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J. M. Synge - "Riders to the Sea"

Francis Turner Palgrave - "A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick"

Jerome K. Jerome - "Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green"

Thomas Troward - "The Dore Lectures on Mental Science"

Mary Barton

E >> Elizabeth Gaskell >> Mary Barton




"I did think on't; but you had na come home then. No! I put on my
merino, as was turned last winter, and my white shawl, and did my
hair pretty tidy; it did well enough. Well, but as I was saying, I
went at seven. I couldn't see to read my music, but I took th'
paper in wi' me, to ha' something to do wi' my fingers. Th' folks'
heads danced, as I stood as right afore 'em all as if I'd been going
to play at ball wi' 'em. You may guess I felt squeamish, but mine
weren't the first song, and th' music sounded like a friend's voice
telling me to take courage. So, to make a long story short, when it
were all o'er th' lecturer thanked me, and th' managers said as how
there never was a new singer so applauded (for they'd clapped and
stamped after I'd done, till I began to wonder how many pair o'
shoes they'd get through a week at that rate, let alone their
hands). So I'm to sing again o' Thursday; and I got a sovereign
last night, and am to have half-a-sovereign every night th' lecturer
is at th' Mechanics'."

"Well, Margaret, I'm right glad to hear it."

"And I don't think you've heard the best bit yet. Now that a way
seemed open to me, of not being a burden to any one, though it did
please God to make me blind, I thought I'd tell grandfather. I only
tell'd him about the singing and the sovereign last night, for I
thought I'd not send him to bed wi' a heavy heart; but this morning
I telled him all."

"And how did he take it?"

"He's not a man of many words; and it took him by surprise like."

"I wonder at that; I've noticed it in your ways ever since you
telled me."

"Ay, that's it! If I'd not telled you, and you'd seen me every day,
you'd not ha' noticed the little mite o' difference fra' day to
day."

"Well, but what did your grandfather say?"

"Why, Mary," said Margaret, half smiling, "I'm a bit loth to tell
yo, for unless yo knew grandfather's ways like me, yo'd think it
strange. He was taken by surprise, and he said: 'Damn yo!' Then
he began looking at his book as it were, and were very quiet, while
I telled him all about it; how I'd feared, and how downcast I'd
been; and how I were now reconciled to it, if it were th' Lord's
will; and how I hoped to earn money by singing; and while I were
talking, I saw great big tears come dropping on th' book; but in
course I never let on that I saw 'em. Dear grandfather! and all day
long he's been quietly moving things out o' my way, as he thought
might trip me up, and putting things in my way as he thought I might
want; never knowing I saw and felt what he were doing; for, yo see,
he thinks I'm out and out blind, I guess--as I shall be soon."

Margaret sighed in spite of her cheerful and relieved tone.

Though Mary caught the sigh, she felt it was better to let it pass
without notice, and began, with the tact which true sympathy rarely
fails to supply, to ask a variety of questions respecting her
friend's musical debut, which tended to bring out more distinctly
how successful it had been.

"Why, Margaret," at length she exclaimed, "thou'lt become as famous,
maybe, as that grand lady fra' London as we see'd one night driving
up to th' concert-room door in her carriage."

"It looks very like it," said Margaret, with a smile. "And be sure,
Mary, I'll not forget to give thee a lift now and then when that
comes about. Nay, who knows, if thou'rt a good girl, but may-happen
I may make thee my lady's maid! Wouldn't that be nice? So I e'en
sing to myself th' beginning o' one o' my songs--

'An' ye shall walk in silk attire,
An' siller hae to spare.'"

"Nay, don't stop; or else give me something rather more new, for
somehow I never quite liked that part about thinking o' Donald
mair?"

