Lancashire Idylls (1898) by Marshall Mather
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Marshall Mather >> Lancashire Idylls (1898)
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13 LANCASHIRE IDYLLS.
BY
MARSHALL MATHER,
AUTHOR OF
'LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF JOHN RUSKIN,'
'POPULAR STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY POETS,' ETC., ETC.
LONDON: FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.
AND NEW YORK.
1898.
INTRODUCTION.
While Edwin Waugh and Ben Brierley have done much to perpetuate
the rude moorland and busy factory life of Lancashire, little has
been done to perpetuate the stern Puritanism of the hill sects.
Among these sects there is a poetry and simplicity local in
character, yet delightful in spirit; and to recall and record it
is the aim of the following Idylls.
The provincialism of Lancashire varies with its valleys. It is
only necessary, therefore, to remark that as these Idylls are
drawn from a once famous valley in the North-east division of the
county, the provincialism is peculiar to that valley--indeed, it
would be more correct to say, to that section of the valley
wherein Rehoboth lies.
CONTENTS.
I. MR. PENROSE'S NEW PARISH:
1. A MOORLAND MACHPELAH
2. A CHILD OF THE HEATHER
3. OWD ENOCH'S FLUTE
II. THE MONEY-LENDER:
1. THE UTTERMOST FARTHING
2. THE REDEMPTION OF MOSES FLETCHER
3. THE ATONEMENT OF MOSES FLETCHER
III. AMANDA STOTT:
1. HOME
2. LIGHT AT EVENTIDE
3. THE COURT OF SOULS
4. THE OLD PASTOR
IV. SAVED AS BY FIRE
V. WINTER SKETCHES:
1. THE CANDLE OF THE LORD
2. THE TWO MOTHERS
3. THE SNOW CRADLE
VI. MIRIAM'S MOTHERHOOD:
1. A WOMAN'S SECRET
2. HOW DEBORAH HEARD THE NEWS
3. 'IT'S A LAD!'
4. THE LEAD OF THE LITTLE ONE
VII. HOW MALACHI O' TH' MOUNT WON HIS WIFE
VIII. MR. PENROSE BRINGS HOME A BRIDE
I.
MR. PENROSE'S NEW PARISH.
1. A MOORLAND MACHPELAH.
2. A CHILD OF THE HEATHER.
3. OWD ENOCH'S FLUTE.
LANCASHIRE IDYLLS.
I.
A MOORLAND MACHPELAH.
There was a sepulchral tone in the voice, and well there might be,
for it was a voice from the grave. Floating on the damp autumnal
air, and echoing round the forest of tombs, it died away over the
moors, on the edge of which the old God's-acre stood.
Though far from melodious, it was distinct enough to convey to the
ear the words of a well-known hymn--a hymn sung in jerky
fragments, the concluding syllable always rising and ending with a
gasp, as though the singer found his task too heavy, and was bound
to pause for breath.
The startled listener was none other than Mr. Penrose, the
newly-appointed minister, who was awaiting a funeral, long
overdue. Looking round, his already pale face became a shade paler
as he saw no living form, other than himself.
There he stood, alone, a stranger in this moorland haunt, amid
falling shadows and rounding gloom, mocked by the mute records and
stony memorials of the dead.
Again the voice was heard--another hymn, and to a tune as old as
the mossed headstones that threw around their lengthening shadows.
'I'll praise my Maker--while I've breath,'
followed by a pause, as though breath had actually forsaken the
body of the singer. But in a moment or two the strain continued:
'And when my voice--is lost in death.'
Whereon the sounds ceased, and there came a final silence, death
seeming to take the singer at his word.
As Mr. Penrose looked in the direction from which the voice
travelled, he saw a shovel thrown out of a newly-made grave,
followed by the steaming head and weather-worn face of old Joseph,
the sexton, all aglow with the combined task of grave-digging and
singing.
'Why, Joseph, is it you? I couldn't tell where the sound came
from. It seems, after all, the grave can praise God, although the
prophet tells us it cannot. Do you always sing at your work?'
