439AT A DANCE.
My queen is tired and craves surceaseOf twanging string and clamorous brass;I lean against the mantelpiece,And watch her in the glass.One whom I see not where I standFans her, and talks in whispers low;Her loose locks flutter as his handMoves lightly to and fro.He begs a flower; her finger tipsStray round a rose half veiled in lace;She grants the boon with smiling lips,Her clear eyes read his face.I cannot look—my sight grows dim—While Fate allots, unequally,The living woman’s self to him,The mirrored form to me.
My queen is tired and craves surceaseOf twanging string and clamorous brass;I lean against the mantelpiece,And watch her in the glass.
My queen is tired and craves surcease
Of twanging string and clamorous brass;
I lean against the mantelpiece,
And watch her in the glass.
One whom I see not where I standFans her, and talks in whispers low;Her loose locks flutter as his handMoves lightly to and fro.
One whom I see not where I stand
Fans her, and talks in whispers low;
Her loose locks flutter as his hand
Moves lightly to and fro.
He begs a flower; her finger tipsStray round a rose half veiled in lace;She grants the boon with smiling lips,Her clear eyes read his face.
He begs a flower; her finger tips
Stray round a rose half veiled in lace;
She grants the boon with smiling lips,
Her clear eyes read his face.
I cannot look—my sight grows dim—While Fate allots, unequally,The living woman’s self to him,The mirrored form to me.
I cannot look—my sight grows dim—
While Fate allots, unequally,
The living woman’s self to him,
The mirrored form to me.
DULCES AMARYLLIDIS IRÆ.
I told my love a truth she liked not well;She spoke no word. I raised my eyes to watchHer cheek’s red flush, her bosom’s angry swell;She rose to go; her hand was on the latch;When some swift thought—of my fond love, maybe,Or ill-requited patience—bowed her head:She faltered, paused with foot half raised to flee,Then turned, and stole into my arms instead.
I told my love a truth she liked not well;She spoke no word. I raised my eyes to watchHer cheek’s red flush, her bosom’s angry swell;She rose to go; her hand was on the latch;When some swift thought—of my fond love, maybe,Or ill-requited patience—bowed her head:She faltered, paused with foot half raised to flee,Then turned, and stole into my arms instead.
I told my love a truth she liked not well;
She spoke no word. I raised my eyes to watch
Her cheek’s red flush, her bosom’s angry swell;
She rose to go; her hand was on the latch;
When some swift thought—of my fond love, maybe,
Or ill-requited patience—bowed her head:
She faltered, paused with foot half raised to flee,
Then turned, and stole into my arms instead.
Reproduced, by special arrangement, from“Under the Hawthorn, and Other Verse,” by Augusta de Gruchy.London: Edwin Matthews and John Lane, 1893.
Reproduced, by special arrangement, from“Under the Hawthorn, and Other Verse,” by Augusta de Gruchy.
London: Edwin Matthews and John Lane, 1893.
440A SPLENDID TIME—AHEAD.By Walter Besant.
It was Sunday evening in July—an evening aglow with warmth and splendor; an evening when even the streets of London were glorious with the light of the splendid west; an evening when, if you are young (as I sincerely hope you are), only to wander hand-in-hand over the grass and under the trees with your sweetheart should be happiness enough. One ought to be ashamed to ask for more. Nay, a great many do not ask for more.
They are engaged. Some time, but not just yet, they will marry. They work separately all the week, but on the Sunday they are free to go about together. Of all the days that make the week they dearly love but one day—namely the day that lies between the Saturday and Monday. Now that the voice of the Sabbatarian has sunk to a whisper or a whine; now that we have learned to recognize the beauty, the priceless boon, the true holiness of the Sunday, which not only rests body and brain, but may be so used as to fill the mind with memories of lovely scenes, of sweet and confidential talk, of love-making and of happiness, we ought to determine that of all the things which make up the British liberties, there is nothing for which the working man should more fiercely fight or more jealously watch than the full freedom of his Sunday—freedom uncontrolled441to wander where he will, to make his recreation as he chooses.
If the church doors are open wide, let the doors of the public galleries and the museums and the libraries be opened wide as well. Let him, if he choose, step from church to library. But if he is wise, when the grass is long and the bramble is in blossom, and the foliage is thick and heavy on the elms, he will, after dinner, repair to the country, if it is only to breathe the air of the fields, and lie on his back watching the slow westering of the sun and listening to the note of the blackbird in the wood.
Two by two they stroll or sit about Hempstead Heath on such an evening. If you were to listen (a pleasant thing to do, but wrong) to the talk of these couples you would find that they are mostly silent, except that they only occasionally exchange a word or two. Why should they talk? They know each other’s cares and prospects; they know the burden that each has to bear—the evil temper of the boss, the uncertainties of employment, the difficulties in the way of an improved screw, and the family troubles—there are always family troubles, due to some inconsiderate member or other. I declare that we have been teaching morality and the proper conduct of life on quite a wrong principle—namely, the selfish principle.
We say, “Be good, my child, and you will go to heaven.” The proposition is no doubt perfectly true. But it proposes a selfish motive for action. I would rather say to that child, “Be good, my dear, or else you will become an intolerable nuisance to other people.” Now, no child likes to consider himself an intolerable nuisance.
These lovers, therefore, wander about the Heath, sometimes up to their knees in bracken, sometimes sitting under the trees, not talking much, but, as the old phrase has it, “enjoying themselves” very much indeed. At the end of the Spaniards’ Road—that high causeway whence one can see, in clear weather, the steeple of Harrow Church on one side and the dome of St. Paul’s on the other—there is a famous clump of firs, which have been represented by painters over and over again. Benches have been placed under these trees, where one can sit and have a very fine view indeed, with the Hendon Lake in the middle distance, and a range of hills beyond, and fields and rills between.
