CHAPTER IV.
Still lingering in the quiet paths.
All the Year Round.
After a good deal of pleasantry, Dennis got rid of his oysters; and, as the storm was still raging without, he called for a glass, just, as he said, "to keep the damp away from the spark in his heart, more by token that he had no other fire to dry his clothes at. But, begorra, for the matter o' that," said he, "they're not worth a grate-full o' coals. Look at my trousers. They're on the varge o' superannuation; an' they'll require a substitute before long, or else, I'm thinking, they'll not combine daycently. How an' ever, gintlemen," continued he, "here's hopin' the fruition of your purses may never fail ye, nor health to consign their contents to utility. An' neaw," said he, lighting his pipe, and putting the empty basket on his head like a cowl, "I must go, if the rain comes in pailfuls, for I'm not over well; an' if I could get home wud wishin', I'd be in bed by the time ye'd say 'trap-sticks!' But dramin' an' schamin's neither ridin' nor flyin', so I'll be trampin', for there's no more use in wishin' than there would be in a doctor feelin' a man's pulse through a hole in a wall wid the end of a kitchen poker. An' neaw, I'll be proud if any gintleman will oblige me by coming a couple o' mile an the road, to see the way I'll spin over the greawnd.... Ye'd rather not? Well; fun an' fine weather's not always together, so good bye, an' long life to yees!" and away went Dennis through the rain towards Fleetwood.
Waiting for the shower to abate, I sat a while; and, as one of the company had been to a funeral, it led to a conversation about benefit societies; in relation to which, one person said he decidedly objected to funeral benefits being allowed to people who had died by their own hands, because it would encourage others to commit suicide. From this we glided to the subject of consecrated ground; and a question arose respecting a man who had been accidentally buried partly in consecrated and partly in unconsecrated ground,—as to what result would ensue from that mistake to the poor corpse in the end of all. The doubt was as to whose influence the unconsecrated half came under. The dispute ran high, without anybody making the subject clearer, so I came away before the shower was over.
Next day I went to Blackpool; and, while awaiting at the station the arrival of a friend of mine, I recognised the familiar face of an old woman whom I had known in better days. Tall and thin, with a head as white as a moss-crop, she was still active, and remarkably clean and neat in appearance. Her countenance, though naturally melancholy, had still a spice of the shrew in it. "Eh," said she, "I'm glad to see you. It's seldom I have a chance of meeting an old face now, for I'm seldom out." She then told me she had been two years and a half housekeeper to a decrepid old gentleman and his two maiden sisters, in a neighbouring town. "But," said she, "I'm going to leave. You see I've got into years; and, though I'm active—thank God—yet, I'm often ill; and people don't like to be troubled with servants that are ill, you know. So I'm forced to work on, ill or well; for I'm but a lone woman, with no friends to help me, but my son, and he's been a long time in Canada, and I haven't heard from him this three years. I look out for th' postman day by day,—but nothing comes. Sometimes I think he's dead. But the Lord knows. It's like to trouble one, you're sure. It's hard work, with one thing and another, very; for I 'have to scratch before I can peck,' as th' saying is, and shall to th' end o' my day, now. But if you can hear of anything likely, I wish you would let me know,—for leave yonder I will. I wouldn't stop if they'd hang my hair wi' diamonds,—I wouldn't indeed. I've said it, an' signed it,—so there's an end. But what, they'll never ask me to stop, I doubt. It's very hard. You see I have to keep my son's little boy in a neighbour's house,—this is him,—and that eats up nearly all my bit o' wage; and where's my clothing to come from? But, don't you see, yon people are greedy to a degree. Lord bless you! They'd skin three devils for one hide,—they would for sure. See yo; one day—(here she whispered something which I didn't exactly catch)—they did indeed! As Missis Dixon said, when I met her in Friargate, on Monday forenoon, 'It was a nasty, dirty trick!' But I've had my fill, an' I shall sing 'Oh, be joyful' when my time's up. I shall be glad to get to my own country again,—yes, if I have to beg my bread. See; they're actually afraid of me going out o'th house for fear I should talk about them to th' neighbours. Bless you, they judge everybody by theirselves. But I'd scorn the action! It is just as Missis Smith said, 'They're frightened o'th world being done before they've done wi' th' world,'—they are for sure. Such gripin', grindin' ways! They'll never prosper,—never." "And is this your grandson?" said I. "Yes; an' he's a wonderful child for his age. He's such a memory. His father was just same. I often think he'd make a rare 'torney, he remembers things so, and he has such queer sayings. I've taught him many a piece off by heart. Come, George, say that little piece for this gentleman. Take your fingers out of your mouth. Come now." The lad looked a minute, and then rattled out,—
Said Aaron to Moses, aw'll swap tho noses:—
"Oh, for shame," said she; "not that." But he went on,—
Said Moses to Aaron, thine's sich a quare un.
