ROUND THE HOME OF A YORKSHIRE PARSON BY THE SAME AUTHOR, ACROSS THE BROAD ACRES. Sketches of Yorkshire life and character. With 8 full-page Photo-Illustrations on Art Paper. 328 pages, Crown 8vo, tastefully bound in Art Vellum Boards, 3/6 net WITH KNAPSACK AND NOTE-BOOK. Experiences at home and abroad. With 8 full- page Photo-Illustrations. 303 pages, Crown 8vo, tastefully bound in Cloth Boards, 3/6 net. QUAINT TALKS ABOUT LONG WALKS. Reminiscences of my walking tours in Great Britain and on the Continent. With 8 full-page Photo- Illustrations. 330 pages, Crown 8vo, tastefully bound in Cloth Boards, 3/6 net. ROUND THE HOME OF A YORKSHIRE PARSON STORIES OF YORKSHIRE LIFE BY A. N. COOPER, M.A., VICAR OF FILEY, YORKS. Author of "Across the Broad Acres" "Quaint Talks about Long Walks," " With Knapsack and Note-Book," etc. NEW AND REVISED EDITION 11 Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes Angulus ridet." HORACE, Ode V., Liber II. LONDON^ A. BROWN & SONS, LIMITED, 5 FARRINGDON AVENUE, E.G. AND AT HULL & YORK PRINTED AT BROWNS* SAVILE PRESS, GEORGE STREET, HULL. DA ^7< r^ /9vo PREFACE. ENGLAND has proved a happy home to many strangers who came heie under various cir- cumstances. . So has Yorkshire proved to me, who am quite a South Countryman, and to whom might be applied the words about Oliver Goldsmith's country parson, who " Ne'er had changed, nor wished to change his place." When Lord Macaulay was a boy, and on a visit to Yorkshire, he saw black smoke pouring out of a tall chimney, and he asked if that were Hell. Yorkshire, as seen through the pages of this book made one reader surmise that I must live in Paradise ! Five chapters of the first edition] have been deleted for va'rious reasons, and five new ones have been added. A. N. COOPER. FlLEY, Whitsuntide, 1910. 11 CONTENTS PAGE A YORKSHIRE PARISH . . , . i ADVENTURES WITH A WHITE TIE . . u A FINE DAY IN JANUARY . . *9 OUT IN THE DARK ..... 27 THE TENTH DAY 35 A YORKSHIRE CLOCK-MAKER . . . 43 A FORTUNATE MIS-FORTUNE ... 52 A CORONATION BABY 61 HOLIDAYS ON THE CHEAP ... 69 DISSENTERS WHO DON'T DISSENT . . 77 OFF DUTY 85 AN AUGUST VISITOR . . -93 A SEASIDE PARISH IN WINTER . . . 101 AN EAR FOR Music .... 109 A COLLOQUY . . . . . . 117 CATO AT THE SEASIDE .... 125 FINANCING A CLERGYMAN . . . 132 AN UNFOUNDED SUSPICION . . . 139 GOOD SAMARITANS I HAVE MET . . 147 vin CONTENTS PAOB A FASHIONABLE CURE .... 155 SANCTUARY FOR THE TRIPPER . . . 164 NOT IN THE CODE . ... 172 A SUNDAY SHOWER .... 181 THE DONKEY'S RIVAL . . . 189 OLD MARTINMAS DAY . . . . 198 OPEN HOUSES 205 A HARDY ANNUAL . . . 214 BROTHER JONATHAN .... 220 SURPLICE'S DERBY . . . 226 A FORGOTTEN PROPHET . . . 235 A CONVERT TO THE COUNTRY . '. . 245 CHANGES AT THE SEA-SIDE . . . 252 A WALK TO SCOTS CORNER . . . 260 THE CHURCH PENNY . . 269 WANTED AN ANCHORITE . . . 277 INNS, ANCIENT AND MODERN, REMINISCENCES OF284 SLEDMERE CHURCH . . . 290 LAYING A GHOST ..... 298 THE WOMBWELLS AND OLIVER CROMWELL . 304 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Home of the Yorkshire Parson Frontispiece FACING PAGE Did I look like the Undertaker ? . . 18 " They had to take their seats on the grass of the churchyard or stroll among the graves " . . . . . 56 '' He had taken Dining Rooms on the Esplanade " . . . . .92 A Yorkshire Fish-woman . . . 104 The Bathing Place 216 Shandy Hall ....... 264 The Custodian of Cromwell's Bones . . 304 A YORKSHIRE PARISH. NOBODY but a parson ever knows anything about a parish. Rate collectors know the township, and poor people know the Union to which they must look for relief, but for all secular purposes the parish has ceased to exist. Nobody knows so well as the parson what goes on in the parish. There will be many who will have more exact knowledge of the sporting set, the exclusive set, the musical set and so on, but no one's knowledge has such a wide range. He dines with the rich, he visits the poor, he looks after the children, he ministers to the sick and dying. If he stays ten years in a place, he will find that he has had something to do in nearly every house either with a baptism, a marriage, or a funeral. Thus he not only knows every kind of people, but he also sees every side of the life of the people. 2 A YORKSHIRE PARISH. No one ever feels honoured by a call from the parson, and nobody boasts of their acquaintance with him. Very few people think it worth while to get on his blind side, and if he has a blind side after five years in a parish he must be a fool. It has been said that a parson sees people at their best, a lawyer at their worst, and only a doctor sees them as they are, but such words were only true a long time ago, when the parson was truly the man of importance, when most rectories had a justice room, and when a man who knew on which side his bread was buttered frequented his parish church for much the same reason that he voted with his landlord. It is no longer so now, but the boot is on the other leg. The poorest person who conies to Church .considers he lays the parson under an obligation, and whether Churchgoers or not, all feel that they can give the parson a bit of their mind whenever they like. This enables the parson to know people in a way no one else can. They are under no constraint with him, " Its A YORKSHIRE PARISH. 3 only the parson," they say among them- selves. Some time ago an editor asked me to write an account of the most awkward circumstance in which I had ever found myself. I did not do so for out of such an embarras de richesses I knew not which to choose. I have received an offer of marriage, I have performed the last offices for a man found drowned, the decomposed state of his body scaring every one away except my rector and me. I have had to call a woman out from a dance and tell her that her only son was killed, and when I was a blushing young curate, a dying woman bequeathed to me her thirteen-year old girl in the hopes I should be kind to her. Of comic situations there have been no end, perhaps none more awkward for me than the following: I called upon a lady and the servant announced me, and left me standing in the doorway. The lady had not heard, for she was looking into a cupboard where were a number of bottles. She was occupied in seeing if they were 4 A YORKSHIRE PARISH. really empty, and if on holding a bottle up to the light, she saw there was something left in, she applied her lips to the opening and drained it down her throat. The lady's back was towards me, and I watched this process on at least half-a-dozen bottles before the serious nature of my predicament dawned upon me. The lady must soon have finished, and when she saw me could not be unaware that I had been a witness to her frugal habits. I was a stranger to her and that made it more awkward for me, as she would wonder how I got there. So rather than be the cause of any embarassment, I turned and fled. To see the odd side of so many people would give the parson of any parish some- thing to write about, but when it comes to a Yorkshire parish the material is trebled. " There be such a company of wilful gentle- men in this Yorkshire as there be not in all England besides," wrote the Abbot of York to Cromwell, Earl of Essex. " Every other Yorkshireman is a character," was the A YORKSHIRE PARISH. 5 dictum of one who knew the County well, and I am disposed to agree with it. What is more, my parish being by the seaside, I have a constant succession of visitors to study, as well as my .own people. Some years ago Punch drew a picture of a garden in my parish which contained portraits of Cardinal Wiseman, the Archbishop of York, and Earl Russell, who were all staying in the place together. I have never seen quite such a galaxy of notabilities as that, but I have made one of a supper party of four, and three of our names were known throughout the English speaking world: Mrs. Kendal, Edna Lyall, and Mr. George Grossmith. I was once walking with Lord Byron on our sands, when my companion stopped and spoke to Lord Alington who was with the Earl of Ranfurly. Just then the Bishop of Southwell passed "Why here's a quorum of the House of Lords," said one. This will show what a variety of people at one end of the social scale the parson of such a parish as mine may get to know; and 6 A YORKSHIRE PARISH. how he knows everybody else has already been stated. The parson belongs to no set, at least I do not. In Yorkshire the large majority of the population ace Nonconformists, and all ministers of religion are viewed from that standpoint. " Of course the noble well-bred clan Receive the parish clergyman," but equally is he supposed to be at home with all other classes. Thus he learns how life is looked at from all points of view. He hears the farmer's side of a question and the labourer's ; he also learns what men think of the licensing laws, and what the > women think. In many a case I hear what visitors have to say about the lodging-house cat, and I hear what landladies have to say about the ways of their lodgers. I am some- times asked to engage a house for a noble- man not to exceed ^"25 a week, and I know where to get a poor girl boarded and lodged at a shilling a day. Into my ear are poured the complaints real and imaginary of all A YORKSHIRE PARISH. 7 parties. The poor dressmaker tells me how she cannot pay her rent, because a fine lady will not pay her bill, yet she dare not complain lest the fine lady should injure her business. The fine lady too has her woes, and tells me she is anxious about her husband who spends all his day on the golf ground, and comes home quite tired out poor fellow ! I have always lived on the best of terms with dissenters, with their ministers and their flocks. I have no taste for controversy, and have seen how futile a weapon it is to accomplish any results in a Yorkshire parish. When all has been said and done to wean men from the error of their ways, the main facts are never altered that the gentry go to Church, the tradesmen to the Wesleyans, and the labourers to the Primitives. The religious difficulty and sectarian bitterness are as unknown in my parish as a volcano. I see that a man's religious opinions are almost as much a matter of circumstance as whether he is born a peer or a fisherman. I lament our unhappy divisions, but I am 8 A YORKSHIRE PARISH. not going to increase the unhappiness by being churlish or unfriendly. Thus I know everybody, whatever their creed and whatever their position. As a rule respectable people are amazingly dull. The Education Acts have screwed every one up to nearly the same pitch, and the demands of society finish the job. One has to look among those who have to exer- cise their mother wit to find anything like variety. There was a carrier in an adjacent village, who, unable to read and write, had recourse to a strange system of mnemonics to recollect his various orders. One day he entered a draper's, and astonished the trades- man by demanding a yard of the old devil. On being informed that the old boy was not yet caught and cut up, he proceeded to dis- entangle his own confused thoughts. He knew it was something as black as the devil, could the draper assist him by recounting what he sold. Black cloth? No. Black ribbon ? No. Black silk ? No. Black satin ? Yes, of course, Satan was the very A YORKSHIRE PARISH. 9 word he was trying to recollect. Now in a few years time that carrier will be dead and his successor will read and write like the best of us. The Yorkshire character is not generally associated with poetic feeling, we seem too blunt and matter of fact. Still among the poor much poetry lingers in their language and expressions. Certainly he describes things in a picturesque way. I have often to enquire into the ages of candidates for annuities or charitable relief, and rarely can a woman tell me the day and month of her birth. One told me she was born on the day the sun got the other side of the head. This refers to Flamboro' Head, and as the year advances the sun rises more and more to the north of the Head and then travels south again. An old woman wishing to compliment me on my healthy appearance, expressed it that I looked as if I was always at home to meals, an euphonious and polite way of saying I was getting fat, of which I was painfully conscious. A very thriving- IO A YORKSHIRE PARISH. owner of property told me how he had began life with nothing, put it thus. When I came to the place I had a spare shirt whenever I lay in bed, but not otherwise, which is far more graphic than saying he had not a penny in his pockets. Any one who reads the following pages, which are my experiences with the varied classes I meet in and around my Yorkshire parish, will be introduced to all sorts and conditions of men. I hope they will come to the same conclusion that every year con- firms me in, namely, that like the Psalmist, the lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places. ADVENTURES WITH MY WHITE TIE. OF late years people have been saying that the status of the clergy is not what it used to be. Formerly they were drawn from the first families in the land, but of late a lower stratum of society has had to be tapped to keep up the supply. Then clerical incomes have fallen of late years, so that fat rectors (except in the sense of pounds avoirdupois) have* ceased. Further than that the deference once paid to the cloth is now reserved for the man who deserves it. The consequence is that the clergy are not so proud of their calling as they once were. Many could scarcely be said to look like clergymen, even in their own parishes, while the first thing many more do when they go away, is to don a black or a coloured tie, and try and look as much unlike a clergyman as possible. 12 ADVENTURES WITH MY WHITE TIE. Now I am very proud of being what I am, and have never seen any reason to be ashamed of it. I know I have not a very clerical appearance, what with my red face and giant stride, but I am old-fashioned enough to always wear a white tie, which has landed me in some queer situations. Clergy are not the only people who wear white ties, and from what follows it will be evident strangers have not known what to make of me. When I was quite a young curate I was crossing the Channel on my way to Paris, and fell in with an Oxford friend who was taking his sisters abroad. Half way across they were all taken very bad, and I was too pleased to be of use, and ran up and down getting pillows from the stewardess and brandy from the steward for their relief. A lady who was also liors de combat, seeing me thus busy, and mistaking the import ot my white tie, called out to me, "Waiter, Waiter 1 " I looked round to see if there was anyone but myself moving about, but there was no one, and it was evident that I ADVENTURES WITH MY WHITE TIE. 13 was intended. I went to her, and received her orders for some weak brandy and water and a captain's biscuit, which I duly executed. s I brought them to her, and said that I was more than gratified at being able to be of any service to a lady, still, I was not the waiter, but I was a clergyman. I had scarcely said this than I regretted it, when I saw the look of dismay which came into the lady's face, and, ill as she was, she tried to sit up and thank me. I assured her the mistake had been a happy one, as it had enabled me to serve her, and really I felt pleased than otherwise with the adventure. The late Mr. Spurgeon has told us that he discarded wearing a white tie because some- one on a steamer mistook him for an assistant in a large drapery establishment, where whit? neckcloths were de rigeur. But my adventure on board a steamer made me not at all anxious to drop my white tie. My long walks often entail night travelling in order that I may get back in time for my duties. I am, in consequence, often on York 14 ADVENTURES WITH MY WHITE TIE. platform in the small hours of the morning. As I was once pacing up and down talking to a Scotch friend, a porter came up, and, thinking my white tie betokened me a member of another profession, asked me if I was a doctor. Without giving me time to answer, he went on to say that a man was asleep on a seat whom they could not rouse, and who did not seem to be drunk, and if he was going by a night train he would certainly miss it. Would I go and see what was the matter with him. " I will rouse him, unless he is past rousing," said my friend, whom I have already stated was a Scotchman. We went to the sleeper, who resisted all efforts to rouse him by such means as shaking him, flashing a lamp in his face, and shouting in his ear. My Scotch friend produced a box filled with black snuff, and plugged the nostrils of the sleeper therewith. We waited for a minute or so before the explosion which followed, and which nearly shook the platform with its noise and us ADVENTURES WITH MY WHITE TIE. 1 5 with laughter. However, the sleeper was effectually roused, and for some time after the porters at the York station always saluted me as doctor, thus, " Travelling far to-night, doctor ? " and so on ; a distinction I owe entirely to my white tie. I owe one half-hour in very high society to my white tie. I often walk up to London and catch the night mail from King's Cross to the north. On one occasion, as I entered the station, none too early for the 10-30 train, a gold-banded conductor met me and said, "Only just in time, we are off directly." "But I have to get my ticket," I urged. "I have the ticket, sir," said he, and led the way. I knew there was a wedding waiting for me in the morning, and I should be greatly disappointed if I missed it, so I ran after the conductor, who, having opened the door of a saloon carriage, almost pushed me in, and off we went. I was some minutes before I could take in the situation, and then became aware, from the fur coats and distinguished air of the other l6 ADVENTURES WITH MY WHITE TlE. occupants, that I was in very select company indeed. I recognised Mr. Balfour, and other public men, who sat chatting together, and I wondered where, in the name of fortune, I had got to. Presently the conductor entered the car, and I asked him whether I was in the night mail for the north. " No sir, this is the special for Hatfield. Lady Salisbury's party, you know." " But 1 am not going to Lady Salisbury's party. Whatever made you think I was?" "Your white tie, sir, I thought you were dressed for the party, and I had been told to look out for such as you, and conduct them to the 'special." It is only half-an-hour's run to Hatfield, and this I accomplished amongst the most distinguished company I have ever travelled with in my life. On arrival there the con- ductor spoke to the station master, who kindly stopped the mail for me, and I got home in time for the wedding. These are among some of the experiences of life I owe to my white tie. So far I have ADVENTURES WITH MY WHITE TIE. 1 7 seen no reason to discard it, though, as my last adventure will show, it has not always designated me as belonging to high society. In the parish where I was Curate my Rector had visited a dying woman, and, after her death, sent me to express his regrets to her family. The maid-servant did not know me, and mistook me for another individual who usually wears a white tie, namely an under- taker's man. She showed me into the dining room at first, where she poured me out a glass of whiskey. I told her I was a total abstainer, whereupon she said I should find it a "nasty job." She then showed me into the death-chamber, and told me to be sure and take the wedding ring off the finger of the corpse. This done, she asked if she should help me to lift the body into the coffin, and she took the feet and I the shoulders, and together we did it. No sooner was this accomplished than one of the daughters of the house came up, and she, who knew me, was horrified at seeing the mistake that had been made. The l8 ADVENTURES WITH MY WHITE TIE. reader may wonder why I did not explain matters sooner, but the truth is I was new to my duties, and, I think, I am naturally willing to oblige. I have plenty of nerve in some ways, and my frequent presence in the chamber of death has several times involved me in the duties usually associated with the undertaker. When I have told the foregoing story, I have known a strong man say, "I could not have taken the ring off that dead finger for a thousand pounds." I could, however, and not even the occasional call upon me for similar duties has led me to discard my white tie. DID I LOOK LIKE THE UNDERTAKER? A FINE DAY IN JANUARY. BUSINESS took me to Whitby and Redcar, and pleasure suggested that if it was a fine day I might walk the distance between the two, a little over twenty-six miles. January has not a good reputation so far as weather is concerned, but trusting to King Charles' dictum that a man may enjoy him- self out of doors most days, even in our English climate, I determined to risk it. I decided to take the coast road by Hinder- well, and left Whitby a little before ten. I might have gone by Ugthorpe over the moors, but the recollection of a former day spent upon them, when I was twelve hours on a slice of bread and butter, was not in- viting to a man who weighs fifteen stones all but a pound, and therefore needs keeping up. The morning broke very propitiously, the sun visible, but not too white. The 19 20 A FINE DAY IN JANUARY. roads were rather heavy with previous rains, but that was a detail. Between me and the Maharajah Duleep Singh there seems less connection than be- tween the Goodwin Sands and Tenterden Steeple. Yet it is owing to his late High- ness that I am not walking on the loose VVhitby sands, but on a good macadamised road. Some years ago the Indian Prince was tenant of Mulgrave Castle, and enter- tained largely, and so had this road made for the accommodation of himself and his guests. The memories of that time are still gratefully cherished by the Whitby trades- people, and if the millennium was a past instead of a future event they might vie with the late Mr. Baxter and others in fixing its date. However the Maharajah (and his cash) are gone, and only the road remains of all that he spent there, and I step quickly along it in the morning sunshine. I climb the steep hill leading to Lythe Church, in company with the village police- man, who pointed me out Mulgrave Castle A FINE DAY IN JANUARY. 21 embowered in the woods. He told me how the noble owner, the Marquis of Normanby, was then at Windsor with his school. How that he was so devoted to his boys, that when he was in residence at St. George's Chapel, he gave up his Canon's house to the masters, and himself lived with his pupils. How that he is so devoted to his clerical duties that most Sundays he can be heard preaching in Lythe Church when he is in Yorkshire. It struck me that the Marquis was a fine object lesson to some clerics of my acquaintance, who, on coming in for a bit of money, have given up their livings and donned lay attire, as though it was beneath their dignity to exercise their clerical calling. A man who might live at ease and prefers incessant work is a splendid sermon on the virtue of Industry. I looked down on Kettleness, which has wonderfully revived since the day when the entire hamlet fell into the sea in 1829, owing to a landslip. I met with a farm labourer, with a shepherd, and with a railway 22 A FINE DAY IN JANUARY. clerk, but not a single tramp did I meet on the road. The clerk informed me that there were very few tramps in those parts now, which he ascribed to the action of the chief constable. I told the clerk there need be no more tramps in England than abroad, where I never met but one, and he was an Englishman. The last country to clear itself of tramps was Portugal, which formerly was infested with them. When the Marquis of Pombal was Premier he gave every tramp the choice of work or five years on the coast of Africa, that is the local name for penal servitude. It seemed at the time a drastic measure, but far better are the whips of forced labour, than the scorpions of hunger, filth, and idleness. Such a law in England would clear our roads of tramps instantly, without inflicting hardships on any one. I passed through the largish village of Hinderwell, which owes its prosperity to Palmer's Iron Works in the neighbourhood, and where evidently the sight of a pedestrian was unusual. It was a little after twelve, and A FINE DAY IN JANUARY. 23 the children were leaving school. At the sight of me they either composed or struck up a song : " He's got his pack Upon his back And so he goes to Jericho." I soon after found a footpath which cut off a mile, and at the foot of Boulby Bank I thought I had found another, but fortunately kept the highway, for I discovered that the path only led down to a stream, too wide to jump, and not provided with a bridge. I toiled up the bank, said to be the steepest road in the North Riding, and fell in with a carter. I consulted him as to whether the nearest road to Saltburn was by Skinningrove which lay up the hill, or by Easington which lay round it. He told me that nobody ever went up Boulby Bank who could help it, and advised me to stick to the telegraph posts. I had been a long time in climbing the Bank, and it was half-past one when I stood at the door of the tiny public-house in Easington and enquired if I could have 24 A FINE DAY IN JANUARY. any luncheon. "Certainly." Cold ribs of beef, apple tart, bread, butter, and cheese, were produced as though travellers wanting luncheon were an every day occurrence. "How much to pay, please?" "One shil- ling ! " I was not such a fool as to spoil the place for those coming after me by paying more than was asked, but made a note in my pocket book, that this broke the record for dinners in my experience. Down the Cleveland Hills I strode, and passed the spot where an uncle of mine formed one of the shooting party which led to the development of the district. A rabbit when wounded crept into a hole and the shooter with his ramrod tried to get it out. He failed, but broke off a piece of stone, subsequently found to be iron-stone, which has made so many fortunes since. That rabbit ought to be as historic as the cow of Kongsburg, in Norway, who turned up with its horns the first piece of silver ever seen in that country. Loftus with its brand new Church, and A FINE DAY IN JANUARY. 25 Brotton with its teeming population of miners have little charm for me, so I was glad to strike the field path leading to Saltburn, where I sat down to my afternoon tea about 4-30. As the tide was up I was not able to go the shortest and pleasantest way to Redcar, that is by the sands, so I kept to the high road and reached Redcar soon after six, having accomplished my twenty-six miles in eight hours, and having been in the pure open air nearly the whole of that fine day in January. There are many men who are like myself and lead busy lives and can only occasionally get a day off. Of all the recreations a man may have I know of none he can so readily and safely enjoy as walking. A wealthy friend of mine gave up keeping his carriage because he found he could never have his horses when he wanted them. That is a drawback. Then the weather may put an effectual veto on the cyclist, on the fisherman, boating man, and others. The enthusiastic cricketer can only play in the season, and 26 A FINE DAY IN JANUARY. every game except golf depends on your finding someone to play with, and may not be available when you are. But the walker, unless the day be drenching, can always enjoy himself; but then how few drenching days there are. Let this instance show. I walked to Monte Carlo in the months of April and May, and out of the sixty-one days which compose the two months, rain fell on twenty-nine of them. Yet though I walked every day but Sundays, I never took wet clothes into my hotel. That means that although rain fell and wetted my clothes, it always faired up, and there was enough sun and wind to dry them. A fine day in the summer anybody can enjoy, but perhaps few except a walker can so readily take advantage of and enjoy a fine day in January. OUT IN THE DARK. THE description of the country which best hits off the situation is that which describes it as the region beyond the gas lamps. No denizen of a town really knows what it is to be in the dark, except occasionally, when something goes wrong with-jthe gas works. It is about the darkness of the country that I am going to write. A variety of circumstances have compelled me to be out late at night on the country roads, especially at that season of the year when nearly four evenings out of the seven 'are taken up with attending Harvest Festivals. These entail walks of from four to twelve miles, generally begun after ten o'clock, so, when it is not moonlight, it must be obvious that I am very often out in the dark. Many expressions of sympathy and kindly anxiety are heard as I rise from the supper- 28 OUT IN THE DARK. table and plunge into the darkness, and sometimes I hear a lady remark that she "would not do it for a thousand pounds." Even men who, earlier in the evening, had expressed their intention of "setting me" part of the way, draw back as they peer into the gloom, and plead something about a cold coming on. I easily let them off, for I am well accustomed to be alone on the roads. If they did come with me I dare wager no harm^would happen to them, for, with the rarest exceptions, I never meet a soul upon the roads. If I know my road, I walk on without difficulty, but if it is a strange one, it may be asked how do I know which turn to take when two roads diverge. Well, I have been in strange plights over such points. I have stood and shouted for help on the top of our Yorkshire Wolds, but no help came, and I had to be guided by my sense of topography. I might have been seen climbing a finger post with a lighted match in my hand, in an endeavour to find out the right direction. One night, OUT IN THE DARK. 2Q when I lost my way, I followed a light over ditch and hedge till I reached the cottage of an old woman, afflicted with asthma, who was obliged to keep a steam kettle going all night, and hence the light in the window. She had to get out of bed and come down stairs (very bad for her asthma, I fear), and tell me which turn to take. One night I played a game of hide and seek with a farmer, at whose side door I had rung a bell. He went out at the front door and peered about for me, while I was chafing round the corner. But never once have I ever met a creature on the road who could tell me where to go when I was in doubt. Dr. Livingstone once wrote on the subject of lions that, in the ordinary way, many a lion would be more frightened at a man, and more anxious to get out" of his way than a man at a lion. I incline to think that this must account for my freedom from any of those terrors of the night in the shape of robbers. Once a wayside donkey put its cold nose on my hand as I fastened 30 OUT IN THE DARK. a gate, making me jump a bit. Another time a voice, which seemed to come from nowhere, asked me the time, and I then dimly descried the shape of a gipsy caravan on the waste by the roadside, and another time a party of coast-guards suddenly flashed their lights upon me, and sprang forward, thinking I was the smuggler they were in wait for. A hearty laugh we had when we looked into each other's faces, and nicely they were chaffed when the affair got wind and they were asked what sort of booty they got when they arrested the parson. These are the only frights I can remember in an experience of the dark extending over twenty years. When it comes to the other side, that is, the lions who have fled from the man, I naturally am not able to give much informa- tion, as we are all reticent of having been alarmed. Certainly my footsteps once averted a robbery, and may have put other miscreants to flight. Seven tramps had watched a collector of jnsurance round a village, and OUT IN THE DARK. 31 followed him to a lonely part of the road, where one casually enquired if he had any copper about him. On his admitting the soft impeachment, the tramp replied, "Then we mun have it," while his comrades surrounded the collector. It was quite dark, so that it was not possible to see the foe and face it. What might have happened next I cannot tell, but at that moment my rapid step was heard descending the hill, and with a cry "A blooming copper," they turned and fled. Many is the unlighted cyclist who has dismounted at my approach thinking I was a policeman; but then any- one can frighten a cyclist and such small fry. One winter's evening as it was dusking I approached Beverley, and on before me I saw a lady walking leisurely. She looked round and saw me striding along and quickened her pace. No lady, however fast she may walk, has a chance against me, and as I gained upon her and neared her, she fairly took to her heels and fled. There was a farmhouse on the road and she ran 32 OUT IN THK DARK. inside the gate while I passed on. I naturally supposed she ran on finding herself late for tea or some other engagement; but next day at luncheon, my host told me I had nearly frightened a lady out of her wits. She was a nervous lady and ordered to walk a great deal for her health, and always carried a penny in her pocket to pay blackmail to any tramp who threatened to molest her, and, added my host, "you were very nearly getting that penny." How many more ladies I have alarmed I cannot say, but I have a vivid recollection of a lady and her daughters (to whom I was subsequently introduced) who turned and fled from me in broad day- light, as I was walking so fast they made sure I was escaping from justice. If such alarm could be felt in the daytime, what w r as likely to happen in the dark? " Promise you won't walk in the dark," said one whose lightest word was law to me as I started on a Continental walk. With every wish to obey, circumstances were some- times too strong for me and I found myself OUT IN THE DARK. 33 still on the roads after dark. This happened once in the Black Forest and it was nearly eight o'clock as I reached a town. As I was entering I met a young lady walking out with all her purchases in her hands, and who must have had four miles to walk in the dark before she reached a human habitation. But then in Germany there are no tramps, a paternal government being far too wise to allow them, and stamps them out as they would a pestiferous insect. As to belief in ghosts and such affrighting fancies which still exist among many English people in spite of School Boards; the Roman Catholics of the Continent are too well instructed, and not only know there are no such things, but that it is absolutely wicked to believe in them. To this I attribute the fact that foreign women and girls are much less nervous in the dark than we are. I conclude with the most serious alarm I have experienced, and which, so far from being momentary, lasted for quite a quarter of an hour. It was a very dark night when 34 OUT IN THE DARK. I heard someone running after me. For a while they walked and then again ran. This was repeated several times, and I seriously wondered if it was some footpad waiting for me to reach the most lonely part of the road and then attack me from behind. I thought the best thing to do was to quicken my pace that at least I would leave him as little breath as possible. The running behind me was now continuous, and at last a girl's voice called out, "Oh! please sir, don't go so fast, I can't keep up with you." It seems that a farmer knew I should pass his gate at a certain time and had told a girl who was going my way that she had better wait and follow me for the sake of company and pro- tection. She found that following me was easier said than done. THE TENTH DAY. A FASHIONABLE lady, on being asked how she managed to bear up under the fatigues of the London season, said she made a practice of remaining in bed every tenth day, and not even a royal command was allowed to disturb her. Extremes meet, and our story will introduce us to a poor woman who kept her bed on every tenth day for a very different reason. About few vocations is so little known and so many mistakes made as that of a lodging-house keeper at a watering-place. Those who come to the seaside, and have reason to remember the high charges made for the hire of rooms during the short season, might suppose that she piled up the money. She has a name for sampling all her lodgers' provisions, and it is gene- rally supposed that her cat forages for the 35 36 THE TENTH DAY. advantage of the mistress. As in most other trades, there is money in the business for the lucky few, but, for the majority, there is a bare living. Here is the history of nine out of ten landladies. A man dies, leaving his wife and children unprovided for. There is no business to carry on, and no relatives come forward to give a home to the widow and orphans. A few pounds remain over after clearing up, and these are held sufficient to start them in a lodging house at the seaside. Our Yorkshire seaside