On one of these benches were sitting this evening two—Adam and Eve, boy and girl—newly entered into paradise. Others were sitting there as well—an ancient gentleman whose thoughts were seventy years back, a working man with a child of three on his knee, and beside him his wife, carrying the baby. But these lovers paid no heed to their neighbors. They sat at the end of the bench. The boy was holding the girl’s hand, and he was talking eagerly.
“Lily,” he said, “you must come some evening to our debating society when we begin again and hear me speak. No one speaks better. That is acknowledged. There is to be a debate on the House of Lords in October. I mean to come out grand. When I’m done there will be mighty little left of the Lords.” He was a handsome lad, tall and well set up, straight featured and bright eyed. The girl looked at him proudly. He was her own lad—this handsome chap. Not that she was bad-looking either. Many an honest fellow has to put up with a girl not nearly so good-looking, if you were to compare.
He was a clerk in the city. She was in the post-office. He attended at his office daily from half-past nine to six, doing such work as was set before him for the salary of a pound a week. She stood all day long at the counter, serving out postal orders, selling stamps, weighing letters, and receiving telegrams. When I add that she was civil to everybody you will understand that she was quite a superior clerk—one of the queen’s lucky bargains. It is not delicate to talk about a young lady’s salary, therefore I shall not say for how much she gave her services to the British Empire.
He was a clever boy, who read and thought. That is to say, he thought that he thought—which is more than most do. As he took his facts from the newspapers, and nothing else, and442as he was profoundly ignorant of English history, English law, the British Constitution, the duties of a citizen, and the British Empire generally, his opinions, after he had done thinking, were not of so much value to the country, it is believed. But still a clever fellow, and able to spout in a frothy way which carried his hearers along, if it never convinced or defeated an opponent.
To this kind of clever boy there are always two or three dangers. One is that he should be led on to think more and more of froth and less of fact; another, that he should grow conceited over his eloquence and neglect his business. A third temptation which peculiarly besets this kind is that he should take to drink. Oratory is thirsty work, and places where young men orate are often in immediate proximity to bars. As yet, however, Charley was only twenty. He was still at the first stage of everything—oratory, business, and love; and he was still at the stage when everything appears possible—the total abolition of injustice, privilege, class, capital, power, oppression, greed, sweating, poverty, suffering—by the simple process of tinkering the constitution.
“Oh,” he cried, “we shall have the most glorious, the most splendid time, Lily! The power of the people is only just beginning; it hasn’t begun yet. We shall see the most magnificent things....” He enumerated them as above indicated. Well, it is very good that young men should have such dreams and see such visions. I never heard of any girl being thus carried out of herself. The thing belongs exclusively to male man in youth, and it is very good for him. When he is older he will understand that over and above the law and the constitution there is something else more important still—namely, that every individual man should be honest, temperate, and industrious. In brief, he will understand the force of the admonition: “Be good, my child, or else you will become an intolerable nuisance to everybody.”
The sun sank behind Harrow-on-the-Hill. The red light of the west flamed in the boy’s bright eyes. Presently the girl rose.
“Yes, Charley,” she said, less sympathetic than might have been expected; “yes, and it will be a very fine time, if it comes. But I don’t know. People will always want to get rich, won’t they? I think this beautiful time will have to come after us. Perhaps we had better be looking after our own nest first.”
“Oh, it will come—it will come!”
“I like to hear you talk about it, Charley. But if we are ever to marry—if I am to give up the post-office, you must make a bigger screw. Remember what you promised. The shorthand and the French class. Put them before your speechifying.”
“All right, Lily dear, and then we will get married, and we will have the most splendid time. Oh, there’s the most splendid time for us—ahead!”
It is six months later and mid-winter, and the time is again the evening. The day has been gloomy, with a fog heavy enough to cause the offices to be lit with gas, so that the eyes of all London are red and the heads of all London are heavy.
Lily stepped outside the post-office, work done. She was going home.
At the door stood her sweetheart, waiting for her. She tossed her head and made as if she would pass him without speaking. But he stepped after and walked beside her.
“No, Lily,” he said, “I will speak to you; even if you don’t answer my letters you shall hear me speak.”
“You have disgraced yourself,” she said.
“Yes, I know. But you will forgive me. It is the first time. I swear it is the first time.”
Well, it was truly the first time that she had seen him in such a state.
“Oh, to be a drunkard!” she replied. “Oh, could I ever believe that I should see you rolling about the street?”
“It was the first time, Lily, and it shall be the last. Forgive me and443take me on again. If you give me up I shall go to the devil!”
“Charley”—her voice broke into a sob—“you have made me miserable—I was so proud of you. No other girl, I thought, had such a clever sweetheart; and last Tuesday—oh! it’s dreadful to think of.”
“Yes, Lily, I know. There’s only one excuse. I spoke for more than an hour, and I was exhausted. So what I took went to my head. Another time I should not have felt it a bit. And when I found myself staggering I was going home as fast as possible, and as bad luck would have it, I must needs meet you.”
“Good luck, I call it. Else I might never have found it out till too late.”
“Lily, make it up. Give me another chance. I’ll swear off. I’ll take the pledge.”
He caught her hand and held it.
“Oh, Charley,” she said, “if I can only trust you.”
“You can, you must, Lily. For your sake I will take the pledge. I will do whatever you ask me to do.”
She gave way, but not without conditions.
“Well,” she said, “I will try to think no more about it. But, Charley, remember, I could never, never, never marry a man who drinks.”
“You never shall, dear,” he replied, earnestly.
“And then, another thing, Charley. This speaking work—oh! I know it is clever and that—but it doesn’t help us forward. How long is it since you determined to learn shorthand, because it would advance you so much? And French, because a clerk who can write French is worth double? Where are your fine resolutions?”
