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Hugh Brontë was completely unmanned by the radiant beauty of the simple country girl who stood before him. He stood awkwardly staring at her with his mouth open, working with his hat, and trying in vain to say something. At last he stammered out a question about Mr. McClory, and the girl, who was Alice McClory, told him that her brother would soon be home, and invited him into the house.
He entered, blushing and feeling uncomfortable, but the unaffected simplicity of Alice McClory’s manner soon put him at his ease, and before the brother Patrick, known afterwards as “Red Paddy,” had returned home, he was madly and hopelessly in love with his sister.
Like his son, the Reverend Patrick Brontë, in England, and like the Irish curate who proposed marriage to Charlotte on the strength of one night’s acquaintance, Hugh, dazzled by beauty and blinded by love, declared his passion before he had discovered any signs of mutual liking, or had any evidence that his advances would be agreeable.
Alice, in simple, but cold and business-like manner, told him that she did not yet know him; but that as he was a Protestant, and she a Catholic, there was an insuperable bar between them.
Hugh urged that he himself had no religion, never having darkened a church door, and that he was quite willing to be anything she wished him to be.
Alice met his earnest pleadings with playful sallies which disconcerted him, and little by little she led him to the story of his life, episodes of which she had heard from her brother. Pity melts the heart to love, and Alice was moved greatly by Hugh’s simple narrative.
The Christmas holidays passed pleasantly under the hospitable roof of the McClory family. The chief amusement of the neighborhood was drinking in the shebeen, or local public house, but Hugh declined to accompany Paddy to the shebeen, preferring solitude with his sister.
Before the holidays had come to a close, Hugh and Alice had become engaged, but the course of true love in their case was destined to the proverbial fate. All Miss McClory’s friends were scandalized at the thought of her consenting to marry a Protestant.
Religion, among Catholics and Orangemen, in those days, consisted largely of party hatred. He was a good Protestant who, sober as well as drunk, cursed the Pope, and on the 12th of July wore orange colors, and played with fife and drum a tune known as “The Battle of the Boyne.” And he was a good Catholic who, in whatever condition, used equally emphatic language regarding King William. No more genuine expression of religious feeling was looked for on either side.
There is a story told in the McClory district which illustrates the current religious sentiment. Two brother Orangemen, good men after their lights, had long been fast friends. They seldom missed an opportunity, in the presence of Catholics, of consigning the Pope to an uncomfortable place, to which he himself has been wont to consign heretics.
It happened that one of the two Orangemen fell sick, and when he was at the point of death his friend became greatly concerned about his spiritual state, and visited him. He found him in an unconscious condition, and sinking fast; and putting his lips close to the ear of his sick friend, he asked him to give him a sign that he felt spiritually happy. The dying man, with a last supreme effort, raised his voice above a whisper, and in the venerable and well-known formula cursed the Pope. His friend was comforted, believing that all was well.
Whether this gruesome story be true or not, it goes to illustrate the fact that blasphemous bigotry had largely usurped the place of religion. But bitter party feeling did not end with mere words. Bloody battles between Orangemen and Catholics were periodically fought on the 12th of July, the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne,343and on the 17th of March, Saint Patrick’s day. Within six miles of McClory’s house more than a dozen pitched battles were fought, sometimes with scythes tied on poles, and sometimes with firearms. One of these murderous onsets, known as the battle of Ballynafern, took place within sight of McClory’s house.
At Dolly’s Brae a battle was fought in 1849, in presence of a large body of troops, who remained neutral spectators of the conflict till the Catholics fled, and then joined with the victors in firing on the flying foe.
The scenes of these struggles, such as Tillyorier, Katesbridge, Hilltown, The Diamond, etc., are classic spots now. Each has had its poet, and ballads are sung to celebrate the prowess of the victors, who were uniformly the Orangemen, inasmuch as they used firearms, while the Catholics generally fought with pikes and scythes.
Hugh Brontë had not yet discovered the deep and wide gulf that yawned between Protestants and Catholics, and so he made light of the religious objections of which he had heard so much from Alice. But the Catholic friends of Miss McClory, who had heard the Pope cursed by Protestant lips almost every day of their lives, could not stand by and see a Catholic lamb removed into the Protestant shambles. They came to look on Brontë as a Protestant emissary, more influenced by a fiendish desire to plunder the Catholic fold than by love for their beautiful relative.
Hugh Brontë, in his eager simplicity, wanted to supersede all opposition by getting married immediately, but so great a commotion ensued that he had to return to the kilns at Mount Pleasant, leaving his matrimonial prospects in a very unsatisfactory condition.
Troops of relatives invaded the McClory house daily, and ardent Catholics tried in vain to argue down Alice McClory’s newly kindled love. All the Roman Catholic neighbors joined in giving copious advice, and little was talked of in fairs and markets, and at chapel, but the proposed marriage of Alice McClory with an unknown Protestant heretic.
The priest, also, as family friend, was drawn into the matter. In those days Irish priests were educated in France or Italy, and were generally men of culture and refinement. Their horizon had been widened. They had come in contact with the language, literature, and social habits of other peoples, and they had become courteous men of the world. They had to some extent got out of touch with the fierce fanaticism of party strife.