"Well, though I'm a bit tired I don't care if I do. Before I come I
were practising well-nigh upon two hours this one which I'm to sing
o' Thursday. The lecturer said he were sure it would just suit me,
and I should do justice to it; and I should be right sorry to
disappoint him, he were so nice and encouraging like to me. Eh!
Mary, what a pity there isn't more o' that way, and less scolding
and rating i' th' world! It would go a vast deal further. Beside,
some o' th' singers said, they were a'most certain that it were a
song o' his own, because he were so fidgety and particular about it,
and so anxious I should give it th' proper expression. And that
makes me care still more. Th' first verse, he said, were to be sung
'tenderly, but joyously!' I'm afraid I don't quite hit that, but
I'll try.

'What a single word can do!
Thrilling all the heart-strings through,
Calling forth fond memories,
Raining round hope's melodies,
Steeping all in one bright hue--
What a single word can do !'

Now it falls into th' minor key, and must be very sad-like. I feel
as if I could do that better than t'other.

'What a single word can do!
Making life seem all untrue,
Driving joy and hope away,
Leaving not one cheering ray,
Blighting every flower that grew--
What a single word can do!'"

Margaret certainly made the most of this little song. As a factory
worker, listening outside, observed, "She spun it reet* fine!" And
if she only sang it at the Mechanics' with half the feeling she put
into it that night, the lecturer must have been hard to please if he
did not admit that his expectations were more than fulfilled.

When it was ended, Mary's looks told more than words could have done
what she thought of it; and partly to keep in a tear which would
fain have rolled out, she brightened into a laugh, and said, "For
certain th' carriage is coming. So let us go and dream on it."

*Reet; right; often used for "very."



IX. BARTON'S LONDON EXPERIENCES.

"A life of self-indulgence is for us,
A life of self-denial is for them;
For us the streets, broad-built and populous,
For them unhealthy corners, garrets dim,
And cellars where the water-rat may swim!
For us green paths refreshed by frequent rain,
For them dark alleys where the dust lies grim!
Not doomed by us to this appointed pain--
God made us rich and poor--of what do these complain?"
--MRS. NORTON'S Child of the Islands.

The next evening it was a warm, pattering, incessant rain--just the
rain to waken up the flowers. But in Manchester, where, alas! there
are no flowers, the rain had only a disheartening and gloomy effect;
the streets were wet and dirty, the drippings from the houses were
wet and dirty, and the people were wet and dirty. Indeed, most kept
within doors; and there was an unusual silence of footsteps in the
little paved courts.

Mary had to change her clothes after her walk home; and had hardly
settled herself before she heard some one fumbling at the door. The
noise continued long enough to allow her to get up, and go and open
it. There stood--could it be? yes it was, her father!

Drenched and wayworn, there he stood! He came in with no word to
Mary in return for her cheery and astonished greeting. He sat down
by the fire in his wet things, unheeding. But Mary would not let
him so rest. She ran up and brought down his working-day clothes,
and went into the pantry to rummage up their little bit of provision
while he changed by the fire, talking all the while as gaily as she
could, though her father's depression hung like lead on her heart.

For Mary, in her seclusion at Miss Simmonds',--where the chief talk
was of fashions, and dress, and parties to be given, for which such
and such gowns would be wanted, varied with a slight-whispered
interlude occasionally about love and lovers--had not heard the
political news of the day; that Parliament had refused to listen to
the working-men, when they petitioned, with all the force of their
rough, untutored words, to be heard concerning the distress which
was riding, like the Conqueror on his Pale Horse, among the people;
which was crushing their lives out of them, and stamping woe-marks
over the land.

When he had eaten and was refreshed, they sat for some time in
silence; for Mary wished him to tell her what oppressed him so, yet
durst not ask. In this she was wise; for when we are heavy-laden in
our hearts it falls in better with our humour to reveal our case in
our own way, and our own time.

Mary sat on a stool at her father's feet in old childish guise, and
stole her hand into his, while his sadness infected her, and she
"caught the trick of grief, and sighed," she knew not why.

"Mary, we mun speak to our God to hear us, for man will not hearken;
no, not now, when we weep tears o' blood."