“I will begin again—I will practise hard; see now, Lily, I will do all you want. I will promise anything to please you—and do it, too. See if I won’t. Only not quite to give up the speaking. Think how people are beginning to look up to me. Why, when we get a444reformed House, and the members are paid, they will send me to Parliament—me! I shall be a member for Camden Town. Then I shall be made Home Secretary, or Attorney General, or something. You will be proud, Lily, of your husband when he is a distinguished man. There’s a splendid time for us—ahead!”
“Yes, dear. But first you know you have got to get a salary that we can live on.”
He left her at her door with a kiss and a laugh, and turned to go home. In the next street he passed a public-house. He stopped, he hesitated, he felt in his pocket, he went in and had a go, just a single go—Lily would never find out—of Scotch, cold. Then he went home and played at practising shorthand for an hour. He had promised his Lily. She should see how well he could keep his promise.
“It is good of you to come, my dear. Of course, I understand that it is all over now. It must be. It is not in nature that you should keep him on any longer. But I thought you would see my poor boy once more.”
It was Charley’s mother who spoke. He was the only son of a widow.
“Oh, yes, I came—I came,” Lily replied, tearfully. “But what is the good? He will promise everything again. How many times has he repented and promised—and promised?”
“My poor boy! And we were so proud of him, weren’t we, dear?” said the mother, wiping away a tear. “He was going to do such great things with his cleverness and his speaking. And now—I have seen it coming on, my dear, for a year and more, but I durstn’t speak to you. When he came home night after night with a glassy eye and a husky voice, when he reeled across the room, at first I pretended not to notice it. A man mustn’t be nagged or shamed, must he? Then I spoke in the morning, and he promised to pull himself up.”
“He will promise—ah! yes—he will promise.”
“If you could only forgive him he might keep his promise.”
Lily shook her head doubtfully.
“I went to the office this morning, my dear. They have been expecting it for weeks. The head clerk warned him. It was known that he had fallen into bad company—in the city they don’t like spouters. And when he came back after his dinner he was so tipsy that he fell along. They just turned him out on the spot.”
“Mother,” said Lily, “it’s like this. I can’t help forgiving him. We two must forgive him, whatever he does. We love him, you see, that’s what it is.”
“Yes, dear, yes.”
“It isn’t the poor, tipsy boy we love, but the real boy—the clever boy behind. We must forgive him. But”—her lips quivered—“I cannot marry him. Do not ask me to do that unless—what will never happen—he reforms altogether.”
“If you would, dear, I think he might keep straight. If you were always with him to watch him.”
“I could not be always with him.445And besides, mother, think what might happen as well. Would you have me bring into the world children whose lives would make me wretched by a drunken father? And how should we live? Because, you see, if I marry I must give up my place.”
The mother sighed. “Charley is in his own room,” she said, “I will send him to you.”
Lily sat down and buried her face in her hands. Alas! to this had her engagement come. But she loved him. When he came into the room and stood before her and she looked up, seeing him shamefaced and with hanging head, she was filled with pity as well as love—pity and shame, and sorrow for the boy. She took his hand and pressed it between her own and burst into tears. “Oh, Charley, Charley!” she cried.
“I am a brute and a wretch,” he said. “I don’t deserve anything. But don’t throw me over—don’t, Lily!”
He fell on his knees before her, crying like a little school-boy. A tendency to weep readily sometimes accompanies the consumption of strong drink.
Then he made confession, such confession as one makes who puts things as prettily as their ugliness allows. He had given way once or twice; he had never intended to get drunk; he had been overtaken yesterday. The day was close, he had a headache in the morning. To cure his headache he took a single glass of beer. When he went back to the office he felt giddy. They said he was drunk. They bundled him out on the spot without even the opportunity of explaining.
Lily sighed. What could she say or answer? The weakness of the man’s nature only came out the more clearly by his confession. What could she say? To reason with him was useless. To make him promise was useless.
“Charley,” she said at length, “if my forgiveness will do any good take it and welcome. But we cannot undo the past. You have lost your place and your character. As for the future——”
“You have forgiven me, Lily,” he said; “oh, I can face the future. I can get another place easily. I shall very soon retrieve my character. Why, all they can say is that I seemed to have taken too much. Nothing—that is nothing!”
446
“What will you do? Have you got any money?”
“No. I must go and look for another place. Until I get one I suppose there will be short commons. I deserve it, Lily. You shall not hear me grumble.”
She took out her purse. “I can spare two pounds,” she said. “Take the money, Charley. Nay—you must—you shall. You must not go about looking half starved.”
He hesitated and changed color, but he took the money.
Half an hour later he was laughing, as they all three sat at their simple supper, as light-hearted as if there had never been such a scene. When a man is forgiven he may as well behave accordingly. Only, when he lifted his glass of water to his lips he gasped—it was a craving for something stronger than water which tightened his throat like hydrophobia. But it passed; he drank the water and set down the glass with a nod.
“Good water, that,” he said. “Nothing like water. Mean to stick to water in future—water and tea. Lily, I’ve made up my mind. For the next six months I shall give up speaking, though it’s against my interests. Shorthand and French in the evening. By that time I shall get a post worth a hundred—ay, a hundred and twenty—pounds a year, if I’m lucky, and we’ll get married and all live together and be as happy as the day is long. You shall never repent your wedding-day, my dear. I shall keep you like a lady. Oh, we will have a splendid time.”
At ten o’clock Lily rose to go home. He sprang to his feet and took his hat and went.
“No, no,” he said. “Let you go alone? Not if I know it.”
She laid her hand on his arm once more, and tried to believe that his promise would be kept this time. He led her home, head in air, gallant and brave. At the door he kissed her. “Good-night, my dear,” he said. “You know you can trust me. Haven’t I promised?”