places have a season lasting little over six weeks. In that time has to be made sufficient to pay rent and taxes, and support the landlady for the rest of the year. Of course, some lucky ones can let for a longer period, but Mrs. Smithson (whom our story deals with) was not one of the lucky ones, and when her rent money was put aside at the end of September, and there was no prospect of letting again, she found she would have to exercise the most rigid economy if she was to keep body and soul together during the winter. THE TENTH DAY. 37 The house she lived in was a large one, rented at ^"50 a year, and this, in a way, was a disadvantage, apart from the money. Had Mrs. Smithson lived in a smaller house, proportioned to her means, she would have been the recipient of various little parish charities, in money and kind. A district visitor might have called and either assisted her, or made her case known to some wealthy person who would have done so. But how could Vicar or visitor have taken pounds of tea or half-crowns to a person living in a ^50 house approached by a flight of hand- some steps. No one would have had the courage. When Mrs. Smithson had put aside in separate packets her rent and taxes, the sum available for living through the winter was so small that she looked about for some extra economies. As a rule, during the winter she got up late, and went to bed early, not only for the purpose of saving fire and light, but also because bed does not produce appetite, and a good appetite she had no 38 THE TENTH DAY* means of appeasing. This winter she thought that if one day in ten was spent entirely in bed, she would save the expense of food on that day altogether. She told her plan to her next door neighbour, so that she might not be alarmed if she did not hear her about, and in the unlikely event of a ring at the bell, she might go to the door. Mrs. Smithson lived in the house all by herself in the winter, the servant being dismissed when the visitors left. If ever a relation came to stay, some contribution towards the house-keeping had to be made, otherwise Mrs. Smithson could not afford to keep her. Not even a cat could be kept, for there were no scraps in the house, and the cat's company was too dear at the price of its milk. Words can scarcely exaggerate the awful solitude of that large house between season and season. It was in the depth of winter, and the eve of the tenth day, and Mrs. Smithson was to spend the morrow in bed. Women, as poor as she was, are not much given to THE TENTH DAY. 39 fancies. Poor thing, she could not afford to have likes or dislikes ; that is the privilege of those who can pay for such things. But there was one aversion she could not con- quer, poor as she was, and that was to a mouse. Once, when a mouse got into the Church, after the corn at the Harvest decora- tions, she had told the clergyman that, if the mouse came near her, she should be obliged to jump upon a seat and scream, even if it was in the midst of the sermon. If that would happen in a place where most people learn to control their feelings, what was likely to be the case at home? As it hap- pened she was descending the stairs with her arms full of blankets, and when she was at the top of the longest flight of stairs, a mouse ran across her path. She shrieked, and, in her agitation, missed her footing, and fell to the bottom, breaking her thigh in the fall. Soldiers who have been wounded, tell us i with how little pain a serious wound is received. Zola relates that a man, whose 40 THE TENTH DAY. leg was shattered by a bullet, thought at first he had merely twisted it in one of the vines lying on the ground. The poor land- lady at first did not realise the extent of her injury, and it was not till she attempted to get up that she found she could not rise, nay, she could not move. Her only hope was that her neighbour, not hearing her about as usual in the morning, would come and see what was the matter, when it dawned upon her affrighted mind that it was the tenth day ! We pity poor Lazarus, silent and alone in his agony, but, at least, he had the dogs about him, but this poor woman was silent and alone, without a creature. All the night, all the next day, and all the next night she lay there and there she was found. The next day something very unusual occurred, for the postman had a letter for Mrs. Smithson. It is true it was only an advertisement of some quack medicine, but still the postman was bound to deliver it, and, as his knocking and ringing failed to THE TENTH DAY. 41 elicit any reponse, he took the circular to the next door neighbour, with an intimation she had better see if anything was amiss. Thus advised, the house was entered, the poor creature was found, nearly past the need of medicine, quack or otherwise. Of course an inquest was held, when the neighbour gave the story of the tenth day as the reason why she had made no inquiries when not hearing anyone about. The doctor gave his evidence, and the coroner and jury were amazed to hear that the cheese had to be so closely pared in so pretentious a house, but the coroner told the jury that, so long as an Englishman's house was his castle, he saw no means of preventing a recurrence of such accidents when elderly people lived alone. For any number of years the seaside land- lady has been a stock subject of ridicule in the comic journals. It is obvious that this is the side which most appeals to the public. We may infer then that few know of her poverty, and fewer still of her virtues. As 42 THE TENTH DAY. a rule, the visitor looks upon her landlady as her natural enemy, whose grasping pro- pensities must be combated at every turn. If the visitor only knew how poor her harvest is, she might be allowed to reap it with a less grudging spirit. A YORKSHIRE CLOCK-MAKER. WHEN the clock of the old Church at Filey went wrong, an examination had to be made of its works. This led to the discovery of a brass plate bearing the following inscription : T< The Society for the Promotion of Arts awarded to the maker of this clock their large silver medal and ten pounds for this improved detached escapement. Made by James Harrison, of Hull." Harrison ! Harrison ! In what familiar lines does that name occur as suggestive of good clock-making ? In Byron's " Don Juan " to be sure, and in the xvii. stanza of the first canto. Here are the lines, which extol the virtues of Donna Inez, the mother of Don Juan : " Oh she was perfect, past all parallel Of any modern female Saint's comparison, So far above the cunning 1 powers of Hell Her guardian angel had given up his garrison. Even her minutest motions went as well As those of the best time-piece made by Harrison. In virtue nothing earthly could surpass her, Save thine incomparable oil, Macassar." 43 44 A YORKSHIRE CLOCK-MAKER. We may well ask who was Harrison, and was it likely Byron would have heard of him ? The first canto of " Don Juan " was written in 1818, and it has been noticed that all the allusions to persons and things were to those moving on the world's stage at the time. Thus, a note at the end of the poem tells us the French papers contained advertisements setting forth " des vertus incomparables de 1'huile de Macassar." The poet alludes to Wordsworth's place in the Excise, which he obtained in 1813. There is a quotation from Gertrude of Wyoming published in 1809, and though there is a refer- ence to a former assault on Algiers by General Count O'Reilly in 1775, yet this was doubtless brought to the poet's mind by Lord Exmouth's bdmbardment in 1816. Was Harrison spec- ially known as a clockmaker about this time ? The name of Harrison has been associated with clock-making about as long and .as intimately as that of Wedgwood with pottery. John Harrison was a Yorkshireman, born at Foulby near Pontefract in 1696. There is still to be seen in South Kensington Museum a A YORKSHIRE CLOCK-MAKER. 45 clock made by him in 1715, of which all the wheels are of wood except the escapement wheel. In 1735 he removed to London, and in that year received a reward of 20,000 from the Government for his chronometer, which enabled ships to determine their longitude. Subse- quently he published a book entitled the " Principles of Mr. Harrison's Timekeeper." He died in 1776, and his sons kept up the business, and one of them, James, settled in Hull, and was the maker of the Filey clock. Before Harrison's time the art of clock- making was in a poor way. It is said that in the sixteenth century there was only one clock in England which kept correct time, and that was at Hampton Court Palace. In the days of Shakespeare most of the clocks were made in Germany, and appear to have been of poor workmanship, for in " Love's Labour Lost " we read " Like a German Clock Still a repairing, ever out of frame, And never going- right." However, if German clocks were bad, it -1 6 A YORKSHIRE CLOCK-MAKER. does not seem that English ones were much better. But considering how much is said in Church about the right use of time, there could not be a more appropriate place for a clock than in a church tower. But if a clock is there it is of the first importance that it should be kept right, for such expressions as " The Church is wrong again," or " The Church is behind time," rather grate upon the ear. Yet most of the stories connected with church clocks have reference to their going wrong. In 1770 there died in London one named John Hatfield. He had been a soldier in the reign of William and Mary, and was condemned to be shot for falling asleep while on duty upon the terrace of Windsor Castle. He absolutely denied the charge against him, and solemnly declared that he heard the great clock of St. Paul's strike thirteen, the truth of which was much doubted by the Court, because of the great distance. But while he was under sentence of death an affidavit was made by several persons that the clock actually did A YORKSHIRE CLOCK-MAKER. 47 strike thirteen instead of twelve on the night in question, whereupon he received His Majesty's pardon. He lived to the great age of a hundred and two years. There is a charming French tale of the hands of the church clock being set half an hour forward by some mischievous urchins. Some people set their watches by it, and some did not. Those who did thought everybody else half an hour late, and in consequence a banker went bankrupt, having waited nearly half an hour for a friend who had promised to come to his relief at a certain time. He did come punctual to the moment, but the banker had put his watch by the forward clock. A rich widow broke off her engagement to marry because her lover, whom she expected to outdo her in impatience, kept her waiting more than twenty minutes. But the widow had set her watch by the church clock. Indeed, there were no end of mishaps on that day, caused by people refusing to believe that the Church could go wrong, and showing how important it is if there is a clock in a church it should be kept right. 48 A YORKSHIRE CLOCK-MAKER. The measurement of time, whether by a water-clock, by sun-dial or by graduated candles, or by sand-glasses was ever considered a task to be entrusted to the priests of the Most High. It is known how that occasionally they turned this sacred trust to their own advantage. In ancient Rome if the Consuls were kind to the priests, they repaid them by making their year of office to last thirteen months. If they were against the priest their year was strictly limited to twelve. This it was that threw the year so out of time with the sun in Julius Caesar's day. It was quite in the fitness of things that the idea of a pendulum should have occurred to Galileo in Church, for it was a lamp left swing- ing in Pisa Cathedral which first suggested it to him. Again, the idea of a striking clock originated in the necessity of waking the monks for their midnight and early morning devotions. So for a long time all the chief clocks were found in churches, and it is only within the last half-century that the clock at the Horse Guards, and Big Ben on the Houses of A YORKSHIRE CLOCK-MAKER. 49 Parliament have taken the foremost places as timekeepers. James Harrison was the maker of the clock on Filey Church, and his father John was the maker of the clock on St. Sepulchre's tower near Newgate. Being the nearest church to the prison, its clock served to give the time to the hangman when there was an execution at the Old Bailey, and many a poor wretch's last moments must it have regulated. Ingoldsby mentions it in one of his legends " When lo ! the hour comes bigf with fate, The clock of St. Sepulchre's Church strikes eight." Harrison was also the maker of the clock at Newstead Abbey, Byron's seat before it was sold to Colonel Webbe, whose name, strange to say, may be seen carved on the school desk at Harrow, next to that of Byron. Certainly it was a pretty compliment to compare a virtuous lady to a good timepiece. What a number of points of likeness there are between them, of which regularity of conduct is the most obvious. " Punctual as the clock " is one of those virtues which do more for the 50 A YORKSHIRE CLOCK-MAKER. comfort of a household than other greater ones. Then, as a clock's face is an index of what is within, so it is a great virtue in a lady to speak her mind and not to say one thing when she means another. Indeed, there is no end to the sermons which a good clock preaches from its place in the church tower. There is, however, one which stands out pre-eminent, and that is when the minutest motions of a timepiece go well the timepiece may be depended on. What a virtue in a woman, that she can be absolutely depended on ! It was of men the poet wrote " Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever ; One foot on sea, and one on shore, To one thing- constant never." It is of the utmost importance that, like the church clock, the women should be dependable, otherwise those who set their time from them will have but a poor chance. I once came down from London with a well-dressed woman and her child, and when tickets were demanded at King's Cross, she told the collector the child A YORKSHIRE CLOCK-MAKER. 51 was under three, and so entitled to travel free. The collector gave a smile of incredulity, but went away. No sooner had he gone than the child said to its mother, " Oh, mother, you know I am over five ! " What chance has that child of growing up to speak the truth and shame the devil ? A FORTUNATE MIS-FORTUNE. IN a churchyard on our Yorkshire coast, so near the sea that the headstones are affected by the briny breezes, was laid to rest lately an old parish clerk. Had he been given to boast- ing he could have claimed that the office had been in his family for two centuries, descending from father to son in tail male, just like a peerage. He answered to the mediaeval description of a clerk, and was of "very sad, virtuous, and honest behaviour." His great regret was that he left no son behind him, and that "another would take his office," as a verse in the Psalms says, a verse which in bygone days he used to read as a duet with the parson. An office which descended in the same family for so many years suggests both importance and emolument. In these days many parishioners may worship regularly in A FORTUNATE MIS-FORTUNE. 53 church and be ignorant who is the parish clerk, while in some places, and large ones, too, they do perfectly well without one. Formerly the parish clerk was as much in evidence as the parson, and he had his own desk, and answered as loudly as the parson read. He gave out the verses to be sung, and raised the tune. No wonder such an official had his fee like the parson, too. Those fees were fairly large before the Act of Victoria for licensing certain chapels for the solemnisa- tion of marriages, and before weddings at a Registry Office were known. Occasionally he would pull off "a plum " in the case of a clandestine marriage, when an infatuated bridegroom would not be particular to a coin or two, and three spade guineas have been paid to the clerk for keeping the door locked till all was over. Besides that, all baptisms practically took place in church, and there' was a fee for clerk as well as parson, both of which have been swept into the limbo of forgotten things in these enlightened days. But in parishes (like the one where our clerk 54 A FORTUNATE MIS-FORTUNE. served), which possess ancient or interesting churches, his chief emolument came from the care of the key of the church. An open church was as unknown as the telephone, and every visitor had to go to the clerk for the key, and reward the custodian on return- ing the same. So jealously was this right of the key guarded by the clerk that not even the parson himself could get in without him, and David Garrick relates how when he gave a lesson in elocution to the Vicar of Londes- borough in the East Riding he did so in the presence of the clerk who had brought the key. The church which our clerk had charge of was an interesting one. It was a splendid specimen of the Transition period. It pos- sessed that unexplained mystery, a depressed chancel. It had a tablet recording how an old squire who married at the ripe age of ninety was blessed with an heir the year following. The tablet was of the greatest interest to elderly gentlemen who were con- templating matrimony. Besides this, there A FORTUNATE MIS-FORTUNE. 55 was an almost unique effigy of a boy-bishop. These marvels, combined with the pro- pinquity of a fashionable watering place, made the church one of frequent resort, and the " key money" proportionately large. How that key money came to an end is the object of this tale to tell. One Saturday about thirty years ago some visitors came on the usual errand for the key, and went over to inspect the church. This done they locked up the sacred edifice, and finding themselves so near the shore "one of the party proposed a sail. The sea was choppy, but an Englishman will more readily confess himself guilty of the meanest fraud than afraid of mal de mer. So they went on the water, intending to return the church key on their way back to the station. The boatman told them that the gurnards were unusually fine that season, and as there is nothing that a townsman likes better than to eat fish of his own catching they agreed to make for a favourable spot and fish. .Now all who have tried it know that it is much E -6 A FORTUNATE MIS-FORTUNE. easier to keep well while the boat is going than when it is rocking at anchor. How well the boatman can tell the signs of the coming sickness the forced look of cheerful- ness, the green colour which overspreads the cheeks of the ruddiest. " Look out, sir," said a boatman to one of the party, who promptly whipped out his handkerchief as he found himself paying tribute to Neptune, and with his handkerchief came out the church key and disappeared over the side in the deep blue sea. We need not dwell on what the party ought to have done, how they should have returned and confessed their loss, and offered to make it good. What they did was to make for the station, and take the next train back whence they came without saying any- thing to anybody. That Saturday evening the clerk missed the key from its accustomed hook, and learnt it had never been brought back. Visitors were so casual with the key that he doubted not it had been left in the lock, and not being S* A FORTUNATE MIS-FORTUNE. 57 of an anxious temperament, he went to bed. Thirty years ago early services were not common in the north, and in this parish were unknown, so it was not till ten o'clock that the clerk walked across to open the church, where he found the bellringers waiting to be let in. Was not the key in the lock? No; then where was it ? There was an off-chance that the Vicar might have been over to the church for something, and taken it with him. At all events they would await his arrival. Meanwhile the early Church-goers arrived, and had to take their seats on the grass of the churchyard or stroll among the graves. Twenty past ten saw quite a number of people coming up the path, and among them the .Vicar. He knew nothing of the key, and as it was close upon the half hour, the time for beginning the service, he ordered a ringer to go for the village blacksmith to break open the door. By this time the whole congregation was assembled round the church porch, and the situation explained to them. 58 A FORTUNATE MIS-FORTUNE. " What do you lock the church for?" asked a visitor. "What for?" replied the Vicar, "why it would never do to leave it open ; everything would be stolen." "What is there to steal?" queried the visitor. "Why the prayer books and surplice, and and all sorts of things," said the Vicar. "Do you know," said the visitor, who seemed a person of importance, " that I have just been staying at Bishopthorpe, and the Archbishop told me he had his portmanteau stolen lately containing some sermons, his prayer book, and a set of episcopal robes, and the facetious thief sent them back to him v with a note saying he returned his worthless booty?" Meantime the man who had been sent for the blacksmith came back to say that unlike his namesake in Longfellow's poem, who " Went on Sunday to the church " A FORTUNATE MIS-FORTUNE. 59 this one had gone off for a day's ferreting^ and had locked up his hammers and other tools. As it was now getting on for eleven, and the church remained as fast closed as the Book of Doom, everybody saw that the Vicar would save a sermon that day, and the worshippers would have to be content with the services of Dr. Greenfields. " I will have two keys made the first thing to-morrow morning," said the Vicar, " I promise you we will never be in such a fix again." "I would not," said the afore-nained visitor, "though I would remedy matters by never giving strangers the chance to lock you out of your church, but, on the other hand, I would never lock the door against them." "Just think of the bad behaviour if the church were left open," said the Vicar. "Why only last week I found some visitors who had got in during cleaning time talking and laughing quite loudly." "What chance have they to learn good behaviour?" was the reply. "Who do they 6o A FORTUNATE MIS-FORTUNE. ever see at prayer within its sacred walls? Perhaps, sir, they never see you except when you're paid for it." The Vicar, who was a good-hearted fellow at bottom, accepted the rebuke, and learnt to bless the day when he met Lord H - (for such was the visitor's name). The church is now always open, daily morning and evening prayers are said, and there are some who think that the large congregations who gather there on Sunday are partly owing to the fact that people can find their way into the church any day of the week. A CORONATION BABY. "WHAT is the child's name to be?" This is a question I always ask before baptising a child. It is not set down in the service, but it is necessary unless the child is to be referred to as "it" instead of "him" or "her" all the way through. It is also necessary because some people speak so indistinctly that it is not always possible to catch the name at first, and in my early clerical days I christened a child "Carlisle," and spoke of it as a boy, while it was a girl, and the mother intended it to be called Caroline ; but the poor in Yorkshire usually make the first syllable of that word long instead of short. So for these and other reasons I always inquire beforehand, what is the child's name to be ? " Rona," was the reply. " I beg your pardon, but I never heard the name before. How do you spell it?" 62 A CORONATION BABY. "Rona, R-O-N-A," said the father. "Is it a boy or a girl?" I inquired. "A boy!" I hesitated a minute. Latin names ending in a are mostly feminine, but some names are common to both sexes, like Evelyn. Then, moreover, where did the name come from? Was it out of the Bible? Sometimes parents are better up than the clergy in biblical names, and I had heard of a brother clergyman being put to confusion before his congregation in a dispute over a name being masculine or feminine. The name given was Noah, and the officiating minister proceeded to say that there was "one thing by nature he could not have," when his surplice was twisted and an audible whisper was heard " It's a girl, sir." The minister took no notice and went on, but when he came to pray that "he might be washed," &c., the voice again intervened to the effect that it was a girl. "But you told me the name was Noah," said the minister, forgetful of the Act against A CORONATION BABY. 63 brawling, which limits his utterances to the Prayer Book. "Well, Noah is a girl's name," said the parent. "Noah was a man." "There is a woman in the Bible called Noah too," said" the father. By this time the party had risen from their knees, and the congregation was listening, not knowing what to make of the dispute. "Show me where a woman is called Noah," said the minister. "Give me a Bible," was the natural request. The Bible was brought, and the father turning rapidly to Numbers xxvi. 33, read out, "The names of the daughters of Zelo- phehad were Mahlah and Noah." The discomfited minister had nothing to do but to swallow the rebuff, and proceed with the service. I had no desire to be entangled in an argument when I was not sure of my ground, so I proceeded, and christened the boy Rona. 64 A CORONATION BABY. The neighbourhood where I lived had been singularly impressible on the subject of names. After the great revival, it had broken out into Aarons, Ebenezers, and the like. Indeed, one family of eight children had found names for all out of Sacred Writ, of which the wits of the place had made the following jingle : Cyrus and Sam, Nathan and Dan, Ruth and Naomi, and Rachel and Ann. Soon after I came to the place there was a contested election, when a Leeds gentleman was the defeated Liberal candidate. A stal- wart supporter, however, determined that the name should not perish if he could help it, and having a baby to baptise, announced the name as "John Jeremiah Cousins." I nearly dropped the baby with astonish- ment (I was young then), and mistaking my action for a political manifestation of disapproval, he added "Ay, and every one of them, too." During the late war, we had our Redvers A CORONATION BABY. 65 and Rhodesia, and our Jubilee baby was duly christened Victor, so it was only likely that every great event would leave its im- pression on the nomenclature of the place. Of course the name Rona was much talked about, and speculation was rife as to where it came from. Some thought it was the name of a heroine in Marie Corelli's novel, others that, the baby's hair being red, there was an attempt to make the word roan more euphonious, and hence Rona. However, all speculation was put an end to by an interview with the father, who told me the name was derived from the second and third syllables of the word Coronation, and in this way he hoped to impress upon his boy the fact that he was born in the Coronation year. The Registrar-General in tabulating those names out of the ordinary puts the greater number down to some aspiration on the part of the parent, and next to some circumstance of the child's birth. Of the first class we may speak in commendation of such as 66 A CORONATION BABY. aspire after virtue, like "Grace," "Hope," "Peace," &c., leaving such vulgarities as Fitzroy and Beauclerk(when given to common- place children) to be their own condemnation. It is in the second class that the Registrar will put our Coronation baby, if he have the wit to guess its derivation, that is, among those names which are drawn from some cir- cumstance of birth. We may remember to* what a considerable extent the world is thus named : Natal from being discovered on Christmas Day, Tasmania from its discoverer, Tasman, and Rhodesia from the enterprising man who promoted the colony. A noted Welsh preacher bore the name of Christmas Evans, and one' of the most famous artists of the day derives his Christian name from having been born on the day of the battle of Alma. The circumstance which gives the name of Septimus to a boy, and Octavia to a girl, is obvious to everybody. The utility of giving such a name as will fix the date of a person's birth can be known only to those who are aware of the ignorance A CORONATION BABY. 67 of many people as to their ages. If I have known one I have known twenty cases where the insurance money has been liable to for- feiture owing to a mis-statement of age at the time of insuring. As the poor have no fancies about wishing to be thought younger than they are, I am sure such mis-statement was due to ignorance. I have known a man come over from America to claim an annuity to which he was entitled on attaining the age of sixty, but the register showed that he was two years short of that, and he had to live as best he could for that time, as he had left his situation in America for good. I have known a woman, for whom I was trying to get a pension, say, when it came to the question of her age, all she knew was she was two years younger than " our Sal," but as "our Sal" was dead and gone long before, all I could do was to put down that the applicant appeared to be about seventy years of age. Now, if these had such a date as the Coronation year to go by, or Waterloo 68 A CORONATION BABY. year, the vexed question would have been settled at once. Many people will be inclined to think " Coronation " rather a mouthful ; and so far I have not yet seen an abbreviation of the word more euphonious than Rona. Whether it is adapted to boys equally with girls must be left to individual taste. HOLIDAYS ON THE CHEAP. "As we expect to spend all our money over the Coronation, we shall have to take a very cheap holiday this year, and so ' The above formula might have been put in print in the year 1902, so often was it repeated in my correspondence, each writer ringing the changes according to his trade or profession. As might be expected, first come the clergy. These really had serious calls to pro- vide for the festivities in their own villages. It is no wonder they wanted a holiday as cheap as they could get it that year, and if they could get duty at the seaside, it would be such a help. Two guineas a Sunday is the usual fee paid, but that sum won't go far if there is a family, and the cheapest rooms in August are three guineas and extras. Now there are as great diversities among 9 70 HOLIDAYS ON THE CHEAP. the clergy as in most other trades. It was thought, when a Punch and Judy man rallied the great Kemble on not contributing to his show, as ''those in the same line ought to support one another," that the theatrical profession contained the greatest extremes ; but the clerical runs it close. Spurgeon once chided a deacon for paying his minister only fifty pounds a year. "I tell you what, sir," was the reply, "we pay him a deal more than he earns." Yet, while some preachers are dear at fifty, others are worth any money. A Bridlington vicar is said to have paid the Rev. E. A. Stuart five guineas a sermon, and made largely on the transaction. As the poet tells us, there are "mute inglorious Miltons," so there may be unknown preachers who could attract crowds if only they got the chance. At all events, there are those who think themselves so, for one wrote and said if I would board him, his wife, five children, with nurse and governess (equivalent to ten guineas a week), he would preach two HOLIDAYS ON THE CHEAP. 71 sermons on Sunday ! Another, a bachelor clergyman, wrote to say he had an affection of the throat, which prevented his preaching longer than ten minutes, and he thought a month at the seaside would* cure him would I take him in? I could not refrain from writing to say that I had known a curate visited with a similar affliction, and, on its becoming known, he had two livings offered him in a week. So the sufferer had better remain uncured. Next to the clergy, the most numerous people who write on the subject of cheap holidays are the musicians. It speaks well for the musical culture of the country, whatever it may promise for the ears and pockets of seaside visitors, that there is no lack of artists ready to entertain them. The father of a musical family writes to me that every one of his sons and daughters can play a musical instrument, and are anxious to give chamber concerts. The wife conducts. The father does not mention his instrument, so I imagine he takes the money. F 72 HOLIDAYS ON THE CHEAP. To enlist my sympathy for he learns that I am a man of business as well as a parson he will give the proceeds (of course, deducting expenses), to any parochial fund I may name. As I shrewdly suspect the expenses will in- clude the cost of the family for a whole month at the seaside, I suggest there are other parishes more in need of help than mine. The "mysterious musicians" seem played out, but I have an offer that a lady unknown (the suggestion is that it is some popular celebrity), will sing in a cab opposite the hotels and principal boarding houses for two guineas a night. Can I find a business manager to collect the money, any balance to go to the local life-boat? Many others are more modest in their requests, and only wish to know if I think there is an opening for them. To these I relate a sad story of a public entertainer, who came one year in the very height of the season, engaged the largest hall, duly advertised his performance, but not a soul turned up. The fact is that the last thing HOLIDAYS ON THE CHEAP. 73 visitors to the seaside desire is to be in- doors. They have enough of that at home, and, unless people are prepared to entertain in the open air, like the Pierrots, they have a poor chance of receiving a penny. There is another class of seekers for a holiday on the cheap, for whom I have the greatest sympathy. These are teachers, who hope to maintain themselves by the seaside by giving lessons.. As might be surmised, French is the principal stock-in-trade. "Could I get them lessons?" "Do I think there is an opening for lessons?" then, if they can put forward the slightest pretext for knowing me, "Would I be one of their references?" As a general rule, what little tuition there is required is secured by local teachers ; but since headmasters have given up the holiday task that little has become less. The wife of a French tutor wrote to me asking if I could secure her the cheapest lodgings in the place, as her husband was ordered to the sea, and their means were most limited. I actually secured them two rooms for ten 74 HOLIDAYS ON THE CHEAP. shillings a week in August, whereupon the wife wrote to ask if they could have one room for five ! A beautiful seaside place, such as I live at, is naturally a happy hunting ground for artists, and some eminent ones have stayed and painted here. Sometimes a number of them come on a sketching tour, but these are well supplied with money, and do not come under the description of this article. I have known an artist come in the hopes of attracting the attention of a rich visitor, and thereby being able to pay his reckoning. But the season passed, and no such visitor appeared, and the artist could not leave because he could not pay. My church- warden told me the man was starving, and it was hopeless to offer money, but he might accept a dinner. I sent over a hot leg of mutton and a bottle of port wine. They came back promptly, with the politest of notes, saying I had been quite mis- informed ; he was in no want. I trust the recording angel looked the other way as HOLIDAYS ON THE CHEAP. 