The priest called on Miss McClory. Everybody knew that he had, and awaited the result; but Alice’s beauty and simplicity and tears made such an impression on the kind-hearted old priest that his chivalrous instinct was aroused, and he was almost won to the lady’s side. The centre of the agitation then shifted from McClory’s cottage to the priest’s manse, and so hot was the anger of the infuriated Catholics that the good-natured priest promised, sorely against his will, that he would not consent to marry the pair.
Hugh Brontë was nominally a Protestant, but he had not been in a church of any kind from the time he was five years of age. He had received no religious instruction. He could not read the Bible for himself, and no one had ever read it to him, and he was as innocent of any religious bias or bigotry as a savage in Central Africa. Suddenly he found himself the central figure in a fierce religious drama.
At first he was greatly amused, and laughed at the very suggestion of his religion being considered a stumbling-block. From the time he left his father’s house he had seldom heard the divine name except in some form of malediction, and religion had brought no consolation to his hard life. He had never presumed to think that he had any relationship to the church, its priests were so gorgeous, and its people so well-to-do. Gallagher had made him familiar with the dread powers of the infernal world, and with the “Blessed Virgin and the saints” in their malevolent capacity, but the malignant hypocrisy of Gallagher was quite as repulsive to him as the vindictive blasphemy of his uncle. In fact,344he had lived in an atmosphere untouched by the light or warmth of religion.
Hugh’s bondage and suffering had made him neither cringing nor cruel, and his freedom had come in time to permit the full development of a large and generous heart in a robust and healthy body. In his simplicity of heart he prevailed on Alice to invite her friends to meet him. He would soon remove their dislike with regard to his religion. Under the impulse of his enthusiasm he thought he could disarm prejudice by a frank and open avowal of his absolute indifference to all religions.
Nothing, perhaps, in the whole history of the Brontës exceeded in interest that meeting. A dozen wily Ulster Catholics gathered round simple-hearted Hugh Brontë in Paddy McClory’s kitchen. How the Orange champions would have trembled for the Protestant cause if they had been aware of Hugh’s danger!
The preliminary salutations over, a black bottle was produced, and a glass of whiskey handed round. Hugh had never learned to drink whiskey, and, at that time, detested the very smell of it. His refusal to drink with McClory’s friends was a first ground of offence, but the whiskey had not yet brought the drinkers into the quarrelsome mood.
When several bottles of McClory’s whiskey had been drunk, and the temperature of the guests had risen, the religious question was approached. Brontë was urged, in peremptory tones, to abjure Protestantism. He had his answer ready. He was no more a Protestant than they were, and he had no Protestantism to abjure. “Will you then curse King William?” said a fiery little man, who had taken much liquor, and seemed to be the spokesman of the party.
There is a principle in human nature which has been taken far too little account of by both philosophers and peasants. It has been the dominant principle in many of the important decisions that have sealed the fate of nations as well as of individuals. The principle is expressed by a word which is always pronounced in one way by the cultured, and in quite a different way by the unlettered. The word in its illiterate use is “contrairyness,” and but for the principle expressed by this word the Brontë girls would never have made their mark in literature, and this history would never have been written.
“Curse King William,” shouted the fiery little man, supported by a hoarse shout from the other half-tipsy guests, all of whom had turned fierce and glaring eyes on the supposed Protestant.
“I cannot curse King William,” replied Hugh, smiling. “He never did me any harm; besides, he is beyond the region of my blessings and cursings. But,” added he, warming with his subject, “I should not mind cursing the Pope, if he is the author of your fierce and besotted religion.”
Alice first saw the danger, and uttered a sharp cry. Suddenly the family party sprang upon Hugh, as the ambushed Philistines once flung themselves on Samson, but he shook them off, and left them sprawling on the floor. Alice drew him from the house, bleeding and disheveled, and after a tender parting in the grove beside the stream, he started on foot for Mount Pleasant.
Two immediate results followed that conflict. Hugh Brontë became a furious Protestant and a frantic lover. There was no lukewarmness or indifference as to his Protestantism. The Brontëcontrairynesshad met the kind of opposition to give it a stubborn set, and he there and then became a Protestant, double-dyed, in the warp and in the woof. The process of his conversion, such as it was, was prompt, decisive, effectual. It was somewhat orange in hue and militant in fibre, and was a genuine product of the times.
Hugh’s love for Alice was fanned into a fierce flame by the events of that night. When he first met her he had been dazzled by her rare beauty. He had seen few women, and never one like Alice. For the first time he had come under the spell of a simple but beautiful girl. They were young, shy lovers; very happy in each other’s company, but each sufficiently self-possessed to be happy enough in self.
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From the crucible of contradiction on that night the jewel love had leaped forth. Each was drawn out from the self-centre in which each had been concentrated in self; he to declare his love in the face of relentless foes, and she to cling to him, and protect him, when bruised and torn by her friends. Beneath the pines, that night, they pledged, with mingling tears, undying love. They parted, but their hearts were one; and persecution, poverty and bereavement only welded them more closely together in the changing years.