On the way home he passed a public-house. The craving came back to him, and the tightness of his throat and the yearning of his heart; his footsteps were drawn and dragged toward the door.
At eleven o’clock his mother, who was waiting up for him, heard him bumping and tumbling about the stairs on his way up. He came in—his eyes fishy, his voice thick. “Saw her home,” he said. “Good girl, Lily. Made—(hic)—faithful promise—we are going to have—splendid time!”
The two women stood outside the prison doors. At eight o’clock their man would be released; the son of one, the lover of the other. The elder woman looked frail and bowed, her face was full of trouble—the kind of447trouble that nothing can remove. The younger woman stood beside her on the pavement; she was thinner, and her cheeks were pale; in her eyes, too, you could read abiding trouble.
“We will take him home between us,” said the girl. “Not a word of reproach. He has sinned and suffered. We must forgive. Oh, we cannot choose but forgive!”
Alas! the noble boy—the clever boy she loved—was further off than ever. He who loses a place and his character with it never gets another berth. This is a rule in the city. We talk of retrieving character and getting back to work. Neither the one nor the other event ever comes off. The wretch who is in this hapless plight begins the weary search for employment in hope. How it ends varies with his temperament or with the position of his friends. All day long he climbs stairs, puts his head into offices, and asks if a clerk is wanted.
No clerk is wanted. Then he comes down the stairs and climbs others, and asks the same question and gets the same reply. If ever a clerk is wanted a character is wanted with him; and when the character includes the qualification of drink, as well as of zeal and ability, the owner is told that he may move on.
I am told there is a never-ending procession of clerks out of work up and down the London stairs. What becomes of them is never known. It is, however, rumored that short commons, long tramps, and hope deferred bring most of them to the hospitals, where it is tenderly called pneumonia.
Charley began his tramp. After a little—a very little while—his money, the money that Lily lent him, was all gone. He was ashamed to borrow more, because he would have to confess how that money was chiefly spent.
Then he pawned his watch.
Then he borrowed another pound of Lily.
Every evening he came home drunk. His mother knew it, and told Lily. They could do nothing. They said nothing. They left off hoping.
Then his mother perceived that things began to disappear. He stole the clock on the mantel-shelf first, and pawned it.
Then he stole other things. At last he took the furniture, bit by bit, and pawned it, until his mother was left with nothing but a mattress and a pair of blankets. He could not take her money, because all she had was an annuity of fifteen shillings a week, otherwise he would have had that too. He then borrowed Lily’s watch and pawned it, and her little trinkets and pawned them; he took from her all the money she would give him.
Both women half starved themselves to find him in drink and to save him from crime. Yes, to save him from crime. They did not use these words—they understood. For now he had become mad for drink. There was no longer any pretence; he even left off lying; he was drunk every day; if he could not get drunk he sat on the bare floor and cried. Neither his mother nor Lily reproached him.
An end—a semicolon, if not a full stop—comes to such a course. Unfortunately not always the end which is most to be desired—the only effectual end.
The end or semicolon which came to this young man was that, having nothing more of his mother’s that he could pawn, one day he slipped into the ground floor lodger’s room and made up quite a valuable little parcel for his friend the pawnbroker. It contained a Waterbury watch, a seven and sixpenny clock, a mug—electro-plate, won at a spelling competition—a bound volume of “Tit Bits,” and a Bible.
When the lodger came home and found out his loss he proved to be of an irascible, suspicious, and revengeful disposition. He immediately, for instance, suspected the drunken young man of the first floor. He caused secret inquiry to be made, and—but why go on? Alas! the conclusion of the affair was eight months’ hard.
“Here he comes,” said Lily. “Look up, mother; we must meet him with a smile. He will come out sober, at any rate.”
He was looking much better for his period of seclusion. He walked home448between them, subdued, but ready, on encouragement, for their old confidence.
In fact, it broke out, after an excellent breakfast.
“I have made up my mind,” he said, “while I was thinking—oh! I had plenty to think about and plenty of time to do my thinking in. Well, I have made up my mind. Mother, this is no country for me any longer. After what has happened I must go. You two go on living together, just for company, but I shall go—I shall go to America. There’s always an opening, I am told, in America, for fellows who are not afraid of work. Cleverness tells there. A man isn’t kept down because he’s had a misfortune. What is there against me, after all? Character gone, eh? Well, if you come to that, I don’t deny that appearances were against me. I could explain, however.
“But there nobody cares about character nor what you’ve done here”—(this remarkable belief is widely spread concerning the colonies, as well as the United States)—“it’s what can you do? not, what have you done? Very well. I mean to go to America, mother. I shall polish up the shorthand and pick up the French grammar again. I mean to get rich now. Oh, I’ve sown my wild oats! Then you’ll both come out to me, and then we’ll be married; and, Lily, we’ll have a most splendid time!”
Five years later Lily sat one Sunday morning in the same lodgings. The poor old mother was gone, praying her with her last breath not to desert the boy. But of Charley not a word449had come to her—no news of any kind.
She was quite alone—in those days she was generally alone; she had kept her place at the post-office, but everybody knew of her trouble, and somehow it made a kind of barrier between herself and her sister clerks. The sorrows of love are sacred, but when they are mixed up with a criminal and a prison there is a feeling—a kind of a feeling—as if, well, one doesn’t like somehow to be mixed up with it. Lily was greatly to be pitied, no doubt; her lover had turned out shameful; but she ought to have given up the man long before he got so bad.
She was alone. The church bells were beginning to ring. She thought she would go to church. While she considered this point, she heard a woman’s step on the stairs, and there was a knock at the door.
It was a nurse or probationer, dressed in the now familiar garb—a young nurse.