75 he penned that falsehood, as it proved to be by his death from starvation shortly afterwards. It was little use that his pic- tures sold well after his death, but it may be of greater use to warn artists, who hope to exploit the visitors, and thus obtain a holiday on the cheap, that Fortune is as capricious by the seaside as anywhere else. In these days, when every second lady has a mission, it will be supposed that a considerable number wish to air them at the seaside. I have letters from a lady whose mission is to show people that the bread they are eating is undermining the English constitution, and quotes a text from Ezekiel to prove we should eat her undecorticated bread. Will I lend my drawing-room for a meeting, collection to pay expenses that is her expenses. Another says she has a mission to the blind, and inquiry shows that she wants to put all blind people in the way of earning a living by selling tea her tea. Another writes to ask if I know of a Christian family who would receive as 76 HOLIDAYS ON THE CHEAP. a guest a lady who is prepared to hold a mission (object not stated). A letter from a brother clergyman warmly commends the lady missioner, but incidentally lets out she is a lady living apart from her husband. On my suggesting that, in such a case, a mission beginning at home would not be amiss, there comes an angry letter to the effect I am evidently an unconverted man. These are only specimens of the numerous class who want a holiday on the cheap. DISSENTERS WHO DON'T DISSENT. IN the Long Vacation of 18 , Newman's brother-in-law, the Rev. Thomas Mozley, arrived at a certain fishing village on the Yorkshire coast, which we will designate by the single letter X. He was accompanied by one or two Fellows of Oriel College, Oxford, and, from their connection with the college of Newman and Keble, it is not surprising that they were infected with the Tractarian Movement. One effect of that movement was to give the clergy the most exalted view of their calling ; not exalted in the worldly sense, but in the best sense. Everything about the Church was transformed by the poetry of Keble or the sermons of Newman. The pew bottoms became "the floor by knees of sinners worn," the very fires which warmed 77 78 DISSENTERS WHO r>ON T DISSENT. the church were filled with " perfumed embers quivering bright," the tallow candles which afforded the "dim religious light" in many a sacred edifice must have been sur- prised to find themselves and their flame referred to as " holy lamps were blazing," while the Holy Table, which in many a Yorkshire church was used by the Sunday School children whereon to eat the dinners they brought with them, became a " dread altar" before which "angels prostrate fall." The clergy were as much transformed as the church. Many were astounded to find their dirty ragged surplices to be "heaven's garb ; " fox-hunting parsons wondered as they read that they as "priests bore a daily cross," while the bulk of the clergy, who never entered their churches from Sunday to Sunday, must have been surprised to read that "martyrs and saints dawned on their way," as they went to daily service. Mr. Mozley and his friends, their heads filled with such ideals, attended service at the parish church at X. What they may DISSENTERS WHO DON T DISSENT. 79 have been prepared for is not stated, but what they found is recorded in the delightful reminiscences of one of the number. The " dread altar" was a bare table, covered with three dirty towels ; the floor of the church, so far from being worn with the knees, was not even worn by the feet of worshippers, for grass grew between the stones, with which it was paved. The "stoled priest" of the church was a Welshman, very poor and very strange. His habit of life was to go down to the beach and buy as much fish as he could get for a shilling, and when that was done he got some more. He had been crossed in love ; for having aspired to the hand of the daughter of the neighbouring squire, he had been horse-whipped for his impudence. This had unhinged his mind, otherwise it would not have been possible to account for a prank of his, which was to announce that there would be no sermon, and then run out of church, locking the door behind him on such of the congregation as had not had time to escape. 80 DISSENTERS WHO DON'T DISSENT. The Oxonians stood this once, but only once. When next Sunday came they looked about for some more edifying means of spending the sacred day. But if a single service produced this effect, what must thirty years of such ministry have produced on the devoUt and godly people of the parish ? It was useless to talk to them about the Ancient Church, "whose old grey tower told its tale," and about the " One Fold," &c. The arguments from antiquity were all unequal to the contradiction of visible facts. A lady who owned the land in the neighbourhood put up a building. She did not call it after any denomination. It was just a place where men might worship. Then she and kindred spirits looked out a man of piety and learning, who should feed their souls. Of course he could not be a clergyman of the Church of England, as he would not have been allowed to intrude into another man's parish, and so far he was a schismatic. However, so little of schism was there about the meeting-house that one DISSENTERS WHO DON*T DISSENT. 8 1 of their rules forbade services being held at the same time as the church. The preacher proved all that could be desired, and our High Church Oxonians frequented and enjoyed his ministrations all the Long Vacation they spent in X. Years went by, and a member of the congregation died and left a small endow- ment for the preacher of the meeting-house. He, being one of those men who are babes in worldly affairs, was taken all the better care of by his flock ; so that if offers of other pastorates came, he was under no temptation to leave. Being a man of blameless life and singularly winning character, his following increased with time, and he was as happy as he was respected. It is an old joke about the preacher who demurred to being called an independent minister, as he was only the minister of an independent congregation ; but in this case the preacher accepted the title as true alike in word and deed. So things remained for forty years. Passing time, if it brought no change to 82 DISSENTERS WHO DON'T DISSENT. him, brought great changes in the church at X. The fish-fed parson went the way of all flesh, and took his dirty towels with him at all events they disappeared. From being a fishing village, X. became a watering place, frequented by fashionable and culti- vated people. The grass no longer grew on the church floor, and all the accessories of worship were of excellent kind. None greeted the improvement in spiritual affairs with greater pleasure than the congregation who sat under the independent minister when he preached, but who were quite ready to join in the edifying services in the church. They were never called schismatics or other hard names, and never felt, and never were told, that they were doing anything wrong in going to the meeting-house. After forty years' pastorate the independent preacher was gathered to his fathers. There was the chapel and there was the endowment. It was small and not enough for any man to live on unless he could draw a congrega- tion. As we have stated, the chapel was DISSENTERS WHO DON'T DISSENT. 83 not annexed to any religious body, but was vested in local trustees, who were the best judges of the circumstances. They saw that, with the improved state of the church, there was no need for their chapel, and so did not seek for a minister to succeed. The walls of the chapel are very useful on which to train the plum trees of the adjoining garden, but are used for no other purpose. As for the endowment, it is accumulating in the Court, of Chancery. And the congregation ? They went their various ways, but most of them returned to their church. They saw nothing to hinder, nor was there anything. They had never dissented from anything, except that which it is an honour to dissent from sloth, negli- gence, and disregard of duty. Such dissent, the best of Churchmen felt, too, as we have seen. Such considerations might well make our rulers in Church matters pause before they draw a line on one side of which is the Dissenter, and on the other the Churchman. 84 DISSENTERS WHO DON T DISSENT. The Convocations have been trying to settle the elective franchise of the laity, which involves drawing such a line. Shall the line be between the communicants and non-communicants, between the confirmed and unconfirmed, between those who attend and those who do not attend Divine Worship in church ? There are advocates of each. Practical men, however, see that no such line exists in the present state of things. Dissenters go to church, and Churchmen attend Dissenting chapels, without any consciousness of wrong. Nonconformists conform in the matter of baptism, marriage, and burial, and Churchmen return the visit in going to hear Stopford Brooke or other lights of Dissent. Like the man in Molieres play, who had been talking prose all his life without knowing it, there are numbers of life- long Dissenters who would be quite unable to tell you what they dissent from. OFF DUTY. IN days gone by, when knee breeches and bands were the dress of the ordinary parson, a good Bishop met one of his clergy in layman's attire. The Bishop at once re- monstrated with him, but the cleric pleaded he was off duty. "Off duty! When is a clergyman off duty ? " was the comment of the Bishop. If the good Bishop came to life again, and visited the playgrounds of England and Europe, he might frequently repeat his little sermon. One has already referred to the fact that Spurgeon discarded his white tie, because, instead of proclaiming him to be a minister, it more often led his chance acquaintance to take him for an assistant in a linen draper's establishment. Dr. Parker later on followed suit, and discarded clerical attire, and it is well 85 86 OFF DUTY. known that the late Charles Kingsley ordi- narily dressed as a layman. There was an eminent theologian at Oxford who made it a boast that, although he had been in orders fifty years, he had never once been taken for a clergyman. Such examples have led minor men to imitate them. At the beginning of last century all the young men aped Lord Byron, so far as curly wigs and turn-down collars would go, but that was as far as they got. It is one thing to follow Kingsley and Spurgeon in wearing a black tie in- stead of a white one, but that still leaves a tremendous gulf between those great personalities and their imitators. Another reason given for ministers adop- ing lay attire when off duty is that unless they do, they are likely to be pressed for service, and robbed of their much-needed holiday. There may be something to be said for this plea ; but how effectually the clergy protect themselves on this point let the following in- stance tell. Scarborough literally teems with clergy during the month of August, and one OFF DUTY. 87 Sunday a vicar found himself single-handed and with a sore throat. The verger was bidden to take stock of the assembling con- gregation with a view to enlisting help. There was only one clerically attired person present, and he at once courteously acceded to the request. At the end of the service the Vicar inquired the name of his unknown helper, and where he came from. " From X." "I thought I knew all the clergy in X." said the Vicar. "What is your church?" "I have no church," was the reply; "I am the Unitarian minister." One might make a shrewd guess that neither imitation of Kingsley nor desire to escape duty is really at the bottom of the matter ; it is the wish to be able to do just as they like that really animates the clergy when off duty. What they gain by appear- ing in mufti on their holidays would probably be unintelligible to the ordinary mind. What they lose is another matter. A well-known Canon was staying by the seaside, and was taken ill, and duly attended 88 OFF DUTY. by one of the local doctors. No bill was sent in, and the day before he left the Canon called on the doctor to remind him. " I have never in my life taken a penny from a clergyman," said the old doctor, ''and I am not going to begin now." Another clergyman had occasion to need the services of a seaside dentist. He was the leading man in his profession, and his charges were high ; so that on the final visit the patient put a five-pound note in his pocket wherewith to discharge his bill. To his astonishment the dentist said he should feel quite grateful if the patient would accept his services gratuitously. The clergyman demurred, not that he could well afford to pay, but that he felt he could never come again if he needed to. "Ah, that's true," returned the dentist. "Well, then, put a guinea into your church collections for me when you get home. The astonishment of the clergyman was increased when he subsequently learnt that the generous dentist was a strict Baptist. OFF DUTY. 89 The following incident is, of course, ex- ceptional to some extent, but only to an extent ; it might be paralleled by many who bear quite common names. A great-nephew of John Wesley, who, like his famous relative, is in Orders of the Church of England, was staying at an hotel in a certain watering- place, and at the end of a week asked for his bill that he might see how long his funds would last. The waiter came back with the announcement that there was no bill. The visitor took this to mean that no settlement was desired till the end of his stay ; so not till the eve of his departure did he ask again for his account, when the waiter returned with the same enigmatic answer that there was no bill. The reverend gentleman there- upon went to interview the landlady, and was thus addressed : "Sir, I always feel honoured at having a clergyman in my house, and I make it as easy for them as I can. But this is the first time I ever had under my roof one bearing the sainted name of Wesley, and I should 90 OFF DUTY. take shame if I could not entertain him without charge." Nor let it be thought that any class have a monopoly of respect for the cloth. Efforts are being made to induce tourists to visit Ireland, and clerical tourists will discover everywhere consideration is paid to ministers of religion, Catholic and Protestant alike. It is quite usual for the butcher or poulterer, after naming the price, to add, sotto voce, "but you shall have it for (naming some- thing less)." Even lodging-house keepers synonym, in many people's minds, for extortion and excess will generally make a reduction for the clergy, who are likely to be quiet and well-behaved, and able to recommend their rooms to others. So what is lost in one way will be made up in another. But supposing the worst should happen, and the over-worked cleric, by wearing clerical attire, should be "let in" for duty. Sometimes the appeal is irresistible. A recently married clergyman looked out the OFF DUTY. 91. quietest village on our Yorkshire coast for his honeymoon. Of course, he had to engage lodgings ; so his name was known before his arrival, for he dropped neither his " Rev." nor his white tie. He was immediately waited on by the Vicar, who told him that he had not had the chance of a holiday for seventeen years, that, hear- ing a clergyman was coming into his village he had ventured to make arrangements, and now it depended on his good nature whether he could go or not. This was hard luck, and on one's honeymoon, too ; but the newly-arrived saw no way out of it, and consented. Well, the heavens did not fall in consequence, nor did the good-natured clergyman. Nay, he rose rather. There are many great people who prefer out of the way places, and one of these came there, heard the young preacher, found him an agreeable companion, and he now wears the broad scarf which shows he is a great man's chaplain. There is a famous Nonconformist preacher 92 OFF DUTY. now in London, who got his chance in a similar way. Pressed on a Sunday morning to take the place of the regular pastor, who had been suddenly seized with illness, all he could do was to take one of Spurgeon's sermons and read that. Judge of his con- sternation at seeing Mr. Spurgeon himself sitting under him ; but there was no help for it, read he must. Mr. Spurgeon was noticed to be visibly affected, and afterwards told the young preacher he had never known he had written so good a sermon till he heard it so splendidly read. Spurgeon's influence took that man to London, where he is now in the front rank. Such instances might be multiplied to any extent, showing how wise are those ministers of religion who remember the old Bishop's words about being off duty. AN AUGUST VISITOR. IN due course Mr. Simpkins arrived at the seaside, and he had taken dining-rooms on the Esplanade as business had not been specially good in his line. The drawing- rooms were fifteen guineas a week, and the dining-rooms only eight, so there was a substantial saving. The family of Mr. Simp- kins was large, and the omnibus which conveyed their luggage from the railway station positively darkened the sitting-rooms on the route, so high was the pile of port- manteaus, hat boxes, cycles, &c. The street porters had a heavy task in getting the luggage to the very top of the house, for the lower bedrooms went with the drawing- room "let," and the upper with the dining- rooms. Everything comes to an end at last, even the stairs of a house on the Esplanade. At the seaside one great drawback is that 93 94 AN AUGUST VISITOR. everyone comes with a rush. The visitors who, if spread over four or five months, could be comfortably disposed of must needs all come together in the first weeks of August. Not only so, but with twelve hours of the day to choose from nearly everybody agrees upon arriving about six o'clock. This brings them in time for late dinners, or high tea, according to the section of society they belong to. The upper middle class may be divided into those who dine late, and those who have "something to their tea." Mr. Simpkins belonged to the section which dines late. " I wonder who we have upstairs," said Mr. Simpkins, for he had caught a glance of a young man in the drawing-room, and parental hope and fear alternated as he glanced at his comely daughters. "A Russian princess was after the rooms the day I came over to see about ours," said Mrs. S. ; "indeed, I understood she had taken them." " One need be a Russian princess to pay AN AUGUST VISITOR. 95 such prices as they now ask," returned her husband. "She must have a son if I mis- take not, for I saw a likely looking young fellow in the drawing-room as I passed." "And a daughter," added a member of the family. " I met a very distinguished looking girl on the stairs. I did not know anything about the Princess at the time, but felt sure she had blue blood in her." "Yes, you can generally tell," said the mother, " I think I must have met the Princess herself coming down, for she at once stood aside and let me pass. One of your parvenus would have stuck to the balusters." "Then it must have been the Prince that I saw coming out of the best bedroom," added one of the sons, "though I must say if I had not seen him in such a swell house I should have said he was a regular Geordie." So they talked and all hoped the august party upstairs would be neighbourly. Princes and people of title are not common in the 96 AN AUGUST VISITOR. busy West Riding towns, in one of which the Simpkins lived. They were in coal, and such a line does not take one among people who rub shoulders with royalty, and write to noblemen familiarly "My dear Zetland," " My dear Wenlock," &c. So no one will think any the worse of them if it is stated the Simpkins cherished a hope they might get to know the Princess and her people, and if the dreams of the young ladies that night were not wholly unconnected with titles, coronets, -and high society. If the dreams of the party were sweet, something might be laid to the beautiful music which the young man (the son of the Princess) discoursed during the evening. The windows were open, and his piano playing was so extraordinary that quite a crowd stopped to listen. A troupe of pierrots were performing near by, and they found themselves deserted by the superior attractions of the music which could be heard gratis. Neighbouring visitors were out on the bal- conies, and after a brilliant fantasia, the AN AUGUST VISITOR. 97 listeners applauded. Whereupon the young man shut the piano down and went to bed. On their way upstairs the two Miss Simp- kins spoke of the performer and his skilful fingers. They remarked how often the finger is the index of breeding. The Chinese dis- tinguish their blood by the length of their finger-nails, and in America a doubtful cross- breed may be called -on to show his nails to prove his right to be in white company. When a claimant to aristocracy gets into trouble the London magistrate tells the gaoler to look at his hands as the most rough-and- ready tell-tale. One . of our young ladies confided to the other that she had heard that the Russian nobility were distinguished by their long white fingers, and added sen- tentiously that upstarts might vie in wealth with the nobility, but Nature showed by unmistakeable marks who were of high birth and who were not. "Father," said young Simpkins next morning, "what. a mull they make of the 98 AN AUGUST VISITOR. visitors' list. Here they have got us down as Mr. Samuel Goodman and family from Kirby, and no mention is made of the Princess at all. That is a shame, as it would have looked well to have seen our name and a Prince's close together." " Napoleon did one wise thing when he hanged a reporter," said the father, "and every one I know deserves the same fate. If they write your i>ame they mis-spell it, and if they report your speech they put down what you don't say. Toss the stupid rag out of the window." Breakfast at the seaside is invariably followed by an interview with the landlady, who is expected riot only to be versed in all that pertains to beef and mutton, but to possess all local information, and above everything to know, and be ready to tell, all about the other lodgers. " What princess is it you have upstairs," said Mrs. Simpkins, with as much careless- ness as she could assume. "The princess does not come for another AN AUGUST VISITOR. 99 week, ma'am," said the landlady, "the Goodman's have got the rooms till then." "The Goodmans, why they're the people who have the cheek to announce themselves from Kirby, the very place we come from. No such people live there. Who is Mr. Goodman, pray?" " He is a miner, sir." To depict the astonishment of the Simpkins' would be neither profitable nor necessary. Goodman was a miner in Mr. Simpkins' colliery, and, with his sons, who lived at home, had an income of many hundreds a year. When they came to the seaside they thought they might as well enjoy the money they worked so hard for. His daughter was a B.A.", and a teacher in a high school on ^250 .a year. Mrs. Goodman at home was a collier's wife, and on her week's holiday she behaved as well as any lady in the land, and enjoyed herself thoroughly. And the pianist He was a miner too. At seventeen he bought himself a piano, and, though he had 100 AN AUGUST VISITOR. never touched an instrument before, he prac- tised with such good will that on presenting himself for examination before the Associated Board he passed with distinction. He had the honour of having his name mentioned as an example of patient industry in the presence of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and at a public dinner in London Mr.W. H. Cummings mentioned how this collier had disproved the theory that brilliant playing on the piano was incompatible with ordinary daily avocations. As to the Simpkins', they have somewhat changed their opinions as to how august persons may be distinguished. A SEASIDE PARISH IN WINTER. "WHATEVER do you do in the winter?" This is what all the visitors ask when they visit our parish in the season. They ask it in a tone of commiseration too, of all tones the hardest to bear. An insolent tone can be resented ; a mocking one can be replied to, but few things are more difficult than to find the right reply to one who bestows upon you a pity you do not need. What we do in the winter is a matter of speculation to those who come and enjoy our cool summer, our sea breezes, and our glorious sands. After a compliment to our climate comes the inevitable enquiry. Upon seeing the church packed with people, they ask, " Whatever congregation is there in winter?" On noticing the busy work in the shops during the summer, they will add IO2 A SEASIDE PARISH IN WINTER. they suppose they are all shut up in the winter. After the above it will be obvious what our parish is; it is a watering place in Yorkshire. In such a place life is a little topsy-turvy : that is to say, we work while others play, and play while others work. Holidays, which to nine-tenths of the world mean leisure, to us mean a chance of working for our bread. This makes us appear to others as odd as the man who works all the night and sleeps all the day. With this introduction I will proceed to describe some special features of our parish. Our parish has seen acted out the fable of the Arab and the camel. The camel asked to be allowed to put its nose inside the tent, then its head, and, when it had got its whole body in, the Arab had to turn out. With us the fisherman has been the Arab, and the visitor the camel. Once the fishing interest dominated the place. Dried skate was our special line, dnd there is extant an advertisement for a parson for our parish, A SEASIDE PARISH IN WINTER. ICtf setting forth with wonderful frankness the fact that he would have little else to live upon. To-day you might as well try to find a mammoth as a dried skate. What once were fish-curing houses are now gran- aries or stores. The women who used to make a living by splitting and drying the fish now earn their money by washing and drying the clothes of the visitors. The fisherman is now only able to live by taking out visitors for a sail in the season. Oftqn he can only pay the rent of his cottage by letting a room or two in the summer. The visitor has effectually turned him out of his home, just as the camel did the man in the old eastern fable. The advent of the visitors has completely transformed our parish from a most primi- tive village to quite an up-to-date town. We can now boast an Urban Council, an Act of Parliament for improving the place, and last season we actually had a burglary ! This may seem a queer proof of progress ; so it must be said that, not so many years H 104 A SEASIDE PARISH IN WINTER. ago, when all the inhabitants were related to one another, there was not a lock and key in our parish. Folks went in and out of one another's houses and took what they wanted as a matter of course. Crime was all but unknown. If anyone offended, there was a penalty at hand far more dreaded than any rigours of the law. The fisher- women ran the culprit into the sea. Joining hands, like children at play, only making an unbreakable chain, they chased the offender down the cliffs to the very ejdge of the sea, and there drove him again and again into the waves, until the women thought he had been ducked enough. Now if we have new crimes, we have new penalties to match them. It may be imagined that formerly the great event of the year was the return of the fishing fleet. Now the arrival of the visitors is the looked-for occurrence. Darwin tells us that nature dislikes anything per saltum, or "all of a sudden," and brings about events gradually. So the visitors A YORKSHIRE FISH-WOMAN. A SEASIDE PARISH IN WINTER. 105 come. Like the first streaks of dawn before sunrise, so there are signs of what is coming before the season bursts upon us. Strangers are seen on the look-out for lodgings, and strangers in May are as easily detected in a watering-place as a Chinaman in the streets of London. Then rumour spreads that so-and-so is let, and the fact is con- firmed on Sunday by the appearance of visitors in church, when considerable interest is felt in finding out "who's who." Then more lodgings are taken, the shops engage extra assistants, the postman gets later on his rounds as his bag becomes heavier. Then trains become later on accou'nt of the traffic, omnibuses, for which one horse sufficed, now must have two : and so the signs of the coming deluge increase, until at last the band on the esplanade begins, and everybody knows the visitors have come. What the reindeer is to the Laplander, the visitor is to us. Without him we must die of despair. We live upon him while he is with us, and what he leaves behind 106 A SEASIDE PARISH IN WINTER. tides us over the winter. We expect him to be made of money, and ready to part with it too. Our old postmaster rightly hit off the situation when he replied to a visitor who had discovered a penny wrong in his change, "Oh, if you have come to make a row over a copper, we don't want you here." Our staple industry is, of course, letting lodgings. A clever man once said choosing a trade was like choosing a wife ; it did not matter whom you choose so long as you stuck to her. Letting lodgings is a capital trade if you stick to it. What other business is there which will enable you to rest eight months in the year after working only four? That is what a successful landlady does. It requires a great art to be a landlady. Not everybody can cook two dinners at once as she does, nor look pleasant when a dozen pairs of wet shoes and stockings are sent down for her to dry ; still less is it easy to adjust matters between the party upstairs, who ''cannot bear a sound," and the party downstairs, who has a daughter who must A SEASIDE PARISH IN WINTER. lOJ practice for her examination in music. No, it is not everyone who can succeed as a landlady ; but then, as many of them have bought their *houses, worth more than a thousand pounds, it is obvious there is money in the trade. Those who enquire what we do in the winter are surprised to learn that we spend our spare time in trying to decide which season we enjoy the most. It is quite true. In the summer we see the visitors, and in the winter we see one another. Otherwise we should never see our neighbours, who are engaged all the season in waiting on the visitors. We have so much bustle in the season that we are glad of quiet and seclusion. At times this seclusion may have drawbacks. We say that one half the world does not know how the other half lives, but I will go further and say that the richer half will not even believe how the poorer half can live. A groom was only able to send his wife and two children half-a-crown a week during^ the 108 A SEASIDE PARISH IN WINTER. winter. Of this eighteen pence went in rent, and the three individuals kept soul and body together on a shilling. They lived entirely on rice, and never complained, and not a neighbour knew until the winter was over how pinched they had been. But, in spite of occasional drawbacks, we do very well in the winter at the seaside. AN EAR FOR MUSIC. THE gardens looked out upon the sea, and the bandstand stood in the midst of the gardens. It had just been occupied by the small band, hired for the short season, which was all the place enjoyed, but was now empty, for the half-hour's interval had arrived, and the instrumentalists had gone round the corner for refreshment. " Going round the corner " is a euphemistic term, and may imply only an adjournment to the public house on the opposite side of the street, but, in this case, the "tap" was round the corner, in the literal sense of the word, so that the members of the band were both out of sight and hearing of the scene of their labours. It is necessary to bear this in mind, in order fully to appreciate the following situation. By the railings of the gardens a number of young fishermen were wont to congregate, 109 110 AN EAR FOR MUSIC. in the hopes of booking some visitor for a sail on the morrow, or on the off-chance of somebody standing them a drink. They were not, as a rule, allowed in the gardens, but, during the half-hour's interval, the officials, as well as the band, were in the habit of going round the corner, so they ventured to take liberties, and enter where they were more likely to meet patrons than by waiting outside. On this particular occasion they may have been in a more playful mood than usual ; at all events, one of them, not content with venturing into the gardens, climbed into the bandstand itself, and began to strum upon the harmonium, which, in so small an orchestra, might have said with ^Eneas, when speaking of the important role he played, " Quorum pars magna fui." Pleased with his own performance (which of us is not ?), he beckoned his mates to join him, and in a few minutes the violins, violas, 'cello, and double bass were in the hands of fishermen, mimicking the actions of the musicians as best they could, while another seized the AN EAR FOR MUSIC. Ill cornet, and, by dint of swelling out his cheeks near to bursting, managed to produce a few ear-splitting sounds much to his own satis- faction. There were a few visitors in the gardens amused at the fishermen's antics, and, on the harmonium player taking off his hat, after the fashion of the leader of the band when a piece was specially applauded, a gentleman threw a penny into it. This put the idea of a mock collection, after a mock performance, into the man's head, and he presented his hat in joke to one and another. The gardens are close to the sea, so, for protection when the wind is strong, numerous shrubs are planted about, affording pleasant shelter. Behind these sat a lady, one of those who are described as having "no ear for music," a deficiency she by no means acknowledged. Of course, she could hear but could not see what was going on. When the sounds so wild and discordant began she recognised something different from the ordinary music of the band. "Dear me," 112 AN EAR FOR MUSIC. she said to herself, " this is something I can hear. It irritates me when the music is so soft. I have to crane my ear to catch a sound. What a note the trumpet has, to be sure ! I don't think I have heard it before to-night. This is indeed, uplifting. I never before realised the poet's words. ' Music hath charms to sooth the savage breast, To soften rocks or bend a knotted oak.' My breast is soothed for the first time to-night. I will get a little nearer to them." Thus soliloquising, she got up from her seat, and walked towards the bandstand, and, of course, the performing fishermen met her view. The comic side of the situation did not strike her. "Those fishermen are handy men," she said to herself. " Last Sunday I saw they re- lieved the minister of the Primitive Methodist Chapel of his duties, and conducted the ser- vice themselves. I have no doubt they could have relieved the organist too, for here they are taking the place of the band, and doing AN EAR FOR MUSIC. 113 it well." (Here the fisherman's hat was presented to her). "They shall certainly have the largest coin I have in my purse. Half-a-crown," and in went that coin, greatly to the astonishment of the fisherman. The lady was staying with friends, some of whom had been in the gardens that evening, and not even the peals of laughter with which her story was greeted could wholly convince her that she had been made game of. The average reader, with an average ear for music, will think the foregoing impossible, or at least exaggerated, but it is strictly true, and goes far to account for the number of incompetent performers, with worn-out and cracked instruments, or who sing with tune- less voices, and yet, year after year, make a visit to the seaside, pay- expenses, and have a fair sum over to carry back home. No doubt something must be put down to the pence given by those who wish to be rid of the nuisance, but a great deal more than sounds credible to those who have no ear for music ; and, just as Dr. Johnson preferred 114 AN EAR FOR MUSIC. a hare in such a condition that nobody else could stay in the same room with it, so there are those who prefer their music out of tune rather than in it. The story of the King who thought the tuning-up the first piece on the programme and preferred it to what followed has a par- allel in an old member of Lloyd's, who, when the chimes of the Royal Exchange played " God save the King," at noon, always stood up and took off his hat. One day the chimes were out of order, and played " The Roast Beef of Old England " instead ; but the dear old man stood up, hat in hand, thus showing by action that he did not know one tune from another. At one of our Yorkshire musical festivals, where the first performers and singers were engaged regardless of cost, a highly-educated gentleman was observed looking very glum as he listened to the performance, and, on being asked if he was enjoying it, he replied that the only thing he enjoyed was the big drum, and that was silent in the piece then being played. AN EAR FOR MUSIO. 