'Partly whod. You see it's i' this way, sir,' said Joseph;
'grave-diggin's hard wark, and if a felley doesn'd sing a bit o'er
it he's like baan to curse, so I sings to stop swears. There's a
fearful deal o' oaths spilt in a grave while it's i' th' makin', I
can tell yo'; and th' Almeety's name is spoken more daan i' th'
hoile than it is up aboon, for all th' parson reads it so mich aat
of his book. But this funeral's baan to be lat', Mr. Penrose'; and
drawing a huge watch from his fob, he exclaimed: 'Another ten
minutes and there's no berryin' i' th' yard this afternoon.'
'I don't understand you, Joseph,' said Mr. Penrose wonderingly.
'We never berry here after four o'clock.'
'But there's no law forbidding a funeral at any hour that I know
of--is there?'
'There is wi' me. I'm maisther o' this berryin' hoile, whatever
yo' may be o' th' chapel. But they're comin', so I'll oppen th'
chapel durs.'
Old Joseph, as he was called, had been grave-digger at Rehoboth
for upwards of fifty years, and so rooted were his customs that
none cared to call them in question. For minister and deacons he
showed little respect. Boys and girls fled from before his shadow;
and the village mothers frightened their offspring when naughty by
threatening to 'fotch owd Joseph to put them in th' berryhoile.'
The women held him in awe, declaring that he sat up at night in
the graveyard to watch for corpse-candles. Even the shrewd and
hard-headed did not care to thwart him, preferring to be friends
rather than foes. Fathers, sons and sons' sons--generation after
generation--had been laid to rest by the sinewy arms of Joseph.
They came, and they departed; but he, like the earth, remained. A
gray, gaunt Tithonus, him 'only cruel immortality consumed.'
The graveyard at Rehoboth was his kingdom. Here, among the tombs,
he reigned with undisputed sway. Whether marked by lettered stone
or grassy mound, it mattered little--he knew where each rude
forefather of the hamlet lay. Rich in the family lore of the
neighbourhood, he could trace back ancestry and thread his way
through the maze of relationship to the third and fourth
generations. He could recount the sins which had hurried men to
untimely graves, and point to the spot where their bones were
rotting; and he could tell of virtues that made the memory of the
mouldering dust more fragrant than the sweetbriar and the rose
that grew upon the graves.
There was one rule which old Joseph would never break, and that
was that there should be no interments after four o'clock. Plead
with him, press him, threaten him, it was to no purpose; flinch he
would not for rich or for poor, for parson or for people. More
than once he had driven the mourners back from the gates, and one
winter's afternoon, when the corpse had been brought a long
distance, it was left for the night in a neighbouring barn. Upon
this occasion a riot was with difficulty averted. But old Joseph
stood firm, and at the risk of his life carried the day. This was
long years ago. Now, throughout the whole countryside it was known
that no corpse passed through Rehoboth gates after four o'clock.
* * * * *
'You'll happen look in an' see th' owd woman afore yo' go wom','
said Joseph to Mr. Penrose, as the minister finished his entry of
the funeral in the chapel register, 'hoo's nobbud cratchenly
(shaky).'
Joseph and his wife lived in the lower room of a three-storied
cottage at the end of the chapel, the second and third stories of
the said cottage being utilized by the Rehoboth members as
Sunday-schools.
Entering, Mr. Penrose saw the old woman crouching over the hearth
and doing her best to feed the fast-dying fires of her vitality.
As she raised her wrinkled face, crowned with white hair and
covered with a coloured kerchief, a gray shawl wrapped round her
lean and stooping shoulders, she smiled a welcome, and bade him be
seated.
'So yo'n put away owd Chris,' she said, as soon as Mr. Penrose had
taken his seat by her side. 'Well, he were awlus one for sleepin'.
Th' owd felley would a slept on a clooas-line if he could a' fun
nowhere else to lay hissel. But he'll sleep saander or ever naa.