Hugh returned to the Mount Pleasant kilns, but his heart was no longer in his work. The burning of lime requires incessant care. The limestones must be broken to a proper size, layers of coal in due proportion must be added, and there must be constant watchfulness lest the fires should die out. Farmers’ sons and servants started generally from County Down about midnight, and after traveling all night arrived at the kilns for their loads about dawn. A badly burnt kiln of lime was a grave loss to the owners, as well as a serious disappointment to the customers, and likely to result in loss of custom.
There were many complaints as to the character of the lime immediately after Christmas, and the farmers on several occasions found, on slaking their loads at home, that only the surface of the stones was burnt, and that they had paid for, and imported, heaps of raw limestone.
Hugh’s thoughts were not in his business. He had made several Sunday journeys to Ballynaskeagh, to have secret meetings with Alice. They met in the grove by the brook, in a spot still pointed out as the “Lovers’ Arbor” or “Courting Bower,” and there, under willows festooned with ivy and honeysuckle and sweetbriers, they spent lonely but happy Sundays.
They were at last betrayed by a Catholic servant who had been intrusted with a message to Alice. Then began a system of espionage and petty persecution, and all the forces of the McClory clan were united in an effort to compel Alice to marry a Catholic neighbor, called Joe Burns.
At this time Hugh began to learn to read and write, and he succeeded so far, by the light from the eye of the kiln at night, as to be able to write love letters which Alice was able to read. He also, about the same time, succeeded in spelling his way through the New Testament.
Like many other professions, a lime-kiln is a jealous mistress, and requires constant attentions. Young Brontë brought to it a divided mind, and gave it the second place in his thoughts. He was constantly leaving the kilns in the care of a companion on Saturday evenings and making long journeys to see Alice, returning on Monday morning, after a fatiguing night’s journey. At first his companions did all they could to make up for his absence and absent-mindedness; but a change came, and they did their best to throw the light of exaggeration on his deficiencies.
News had reached them from the North that he was a Protestant firebrand, that he had cursed the Pope, and made a savage attack on some harmless Catholics. At the kilns his manner had changed, and he had become moody and morose. Besides, he was constantly reading a little book by the light of the burning lime at night, instead of telling stories and singing songs, as in former times. The book was said to be the Bible, but it was in fact a New Testament that he was learning to read.
A plot was immediately hatched to get rid of so dangerous a colleague. One of the Catholics undertook, as usual, to look after the kilns while he made an expedition to County Down; but he not only failed to charge the kilns properly, but he sent for the owner on Monday morning early, that he might see for himself the condition of things. The northern carts arrived by dawn, to find that there was nothing for them but unburnt lime. While the matter was being explained Hugh346arrived, haggard and weary after his night’s journey, and was peremptorily dismissed, without any explanation from either side being tendered or accepted.
I have no record of Hugh’s proceedings immediately after his dismissal, but he must have been reduced to considerable straits, for he went to the hiring ground in Newry, and engaged himself, as a common servant-boy, to a farmer who resided in Donoughmore. As a farm laborer in those days he would receive about six pounds per annum, with board and lodging; but then he was near his Alice, and that made every burden light.
Hugh’s new master, James Harshaw, was not an ordinary farmer. The Harshaws had occupied the farm from early in the fifteenth century, and James, who had received the education of a gentleman, had behind him the traditions of an old and respectable family. In the Harshaw home shrewd and steady industry was brightened by culture and refinement. The wheel of fortune had brought Hugh Brontë into a family where mental alacrity had full play.
Brontë seems to have been treated with consideration and kindness by the Harshaws, who probably recognized in him something superior to the ordinary farm servant. At any rate, in those days the walls of class distinction were not raised so high as they are now, and the Harshaw children taught him to read.
Hugh was much with the family. He drove them to Donoughmore Presbyterian Meeting House on Sundays, and sat with them in their pew, and he accompanied them to rustic singing parties, and such local gatherings. He used also to drive them in the summer time to Warrenpoint and Newcastle, and other watering-places, and remain with them as their attendant.
In such treatment of a servant there was nothing unusual, and Mr. John Harshaw, the present proprietor of the ancestral home, has no very decisive information regarding this particular servant. He says, “The probability is that Hugh Brontë hired with my grandfather, whose land touched the Lough, but I fear it is too true that he passed through my grandfather’s service and left no permanent record behind him.”[1]
I think it is more than probable that Brontë repaid his young masters and mistresses for their teaching, by telling them stories. Under Harshaw’s roof he found not only work and shelter, but a home and comfort, and it is inconceivable that under those circumstances he allowed the gift that was in him, of charming by vivid narration, to lie dormant.
As long as he lived he spoke of the Harshaws with gratitude and affection, and I do not believe he could have been so glad and happy without contributing to the general enjoyment.
In the latter part of last century, theraconteuroccupied the place in Ireland now taken by the modern novelist, and I believe Hugh Brontë dropped doctrines into the minds of the young Harshaws which produced far-reaching results. Such was the fixed conviction of my old teacher, the Reverend W. McAllister.
It happened that the Martins, another ancient family, lived quite near to the Harshaws. The land of the two families enclosed Loughorne round. The Martins were rich and slightly aristocratic, but the two families were thrown much together, and Samuel Martin, the son of the one house, married Jane Harshaw, the daughter of the other.