115 Certain residents of a Yorkshire watering- place, which had been specially persecuted by indifferent performers, waited on the Chairman of the District Council to urge the adoption of the Street Music Regulation Act. The reply was, the remedy was in their own hands. Stop the supplies, and the nuisance would cease. One or two enthusiastic ladies went round to ask the householders to act on this suggestion, but, bless you ! they were up in arms at the very mention of it. One woman had a bed- ridden son at the top of the house, and his sole enjoyment of life was the piano-organist Another woman craved for the bagpipes, while a third could listen to a German band all day long if it only played. These remarks were not made in any spirit of opposition to the callers, but represented the genuine feelings of the speakers. * A poor woman was once seen standing at her door with a delighted expression on her face as she listened to that most dreadful and tuneless of all intruments, the tom-tom. The clergy- I l6 AN EAR FOR MUSIC. man of the place once asked a sick and dying boy if he would like the cracked church bell stopped, which rang twice a day for service, and was astonished at the answer, " Stopped ? Why its the only thing left I can enjoy ! " A lad who had been brought up as a total abstainer was ordered by the school doctor some port wine. He was not told what it was, lest his temperance principles should lead him to refuse it, so he was given it in the sick ward, as medicine. After his first glassful, he said to the sick nurse, "Thank you, ma'am, it's not very nasty." Many similar remarks have been made with as much genuine feeling by highly - educated people, after listening to the performance of a fine piece of music they could neither understand nor appreciate. So, while many conceive it to be their mission to raise the public taste in this matter, it seems likely that there will always be a minority, impos- sible to deal with, to whom Nature has denied an ear for music. A COLLOQUY. BY the first Sunday in September all the ministers of the Wesleyan Methodist Con- nexion who are changing circuits had to be in their new pulpits. Usually they arrive in their new circuits on the Friday, and that will account for the streets of a large Yorkshire village being paced by the Rev. Jeremiah Jones, for the first time, a few years since. He was not alone, for he had been met at the railway station by the circuit steward, and as the heavy luggage had been sent on before, and the rest was to follow with Mrs. Jones and the children, the minister had nothing to carry but a small bag, and so he walked. The circuit steward had just time to point out the Wesleyan chapel and schools, and was hurrying on ; for he was in business, and had a traveller to meet in a few minutes. Whom should they meet at the street 117 Il8 A COLLOQUY. corner but the Rector of the parish, and somewhat to the surprise of the newly-arrived minister, the steward said : " Oh, here's the Rector and going your way, too. He will show you to your house if you will excuse me, Mr. Jones, for I have an important en- gagement ; " and after briefly introducing the two reverend gentlemen he left them. Now the Rector was one of those sensible men who recognise that circumstances are the discipline of life, and though he did not like dissent or Dissenters, as such, he made the best of them. He had learnt from Bishop Butler that things are what they are, and from the simple sayings of his poor people that it takes all sorts to make a world. He fell in with what seemed the providential order of things. He was not one of those parsons who have scandals about unbaptised babies or scenes in their churchyard, and was able to live on terms of perfect good fellowship with those whom Dean Stanley called his Nonconforrriing brethren of the Church of England. He rather surprised the Wesleyan A COLLOQUY. 1 19 minister by asking to be allowed to carry his bag for him an office which the steward had not proffered to perform. The Rev. Jeremiah had not come across a clergyman like this before, and was equally surprised when his companion openly expressed approval of the itinerancy, and said how some of the best men in the Church were trying to introduce something like it, as, practically, there was no way of getting a round man out of a square hole. "There's my neighbour at P.," the Rector went on, " a good fellow at bottom. He made mistakes when first he went, and quar- relled with his best people, and however long he stays he will never do any good. But if he got another chance, he would not make those mistakes again." "Well," said the Rev. Jeremiah, "don't suppose our system is perfect. The desire for change grows, and I only stayed one year in my last circuit." " Why was that ? " " Some one sent me a hamper at Christmas, I2O A COLLOQUY. in which were two bottles of wine. One got broken, and the wine betrayed itself. One of the booking-clerks was a strong teetotaler, and he told, and the temperance party never forgave me, and voted me out." "As I see how some of you clergy enjoy life," the Methodist went on, " it makes me envious. I sat next to an old Canon at lunch the other day, and though he was past ninety, this is what he had salmon, pigeon, lamb, and plum-tart, and drank port wine all the time he was eating ; and the way he enjoyed life in this particular is only a specimen of how you may enjoy it all the way round." The Rector smiled at this, for he enjoyed a glass of good port himself, and could not help thinking that his Wesleyan brother would have been all the better for the generous diet which made his mouth water. Wishing, how- ever, to make his companion pleased with himself, he turned the conversation to sermons, and said that a Wesleyan minister could do very well with the set he preached in his first three years, for these, with a few additions, A COLLOQUY. 121 would serve him for the rest of his life. A Church clergyman after twenty years in one parish finds it very hard to preach two fresh sermons a Sunday. "No doubt," said the Wesleyan, "there are those who have a set of sermons, and grind them out like the tunes on a barrel- organ, Sunday after Sunday. But such preachers are rare. One of our wealthy men offered our President 10,000 for the Preachers' Superannuation Fund on condition that minis- ters burnt all their old sermons. In my last circuit the subject of the sermon was adver- tised beforehand, and it was noticed that topical subjects always drew the best. Indeed, one of the stewards had quite a genius for up-to-date announcements, and I quite shud- dered once after telling him I was going to preach on the same measure we mete being measured to us again, to see the subject advertised as ' Tit for Tat.' " " Well, at least you score in this," rejoined the Churchman, " that you see all phases of English life. Last year you were among 122 A COLLOQUY. fishermen, you have come to a purely agri- cultural centre. Probably you have been among Lancashire operatives and Durham colliers, and Cheshire cheesemakers, and Kentish hop-growers; while here have I for twenty years scarce stirred out of a rural parish, and am not likely to. Indeed, so expensive is moving that generally when you see a man has had half a dozen parishes you may put him down as wealthy." " So, even if another living were offered to you, it is doubtful if you could accept it?" queried the Wesleyan. "More than doubtful," said the Rector. " I did have the chance of moving once, when Lord A. offered me a living in the South, but I found that the last incumbent had been rich, and had built stabling for ten horses and kennels for his dogs, and I was to keep this up on 500 a year. If a business man with such an income had lived in such a house he would have been accounted fit for Bedlam." "Well, we do have the pull there," said A COLLOQUY. 123 the Wesleyan, who had by this time reached his house. " Walk in, Rector. You see every- thing here is provided for us, with fire and light, and even our railway fares are paid. Still, though we have no blanks in our Con- nexion we have no prizes." "Those prizes are the curse of the Church," said the Rector. " Because a few Jews are rich, we think all are, and because a few of the clergy are clothed in purple and fine linen the general impression is that all are well off, and our people leave us to do everything ourselves, and talk of 'your church' and 'your organist' as though they are nothing to them. Look at the enthusiasm you are able to create, the lay people you press into the service, and the devoted way they will cash up for any Connexional object. Why, if it were not for my wife and daughter taking the Sunday school there would be none at all. There are times when I envy you Free Churchmen more than I can say." " Be thankful for your mercies," said the Wesleyan, laughing "as I dare say you tell 124 A COLLOQUY. your congregation every Sunday." " Well, practice what you preach. The drawback of being Dr. Fell is only known where he depends on those who like him for position and his pay. As to the question of long or short pastorates, it has been discussed time out of mind, and is no nearer solution. The fact is that some men are such born pastors that after twenty-five years' residence in a parish they are so full of good things to be said that their resignation would be a calamity. Others get through in three months and ought to go, though it requires an earthquake to move them. The authority that should decide who should stay twenty-five years and who three months will not be found this side the millennium. So make the best of things. You see the drawbacks of stopping too long in a place; believe me, there are drawbacks in making the time too short." CATO AT THE SEASIDE. WHEN Cato was not hospitably entertained by the towns which he visited, he called the chief people before him, and said, "You calves, you don't have a Cato every day." What the towns lost by being rude to Cato is not told, but seeing that Lord Brougham practically made Cannes, and the Prince Regent made Brighton, the power that a person of distinction like Cato could confer on places dependent upon visitors must be obvious to any one. Now I am a seaside Vicar, and Cato and others, instead of calling the chief people to- gether to air their complaints, call on me for that purpose. I was once seated beside an omnibus driver in London, and asked him the name of a church we were passing. He told me, and the conversation being opened, he went on, " What you parsons find to do on a week- day, caps me." Evidently many visitors think 125 126 CATO AT THE SEASIDE. the same, and to enable me to put my time away, they come and vent on me all the wrath they ought to expend on their tradesmen and landladies. Sir Walter Scott says, in his " Guy Mannering," that many people, especially ladies, require a basin, in which to vomit the disagreeable feelings they cannot otherwise get rid of. I have been such a basin for many visitors during some twenty years. Sometimes the process is by means of anonymous letters. Here is a specimen : " If instead of preaching about flowers and candles and such like pueriiity, you \vould teach your parishioners common honesty, I should not have to feed the landladies' children as well as my own, and my butcher's bills would be halved." Here is another : " My dear mother having been ill, I have been obliged to admit into my house a female monster in the shape of a trained nurse. If you will preach a sermon on the duties of trained nurses and how they should behave, I will put a sovereign in the collection. P.S. Our nurse attends church in the evening." CATO AT THE SEASIDE. 12J Here is a third : " A gentleman collected in your church last Sunday in a brown coat. I had sixpence ready to put in, but I said to myself that if the parson does not know how to collect his money he shan't have it," These and similar epistles represent the bottled-up feelings of someone who usually signs himself or herself "A Disgusted Visitor," or "A Loyal but Offended Churchman," and so on. Without going so far as to say that the writers of anonymous letters help us to believe in the eternity of punishment, as an American divine once said, I prefer to note one point in their favour; that is, if people are anony- mous they are also invisible. I sometimes like to think of some poor companion or some dependent niece having a better time because the writer's feelings have been relieved on me. When I am the basin to a visible person it is much worse. The visitor generally sends in his card because, as he says, I am not 128 CATO AT THE SEASIDE. likely to know his name. After the usual preliminaries, the visitor proceeds to say that he has come because he thinks it his duty to call my attention, as Vicar of the parish, to and then comes the cause of offence. I will pass over such commonplaces as pro- testing against extras, bills sent in twice, and purloinings from the leg of mutton, with a single instance to enlist the sympathy of my readers as to the difficulty of keeping my countenance under the ordeal: " I knew the girl helped herself to the jam, and I bore it, but when I found her mother is a communicant of your church, I said the Vicar ought to know it." I did not retaliate by asking if her children reflected in all points the evident piety of their parent, but suggested that the occasional present of a little jam to the peccant child might remove temptation out of her way. I am sorry to add that my ghostly counsel was not appreciated. My visitors often remind me of poor Corney CATO AT THE SEASIDE. 1 2Q Grain's song " They were all of them so refined," for to impress their refinement on me seems the object of their visit. A matron calls to tell me that the young ladies of the house where she is stopping go down to bathe of a morning with nothing on but (here she lowers her voice) an ulster over their night- dress. An elderly couple wonder if I know of the conduct of the young people on the grassy slopes of the tennis court. The gentle- man acts as spokesman, and says how the young folks sit hand in hand, how they roll one another down the slope, and one young lady (he can mention this before his wife) allows a gentleman to tie her shoe strings ! At times the shock these refined people receive is of a different character. A lady looked out of the back window and saw the pails full of refuse for the pigs ! Such tragedies are occasionally relieved by a bit of comedy. A gentleman called because he was in a curious dilemna. He had always -bought his girls' clothes, and just now they were in want of petticoats and other things. 130 CATO AT THE SEASIDE. He knew of no lady in the place to consult on the matter, and could I advise him ? Let it not be supposed that all anonymous letters are spiteful, or that all callers have a grievance. Far from it. Cato was not always badly treated, and let us hope the good he received out-weighed the evil. At all events, it is so where I live. One morning Cato sent me anonymously a 5 note, and asked me to divide it among the twenty oldest women as a Coronation gift. He was so charmed with the place that he had taken this way of showing his gratitude. I have received anonymous letters which I have put away among my most sacred archives. A great light in the musical world (recently deceased) was once staying here, and called upon me to say he had discovered his land- lady's daughter had a voice which would repay cultivating. If I could negotiate the matter he would pay for her training at the College of Music. All parties were agreeable, and I am informed that girl's income now CATO AT THE SEASIDE. 131 runs into four figures. One day a gentleman from India called on me, and told me his mother had died in lodgings here, and he had been much struck with the kindness shown her. How could he repay it ? I told him that what a lodging-house keeper suffered from was the long dreary season her rooms were empty. The visitor struck his hand in mine and vowed those rooms should never be vacant again, and though resident in India, he took them himself en permanence. I once visited a sick gentleman in rooms here, who was kindly attended to and nursed by his landlady. On recovery he called on me asking advice how to obtain a licence, for he was engaged to marry his landlady. I have stayed with the couple at their seat near one of our large manufacturing towns, and as I have driven into town with them in their carriage and pair, the policemen saluting along the route for she is very kind to the force I have been reminded how Cato sometimes comes to the seaside, and how well worth while it is to be kind to him. FINANCING A CLERGYMAN. INSTEAD of writing letters to the papers about his poverty, the Rev. A. B. did as his poor parishioners had to do, and lived upon what he had, and set them an example of a simple life. He lived upon the High Wolds, and Pro- fessor Phillips describes the view from his parish as the finest and most extensive in Yorkshire. There were those who said that his view was the only good thing he had for he was seven miles from a station, and had but a poor living. Moreover, he had such a large family that they filled his modest rectory, and so cut off the usual resource of a poor clergyman, that of taking pupils. Soon after he came, an unfortunate speech he made set the Archbishop of that day very much against him. So much so, that when, years afterwards, an influential friend pleaded 13* FINANCING A CLERGYMAN. 133 with his Grace to promote him, a sharp refusal was given. The disfavour with which he knew he was regarded in high quarters had one good result. It made him aware that his lot was cast for life in his remote village, and so he set himself to make the best of things. Though a man of good parts, and one who might have hoped to exercise his talents in a larger sphere, he determined that no word should ever escape him about being " thrown away in the country." On the other hand, he determined to throw himself " into " the country, and he found the land and people grateful. Though his house was not large, yet his garden was, extending to three acres, and he worked in this to some purpose. His parish contained no gentry in the ordinary sense of the word, but he found Nature's gentleman among his rural flock, and He did as they do in the Isle of Man If they can't do what they want, they do what they can. He had a wife, and such a wife ! Men with wives like he had, never parade their woes before the public, for they are the best Poor 134 FINANCING A CLERGYMAN. Clergy Relief Societies in themselves. Though they had a family of seven sons, they kept no servant, for every available penny was required to give these boys a school and college education. School and college ! A man with as many thousands a year as this parson had hundreds would have winced at the thought of sending seven sons first to a public school and then to a University, and many would have declared it impossible. But they would not have known this parson, and they would not have known his wife. She would be up at four o'clock of a summer's morning picking fruit, and by nine o'clock it would be in the nearest market town. The fruit was the result of her husband's labour in the garden. When he had done working he had to teach the boys ; when she had done picking she had to do her housework. Such great, healthy boys they were, they took a deal of feeding ; but as the village provided plenty to feed them on home-made bread and the freshest of butter, new-laid eggs and the richest of cream they had no need to FINANCING A CLERGYMAN. 135 starve. And the extraordinary thing was that, call at that house when you might, that wonderful mother was always fit to be seen. She made time to be a constant caller at the homes of the villagers, and one with such a family as she had could speak with authority on those subjects dear to the female mind. The parson found plenty to occupy him. There was no doctor nearer than seven miles, and as he charged a guinea for a visit, he was only called in when matters got desperate. George Herbert advises his country parson to become acquainted with Fernelius, a medical writer of his day, and a man who in a country village knows how to bind up a wound or physic a child in fits is sure to be called into requisition. Medical missions, we are told, open the hearts of the very heathen to learn about better things; so who can wonder that similar results were gained at home ? Nor were two professions enough for the village pastor. He knew a little of law, and could generally settle a difference as to wages between master and man, and when a K 136 FINANCING A CLERGYMAN. parishioner was dying he knew how to make a will, and when a relative died in America he could claim and get the money for the family. When asked if he studied the fathers, he replied that he generally studied the mothers, as they were always at home when he called, but he studied the fathers as best he could. This opened his eyes to their temptations and their faults. He was not like the distributor who gave a tract on the sin of dancing to a man with a wooden leg; but his sermons were racy, with warnings about the beer barrel in the harvest field, the dangers of the hirings, and the brutality with which the plough lads are treated by the foremen. One sermon of his made a lasting impression. In it he asked if a man could be accounted honest who juggled a horse's teeth so that an old beast was passed off as a young one. Let it not be supposed that the couple were cut off from all intellectual and refined society. He lived in a great hunting district, and his neighbours, who included several FINANCING A CLERGYMAN. 137 noblemen and gentlemen, liked a clergyman who knew his place. When he was asked to dine with Lord M. and Lady F., he and his wife walked the distance of six or seven miles, he carrying her dinner dress in a bundle. Neither of them put on airs as though the society of lords and ladies was what they were accustomed to, but showed they were pleased with being asked to a great house. Everybody likes his attentions appreciated, and they were never left out of the entertainments around. Meanwhile the seven boys were growing up, and in turn were sent to a neighbouring Grammar School, whence they passed on to public schools, and so to college. It is not to be supposed that an income of two hundred or so a year could stand such an expense, but from the time they were born the parents had this in view, and laid by for them. The more clever of the sons gained scholarships, and so helped to reduce their school bills, but the others who did not had the same advantages. Yet they received no aid from 138 FINANCING A CLERGYMAN. Poor Clergy Relief Societies, no advertisements appeared to the effect that "a clergyman with seven sons to educate would be thankful to a rich lady," &c. Nobody wrote to the papers about " a painful case." They were financed by the best " Clergy Aid Society," which consisted of the thrift, the industry, and the common sense of the man and his wife. The good parson has been dead some years. The eldest son is making 10,000 a year now, and all the others are in good and responsible positions. They are rightly proud of their success, but the chief pride is in being able to provide for the declining years of the mother who picked currants and did house- maid's work that they might get a start in life. The village to-day is a thriving one, and the people trace much of the prosperity they enjoy to the example of the industrious, frugal, humble couple, whose life was a lesson. AN UNFOUNDED SUSPICION. IT was Hospital Sunday. The morning service was over, and the choir had been dismissed, and the clergy and churchwardens were free to count the collection. The parish was not a rich one, and there was not the ghost of a chance that they would head the list of the churches in their town, their am- bition being limited to hoping they had not fallen below the collection of last year, and that they might move a place or two up in the list. "Only one gold piece again, remarked the Vicar as the coins were emptied from the plate* into a heap on the vestry table. " I think the collection looks larger on the whole," remarked an elderly churchwarden, " and I should not wonder if we top S. Barnabas this year." The counting proceeded, the offertory list 139 140 AN UNFOUNDED SUSPICION. was made up so many half-crowns, florins, and so forth. " g i2s. sd?," said the churchwarden, "we are certainly above last year, and I should not wonder if we have beaten S. Barnabas." The Vicar was about to enter the amount in the church book, when a tap at the vestry door was followed by the entrance of a middle- aged woman, who evidently belonged to the working classes. " I am sorry to trouble you, gentlemen," she said, " but I find I have given a half- sovereign for a sixpence. I am afraid my husband will be angry when I tell him, and I shall be glad if you will give it me back." The woman was known as a regular church attender, and most respectable, but here was a request as difficult to grant as to refuse. The collection had been made in open pfates, so it was easy for any one to see the half- sovereign, and to give it up would mean that the sum would be less than last year. True, the woman was known to be respectable, but only respectable people were likely to attend AN UNFOUNDED SUSPICION. 141 church of a Sunday morning. Yet to refuse the request would be to tell the woman she was suspected of conduct which bore a very ugly look. A whispered conference resulted in the return of the half-sovereign in exchange for sixpence which the woman tendered. The list of coins was re-adjusted, and somehow every one left that vestry with a somewhat depressed air. There had been a special preacher that morning, a clergyman who had come some distance, and as he walked home with the Vicar he seemed so singularly thoughtful and depressed that the Vicar rallied him on his silence. " I was thinking about that half-sovereign," he replied, "and can only hope you have done the right thing." " If you only knew the woman," was the reply, " your doubts would vanish. There is not a more respectable person in the place." " These things are always done by the last people you would think," objected the stranger. " In the parish where I was curate, we had 142 AN UNFOUNDED SUSPICION. been long bothered by a button which appeared in the offertory bags, with irritating regularity. As the buttons were of the same pattern, it was concluded they came from the same party. At last it was traced to a certain aisle, then to a certain pew, and one Sunday the collector was provided with two bags, the extra one to be presented to the suspected party. This was done, and there was the button. But more than the button there was a revelation ! No mischievous boy or larky girl was the donor of the button, but a staid, elderly, most respectable woman, who made a good living as a dressmaker, and who had not the slightest reason, so far as poverty went, for so paltry and offensive an offering. It would be hard to find a better illustration that the heart is deceitful above all things, and makes one understand that historical incongruity, Ivan the Terrible, who would himself ring the bell for Matins at 3 a.m., and then spend the day in watching the sufferings of his tortured prisoners." Of course giving a button to save appearances AN UNFOUNDED SUSPICION. 143 in passing the alms-bag was a different thing to claiming a gold coin out of an alms-plate which someone else put in. The strange preacher had an experience on this point to relate. Years before a stranger had appeared in the vestry of a seaside church and begged the return of half-a-sovereign which he said had been given in mistake for sixpence. As it happened there were three half-sovereigns in the plates that morning, which any worshipper might have seen. The claimant's appearance did not suggest an habitual attender at church, but it was felt impossible to dispute his assertion, and the coin was returned with some misgivings. Three or four years later on, the Vicar of that seaside church was called upon by the same individual, but so much berer dressed and groomed that he scarcely recognised him. A confession was made to the effect that years before he had been terribly hard up, and gone to church for the shelter it afforded rather than for any other reason ; that when the alms dish passed him he saw the gold, and the temptation came upon him 144 AN UNFOUNDED SUSPICION. to turn his solitary sixpence into a coin of twenty times the value, and how his sin had lain heavy on his soul, and he had come to make confession and restitution. Such revelations of duplicity and meanness connected with the alms of the faithful did not tend to make that particular Hospital Sunday pass off cheerfully for the clergyman who had that morning given back the only gold piece in his collection. Besides, the uncomfortable feeling that he had been "had" was the minor chagrin that his church would be numbered among those whose returns to the Hospital Fund had gone down, and would appear below that of his neighbour and rival, S. Barnabas. He had made up his mind to make up the sum out of his own podcet if the evening collection did not atone for the morning's deficiency. There was, however, but little likelihood in that. The morning took off the cream ; the evening in comparison was but skim milk. The evening service passed off, and the collection was made, the same preacher plead- AN UNFOUNDED SUSPICION. 145 ing with less than his usual force, for where was the use of his endeavouring to raise the sum above last years' if the fruit of his efforts was to be snatched away? A glance at the heap of coins lying on the vestry table shewed that there was no likelihood of "making up," for there was not a coin above the value of a shilling. The Vicar had determined on the sacri- fice of a half-sovereign in the good cause of the hospital, and of the fair fame of his church, when again a tap was heard at the vestry door, and the visitor of the morning again presented herself, and said : " My husband told me to bring the gold back again. He can't think how I could have had the cheek to ask for it out, having once put it in. He never goes to church himself, but still he knows a good thing when he sees one, and this Hospital Fund is just to his liking." The half-sovereign was laid down, and the offertory list a second time underwent re- adjustment. The sum totalled up to more 146 AN UNFOUNDED SUSPICION. than the previous year, and the Vicar had the pleasure of seeing the name of his Church figure above that of S. Barnabas. As for the strange preacher, he regretted having harboured an unfounded suspicion . GOOD SAMARITANS I HAVE MET. CERTAIN Sundays have nick-names. Every school-boy knows which is " Stir-up " Sunday, and many others know which is " Mothering Sunday." Perhaps " Good Samaritan " Sun- day can hardly be described as a nick-name, but it serves to distinguish the Sunday on which the parable is read which describes how the man travelling to Jericho fell among thieves. Only those who have knocked about the world, and have been in straits themselves, have even a chance of meeting the Good Samaritan. Had the traveller not fallen among thieves he would just have passed the Sama- ritan with one of those -formal salutations so dear to an Oriental, and there would have been an end of the matter. Comfortable, healthy people have no need of one another. Perhaps 147 148 GOOD SAMARITANS I HAVE MET. the utmost they can do, however kindly dis- posed, is to lend a newspaper, or give up a seat facing the engine to one who cannot sit with their back to it, and there the opportunities begin and end. Perhaps further courtesies might be viewed with suspicion, and justly so. Some people on their way to the sea-side were at first much taken with a stranger who made himself very agreeable, pointed out the large houses and chief features of the scenery through which they were passing. When they neared their journey's end, it appeared that he was taking orders for a new book describing the very route through which they had come, and the. pater familias could see no excuse for refus- ing to buy a description of the country in which he had professed himself so interested. All sorts of things are said to be " played out " in these days, Christianity included. No wonder the Good Samaritan has gone along with it, and people say however useful he once was, he would, like sun-dials and hour glasses, be out of place in this generation. One is reminded of the old story of the tiger and GOOD SAMARITANS I HAVE MET. 149 the missionary. A sportsman returning from India told a missionary that long as he had been there, he had never met a native Christian. The missionary retorted that he had been still longer, but had never met a tiger. Each had seen what they were in the way of seeing, and that is how some folks have, and some folks have not fallen in with the Good Samaritan. I was once on my way to preach a club ser- mon at a remote Church on the Yorkshire Wolds. Those who don't know East York- shire might hesitate to believe that there was a village nine miles from a station, but there is, and to that village I was cycling. When I was eight miles away the treadle of my machine broke, and progress was impossible. To walk and lead the bicycle was slow work, and service was to begin in an hour. As the thing could not be done I was meditating a return home when someone appeared on a bicycle, which he placed at my service. " How ever did you know ? " A schoolboy of whom I had asked the way had seen what had happened, and told the I5O GOOD SAMARITANS I HAVE MET. schoolmaster he had met a man with a broken bicycle and eight miles to go. The instinct of the Good Samaritan was strong in that school- master, and if he did not mount me on his own beast, he mounted me on his own cycle, on which I reached the church, just in time to hear the Vicar say to his waiting congregation, " I am sure he will come, and " (here I appeared at the door) " there he is." As a club sermon naturally turns on mutual aid, it is easy for the reader to understand how I worked my recent experience into that discourse. I was once walking up to Aberdeen, and was getting near the Grampians, and was as travel- stained as a fortnight's walk could make me, when I reached a village some few miles from Aboyne. It was four in the afternoon, and was getting dark, for the month was Novem- ber. I paid for my tea, and was asking the distance from Aboyne, when the landlord intervened and said, " You are never going there ? " " Why not ? " " Because I can tell by the way the wind GOOD SAMARITANS I HAVE MET. 151 comes down from the Grampians that a tre- mendous storm is coming on." Many will know what Scotch inns are like in August, not so many know them in Novem- ber. Those who do, and who hear that I had been three days on the fare of such inns won't wonder that I was anxious for the comforts of the Huntly Arms at Aboyne. Seeing I was still undecided, the landlord said in passionate entreaty, " You must not go on, it would be your death. I won't charge you a penny for your lodgings if you stop here, but if you go on, you will never reach Aboyne." Thus adjured I stopped. I made myself quite at home, calling for supper and every- thing else I wanted. The landlord was right, the storm came on, and a word I overheard was just the adjective to express its vehemence it was " cruel." It raged all the night, and in the early morning I was roused by something going on downstairs, and found they had brought a dead man to the inn, one who had perished in the storm. The reader will understand the effect this L 152 GOOD SAMARITANS I HAVE MET. had upon me, and I recognised the foresight and disinterestedness of the landlord. So the reader will not be surprised that instead of calling for the bill, I pressed a sovereign on the landlord as a sort of thankoffering for my preservation. But no, the landlord would not take it. He had said he would not charge me and he kept his word. So I left the inn with another illustration in my note-book for the next time I preached on the Good Samaritan. Some cynic has remarked that we should all be Good Samaritans were it not for the oil and wine and the twopence. But there is some- thing more than that, for the original made himself responsible without knowing what he was letting himself in for. So when people open their houses to an injured man they can- not tell what time he may stay there. Or when they take a stranger who can't get a bed at night, they know not the sort of character they are harbouring. Yet this is the sort of plight in which a traveller sometimes finds himself, and this is the only sort of kindness which will do him any good. Have I ever GOOD SAMARITANS I HAVE MET. 153 experienced this ? Oh, yes. Once when I was walking across Ireland, I reached the end of my day's walk to find that the only inn in the place had changed hands that morning, and the furniture of the new tenant had not been moved in, and the landlady told me she had not got a bed for herself, much less for me. What was to be done ? A gentleman who owned the inn drove up at that moment to see his new tenant, and hearing of my dilemma offered to take me in. There was I, without luggage, except what I carried on my back, without credentials of any sort, taken into a gentleman's house, with a footman to wait on me, and with all the silver in the house to run off with had I been a burglar in disguise, for I noticed that in that free and easy establish- ment they were far too confiding to lock up anything. How many acts of kindness could I tell of shown to me by utter strangers ! I could tell of one who, overhearing the bank clerk say he could not cash my cheque unless some one known to him would guarantee me, instantly 154 GOOD SAMARITANS I HAVE MET. said he liked the look of my face, and would wager I was honest. But enough, all I am concerned to show is that Good Samaritans are as much about to-day as when the man went down to Jericho and fell among thieves. A FASHIONABLE CURE. WHEN the old Duke of Queensberry, who a century ago used to sit ogling the women as they passed a certain window still to be seen in Piccadilly, overheard anyone say that London was