,I promise to, at least: we owe him so much grace.Not that—no, God forbid!—I lean to think, as you,The grace that such repent is any jail-bird's due:I rather see the fruit of twelve years' pious reign—Astræa Redux, Charles restored his rights again!—Of which, another time! I somehow feel a peaceStealing across the world. May deeds like this increase!So, Master Sheriff, stay that sentence I pronouncedOn those two dozen odd: deserving to be trounced272Soundly, and yet ... well, well, at all events despatchThis pair of—shall I say, sinner-saints?—ere we catchTheir jail-distemper too. Stop tears, or I'll inditeAll weeping Bedfordshire for turning Bunyanite!"So, forms were galloped through. If Justice, on the spur,Proved somewhat expeditious, would Quality demur?And happily hanged were they,—why lengthen out my tale?—Where Bunyan's Statue stands facing where stood his Jail.
'T was Bedford Special Assize, one daft Midsummer's Day:A broiling blasting June,—was never its like, men say.Corn stood sheaf-ripe already, and trees looked yellow as that;Ponds drained dust-dry, the cattle lay foaming around each flat.Inside town, dogs went mad, and folk kept bibbing beerWhile the parsons prayed for rain. 'T was horrible, yes—but queer:Queer—for the sun laughed gay, yet nobody moved a handTo work one stroke at his trade: as given to understandThat all was come to a stop, work and such worldly ways,And the world's old self about to end in a merry blaze.Midsummer's Day moreover was the first of Bedford Fair,With Bedford Town's tag-rag and bobtail a-bowsing there.
But the Court House, Quality crammed: through doors ope, windows wide,High on the Bench you saw sit Lordships side by side.There frowned Chief Justice Jukes, fumed learned Brother Small,And fretted their fellow Judge: like threshers, one and all,Of a reek with laying down the law in a furnace. Why?Because their lungs breathed flame—the regular crowd forbye261—From gentry pouring in—quite a nosegay, to be sure!How else could they pass the time, six mortal hours endureTill night should extinguish day, when matters might haply mend?Meanwhile no bad resource was—watching begin and endSome trial for life and death, in a brisk five minutes' space,And betting which knave would 'scape, which hang, from his sort of face.
So, their Lordships toiled and moiled, and a deal of work was done(I warrant) to justify the mirth of the crazy sunAs this and t'other lout, struck dumb at the sudden showOf red robes and white wigs, boggled nor answered "Boh!"When asked why he, Tom Styles, should not—because Jack NokesHad stolen the horse—be hanged: for Judges must have their jokes,And louts must make allowance—let's say, for some blue flyWhich punctured a dewy scalp where the frizzles stuck awry—Else Tom had fleered scot-free, so nearly over and doneWas the main of the job. Full-measure, the gentles enjoyed their fun,As a twenty-five were tried, rank puritans caught at prayerIn a cow-house and laid by the heels,—have at 'em, devil may care!—And ten were prescribed the whip, and ten a brand on the cheek,And five a slit of the nose—just leaving enough to tweak.
Well, things at jolly high-tide, amusement steeped in fire,While noon smote fierce the roof's red tiles to heart's desire,The Court a-simmer with smoke, one ferment of oozy flesh,262One spirituous humming musk mount-mounting until its meshEntoiled all heads in a fluster, and Serjeant Postlethwayte—Dashing the wig oblique as he mopped his oily pate—Cried "Silence, or I grow grease! No loophole lets in air?Jurymen,—Guilty, Death! Gainsay me if you dare!"—Things at this pitch, I say,—what hubbub without the doors?What laughs, shrieks, hoots and yells, what rudest of uproars?
Bounce through the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast!Thumps, kicks,—no manner of use!—spite of them rolls at lastInto the midst a ball which, bursting, brings to viewPublican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too:Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes upliftAt the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils—snouts that sniffedSulphur, such mouths a-gape ready to swallow flame!Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same,Mixed with a certain ... eh? how shall I dare style—mirthThe desperate grin of the guest that, could they break from earth,Heaven was above, and hell might rage in impotenceBelow the saved, the saved!
"Confound you! (no offence!)Out of our way,—push, wife! Yonder their Worships be!"Ned Bratts has reached the bar, and "Hey, my Lords," roars he,"A Jury of life and death, Judges the prime of the land,Constables, javelineers,—all met, if I understand,263To decide so knotty a point as whether 't was Jack or JoanRobbed the henroost, pinched the pig, hit the King's Arms with a stone,Dropped the baby down the well, left the tithesman in the lurch,Or, three whole Sundays running, not once attended church!What a pother—do these deserve the parish-stocks or whip,More or less brow to brand, much or little nose to snip,—When, in our Public, plain stand we—that's we stand here,I and my Tab, brass-bold, brick-built of beef and beer,—Do not we, slut? Step forth and show your beauty, jade!Wife of my bosom—that's the word now! What a tradeWe drove! None said us nay: nobody loved his lifeSo little as wag a tongue against us,—did they, wife?Yet they knew us all the while, in their hearts, for what we are—Worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged—search near and far!Eh, Tab? The pedler, now—o'er his noggin—who warned a mateTo cut and run, nor risk his pack where its loss of weightWas the least to dread,—aha, how we two laughed a-goodAs, stealing round the midden, he came on where I stoodWith billet poised and raised,—you, ready with the rope,—Ah, but that's past, that's sin repented of, we hope!Men knew us for that same, yet safe and sound stood we!The lily-livered knaves knew too (I've balked a d——)Our keeping the 'Pied Bull' was just a mere pretence:Too slow the pounds make food, drink, lodging, from out the pence!There's not a stoppage to travel has chanced, this ten long year,No break into hall or grange, no lifting of nag or steer,Not a single roguery, from the clipping of a purse264To the cutting of a throat, but paid us toll. Od's curse!When Gipsy Smouch made bold to cheat us of our due,—Eh, Tab? the Squire's strong-box we helped the rascal to—I think he pulled a face, next Sessions' swinging-time!He danced the jig that needs no floor,—and, here's the prime,'T was Scroggs that houghed the mare! Ay, those were busy days!