She was a deeply religious and resolute woman, with a stern sense of duty. One of her nephews tells me she always conducted family worship after the death of her husband. She died of a fever, caught while ministering to the dying, in accordance with her high sense of Christian duty. Her life was given for others, and, at her funeral, the Reverend S. J. Moore said: “She was a woman who knew her duty and did it.”
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Her second son, John Martin, inherited his mother’s great mental capacity and strong sense of duty. At school, in Newry, he met young John Mitchel, and inspired him with something of his own enthusiasm, and the two youths came to the conclusion that it was their duty to put right Ireland’s wrongs. John Mitchel was sent to penal servitude for fifteen or twenty years, and then John Martin stepped into the place vacated by his friend, and was transported to Van Diemen’s Land for ten years.
The conviction of “honest John Martin” gave a blow to the old system in Ireland from which it has never recovered. Even his enemies were shocked at the ferocity of the sentence; but then he had written a pamphlet under the text: “Your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate.” (Isaiah, i. 7.) He had proclaimed from the housetops Hugh Brontë’s tenant-right doctrines, of which more anon. He had attacked the sacred rights of landlordism, and he was sent to a safe and distant place for quite a different offence, called treason felony.
John Martin was a man of large property, but he devoted his life and all his income to what he considered the good of others.
He had taken his B.A. degree at Trinity College, Dublin, and studied medicine, and for many years he gave advice and medicine gratuitously to all who came to him. The poor were passionately attached to him.
I remember seeing him and speaking to him once, after he had received a free pardon, and become a member of parliament. No one could have looked on the great, capacious head, and the handsome, benevolent face, without questioning the system that had no better use for such a man than sending him to rot in penal servitude. Lord Palmerston beheld the ex-convict with profound admiration, and expressed deep sympathy with him as the victim of a bad system.
John Martin preached and suffered for the very doctrines that Hugh Brontë enunciated with such passionate conviction. Where did he get those doctrines? I have a profound belief, though I have no positive proofs, that John Martin’s beliefs and principles grew from seeds sown by Hugh Brontë, the servant boy. In this belief the Reverend W. McAllister and the Reverend David McKee shared, or, rather, my faith has grown from their convictions.
Jane Harshaw, however she got them, carried the doctrines into the Martin family. They mingled with and strengthened her strong sense of duty, and they added passion to her lust after justice and the thing that was right. With her son John, the feeling of obligation to break the ban of Ireland’s curse became irresistible. He was dowered with an inexhaustible grace of pity for all sufferers, and the impulse to redress the wrongs of the oppressed overpowered him and led him to acts of impatience and imprudence, which gave his cool-headed enemies the opportunity they were ready enough to embrace. But the revolutionary doctrines for which John Martin suffered came from the same seed that produced Charlotte Brontë’s radical sentiments, and it is interesting to note that in both cases the seed produced its fruit about the same period (1847-1848).
I must now leave these historical speculations, however plausible and probable they may be, and return to the direct narration of known facts.
Hugh Brontë had disappeared forever from the Mount Pleasant kilns. Those who had plotted his dismissal exaggerated every foible of his life, and invented others, after he was gone, until, by a spiteful blending of fact and fancy, they made him into a monster.
The farmers’ sons and servants who carted lime from Mount Pleasant to County Down brought with them wonderful tales of his misdeeds and disgrace. And Alice McClory’s guardians believed that he had disappeared forever into the distant South, from whence he had emerged. They never suspected that he was actually living in their neighborhood, and that he and Alice had met at Warrenpoint, Newcastle, and elsewhere.
[1]As we shall see, the parish records of Hugh’s marriage and Patrick’s baptism are both lost, and though Patrick was schoolmaster in Glascar Presbyterian school, and in Drumgooland Episcopalian school, he has left no permanent record behind him in either place. Records in those days were ill-kept.
As we shall see, the parish records of Hugh’s marriage and Patrick’s baptism are both lost, and though Patrick was schoolmaster in Glascar Presbyterian school, and in Drumgooland Episcopalian school, he has left no permanent record behind him in either place. Records in those days were ill-kept.
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Under restraint, Alice had drooped and pined, but now that Brontë had left the country she was permitted to ride about the neighborhood quite alone. She enjoyed horse exercise greatly, but no matter in what direction she left home her way lay always through Loughorne. Perhaps the roads were better in that direction, but she always exchanged salutations with a handsome working-man, by the expanse of water in Loughorne. When he was not about she used very humanely to take her horse down to the lake to drink, and from a hole in an old tree she used to remove a scrap of paper, leaving something instead. The tree used to be pointed out as “Brontë’s post-box,” but the lake has recently been drained, and the trees have, I believe, disappeared.
Everything that could be done was done, to please Miss McClory, but no opportunity was missed to further Farmer Burns’s suit. He was a prosperous man. He had a good farm, a good house, plenty of horses and cows, and was a very desirable husband for Alice. He was also a Catholic. Brontë had shown that he did not care for her by going away, and never thinking of her more. The priest joined with Alice’s female friends in pleading for Burns. At length, by incessant perseverance, they prevailed on her to consent to marry Burns, and forget Brontë. The incessant drip had made an impression at last, and the crafty relatives had gained their end.