They'll bide some wakkenin' as sleep raand here, Mr. Penrose. Did
he come in a yerst, or were he carried?'
'He was carried,' answered the minister, somewhat in uncertainty
as to the meaning of the old woman's question.
'I were awlus for carryin'. I make nowt o' poor folk apein' th'
quality, and when they're deead and all. Them as keeps carriages
while they're wick can ride in yersts to their berryin' if they
like, it's nowt to me; but when I dee I's be carried, and noan so
far, noather.'
This moralizing on funerals by the sexton's wife was a new phase
of life to Mr. Penrose. He had never before met with anyone who
took an interest in the matter. It was true that in the city from
which he had lately come the question of wicker coffins and of
cremation was loudly discussed; but the choice between a hearse
and 'carrying' as a means of transit to the tomb never dawned on
him as being anything else than a question of utility--the
speediest and easiest means of transit.
After the deliverance of her mind on the snobbishness of poor
people in the use of the hearse, she continued:
'It'll noan be so long afore they've to carry me, Mr. Penrose. I
towd Joseph yesterneet that his turn 'ud soon come to dig my grave
wi' th' rest; and he said, "When thy turn comes, lass, I'll do by
thee as thou'd be done by."'
'And how would you be done by?' asked the minister.
'Well, it's i' this way, Mr. Penrose,' said the old woman. 'I want
a dry grave, wi' a posy growin' on th' top. I somehaa like posies
on graves; they mak' me think of th' owd hymn,
'"There everlastin' spring abides,
And never-witherin' flaars."'
Now, Mr. Penrose was one of the so-called theological young
bloods, and held little sympathy with Dr. Watts's sensuous views
of a future state. His common-sense, however, and his discretion
came to his rescue, and delivered him from a strong temptation to
blast the old woman's paradise with a breath of negative
criticism.
'There's a grave daan at th' bottom o' th' yard, Mr. Penrose,
where th' sunleet rests from morn till neet, an' I've axed Joseph
to lay me there, for it's welly awlus warm, and flaars grow from
Kesmas to Kesmas. Th' doctor's little lass lies there. Yo never
knowd her, Mr. Penrose. Hoo were some pratty, bless her! Did yo'
ever read what her faither put o'er th' top o' th' stone?'
Mr. Penrose confessed he was in ignorance of the epitaph over the
grave of the doctor's child. As yet the history and romance of the
graveyard were unknown to him.
'Well, it's this,' continued his informant:
'"Such lilies th' angels gather for th' garden of God."
They'll never write that o'er me, Mr. Penrose. I'm nobbud a
withered stalk. Hoo were eight--I'm eighty. But for all that I
should like a flaar on mi grave, and Joseph says I shall hev one.'
* * * * *
The autumn gave place to a long and cheerless winter, which all
too slowly yielded to a late and nipping spring. The wild March
wind swept across the moors, roaring loudly around the old
conventicle, chasing the last year's leaves in a mad whirl among
the rows of headstones, and hissing, as though in anger, through
the rank grasses growing on the innumerable mounds that marked the
underlying dead, and then careering off, as though wrathful at its
powerlessness to disturb the sleepers, to distant farmsteads and
lone folds where starved ewes cowered with their early lambs under
shivering thorns, and old men complained of the blast that roused
the slumbering rheum and played havoc with their feeble frames.
Scanty snow showers fell late under 'the roaring moon of
daffodil,' whitening the moorlands and lying glistening in the
morning light, to be gathered up by the rays of the sun that day
by day climbed higher in the cold blue of the sky of spring. Young
blades of green lay scattered like emerald shafts amid the tawny
wastes of the winter grass, and swelling branches told of a year's
returning life. Just as the golden chalice of the first crocus
opened on the graves of the Rehoboth burial-yard, the old woman at
the chapel-house died.
