Lake country sketches

by H. D. Rawnsley

AT THE GRASMERE PLAY.

What a wonderful people these Westmoreland folk are; we see them on the Wrestling Ground at Pavement end, and we think we never saw such 'playing.' We enter a Westmoreland dale farm, and we feel, if ever men and women were born to make two ends meet by the care of sheep or cattle, these are the people. We take lodgings in a Westmoreland village for a holiday season, and though it may be quite true that the landlady doesn't rave about the scenery, and is rather of the type of the good woman-body who had lived at Rydal Mount before she became lodging-house keeper, and who said to my friend, 'Yes, yes, I am a tidy good cook and a decentish housekeeper, but I don't know nowt about sunsets or sic like, and I don't need, they've never been in my line,' it is at the same time true that, for looking after one's creature wants and entering into the doings of every day and making one feel part and parcel of the household, a Westmorland housekeeper is bad to beat.

But though I thought I knew the capacity of Westmoreland folk pretty well, a new surprise was in store for me as I took my seat in the temporary play-house at Grasmere and learned that Westmoreland folk can not only play in the Grasmere wrestling ring, but can play on the boards and before the footlights also. It is quite true that the Grasmere people have had nearly a generation of training in the dramatic art. A late rector, who was much interested in looking after the recreations of the village, had translated for them many a simple pastoral play from the French, and hardly a Christmas came round, but he and his family, one of whom was herself a talented writer of country plays, trained the villagers to give their neighbours a play, and the children in the Bands of Hope to act charades. Since his time another family who are much honoured at Grasmere, and who have the same kind of enthusiasm for the dramatic capacity of the village, had carried on the work, with the result that at a moment's notice, for any simple play the daughter of the house might write or adapt, she could count on having as her players seventeen or eighteen of the villagers who would seem born for the parts she entrusted to them. There was no rivalry, no 'fratching' from house to house because this person or that person was not selected for this or that particular part; on the contrary, the village had such confidence in the conductor of the village troupe that if Miss S. thought that So-and-so was to take this part and So-and-so the other, that was enough, and not another word was to be said. Meanwhile the village had come to look upon the village play as part of its very life and soul. Grasmere in winter time would not be recognised by the average tourist. It is a village of peace absolute and tranquillity beyond words.

From the earliest times 'Cursmas' has been looked upon as a time when everybody in the dale should enjoy himself. In the old days, when the fiddlers went round from farm to farm between Christmas-day and New Year's Day, and when the Merry Night (or Murry Neet) was held from place to place, the Grasmere folk knew that, however hard they worked for the rest of the year, at least they would 'laike' until the Twelfth Night, and precious little work would go forward in the dales for the first fortnight of each glad new year. The desire for some simple and rational form of amusement with the beginning of every year has never died out of their blood, so that a village play seems to fill a need which is part of their very nature. 'Why, we could not live without it,' said a Grasmere body to me; 'it's the brightest spot in our lives.' 'I can't tell you how dramatic it makes me feel,' said another. 'I am going thro' my dialogue at all times o' day.' My husband said, 'You've had company to-day then.' 'Ay, ay,' I replied, 'rare company. I was taking two or three parts in second Act, you see, and changing voices, that was all.'

'But where do you get your theatrical properties?' I said. 'Who manages the scene-shifting and all the rest of it?' 'Oh, as for scene-shifting, that is all managed by that great hairy-faced man that you saw going down the road just now; he is a grand stage manager and has been at it for twenty years or more.' I did not see him again until after the close of the performance, when I noticed him with his pocket-handkerchief in an unconventional way fanning out the footlights, and then going up on a ladder to puff out the oil lamps above the stage. 'And as for properties,' the good dame replied, 'if you mean by that the things we have on the stage, well everything is lent—there is crockery from one house and chairs from another, and the dresses, why they are the old originals that were worn by our grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. We all know to what farm or to what house we must go for this or that particular dress, and it is lent very willingly.' 'And do you have large audiences?' I said. 'Large audiences, well, if th' room would hold double the number we could fill it, because folk of all maks and sizes come together. This year we are giving a special afternoon performance for the quality, but I am told that all reserved seats have been booked for weeks.'

It was growing dark as I stood by the cottage door. The omnibus, as it drove down from the Raise gap with folk from Keswick coming to see the play, was sending sparks out behind from its 'slipper,' as though it were making fireworks. And soon I saw the lamp-lighter lighting up the oil lamps in the quaintly intricate lanes of the village beside the Mere. Knots of people were gathered already at their door-ways talking of the play, and already folk were drawing towards the village hall near the Red Lion. I soon joined them, and passed up a break-neck stairway to a big barn-like room, the back part of which was filled with rough boards knocked up into temporary benches, and the forepart had wooden cottage chairs for reserved seats. The drop-scene was down—the lake and island with Helm Crag and Dunmail Raise, as seen from Loughrigg, on a summer evening.