empty, he would interject, " Oh, but its fuller than the country." This is undeniable. But whereas some of us live in the country for the express purpose of avoiding the crowds in the town, we may confess that the fewness of numbers is sometimes a dis- advantage; in the matter of friends and acquaintances for instance. If you lose one in town, you can easily pick up another who does just as well ; but in the country there are just so many people and if you can't get on with them you must do without. Every isolated place has to lament the inter-marriages of families, simply because there is no one else to choose from. The first part of this 156 A FASHIONABLE CURE. story brings out a likely consequence of this paucity of people. The village of Barmthorpe is to this day seven miles from a railway station, how it must have been cut off from civilisation before the railway was made can hardly be imagined. There are people, mostly townspeople, who may think they would like to live thus " far from the madding crowd," but in every case where they try it, they rue it. It requires an education to live in the country, but the family with whom we have to deal had been educated to it for generations past. When it is stated that the parson of the village was known to his intimates as "Jock," the by-name hits off the man exactly. What could a man called Jock be like except a great healthy fellow, redolent of the open air, and red with the glow of manly exercises. It bespoke his birth and breeding too. A smug or an underbred man would have resented so familiar an appellation, but Jock's position was known of all men, and he could afford to be familiar. As a rule the rustics can be A FASHIONABLE CURE. 157 indulged with any amount of familiarity with- out once overstepping the limits which separate them from the quality. Certain of our country names are racy of the soil, like Saltmarshe of Saltmarshe, Burton of Cherry Burton, and so was our friend, Barmthorpe of Barmthorpe. It can scarcely be said that he was presented to the living, for he was born to it. Ever since he could remember anything he knew he was destined for the Church and Barmthorpe Rectory. His elder brother, the baronet, would have the Hall, and he the parsonage. Those influences which are said to militate against young men of parts and family from taking holy orders never touched him. He saw that his uncle, the Rector before him, did all that his father the baronet had done, and almost the only difference was that one hunted in scarlet and the other in black, and on Sunday one went into the pulpit, and the other into the pew. Let it not be thought that Jock was a negligent parson. Far from it. He did all that there was to do. If brave men were 158 A FASHIONABLE CURE. living before Agamemnon, good clergy were to be found before the present stock. There were only two hundred people in the parish, and no one ever lacked. Rabbits and port wine were always to be had at the back door of the Rectory, every child was sent to school, and on Sunday every one was in Church, morning or afternoon. Everyone touched his hat to a gentleman and gave honour to whom honour was due. Jock and his wife and family lived happily enough the only sort of life they had ever known. As was fitting, Mrs. B. was the daughter of another country baronet, with a fortune of 10,000. There were only two children, a son and daughter, so their family was no great expense to them. With some families all things seem to go well, while the truth is, things go well when people do well. In this case Jock Junior was all that a maiden aunt could wish a nephew to be, so it is no wonder that when she died she left him her 10,000 and he was provided for for life. He found plenty to do at home and at five-and- A FASHIONABLE CURE. 159 twenty he did not contemplate following any profession. There was no occasion for that. Now the mind must feed upon something, and a country parsonage does not supply much mental pabulum. Some of us who lead busy lives find it comparatively easy to drive out unwelcome thoughts and objects. A man bothered about some social slight can gener- ally disperse his trouble by use of his fingers, say in practising on the piano, or in mending a lock. When a man has few resources it is a serious thing for him to be struck with any idea which it is not desirable he should entertain. The particular idea which was fermenting in the brain of this young man of twenty-five was that the new laundry maid was a very handsome young woman. Pro- pinquity is everything in these matters, and to cut a long story short, the young man and the maid ran away together, and a letter in due course arrived at the Rectory, stating that the deed Was done. The cruelty of mesalliances generally consists in the introduction of a relative to one's mother l6o A FASHIONABLE CURE. and sisters who has not been accustomed to associate with such as they. In this case it struck the high-born mother as something worse than a crime. Had her son, her only son, been convicted of forgery it is probable her pride would not have been sa deeply wounded. All that was worth living for seemed to have departed. This is an illustration of how she took it. A lady in the neighbour- hood proposed to call and enquire after the character of a servant girl, and the stricken mother sent her a message asking her not to refer to her son's disgrace at the interview. She got to dread going out, even to Church, fearing that the eyes of even the poor people were fixed upon her, and their tongues talking of that which had turned all the sweets of her life into bitterness. She got so low and depressed that the doctor ordered her change of scene, and accordingly she and her hus- band and daughter went off to the South of France. Any one who has visited Cannes, Nice, Mentone, and the other English resorts in A FASHIONABLE CURE. l6l the South of Europe, can hardly fail to have been struck with the size of the English cemeteries. From this one infers that of the crowds of invalids who go there seeking health, many must leave it till too late. Amongst others likely to want a grave space was the wife of the Reverend Jock, and indeed he had actually been to the authorities to enquire the price of a piece of ground en perpetuite. How soon the space might have been re- quired but for the arrival of news from England nobody can say. It came first of all in the form of a paragraph in a Society paper, to the effect that a lady of position, the wife of a well-known Yorkshire magistrate, had run away with a member of an old county family, whose marriage with a domestic had excited surprise but three months ago. This was followed by a letter to the Reverend Jock from the aggrieved husband, detailing the wrong. which his great friend (these things are always done by our greatest friends) had done him, and this in turn was followed by an appeal l62 A FASHIONABLE CURE. from the ex-laundry maid, telling how she had been left destitute by her high-born husband, and asking for assistance. There might be those who would expect this would put the finishing stroke upon the dying mother, but, wonderful to relate, from that hour she began to amend. It seemed miraculous, but it has been rightly said that our difficulties about miracles are only in consequence of our ignorance that there are more things between heaven and earth than our philosophy dreams of. A well-kngwn prelate fell down dead not from a disease, but from' the shock of being told he had a disease. On the other hand a piece of good news cured a man of deafness of many years' standing. So this news had an effect which the air of the Mediterranean and medical skill had failed to work, and the invalid returned to England restored to health. Let it not be thought that running away with another man's wife was a venial offence in the eyes of the lady in question. Not at all. What is meant is that living irregularly with A FASHIONABLE CURE. 163 a lady does not carry with it that peculiar degradation which living in the bonds of matrimony with a servant girl entails in the eyes of fashion. The daughter of a county gentleman was once courted by a wealthy, highly polished suitor, but the father refused his consent because of his being a noncon- formist. The suitor did not give up his lady without an effort, and compelled the father to confess that he would not have refused him had he been an atheist, but a nonconformist with its suggestion of the middle-class was the real difficulty. Such anomalies exist in a hundred other directions, if one had time to ferret them out, but rarely do they stand out confessed to the world as by the lady who was restored to her health by this fashionable cure. SANCTUARY FOR THE TRIPPER. RAINY days in summer spoil many things, such as cricket matches, pageants, agricultural shows and club feasts. In a way they spoil the sea-side excursions as far as the excur- sionists are concerned, but not from the point of the railway companies. As Shakespeare somewhere says "The miserable have no other medicine But only hope." and two poor working women, having made up their minds to go by the half-day excursion to X. on the East Coast, hoped for the best, though the last few days had been wet, and the day itself looked doubtful and the wind blew cold. Railway excursions are a great boon to the poor. Though the distance to X. was over 164 SANCTUARY FOR THE TRIPPER. 165 sixty-five miles, the fare there and back was only fifteen pence. Then kind-hearted officials reckon all children as under three, though they be palpably over five, and so each of the poor women brought two children free, who sat on their mother's knees until the train started, and then immediately occupied seats until the station was reached where the' tickets had to be given up. The poor are sometimes blamed for taking such young children on excursions, but unless they did the parents would never get away at all. Where can poor mothers leave their young children ? If they have a girl over fourteen she is sure to be out in service, if under fourteen she is bound to be at school. The father is either at work, or if out of work is sure to have hit on some expedient for making the time fly, and is not likely to be available for nurse's duty. That is how our friends Mrs. Tidybody and Mrs. Goodchild came to X. with two children apiece. There had been an engine off the line that morning, so it was nearly three o'clock when l66 SANCTUARY FOR THE TRIPPER the half-day excursion arrived at X. an hour late. Not but what there was abundance of time to spend before the return of the excursion at 9-30, nor was there any lack of ways to employ that time. Of course, there were the pierrots, there was an ambulance competition in which some young men of their acquaintance were to take part, there was their tea to get, and the sands to dig on. It never is really dark at night in July, and as the two friends walked down from the station they thought that all promised well if only the rain would hold off. Well, they attended the pierrots' per- formance, and dropped their pence into the pail when it was brought round, for the poor never pass the bag in Church or the pail at the pierrots that is left to well-dressed people who have spent all their money on their backs. They had watched the ambulance competition, and seen how a partially drowned man could be restored to life, and how ar man with a broken leg could be carried to the hospital without bending the limb. Most important SANCTUARY FOR THE TRIPPER. 167 of all, they had had a good tea with ham and eggs for the adults, and so many cakes for the children that when the bill was paid neither party had anything in their pockets but their return tickets. Never mind, they would spend the rest of the time on the sands, and there was nothing to pay there. As the party left the refreshment rooms they felt spots of rain. As they descended the hill to the beach the pavement was quite wet, and when they got down to the sands the clothing of the children was so damp that it would have been madness to remain there. Now X. was not a place with an aquarium and other re- sources for a wet day. There were two small shelters on the shore, but these ^were crowded out by this time. Where could the two friends go ? Well-dressed people would have sought the shelter of a shop, and asked permission to remain there, but poor people would never dream of entering a shop unless they had money to spend, and in this case the pockets of both were empty. Where could they go out of the rain, and where could the weary little children M l68 SANCTUARY FOR THE TRlPPER. sit down ? A bright idea struck Mrs. Tidy- body : "I know where to go/' said she, " we passed it as we came down from the station." The other poor woman was too pleased to hear of any haven of refuge to enquire what it was. Carrying one child in her arms, and dragging her four-year-old by her skirts, she began her trudge up the hill to the town again. As they went along, Mrs. Tidybody confided to her that she was making for the Church, which in these days was always open. Last Sunday she had heard a sermon on " Samuel opened the doors of the house of the Lord," and the preacher had said what a 'blessed change had cgme over the Churches since the days when they were locked from Sunday to Sunday. He had beautifully pointed out that, just as every Church with its spire pointing to the sky, represented the struggle of the soul of man to things above, so the Church with open doors represented how she welcomed every one to her maternal bosom. Also he had said that as in old times the Church SANCTUARY FOR THE TRIPPER. 169 afforded sanctuary to the oppressed and persecuted, so that no harm could come to them, so an open Church often afforded sanctuary to those who were suffering from stress of weather. Beguiling the way with reminiscences of last Sunday's sermon, interspersed with encourag- ing words to the young children who were dragging at their skirts, the two women neared the Church. A footpath ran across the Church- yard, the gate of which stood wide open. A few steps further brought them to the Church porch, over which- was inscribed the legend, which the woman stopped to spell out " A shadow from the heat, and a covert from storm and from rain. Isaiah iv. 6." They then proceeded to lift the latch, and found the door locked. Knowing that some- times one entrance is open while another is fastened, they went round the Church, but only to find that every door presented the same inhospitable face. The parable in stone, as Carlyle called our ancient Churches, may have had a heavenly meaning attached to its earthly 170 SANCTUARY FOR THE TRIPPER. story, but somehow these women missed the point of it. There was nothing for it but to seek again the cold, draughty station, where, seated on the bare ground (the seats had long been monopol- ised by the drenched excursionists), one woman caught toothache and the other lumbago, but at least their laps afforded to their children that protection from the storm and rain which they hoped their Mother Church would have afforded them. The two women did not belong to that class which indulges in angry words, still less to the class that delight to abuse the clergy at every opportunity. Only Mrs. Tidybody did say that it was a pity some parsons never hear any sermons but their own. A certain Church in the City of London opens its doors at half-past five in the morning to afford a refuge to girls who have to arrive early to get the advantage of cheap trains, but whose work does not begin till some hours later. The privilege is greatly valued, and nothing but good has come of the kind hos- SANCTUARY FOR THE TRIPPER. 171 pitality of the sacred walls. It is probable that in our sea-side places every summer many poor women and young children will be in the same predicament as that related above, and many a Church will have the opportunity of displaying one characteristic of that mother- hood which so long has been her boast. NOT IN THE CODE. THE club feast had passed off as such feasts usually do. There had been a procession through the village in the morning, headed by the band from a neighbouring town. Then came a service in church, with a sermon by a special preacher, from the curious text, "Now Sheshan had no sons but daughters," from which he drew the appropriate lesson that if we can't get what we want, let us make the best of what we have, as Sheshan appeared to have done, a very fitting piece of advice to labouring men on fifteen shillings a week. Then came the dinner, two meat courses, beef and mutton, to take the edge off the appetites, followed by veal and lamb, with a couple of chickens for the high table. Plum pudding and sweets concluded the banquet, and then came the speeches. X7 NOT IN THE CODE. 173 Village life is so dull that even after- dinner speeches were looked forward to, although the Vicar, who presided, had said much the same thing about the Sovereign and the Royal Family for the last twenty years. The fun was expected when the village orator (a shoemaker) responded to the toast of the day, " Prosperity to the Club." He always looked up one or two new jokes every year to emphasise his points. This year, to illustrate how each must look after his own interest, he told of a fisherman meeting a gamekeeper. The fisherman had a live lobster, and wanted the gamekeeper to try the effect of putting his finger into the lobster's claw. This was declined, but his dog's tail offered for the purpose. Directly the claw closed on the tail away flew the dog, carrying the lobster behind him. "Here," said the fisherman, "you whistle to your dog, he's running away with my lobster!" "No," said the gamekeeper, "you whistle to your lobster!" Then the shoemaker dwelt on the necessity of en- 174 NOT IN THE CODE - couraging the juvenile branch of the club, and asked a riddle, which no one present had heard before, as to why old maids always wear cotton gloves? "Why! be- cause they don't like kids." (Roars of laughter). They must not be like the old maids, but must encourage the kids and make much of them. At the high table alluded to there sat beside the Vicar and the special preacher, and the high officials of the " Ancient, Royal and Independent Order of Shep- herds," a gentleman whose dress, small appetite, and somewhat pale face betokened that he was from town. He had left the village as a lad, and had made his fortune, and now returned to see the few folks who remembered him, and especially the old schoolmaster, whose guest he was for the day. Far down the toast-list was ''The Visitors," and he had agreed to reply to it. When his turn came, he told the com- pany that although he had left the village at a very early age he owed much to it, and NOT IN THE CODE. 1 75 especially to his friend the schoolmaster, his first and best teacher. As he went on to say that he had left school at ten, the com- pany wondered what valuable learning could have been imparted during those short and tender years. He proceeded to enlighten them, and told them what he had learnt from his master was not in the code, but he might say it had been the foundation of his fortune, for he had learnt from him, and had never forgotten, to touch his hat to a gentleman. The speaker sat down, and it was evident his speech had fallen very flat. Only one or two at the high table rattled their glasses in appreciation of his remarks, but the majority received it in silence. Advice less in accordance with the independent spirit of the village could hardly be imagined, and the shoemaker could not help a look of satisfaction as he thought the fine gentleman from town had not taken the shine out of him. There was only one more toast on the 176 NOT IN THE CODE. list that of the chair and the proposer, who had been greatly struck by the words spoken by the whilom village lad, and also by the disfavour with which they had been received, determined to forego all the pretty things he had made up about the chairman, and devote the time at his disposal to driving home the unwelcome lesson about touching the hat "Brother Shepherds," he began, "for I am a shepherd as well as you, though my flock is not a woolly one, I have noticed that the things that have done me most good in life have been those I have liked the least. I see you wonder how touching his hat ever helped a man to make his fortune. Now, I could tell you of a fortune which was made on a smaller thing than that. I was travelling in Italy last year, and over the great gates leading to a mansion was the family crest, a mouse. We know families choose rampant lions and spread-eagles for their crests, but what could induce them to choose a mouse? NOT IN THE CODE. 177 Well, the founder of that family was a convict, and a very hardened convict too, caring for neither God or man. Into his cell one day there crept a mouse. He fed it, and the mouse came again ; he petted it, the first thing he had ever cared for. Thus the feeling of affection was excited in his breast, and when he left the prison the man was no longer the hardened criminal he had been, but had a heart with a tender spot in it. All the rest followed, and he chose the mouse as his crest. "That shows how great things may have small beginnings, and also shows how men get on not only by taking care of them- selves, but by caring for others. When Edison was asked to give advice to a lad just starting in business, he said to him, 'Don't look at the clock.' He meant don't always be thinking when your time is up, but when your master's work is done. Cobbett tells of a man who lost his chance in life by insisting on going for his dinner the moment the clock struck twelve, though 178 NOT IN THE CODE. his master needed his services a few moments longer. His master allowed him to go to his dinner, and told him he need not return, and the man never got another chance. " Nobody ever knows what they may gain by touching the hat to a superior, whether . they know him or not. Last Sunday I had a Royal chaplain preaching in my pulpit, and he told how Queen Victoria used to go out in all weathers in the Highlands, and one day knocked at a cottage door and asked for the loan of an umbrella. The cottager did not know her visitor, and was very churlish, and at last lent an old umbrella. Next day the loan was returned by a Royal flunkey, and the woman learnt who the borrower was. ' Oh, if I had only known, I would have lent my best umbrella.' Yes, she touched her hat too late, so to speak, and who could put a limit on that woman's good fortune if she had succeeded in getting into the good graces of the Queen ? " Dr. Johnson tells us that when he went NOT IN THE CODE. 179 out calling, he always put on his best clothes. He meant that his clothes might be a passport to favour with people who had no time to make inquiry into more important matters. What clothes do in some cases, manners do in others. A respectful manner generally indicates a respectful mind, and a respectful mind is a mind not above learning, and learning and study are sadly at a premium now. Every- thing is thought to be done by smartness. An M.P., in his Reminiscences, says that formerly members used to study for a week and speak for half-an-hour, now they study for half-an-hour and speak for a week. When a man was asked, 'Is there any room in your profession?' he answered there was plenty of room at the top. But to reach the top requires learning, and few learn except those who are willing to learn. "Wordsworth once asked a little maid whom he met how much she paid for her schooling. She answered, ' A penny l8o NOT IN THE CODE. a week, and twopence if you learn manners.' Manners was instruction in how to drop a curtsey, and make a bow, and touch the hat. These things are no longer in the code, but we have an instance this day present with us how well worth learning they are, and, brother shepherds, I believe many here to-day are poor labouring men who might have been masters if only they had known when to touch their hats." Proceedings terminated by singing "God save the King," and whether it was the speaker's words or not, the Vicar noticed that, for the first time in his experience, everybody present took off their hats. A SUNDAY SHOWER. THE number of churches in popular resorts which have neither pew rents nor endow- ments of any but nominal value are rapidly increasing. In consequence, when the day is wet it makes a serious difference in the finances of the church which depends upon the collections. That there are compensations in all things Paley has long since told us, and a wet Sunday is no exception. The late Rev. Henry White, chaplain of the Savoy and of the House of Commons, got his chance in life that way. He was a curate at Dover, and likely to remain a curate too, for he had no influence. One Sunday the Duke of Montrose, who was then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, arrived at Dover for the purpose of crossing to Calais. The day, however, came on so wet and squally that he 181 l82 A SUNDAY SHOWER. decided to wait till next day, and having nothing to do he went to church in the after- noon, where the curate, Mr. White, was allowed to preach to a few servant girls and nursemaids who were in charge of the fidgetty children who had to be sent out of the way of papa's afternoon nap. The Duke was so struck with the pains the young preacher took to benefit his humble con- gregation that he offered him the Savoy chaplaincy, and Mr. White's fortune was made. Many a similar tale could be told of how a man got his start in life owing to a wet Sunday. To a fashionable resort by the sea come all sorts of important and eminent people. It is said that during a shower of rain in Vienna, three ex-kings ran for shelter into the same porch, men who had sat on the thrones of Naples, Hanover, and Spain respectively. Without aspiring to retired monarchs, many a seaside preacher has held forth to a Premier, an Archbishop, and a Duke, and some to all three at the same A SUNDAY SHOWER. 183 time. What a chance this opens for making an impression on one or other of those few men who have the power to help a clergyman on in life. After all, influential men are very few, and the opportunities of coming across* them fewer still ! But how to make an impression ! No one ever yet wrote a great book, or painted a great picture, still less preached a striking sermon, who set himself to do it. Great things have been done in the way Bunyan describes the origin of his immortal "Pil- grim's Progress : " " When at first I took my pen in hand Thus for to write, I did not understand That I at all should make a little book In such a mode." No, they never expected to do anything striking, but they began in humility, and no one was more surprised than themselves at the success they achieved. On the other hand, how one knows the fate of Odes written to royal order, or historical pictures painted by "command." You need never 184 A SUNDAY SHOWER. look beyond the title of such things, for the magician's wand which could control the divine gift of genius has yet to be found. Such is the moral of the following tale connected with a Sunday shower. Mr. Gladstone made it a rule personally to hear every clergyman he recommended to the Crown for preferment, and is said only once to have broken it, much to his regret. "I made that man a Bishop, but who is he ? " is given as a saying of Lord Palmer- ston's, and illustrates the careless way he dispensed his ecclesiastical patronage, but Mr. Gladstone's conscience never would have permitted this. When, therefore, the Vicar of a popular seaside resort was recommended to him for a Bishopric, he took the opportunity of paying a long-promised visit to his friend and supporter, Sir John Blank, with the intention of driving over on Sunday to hear the much-praised preacher. Sir John lived at Blank Hall, and usually attended the village church, the Vicar of which was one of those few men who, instead A SUNDAY SHOWER. 185 of being on the look-out for something better, daily wondered at the good fortune which had placed him in such a rural paradise. He knew Mr. Gladstone was a friend of his squire, but saw no more connection between the visit and Church preferment than between the absence of soap and the marriage of the barber in Foote's famous sentence. Men so regardless of themselves are invariably most regarded by other people, and Sir John, fearful lest his feelings should be hurt, made a point of telling him that Mr. Gladstone specially wanted to hear the Vicar of the neighbouring seaside town, so he would not expect them in church on Sunday. Sunday came, and from the early hours of the morning it poured with rain on and off. Mr. Gladstone had intended walking the four miles into the town, but that was not possible, for his health was too valuable to be put in jeopardy by sitting two hours in wet clothes. There were carriages in plenty at Blank Hall, but Mrs. Gladstone put her veto on the journey, as four miles in the l86 A SUNDAY SHOWER. damp air was too risky, and Parliament had not yet risen. So it was determined to attend . the village church, and Sir John, perhaps wishing to do the Vicar a turn, sent him word that the dispenser of ecclesiastical patronage would "sit under" him that morning. The Vicar's wife received the message, and with wifely anxiety hoped that her husband would preach one of his best sermons. ''Well, my dear, as the hay is down, I thought I could not do better than give the people a sermon on Ruth in the harvest field." His wife concealed her disappointment, knowiHg it was too late to change his subject or his sermon at that hour, and went to church, where Sir John, Mr. Gladstone, and the party from the Hall already occupied the pews in the chancel. The text was in due course given out, and the preacher in the simplest language explained the condition of an Eastern harvest field. He bade the young men to behave as A SUNDAY SHOWER. 187 decorously to the women in the field as the young men behaved to Ruth. What led to bad language and bad conduct was a too frequent resort to the barrel placed for the purpose of quenching thirst, and not for immoderate drinking. He told the young women, if they wanted a good husband like Boaz, modesty, and not boldness, was the way to get one. The Vicar's wife listened to this simple discourse with some impatience (for if her husband was destitute of ambition she was not) until she caught sight of the wrapt attention on Mr. Gladstone's face. How the Premier could be interested in such common- place advice to farm lads and lasses she could not make out. "I never knew a man with such a genius for his work," remarked Mr. Gladstone to his host as they walked home from church. "With the hay down what better subject could there have been than the harvest field ? What a vocabulary he had too ! There was not a word in the sermon outside the farm l88 A SUNDAY SHOWER. labourer's talk. No wonder the church was full of young men." There was a Crown living vacant in the Isle of Wight, to which Mr. Gladstone shortly afterwards presented the Vicar of Blank. There the late Queen came to know and respect him, and rumour says that if he is not a Bishop, it is because his own humility keeps him back. As for the Vicar of the important seaside town, he is a Vicar still. THE DONKEY'S RIVAL. "WHAT a beautiful afternoon it is for the sands," said Mrs. S. to her children as they sat at their mid-day meal. "The worst of it is that nurse has come in with a headache and must lie down, and I have to stop in because the Vicar's wife said she was coming to call this afternoon, and it would be rude to be out when she said that." " Never mind, mother," said the eldest girl, u The tide is down, and we can amuse ourselves. The Pierrots begin at three, and when they have done we can paddle till tea-time." " I vote for the children's services," said little Arthur, "They are to have races after- wards, and nearly everybody gets a prize." " Arthur, I won't have you attending those services for the sake of anything you can get. Nor do I care for Mary and the girls 189 igo THE DONKEY'S RIVAL. to spend their time at the Pierrots," said the mother rather severely. " I saw them coming up from the sands yesterday each with a young girl on his arm. If your father met one of you with them, he would take the next train home. No, I think the best place at the seaside is by the side of the sea, especially for you children ; you can run races and hear niggers when you get back to London." " May we have a donkey?" asked Florence, the younger girl. "Yes," said the mother, after a pause; yes, I can trust the donkey man not to let you go too far away. Here George, is a shilling; that will be a threepenny ride for the four of you, and after that you may dig and paddle till tea-time. But mind, no Pier- rots, or there will be no more donkey rides. The quarter of an hour after dinner which grown up people fitid so conducive to diges- tion was not necessary for children fed on simple, wholesome fare, such as the sensible mother provided for these. So a few minutes THE DONKEY'S RIVAL. 191 sufficed to take off stockings and put on sand-shoes, find spades and buckets, and then forth they sallied. It may have been noticed that George, the eldest boy, a lad of twelve, made no remark as to his special "fancy" for spending the afternoon. Directly he learnt that neither mother nor nurse would accompany them, he revolved in his mind how he might enjoy himself in a way which would literally make the blood curdle in the veins of his good mother. It was Wednesday, and a week before, having been sent out on an errand, he was attracted, boy-like, by a little crowd gathered round a narrow entry. He looked, and saw them watching the slaughter of the cattle and sheep belonging to the butcher, whose shop was next door. At the moment George stopped a bullock was being felled by a pole-axe, and a thrill seemed to run through the crowd corresponding to the "sensation in court" which usually follows the account of some terrible detail in a murder trial. George stood rooted to the 192 THE DONKEYS RIVAL. spot; he watched the whole. operation; he saw sheep after sheep seized and killed, and only the parcel he carried reminded him that he was being waited for at home and had better hurry on. George could not talk to any one about what he had seen, but he could not get it out of his mind. Nature is alike in all its ways, and as the hidden growth of the seed is far more wondrous than after it has come into the light, so anything which lies hidden in the mind grows far more intensely than when brought into the publicity of con- versation. George thought how tame was building sand castles, or riding donkeys, or even listening to Pierrots, compared with what he had seen that Wednesday afternoon. The worst of it was, he could not see his way to repeat his enjoyment, so perpetual was the oversight his mother kept upon her children ; but now lucky chance had thrown it in his way, and he revolved how he might avail himself of it. " Come along, George, you'll have to be THE DONKEY S RIVAL. 