In an instant Mary understood the fact, if not the details, that so
weighed down her father's heart. She pressed his hand with silent
sympathy. She did not know what to say, and was so afraid of
speaking wrongly, that she was silent. But when his attitude had
remained unchanged for more than half-an-hour, his eyes gazing
vacantly and fixedly at the fire, no sound but now and then a deep-
drawn sigh to break the weary ticking of the clock, and the
drip-drop from the roof without, Mary could bear it no longer.
Anything to rouse her father. Even bad news.

"Father, do you know George Wilson's dead?" (Her hand was suddenly
and almost violently compressed.) "He dropped down dead in Oxford
Road yester morning. It's very sad, isn't it, father?"

Her tears were ready to flow as she looked up in her father's face
for sympathy. Still the same fixed look of despair, not varied by
grief for the dead.

"Best for him to die," he said, in a low voice.

This was unbearable. Mary got up under pretence of going to tell
Margaret that she need not come to sleep with her to-night, but
really to ask Job Legh to come and cheer her father.

She stopped outside the door. Margaret was practising her singing,
and through the still night air her voice rang out, like that of an
angel--

"Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God."

The old Hebrew prophetic words fell like dew on Mary's heart. She
could not interrupt. She stood listening and "comforted," till the
little buzz of conversation again began, and then entered and told
her errand.

Both grandfather and grand-daughter rose instantly to fulfil her
request.

"He's just tired out, Mary," said old Job. "He'll be a different
man to-morrow."

There is no describing the looks and tones that have power over an
aching, heavy-laden heart; but in an hour or so John Barton was
talking away as freely as ever, though all his talk ran, as was
natural, on the disappointment of his fond hope, of the forlorn hope
of many.

"Ay, London's a fine place," said he, "and finer folk live in it
than I ever thought on, or ever heerd tell on except in th'
storybooks. They are having their good things now, that afterwards
they may be tormented."

Still at the old parable of Dives and Lazarus! Does it haunt the
minds of the rich as it does those of the poor?

"Do tell us all about London, dear father," asked Mary, who was
sitting at her old post by her father's knee.

"How can I tell yo a' about it, when I never see'd one-tenth of it.
It's as big as six Manchesters, they telled me. One-sixth may be
made up o' grand palaces, and three-sixths o' middling kind, and th'
rest o' holes o' iniquity and filth, such as Manchester knows nought
on, I'm glad to say."

"Well, father, but did you see the Queen?"

"I believe I didn't, though one day I thought I'd seen her many a
time. You see," said he, turning to Job Legh, "there were a day
appointed for us to go to Parliament House. We were most on us
biding at a public-house in Holborn, where they did very well for
us. Th' morning of taking our petition we had such a spread for
breakfast as th' Queen hersel might ha' sitten down to. I suppose
they thought we wanted putting in heart. There were mutton kidneys,
and sausages, and broiled ham, and fried beef and onions; more like
a dinner nor a breakfast. Many on our chaps though, I could see,
could eat but little. Th' food stuck in their throats when they
thought o' them at home, wives and little ones, as had, maybe at
that very time, nought to eat. Well, after breakfast, we were all
set to walk in procession, and a time it took to put us in order,
two and two, and the petition, as was yards long, carried by the
foremost pairs. The men looked grave enough, yo may be sure and
such a set of thin, wan, wretched-looking chaps as they were!"

"Yourself is none to boast on."