"Well, there we flourished brave, like scripture-trees called bays,Faring high, drinking hard, in money up to head—Not to say, boots and shoes, when ... Zounds, I nearly said—Lord, to unlearn one's language! How shall we labor, wife?Have you, fast hold, the Book? Grasp, grip it, for your life!See, sirs, here's life, salvation! Here's—hold but out my breath—When did I speak so long without once swearing? 'Sdeath,No, nor unhelped by ale since man and boy! And yetAll yesterday I had to keep my whistle wetWhile reading Tab this Book: book? don't say 'book'—they're plays,Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze,But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare!Tab, help and tell! I'm hoarse. A mug! or—no, a prayer!Dip for one out of the Book! Who wrote it in the Jail—He plied his pen unhelped by beer, sirs, I'll be bail!
"I've got my second wind. In trundles she—that's Tab.'Why, Gammer, what's come now, that—bobbing like a crabOn Yule-tide bowl—your head's a-work and both your eyesBreak loose? Afeard, you fool? As if the dead can rise!265Say—Bagman Dick was found last May with fuddling-capStuffed in his mouth: to choke's a natural mishap!''Gaffer, be—blessed,' cries she, 'and Bagman Dick as well!I, you, and he are damned: this Public is our hell:We live in fire: live coals don't feel!—once quenched, they learn—Cinders do, to what dust they moulder while they burn!'
"'If you don't speak straight out,' says I—belike I swore—'A knobstick, well you know the taste of, shall, once more,Teach you to talk, my maid!' She ups with such a face,Heart sunk inside me. 'Well, pad on, my prate-apace!'
"'I'vebeen about those laces we need for ... never mind!If henceforth they tie hands, 't is mine they'll have to bind.You know who makes them best—the Tinker in our cage,Pulled-up for gospelling, twelve years ago: no ageTo try another trade,—yet, so he scorned to takeMoney he did not earn, he taught himself the makeOf laces, tagged and tough—Dick Bagman found them so!Good customers were we! Well, last week, you must knowHis girl,—the blind young chit, who hawks about his wares,—She takes it in her head to come no more—such airsThese hussies have! Yet, since we need a stoutish lace,—"I'll to the jail-bird father, abuse her to his face!"So, first I filled a jug to give me heart, and then,Primed to the proper pitch, I posted to their den—Patmore—they style their prison! I tip the turnkey, catchMy heart up, fix my face, and fearless lift the latch—Both arms a-kimbo, in bounce with a good round oathReady for rapping out: no "Lawks" nor "By my troth!"
"'There sat my man, the father. He looked up: what one feels266When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night,And in the day, earth grow another something quiteUnder the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone.
"'"Woman!" (a fiery tear he put in every tone),"How should my child frequent your house where lust is sport,Violence—trade? Too true! I trust no vague report.Her angel's hand, which stops the sight of sin, leaves clearThe other gate of sense, lets outrage through the ear.What has she heard!—which, heard shall never be again.Better lack food than feast, a Dives in the—wainOr reign or train—of Charles!" (His language was not ours:'T is my belief, God spoke: no tinker has such powers.)"Bread, only bread they bring—my laces: if we brokeYour lump of leavened sin, the loaf's first crumb would choke!"
"'Down on my marrow-bones! Then all at once rose he:His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see:Up went his hands: "Through flesh, I reach, I read thy soul!So may some stricken tree look blasted, bough and bole,Champed by the fire-tooth, charred without, and yet, thrice-boundWithdrerimentabout, within may life be found,A prisoned power to branch and blossom as before,Could but the gardener cleave the cloister, reach the core,Loosen the vital sap: yet where shall help be found?Who says 'How save it?'—nor 'Why cumbers it the ground?'Woman, that tree art thou! All sloughed about with scurf,Thy stag-horns fright the sky, thy snake-roots sting the turf!Drunkenness, wantonness, theft, murder gnash and gnarl267Thine outward, case thy soul with coating like the marleSatan stamps flat upon each head beneath his hoof!And how deliver such? The strong men keep aloof,Lover and friend stand far, the mocking ones pass by,Tophet gapes wide for prey: lost soul, despair and die!What then? 'Look unto me and be ye saved!' saith God:'I strike the rock, outstreats the life-stream at my rod!Be your sins scarlet, wool shall they seem like,—althoughAs crimson red, yet turn white as the driven snow!'"
"'There, there, there! All I seem to somehow understandIs—that, if I reached home, 't was through the guiding handOf his blind girl which led and led me through the streetsAnd out of town and up to door again. What greetsFirst thing my eye, as limbs recover from their swoon?A book—this Book she gave at parting. "Father's boon—The Book he wrote: it reads as if he spoke himself:He cannot preach in bonds, so,—take it down from shelfWhen you want counsel,—think you hear his very voice!"