193 paymaster," said Mary to her brother, whose movements, for reasons which the reader knows, were not very expeditious. " I am going to get the shilling changed," said George. " So that if you should miss me on the sands you will be able to pay for your own." "Miss you?" said Mary, not under- standing. "Are you not coming with us?" George had no choice but to go with them, but on coming to one of the many alleys leading down to the shore, he challenged them to a race, saying that he would beat them though taking the longest way. Down ran the children, and George, having thus eluded them, made his way to that spot which had been ever present in his mind for a week past. There was the little crowd assembled, and on its outskirts he took his stand, prepared to feast his eyes upon the sight. The Vicar and his wife were at that moment coming up the street, talking of the brutal spectacle presented by these slaughter-houses 194 THE DONKEY'S RIVAL. to the eyes of all and sundry. The Vicar was saying how representations had been made to the Town Council about the matter, but had been met by the usual " non possumus," and nothing could be done. " You men never can do anything," re- turned his wife. "If the people were starving, you men would only talk and talk and leave Queen Blanche to sell her jewels again to feed them. Why, George ! " The Vicar's wife knew the boy by sight and name, and supposing it impossible he could be there from choice, suggested he must have lost his way down to the sands. George caught at the excuse, and willingly allowed himsel/ to be directed aright and make the best of his way to find the other children. The Vicar had not been deceived. He had noticed the white, eager, cruel look so un- natural on a bright young face, and had taken in the situation at a glance. When he learnt that his wife was actually on her way to call on George's mother he determined to go with her and open her eyes. THE DONKEY S RIVAL. IQ5 "I never see such a taste beginning," he said to Mrs. S., after recounting their meeting with George, " but I am reminded of the most famous case of my youth, the Wyndham case. It occurred before you were born," he gallantly remarked to the ladies, "but it was mentioned in every article and sermon at the time, and formed the theme of every conver- sation. Wyndham was a monument of folly, extravagance, and vice, whom his relatives in vain tried to prove of unsound mind. Well, my point is this, that the first evidence of his vicious mind was shown when, as an Eton boy, he paid a butcher to allow him to be in the slaughter-house when the animals were killed. The hard, unfeeling mind generated by such spectacles developed into the wicked folly which beggared his mother and sisters, wasted his family estates, and landed him in a miserable marriage. " Before I came to Yorkshire, " went on the Vicar, " I was at Folkestone, and fora time the most popular and fashionable people assembled to watch the Boulogne boat ig/6 THE DONKEY'S RIVAL. land her sea-sick passengers. As soon as the gangway was thrown across and the procession of tottering, washed-out ladies and pallid gentlemen defiled feebly from the vessel, the assembled fashionables became quite exuberant, and found vent in audible remarks, ironical addresses, and hilarious bursts of laughter. Naturally the passengers, being in a less cheerful frame of mind, failed to see the joke, but that is not my point. My point is that even worldly-minded parents found the effect of this sort of thing on their sons and daughters so bad and depraving that they forbade it, and before I left, to be known as an habitue of Folkestone pier at boat-time became a reflection on a girl's character." Mrs. S. heard all this with truly grateful feelings to her informant, and the sort of reception which awaited George on his return from the sands can be easier imagined than described. The fact, however, remains that at one of our great Yorkshire watering-places the THE DONKEY'S RIVAL. 197 slaughter-house competes with the donkeys and the Pierrots as a rival attraction. The groups, not of poor children only, but of well-dressed boys, and even girls, is shocking to humane and right thinking people ; and if, as that grand old Englishman William of Wykeham said, five centuries ago, " Manners makyth Man," it augurs badly for the future of these youthful spectators. OLD MARTINMAS DAY. THE Church and the World are supposed to be in direct antagonism with each other. It would be unseemly to discuss here the many points of difference between the two, but one can be handled without offence. This is how it comes about that the Church keeps St. Martin's Day on November nth, and the world (at least the world of York- shire) observes it on November 23rd. St. Martin's Day has for centuries enjoyed a prominence outside its ecclesiastical import- ance, for it regulates the term of office of all the Mayors of the kingdom. They were chosen on November gth that they might be enabled to attend the Mass of Martin two days afterwards. One "relic" of the custom which associated St. Martin's Day with the service of distinguished citizens is that on 198 OLD MARTINMAS DAY. 199 the morrow of St. Martin (November I2th), the list of High Sheriffs isy" drawn up. Learned antiquaries tell us it was so fixed that, like the Saint, newly appointed officials might learn to divide their substance with their fellows, but most likely the time was suitable for change, and St. Martin's Day, being near, supplied the religious service which our ancestors considered a necessary preliminary to office. But besides these highly placed people, Martinmas regulated the term of service for those engaged in farm work in Yorkshire. We need not seek any ecclesiastical reason for this, as Saxon chronicles tell us that by "Martin's Day" the numerous oxen, sheep, and pigs, whose store of food would naturally be exhausted, were slaughtered and salted down. When this necessary work was done, and not until then, could the farmer part with his men. This killing gave rise to an ancient pro- verb His Martinmas will come meaning all men must die. After Martinmas came the o 2OO OLD MARTINMAS DAY. hirings, the holidays, and the change of servants. So things remained up to 1752, when the change of style took place. Since the days of Julius Caesar the year had been getting wrong with the sun, owing to the fact that Leap Year supposes that it takes exactly three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter for the earth to travel round the orb of day, whereas it wants eleven minutes short of that time. Pope Gregory XIII. perceived how we were getting out, and in 1582 ordered that October 5th should be the I5th, and that ever after the Leap Year at the end of each century should be omitted. We did not fall into line with this, simply because it came from Rome, until 1752, when it required eleven days instead of ten to put us right. By Act of Parliament the eleven days of the calendar were deleted, and those who went to bed on the night of September 3rd woke to find it September i4th, and so the style was altered. But when St. Martin's Day arrived and the OLD MARTINMAS DAY. 2O1 labourers sought their hire, were Yorkshire farmers going to pay three hundred and sixty-five days' wages for three hundred and fifty-four days' work? * Not they ; and not for all the Acts of Parliament on the Statute Book. If the servants wanted a year's wages they must work for it, and thus the servants' year of labour was prolonged till November 23rd, and that day it has remained ever since. Few of the country clergy take a holiday in Martinmas week, for it is the time for weddings. The servants have had all the year to bill and coo, and that week sees the knot tied. The Registrar's office has great attrac- tions, which only those who are familiar with the details of country weddings can fully appreciate. If the marriage takes place at the village church, the neighbours arc sure to get wind of it, and gather round and expect to be treated ; but the Registrar's office being in a distant town, the attentions are prevented, and perfect secrecy as to the time of the ceremony is secured. Still, marriage in the 2O2 OLD MARTINMAS DAY. village church has its charms ; amongst which are the hearty good wishes of friends, and specially the procession of the bridal % party up the nave to the admiration of the assembled spectators. Old Martinmas Day used to be the harvest of the footpads. They would lie in wait on the country roads, and as the servants did not leave till nightfall, it was easy by force or threats to get their wages out of them. The old fable of the labourer who received for his year's wages a lump of gold which he exchanged for a cow, which in turn he exchanged for a horse, and so on till he had got down to a paving stone, which he threw away and reached home empty, has been true to the life, so far as the beginning and end are concerned. Of course, a lad with a pocket full of money who gets stupid through drink deserves no sympathy if he loses his gold. The carelessness of some of them is incredible. Not long since a girl left her place with her wages Gi7) done up in a corner of her handkerchief. She journeyed OLD MARTINMAS DAY. 203 home by rail, beguiling the time by shelling and eating nuts. The shells she collected in her handkerchief, and when she threw them out of the window, she threw her wages out too ! However, farm servants have no more fools among them than any other class, and Old Martinmas Day, or the following week-day, sees many men and women at the Savings Bank depositing a good proportion of their wages against the time when they will set up for themselves. Among the quarterings of the Coat of Arms of the Earl of Londes- borough is a hayfork, derived from the Conyngham family, of which the first lord was a member. Their motto is " Over, fork over," and carries one's mind back to the day when their ancestor was a labouring man, and with his fork covered with hay the fugitive heir to the throne of Scotland, who, when Fortune smiled, rewarded him so handsomely that his descendant is able to entertain the heir to the thrones of England and Scotland. Without saying that every 2O4 OLD MARTINMAS DAY. farm labourer may one day find himself the host of Princes, it is quite within the mark to say that many who are now in comfortable positions as farmers, or even on farms of their own, began life as Martinmas servants. OPEN HOUSES. -THE late Lord Fitzwilliam was said to have been the last of the grandees to keep open house, at least, in Yorkshire. It was not that his house was open to all and sundry to come and be entertained as they chose, but anyone on his visiting list was free to write and say they were coming to dine on such and such a night, or to dine and sleep, or even to stay a few days. It is scarcely necessary to add that the Earl's visiting list was restricted to the county people and a few well-to-do clergy, and what is generally meant by keeping open house that all, known or unknown, were" free to come was not the meaning, so far as Lord Fitz- william was concerned. This latter sense was 'true of mediaeval monasteries, as it is true of Mount Saint Bernard to-day ; it is the sense in which public-houses stood open 305 2O6 OPEN HOUSES. during election times in the days of our fathers, but, though not quite extinct, it is difficult to find such an open house to-day. A visitor to one of the islands off the coast of Scotland last summer inquired the way to an inn. He was told there was not one on the island, but if he went to the Laird's house he would find everything he wanted. The visitor followed the direction given, and not only found the door wide open, and the Laird with extended hand to greet the coming guest, but actually in the hall was a cauldron full of meat and game kept boiling for any chance comer who might arrive. Not only was there food, but also bed and board for the three days which the stranger stayed, and, on leaving, he saw that the last thing he could do would be to offer to pay-for his hospitality. It is needless to add that the island is not frequented by tourists, nor is it necessary to give its name. The experience had such a delightful old-world air about it that I have often been asked if I have met OPEN HOUSES. 207 with similar adventures at home or abroad. People want to know if there are any parts of the earth unsophisticated enough to receive a guest for the mere pleasure of his company, without a thought of money payment or its equivalent. Yes, there are such open houses still, but they are hard to find. Naturally they exist in the greatest number in the most inaccess- ible places. I was staying once in the region of Black Torrington, in North Devon, and noticed that the breakfast things were never cleared away till luncheon time, and lunch remained on the table till dinner. I learnt that the door stood open all the day long, and all comers were welcome to put their horses in the stable, and help themselves to what they wanted. As the region was very wild, and the population sparse, few, except known persons, availed themselves of the open house. How free they were to do so, and how they used the house as their own, was impressed upon me by the follow- ing. A young couple with their baby were 2O8 OPEN HOUSES. staying there, when one afternoon the baby was missing. A stranger had been seen in the house, and suspicion fell on him. He was found after a time sitting under a tree, nursing the baby, and crying over it. He had been a rejected suitor of the mother, and, learning that she was in the house, had come for the purpose of seeing her, and, not finding her, had solaced himself with the baby instead. Few things could show better the perfect run of the house any stranger might enjoy. I was one Saturday in Ireland eating my luncheon in Cashel, when a stranger came into the room, and, with that charming grace which Irish gentlemen have, began to ask me my business, and where I was going. I told him I was walking across Ireland, and purposed remaining in Cashel over the Sunday, that I might see the famous rock, and other things of interest. He pressed me to spend the time with him instead, and, as I did not much like the look of the little inn, and thought I could OPEN HOUSES. 209 not be worse off and might be better, I went with him in his carriage to his house, some few miles off. I had only the clothes I stood up in, and what I carried on my back, so it could not have been my luggage which was bail for my respectability. His house was called a castle, and I learnt that he was the head of one of the oldest families in the country, but at that time Irish land- lords were at their poorest, and only a single maidservant was employed. Yet the gentleman waited on me with much courtly grace, and his sister washed and ironed my solitary shirt, till I began to think King John of France had great compensations in his imprisonment if the Black Prince waited on him as my host did on me. I was once picked up on the road in Bohemia by a gentleman, of whom I inquired the way. He was going in the same direction, and walked with me. When we reached his place he insisted on my entering with him. He had been away some few days, and was returning home. I never 2IO OPEN HOUSES. saw such a patriarchal home-coming. The servants came running from all parts, kissing his hand and the skirt of his coat. Those who could not get near to kiss him, kissed me my hand I mean, of course. If his coming home was patriarchal, so was his home itself. Abraham was not more pleased to welcome a stranger than he was, and I was soon sitting down to the best of food and drink, with Abraham and Sarah waiting upon me. When I left they overpowered me with expressions of gratitude that I had favoured them with my presence. I feel a little diffident in describing the open houses of Yorkshire, knowing as I do that genus of persons who try to spoil everything if they can. Such open houses exist, as I can testify, and I do not wish to see them closed. Hence I will not indi- cate the locality too closely where they may be found. One day, about luncheon time, I found myself at a village inn, and called and asked what they could give me to eat. "Beg pardon," said mine host, "but Sir OPEN HOUSES. 211 says we are not to supply lunch to gentlemen like you, you are to go up to the Hall." "But I do not know Sir ," I objected. "No matter, sir, you will find you're quite welcome." So I found. I sat down with the baronet as though I was an old acquaintance, and was shown the things of interest about the place, and prepared to depart. I tried to slip a florin into the footman's hand as some acknowledgment, but was told it was more than his place was worth to take it, but he thanked me all the same. On another occasion I was up in the Craven district, and about night-fall I applied for a bed and supper at the village inn. The landlord told me that he had a child very ill, and his wife was busy nursing it, and so could not attend to me, but the squire had directed that all travellers should be sent to the Hall, and he would entertain them. 212 OPEN HOUSES. I walked through the park with some misgiving, for I was on a walking tour, and did not look very presentable. I specu- lated on the chance of being sent to the back door and set down 'to supper with the servants. Two footmen answered my ring, and to them I explained my errand. They went back, and evidently received directions to show me up to a bedroom, and told me dinner would be ready at eight o'clock. Dinner ! a vision of a company of ladies and gentlemen in evening dress rose before me, and there was I without eyen a white shirt to put on. However, on descending the stairs, I found the squire was a bachelor, and he and I made the dinner party. "Are you not afraid," I asked, "to take in men you know nothing about, and who may be scoundrels?" "Why should I be afraid?" he answered. "I am not married, so there is no jewellery OPEN HOUSES. 213 in the house. All my plate is at my banker's ; this is only white metal. Indeed, the one valuable thing here is the library, and I flatter myself I have such a good set of books that a thief, if he stole one, would be all the better for reading it." I have not exhausted my list of open houses where I have been entertained free of charge by persons who had never seen me before, but I have said enough to show they still exist. A HARDY ANNUAL. A PUBLIC schoolmaster who lives upon the Yorkshire coast was able to boast that he never missed having his dip in the sea during a whole year, and the year before he missed only once. As he had to leave his home by a quarter-to-eight train in the morning, it will be obvious that for some month or two in the year his bath must be taken in the dark, as well as in the cold. His boast might be little more than an item for people to remark upon, were it not that he is able to congratulate himself on never catching cold, and never having neuralgia, to which he once was a martyr. When he puts on his topcoat it is merely to cover his evening dress suit, and not for the purposes of warmth. Further, that although he comes of an exceedingly delicate stock, and in his youth was believed to be 214 A HARDY ANNUAL. 215 going off into consumption, he has grown into a man "as strong as they make them." In these days, when the physical degeneracy of the race is lamented as much as the mental progress is exulted in, it may be worth while to consider this elixir vitce. While most of us are snug in bed on stormy dark mornings, and are waiting for the knock at the door which tells us that the hot water and a cup of tea are ready outside, the thought that some people have already had their sea-bath may strike one as on a line with the acts of an Indian fakir. Yet these bathers are more numerous than might be supposed. In the Serpentine in London, about a hundred claim to be all-the-year-round bathers, and about half-a- dozen can claim to have drunk for twenty years of the can of rum and milk always provided on Christmas morning. Many a seaside place can boast of at least one in- habitant who rejoices in this Spartan regimen, and who tells you he could not do without it. Among the stories of Lord Byron still 2l6 A HARDY ANNUAL. remembered at Venice is one relating to his daily swim in the small hours of the morning. He went out every night to some reception, and at 2 a.m. his servant always appeared with a lantern and a board. Lord Byron then undressed and gave his clothes to his servant, and then placing the lantern on the board, pushed it before him as he swam to his own palace on the Grand Canal. Byron's love of bathing and his prowess as a swimmer are well known, and he was one of the trio ever to be remembered as having swam across the Hellespont. Close to the spot where our hardy annual takes his daily dip, a ship recently came ashore. The whole crew was drowned with the exception of one man who was flung on the cliffs by the waves. According to his account not one of his mates could swim, for had they been able to make any fend for themselves they might have been saved. If the object of this article was to inculcate swimming, one might lament how deplorably low is the average of swimmers. There are - A HARDY ANNUAL. Zl'J many alive now who may remember to have seen Vice-Chancellor Shadwell swimming on a winter's day in the Thames, followed by his nine sons. There is no such example set in high life now, and one consequence is that when a newspaper paragraph records the capsizing of a boat it invariably ends with the drowning of nearly all on board. But it is not the value of swimming so much as the priceless value of that cold dip in the morning which is to be commended to all who read this. Now that every house is built with a bath-room it might be thought the intelligence that Queen Anne is dead would be about as necessary as a paean on the merits of bathing. But in that bath-room are sure to be two taps, inscribed hot and cold, and these wintry mornings the temp- tation to turn on the former is irresistible to all but the hardest. That "dash" of warm just takes off the merit of the cold bath. A cold bath has been said to act like a bottle of champagne in picking you up. Yes, but the champagne must be " up " too. 2l8 A HARDY ANNUAL. A bath with the chill off is like the cham- pagne with the head off. Never was there so unhealthy a winter as that of 1901 proved to school keepers. Epidemics of measles, mumps, and other ills, all having their origin in colds, caused elementary schools all over Yorkshire to close their doors, and dispersed the pupils of many private schools to their respective homes weeks before the proper breaking-up. People blamed the dry summer and the bad- ness of the water, but the fault lay largely in the absence of the cold water from the skins of the victims. It is not possible for all to get a sea bath the whole year through, but the next best substitute is to take a bath of cold water in a room with the window open. These hardy annuals are well repaid. Nothing seems to hurt them. The waiting- room fire may be in or out, the dinner may be punctual or an hour late it's all the same to them. On the coldest night of last winter one of them in Scotch dress A HARDY ANNUAL. 2ig travelled from Aberdeen to London. He had a great coat, but he did not put it on, and while the other passengers in the carriage tried with rug and great coat to keep some warmth in them, the hardy annual sat with his knees exposed perfectly at his ease. When York Station was reached about midnight, and a rush was made for hot spirits, hot coffee, and the like, he refreshed himself with a bottle of ginger beer. Those present in Ganton Churchyard on that bitterly cold day when Sir Charles Legard was buried may have been struck with the thought that, next to the display of respect and esteem in which the late baronet had been held, it was remarkable for its display of costly furs. Yet those who wore them shivered under their weight, and serious hopes were expressed that the funeral might not lead to many more. One man stood there actually clad in alpaca. Yet he neither shivered nor turned blue with cold, nor seemed to feel the slightest in- convenience. He was a hardy annual, too. BROTHER JONATHAN. AMONG things not generally known is the reason why the American people are known to us as Brother Jonathan. It arose in this way. Jonathan Trumbull was Governor of Connecticut, and in Washington's opinion was the first of patriots. Whenever Wash- ington was in doubt how to proceed, his favourite resource was to consult Brother Jonathan. The name caught, and was used by friend and foe alike as synonymous with the American people. When, on the Sun- day following Mr. McKinley's assasination, a preacher, who was very much on the spot with his text, gave out, " I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan," every child in church knew as well who was meant as they knew the special reason for condolence. It is to Englishmen alone the American nation is Brother Jonathan ; to the Canadian, BROTHER JONATHAN. 221 as to himself, he is impersonated by Uncle Sam. This is a play upon the initial letters of the United States, and it has enriched our language by the expression "to stand Sam," meaning to pay the piper, in allusion to the way in which the cost of everything is thrown upon the Government of the U.S.A. Brother Jonathan is always the impersonation of the typical American, as John Bull of the typical Englishman. The expression is as true as it is happy. He is our brother. " Chatham's language was his mother-tongue." He is none the less our brother because quarrels have come be- tween us, for rarely is it otherwise. Just when everyone was expecting that we must go to war, it was shown that blood was thicker than water, and brothers we remained. Has Yorkshire a peculiar claim to kinship? While it might be expected that one held in such reverence as George Washington would have had his ancestry traced out for him in every detail, yet of few men is the origin more obscure. One genealogist bestows 222 BROTHER JONATHAN. much labour in trying to prove his descent from Odin, a story only relieved from being mythical by its connection with the East Riding, in whose people so much of the blood of the old Norse heroes flowed. It is from the region of South Cave that the ancestors of Washington went forth to seek their fortunes in the New World. That they were people of prominence may be gathered from a cartulary of their family now in the possession of Lord Herries, which traces their connection with the great Constables of Flamborough. The document is endorsed "Cartulary of Mr. Washington, ancestor of George Washington," as the reference to the patriot must have been added long after the time of the charter itself, which is dated 1634, the value of the evidence is diminished, but it is given here for what it is worth. A more certain connection with Yorkshire is also more romantic. In Nunburnholme Rectory, near Pocklington, hangs, or at least did hang, the picture of the lady who refused George Washington. In the loyal BROTHER JONATHAN. 223 days, when the Virginia Militia fought side by side with the King's soldiers, two aides- de-camp of General Braddock were rivals for the hand of a lady. The heart of the lady warmed rather to the royal scarlet than to the buff and blue of the militia. The King's officer was Captain Roger Morris, of the 48th Foot ; the Virginian volunteer, Colonel George Washington, of Mount Vernon. The man of imperturbable truth had to face defeat, as he did in many another action, with the best grace he could, and is said to have witnessed the marriage of his lady love to his rival in 1758. The next year Washington married Mrs. Martha Curtis, but had no family. Captain Morris had a son, who was the father of the famous York- shire naturalist, the Rev. Francis Qrpen Morris, and that is how the portrait of Washington's sweetheart came to hang in a Yorkshire rectory. What might have happened had the lady accepted Washing- ton ? Would the States have had a Fourth of July in their calendar? 224 BROTHER JONATHAN. Next to George Washington no man's work so influenced American life as that of William Wilberforce, M.P. for Hull, and afterwards for Yorkshire. His name, too, was racy of our soil, for in 1666 his family was known as Wilberfoss of Wilberfoss, a village near Pocklington. The two great men, one of whom gave liberty to the land, and the other liberty to the slave, were both of our kith and kin, and lend peculiar force to "Brother Jonathan " when spoken by the lips of Yorkshiremen. Sympathy is not merely a sentiment ; it is, if applied at the right time and in the right way, an article of value. When the German Emperor was over here at the time of our national bereavement, his sympathy had a positive effect upon the funds. It may be said to have been negotiable, and estimated in pounds, shillings, and pence. It is possible that England's sympathy may have a value above what is thought. Not merely is it a question of words, of memorial services, and even of tears, but it may have a tangible BROTHER JONATHAN. 225 worth. If one country lias gone to war for a bucket, and another for a cask, let it not be forgotten that a smooth sentence averted a war impending, and that a bow from the Duke of Orlean to Robespierre would have made the difference of life and death. Sym- pathy to be of value must at least be in- telligent ; so it may be worth while to know who Brother Jonathan is. SURPLICE'S DERBY. THERE stood a thatched cottage in the village of Burnby, near Pocklington, where, previous to 1848, one lived who was always known as Sim Templeman. Those were days prior to the times when jockeys made more than Prime Ministers, and when princes sought their acquaintance, and if it cannot be said they were days prior to the art of pulling and selling a race, yet there is every reason to suppose such practices were much less frequent than now. This will account for a well-known jockey living in a thatched cottage, wearing home-spun suits, being devoted to his wife and children, being churchwarden of his village church, and showing other signs of respectable, if humble, life. There now stands on the site of that cottage a handsome mansion known as Burnby House, with grounds and gardens, 226 SURPLICE'S DERBY. 227 evidently a gentleman's place. In years gone by when building in the country was rare, many elderly people in the East Riding can remember being taken to see the place and learn how large a house could be built for ^"2000. How came the inhabitants of the cottage to build that house, and go and live there ? At the time alluded to there was no more lavish and popular patron of the Turf than Lord Clifden. About 1830 Viscount Clifden purchased the manor and estate of Len- borough, in Buckinghamshire, and the still larger estate of Holdenby, in Northampton- shire, came into his hands in the same manner. Holdenby, the ancient seat of the Hattons, was purchased by James I., who gave it to his son Charles, with whose latter history its name will always be associated. At the time spoken of, it was associated with the training stables of Lord Clifden. In them were ninety-five men and boys, and five women were daily employed in filling-in and levelling the tracks and indentations made 228 SURPLICE'S DERBY. by the feet of the horses when they galloped. It has been said of the wealth of Lord Clifden that it had been made by a bishop to be spent by a jockey. This was true, inasmuch as it had been acquired by a former Bishop of Meath, the founder of the family, and the Lord Clifden in question lived for nothing but his horses. To write letters six sheets in length about them, and to keep his trainer up till five in the morning talking about them, was a common occurrence. When Lord Derby visited the stables and noticed every modern improvement, he declared never had horses been in such luck since the days when Caligula built an ivory stable for his. All this is necessary to be remembered to understand the full force of what follows. The late Mr. Rudstone Read, of Hayton, near Pocklington (Billy Read he was to his friends), strolled into White's Club, in Brook Street, on the Monday afternoon before Whit Sunday in 1848, and found the reading room deserted but for Lord Clifden, who was SURPLICE'S DERBY. 229 sitting as though dazed and ill, a most unusual attitude for his energetic lordship. Though friends, Lord Clifden took no notice of " Billy," who sat himself down. After an interval the silence was broken by a desponding sigh, and "I'm done," from the nobleman. This gave Mr. Read an opening and opportunity to enquire "How's that?" " Bill Scott is down with typhus, and Surplice hasn't a rider," was the reply. It may be necessary here to explain that Surplice was the favourite for the Derby, which is generally run on the Wednesday before Whit Sunday, so for the horse's rider to be seized with typhus on the Monday pre- ceding looked like a case of scratching unless another rider could be found. Unless, indeed ! What jockey the least capable of riding a Derby favourite would be likely to be disengaged two days before the great event ? "It's not merely the loss of the race," 230 SURPLICE'S DERBY. Lord Clifden went on, "proud as I am of my stables, but it's the money. I stand to win ,26,000 or to lose just four times as much." Billy Read slapped his thighs so loudly that Lord Clifden actually started, and followed up this by the exclamation " A miracle." "A miracle, a fellow sent down from heaven on purpose, like Ganymede or what's his name," said Billy, mixing up his classics a little, for Ganymede was taken up, not sent down, from the celestial regions. He then went on to explain that he had travelled up from Yorkshire with his neigh- bour, Sim Templeman, who was going to ride Lancashire, that on his way to the Club he had fallen in with Sim again, looking very crestfallen, and heard from him that his mount had gone lame, and so, unwilling to bear the disappointment' and view the Derby as an outsider, when he had hoped to be Quorum magna pars, he was going back to Yorkshire by the next train. SURPLICE'S DERBY. 231 To call a cab, to jump in, and to go off as hard as they could pelt, was the work of a few minutes. Sim was already on the plat- form, having taken his ticket, and was seeing to his portmanteau. "Sim," said Billy. "Sir," said Sim. N " Here's Lord Clifden come to ask you to ride Surplice for the Derby ; Bill Scott's down with typhus." "What, the favourite?" enquired Sim. " Yes, the favourite," said Lord Clifden, and seeing a doubtful expression come over Sim's honest face, he ventured to say, "And there's a thousand pounds for you if you win, too." Now, to take in the force of this promise it will be necessary to hear in mind that in those days jockeys, instead of being millionaires, lived in thatched cottages. When Lord Airlie, after the victory of his horse Clincher, went up to his jockey and gave him ;ioo, the jockey (Frank Butler) put the money back into his lordship's hand 9 232 SURPLICE'S DERBY. instantly, and when evening came, after dinner at the Jockey Club, Lord Derby proceeded to lecture Lord Airlie in very stinging language upon the impropriety of demoralising a jockey by such unusual generosity. It is well to bear this in mind that the magnitude of Lord Clifden's promise (nothing in comparison with what happens to-day) may be duly appreciated. Sim Templeman, left alone, sat down on his box, and ruminated. " One thousand pounds" was a fortune to the humble-minded man. "Not that I shall ever get it," he continued to himself, " I never could get the stuff out of a horse that Bill Scott could, but still if I did win it, I know exactly what I would do ; I'd build such a house in dear old Burnby as would make the parson himself open his eyes." This is no place to dwell upon that eventful Derby. Suffice it to say that Sim rode in his own way, and never moved in his saddle or lifted his whip. He rode the whole course, the most difficult and dangerous course it is SURPLICE'S DERBY. 233 possible to conceive, his hand and seat keeping perfect time with the horse's action. The Derby is generally won by the horse which strides farthest down hill, and Sim encouraged his animal to stretch himself out to the utmost. To say that Lord Clifden was as good as his word is nothing. He could not fail to be that ; he was twice as good as his word, and instead of ^1000, gave him two. There is nothing to equal Sim's home- coming, unless it be Lord Macaulay's interview with his publisher, Mr. Longman, after his great history had been brought out. The great writer went to London for a littfce money. "What would he have?" One hundred, two, five, ten, more than that. Five thousand, and so on up to ,20,000, for which Mr. Longman drew a cheque. Mrs. Templeman had set her heart on a little improvement in their cottage home, and arranged with the carpenter for two pounds. Could she have it ? Yes, and more ; twenty, fifty, and so up the gamut till ^2000 was 234 SURPLICE'S DERBY. reached, and then two new Bank of England notes were laid upon the table. Of course after such an eventful victory, the fame of Sim Templeman rose, and although the Duke of Beaufort in his " Reminiscences of Jockeys," says he was in French parlance brillant au second rang, and never attained to the very first ; yet, he added so much to his savings that he was able to live in comfort in the house he had built with his first ^2000, and so great a home-bird was he that, after he had finally settled down, it was said he never missed a service in church, and never slept away from Burnby as long as he lived. At his death in 1870, Burnby House was sold, and bought by Sir Charles Anderson, and is in the possession of his descendants. A FORGOTTEN PROPHET. THAT " history repeats itself" is one of those sayings which are true and false at the same time. It is false in so far that, though two events may tally, the precise circumstances under which they take place never can, the mere flight of time rendering it impossible ; while it is true that in many chapters of history not only the broad outlines but even the details marvellously correspond. It repeats itself because man's capacity for action is so extremely limited. What can he do but what has been done before? "The thing which hath been is that which shall be." If this is the case in ordinary life, where new worlds have from time to time been opened out be- fore men, how much more is it true in regard to that world which has never been opened out that unseen world about which the un- tutored Indian knows as much as the Divinity *35 236 A FORGOTTEN PROPHET. professor, and in his guesses at truth is as likely to be right. Men think they score a point against orthodox Christianity when they put forth their discoveries of the wonder- ful likeness between the heathen myths and the Bible story, forgetting they might as well found an indictment against M. de Lesseps because his schemes have a wonderful simi- larity to the ship canals of the ancients. What can men do in any age but live and move, love and hate, do right and do wrong. So as religion only can deal with life, death, and afterwards, it is no wonder that men's thoughts on these subjects have run in very narrow grooves. One idea has been common to all religious movements, viz., that they are something new. Nothing has given greater offence to the Salvation Army than the suggestion that it was merely a revival of what had been before. " Nothing is new except what is forgotten," say the French, and because a prophet, who some years ago was followed by crowds, who, when he went to our Colonies, A FORGOTTEN PROPHET. 