"Ay, but I were fat and rosy to many a one. Well, we walked on and
on through many a street, much the same as Deansgate. We had to
walk slowly, slowly, for th' carriages an' cabs as thronged th'
streets. I thought by-and-bye we should maybe get clear on 'em, but
as the streets grew wider they grew worse, and at last we were
fairly blocked up at Oxford Street. We getten across it after a
while though, and my eyes! the grand streets we were in then!
They're sadly puzzled how to build houses though in London; there'd
be an opening for a good steady master builder there, as know'd his
business. For yo see the houses are many on 'em built without any
proper shape for a body to live in; some on 'em they've after
thought would fall down, so they've stuck great ugly pillars out
before 'em. And some on 'em (we thought they must be th' tailors'
sign) had getten stone men and women as wanted clothes stuck on 'em.
I were like a child, I forgot a' my errand in looking about me. By
this it were dinner-time, or better, as we could tell by the sun,
right above our heads, and we were dusty and tired, going a step now
and a step then. Well, at last we getten into a street grander nor
all, leading to th' Queen's palace, and there it were I thought I
saw th' Queen. Yo've seen th' hearses wi' white plumes, Job?"

Job assented.

"Well, them undertaker folk are driving a pretty trade in London.
Well-nigh every lady we saw in a carriage had hired one o' them
plumes for the day, and had it niddle noddling on her head. It were
the Queen's Drawing-room, they said, and the carriages went bowling
along towards her house, some wi' dressed-up gentlemen like circus
folk in 'em, and rucks* o' ladies in others. Carriages themselves
were great shakes too. Some o' the gentlemen as couldn't get inside
hung on behind, wi' nosegays to smell at, and sticks to keep off
folk as might splash their silk stockings. I wonder why they didn't
hire a cab rather than hang on like a whip-behind boy; but I suppose
they wished to keep wi' their wives, Darby and Joan like. Coachmen
were little squat men, wi' wigs like the oud-fashioned parsons'.
Well, we could na get on for these carriages, though we waited and
waited. Th' horses were too fat to move quick; they never known
want o' food, one might tell by their sleek coats; and police pushed
us back when we tried to cross. One or two of 'em struck wi' their
sticks, and coachmen laughed, and some officers as stood nigh put
their spy-glasses in their eye, and left 'em sticking there like
mountebanks. One o' th' police struck me. 'Whatten business have
you to do that?' said I.

*Rucks; a great quantity.

"'You're frightening them horses,' says he, in his mincing way (for
Londoners are mostly all tongue-tied, and can't say their a's and
i's properly, 'and it's our business to keep you from molesting the
ladies and gentlemen going to her Majesty's Drawing-room.'

"'And why are we to be molested?' asked I, 'going decently about our
business, which is life and death to us, and many a little one
clemming at home in Lancashire? Which business is of most
consequence i' the sight o' God, think yo, ourn or them grand ladies
and gentlemen as yo think so much on?'

"But I might as well ha' held my peace, for he only laughed."

John ceased. After waiting a little, to see if he would go on
himself, Job said--

"Well, but that's not a' your story, man. Tell us what happened
when you got to th' Parliament House."

After a little pause, John answered--

"If you please, neighbour, I'd rather say nought about that. It's
not to be forgotten, or forgiven either, by me or many another; but
I canna tell of our down-casting just as a piece of London news. As
long as I live, our rejection of that day will abide in my heart;
and as long as I live I shall curse them as so cruelly refused to
hear us; but I'll not speak of it no* more."

*A similar use of a double negative is frequent in Chaucer; as in
the "Miller's Tale": "That of no wife toke he non offering
For curtesie, he sayd, he n'old non."

So, daunted in their inquiries, they sat silent for a few minutes.

Old Job, however, felt that some one must speak, else all the good
they had done in dispelling John Barton's gloom was lost. So after
a while he thought of a subject, neither sufficiently dissonant from
the last to jar on a full heart, nor too much the same to cherish
the continuance of the gloomy train of thought.

"Did you ever hear tell," said he to Mary, "that I were in London
once?"

"No!" said she with surprise, and looking at Job with increased
respect.