"'Wickeddear Husband, first despair and then rejoice!Dear wicked Husband, waste no tick of moment more,Be saved like me, bald trunk! There's greenness yet at core,Sap under slough! Read, read!'
"Let me take breath, my lords!I'd like to know, are these—hers, mine, or Bunyan's words?I'm 'wildered—scarce with drink,—nowise with drink alone!You'll say, with heat: but heat's no stuff to split a stoneLike this black boulder—this flint heart of mine: the Book—That dealt the crashing blow! Sirs, here's the fist that shookHis beard till Wrestler Jem howled like a just-lugged bear!You had brained me with a feather: at once I grew awareChristmas was meant for me. A burden at your back,268Good Master Christmas? Nay,—yours was that Joseph's sack,—Or whose it was,—which held the cup,—compared with mine!Robbery loads my loins, perjury cracks my chine,Adultery ... nay, Tab, you pitched me as I flung!One word, I'll up with fist.... No, sweet spouse, hold your tongue!
"I'm hasting to the end. The Book, sirs—take and read!You have my history in a nutshell,—ay, indeed!It must off, my burden! See,—slack straps and into pit,Roll, reach, the bottom, rest, rot there—a plague on it!For a mountain's sure to fall and bury Bedford Town,'Destruction'—that's the name, and fire shall burn it down!O 'scape the wrath in time! Time's now, if not too late.How can I pilgrimage up to the wicket-gate?Next comes Despond the slough: not that I fear to pullThrough mud, and dry my clothes at brave House Beautiful—But it's late in the day, I reckon: had I left years agoTown, wife, and children dear.... Well, Christmas did, you know!—Soon I had met in the valley and tried my cudgel's strengthOn the enemy horned and winged, a-straddle across its length!Have at his horns, thwick—thwack: they snap, see! Hoof and hoof—Bang, break the fetlock-bones! For love's sake, keep aloofAngels! I'm man and match,—this cudgel for my flail,—To thresh him, hoofs and horns, bat's wing and serpent's tail!A chance gone by! But then, what else does Hopeful dingInto the deafest ear except—hope, hope's the thing?Too late i' the day for me to thrid the windings: butThere's still a way to win the race by death's short cut!269Did Master Faithful need climb the Delightful Mounts?No, straight to Vanity Fair,—a fair, by all accounts,Such as is held outside,—lords, ladies, grand and gay,—Says he in the face of them, just what you hear me say.And the Judges brought him in guilty, and brought him outTo die in the market-place—St. Peter's Green's aboutThe same thing: there they flogged, flayed, buffeted, lanced with knives,Pricked him with swords,—I'll swear, he'd full a cat's nine lives,—So to his end at last came Faithful,—ha, ha, he!Who holds the highest card? for there stands hid, you see,Behind the rabble-rout, a chariot, pair and all:He's in, he's off, he's up, through clouds, at trumpet-call,Carried the nearest way to Heaven-gate! Odds my life—Has nobody a sword to spare? not even a knife?Then hang me, draw and quarter! Tab—do the same by her!O Master Worldly-Wiseman ... that's Master Interpreter,Take the will, not the deed! Our gibbet's handy close:Forestall Last Judgment-Day! Be kindly, not morose!There wants no earthly judge-and-jurying: here we stand—Sentence our guilty selves: so, hang us out of hand!Make haste for pity's sake! A single moment's lossMeans—Satan's lord once more: his whisper shoots acrossAll singing in my heart, all praying in my brain,'It comes of heat and beer!'—hark how he guffaws plain!'To-morrow you'll wake bright, and, in a safe skin, hugYour sound selves, Tab and you, over a foaming jug!You've had such qualms before, time out of mind!' He's right!Did not we kick and cuff and curse away, that night,When home we blindly reeled, and left poor humpback Joe270I' the lurch to pay for what ... somebody did, you know!Both of us maundered then 'Lame humpback,—never moreWill he come limping, drain his tankard at our door!He'll swing, while—somebody....' Says Tab, 'No, for I'll peach!''I'm for you, Tab,' cries I, 'there's rope enough for each!'So blubbered we, and bussed, and went to bed uponThe grace of Tab's good thought: by morning, all was gone!We laughed—'What's life to him, a cripple of no account?'Oh, waves increase around—I feel them mount and mount!Hang us! To-morrow brings Tom Bearward with his bears:One new black-muzzled brute beats Sackerson, he swears:(Sackerson, for my money!) And, baiting o'er, the BrawlThey lead on Turner's Patch,—lads, lasses, up tails all,—I'm i' the thick o' the throng! That means the Iron Cage,—Means the Lost Man inside! Where's hope for such as wageWar against light? Light's left, light's here, I hold light still,So does Tab—make but haste to hang us both! You will?"
I promise, when he stopped you might have heard a mouseSqueak, such a death-like hush sealed up the old Mote House.But when the mass of man sank meek upon his knees,While Tab, alongside, wheezed a hoarse "Do hang us, please!"Why, then the waters rose, no eye but ran with tears,Hearts heaved, heads thumped, until, paying all past arrearsOf pity and sorrow, at last a regular scream outbrokeOf triumph, joy and praise.