237 was saluted by a larger number than met the Governor-General, and whose followers built him a county place, where his descendants now reside, because all this has been for- gotten men fancy the present day is seeing what the Athenians prized so much "some new thing." In the village of Wrenthorpe, in Yorkshire, stands a handsome building. How it came into the possession of Prophet Wroe forms a story sufficiently ' curious to be worth telling. When, in 1814, Joanna Southcott died of that tumour, which her followers believed to have been the sign of her approaching motherhood of the Messiah, the two things least expected happened. Strange to say, the delusion went on which death had rendered physically impossible, and, stranger still, her place was taken by a man. This was George Turner, who died in 1822, and was succeeded by another man, the subject of our narrative, John Wroe. This man was born, lived, and carried 238 A FORGOTTEN PROPHET. on his prophecies among the weavers and spinners of the West Riding of Yorkshire. It is surprising what a number of deceivers and deceived this hard-headed race have given birth to, but to none whose claims were more flimsey, whose character was less inviting, and whose success was more substantial than the Prophet Wroe. He was clever enough to see the advantages he would gain if instead of the progenitor he took up the role of the genuine article himself. In other words he proclaimed himself to be the Person whose appearance was to usher in the Millennium upon earth. To be accepted as such, to receive a sub- stantial county house as a fitting residence for himself, to be able to attract ^ crowd of thirty thousand people to witness his baptism in the river Aire, would imply a stock-in- trade somewhat in proportion to such results. Some startling truth must have been dis- played, or some conspicuous piety shewn, before people would accept such a very "tall order" as he issued. We propose to give A FORGOTTEN PROPHET. 239 some specimens of his teaching, while some instances of his conduct will shew any one wishing to set up as an impostor, the ranker a one he is the better. The fortune-telling girl at Philippi had gained the ear of the people more than the Apostle Paul had, and one well acquainted with the inner life of the poor tells us the Tichborne claimant was known and talked of when the names of Bright and Spurgeon were but empty sounds. Probably a little learning or a- twinge of conscience in the Prophet Wroe might have wrecked the whole thing. Wrenthorpe did not drop into the prophet's lap, but came as the climax of his life, as the reward of his labours. The opening of his communications with Heaven began in a way we should describe as droll, did not the associations of the subject preclude such a word. Here is the account in his own writing " One day while rambling in a field a woman came to me who tossed me up and down. I strove to get hold of her, but got hold of nothing, therefore I knew it was a 240 A FORGOTTEN PROPHET. spirit." This opening of his ministry, which reminds one of the famous "cow with a crumpled horn," was certainly in keeping with what followed. One day, in 1820, he accosted Queen Caroline on her way from the House of Lords to Lady Hamilton's with the scriptural phrase, " I have a message for thee, O Queen." "Unto me!" said she, throwing back her veil. "Aye," said I (for he is telling his own story), "and she walked aside into one of the passages, and I gave her a letter, and a copy of each of the books of visions, then I went away, and no one spoke to me." As neither history nor the prophet tells us of any results of this communication, we are left to infer it was somewhat barren. Not so the heavenly conference which showed him that a light should break forth from the very place in which he stood, in a field at Ashton- under-Lyne, which should enlighten the whole town. "This actually occurred," he says in a tone of triumph, "some years later by the erection of a gas-house ! ! ! " What- A FORGOTTEN PROPHET. 24! ever his faults, justice compels one to admit that the prophet did not spare himself. The well-fed rector who tells you he is "very tired" on a Sunday night after officiating twice that day, for about an hour each time, would certainly quail before a service lasting thirty- six hours. Such was the length of a service held at Bradford previous to Wroe's departure for Australia in 1822. Nor was it endurance of one kind only which he displayed. In the cold Yorkshire climate, and in the costume of 7 /> $.dam (in his innocent days), he submitted to baptism in the river Medlock, in the presence of a vast concourse of people. Whether he sent the hat round with satisfactory results I cannot say, but something induced him to repeat the operation in the river Aire about a month later. Some sense of propriety had by this time been aroused, and cries of " Drown him" arose from the thirty thousand spec- tators who had lined the banks to witness the indecent spectacle. To these rigours he added those of travel, for besides traversing Germany, Italy, and Spain, we find him in 242 A FORGOTTEN PROPHET. America and Australia propagating his theories or his gospel, or whatever he would call his frivolous effusions. There is one faculty which no one can deny to Wroe, the faculty of attracting crowds of people. In the days when St. Paul's Cathedral resembled a wilderness, when the English Church was so little known outside our own country that Pope Pius IX. is reported to have expressed his en- tire ignorance of its clergy only that once he had heard of some one named Wilberforce in such times we read of congregations numbered by tens of thousands listening to the prophesies of Wroe. When he landed in Australia his progress was like a triumphal procession, more people being present to welcome him than were present at the land- ing of the Governor-General. His tour in America was marked by similar enthusiasm, and he received that honour which pro- verbially attends a prophet when outside his own country. The time had now come for him to receive A FORGOTTEN PROPHET. 243 his reward. His followers subscribed and purchased for him the hall at Wrenthorpe, a large and handsome stone building, and on Whit Sunday, 1857, it was formally handed over to him as the head of the Christian Israelites. Here he was the country gentleman, and it would seem that the Mil- lennium had begun for him if for nobody else ; but his previous life had given him what the navvies call the "tickles in the feet," and after seven years he started again for Australia, where he died. He died and the Millennium had not come. " All things continued as they were." What was to become of the belief of his followers ? and what was to become of Wrenthorpe Hall? One would have thought this would have ended the whole business. Not the least. Heresy never dies. It only assumes different shapes, and was not dead but simply had disappeared, and Wrenthorpe Hall is held upon the tenure that in one room a fire should be always lighted, and the prophet's 244 A FORGOTTEN PROPHET. slippers always before it, as he may return at any time. It is not often that the follies of people remain in evidence, as Wrenthorpe witnesses to the gullibility of a past generation, and when one finds a handsome country house is the temporal reward of a man of the poorest attainments, of the craziest creed, the prophet of an evangel which carried its own re- futation, surely we may cease to wonder at anything. A CONVERT TO THE COUNTRY. THE Archbishop of York re-opened Thwing Church after its restoration. If his Grace had allowed his eyes to wander from his sermon or his prayer-book to the tablets on the walls, they would have alighted on a name long connected with the village, that of a remarkable man in days when remarkable men were plentiful. The tablet is simply to the memory of Edward Topham, Esq., of Wold Cottage, with the date of his birth and death. No reference is made to his profession, still less to the circumstances of his life, and as these were very different from anything to be met with to-day, they may be worth recounting. Edward Topham could not be said to be either a great or famous man, but, like the crystal in, the fable, he lay so near the gold that he might have been taken for the genuine article itself. 245 - 246 A CONVERT TO THE COUNTRY. Edward Topham enjoyed the most desirable lot of being included in the ranks of a highly-civilised aristocracy at the cul- minating moment of its vigour. It is in such societies that existence has been enjoyed most keenly, and men lived so intensely and wrote so joyously that a student of the past loves to dwell upon the Athens of Alcibiades, the Rome of Mark Antony, and the London of Horace Walpole. The life of a society man of that period was amazingly frank. There was no use in trying to impose upon people who had been his schoolfellows at Eton, his brother officers in the Guards, his partners at whist, and his companions in a hundred revels. That which is now spoken in darkness was then said in the light ; and what for very shame is now spoken in the ear in closets was proclaimed upon the housetops. The father of Edward Topham was judge of the now extinct Prerogative Court. It was to a pamphlet written by him that we owe the Act for the Abolition of Fleet Marriages. A CONVERT TO THE COUNTRY. 247 His connection with Yorkshire was limited to his having been ridiculed by Laurence Sterne in his " Adventures of a Watch Coat," and to his daughter having married Sir Griffith Boynton, Bart., of Burton Agnes. The judge was evidently a man of means and position, who sent his son Edward to Eton, where, as a preliminary to his somewhat adventurous career, he was ringleader in a rebellion against Dr. Forster, the head master. Leaving Eton for Cambridge, Edward Topham spent four years at that seat of learning, during which time he lost both father and mother, and must have inherited a fair fortune, for he immediately bought himself a commission in the First Life Guards. Never was the proverb better exemplified about the poacher turning game- keeper, for this most turbulent of spirits soon had his regiment under excellent discipline, and from having been one of the worst, became the best in the King's service. The caricatures of the day depict him as the "Tip-Top Adjutant," a play upon his name R 248 A CONVERT TO THE COUNTRY. credited to the homely wit of George the Third. However, he found some compensation for the discipline of the army by belonging to that fast set of men of fashion known as "the Franciscans," who met at Medmenham Abbey, the door of which may still be seen surmounted by the motto, Fay ce que voudras (Do as you like). Here he would meet Lord Sandwich, John Wilkes, and that most gifted and abandoned clergyman, Rev. Home Tooke. Captain Topham had the entree of such Green Rooms as existed, Drury Lane, Sadler's Wells, &c., for he was a writer of farces, prologues, and epilogues. In this he was exceedingly happy. In our day epi- logues spoken by Mrs. Keeley and Miss Farren have been warmly applauded, but never has a house been filled by one. This was done by Topham, whose epilogue, spoken by Miss Farren (not Nellie) rilled Drury Lane for several nights, and caused roars of laughter, the subject turning upon an unlucky tragedy, which he describes as A CONVERT TO THE COUNTRY. 249 being performed with the usual amount of lamentation and tears on one side of the curtain, and was received with laughter and derision on the other. With such associations with the Green Room, no one (not even an Archbishop) will be surprised to hear Topham's name linked with one of the most famous actresses of her day, Mrs. Mary Wells. To further her interests he established The World newspaper in 1787, a daily paper to which Sheridan, Jekyll, and other wits contributed. No one will be surprised to learn that Topham soon abandoned Mrs. Wells, who lived to find herself in prison for debt, where she met a Moorish Jew, whom she married, previously becoming a Jewess. Subsequently she was divorced for eating pork griskin, and lived to publish her autobiography, wherein she speaks of Topham in language which it is mild to describe as ''scurrilous." When about 40 years of age, Major Top- ham, as he then was, left London for good, and bought Wold Cottage, near Thwing. 250 A CONVERT TO THE COUNTRY. To use his own words, he a London exquisite, a Green Room haunter, and an associate of wits, now settled down as a country squire, a sportsman, a Justice of the Peace, and a farmer. He seems to have been admirable in all relations of life save his domestic ones. As a sportsman, his kennels were the best in England, his grey- hound Snowball was eagerly sought after for breeding purposes ; while his three daughters (children of Mrs. Wells) had the reputation of being the best horsewomen in the country. Thwing at that day did not touch civilisation in the shape of a library nearer than twenty miles, yet Topham still continued a man of letters, and among other works published an account of the famous meteoric stone which fell within his property on December i3th, 1795, and erected an obelisk, still standing, to mark the spot where it fell. As a friend he seems to have been true and honourable, and acted as such to old Elwes, the celebrated miser. Elwes had no legitimate children, and seems to have had all the dislike of misers to A CONVERT TO THE COUNTRY. 251 willing away his money. He had two sons in the Life Guards, Topham's old regiment, and by the Major's influence a will was made, and thus the wealth of this eccentric millionaire was saved from the coffers of the State. Edward Topham lived thirty years at Wold Cottage, and frequently stated he never re- gretted changing the fashionable world for a life on the Yorkshire Wolds. The Wold Cottage, Major Topham's seat, is to let, and has been unoccupied for years. All those conveniences of life for which the Major may have sighed in vain are now at the disposal of those who live even in remote parts of the country. Is it that the love of country life has departed from us that no Lon- don editors, or men about town, ever live in the country longer than they can help, and always talk of a gentleman or a clergyman who lives there as "thrown away in the country?" Even an Archbishop might have a worse subject for a sermon than the culti- vation of a taste for those simple joys of life Edward Topham was so proud to possess. CHANGES AT THE SEA-SIDE. IT is more than fifty years since Frith painted his famous picture of the Sands. In that time certain features have disappeared, and others have sprung into existence, while the majority remain as they were. Darwin might say that there is abundant proof that our ancestors were Troglodytes, and lived in caves, as shown by successive generations of children finding never- ending delight in digging out homes and castles on the sands. The love of the water remains, and occupation for the morning is provided for large numbers in bathing and paddling. When- ever holiday people have nothing else to do, they are always ready to eat, so vendors of fruit and sweets ply a good trade, just as in Frith's days the purveyor of brandy balls was a familiar object on the seashore. So much has remained unchanged. When Frith painted his picture, the religious services for children on the sands, which are a 253 CHANGES AT THE SEA-SIDE. 253 feature every where in August, were not known. It was in 1865 that Lord Radstock, on Scar- borough Spa, first lifted up his voice in religious admonition to the multitude, and from this tiny stream of eloquence " the brook became a river, and the river became a sea," and now floods every seaside place. The Children's Special Service Mission has its headquarters in London. Thence arrange- ments are made for missions in all seaside resorts. Two houses are taken, one for the ladies and the other for the gentlemen, and by the first Sunday in August the party has arrived. Naturally a lady of mature age presides over the young helpers of the female sex, and the gentlemen keep house for themselves. If the Vicar of the place is sympathetic (and he generally is) he will lend his school and vestry in case the days are wet, otherwise all services are held in the open air. The day begins with a prayer meeting for the workers, after which at eleven o'clock, they take up their allotted space on the sands and service begins. All the usual features of religious worship are J54 CHANGES AT THE SEA-SIDE. present, except that there is no collection. Notices are given out that there will be cricket for the boys, and games for the girls in the afternoon, or else a picnic or sports of some kind. In the evening there will be classes, possibly a missionary meeting, and occasionally a torchlight procession. When first these children's services were held there was a disposition to say that they were out of place ; that the young men were goody- goody, and that the natural joys of the children were interfered with. But they have worked their way into favour by their own intrinsic merit, and everybody now agrees that they supply a want. Even children tire of con- tinuous pleasure, and welcome the change from gay to grave. Then it was found that good families made enquiries if the services were to be held or not, and regulated their visits accordingly. Above all they were found such a relief to parents, and especially to mothers, who knew that their children were perfectly safe with the mission people. CHANGES AT THE SEA-SIDE. 255 Then a great change came over public opinion when it was learnt that the young men gave up their long vacation to carry on these services for no pay whatever ; that they were mostly undergraduates from Oxford and Cam- bridge, and the very pick of them, too, both as regards the schools and the cricket field. When it became known that the Studds, who played not only for their counties, but even for England, were enthusiastic preachers on the sands, what boy could talk about their being " muffs," or call what they said " rot," and the like ? Also, the British public, which dearly loves a lord and all that pertains to him, could not ignore the fact that among the names of the young men were those who were entitled to the prefix " Honourable." So gradually the sand services made their way into popular favour. But above all things the British public is fair, and likes to see a man win in an open field with no favour. It is one thing to retain the attention of a congregation in a place of worship, and quite 256 CHANGES AT THE SEA-SIDE. another to retain the attention by a sermon on the sands. No sooner is a hymn given out than it has to hold its own against the pierrots' songs, and the most sacred words mingle with such refrains as " My girl's a Yorkshire girl, By gum she's a champion." or " I don't care what becomes of me So long as I hear that sweet melodee, Tip-y-addy." and so forth. The preacher has to keep his audience from straying to the rival shows, and this can only be done by making it worth their while to stay. One has to be on the alert, and ready to answer with good humour any obj ectors. ' ' Who was Cain's wife ? " called out one opponent. The young preacher answered, " I buried that interesting lady at my lads' classes last year, and I am not going to howk her up again." So the service proceeds, and often as you look at the crowd round the pierrots and compare it with that around the banner of the Children's Special Service Mission, you will find a third to say which is the larger. CHANGES AT THE SEA-SIDE. 257 Another new feature on the sands are the various holiday schools which are now formed every August, and naturally visit, if they are not located at, the seaside. Under the leader- ship of some qualified person various classes may be found, some learning about the shells, others about the sea-birds, while others will be studying the botany of the cliffs. But the largest section are sure to be on the rocks. William Smith, the father of English geology, received his most important lessons on our Yorkshire coast, and so did Professor Phillips, both of whom owe their fame to the interest attached to the rocks around Scar- borough. The rocks in East Yorkshire are exposed in the cliffs in wonderfully regular order. The beds are deposited one upon another just as one might pile some volume of books, so that they seem to be arranged for the con- venience of the geologist. Listen as the con- ductor explains the inhabitants of the Liassic Sea. Here a layer will be found to consist entirely of oyster shells. There the remains of strange mollusca, ammonites and belemnites CIIANGF.S AT Til!' SKA-SIDE. abound in thousands. Another bed will be largely composed of the stems of sea lilies. In a certain scene in the recent York Pageant we were reminded that once the ammonites were looked upon as " Snakes which turned to stone when Holy Hilda prayed." Now we have learnt that the ammonite, like the nautilus was once a denizen of the sea, and crawled upon the sea floor or floated'on the top. " The Nautilus and the Ammonite Were launched in friendly strife ; Each sent to float in the tiny boat On the wide, wide sea of life." Here is an historical section examining a kitchen midden on the Carr Naze above Filey Brig. Some coins of the late Emperors Gratian and Valentinian II. have just been discovered. " See," says the leader of the section, " what this implies." He then went on to point out that the Romans were so impressed with the danger from the Germany of those days, that they fortified the cliffs above Filey Brig, and kept a garrison on the spot they called Pre- torium, and made a road to it from York. The lateness of the coins A.D. 385 and A.D. 395 CHANGES AT THE SEA-SIDE. 25Q shows that they maintained this garrison up to the very end of their stay in England, i.e., up to A.D. 406. The leader of the party related a fact which may be of interest in these days of scare about the German Dreadnoughts. When Mrs. Ken- dal bought her house at Filey, some ten years ago, she mentioned the fact to Sir Andrew Clarke, not the great physician, but the director of fortifications, and said she had bought a house at a little place on the Yorkshire coast, which probably he had never heard of Filey! "Never heard' of it?" said Sir Andrew ; " look here." He took from a drawer a quantity of draw- ings which he had made for projected defences at Filey Bay, and said that the day would come when the British Government would regret the neglect of his plans for defending Filey. Will Sir Andrew prove to have been a true prophet ? These and similar questions are always turn- ing up for the many students whose school is at the seaside. A WALK TO SCOTS CORNER. " TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS" has made us all familiar with the Vale of the White Horse in Berkshire. It is said that the White Horse was the emblem of Hengist, and after a battle, Alfred caused his soldiers to carve a figure of a white horse on the chalk hill near by. Tom Hughes himself has left us an account of the scouring of the White Horse, a process which is carried out at intervals of twenty-five years. Perhaps the new sanatorium may draw attention to our White Horse in the north, a figure well-known to all passengers on the main line north, lying far up on the hills to the right as the train nears Thirsk. The influential meeting held at York to in- augurate the scheme is a good omen for its success, and when the new buildings are up, it is probable that the site will A WALK TO SCOTS CORNER. 261 draw further attention to the spot on which is the large figure of a white horse. Of course, there is a story to account for this one as well as that which marks the site of Alfred's victory. A white mare from the training ground near by became un- manageable, and, with her rider, leaped from the top of the Hambledon Hills into the abyss below. Of course, the spirit of the white mare haunted the spot, more especially as the cliff itself bears some resemblance to the form of a horse. At all events, some forty years ago, the figure of a large horse was cut in the field nearest the summit of the hill, and has been kept in good repair ever since. The exact site of the new sanatorium is a little to the south of the horse. The spot is known as Scots Corner. In 1322, Edward II. was returning from his ill-judged expedition to Scotland, and was closely pursued by his enemies under Robert Bruce. While the King was carousing at Byland Abbey, his forces were attacked here, and, 262 A WALK TO SCOTS CORNER. though bravely defending themselves for a time, they turned and fled, the King only saving his sacred person by flight, leaving the crown jewels and other booty for his foes. This led to a truce for thirteen years between the two kingdoms, and the place of the engagement is known to-day as Scots Corner, and is part of the training ground at Scawton. Such an engagement as the above is thrown into the background by the Scotch victory of Bannockburn. Moreover, as the site of the battle lies five miles from a way- side station, very few find it, especially as the spot is too hilly for any but very ardent cyclists, and the number of pedestrians being few, the battlefield in question is probably known to fewer Englishmen than the battle- field of Plassy. The best way to reach it is to get out at Coxwold Station. It is about equally distant from Thirsk, only the latter will take you by a road of little interest, whereas from Coxwold you traverse historic ground. The A WALK TO SCOTS CORNER. 263 Chevalier Bunsen declared the Vale of York to be the most beautiful and romantic in the world, the Vale of Normandy excepted. This may be the reason why the trains are all so slow, as a considerate railway company may wish you to admire the charms of the valley, the College of Ampleforth, the castle at Gilling, or the hills of Hambledon, which are said to derive their name from Himmel or Heaven. But even a slow train arrives at last, and from whatever point of the compass you come, there ought to be no difficulty in reaching the place by eleven. The hour suggests luncheon, and that again suggests that Laurence Sterne, whilom Vicar of Coxwold, wrote to a friend in 1767 that he was in the land of plenty : " I sit down to venison, fish, and wild fowl, or a couple of ducks with curds, strawberries and cream, and all the simple plenty which a rich valley can produce." Without vouching that you will fare like Sterne, it is safe to say that you will be "well done to" at the Fauconberg Arms, 264 A WALK TO SCOTS CORNER. the entrance to which is opposite the great elm tree in the very centre of the village. The road to the White Horse runs to the right of the church, and if, perchance, the bell be tolling, it is possible to hear the very sound of the passing bell which inspired Sterne to write his lines on the unknown world, lines which begin : " Hark, my gay friend, the solemn toll Speaks the departure of a soul." The verses have no particular merit beyond showing that in the frivolous nature which could write "The Sentimental Journey," and other unclerical works, there was a capacity for graver things. All great men are re- ligious at bottom, said some one of Wagner, and no one can find fault with Sterne's conclusion of the mysteries of the world unknown : "And he that makes it all his care To serve God here shall see him there." A few steps past the church we come upon Shandy Hall, where Sterne lived and wrote, A WALK TO SCOTS CORNER. 265 and led his solitary life. He once wrote in dog Latin Sum fatigatus et cegrotus de mea uxore plus quam unquam (I am more tired and sick of my wife than ever), but it is possible Mrs. Stejne had better reasons for being sick of her husband. The road, soon after passing Shandy Hall, turns to the right. It has been a continuous ascent since leaving Cox wold Station, and now one is on high ground enough to see the White Horse in the distance. The village of Kilburn lies down in the valley to the left, and the lofty tower of an observatory stands before you on the right. Taking the former turn a descent of two miles brings one to Kilburn, a village so peace- ful that the vale it lies in is appropriately called the happy valley. The Thirsk Road runs into the village too, and along this must have tramped the Scotch army under Robert Bruce. Scenes more terrifying still took place here, for legend says that near by the conference took place between Druids and Christian Missionaries. Though Satan 266 A WALK TO SCOTS CORNER. himself assumed the garb of a Druid, yet Christian argument got the day, so that he flew away with the stone on which he had been standing still adhering to his foot, which did not drop till he had reached the top of Hood Hill, and there it is to be seen, weighing some sixteen tons, and the spot is still known as the Devil's Leap. Indeed the stranger may well be awestruck with the terrifying names about him, for just outside Kilburn is Hell-Hole, a ravine which the sun can never penetrate. Hood Hill derives its name from the famous robber, who here met Friar Tuck, whom he per- suaded to forsake his religious order and join the outlaws. Sober history records how Henry II. sent three hundred soldiers into these parts to put down the desperadoes who infested them. The most terrifying thing to be met with now is the steepness of the way, so steep that it compels even a strong man to pause on his upward ascent and take breath. Leaving the road you struggle up the field A WALK TO SCOTS CORNER. 267 paths, the White Horse immediately above you, so near it looks, and yet so far to reach. In the last field before you come to the Horse the path runs by the side of the roadway, which is fortunate, as you need all the assistance which hedge and stake can supply to complete the journey. C'est le premier pas qui coute, says the French proverb, but, in scaling heights, it is the last steps, not the first, which are so hard, and it is not unknown for pedestrians to tramp all the way from Coxwold Station and sit down utterly exhausted in the fields below, quite unable to reach the White Horse. When reached, the size of the white Horse is amazing. A whole party can pic-nic on its tail, and a full-grown man can sit easily in its hoof. But a man who has come all this distance will do well to climb a few steps further and see the view over the wild romantic Vale of Mowbray. On the other side is the splendid remains of the Abbey of Rievaulx, with the magnificent demesne 268 A WALK TO SCOTS CORNER. of Duncombe Park. In the distance can plainly be seen Ripon, with its Minster; while, turning round, the Vale of York, studded with villages and woods, and con- taining the castles of Sheriff Hutton, Gilling, and Helmsley, is open to the view. In this direction, about a mile south-west of the Kilburn White Horse, may be seen the new sanatorium, rising on the land now known as Scots Corner. THE CHURCH PENNY: A VISITATION ECHO. " SHAKE a bridle over a Yorkshireman's grave and he will arise and steal a horse," says an ancient proverb. Jingle a penny within hearing of parsons and churchwardens and there will be an immediate scramble for it, and although the saying may not have yet passed into a proverb, yet it is as true as if backed with the sanction of centuries. We, that is, parsons and churchwardens, were all seated in the long room of the Arms. The visitation charge had been delivered in the morning, and had been followed by a solemn visitation dinner. A dinner is bound to be solemn when nobody knows what is the correct thing to drink. The clergy fear to set a bad example to the laity, and the laity don't like to drink before the parsons, so little was drunk except 270 THE CHURCH PENNY. water, and the wry faces made showed how unfamiliar it was to the taste of many. Now the cloth was cleared, the company were invited to light their pipes, and to choose one of four subjects set down for discussion. These were Sunday Observance, Village Schools, Lay Representation, and the Church Penny. Need it be stated which was chosen? Our coarse Premier, Sir Robert Walpole, said he always led the conversation at dinner on to salacious subjects, as then everybody could join in them. This was a good thing done in a bad way, but the Church Penny was the very thing to make conversation general at the after proceedings of a visitation dinner. The company present might know little and care less for the laity and their representatives, but every one was only too familiar with counting the coppers. Ever since the year 1868, when church rates were abolished, the means for keeping up the fabric and services of the Church have been obtainable only from those who attend it. In certain well placed parishes this is so THE CHURCH PENNY. 271 far from being difficult that there were men sitting at that visitation dinner who drew ^"500 out of the surplus collections. But in the country, and in poor parts of the towns, the problem of squaring the circle seems easy compared to that of providing for church expenses. Voluntary rates have been tried, but these are now all wanted for the school, and so the Church must go to the wall. Collections have been tried, and have been run up from quarterly to monthly, and from monthly to weekly, and from weekly to offertories at every service, but still the funds have been insufficient. Plates have been exchanged for bags, and bags exchanged for plates again, but still the money would not come. The clergy have commented with awful severity on the sin of putting buttons and peppermint drops into the treasury of the Lord's House, but to little effect, and so the Archbishop of York proposed a Church Penny, which he thinks will solve the difficulty. The scheme is certainly simple. Visitors 272 THE CHURCH PENXY. will call at every house, and inquire the number of inmates who are Churchpeople. As every house has an average of five in- mates, and as children follow the religion of their parents, it might be supposed that five- pence a week would be payable by every family who attend Church. If they cannot afford so much, or if they are willing to give more, then the sum is set down, and called for weekly, and the total divided between diocesan and parochial needs. Such vast sums were raised by Peter's Pence that it excited the cupidity of kings to think so much money was taken out of the kingdom. The power of the pence has been dilated on by every writer on thrift who has handled that subject, and any one who takes the trouble to work the sum out will see that the Church Penny, at a moderate estimate, would produce such results that one might expect to hear again the cry of Moses : "The people bring more than enough." The details for working out the scheme have not yet been decided on, and the com- THE CHURCH PENNY. 273 pany, especially the laity, were requested to give their views, and this is the gist of what was said : The first speaker remarked that in his village it would be very difficult to get the people to declare they were church-goers or not. It is true that many who went to church also went to chapel, and they could not be got to see there was any difference between the two. His neighbour remarked that this reminded himof a man who was anxious to pay a com- pliment to his vicar, which he did by saying that when first he came to hear him he believed in neither God nor devil, but under his blessed ministry he had come to love them both ! A clerical speaker said that he considered there would be no need for the Church Penny, as collections would answer every purpose, if only plates were used. Jeremiah told them the heart was deceitful above all things, and he would not trust even an Archbishop if the contributions had to be 274 THE CHURCH PENNY. put into a bag. This was illustrated by the account of a vicar who once was offered half-a-crown as a baptismal fee. He told the donor there was no fee payable, but if he chose he might put the money into the box at the church door. As the generous man passed out there was the chink of money in the box, but on the vicar opening it, to his amazement, he found a penny ! A gentleman of some antiquarian know- ledge said the scheme of the Church Penny was rather on the lines of the walking briefs which used to be issued some century ago. These were briefs which called for collections in church for some such object as relief of sufferers from a disastrous fire ; but on certain special occasions a walking brief was issued, which directed the churchwardens to perambulate the parish and call at every house for a contribution. This duty was delegated to collectors, who charged a per- centage, or more probably "farmed" the brief, and this led to such abuses that readers of Pepys' Diary would remember the diarist THE CHURCH PENNY. 