“You are Lily Chesters?” she asked. “There is a patient just brought in to the London Hospital who wants to see you. He is named Charley, he says, and will give no other name. He wrote your address on paper. ‘Tell her,’ he said, ‘that it is Charley.’”
Lily rose quietly. “I will go to him.”
“He is your brother?”
“He is my lover. Is he ill?”
“He is very ill. He came in all in rags, dirty and penniless—he is very ill indeed. Prepare yourself. He is dying of pneumonia.”
I told you before what they call it.
Lily sat at the bedside of the dying man.
“It is all over,” he whispered. “I have reformed, Lily. I have quite turned over a new leaf. I have now resolved to taking the pledge. Kiss me, dear, and tell me that you forgive me.”
“Yes, yes, Charley. God knows that I forgive you. Why, you will come back to yourself in a very little while. Thank God for it, dear! Your own true self. You will be my dear old boy again—the boy that I have always loved; not the drinking, bad boy—the clever, bright boy. Oh, my dear, my dear! you will see mother again very soon, and she will welcome her boy, returned to himself again.”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s it. A serious reform this time. Lily, I dare say I shall be up and well again in a day or two. Then we will see what to do next. I am going out to Australia, where everybody has a chance—America is a fraud. I shall get rich there, and then you and mother will come to me, and we shall get married, and—oh! Lily, Lily, after all that we have suffered, we shall have—I see that we shall have”—he paused, and his voice grew faint—“we shall have—the most splendid time!”
“He is gone,” said the nurse.
450AN OLD SONG.Author Unknown.
As, t’other day, o’er the green meadow I pass’d,A swain overtook me, and held my hand fast;Then cried, “My dear Lucy, thou cause of my care,How long must thy faithful young Thyrsis despair?To grant my petition, no longer be shy;”But, frowning, I answer’d, “O, fie, shepherd, fie!”He told me his fondness like time should endure;That beauty which kindled his flame ’twould secure;That all my sweet charms were for homage design’d,And youth was the season to love and be kind.Lord, what could I say? I could hardly deny,And faintly I uttered, “O, fie, shepherd, fie!”He swore—with a kiss—that he could not refrain;I told him ’twas rude, but he kissed me again.My conduct, ye fair ones, in question ne’er call,Nor think I did wrong—I did nothing at all!Resolved to resist, yet inclined to comply,I leave it for you to say, “Fie, shepherd, fie!”
As, t’other day, o’er the green meadow I pass’d,A swain overtook me, and held my hand fast;Then cried, “My dear Lucy, thou cause of my care,How long must thy faithful young Thyrsis despair?To grant my petition, no longer be shy;”But, frowning, I answer’d, “O, fie, shepherd, fie!”
As, t’other day, o’er the green meadow I pass’d,
A swain overtook me, and held my hand fast;
Then cried, “My dear Lucy, thou cause of my care,
How long must thy faithful young Thyrsis despair?
To grant my petition, no longer be shy;”
But, frowning, I answer’d, “O, fie, shepherd, fie!”
He told me his fondness like time should endure;That beauty which kindled his flame ’twould secure;That all my sweet charms were for homage design’d,And youth was the season to love and be kind.Lord, what could I say? I could hardly deny,And faintly I uttered, “O, fie, shepherd, fie!”
He told me his fondness like time should endure;
That beauty which kindled his flame ’twould secure;
That all my sweet charms were for homage design’d,
And youth was the season to love and be kind.
Lord, what could I say? I could hardly deny,
And faintly I uttered, “O, fie, shepherd, fie!”
He swore—with a kiss—that he could not refrain;I told him ’twas rude, but he kissed me again.My conduct, ye fair ones, in question ne’er call,Nor think I did wrong—I did nothing at all!Resolved to resist, yet inclined to comply,I leave it for you to say, “Fie, shepherd, fie!”
He swore—with a kiss—that he could not refrain;
I told him ’twas rude, but he kissed me again.
My conduct, ye fair ones, in question ne’er call,
Nor think I did wrong—I did nothing at all!
Resolved to resist, yet inclined to comply,
I leave it for you to say, “Fie, shepherd, fie!”
451STRANGER THAN FICTION.LOVE IN A COTTAGE. THE IRISH STORY-TELLER. HUGH BRONTË AS A TENANT-RIGHTER.Stories of the Brontë Family in Ireland.By Dr. William Wright.
After a brief honeymoon, spent at Warrenpoint, Alice Brontë returned, on her brother’s invitation, to her old home, and Hugh went back to complete his term of service in Loughorne. It soon became desirable that his wife should have a home of her own, and he took a cottage in Emdale, in the parish of Drumballyroney, with which Drumgooland was united at the time.
The house stands near crossroads leading to important towns. In a direct line it is about three and three-quarters statute miles from Rathfriland, seven and three-quarters from Newry, twelve from Warrenpoint, and five and a quarter from Banbridge. The exact position of the house, is on the north-west side of the old road, leading, in Hugh Brontë’s day, to Newry and Warrenpoint. Almost opposite, on the other side of the road, there was a blacksmith’s shop, which still continues to be a blacksmith’s shop. The Brontë house remains, though partially in ruins.
The house is now used as a byre, but its dimensions are exactly the same as when it became the home of Hugh Brontë and his bride. The rent then would be about sixpence per week, and would, in accordance with the general custom, be paid by one day’s work in the week, with board, the work being given in the busy season.
The house consisted of two rooms. That over which the roof still stands was without chimney, and was used as bedroom and parlor, and the outer room, from which the roof has fallen, was used as a corn-kiln, and also as kitchen and reception-room.