My Lord Chief Justice spoke,First mopping brow and cheek, where still, for one that budged,Another bead broke fresh: "What Judge, that ever judgedSince first the world began, judged such a case as this?271Why, Master Bratts, long since, folk smelt you out, I wis!I had my doubts, i' faith, each time you played the foxConvicting geese of crime in yonder witness-box—Yea, much did I misdoubt, the thief that stole her eggsWas hardly goosey's self at Reynard's game, i' feggs!Yet thus much was to praise—you spoke to point, direct—Swore you heard, saw the theft: no jury could suspect—Dared to suspect,—I'll say,—a spot in white so clear:Goosey was throttled, true: but thereof godly fearCame of example set, much as our laws intend;And, though a fox confessed, you proved the Judge's friend.What if I had my doubts? Suppose I gave them breath,Brought you to bar: what work to do, ere 'Guilty, Death,'—Had paid our pains! What heaps of witnesses to dragFrom holes and corners, paid from out the County's bag!Trial three dog-days long!Amicus Curiæ—that'sYour title, no dispute—truth-telling Master Bratts!Thank you, too, Mistress Tab! Why doubt one word you say?Hanging you both deserve, hanged both shall be this day!The tinker needs must be a proper man. I've heardHe lies in Jail long since: if Quality's good wordWarrants me letting loose,—some householder, I mean—Freeholder, better still,—I don't say but—betweenNow and next Sessions.... Well! Consider of his case,I promise to, at least: we owe him so much grace.Not that—no, God forbid!—I lean to think, as you,The grace that such repent is any jail-bird's due:I rather see the fruit of twelve years' pious reign—Astræa Redux, Charles restored his rights again!—Of which, another time! I somehow feel a peaceStealing across the world. May deeds like this increase!So, Master Sheriff, stay that sentence I pronouncedOn those two dozen odd: deserving to be trounced272Soundly, and yet ... well, well, at all events despatchThis pair of—shall I say, sinner-saints?—ere we catchTheir jail-distemper too. Stop tears, or I'll inditeAll weeping Bedfordshire for turning Bunyanite!"
So, forms were galloped through. If Justice, on the spur,Proved somewhat expeditious, would Quality demur?And happily hanged were they,—why lengthen out my tale?—Where Bunyan's Statue stands facing where stood his Jail.
The effect which "Pilgrim's Progress" had on these two miserable beings, may be taken as typical of the enormous influence wielded by Bunyan in his own time. The most innocent among us had overwhelming qualms in regard to our sins, as children when we listened to our mothers read the book. I remember having confessed some childish peccadillo that was weighing on my small mind as the first result of my thoroughly aroused sense of guilt. In these early years of the Twentieth Century, such a feeling seems almost as far removed as the days of Bunyan. A sense of guilt is not a distinguishing characteristic of the child of the present day, and it may also be doubted whether such reprobates as Ned and his wife would to-day be affected much if at all by the "Pilgrim's Progress." There was probably great personal magnetism in Bunyan himself. We are told that after his discharge from prison, his273popularity as a preacher widened rapidly. Such vast crowds of people flocked to hear him that his place of worship had to be enlarged. He went frequently to London on week days to deliver addresses in the large chapel in Southwark which was invariably thronged with eager worshipers.
Browning's picture of Bunyan shows the instant effect of his personality upon Tab.
"There sat the man, the father. He looked up: what one feelsWhen heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night,And in the day, earth grow another something quiteUnder the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone."
"There sat the man, the father. He looked up: what one feelsWhen heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night,And in the day, earth grow another something quiteUnder the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone."
And again
"Then all at once rose he:His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see:Up went his hands."
"Then all at once rose he:His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see:Up went his hands."
It is like a clever bit of stage business to make Ned and Tab use the shoe laces to tie up the hands of their victims, and to bring on by this means the meeting between Tab and Bunyan. Of course, the blind daughter's part is imaginary, but yet it seems to bring very vividly before us this well loved child. Another touch, quite in keeping with the time,274is the decision of the Judge that the remarkable change of heart in Ned and Tab was due to the piety of King Charles. Like every one else, however, he was impressed by what he heard of the Tinker, and inclined to see what he could do to give him his freedom. It seems that Bunyan's life in jail was a good deal lightened by the favor he always inspired. The story goes that from the first he was in favor with the jailor, who nearly lost his place for permitting him on one occasion to go as far as London. After this he was more strictly confined, but at last he was often allowed to visit his family, and remain with them all night. One night, however, when he was allowed this liberty Bunyan felt resistlessly impressed with the propriety of returning to the prison. He arrived after the keeper had shut up for the night, much to the official's surprise. But his impatience at being untimely disturbed was changed to thankfulness, when a little after a messenger came from a neighboring clerical magistrate to see that the prisoner was safe. "You may go now when you will" said the jailer; "for you know better than I can tell you when to come in again."
John BunyanStatue by J. E. Boehm
John Bunyan
Statue by J. E. Boehm
Though Bunyan is not primarily the subject of this poem, it is an appreciative tribute275to his genius and to his force of character, only to be paralleled by Dowden's sympathetic critique in his "Puritan and Anglican Studies." What Browning makes Ned and Tab see through suddenly aroused feeling—namely that it is no book but
"plays,Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze,But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare,"
"plays,Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze,But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare,"
Dowden puts in the colder language of criticism.
"The 'Pilgrim's Progress' is a gallery of portraits, admirably discriminated, and as convincing in their self-verification as those of Holbein. His personages live for us as few figures outside the drama of Shakespeare live.... All his powers cooperated harmoniously in creating this book—his religious ardor, his human tenderness, his sense of beauty, nourished by the Scriptures, his strong common sense, even his gift of humor. Through his deep seriousness play the lighter faculties. The whole man presses into this small volume."