275 records his resolve never to give another penny to a church brief. The collection of money was such an unpleasant business that it might be feared the Church Penny proposed would be gathered in some such way. One churchwarden said he believed that people would pay up better if there was something better worth paying for. Take church music, for example, and say if one would tolerate such a performance anywhere except in church. He knew a lady who had sent in a bill once to the parson for a dress which was spoilt by the dirt of the seat. As for the sermons he felt sympathy with the nigger who was being rated for paying his pastor only fifty dollars a year. " Dashed poor pay that, Sambo," said a neighbour. " Yes, massa," was the reply, " but then it's dashed poor preach." An ex-Colonial clergyman said he foresaw this difficulty. In the Colony where he served there was a fixed contribution laid upon every church family, and this alone 276 THE CHURCH PENNY. entitled them to the visits of the clergy and to the ministrations of the Church. In this country every parishioner had a right to these whether he paid anything or not, and he thought that the clergy seemed far more diligent in visiting the non-churchgoers than their own flock. Indeed, he had heard of a rich lady who had only obtained a visit from a clergyman by leading him to suppose she was a person in distress. The Church Penny was the natural and proper payment from members of a voluntary body, but he was at a loss to see how it would work in an established and endowed church. The time when those from the country had to catch their trains had now arrived, and they departed with the promise that before long they would hear more of the proposed Church Penny. WANTED, AN ANCHORITE. " A GOOD inn and a padlocked church" is the description given by a cyclist of numbers of Yorkshire villages. He had evidently been on tour, and the above items are all that he finds worth recording in the majority of cases. A correspondence in a Yorkshire paper bears witness both to the truth of his assertion, and the desire of the clergy to remedy matters if only they could. Sir Tatton Sykes has long been known as a builder and restorer of churches. Justice, however, has scarcely been done to him as a learned ecclesiologist, and one with the courage to carry right principles even in the teeth of the highest opinion of the day. Thus, he contended for the same level of chancel and nave in parish churches, as opposed to the raised chancel. The best architects are conceding that he was right 277 278 WANTED AN ANCHORITE. after all. In Sledmere Church he built an anchorage, or room over the porch, with windows looking into the church, which experts declared to be as much out-of-date as a reliquary in the English Church. It seems likely that if we are to have our churches kept open, we shall have to follow Sir Tatton's lead in this matter also. An anchorage, as the name denotes is the dwelling of an anchoret a word derived from the Greek, and signifying one who lives apart. He was a recognised official in former times, and was ujually under a life-vow never to go beyond the precints of the church to which he was attached. The anchoret might be a priest, or a monk, or a widower. Food was supplied to him by the faithful, who either came to his window to confess, or to consult him as a reputed holy man on any difficulties that might arise. The anchorage was no prison cell. The best specimen left in the North of England is at Chester-le-Street, near Durham. It consists of four rooms, built against the WANTED AN ANCHORITE. 279 north wall of the tower, two on the ground floor and two above. Two windows which may be identified as low side windows remain, and a small opening into the church is pierced close to one of them. This opening was either for the reception of food or other offerings for the anchoret, or else for the purpose of passing through the keys of the church treasury to the clergy or others concerned. A curious squint per- mitted the inmate of the anchorage to see the performance of Mass at the side altars, as well as the high ones. Perhaps nothing shows that the anchorage was commodious better than the fact that, after the Reformation, three widows rented the place, and apparently were so comfortable that in 1619 the curate turned them all out, and dwelt in the anchorage himself. As might be expected, the dwelling-place over the porch at Sledmere is quite habitable, and the oriel windows opening into the church would enable the occupant to keep an eye on all that went on in eveiy part. 280 WANTED AN ANCHORITE. At present the anchorage is without an occupant. The church is always open, but it is only quite recently that the sculptors and carvers have left, and so long as they were there no depredations or even misbehaviour were possible in the sacred building. Considering the amount of valu- able work in the church, and the mischief which Satan or the odium theologicum sug- gests to certain hands to do, it may be that the anchorage will be occupied. It will be thought that no one in these days would consent to lead an anchoret's life. When Beckford built a hermitage at Fonthill, and advertised for a hermit to occupy it, he got one, it is true; but the man soon grew sick of it, and Beckford could never get another. Fifteen years ago, a Scotchman who had been crossed in love thought he would live as a hermit on Skid- daw, but he tired of it, and first removed to a bothy in Troutbeck, and then went back to his fellow-creatures among whom, let us hope, he has found consolation. Recluses WANTED AN ANCHORITE. 28 1 are heard of from time to time, but they are scarcely of the sort fitted to be guardians of a church. Still, there would be no need of the life vow, or of the isolation beyond what was necessary; whereas the rooms and emoluments might tempt an aged man or woman or both to make the church a home, and thus provide that oversight which beautiful and secluded churches require. If an example were set and an anchoret obtained for Sledmere, the fashion for them might set in again. Unless some such attendance is insured our churches will never be left open. Large and curious churches such as Scarborough and Whitby are able to support an attendant by the tips they get. At Bridlington Priory a charge of threepence each for admission keeps out all but the respectable and the well-behaved. In country churches there are no such resources. Angry tourists when turned back from a church door are apt to be very wrath with those who keep it locked, but the same causes which have compelled many noblemen to close their 282 WANTED AN ANCHORITE. forests, their gardens and houses, which were formerly accessible to the public, have been at work. What words are too strong for the miscreant who snipped a piece out of the cloak in which Lord Nithsdale made his historic escape from the Tower, and which is preserved as a priceless relic in Lord Herries house at Everingham? And may not a vicar exhibit some warmth of feeling on seeing the open church used for a pic-nic, a game of hide and seek, and even for a dance, or on finding the open door has let in some one to rob the alms box, or do wilful damage to things he holds more sacred than a family relic? The anchoret was one of the religious. His office and presence in a church was a reminder of the sacred nature of all around, and that worship was the foundation of every- thing in the sacred building. The many secular uses to which our parish churches have been put, such as vestry meetings, &c., have obscured their primary character in the eyes of many. No notices, no texts of WANTED AN ANCHORITE. 283 Scripture, would bring this to mind so much as the sight of one occupied in devotion as the anchoret ought to be. The most thoughtless would then remember; even the clergy now sometimes forget it. Some time since a sidesman went into an open church at one of our fashionable resorts on the Yorkshire coast, and found a strange clergyman standing there with his hat on. Instantly he uncovered when he caught sight of the official. "Oh, don't mind me," said the sidesman with withering sarcasm, "pray put it on again." INNS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. I WAS once induced to promise a lecture on the above subject in aid of the Sunday schools in a parish. In consequence cf the excellence of the object, the Vicar gave it out in church, and considered that would be sufficient advertisement. The evening came, and scarce a soul turned up, so after a little chat we all came away, and the lecture was never delivered. I was modest enough to suppose that the name of the lecturer was not sufficiently attractive to draw a house, but the Vicar went about and learnt that the congregation had misunder- stood the notice, and thought the subject was " Hymns, Ancient and Modern," instead of " Inns." They were kind enough to add that if they had thought the lecture was on inns they would have come fast enough. Thus encouraged, I would fain tell what I know to a larger audience than would be likely to assemble in any village schoolroom. INNS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 285 Jusserand, in his "Wayfaring Life in the I4th Century," gives a delightful picture of travel in those days. How busy and alive the roads were with the pedlars and chapmen, minstrels and messengers, pilgrims and friars. These all wanted board and lodging for the night, and refreshment in the day. To supply them were numerous religious houses, each with its refectory, and nothing to pay. Those people who were thus freely entertained might be expected to be grateful for whatever was put before them, but it seems they criticised their hosts as freely as paying guests do to-day. In little over twenty miles of road in Holder- ness there were three religious houses, whose merits as caterers were summed up as follows : " If you go to Nunkeeling You may have your belly filling Of whig or of whey. Go to Swine And be there in time, Or you will come empty away. But the Abbot of Meaux He keeps a good house By night and by day." 286 INNS, ANCIENT AND MODERN'. Besides the religious houses, there were inns, like the Tabard in Southwark, where entertainment had to be paid for, but even these had a certain sacred air about them, as an old statute laid down that they were not to provide flesh meat for their guests on fasting days. When religious pilgrimages ceased, inns became no longer religious houses of enter- tainment, but meeting houses of the people. How great a part they played in the life of the nation may be to some extent estimated by the part they play in its literature. Lord Rosebery created some amusement lately by referring to chance meetings of great people in wayside inns. What should we lose if we eliminated from Shakespeare his inns, his landladies, and all the guests, Falstaff, Prince Hal, and the like. Much the same may be said of Dickens, and his "Great White Horse" and all the funny predicaments only life at an inn could afford. The great wits and literary men are far more identified with the inns they frequented INNS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 287 than with their homes. Courts of Justice were held there and lent them the prestige of the law, and that the Church lent them her countenance we may judge from a charge of Archbishop Paley in 1785, in which he says that without wishing to curtail the liberty of the clergy, he did not think it looked well to see a clergyman sitting in a tap room with a pipe in his mouth from morning till night. As to modern inns, what with hotel syndi- cates at one end of the line and the Countess of Carlisle at the other, the genuine inn is rapidly disappearing, in Yorkshire at least. Here are a few statistics. In walking from Malton to York, if you fail to refresh' yourself at the Spittle Beck Inn at Barton Hill, you will get nothing till you are within the city walls. In walking or driving from Drimeld to Beverley, a distance of 13 miles, you may refresh at the beginning of your journey or at the end, but not in the course of it, for there is not an inn on the road. Between Filey and Bridlington, a distance of 13 miles, there is the Dotterel at the five cross roads, but no 288 INNS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. other. Nor is Yorkshire specially deficient. I have walked across Salisbury Plain, a distance of 17 miles, on some sweet biscuits and a pot of bloater paste, which produced an intolerable thirst, which I tried in vain to slake, for not an inn did I pass. But when you do come to an inn, a genuine one I mean, where a fat landlady stands in the door and looks as though she was not above waiting upon you, then you realise Shenstone's line about finding " His warmest welcome at an inn." If the inn have some speciality, like turf cakes at the Falcon on Cloughton Moor, or the cheese at Middleham, or its pigeon pies at the inn of that name at Sherburn, the traveller will be able to appreciate the feeling of a former Duke of Beaufort, the owner of stately Badminton, who loved to wake up surrounded by the dimity curtains of a country inn, for he knew he would fare well that day. I have sometimes been asked if I have been much cheated in inns. Travellers have told INNS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 289 tales of exorbitant bills, and one lady even tells of having been locked in her room, and so prevented from catching a train it was all- important she should catch, until she discharged some outrageous claim. My experience has been quite the contrary, but then I have rarely put myself under the juggernaut of palatial hotels, gentlemen-managers, and high tariffs. As Thackeray says, " If you will put yourself under juggernaut it will go over you." Why should I, who at home keep a couple of maid servants, when away from home behave as though I were quite accustomed to a butler and footmen, to eight courses for dinner, and to dining in dress clothes. " Step down to a wife," taught the rabbis, intimating that a man's comfort depended on his constant asso- ciation with those below rather than above him. I do this as regards the inns I frequent, and consequently rarely have to complain about the comfort I enjoy, or the bills I have to pay. REMINISCENCES OF SLEDMERE CHURCH. THERE are still a few people left in Sledmere who can remember old Sir Tatton Sykes and the Parish Church seventy years ago. The new church is a model of what a church should be, and so it may be interesting to note down how things ecclesiastical were once done there. No one ever quite knew the origin of old Sir Tatton Sykes' prejudice against clergymen. Some traced it to the famous bet which his brother, Sir Mark Sykes, made with the Rev. Mr. Gilbert, rector of Settrington, and which cost the baronet so dear. At all events, he would not allow the Vicar of Sledmere to live in his parish, but kept him at Kirby Grin- dalyth, four miles distant. At the time referred to the Rev. Mr. Bowstead held the cure of both the aforementioned villages. Evening services not having then come into 290 REMINISCENCES OF SLEDMERE CHURCH. 2QI vogue, the pluralist vicar held services in his two churches alternately morning and after- noon. The church at Sledmere was far better attended then than it has been of recent years. Everybody was expected to be there, and all stood up when Sir Tatton and the party from the hall entered, which they did by a different door from the rest of the people. The service was all read, with the exception of some verses of a metrical psalm. The Vicar used to put on his surplice before the people, for there was no vestry, and before the sermon he exchanged it for a black gown. The sermon was generally three-quarters of an hour long, and when it was concluded the congregation rose to their feet again while the quality passed out. At that time there was some kind of musical instrument in Sledmere Church; it was not a harmonium, still less was it an organ. It was a box-like instrument, played by Miss Sykes as she sat in the hall pew, the wind being provided by the footman as he sat in the pew adjoining. It is needless to say there REMINISCENCES OF SLEDMERE CHURCH. were no services on any other day than Sun- days. At Christmas time the clerk's wife placed a few scraps of holly about, and that was the only decoration ever attempted. There was a village school at Sledmere, and Lady Sykes took a considerable interest in it. Every year she used to give the girls new cloaks, and regularly on the Sunday following the Vicar preached from the words " Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Nothing incongruous in the com- parison struck the simple folk of that time. The great folk were far raised above the common lot of people, and those who would have refused to rise at the entrance of the clergy or choir (if there had been one) stood up quite naturally for the gentry. The only service in the day was held in a church destitute of everything we should call comfort. There was no means of warming it nor of lighting it, for which reason service began at two o'clock in the afternoon in winter. There were no hassocks, except in the squire's pew, and the floor was innocent of REMINISCENCES OF SLEDMERE CHURCH. 293 carpet or matting. Baptisms, except in the poorer families, were always performed in private houses, and a fee of eighteen-pence paid to the clergyman. The marriage service was an affair of a few minutes only. Funerals were very solemn affairs, the farmers being generally carried to their graves in their best waggons, and drawn by their favourite horses. The burial was always followed by a sumptuous feast, and on the following Sunday the death was " improved " (such was the term) by a funeral sermon. Besides the sermon a funeral dirge was sung as a solo by the clerk. Such dirges might be found at the end of Sternhold and Hopkins' version of the Psalms, and were in general use in the district. There used to be a gallery at the west end of the church, on the front of which the pious benefactions to the poor were appro- priately painted. Class distinctions were observed in church as much as out of it. On the Sundays when the Sacrament was administered the baronet and his wife went up first, then the rest of 294 REMINISCENCES OF SLEDMKRK CHURCH. the quality, then the farmers, and last of all the labourers. This was the regular order of things to which nobody saw any objection. About that time a story is told of the Duke of Wellington rebuking a verger for pushing aside a poor man with the words " Make way for the Duke," by reminding him, that all were equal in the House of God. But no such notions had at that time penetrated as far as Sledmere. Sixty years ago we find frequent allusions to the inferior clergy of that time The word is never used now, but formerly it noted a very distinct fact in clerical life. There was a great gulf fixed between the inferior clergy and their more fortunate brethren. On the latter were heaped livings three or four at a time, golden stalls in the cathedrals, and chaplaincies to peers and others. Of course, they lived on terms of equality with the best in the land, and, as already alluded to, made bets with people of quality. There were several such men in the neighbourhood like Mr. Gilbert, of Settrington; Mr. Foord, REMINISCENCES OF SLEDMERE CHURCH. 295 of Foxholes; and Archdeacon Wranghamfof Hunmanby. Below these were a number of men, who had scarce a chance of moving out of their humble spheres. Some eked out a living by doing the duty of four curacies, while others employed themselves by trying to add a few pounds to their income by rearing sheep and tilling the land. They did not even disdain to gather the firewood. They lived the same sort of life as that of the farming class, and were perfectly content with an outing once in seven years with the Con- firmation candidates and once in three years to the visitation of the Archdeacon. Mr. Bowstead was a bachelor, and his two livings afforded but a bare competence. It is said he once assayed to follow the hounds, but a rebuke from Sir Tatton effectually stopped a second trial. "Mr. Bowstead," said the Sledmere baronet, " the flock are supposed to follow their pastor, and if they had done so this morning, where would their dinners have been to-day?" After that the Vicar spent his time in his 296 REMINISCENCES OF SLEDMERE CHURCH. garden, and in tending a little flock of sheep. It is somewhat singular that Sir Tatton's aversions were parsons and flowers. No flower gardens are visible at Sledmere, and it is said that Lady Sykes, only by dint of importunity, obtained permission to grow some in a space securely walled off from view. Among things "worth looking at is the piece of turf where old Sir Tatton noticed the grass grew so abundantly in consequence of the dogs gnawing their bones there. This led to the introduction of bone manure, and the inclosure of the Wolds. The isolation in a country parish sixty years ago can hardly be conceived of. All means of communication were slow and rare, as the following story will illustrate. A certain vicar had his wife very ill; so ill, indeed, that she seemed at the point of death. The only regular communication with Driffield, the nearest town, was by a weekly carrier, and as he was about to start, and the lady seemed about to die, the vicar REMINISCENCES OF SLEDMERE CHURCH. 297 sent an order for a coffin and funeral cards, and other necessary adjuncts of death and burial. The lady did not die, but lived for thirty years after, and lived in the house with the coffin which had been got ready tor her expected decease. To-day the vicar of Sledmere lives in a fine house, has a sufficient income, a church replete with everything money can buy, in- cluding a fine organ, and a railway station three miles off. He has his letters and his newspaper on his breakfast table, and he can send a telegram for a coffin, should he ever need one for any of his kindred. All these things have been improved from what they were sixty years ago, and we will scarce expect to reckon him among the number of those who lament the ''good old times." LAYING A GHOST. IT is many years since the parson doing duty at Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate, York, drew Baring-Gould's attention to the ghost story connected therewith. Baring-Gould, in his ' Yorkshire Oddities," told the public, and many were the visitors in consequence, and many the theories to explain the phenomenon. Grave and reverend men, without committing themselves to all the details, allowed there might be " something in it." What the attendants at the Church were wont to see was as follows : During the time of morning service a female figure clad in white, crossed the east window, and after an interval returned with a ghostly child in her hand. After a time the two returned again, and after a further interval the original female figure passed alone. Occasionally two female figures passed instead of one. The spectacle vas so common that the Sunday School chil- 298 LAYING A GHOST. 299 dren who sat in the gallery facing the east window, named them the mother, the child and the nurse. It was said to be so common a sight that it had long ceased to be a subject for fear, scarcely for remark. Wherever there is a " ghost walk " there is sure to be a tragedy to account for it ; else why should Hamlet's father return to earth, unless he had something to say ? The ex- planation of the ghostly figures at Holy Trinity, York, was as follows : In the time of a visita- tion by plague, a child of a parishioner died, and had to be buried in a plague pit some distance away. Subsequently the parents died, and both were buried under the great east window of the church. On Sunday mornings the ghost of the mother was. supposed to rise from the grave and go to the plague pit and fetch thence the spirit of the child for an inter- view with its father. When the interview was over the mother took the child back and returned alone to lie beside her husband. On certain occasions the nurse was allowed to join the party. 30O LAYING A GHOSTS Besides those who, like Dr. Johnson, had a real belief in ghosts, there were those who sought to account for the appearances by natural causes. It was said that the trees at the east end of the church were responsible for the apparitions ; so these were cut down. Then it was said that the ghosts were optical illusions, caused by reflections on the east window, of people passing at a distance. Finally the Rector of Holy Trinity wrote saying that the ghosts were simply members of his household passing to and fro. Nothing proved this better than the fact that for ten months before his coming into residence there had been no ghosts, simply because there had been nobody in the Rectory house, but directly he and his family arrived, the ghosts began again. He ended up by the expression of an earnest hope that no one would come and desecrate the church by the ignoble expectation of seeing a ghost. This last letter might be thought conclusive, were it not that ghost-seers have been neither fools nor impostors, nor one whit less intelligent LAYING A GHOST. 30! than the most matter-of-fact people. When Mr. and Mrs. Browning went to a stance given by Mr. D. D. Home, the famous spiritualist, Mrs. Browning was as certain a ghost was present as her husband was sure it was all an imposture. Bishop Butler tells us that the supernatural is not above Nature, but only above Nature as far as we know it, which is a very different thing. The Roman Catholic holds that if miracles were possible once they are possible now, and equally one would be driven to infer that if they never happen now they never happened at all. If apparitions never appear now, what is to be said of the appearance of the Witch of Endor to Saul, or of those Saints who on the first Good Friday " arose from their graves, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many ? " The story of Holy Trinity Church throws great light on the subject, for if many saw the ghosts, many went again and again and never saw anything, and some had attended the church all their lives and had never seen so much as one ghost. The eye only sees what it has a capacity 302 LAYING A GHOST. for seeing, which often means what it expects to see, and the trend of things in recent years has been all against the expectation of ghostly apparitions, and that may account for the reason why they are never seen now at Mickle- gate Church. However, there is another explanation forth- coming. Among things not generally known is that formerly gravestones were not placed at "the head of the grave to bear the name, age and virtues of the departed, but the stones were placed on the grave, with the avowed intention of keeping the dead underneath and preventing them from returning and giving trouble to their friends. Canon Atkinson, who was Rector of Danby as far back as 1850, could remember an old woman threatening her relatives that if she were not buried in accordance with her wishes, " she would come again " ; and another Yorkshire incumbent bears testimony that on the death of a man who was likely to give trouble his relatives subscribed for a grave- stone of extra thickness, which was laid flat on the grave lest he should rise again. LAYING A GHOST. 303 Within the last few years other causes have been at work which have been as inimical to the re-appearance of the ghosts as the march of education. The east window of the church has disappeared, and a new chancel has been built right over the graves whence the ghosts were wont to issue. Without presuming to fix a limit to ghostly powers, it might be said that a ghost which had made its way through the soft green turf of the churchyard might hesitate to try conclusions with the floor and walls of a chancel. At all events the ghost has been effectually laid. THE WOMBWELLS AND OLIVER CROMWELL. IT was enough that he was the only son and heir of Sir George Wombwell, of Newburgh Priory, to secure general interest in the death of Captain Stephen Wombwell, who had succumbed to enteric fever while at the front with Lord Methuen. Sir George took part in the famous charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, and that, added to his friendship with Royalty, and to his being almost the doyen of Yorkshire county gentle- men, has caused his name to be a household word in the North of England. But, in addition to these claims on public attention, another, and in the opinion of many a greater one, belongs to the family, as it is said they are the custodians of the remains of Oliver Cromwell. At Newburgh Priory a chamber is shown, and an inscription says the Protector lies there. THE CUSTODIAN OF CROMWELL'S BONES. (Sir G. O. Wombwell, Bart.). WOMBWELLS AND OLIVER CROMWELL. 305 Newburgh Priory, as the name shows, was once a religious house, and after the Dissolu- tion it was given to a King's chaplain, Belasyse by name. The family gradually rose in im- portance. One was created a baronet by James the First, and another, a Royalist, was raised to the peerage as Lord Fauconberg by King Charles the First. The loves between Cavaliers and Roundheads have been favourite themes for the novelist and the artist, so there is nothing very wonderful in the Royalist master of Newburgh winning the hand of Mary, third daughter of Oliver Cromwell. Her husband, Lord Fauconberg, did not disdain to serve the Republican Government of his father-in-law, and we find him sent to congratulate Louis Quatorze on a joint victory of the French and English over the Spaniards. At the Restoration her husband was advanced to an earldom, but on his decease, as Mary had no children, the estates passed to a nephew. Again, in the eighteenth century, an earldom was bestowed on the owner of Newburgh, but the male heirs failed 306 WOMBWELLS AND OLIVER CROMWELL. in 1802, and a daughter of the last Earl carried the estates into the Wombwell family. The Fauconberg Arms, the chief inn in the village of Coxwold, serves to remind the traveller of the extinct peerage. That Oliver Cromwell died at Whitehall, of the very influenza from which so many have lately suffered, and that he died upon his lucky day, 3rd September is a well-known fact. The day of his death was signalised by a tremendous wind, which one party declared was the devil coming for the regi- cide's soul, while his followers declared it was the emotion of the elements at the departure of so great a spirit. Whichever it was, it was prophetic of the contentions which would be raised as to what should be- come of the Protector's body. There can be no doubt that, after being embalmed, the body lay in state, and was interred with regal pomp in Henry the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster. After the Restoration his body, along with those of Ireton and Bradshaw, were exhumed, and were hanged on the WOMBVVELLS AND OLIVER CROMWELL. 307 gibbet at Tyburn.- Afterwards the heads were cut off, and stuck on the top of Westminster Hall, while the bodies were buried beneath the gallows. In accordance with this story is the account given of Cromwell's head being now in a private collection. It fell from the top of Westminster Hall during a stormy night, was picked up and concealed by the sentry on duty below, who disposed of it to the Russels, who were among the near relatives of the Protector. Horace Smith, a man of large experience in matters curious and ancient, was satisfied that this was the genuine head of Oliver. The story that the burial at Westminster was a mock ceremonial, and the remains were taken down to Northamptonshire, and there interred next to his favourite daughter, Mrs. Claypole, may be dismissed at once. It was not possible at the time of his death Oliver could have foreseen the return of the Stuarts ; still less the vengeance to be wreaked on his remains. He naturally would wish to lie among his royal predecessors, and what 308 WOMBWELLS AND OLIVER CROMWELL. is more, the Marquess of Ripon has in his possession a copper-gilt plate, taken out of the coffin when it was broken open, on which are the arms of England impaling those of Cromwell. That he was buried at West- minster, and afterwards exhumed, are matters on which no reasonable person can have doubt. The Newburgh legend is not inconsistent therewith. According to Noble, a trustworthy and sensible historian, the bodies of the regi- cides lay at the Red Lion Inn, Holborn, from a Saturday to Monday, before being taken to Tyburn. In Petronius one reads of an Ephesian matron who bribed the officers set to watch the body of her husband, and allowed her to substitute another in its place, to save it from threatened indignities. It is not inconceivable that Cromwell's daughter, Lady Fauconberg, a wealthy lady as she was, should have been able to overcome the scruples of the guards about her father's body, and was allowed to take it away, of course substituting another corpse. If it was thus obtained, no better place in all England could have been WOMBWELLS AND OLIVER CROMWELL. 309 chosen for a secret burial than this spot on the Hambledon Hills, for does not tradition say that the Laudian screen in the neigh- bouring church of Stonegrave survives because the Commissioners sent to destroy it could not find the place? At all events, at the top of Newburgh Priory there is a narrow room, one end of which is occupied by a mass of stonework, built into the wall. Here, it is said, the remains of Oliver Cromwell rest, and many, with whom all bitter feelings about Charles and his enemies have passed away, may wish to believe it. PRINTED AT BROWNS' SAVILE PRESS, AVILE STREET AND GEORGE STREET, HULL. BOOKS BY THE CING PAI (REV. A. N. COOPER, M.A., FlLEY). QUAINT TALKS ABOUT LONG WALKS. Reminiscences of my Walking- Tours in Great Britain and on the Continent. jjo pages, Illustrated, Crown 8vo, cloth boards, j/6 net. The fame of the "Walking Parson," as the Author is called, has spread far and. wide, and his books are filled with travellers' tales of the right kind. A short table of his longer walks is given in the Preface to this book, and these alone total 3980 miles. The Spectator. " Mr. Cooper, with whom we are glad to renew our acquaintance, takes a liberal view of his subject, and always has something pleasant, entertaining or profitable to say." WITH KNAPSACK AND NOTE-BOOK. Reminiscences of Walking 1 Tours in the Northern Countries of Europe. jso pages, Illustrated, Crown 8vo, cloth boards, j/6 net. This volume is written in a most exhilarating 1 style, and a keen faculty of observation is everywhere exhibited throughout the book. The Standard. " The present book is quite as delightful and not less diverting than its predecessors. It is manly, pleasant, and full of vivid glimpses of people and places far Irom the madding crowd. ' ACROSS THE BROAD ACRES. Sketches of Yorkshire Life and Character. 328 pages, Crown 8vo, Illustrated, cloth boards, j/6 net. The Author is in the habit of setting out to wander at his own sweet will ; and in this book he shows us that he can gather much that is highly interesting without going very far afield.' The Graphic. " The Rev. A. N. Cooper has seen much and learned much of men and things ; and his simple, shrewd, comments are full of wisdom, humanity, and kindly humour." The Daily News. " There is a simplicity and an old-world homeliness about the writings of the " Walking Parson " which gives to his sketches a charm peculiarly their own." ROUND THE HOME OF A YORKSHIRE PARSON. Stories of Yorkshire Life. New Edition. 320 pages, Illustrated, Crown 8-vo, sewn in attractive cover, //- net. This interesting volume should commend itself to all lovers of II. i Yorkshire. A vein of humour runs through all the stories, making them fascinating and amusing. The British Weekly. " ' Round the Home of a Yorkshire Parson ' is really a fine, manly book, frank, cheerful, and by no means without literary power. Yorkshire people and the. multitudes who love Yorkshire, with good reason, will like it, and they will have no hesitation in pronouncing the Author emphatically a good fellow." \^ London : A. BROWN & SONS, Ltd., 5 Farringfdon Avenue, E.C. And at Hull and York. which It was borrowed *^/D. <4fci Form DA 670 Cooper - Y6C784 Round the home 1910 of a Yorkshire parson 001 000 766 4 BINDFPV .L , DA 670 Y6C784 1910