There was joy in the Catholic camp when it was publicly announced that Miss McClory and Mr. Burns were soon to be married. McClory’s house was thatched anew, and whitewashed and renovated throughout. The roses were nailed up around the windows; the street was strewn with fresh sand; new window-blinds and bed-curtains were provided, and pots and pans were burnished. Never before had McClory’s house been subjected to such an outburst of sweeping and brushing and washing and scouring; the whole place became redolent of potash and suds. It was spring cleaningin excelsis.
The local dressmaker, Annie McCabe, whose granddaughter, of the same name, is now dressmaker in the same place, assisted by Miss McClory’s female relatives, was busily engaged on the bridal dress. Burns used to look in daily on the incessant preparations, his countenance beaming with joy, but Alice would not permit him to destroy the pleasures of imagination by approaching near to her. She would lift her finger coyly, and warn him off, if he presumed on any familiarities, but she allowed him to sit on the other side of the fire from that graced by herself.
At length the wedding-day arrived. Such signs of feasting had never before been seen in Ballynaskeagh. New loaves had been procured from Newry, fresh beef from Rathfriland, whiskey from Banbridge. A great pudding, composed of flour and potatoes, and boiled for many hours over a slow fire, with hot coals on the lid of the oven, had been prepared. Two of the largest turkeys had been boiled, and laid out on great dishes with an abundant coating of melted butter, and a huge roll of roasted beef was served up as a burnt offering. Signs of abundance stood on table and dresser and hob, while rows of bottles peeped from behind the window-curtains; and neither envy nor spite could say that Red Paddy McClory was not providing a splendid wedding for his sister. The morning rose glorious, and, as the custom then was, Burns and his friends, mounted on their best horses, raced to the house of the bride “for the broth,” first in being the winner. On such occasions crowds of neighbors crowned the hilltops. The cavalcade was greeted with ringing cheers, as it swept in a cloud of dust down the road from the Knock Hill. Several riders were unhorsed, but the steeds arrived in McClory’s court, champing their bits and covered with foam. A covered car from Newry stood near the house, on the road, to take Alice to the chapel, but she was to ride away from the chapel mounted on the pillion, behind her husband.
There was an unexpected pause; no349one knew why. Some dismounted and stood by their stirrups, ready to mount when the bride had entered her carriage. Glasses of whiskey were handed round, and then the pause became more awkward and the suspense more intense. At last it became known that Alice, who had been up nearly all night finishing her new gowns, had felt weary, and fitting on her wedding dress, had gone out on her mare for a spurt, to shake off drowsiness. Messengers were sent in different directions to search for her, but they had not returned. Some accident must have befallen her.
Burns, who rode a powerful black horse, and who had won the broth, galloped off wildly towards Loughbrickland. The other cavaliers scoured the country in different directions; but, while all kinds of surmises were being hazarded, a messenger on foot from Banbridge, with dainties for the feast, arrived, and reported that he had met Miss McClory and a tall gentleman galloping furiously toward the river Bann, near Banbridge. There was great excitement among the guests, and whiskey and strong language without measure. After a hurried consultation the mounted guests agreed to pursue the fugitives and bring Miss McClory back; but, while they were tightening their girths and getting ready for a gallop of five or six miles, a boy rode up to the house on the mare that had been ridden by Alice, bearing a letter to say she had just been married to Hugh Brontë in Magherally church. She sent her love and grateful thanks to her brother, hoped the party would enjoy the wedding dinner, and begged them to drink her health as Mrs. Brontë.
The plucky manner in which the lady had carried out her own plan, outwitting the coercionists by her own cleverness, called forth admiration in the midst of disappointment, and the cheery message touched every heart. The calamity that had befallen Burns did not weigh heavily on the hearts of the guests, in presence of the splendid dinner before them, and especially as it was now clear that the lady was being forced to marry him against her will.
At this juncture the kind and courteous old priest rose, and with great skill and good-humor talked about the events of the day. He brought into special prominence the humorous and heroic episode in a manner that appealed to the chivalry of his hearers, and then, with tender pathos, referring to the beautiful daughter of the house, called upon the guests to drink her health. The toast was responded to with a hearty ringing cheer. Burns, who has left a good reputation behind him, promptly proposed prosperity to the new-married couple, and Red Paddy, always kind and generous, promised to send the united good wishes of the whole party to the bride and bridegroom, and to assure them of a hearty welcome, in which the past would be forgotten. Paddy, as we shall see, kept his word. Thus the grandfather and grandmother of the great novelists were married in 1776, in the Protestant church of Magherally, the clergyman who officiated pronouncing the bride the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
The following verses have always been known as the product of Hugh Brontë’s muse. I am inclined to think they may have, in an original form, been produced by Hugh, and smoothed down by his son Patrick. And perhaps, in the refining process, they have lost in strength more than they have gained in sound.