"For shame," said she. "You see they teach him all sorts o' nonsense; and he remembers everything. Come, be quick; 'Twinkle, twinkle,'" But here the train was ready; and in five minutes more she was on her way to Preston; and, not finding my friend, I walked home along the cliffs.
In my rambles about Norbreck, I met with many racy characters standing in relief among their neighbours, and marked with local peculiarities, as distinctly as anything that grows from the soil. In a crowded city they might be unnoticed; but, amid "the hamlet's hawthorn wild," where existence seems to glide as noiselessly as a cloud upon a summer sky—save where friendly gossips meet, like a choir of crickets, by some country fire—they are threads of vivid interest woven into the sober web of life; and, among their own folk, they are prized something like those old books which people hand from generation to generation,—because they bear the quaint inscriptions of their forefathers. In my wanderings I had also the benefit of a genial and intelligent companion; and, whether we were under his own roof, among books, and flowers, and fireside talk about the world in the distance, or roving the green lanes and coppice-trods, chatting with stray villagers by the way, or airing ourselves in the wind, "on the beached margent of the sea," I found pleasure and assistance in his company, in spite of all our political differences. My friend, Alston, lives about a mile down the winding road from Norbreck, in a substantial hall, built about a hundred years ago, and pleasantly dropt at the foot of a great natural embankment, which divides the low-lying plain from the sea. The house stands among slips of orderly garden and plantation, with poultry yards and outhouses at the north-east end. The green country, sparely sprinkled with white farmhouses and cottages, spreads out in front, far and wide, to where the heathery fells of Lancashire bound the eastward view. The scene is as quiet as a country church just before service begins, except where the sails of a windmill are whirling in the wind, or the fleecy steam-cloud of a distant train gushes across the landscape, like a flying fountain of snow. On a knoll behind the house there is a little rich orchard, trimly hemmed in by thick thorn hedges. In March I found its shadeless walks open to the cold sky, and all its holiday glory still brooding patiently down in the soil; but I remember how oft, in summer, when the boughs were bending to the ground with fruit, and the leaves were so thick overhead, that the sunshine could only find its way through chinks of the green ceiling, we have pushed the branches aside, and walked and talked among its bowery shades; or, sitting on benches at the edge of the fish-pond, have read and watched our floats, and hearkened the birds, until we have risen, as if drawn by some fascination in the air, and gone unconciously towards the sea again. There we have spent many a glorious hour; and there, at certain times of the day, we should meet with "Quick," or "Mitch," or some other coast-guardsmen belonging to the gunboat's crew at Fleetwood, pacing to and fro, on the look-out for Frenchmen, smugglers, and wreck. As we returned from the shore one afternoon last March, an old man was walking on the road before us, carrying what looked in the distance like two milk pails. These he set down now and then, and looked all round. My friend told me that this part of the Fylde was famous for singing-birds, especially larks. He said that bird-catchers came from all parts of Lancashire, particularly Manchester, to ply their craft there; and he would venture a guess that the quaint figure before us was a Manchester bird-catcher, though it was rather early in the season. When we overtook the old man, who had set down his covered cages in a by-lane, we found that he was a bird-catcher, and from Manchester, too. I learnt, also, that it was not uncommon for a clever catcher to make a pound a day by his "calling."