* * * * *
The funeral was to take place at three o'clock, but long before
the hour old Joseph's kitchen was filled with a motley group of
mourners. They came from far and near, from moor and field, and
from the cottages over the way. Every branch of the family was
represented--sons and daughters, grandchildren, nephews and
nieces, even to babies in arms. As they straggled in, the women
attired in their best black, and the men wearing their top-hats (a
headgear worn by the Lancashire operative only on the state
occasion of funerals), it seemed as though old Joseph, like
Abraham, was the father of a race as the stars of heaven for
multitude, and as the sands by the seashore, innumerable.
An oppressive atmosphere filled the room, where, on a table under
the window, the open coffin rested, in which lay, exposed to all
eyes, the peaceful features and straightened limbs of the dead. As
the mourners entered they bent reverently over the corpse, and
moistened its immobile features with their tears, whispering
kindly words as to the appearance the old woman wore in death, and
calling to mind some characteristic grace and virtue in her past
life.
On another table was stacked a number of long clay pipes with
tobacco, from which the men assisted themselves, smoking with the
silence and stolidity of Indians, the women preserving the same
mute attitude, save for an occasional groan and suppressed
sigh--the feminine method in Lancashire of mourning for the dead.
The last mourners had long arrived, and the company was seated in
an attitude of hushed and painful expectancy for the officiating
minister. There was no sign, however, of his appearance; and the
mourners asked themselves in silence if he who was to perform the
final rites for the dead had forgotten the hour or the day.
The fingers of the old clock slowly crept along the dial-plate
towards four, the hour so relentlessly enforced for interments for
half a century by the sexton, who was now about to lay away his
own wife in the greedy maw of the grave. The monotonous
oscillation of the pendulum, sounding as the stroke of a passing
bell, gathered solemnity of tone in the felt hush that rested upon
all in the room--a hush as deep as that which rested upon the
dead. All eyes, under the cover of stealthily drooping lids, stole
glances at old Joseph, whose face fought hard to hide the emotions
running like pulsing tides beneath the surface. At last a woman,
whose threescore years and ten was the only warrant for her rude
interruption, exclaimed:
'Wheer's th' parson? Hes he forgetten, thinksto?'
'Mr. Penrose is ill i' bed,' replied old Joseph, 'but I seed Mr.
Hanson fra Burnt Hill Chapel, and he promised as he'd be here in
his place.'
The clock beat out its seconds with the same monotonous sound, and
the finger crept towards the fateful hour. Then came the wheeze
and whir preliminary to the strokes of four, conveying to familiar
ears that only eight more minutes remained. At this warning Joseph
arose from his seat, and, walking out into the graveyard, made
direct to an eminence overlooking the long trend of road, and,
raising one hand to shade his now failing sight, looked down the
valley to see if the minister was on his way to the grave. It was
in vain. Tears began to dim his sight, and for a moment the man
overcame the sexton. The struggle was but brief; in another moment
he was again the sexton. Returning to the cottage, he scarcely
reached the threshold before he cried out, with all the firmness
of his cruelly professional tones:
'Parson or no parson, aat o' this dur (door) hoo goes at four
o'clock.'
As the clock struck the fateful hour the old woman was carried to
her grave; and as they lowered her, Joseph, with uncovered head,
let fall the clods from his own hand, repeating, in a hoarse yet
tremulous voice, the words:
'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.'
In another moment the old sexton reeled, and fell into the arms of
the men who stood near him. It was but a passing weakness, for he
soon pulled himself together, and accompanied the mourners to the
funeral tea, which was served in a neighbouring house.
Never afterwards, however, was old Joseph heard to rail at
mourners when late, or known to close the Rehoboth gates against
an overdue funeral.
II.
A CHILD OF THE HEATHER.
'What, Milly! Sitting in the dark?' asked Mr. Penrose, as he
entered the chamber of the suffering child, who was gazing through
the open window at the silent stars.
'I were just lookin' at th' parish candles, as my faither co's
'em; they burn breetsome to-neet, sir.'
'Looking at them, or looking for them?' queried the somewhat
perplexed divine. 'Can I bring the candles to you?'