I do not think old Hugh would have known anything, at first hand, of “the peach bloom,” or of “the blood-red Mars.” The poem, forty years ago, had many variations, but there is one line of special interest, as it shows that the verses were known to Charlotte Brontë. The verse, with a slight variation, is put into the mouth of Jane Eyre. Rochester says: “Jane suits me; do I suit her?” Jane answers: “To the finest fibre of my nature, sir.”350
The red rose paled before the blushThat mantled o’er thy dimpled cheek,The peach bloom faded at the flushThat tinged thy beauty ripe and meek.Thy milk-white brow outshone the snow:Thy lustrous eyes outglanced the stars:Thy cherry lips, with love aglow,Burned ruddier than the blood-red Mars.Thy sweet, low voice waked in my heartDead memories of my mother’s love.My long-lost sister’s artless artLived in thy smiles, my gentle dove.Dear Alice, how thy charm and graceKindled my dull and stagnant life!From first I saw thy winning face,My whole heart claimed thee for my wife.I thought you’d make me happy, dear:I sought you for my very own:You clung to me through storm and fear:You loved me still, though poor and lone.My love was centred all in self:Thy love was centred all in me:True wife, above all pride and pelf,My life’s deep current flows for thee.The finest fibres of my soulEntwine with thine in love’s strong fold;Our tin cup is a golden bowl;Love fills our cot with wealth untold.
The red rose paled before the blushThat mantled o’er thy dimpled cheek,The peach bloom faded at the flushThat tinged thy beauty ripe and meek.
The red rose paled before the blush
That mantled o’er thy dimpled cheek,
The peach bloom faded at the flush
That tinged thy beauty ripe and meek.
Thy milk-white brow outshone the snow:Thy lustrous eyes outglanced the stars:Thy cherry lips, with love aglow,Burned ruddier than the blood-red Mars.
Thy milk-white brow outshone the snow:
Thy lustrous eyes outglanced the stars:
Thy cherry lips, with love aglow,
Burned ruddier than the blood-red Mars.
Thy sweet, low voice waked in my heartDead memories of my mother’s love.My long-lost sister’s artless artLived in thy smiles, my gentle dove.
Thy sweet, low voice waked in my heart
Dead memories of my mother’s love.
My long-lost sister’s artless art
Lived in thy smiles, my gentle dove.
Dear Alice, how thy charm and graceKindled my dull and stagnant life!From first I saw thy winning face,My whole heart claimed thee for my wife.
Dear Alice, how thy charm and grace
Kindled my dull and stagnant life!
From first I saw thy winning face,
My whole heart claimed thee for my wife.
I thought you’d make me happy, dear:I sought you for my very own:You clung to me through storm and fear:You loved me still, though poor and lone.
I thought you’d make me happy, dear:
I sought you for my very own:
You clung to me through storm and fear:
You loved me still, though poor and lone.
My love was centred all in self:Thy love was centred all in me:True wife, above all pride and pelf,My life’s deep current flows for thee.
My love was centred all in self:
Thy love was centred all in me:
True wife, above all pride and pelf,
My life’s deep current flows for thee.
The finest fibres of my soulEntwine with thine in love’s strong fold;Our tin cup is a golden bowl;Love fills our cot with wealth untold.
The finest fibres of my soul
Entwine with thine in love’s strong fold;
Our tin cup is a golden bowl;
Love fills our cot with wealth untold.
351THE LEGEND OF THE ELEPHANT AND THE LION.By Henry M. Stanley.
Copyright, 1893, by Henry M. Stanley.
It was a custom with us, when crossing Africa in 1874-77, to meet after dinner around the camp-fire, to while away the evening with pleasant gossip, reminiscences, curious African legends. Sunset in the tropics is soon followed by darkness, and the heavy vapors rising from the hot, steaming ground appear to give thickness and substance to it. A large fire is then very agreeable, as it drives away the damp and dew; and it is a comfort to look into its flames and glowing embers, wherein each man sees what he sees. No doubt the drift of the mind at such times, to think of such things as are driven away by the needs of the stirring day, suggested that we could be more sociable and more interested if we related to one another such stories as were told to us by the old folks at home. On trial it was found that there were some of our men who were most accomplished in the art of narration, and I fancied, after writing one or two out, that there was some kind of a moral of an African character in each, after which I paid more attention to them, and, on retiring from the circle, I would hastily jot down what I had heard. If there were some points still obscure in the story I would invite its narrator to relate it to me at the first halting-place. But then I would find also that there was a great deal of difference between the story told to me alone and that related to the audience round the fire—there was then less local color, less detail, and less animation.
At a camp on the Upper Congo, in 1877, Chakanja drew near our fire as story-telling was about to begin, and was immediately beset with eager demands for a tale from him. Like a singer, who always professes to have a cold before indulging us, Chakanja needed more than a few entreaties; but finally, after vowing that he never could remember anything, he consented to gratify us with the legend of the Elephant and the Lion.
“Well,” he answered, with a deep sigh, “if I must, I must. You must know we Waganda are fond of three things—to have a nice wife, a pleasant farm, and to hear good news, or a lively story. I have heard a great many stories in my life, but, unlike Kadu, my mind remembers them not. Men’s heads are not the same, any more than men’s hearts are like. But I take it that a poor tale is better than none. It comes back to me like a dream, this tale of the Elephant and the Lion. I heard it first when on a visit to Gabunga’s; but who can tell it like him? If you think the tale is not well told, it is my fault; but then, do not blame me too much, or I shall think I ought to blame you to-morrow, when it will be your turn to amuse the party.