The primitive little whitewashed parish church of Bispham was always an interesting object to me. It stands on a knoll, about a quarter of a mile over the fields from Norbreck; and its foundation is of great antiquity. Its graveyard contains many interesting memorials, but none more solemnly eloquent than a certain row of green mounds covering the remains of the unknown drowned washed upon that coast from time to time. Several of these, which drifted ashore after the burning of the Ocean Monarch off the coast of Wales, in 1848, now lie mouldering together in this quiet country graveyard, all unknown, save a lady from Bury, in Lancashire, to whose memory a tombstone is erected here.
As the great tides declined, the weather began to be troubled with wintry fits; but when the day of my return came, it brought summer again. After dinner, at Bispham House, I went up with my friend to bid farewell to "Owd England" at Norbreck; and it was like parting with some quaint volume of forgotten lore. Nursed here in the lap of nature, the people and customs of the country were part of himself; and his native landscape, with all the shifting elements in the scene, was a kind of barometer, the slightest changes of which were intelligible to him. At the eastern edge of Norbreck, a low wall of coble stones encloses his garden. Here, where I have sometimes made a little havoc among his "Bergamots," "Old Keswicks," and "Scotch Bridgets," we walked about, whilst I took a parting look at the landscape. Immediately behind us the sea was singing its old song; and below lay the little rural parish, "where," as I heard the rector say in one of his sermons, "a man cannot walk into the open air but all his neighbours can see him." Beyond, the tranquil Fylde stretches out its drowsy green, now oblivious of all remembrance of piratical ravage, which so often swept over it in ancient times. Yonder, the shipping of Fleetwood is clearly in sight to the north. And there, a sunbeam, stealing between the fleecy clouds, glides across the land from field to field, with a kind of plaintive grace, as if looking for a lost garden. Over meadow, over wood, and little town it goes, dying away upon yon rolling hills in the east. The first of these hills is Longridge, and behind it, weird old Pendle, standing in a world of its own, is dimly visible. Northward, the hills roll on in bold relief, Parlick, and Bleasdale, and the fells between Morecambe and "time-honoured Lancaster." Still northward, to where yon proud brotherhood of snow-crowned giants—the mountains of Cumberland and Westmorland—look so glorious in the sunlight; awaking enchanting dreams of that land of romance, the "Lake District," hallowed by so many rich associations of genius. They toss their mighty heads on westward, till solemn old "Black Coombe" dips into the Irish Sea. Altogether a fine setting for the peaceful scene below.
The afternoon was waning, so, taking leave of the old fisherman and his household, I turned from Norbreck like a man who rises from his dinner before he is half satisfied. Accompanied by my friend, I walked four miles, on highways and by-ways, to meet the train at Poulton. The road was pleasant, and the day was fine; and I reached Manchester before midnight, feeling better in soul and body for my sojourn by the sea.
Wandering Minstrels;
or,
Wails of the Workless Poor.
For whom the heart of man shuts out,
Straightway the heart of God takes in,
And fences them all round about
With silence, 'mid the world's loud din.
And one of his great charities
Is music; and it doth not scorn
To close the lids upon the eyes
Of the weary and forlorn.
—James Russel Lowell.
There is one feature of the distress in Lancashire which was very remarkable upon the streets of our large towns during the year 1862. I allude to the wandering minstrelsy of the unemployed. Swarms of strange, shy, sad-looking singers and instrumental performers, in the work-worn clothing of factory operatives, went about the city, pleading for help, in touching wails of simple song,—like so many wild birds driven by hard weather to the haunts of man. There is something instructive, as well as affecting, in this feature of the troubled time. These wanderers are only a kind of representative overflow of a vast number whom our streets will never see. Any one well acquainted with Lancashire will know how wide-spread the study of music is among its working population. Even the inhabitants of our large towns know something more about this now than they knew a few months ago. I believe there is no part of England in which the practice of sacred music is so widely and lovingly pursued amongst the working people as in the counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire. There is no part of England where, until lately, there have been so many poor men's pianos, which have been purchased by a long course of careful savings from the workman's wages. These, of course, have mostly been sold during the hard times, to keep life in the owner and his family. The great works of Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart, have solaced the toil of thousands of the poorest working people of Lancashire. Anybody accustomed to wander among the moorlands of the country will remember how common it is to hear the people practising sacred music in their lonely cottages. It is not uncommon to meet working men wandering over the wild hills, "where whin and heather grow," with their musical instruments, to take part in some village oratorio many miles away. "That reminds me," as tale-tellers say, of an incident among the hills, which was interesting, though far from singular in my experience. Up in the forest of Rosendale, between Derply Moor and the wild hill called Swinshaw, there is a lone valley,—a green cup in the mountains,—called "Dean." The inhabitants of this valley are so notable for their love of music, that they are known all through the vales of Rossendale as "Th' Deighn Layrocks," or "The Larks of Dean." In the twilight of a glorious Sunday evening, in the height of summer, I was roaming over the heathery waste of Swinshaw, towards Dean, in company with a musical friend of mine, who lived in the neighbouring clough, when we saw a little crowd of people coming down a moorland slope, far away in front of us. As they drew nearer, we found that many of them had musical instruments; and when we met, my friend recognised them as working people living in the district, and mostly well known to him. He inquired where they had been; and when they told him that they had "bin to a bit of a sing deawn i'th Deighn," "Well," said he, "can't we have a tune here?" "Sure, yo con, wi' o' th' pleasur' i'th world," replied he who acted as spokesman; and a low buzz of delighted consent ran through the rest of the company. They then ranged themselves in a circle around their conductor, and they played and sang several fine pieces of psalmody, upon the heather-scented mountain top. As those solemn strains floated over the wild landscape, startling the moorfowl untimely in his nest, I could not help thinking of the hunted Covenanters of Scotland. The all-together of that scene upon the mountains, "between the gloaming and the mirk," made an impression upon me which I shall not easily forget. Long after we parted from them we could hear their voices, softening in sound as the distance grew, chanting on their way down the echoing glen; and the effect was wonderfully fine. This little incident upon the top of Swinshaw is representative of things which often occur in the country parts of Lancashire, showing how wide-spread the love of music is among the working classes there. Even in great manufacturing towns, it is very common, when passing cotton mills at work, to hear some fine psalm tune streaming in chorus from female voices, and mingling with the spoom of thousands of spindles. The "Larks of Dean," like the rest of Lancashire operatives, must have suffered in this melancholy time; but I hope that the humble musicians of our county will never have occasion to hang their harps upon the willows.
Now, when fortune has laid such a load of sorrow upon the working people of Lancashire, it is a sad thing to see so many workless minstrels of humble life "chanting their artless notes in simple guise" upon the streets of great towns, amongst a kind of life they are little used to. There is something very touching, too, in their manner and appearance. They may be ill-shod and footsore; they may be hungry, and sick at heart, and forlorn in countenance; but they are almost always clean and wholesome-looking in person. They come singing in twos and threes, and sometimes in more numerous bands, as if to keep one another in countenance. Sometimes they come in a large family all together, the females with their hymn-books, and the men with their different musical instruments,—bits of pet salvage from the wrecks of cottage homes. The women have sometimes children in their arms, or led by the hand; and they sometimes carry music-books for the men. I have seen them, too, with little handkerchiefs of rude provender for the day. As I said before, they are almost invariably clean in person, and their clothing is almost always sound and seemly in appearance, however poor and scanty. Amongst these poor wanderers there is none of the reckless personal negligence and filth of hopeless reprobacy; neither is there a shadow of the professional ostentation of poverty amongst them. Their faces are sad, and their manners very often singularly shame-faced and awkward; and any careful observer would see at a glance that these people were altogether unused to the craft of the trained minstrel of the streets. Their clear, healthy complexion, though often touched with pallor,—their simple, unimportunate demeanour, and the general rusticity of their appearance, shows them to be
Suppliants who would blush
To wear a tatter'd garb, however coarse;
Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth;
Who ask with painful shyness, and refused,
Because deserving, silently retire.