A farmer’s wife, whose ancestors lived close to the Brontë house long before the Brontës were heard of in County Down, pointing to a spot in the corner of the byre opposite to the window, said: “There is the very spot where the Reverend Patrick Brontë was born.” Then she added, “Numbers of great folk have asked me about his birthplace, but och! how could I tell them that anydacentman was ever born in such a place!” This feeling on the part of the neighbors will probably account for the fact that everything written thus far regarding Patrick Brontë’s birthplace is wrong, neither the townland, nor even the parish of his birth, being correctly given.
In the lowly cottage in Emdale, now known as “The Kiln,” and used as a cowhouse, Patrick Brontë was born, on the 17th of March, 1777. Men have risen to fame from a lowly origin, but few men have ever emerged from humbler circumstances than Patrick Brontë.
Many a reader of Mrs. Gaskell’s life of Charlotte Brontë has been saddened by the picture of the vicar’s daughters amid their narrow and grim surroundings, but the gray vicarage of Haworth was a palace compared with the hovel in which the vicar himself was born and reared.
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Besides, the Haworth vicarage was never really as sombre as Mrs. Gaskell painted it, for Miss Ellen Nussey was a constant visitor, and she assures me that the girls were bright and happy in their home, always engaged on some project of absorbing interest, and always enjoying life in their own sober and thoughtful way.
The Brontë cottage in Emdale was very poor, but it was brightened with the perennial sunshine of love. It was love in a cottage, in which the bare walls and narrow board were golden in the light of Alice Brontë’s smile. It was said in the neighborhood that Mrs. Brontë’s smile “would have tamed a mad bull,” and on her deathbed she thanked God that her husband had never looked upon her with a frown.
In their wedded love they were very poor, but very happy. Hugh’s constant, steady work provided for the daily wants of an ever-increasing family, but it made no provision for the strain of adverse circumstances. In fact, the Emdale Brontës lived like birds, and as happy as birds.
Hugh Brontë was one of the industrious poor. The salt of his life was honest, manly toil. He had forgotten the luxury of his childhood’s home, and he did not feel any degradation in his lowly lot.
In our artificial civilization we have come to place too much store on the accident of wealth. Our Blessed Saviour, whom all the rich and luxurious call “Lord,” was born in as lowly a condition of comfortless poverty as Patrick Brontë. Cows are now housed in Brontë’s birthplace, but our Lord was born among the animals in thecaravansérai. And yet, in our social code, we have reduced the Decalogue to this one commandment, “Thou shalt not be poor.”
Hugh Brontë did not choose poverty as his lot, but, being a working man, like the carpenter of Nazareth, he did the daily work that came to his hand, and then, side by side with Alice, he found the fulness of each day sufficient for all its wants.
The happy home was soon crowded with children, and the family removed to a larger and better house, in the townland of Lisnacreevy. The parish register of Drumballyroney Church, to which the Brontës belonged, unfortunately goes no farther back than 1779, two years after the birth of Patrick. The register, which is now kept in the parish church of Drumgooland, belonged to the united parishes of Drumballyroney and Drumgooland, in which, when united, the Reverend Mr. Tighe was vicar for forty-two years. When Patrick Brontë was two years old, less one day, his brother William was baptized, and about every two succeeding years either a brother or a sister was added until the family numbered ten.
Hugh Brontë and his wife could not live wholly on love in a cottage, and Hugh had to bestir himself. He was an unskilled laborer, but he understood the art of burning lime. There was no limestone, however, in that part of County Down to burn, and as he could not have a lime-kiln, he resolved to have a corn-kiln.
At the beginning of this century a corn-kiln in such a district in Ireland was a very simple affair. A floor of earthenware tiles, pierced nearly through from the underside, was arranged on a kind of platform or loft. Beneath there was a furnace, which was heated by burning the rough, dry seeds, or outershelling, ground off the oats. In front of the furnace there was a hollow, called “the logie-hole,” in which the kiln man sat, with the shelling or seeds heaped up within arm’s length around him, and with his right hand hebeekedthe kiln, by throwing, every few seconds, a sprinkling of seeds on the flame. In this way he kept up a warm glow under the corn till it was sufficiently dried for the mill.
Such was the simple character of the ordinary corn-kiln in County Down at the beginning of the century. But I have been assured by the old men of the neighborhood that Hugh Brontë’s kiln was of a still more primitive structure.453The platform, or corn-floor, was constructed by laying iron bars across unhewn stones set up on end. On these bars straw matting was spread, and on the matting the corn was placed to dry. Such a structure was the immediate precursor of the pottery floored kiln. The design was the same in both, but the matting was always liable to catch fire, and required careful attention.
The kiln was erected in the part of the Brontë cottage now roofless, and, like the cottage itself, must have been a very humble affair. It has been suggested that the kiln may have stood elsewhere, but it is now established beyond all doubt, on the unanimous testimony of the inhabitants, that the Brontë kiln stood in the ruined room of the Brontë cottage, and, in fact, it is known by the name of “the Brontës’ kiln.”
Within those walls, now roofless, the grandfather of Charlotte Brontë began in 1776 to earn the daily bread of himself and his bride, by roasting his neighbors’ oats. His wage was known by the name of “muther,” and consisted of so many pounds of fresh oats taken from every hundredweight brought to him to be kiln-dried. The miller, too, was paid in kind, but his muther was taken by measure, after the shelling, or seeds, had been ground off the grain.
When Hugh Brontë had accumulated a sackful of muther he dried it on his kiln, took it to the mill, and paid his muther in turn to the miller, to have it ground into meal.
The meal, when taken home, was stored in a barrel, and with the produce of the rood of potatoes which Hugh hadsodon his brother-in-law’s farm, became the food of himself and family. As the Brontës could not consume all the muther themselves, the surplus would be sold to provide clothing and other necessaries, and though there remains no trace of pig-stye or fowl-house, there can be little doubt that Mrs. Brontë would have both pigs and fowl to eke out her husband’s earnings.