'Yo' cornd bring 'em ony nearer than they are. They're up yon,
sithi,' and so saying the child pointed to the evening sky.
'So you call the stars "parish candles," do you?' smilingly
inquired Mr. Penrose. 'I never heard them called by that name
before.'
'It's my faither co's 'em "parish candles," not me,' said the
child.
'And what do you call them?'
'Happen if I tell yo' yo'll laugh at me, as my faither does.'
'No, I shall not. You need not be afraid.'
'Well, I co 'em angels' een (eyes).'
'A far prettier name than your father gives to them, Milly.'
'An' what dun yo' think hoo co's th' dew as it lies fresh on th'
moors in a mornin'?' asked the mother, who was sitting in one of
the shadowed corners of the room.
'I cannot say, I am sure, Mrs. Lord. Milly has such wonderful
names for everything.'
'Why, hoo co's it angels' tears, and says it drops daan fro' th'
een o' them as watches fro' aboon at the devilment they see on th'
earth.'
'Milly, you are a poetess!' exclaimed the delighted minister. 'But
do you really think the angels weep? Would it not destroy the joy
of that place where sorrow and sighing are no more?'
'Well, yo' see, it's i' this road, Mr. Penrose. They say as th'
angels are glad when bad folk turn good, and I suppose they'll
fret theirsels a bit if th' bad folk keeps bad; and there's mony
o' that mak' abaat here.'
Mr, Penrose was silent. Once more Milly was, unknown to herself
furnishing him with thoughts; for, again and again, from the
sickbed of this child had he gone forth with fresh fields of
revelation opening before him. True, the idea of heaven's grief at
earth's sin was not a pleasant one; but if joy at righteousness
and repentance, why not grief at wickedness and hardness of heart?
While thus musing in the quiet of the darkening chamber, Milly
turned from her contemplation of the stars with the somewhat
startling question:
'Mr. Penrose, dun yo' think there'll be yethbobs (tufts of
heather) i' heaven?'
'That's bothered her a deal latly,' broke in the mother, with a
choking voice. 'Hoo sez hoo noan cares for heaven if hoo cornd
play on th' moors, and yer th' wind, and poo yethbobs when hoo
gets there. What dun yo' think abaat it, Mr. Penrose?'
Mr. Penrose was not long from college, and the metaphysics and
dogmatics of the schools were more to his mind than the poetry and
religion of this moorland child. If asked to discourse on
personality, or expound the latest phase of German thought, he
would have felt himself at home. Here, however, he who was the
idol of the class-room sat silenced and foolish before a peasant
girl. True, he could enter into an argument for a future state,
and show how spiritual laws opposed the mundane imagination of the
child. But, after all, wherein was the use?--perhaps the child was
nearer the truth than he was himself. He would leave her to her
own pristine fancies.
In a moment Milly continued:
'Th' Bible says, Mr. Penrose, that i' heaven there's a street
paved wi' gowd (gold). Naa; I'd raither hev a meadow wi' posies,
or th' moors when they're covered wi' yethbobs. If heaven's baan
to be all streets, I'd as soon stop o' this side--though they be
paved wi' gowd an' o'.'
'Listen yo', how hoo talks, Mr. Penrose. Hoo's awlus talked i'
that feshion sin' hoo were a little un. Aar owd minister used to
co her "God's child."'
Mr. Penrose was a young man, and thought that 'Nature's child'
would be, perhaps, a more fitting name, but held his thought
unuttered. Wishing Milly and her mother a 'Good-night,' he
descended the old stone staircase to the kitchen, where Abraham
Lord sat smoking and looking gloomily into the embers of the fire.
'Has th' missus towd thee ought abaat aar Milly?' somewhat
sullenly interrogated the father.
'Nothing of any moment,' said Mr. Penrose. 'Of course she could
not; we were never together out of your daughter's presence.'
'Then aw'll tell thee. Milly's baan to-morn to th' infirmary to
hev her leg tan off.'