The females, especially the younger ones, generally walk behind, blushing, and hiding themselves as much as possible. I have seen the men sometimes walk backwards, with their faces towards those who were advancing, as if ashamed of what they were doing. And thus they went wailing through the busy streets, whilst the listening crowd looks on them pityingly and wonderingly, as if they were so many hungry shepherds from the mountains of Calabria. This flood of strange minstrels partly drowned the slang melodies and the monotonous strains of ordinary street musicians for a while. The professional gleeman "paled his ineffectual fire" before these mournful songsters. I think there never was so much sacred music heard upon the streets of Manchester before. With the exception of a favourite glee now and then, their music consisted chiefly of fine psalm tunes,—often plaintive old strains, known and welcome to all, because they awaken tender and elevating remembrances of life. "Burton," "French," "Kilmarnock," "Luther's Hymn," the grand "Old Hundred," and many other fine tunes of similar character, have floated daily in the air of our city for months together. I am sure that this choice does not arise from the minstrels themselves having craft enough to select "a mournful muse, soft pity to infuse." It is the kind of music which has been the practice and pleasure of their lives; and it is a fortuitous thing that now, in addition to its natural plaintiveness, the sad necessity of the times lends a tender accompaniment to their simplest melody. I doubt very much whether Leech's minor tunes were ever heard upon our streets till lately. Leech was a working man, born near the hills, in Lancashire; and his anthems and psalm tunes are great favourites among the musical population, especially in the country districts. Leech's harp was tuned by the genius of sorrow. Several times, lately, I have heard the tender complaining notes of his psalmody upon the streets of the city. About three months ago I heard one of his most pathetic tunes sung in the market-place, by an old man and two young women. The old man's dress had the peculiar hue and fray of factory work upon it, and he had a pair of clogs upon his stockingless feet. They were singing one of Leech's finest minor tunes, to Wesley's hymn:—
And am I born to die,
To lay this body down?
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown?
A land of deepest shade,
Unpierced by human thought;
The dreary country of the dead,
Where all things are forgot.
It is a tune often sung by country people in Lancashire at funerals; and, if I remember right, the same melody is cut upon Leech's gravestone, in the old Wesleyan chapelyard at Rochdale. I saw a company of minstrels of the same class going through Brown-street the other day, playing and singing,—
In darkest shades, if Thou appear,
My dawning is begun.
The company consisted of an old man, two young men, and three young women. Two of the women had children in their arms. After I had listened to them a little while, thinking the time and the words a little appropriate to their condition, I beckoned to one of the young men, who came "sidling" slowly up to me. I asked him where they came from, and he said, "Ash'n." In answer to another question, he said, "We're o' one family. Me an' yon tother's wed. That's his wife wi' th' chylt in her arms; an' hur wi' th' plod shawl on's mine" I asked if the old man was his father. "Ay," replied he; "we're o' here, nobbut two. My mother's ill i' bed, an' one o' my sisters is lookin' after her." "Well, an' heaw han yo getten on?" said I. "Oh, we'n done weel; but we's come no moor," replied he. Another day, there was an instrumental band of these operatives playing sacred music close to the Exchange lamp. Amongst the crowd around, I met with a friend of mine. He told me that the players were from Stalybridge. They played some fine old tunes, by desire, and, among the rest, they played one called "Warrington." When they had played it several times over, my friend turned to me and said, "That tune was composed by a Rev. Mr. Harrison, who was once minister of Cross-street Unitarian Chapel, in Manchester; and one day an old weaver, who had come down from the hills, many miles, staff in hand, knocked at the minister's door, and asked if there was 'a gentleman co'de Harrison lived theer?' 'Yes.' 'Could aw see him?' 'Yes." When the minister came to the door, the old weaver looked hard at him for a minute, and said, 'Are yo th' mon 'at composed that tune co'de Warrington?' 'Yes,' replied the minister, 'I believe I am.' 'Well,' said the old weaver, 'gi' me your hond! It's a good un!' He then shook hands with him heartily again; and, saying 'Well, good day to yo,' he went his way home again, before the old minister could fairly collect his scattered thoughts.
I do not know how it is that these workless minstrels are gradually becoming rarer upon the streets than they were a few months ago. Perhaps it is because the unemployed are more liberally relieved now than they were at first. I know that, now, many who have concealed their starving condition are ferreted out, and relieved as far as possible. Many of these street wanderers have gone home again, disgusted, to pinch out the hard time in proud obscurity; and there are some, no doubt, who have wandered away to other parts of England. Of these last, we may naturally expect that a few may become so reconciled to a life of wandering minstrelsy, that they may probably never return to settled labour again. But "there's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." Let us trust that the Great Creator may comfort and relieve them, "according to their several necessities, giving them patience under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions."