"Halbert and Hob" belongs here merely for its wild North of England setting. We may imagine, if we choose, that this wild father and son dwelt in the beautiful country of Northumberland, in the North of England,276but descriptions of the scenery could add nothing to the atmosphere of the poem, for Northumberland is surpassingly lovely. Doubtless, human beings of this type have existed in all parts of the globe. At any rate, these particular human beings were transported by Browning from Aristotle's "Ethics" to the North of England. The incident is told by Aristotle in illustration of the contention that anger and asperity are more natural than excessive and unnecessary desires. "Thus one who was accused of striking his father said, as an apology for it, that his own father, and even his grandfather, had struck his; 'and he also (pointing to his child) will strike me, when he becomes a man; for it runs in our family.' A certain person, also, being dragged by his son, bid him stop at the door, for he himself had dragged his father as far as that." The dryness of "Aristotle'scheeks" is as usual so enlivened by Browning that the fate of Halbert and Hob grows pathetic and comes close to our sympathies.
Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped, for den,In a wild part of North England, there lived once two wild men277Inhabiting one homestead, neither a hovel nor hut,Time out of mind their birthright: father and son, these—but—Such a son, such a father! Most wildness by degreesSoftens away: yet, last of their line, the wildest and worst were these.Criminals, then? Why, no: they did not murder and rob;But, give them a word, they returned a blow—old Halbert as young Hob:Harsh and fierce of word, rough and savage of deed,Hated or feared the more—who knows?—the genuine wild-beast breed.Thus were they found by the few sparse folk of the countryside;But how fared each with other? E'en beasts couch, hide by hide,In a growling, grudged agreement: so, father and son aye curledThe closelier up in their den because the last of their kind in the world.Still, beast irks beast on occasion. One Christmas night of snow,Came father and son to words—such words! more cruel because the blowTo crown each word was wanting, while taunt matched gibe, and curseCompleted with oath in wager, like pastime in hell,—nay, worse:For pastime turned to earnest, as up there sprang at lastThe son at the throat of the father, seized him and held him fast.278"Out of this house you go!"—(there followed a hideous oath)—"This oven where now we bake, too hot to hold us both!If there's snow outside, there's coolness: out with you, bide a spellIn the drift and save the sexton the charge of a parish shell!"Now, the old trunk was tough, was solid as stump of oakUntouched at the core by a thousand years: much less had its seventy brokeOne whipcord nerve in the muscly mass from neck to shoulder-bladeOf the mountainous man, whereon his child's rash hand like a feather weighed.Nevertheless at once did the mammoth shut his eyes,Drop chin to breast, drop hands to sides, stand stiffened—arms and thighsAll of a piece—struck mute, much as a sentry stands,Patient to take the enemy's fire: his captain so commands.Whereat the son's wrath flew to fury at such sheer scornOf his puny strength by the giant eld thus acting the babe new-born:And "Neither will this turn serve!" yelled he. "Out with you! Trundle, log!If you cannot tramp and trudge like a man, try all-fours like a dog!"Still the old man stood mute. So, logwise,—down to floorPulled from his fireside place, dragged on from hearth to door,—Was he pushed, a very log, staircase along, untilA certain turn in the steps was reached, a yard from the house-door-sill.279Then the father opened eyes—each spark of their rage extinct,—Temples, late black, dead-blanched,—right-hand with left-hand linked,—He faced his son submissive; when slow the accents came,They were strangely mild though his son's rash hand on his neck lay all the same."Hob, on just such a night of a Christmas long ago,For such a cause, with such a gesture, did I drag—so—My father down thus far: but, softening here, I heardA voice in my heart, and stopped: you wait for an outer word."For your own sake, not mine, soften you too! UntrodLeave this last step we reach, nor brave the finger of God!I dared not pass its lifting: I did well. I nor blameNor praise you. I stopped here: and, Hob, do you the same!"Straightway the son relaxed his hold of the father's throat.They mounted, side by side, to the room again: no noteTook either of each, no sign made each to either: lastAs first, in absolute silence, their Christmas-night they passed.At dawn, the father sate on, dead, in the self-same place,With an outburst blackening still the old bad fighting-face:But the son crouched all a-tremble like any lamb new-yeaned.When he went to the burial, someone's staff he borrowed—tottered and leaned.But his lips were loose, not locked,—kept muttering, mumbling. "There!At his cursing and swearing!" the youngsters cried: but the elders thought "In prayer."280A boy threw stones: he picked them up and stored them in his vest.So tottered, muttered, mumbled he, till he died, perhaps found rest."Is there a reason in nature for these hard hearts?" O Lear,That a reason out of nature must turn them soft, seems clear!
Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped, for den,In a wild part of North England, there lived once two wild men277Inhabiting one homestead, neither a hovel nor hut,Time out of mind their birthright: father and son, these—but—Such a son, such a father! Most wildness by degreesSoftens away: yet, last of their line, the wildest and worst were these.
Criminals, then? Why, no: they did not murder and rob;But, give them a word, they returned a blow—old Halbert as young Hob:Harsh and fierce of word, rough and savage of deed,Hated or feared the more—who knows?—the genuine wild-beast breed.
Thus were they found by the few sparse folk of the countryside;But how fared each with other? E'en beasts couch, hide by hide,In a growling, grudged agreement: so, father and son aye curledThe closelier up in their den because the last of their kind in the world.