"Ay, but I were though, and Peg there too, though she minds nought
about it, poor wench! You must know I had but one child, and she
were Margaret's mother. I loved her above a bit, and one day when
she came (standing behind me for that I should not see her blushes,
and stroking my cheeks in her own coaxing way), and told me she and
Frank Jennings (as was a joiner lodging near us) should be so happy
if they were married, I could not find in my heart t' say her nay,
though I went sick at the thought of losing her away from my home.
However, she was my only child, and I never said nought of what I
felt, for fear o' grieving her young heart. But I tried to think o'
the time when I'd been young mysel, and had loved her blessed
mother, and how we'd left father and mother, and gone out into th'
world together, and I'm now right thankful I held my peace, and
didna fret her wi' telling her how sore I was at parting wi' her
that were the light o' my eyes."

"But," said Mary, "you said the young man were a neighbour."

"Ay, so he were, and his father afore him. But work were rather
slack in Manchester, and Frank's uncle sent him word o' London work
and London wages, so he were to go there, and it were there Margaret
was to follow him. Well, my heart aches yet at thought of those
days. She so happy, and he so happy; only the poor father as
fretted sadly behind their backs. They were married and stayed some
days wi' me afore setting off; and I've often thought sin',
Margaret's heart failed her many a time those few days, and she
would fain ha' spoken; but I knew fra' mysel it were better to keep
it pent up, and I never let on what I were feeling. I knew what she
meant when she came kissing, and holding my hand, and all her old
childish ways o' loving me. Well, they went at last. You know them
two letters, Margaret?"

"Yes, sure," replied his grand-daughter.

"Well, them two were the only letters I ever had fra' her, poor
lass. She said in them she were very happy, and I believe she were.
And Frank's family heard he were in good work. In one o' her
letters, poor thing, she ends wi' saying, 'Farewell, Grandad!' wi' a
line drawn under grandad, and fra' that an' other hints I knew she
were in th' family way; and I said nought, but I screwed up a
little money, thinking come Whitsuntide I'd take a holiday and go
and see her an' th' little one. But one day towards Whitsuntide,
comed Jennings wi' a grave face, and says he, 'I hear our Frank and
your Margaret's both getten the fever.' You might ha' knocked me
down wi' a straw, for it seemed as if God told me what th' upshot
would be. Old Jennings had gotten a letter, you see, fra' the
landlady they lodged wi'; a well-penned letter, asking if they'd no
friends to come and nurse them. She'd caught it first, and Frank,
who was as tender o'er her as her own mother could ha' been, had
nursed her till he'd caught it himsel; and she expecting her down-
lying* everyday. Well, t' make a long story short, old Jennings and
I went up by that night's coach. So you see, Mary, that was the way
I got to London."

*Down-lying; lying in.

"But how was your daughter when you got there?" asked Mary
anxiously.

"She were at rest, poor wench, and so were Frank. I guessed as much
when I see'd th' landlady's face, all swelled wi' crying, when she
opened th' door to us. We said, 'Where are they?' and I knew they
were dead, fra' her look; but Jennings didn't, as I take it; for
when she showed us into a room wi' a white sheet on th' bed, and
underneath it, plain to be seen, two still figures, he screeched out
as if he'd been a woman.

"Yet he'd other children and I'd none. There lay my darling, my
only one. She were dead, and there were no one to love me, no, not
one. I disremember* rightly what I did; but I know I were very
quiet, while my heart were crushed within me.

*Disremember; forget.

"Jennings could na' stand being in the room at all, so the landlady
took him down, and I were glad to be alone. It grew dark while I
sat there; and at last th' landlady came up again, and said, 'Come
here.' So I got up, and walked into the light, but I had to hold by
th' stair-rails, I were so weak and dizzy. She led me into a room,
where Jennings lay on a sofa fast asleep, wi' his pocket-
handkerchief over his head for a night-cap. She said he'd cried
himself fairly off to sleep. There were tea on th' table all ready;
for she were a kind-hearted body. But she still said, 'Come here,'
and took hold o' my arm. So I went round the table, and there were
a clothes-basket by th' fire, wi' a shawl put o'er it. 'Lift that
up,' says she, and I did; and there lay a little wee babby fast
asleep. My heart gave a leap, and th' tears comed rushing into my
eyes first time that day. 'Is it hers?' said I, though I knew it
were. 'Yes,' said she. 'She were getting a bit better o' the
fever, and th' babby were born; and then the poor young man took
worse and died, and she were not many hours behind.'