“Now open your ears. A huge and sour-tempered elephant went and wandered in the forest. His inside was slack for want of juicy roots and succulent reeds, but his head was as full of dark thoughts as a gadfly is full of blood. As he looked this way and that, he observed a young lion asleep at the foot of a tree. He regarded it for a while, then, as he was in a wicked mind, it came to him that he might as well kill it, and he accordingly rushed at it, and impaled it with his tusks. He lifted it with his trunk, swung it about, dashed it against the tree, and afterwards kneeled on the body352until it became as shapeless as a crushed banana pulp. He then laughed, and said, ‘Ha! ha! This is a proof that I am strong. I have killed a lion, and people will say proud things of me, and will wonder at my strength.’
“Presently a brother elephant came up and greeted him.
“‘See,’ said the first elephant, ‘what I have done. It was I that killed him. I lifted him on high, and, lo! he lies like a rotten banana. Do you not think I am very strong? Come, be frank now, and give me some credit for what I have done.’
“Elephant No. 2 replied: ‘It is true that you are strong, but that was only a young lion. There are others of his kind, and I have seen them, who would give you considerable trouble.’
“‘Ho, ho!’ laughed the first elephant. ‘Get out, stupid! You may bring his whole tribe here, and I will show you what I can do. Ay, and to your dam to boot.’
“‘What! My own mother, too!’
“‘Yes. Go and fetch her if you like.’
“‘Well, well,’ said No. 2, ‘you are far gone, there is no doubt. Fare you well.’
“No. 2 proceeded on his wanderings, resolved in his own mind that, if he had an opportunity, he would send some one to test the boaster’s strength. No. 1 called out to him:
“‘Away you go. Good-by to you.’
“A little way on, No. 2 elephant met a lion and lioness, full grown, and splendid creatures, who turned out to be the parents of the youngster which had been slain, and he said to them, after a sociable chat:
“‘If you go further on along the path I came, you will meet a kind of game which requires killing badly. He has just mangled your cub.’
“Meantime elephant No. 1, chuckling to himself very conceitedly, proceeded to the pool near by to bathe and cool himself. At every step he went you could hear this: ‘Ha, ha, ha! Lo! I have killed a lion.’ While he was in the pool, spurting the water in a shower over his back, he suddenly looked up, and at the water’s edge beheld a grown lion and lioness regarding him sternly.
“‘Well, what do you want?’ he asked. ‘Why are you standing there looking at me?’
“‘Are you the rogue who killed our child?’ they asked.
“‘Perhaps I am,’ he answered. ‘Why do you want to know?’
“‘Because we are in search of him. If it be you that did it, you will have to do the same to us before you leave this ground.’
“‘Ho! ho!’ laughed the elephant loudly. ‘Well, hark! It was I who killed your cub. Come now, it was I. Do you hear? And if you do not leave here mighty quick, I shall have to serve you both as I served him.’
“The lions roared aloud in their fury, and switched their tails violently.
“‘Ho, ho!’ laughed the elephant gayly. ‘This is grand! There is no doubt I shall run soon, they make me so skeery;’ and he danced round the pool, and jeered at them, then drank a great quantity of water and blew it in a shower over them.
“The lions stirred not, but kept steadfastly gazing at him, planning how best to attack him.
“Perceiving that they were obstinate, he threw another stream of water over the lions and then backed into the deepest part of the pool, until there was nothing seen of him but the tip of his trunk. When he arose again the lions were still watching him and had not moved.
“‘Ho, ho!’ he trumpeted, ‘still there? Wait a little, I am coming to you.’ He advanced towards the shore, but, when he was close enough, the lion sire sprang into the air, and alighted on the elephant’s back, and furiously tore at the muscles of the neck, and bit deep into the shoulder. The elephant retreated into the deepest part of the pool again, and submerged himself and his enemy, until the lion was compelled to abandon his back and begin to swim ashore. No sooner had he felt himself relieved than the elephant rose to the surface, and hastily followed and seized the lion with his trunk. Despite the lion’s353struggles, he was pressed beneath the surface, dragged under the elephant’s knees, and trodden into the mud, and in a short time the lion sire was dead.
“The elephant laughed triumphantly, and cried, ‘Ho, ho! am I not strong, Ma Lion? Did you ever see the like of me before? Two of you, Young Lion and Pa Lion, are now killed. Ma Lion, you had better try now, just to see if you won’t have better luck. Come on, old woman, just once.’
“The lioness fiercely answered, while she retreated from the pool, ‘Hold on where you are. I am going to find my brother, and will be back shortly.’
“The elephant trumpeted his scorn of her kind, and seizing the carcass of her lord, flung it on shore after her, and declared his readiness to abide where he was, that he might make mash of all the lion family.