Still, beast irks beast on occasion. One Christmas night of snow,Came father and son to words—such words! more cruel because the blowTo crown each word was wanting, while taunt matched gibe, and curseCompleted with oath in wager, like pastime in hell,—nay, worse:For pastime turned to earnest, as up there sprang at lastThe son at the throat of the father, seized him and held him fast.
278"Out of this house you go!"—(there followed a hideous oath)—"This oven where now we bake, too hot to hold us both!If there's snow outside, there's coolness: out with you, bide a spellIn the drift and save the sexton the charge of a parish shell!"
Now, the old trunk was tough, was solid as stump of oakUntouched at the core by a thousand years: much less had its seventy brokeOne whipcord nerve in the muscly mass from neck to shoulder-bladeOf the mountainous man, whereon his child's rash hand like a feather weighed.
Nevertheless at once did the mammoth shut his eyes,Drop chin to breast, drop hands to sides, stand stiffened—arms and thighsAll of a piece—struck mute, much as a sentry stands,Patient to take the enemy's fire: his captain so commands.
Whereat the son's wrath flew to fury at such sheer scornOf his puny strength by the giant eld thus acting the babe new-born:And "Neither will this turn serve!" yelled he. "Out with you! Trundle, log!If you cannot tramp and trudge like a man, try all-fours like a dog!"
Still the old man stood mute. So, logwise,—down to floorPulled from his fireside place, dragged on from hearth to door,—Was he pushed, a very log, staircase along, untilA certain turn in the steps was reached, a yard from the house-door-sill.
279Then the father opened eyes—each spark of their rage extinct,—Temples, late black, dead-blanched,—right-hand with left-hand linked,—He faced his son submissive; when slow the accents came,They were strangely mild though his son's rash hand on his neck lay all the same.
"Hob, on just such a night of a Christmas long ago,For such a cause, with such a gesture, did I drag—so—My father down thus far: but, softening here, I heardA voice in my heart, and stopped: you wait for an outer word.
"For your own sake, not mine, soften you too! UntrodLeave this last step we reach, nor brave the finger of God!I dared not pass its lifting: I did well. I nor blameNor praise you. I stopped here: and, Hob, do you the same!"
Straightway the son relaxed his hold of the father's throat.They mounted, side by side, to the room again: no noteTook either of each, no sign made each to either: lastAs first, in absolute silence, their Christmas-night they passed.
At dawn, the father sate on, dead, in the self-same place,With an outburst blackening still the old bad fighting-face:But the son crouched all a-tremble like any lamb new-yeaned.
When he went to the burial, someone's staff he borrowed—tottered and leaned.But his lips were loose, not locked,—kept muttering, mumbling. "There!At his cursing and swearing!" the youngsters cried: but the elders thought "In prayer."280A boy threw stones: he picked them up and stored them in his vest.
So tottered, muttered, mumbled he, till he died, perhaps found rest."Is there a reason in nature for these hard hearts?" O Lear,That a reason out of nature must turn them soft, seems clear!
In the "Inn Album," a degenerate type of Nineteenth-Century Englishman is dissected with the keen knife of a surgeon, which Browning knows so well how to wield. The villain of this poem was a real personage, a Lord de Ros, a friend of the Duke of Wellington. The story belongs to the annals of crime and is necessarily unpleasant, but in order to see how Browning has worked up the episode it is interesting to know the bare facts as Furnivall gives them in "Notes and Queries" March 25, 1876. He says "that the gambling lord showed the portrait of the lady he had seduced and abandoned and offered his dupe an introduction to her, as a bribe to induce him to wait for payment of the money he had won; that the young gambler eagerly accepted the offer; and that the lady committed suicide on hearing of the bargain between them." Dr. Furnivall heard the story from some one who well remembered the sensation it had made in London281years ago. In his management of the story, Browning has intensified the villainy of the Lord at the same time that he has shown a possible streak of goodness in him. The young man, on the other hand, he has made to be of very good stuff, indeed, notwithstanding his year of tutelage from the older man. He makes one radical change in the story as well as several minor ones. In the poem the younger man had been in love with the girl whom the older man had dishonorably treated, and had never ceased to love her. Of course, the two men do not know this. By the advice of the elder man, the younger one has decided to settle down and marry his cousin, a charming young girl, who is also brought upon the scene. The other girl is represented as having married an old country parson, who sought a wife simply as a helpmeet in his work. By thus complicating the situations, room has been given for subtle psychic development. The action is all concentrated into one morning in the parlor of the old inn, reminding one much of the method of Ibsen in his plays of grouping his action about a final catastrophe. At the inn one is introduced first to the two gamblers in talk, the young man having won his ten thousand pounds from the older man, who had intended282to fleece him. The inn album plays an important part in the action, innocent as its first appearance upon the scene seems to be. The description of this and the inn parlor opens the poem.