"Little mite of a thing! and yet it seemed her angel come back to
comfort me. I were quite jealous o' Jennings whenever he went near
the babby. I thought it were more my flesh and blood than his'n,
and yet I were afraid he would claim it. However, that were far
enough fra' his thoughts; he'd plenty other childer, and, as I found
out after, he'd all along been wishing me to take it. Well, we
buried Margaret and her husband in a big, crowded, lonely churchyard
in London. I were loath to leave them there, as I thought, when
they rose again, they'd feel so strange at first away fra'
Manchester, and all old friends; but it could na be helped. Well,
God watches o'er their graves there as well as here. That funeral
cost a mint o' money, but Jennings and I wished to do th' thing
decent. Then we'd the stout little babby to bring home. We'd not
overmuch money left; but it were fine weather, and we thought we'd
take th' coach to Brummagem, and walk on. It were a bright May
morning when I last saw London town, looking back from a big hill a
mile or two off. And in that big mass o' a place I were leaving my
blessed child asleep--in her last sleep. Well, God's will be done!
She's gotten to heaven afore me; but I shall get there at last,
please God, though it's a long while first.

"The babby had been fed afore we set out, and th' coach moving kept
it asleep, bless its little heart! But when th' coach stopped for
dinner it were awake, and crying for its pobbies.* So we asked for
some bread and milk, and Jennings took it first for to feed it, but
it made its mouth like a square, and let it run out at each o' the
four corners. 'Shake it, Jennings,' says I; 'that's the way they
make water run through a funnel, when it's o'er full; and a child's
mouth is broad end o' th' funnel, and th' gullet the narrow one.'
So he shook it, but it only cried th' more. 'Let me have it,' says
I, thinking he were an awkward oud chap. But it were just as bad
wi' me. By shaking th' babby we got better nor a gill into its
mouth, but more nor that came up again, wetting a' th' nice dry
clothes landlady had put on. Well, just as we'd gotten to th'
dinner-table, and helped oursels, and eaten two mouthful, came in
th' guard, and a fine chap wi' a sample of calico flourishing in his
hand. 'Coach is ready!' says one; 'Half-a-crown your dinner!' says
the other. Well, we thought it a deal for both our dinners, when
we'd hardly tasted 'em; but, bless your life, it were half-a-crown
apiece, and a shilling for th' bread and milk as were possetted all
over babby's clothes. We spoke up again** it; but everybody said it
were the rule, so what could two poor oud chaps like us do again it?
Well, poor babby cried without stopping to take breath, fra' that
time till we got to Brummagem for the night. My heart ached for th'
little thing. It caught wi' its wee mouth at our coat sleeves and
at our mouths, when we tried t' comfort it by talking to it. Poor
little wench! it wanted its mammy, as were lying cold in th' grave.
'Well,' says I, 'it'll be clemmed to death, if it lets out its
supper as it did its dinner. Let's get some woman to feed it; it
comes natural to women to do for babbies.' So we asked th'
chambermaid at the inn, and she took quite kindly to it; and we got
a good supper, and grew rare and sleepy, what wi' th' warmth and wi'
our long ride i' the open air. Th' chambermaid said she would like
t' have it t' sleep wi' her, only missis would scold so; but it
looked so quiet and smiling like, as it lay in her arms, that we
thought 't would be no trouble to have it wi' us. I says: 'See,
Jennings, how women folk do quieten babbies; it's just as I said.'
He looked grave; he were always thoughtful-looking, though I never
heard him say anything very deep. At last says he--

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