The strong man shook in the convulsive grip of his grief. No tears
came to his relief; the storm was deep down in his soul; outlet
there was none.
'Mr. Penrose,' said he, laying a hand on the minister's shoulder;
'Mr. Penrose, if I'd ha' known afore I were wed that gettin' wed
meant a child o' mine being tan fro' me and cut i' pieces by them
doctor chaps, I'd never ha' wed, fond o' Martha as I wor and am.
No, Mr. Penrose, I never would. They might tak' me, and do what
they'n a mind wi' me, at their butcherin' shops. But her--'
Here the strong man was swept by another convulsive storm of
feeling too deep for utterance. Subduing his passion by a supreme
effort of will, he continued:
'However, them as knows best says as it's her only chance, and I'm
noan goin' agen it. I shall go daan wi' her mysel' to-morn.'
* * * * *
Milly, or 'th' little lass o' Lord's,' as the villagers called
her, was one of those phenomenal child personalities which now and
again visit this world as though to defy all laws of heredity, and
remind the selfish and the mighty of that kingdom in which the
little one is ruler. A bright, bonny, light-haired girl--the vital
feelings of delight pulsed through all her being. Born amid the
moorlands, cradled in the heather, nourished on the breezy heights
of Rehoboth, she grew up an ideal child of the hills. For years
her morning baptism had been a frolic across the dewy uplands;
and, evening by evening, the light of setting suns kindled holy
fires in her rapturous and wonder-filled eyes. The native heart,
too, was in touch with the native heath; for Milly's nature was
deeply poetic, many of her questions betraying a disposition and
sympathy strangely out of harmony with the kindly, yet rude, stock
from which she sprang. From a toddling child her eye carried
sunshine and her presence peace. Unconsciously she leavened the
whole village, and toned much of the harsh Calvinism that knit
together its iron creed. There was not one who did not in some way
respond to the magic of her voice, her mood, her presence. Even
Joseph softened as she stood by the yawning graves which he was
digging, and questioned him as to the dying and the dead. The old
pastor, Mr. Morell, stern man that he was, used to put his hand on
her head, and call her his 'Goldilocks'; and he had once been
heard to say, after leaving her, 'And a little child shall lead
them.' Though somewhat lonely, there was neither priggishness nor
precocity in her disposition; she was just herself--unspoiled from
the hands of God and of Nature.
Shortly after her twelfth birthday she was caught on the moors by
a heavy autumnal shower, and, unwilling to miss her ramble by
returning home, pursued her way drenched to the skin. A severe
illness was the consequence, an illness which left a weakness in
her knee, eventually incapacitating her for all exercise whatever,
and keeping her a prisoner to the house. The village doctor
laboured long, but in vain was all his skill. At last a specialist
from the great city beyond the hills was called, who ordered the
child to be removed to the Royal Infirmary, where care, skill, and
nourishment would all be within easy reach. So it came to pass one
summer morning, as the sun lighted up the wide moors, and the hum
of the factories in the valley began to be carried upwards towards
the heights, a little crowd of folks gathered round the door of
Abraham Lord's cottage to take a farewell of 'th' little lass.'
About eight o'clock the doctor drove up, and in a few moments
Milly was carried in his and her father's strong arms and gently
laid in the cushioned carriage, and then slowly driven away from
the home which now for the first time in her life she was leaving.
The eyes of the onlookers were as moist as the dewy herbage on
which they stood, and many a voice trembled in the farewell given
in response to Milly's 'Good-bye.'
Throughout the whole of that dark day Milly's mother never left
the cottage; and when her husband, weary and dispirited, returned
at nightfall, she could scarcely nerve herself to question him
lest some word of his should add another stab to her already
sorely wounded heart. When ten o'clock struck, and Abraham Lord
laid his hand on the key to shoot the lock for the night, he burst
into tears, and turning to his wife, said: 'Never, my lass, wi'
Milly on th' wrong side'; and for months the parents slept with an
unbarred door.
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