"That oblong book's the Album; hand it here!Exactly! page on page of gratitudeFor breakfast, dinner, supper, and the view!I praise these poets: they leave margin-space;Each stanza seems to gather skirts around,And primly, trimly, keep the foot's confine,Modest and maidlike; lubber prose o'er-sprawlsAnd straddling stops the path from left to right.Since I want space to do my cipher-work,Which poem spares a corner? What comes first?'Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!'(Open the window, we burn daylight, boy!)Or see—succincter beauty, brief and bold—'If a fellow can dine On rumpsteaks and port wine,He needs not despair Of dining well here—''Here!' I myself could find a better rhyme!That bard's a Browning; he neglects the form:But ah, the sense, ye gods, the weighty sense!Still, I prefer this classic. Ay, throw wide!I'll quench the bits of candle yet unburnt.A minute's fresh air, then to cipher-work!Three little columns hold the whole account:Ecarté, after which Blind Hookey, then283Cutting-the-Pack, five hundred pounds the cut.'Tis easy reckoning: I have lost, I think."Two personages occupy this roomShabby-genteel, that's parlor to the innPerched on a view-commanding eminence;—Inn which may be a veritable houseWhere somebody once lived and pleased good tasteTill tourists found his coign of vantage out,And fingered blunt the individual markAnd vulgarized things comfortably smooth.On a sprig-pattern-papered wall there braysComplaint to sky Sir Edwin's dripping stag;His couchant coast-guard creature corresponds;They face the Huguenot and Light o' the World.Grim o'er the mirror on the mantlepiece,Varnished and coffined,Salmo feroxglares—Possibly at the List of Wines which, framedAnd glazed, hangs somewhat prominent on peg.So much describes the stuffy little room—Vulgar flat smooth respectability:Not so the burst of landscape surging in,Sunrise and all, as he who of the pairIs, plain enough, the younger personageDraws sharp the shrieking curtain, sends aloftThe sash, spreads wide and fastens back to wallShutter and shutter, shows you England's best.He leans into a living glory-bathOf air and light where seems to float and moveThe wooded watered country, hill and daleAnd steel-bright thread of stream, a-smoke with mist,A-sparkle with May morning, diamond driftO' the sun-touched dew. Except the red-roofed pa284tchOf half a dozen dwellings that, crept closeFor hill-side shelter, make the village-clumpThis inn is perched above to dominate—Except such sign of human neighborhood,(And this surmised rather than sensible)There's nothing to disturb absolute peace,The reign of English nature—which mean artAnd civilized existence. Wildness' selfIs just the cultured triumph. PresentlyDeep solitude, be sure, reveals a PlaceThat knows the right way to defend itself:Silence hems round a burning spot of life.Now, where a Place burns, must a village brood,And where a village broods, an inn should boast—Close and convenient: here you have them both.This inn, the Something-arms—the family's—(Don't trouble Guillim; heralds leave our half!)Is dear to lovers of the picturesque,And epics have been planned here; but who planTake holy orders and find work to do.Painters are more productive, stop a week,Declare the prospect quite a Corot,—ay,For tender sentiment,—themselves inclineRather to handsweep large and liberal;Then go, but not without success achieved—Haply some pencil-drawing, oak or beech,Ferns at the base and ivies up the bole,On this a slug, on that a butterfly.Nay, he who hooked thesalmopendent here,Also exhibited, this same May-month,'Foxgloves: a study'—so inspires the scene,The air, which now the younger personageInflates him with till lungs o'erfraught are fainSigh forth a satisfaction might bestir285Even those tufts of tree-tops to the SouthI' the distance where the green dies off to grey,Which, easy of conjecture, front the Place;He eyes them, elbows wide, each hand to cheek.His fellow, the much older—either sayA youngish-old man or man oldish-young—Sits at the table: wicks are noisome-deepIn wax, to detriment of plated ware;Above—piled, strewn—is store of playing-cards,Counters and all that's proper for a game.
"That oblong book's the Album; hand it here!Exactly! page on page of gratitudeFor breakfast, dinner, supper, and the view!I praise these poets: they leave margin-space;Each stanza seems to gather skirts around,And primly, trimly, keep the foot's confine,Modest and maidlike; lubber prose o'er-sprawlsAnd straddling stops the path from left to right.Since I want space to do my cipher-work,Which poem spares a corner? What comes first?'Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!'(Open the window, we burn daylight, boy!)Or see—succincter beauty, brief and bold—'If a fellow can dine On rumpsteaks and port wine,He needs not despair Of dining well here—''Here!' I myself could find a better rhyme!That bard's a Browning; he neglects the form:But ah, the sense, ye gods, the weighty sense!Still, I prefer this classic. Ay, throw wide!I'll quench the bits of candle yet unburnt.A minute's fresh air, then to cipher-work!Three little columns hold the whole account:Ecarté, after which Blind Hookey, then283Cutting-the-Pack, five hundred pounds the cut.'Tis easy reckoning: I have lost, I think."
Two personages occupy this roomShabby-genteel, that's parlor to the innPerched on a view-commanding eminence;—Inn which may be a veritable houseWhere somebody once lived and pleased good tasteTill tourists found his coign of vantage out,And fingered blunt the individual markAnd vulgarized things comfortably smooth.On a sprig-pattern-papered wall there braysComplaint to sky Sir Edwin's dripping stag;His couchant coast-guard creature corresponds;They face the Huguenot and Light o' the World.Grim o'er the mirror on the mantlepiece,Varnished and coffined,Salmo feroxglares—Possibly at the List of Wines which, framedAnd glazed, hangs somewhat prominent on peg.