“In a short time the lioness had found her brother, who was a mighty fellow, and full of fight. As they advanced near the pool together, they consulted as to the best means of getting at him. Then the lioness sprang forward to the edge of the pool. The elephant retreated a short distance. The lioness upon this crept along the pool, and pretended to lap the water. The elephant moved towards her. The lion waited his chance, and finally, with a great roar, sprang upon his shoulders and commenced tearing away at the very place which had been wounded by lion sire.
“The elephant backed quickly into deep water, and submerged himself, but the lion maintained his hold and bit deeper. The elephant then sank down until there was nothing to be seen but the tip of his trunk, upon which the lion, to avoid suffocation, relaxed his hold, and swam vigorously toward shore. The elephant rose up, and as the lion was stepping on shore, seized him, and drove one of his tusks through his body; but, as he was in the act, the lioness sprang upon the elephant’s neck, and bit and tore so furiously that he fell dead, and with his fall crushed the dying lion.
“Soon after the close of the terrible combat, elephant No. 2 came up, and discovered the lioness licking her chops and paws, and said:
“‘Hello, it seems there has been quite a quarrel here lately. Three lions are dead, and here lies one of my own kind, stiffening.’
“‘Yes,’ replied the lioness gloomily, ‘the rogue elephant killed my cub while the little fellow was asleep in the woods. He then killed my husband and brother, and I killed him; but I do not think the elephant has gained much by fighting with us. I did not have much trouble in killing him. Should you meet any friends of his,354you may warn them to leave the lioness alone, or she may be tempted to make short work of them.’
“Elephant No. 2, though a patient person generally, was annoyed at this, and gave a sudden kick with one of his hind feet which sent her sprawling a good distance off; and asked:
“‘How do you like that, Ma Lion?’
“‘What do you mean by that?’ demanded the enraged lioness.
“‘Oh, because I hate to hear so much bragging.’
“‘Do you also wish to fight?’ she asked.
“‘We should never talk about doing an impossible thing, Ma Lion,’ he answered. ‘I have travelled many years through these woods, and I have never fought yet. I find that when a person minds his own business he seldom comes to trouble, and when I meet one who is even stronger than myself, I greet him pleasantly, and pass on, and I should advise you to do the same, Ma Lion.’
“‘You are saucy, elephant. It would be well for you to think upon your stupid brother there, who lies so stark under your nose, before you trouble one who slew him, with your insolence.’
“‘Well, words never yet made a plantation; it is the handling of a hoe that makes fields. See here, Ma Lion, if I talked to you all day I could not make you wise. I will just turn my back to you. If you will bite me you will soon learn how weak you are.’
“The lioness, angered still more by the elephant’s contempt, sprang at his shoulders, and clung to him; upon which he rushed at a stout tree, and, pressing his shoulders against it, crushed the breath out of her body, and she ceased her struggles. When he relaxed his pressure, the body fell to the ground, and he knelt upon it, and kneaded it until every bone was broken.
“While the elephant was meditatively standing over the body, and thinking what misfortunes happen to boasters, a man came along, carrying a spear; and seeing that the elephant was unaware of his presence, he thought what great luck had happened to him.
“Said he, ‘Ah, what fine tusks he has! I shall be rich with them, and shall buy slaves and cattle, and with these I will get a wife and a farm,’ saying which he advanced silently, and when he was near enough, darted his spear into a place behind the shoulder.
“The elephant turned around quickly, and, on beholding his enemy, rushed after him, and, overtaking him, mauled him until in a few moments he was a mangled corpse.
“At this time a woman approached, and seeing four lions and one elephant and her husband dead, she raised up her hands wonderingly, and cried, ‘How did all this happen?’ The elephant, hearing her voice, came from behind a tree, with a spear quivering in his side, and bleeding profusely. At the sight of him the woman turned round to fly, but the elephant cried out to her, ‘Nay, run not, woman, for I can do you no harm. The happy days in the woods are ended for all the tribes. The memory of this scene will never be forgotten. Animals will be at constant war one with another. Lions will no more greet elephants, the buffaloes will be shy, the rhinoceroses will live apart, and man, when he comes within the shadows, will think of nothing else than his terrors, and he will fancy an enemy in every shadow. I am sorely wounded, for thy man stole up to my side and drove his spear into me, and soon I shall die.’
“When she had heard these words the woman hastened home, and all the villagers, old and young, hurried into the woods, by the pool, where they found four lions, two elephants, and one of their own tribe lying still and lifeless.
“The words of the elephant have turned out to be true, for no man goes nowadays into the silent and deserted woods but he feels as though something was haunting them, and thinks of goblinry, and starts at every sound. Out of the shadows, which shift with the sun, forms seem crawling and phantoms appear to glide, and we are355in a fever almost from the horrible illusions of fancy. We breathe quickly and fear to speak, for the smallest vibration in the silence would jar on our nerves. I speak the truth, for when I am in the woods near the night, there swim before my eyes a multitude of terrible things which I never see by the light of day. The flash of a firefly is a ghost, the chant of a frog becomes a frightful roar, the sudden piping of a bird signalizes murder, and I run. No, no, no woods for me when alone.”
And Chakanja rose to his feet and went to his own quarters, solemnly shaking his head. But we all smiled at Chakanja, and thought how terribly frightened he would be if any one suddenly rose from behind a dark bush and cried “Boo!” to him.