Mrs. Brontë was a famous spinner, and she handed down the art to her daughters. She had always a couple of sheep grazing on her brother’s land. She carded and span the wool, her spinning-wheel singing all day beside her husband, as he beeked the kiln. Then, during the long, dark evenings, when they had no light but the red eye of the kiln, she knitted the yarn into hose and vest and shirt, and even head-gear, so that Hugh Brontë, like his sons in after years, was almost wholly clad in “homespun.”
This, probably, had something to do with the general impression, which still remains in the neighborhood, of the stately and shapely forms of the Brontë men and women. The knitted woollen garments fitted close, unlike the fantastic and shapeless habiliments that came from the hands of local tailors in those days.
Alice Brontë also span nearly all the garments which she wore, and her tall and comely daughters after her were dressed in clothes which their own hands had taken from the fleece.
On principle, as well as from necessity, the Brontës wore woollen garments, and the vicar carried the same taste with him to England, where his dislike of everything made of cotton was attributed by his biographer to dread of fire. The absurd servants’ gossip as to his cutting up his wife’s silk gown had possibly a grain of truth in it, owing to his preference for woollen garments; but the atrocity spun out of the gossip by Mrs. Gaskell was probably an exaggeration of an innocent act. At any rate, the old man characterized the statement, I believe truly, by a small but ugly word.
All the Brontës, father, mother, sons, and daughters, to the number of twelve, were clad in wool, and they were the healthiest, handsomest, strongest, heartiest family in the whole country. They were a standing proof of the excellency of the woollen theory, and it is interesting to note how Hugh Brontë’s theory and practice have received approval in our own day. For a time the Brontës had to look to others to weave their yarn into the blankets and friezes that they required, but Patrick was taught to weave as soon as he was able to throw the shuttle and roll the beam, and then his father’s house manufactured454for themselves everything they wore, from the raw staple to the gracefully fitting corset.
Even the scarlet mantle for which “Ayles” Brontë is still remembered in Ballynaskeagh was carded, spun, knitted, and dyed by Mrs. Brontë’s own hands. The spirit of independence manifested by the Brontës in England was a survival of a still sturdier spirit that had had its origin in one of the humblest cabins in County Down.
As time passed Hugh Brontë became a famous ditcher. There is a very old man called Hugh Norton, living in Ballynaskeagh, who remembers him making fences and philosophizing at the same time. It is very probable that the introduction of corn-kilns constructed of burnt pottery may have left him without custom for his straw-mat kiln, just as the introduction of machinery at a later period left the country hand-looms idle.
In Hugh Brontë’s time more careful attention began to be given to the land. Bogs were drained, fields fenced, roads constructed, bridges made, houses built, with greater energy than had ever been known before, and, although the landlord generally raised the rent on every improvement effected by the tenant, the wave of prosperity and improvement continued. Hugh Brontë was a good, steady workman, and found constant employment, and at that time wages rose from sixpence per day to eightpence and tenpence. The sod fences made by him still stand as a monument of honest work, and there are few country districts where huntsmen would find greater difficulty with the fences than in Emdale and Ballynaskeagh.
As Hugh Brontë advanced in life he continued to prosper. He removed from the Emdale cottage to a larger house in Lisnacreevy, and from thence he and his family went home to live with Red Paddy, Mrs. Brontë’s brother. On the Ballynaskeagh farm the children found full scope for their energies, and they continued to prosper and purchase surrounding farms until they were in very comfortable circumstances. The Brontës were greatly advanced in their prosperity by a discovery made by one of their countrymen. John Loudon Macadam was a County Down surveyor. He wrote several treatises on road-making of a revolutionary character. His proposal was to make roads by laying down layers of broken stones, which he said would become hardened into a solid mass by the traffic passing over them.
For a time he was the subject of much ridicule, but he persevered, and proved his theory in a practical fashion. The importance of the invention was acknowledged by a grant from the government of ten thousand pounds, which he accepted, and by the offer of a baronetcy, which he declined. He lived to see the world’s highways improved by his discovery, and the English language enriched by his name.
The old, unscientific road-makers were too conservative to engage in the construction ofmacadamizedroads, but the Brontës were shrewd enough to see the value of the new method, and they tendered for county contracts, and their tenders were accepted. Then the way to fortune lay open before them. They opened quarries on their own land, where they found an inexhaustible supply of stone, easily broken to the required size. With suitable stone ready to their hands they had a great advantage over all rivals, and for a generation the macadamizing of the roads in the neighborhood was practically a monopoly in the Brontë family.
I remember the excellent carts and horses employed by the Brontës on the road, and I also distinctly recollect that the names painted on the carts were spelled “Brontë,” the pronunciation being “Brontë,” never “Prunty,” as has been alleged.
With the lucrative monopoly of road-making added to their farm profits the Brontës grew in wealth. They raised on their farm the oats and fodder required by the horses, and, as the brothers did a large amount of the work themselves and had nothing to purchase, the money received for road-making was nearly all profit.
In those days the Brontës added field to field, until they farmed a considerable455tract of land, which they held from a model landlord called Sharman Crawford. That was the period at which a two-storied house was built, and there were houses occupied by the Brontës, from the two-storied house down to the thatched cottage. In fact, the house of Red Paddy McClory, in which Alice was born and reared, stood about half-way between the two-storied house and the cabin. The foundations of the house in which Charlotte Brontë’s Irish grandmother was born are still visible.
Shortly after the death of old Hugh, and in the time of the Brontë prosperity, one of the brothers, called Welsh, opened a public-house in the thatched cabin referred to, and from that moment, as far as I have been able to make out, the tide of the Brontë prosperity turned.