So much describes the stuffy little room—Vulgar flat smooth respectability:Not so the burst of landscape surging in,Sunrise and all, as he who of the pairIs, plain enough, the younger personageDraws sharp the shrieking curtain, sends aloftThe sash, spreads wide and fastens back to wallShutter and shutter, shows you England's best.He leans into a living glory-bathOf air and light where seems to float and moveThe wooded watered country, hill and daleAnd steel-bright thread of stream, a-smoke with mist,A-sparkle with May morning, diamond driftO' the sun-touched dew. Except the red-roofed pa284tchOf half a dozen dwellings that, crept closeFor hill-side shelter, make the village-clumpThis inn is perched above to dominate—Except such sign of human neighborhood,(And this surmised rather than sensible)There's nothing to disturb absolute peace,The reign of English nature—which mean artAnd civilized existence. Wildness' selfIs just the cultured triumph. PresentlyDeep solitude, be sure, reveals a PlaceThat knows the right way to defend itself:Silence hems round a burning spot of life.Now, where a Place burns, must a village brood,And where a village broods, an inn should boast—Close and convenient: here you have them both.This inn, the Something-arms—the family's—(Don't trouble Guillim; heralds leave our half!)Is dear to lovers of the picturesque,And epics have been planned here; but who planTake holy orders and find work to do.Painters are more productive, stop a week,Declare the prospect quite a Corot,—ay,For tender sentiment,—themselves inclineRather to handsweep large and liberal;Then go, but not without success achieved—Haply some pencil-drawing, oak or beech,Ferns at the base and ivies up the bole,On this a slug, on that a butterfly.Nay, he who hooked thesalmopendent here,Also exhibited, this same May-month,'Foxgloves: a study'—so inspires the scene,The air, which now the younger personageInflates him with till lungs o'erfraught are fainSigh forth a satisfaction might bestir285Even those tufts of tree-tops to the SouthI' the distance where the green dies off to grey,Which, easy of conjecture, front the Place;He eyes them, elbows wide, each hand to cheek.His fellow, the much older—either sayA youngish-old man or man oldish-young—Sits at the table: wicks are noisome-deepIn wax, to detriment of plated ware;Above—piled, strewn—is store of playing-cards,Counters and all that's proper for a game.
Circumstantial as the description of this parlor and the situation of the inn is, it is impossible to say which out of the many English inns Browning had in mind. Inns date back to the days of the Romans, who had ale-houses along the roads, the most interesting feature of which was the ivy garland or wreath of vine-leaves in honor of Bacchus, wreathed around a hoop at the end of a long pole to point out the way where good drink could be had. A curious survival of this in early English times was the "ale-stake," a tavern so called because it had a long pole projecting from the house front wreathed like the old Roman poles with furze, a garland of flowers or an ivy wreath. This decoration was called the "bush," and in time the London taverners so vied with each other in their attempt to attract attention by very long poles and very prominent bushes that in 1375286a law was passed according to which all taverners in the city of London owning ale-stakes projecting or extending over the King's highway more than seven feet in length, at the utmost, should be fined forty pence, and compelled to remove the sign. Here is the origin, too, of the proverb, "good wine needs no bush." In the later development of the inn the signs lost their Bacchic character and became most elaborate, often being painted by artists.
The poet says this inn was the "Something-arms," and had perhaps once been a house. Many inns were the "Something (?) arms" and certainly many inns had been houses. One such is the Pounds Bridge Inn on a secluded road between Speldhurst and Penshurst in Kent. It was built by the rector of Penshurst, William Darkenoll, who lived in it only three years, when it became an inn. The inn of the poem might have been a combination in Browning's memory of this and the "White Horse" at Woolstone, which is described as a queerly pretty little inn with a front distantly resembling a Chippendale bureau-bookcase. "It is tucked away under the mighty sides of White Horse Hill, Berkshire, and additionally overhung with trees and encircled with shrubberies and under-287woods, and is finally situated on a narrow road that presently leads, as it would seem, to the end of the known world." So writes the enthusiastic lover of inns, Charles Harper. Or, perhaps, since there is a river to be seen from the inn of the poem the "Swan" at Sandleford Water, where a foot bridge and a water splash on the river Enborne mark the boundaries of Hampshire and Berkshire. Here "You have the place wholly to yourself, or share it only with the squirrels and the birds of the overarching trees." The illustration given of the Black Bear Inn, Tewksbury, is a quite typical example of inn architecture, and may have helped the picture in Browning's mind, though its situation is not so rural as that described in the poem.
Inns have, from time immemorial, been the scenes of romances and tragedies and crimes. There have been inns like the "Castle" where the "quality" loved to congregate. The "inn album" of this establishment had inscribed in it almost every eighteenth-century name of any distinction. There have been inns which were noted as the resort of the wits of the day. Ben Jonson loved to take "mine ease in mine inn," and Dr. Johnson declared that a seat in a tavern chair was the height of human felicity. "He was thinking," as it has288been pertinently put, "not only of a comfortable sanded parlor, a roaring fire, and plenty of good cheer and good company, but also of the circle of humbly appreciative auditors who gathered round an accepted wit, hung upon his words, offered themselves as butts for his ironic or satiric humor, and—stood treat." Or there was the inn of sinister aspect where highwaymen might congregate, or inns with hosts who let their guests down through trap-doors in the middle of the night to rob and murder them—or is this only a vague remembrance of a fanciful inn of Dickens? Then there was the pilgrim's inn in the days when Chaucerian folks loved to go on pilgrimages, and in the last century the cyclists inn, and to-day the inn of the automobilist. The particular inn in the poem belongs to the class, rural inn, and in spite of its pictures by noted masters was "stuffy" as to the atmosphere.