Everything the Brontës did was genuine. Their whiskey was as good in quality as their roads, and I fear it must be added that they were among the heartiest customers for their own commodities. They ceased to work on the roads, their hard-earned money slipped through their fingers, and the public-house became the meeting-place for the fast and wild youth of the locality.
Then another brother, called William, but known as Billy, opened on the Knock Hill another public-house, which also became a centre of demoralization to the young men of the district, and a source of degradation to the keeper. I remember both these pests in full force. They were much frequented by Orangemen, who, when tired playing “The Protestant Boys,” used to slake their thirst and fire their hatred of thePapishesby drinking Brontë’s whiskey.
I am bound to say distinctly that I do not believe any of Charlotte Brontë’s Irish uncles ever became confirmed drunkards. They took to the drink business too late in life to be wholly overmastered by the passion for alcohol. Besides, their father’s example, and the industrious habits of their youth and early manhood, had combined to give moral fibre to the stubborn Brontë character, which saved them from precipitate descent on the down grade.
I never saw any of the Brontës drunk, and I believe the occasional drinking of the family was limited to the two brothers who sold drink, and who would always feel bound in honor “to taste a drop” with their customers. The other brothers would drink like other people, in fairs and markets, where every transaction was ratified by a glass of grog, but I do not believe they often drank to excess.
In those days everybody drank. At births, at baptisms, at weddings, at wakes, at funerals, and in all the other leading incidents of life, intoxicating liquors were considered indispensable. If a man was too hot he drank, and if he was too cold he drank. He drank if he was in sorrow, and he drank when in joy. When his gains were great he drank, and he drank also when crushed by losses. The symbol of universal hospitality was the black bottle.
Ministers of the Gospel used to visit their people quarterly. On these visitations the minister was accompanied by one of his deacons. Into whatever house they entered they were immediately met by the hospitable bottle and two glasses, and they were always expected to fortify themselves with spirituous draughts before beginning their spiritual duties. As the visitors called at from twelve to twenty houses on their rounds, they must have been “unco fou” by the close of the day.
It is interesting to remember that when the drinking habits of the country were at their height the temperance reformation was begun in Great Britain, by the best friend the Brontës had, the Reverend David McKee. It is of still greater interest, in our present investigation, to know that Mr. McKee was moved to the action which has resulted in the great temperance reform by the Brontë public-houses at his door, and by the demoralization they were creating.
The little incident which has led to such momentous results came about in this way: the Reverend David McKee of Ballynaskeagh was the minister of the Presbyterian Church of Anaghlone. He had built his church, and he was456largely independent of his congregation. One Sunday he thought fit to preach onThe Rechabites. In the sermon he ridiculed and denounced the drinking habits of the time. The sermon fell on the congregation like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky. Blank amazement in the audience was succeeded by hot indignation.
On the following morning an angry deputation from the congregation waited on Mr. McKee. He listened to them with patient courtesy while they urged that the sermon should be immediately burnt, and that an apology should be tendered to the congregation on the following Sunday.
When the deputation had exhausted themselves and their subject, Mr. McKee began quietly to draw attention to the happy homes which had been desolated by whiskey, the brilliant young men whom it had ruined, the amiable neighbors whom it had hurried into drunkards’ graves, and then he pointed to the Brontës as an example of the baneful influence of the trade on the sellers of the stuff themselves.
The deputation, some of them Orangemen, were in no mood to listen to radical doctrines, subversive of their time-honored customs, and they began to threaten.
Mr. McKee, who was six feet six inches high, and of great muscular power, drew himself up to his full stature, and calling to his servant, then at breakfast in the kitchen, told him to saddle his best mare, as he wished to ride in haste to Newry, to publish his sermon in time for circulation on the following Sunday. Then, turning to the deputation, he thanked them for their early visit, which he hoped would bear fruit, and bowed them out of his parlor.
He rode the best horse in the whole district, and he never drew rein till he reached the printing-office in Newry, and he had the sermon ready for circulation on the following Sunday, and handed it to his people as they retired.
In 1798 Mr. McKee, then a youth, watched from a hill in his father’s land the battle of Ballynahinch. He had in his arms at the time a little nephew who had been left in his charge. The little nephew became the great Doctor Edgar of Belfast, who used to boast playfully that he was “up in arms” at the battle of Ballynahinch.
Mr. McKee sent a copy ofThe Rechabitesto his eloquent nephew. Doctor Edgar read the sermon, and then, rising from his seat, proceeded swiftly to carry all the whiskey he had in the house into the street, and empty it into the gutter. With that drink offering Doctor Edgar inaugurated the great temperance reform. From Ireland he passed to Scotland, and from Scotland to England. The whole kingdom was mightily stirred, and the temperance cause has ever since continued to flourish. The little seed, stimulated at first by the Brontë public-houses, has become a great tree, the branches of which extend to all lands.
We have now seen the Brontës in the daily round of their common pursuits. In the next chapter we hope to see old Hugh in the light of his Brontë genius.
The Hakkawāti is the oriental story-teller, the man who beyond all others relieves the tedium and wearisomeness of oriental life. I have often watched the oriental Hakkawāti, seated in the centre of a large crowd, weaving stories with subtile plots and startling surprises, using pathos and passion and pungent wit, and always interspersing his narratives with familiar incidents, and laying on local color, to give an appearance ofvraisemblance, or reality, to the wildest fancies.
The Arabian Hakkawāti generally tells his stories at night, when the weird and wonderful are most effective. He has always a fire so arranged as to light up his countenance with a ruddy glow, so that the movements and contortions of a mobile face may add support to the narrative. He sometimes proceeds slowly, stumbling and correcting himself, like D’Israeli, as if his one great desire was to stick to the literal truth.