A big moon shone in a solid sort of way in mid-heaven, and was repeated at intervals right down through the picture, as though the scene-painters would say: 'This is the moon, it is rising now, and there it is fully risen.' But I was assured that this was the result of some accident by fire that had taken place years ago in the said drop-scene, and that these moons were, after all, only the patches that repaired the beautiful picture. Three fiddlers and a piano were making lively music when the bell tinkled and the curtain went up. It was a very simple scene—the village carpenter sitting in his shop working away at a stool, but it was to the life; and the Jacob who was working there, with his red handkerchief round his throat, spoke and acted to the life, and well he might—he was a village carpenter. A tourist came upon the scene, and got very little change out of Jacob, and less still out of Jacob's mother, Mrs. Rawlinson, who (after a very amusing dialogue with the tourist) determined to allow him to be her lodger. She made him pay double the usual price because he asked for 'sec a new faddlement as a seven o'clock dinner.' Dolly, the maid, comes in with a handkerchief bound over her head, as is the fashion of the North-country maids when they are dusting or brushing up. They fall to talk:

Mrs. Rawlinson: 'I'se goin' to have mair nor sebben shillings a room this time, but I was forced to ask a good price, for he'll be wanting late dinners, and a' maks o' cooking and faddlements. What does ta think wawmlets'll be, Dolly?'

Dolly: 'Nay, I never heard tell o' sec a thing.'

Mrs. Rawlinson: 'And grilled bones to his breakfast; but I kna' what them'll be, just a marra bone served up hot in a napkin. I can mannish that finely. Then he talked about a dish o' curry; that'll certainly be some mak o' a French stew, made rare and hot wid pepper and an onion or two.'

Dolly: 'What, thou's goin' to be sadly tewed.'

Mrs. Rawlinson: 'Nay. I was nobbut a bit put about at first, but I mean to ask Betty Braithwaite to lend me her beuk as larns yan to mak hundreds and hundreds of things 'at I never heard of, nor naebody else, I wud think.'

As long as I live I shall remember the delightful get-up of this said Mrs. Rawlinson, with her high black cap and flower in it, and her old-fashioned criss-cross shawl, and her spotless white 'brat'; and the way in which she pronounced the word 'omelette' as 'waumlett' convulsed the house.

The second scene in that first act was one that went home to the hearts of all, for if the Westmoreland folk love one thing more dearly than another it is 'a sale.' The sale is really the excitement of the winter time. I believe that if nobody was changing farms they would compel someone in the neighbourhood to pretend that he was, that a sale might be held. It is not the fierce excitement of bidding one against the other that causes the great gathering at the sale, but 'everybody's tied to go,' as they say—bound to go to the sale, just as everybody is bound to go when they are bid to a funeral. It would not be friendly not to do so, and high, low, rich and poor, one with another, meet at the sales, as De Quincey has reminded us, to see one another and to hear how the world is stirring.

The Grasmere Players in this sale scene were all of the manner born, and a young mason played the part of 'Tom Mashiter' (auctioneer) with great delight to himself and to his audience.

'Here's t' fadther and muther and t' dowter he cried, as he put three teapots together. 2s. 6d. for the lot just to get us into the bidding! Here's a pair of copper scales; see how true they hang! Now I durst bet there's not above half a dozen among us as honest as them is. There's not, howiver; and I know who's yan o' the half-dozen; ye can settle the other five amang you. Three an' six. Three an nine. Come, be quick. Nay, I'll not wait. I'll tak some on ye in, ye'll see, if ye don't bid quicker——'

And the scales were knocked down 'mid roars of laughter.

'Here's another good jar, yan o' t' auld fashion, wid a pair o' good lugs to hod by. A penny for it I have bid; who'll say tuppence? Tuppence for you, Sarah. It's a real good un, yan o' t' rare auld-fashioned mak, like me an you, Sarah. I think there's nobbut us two left o' the auld lang-eared breed.'

Then there were quilts sold with a deal of very amusing talk to make them go off. One was in rags and tatters, but the auctioneer suggested that it might do for a sick horse or a sick cow. I was listening with great amusement, and I heard an old fellow beside me say, 'Well, but things is goin' ower cheap,' and in another moment jerked out, 'A penny—here,' and was not a little astonished that his bid was not taken. I only mention this to show you how to the life the whole thing was done, and with what deep interest the spectators gazed upon the play.

In the second act the plot thickens, and the interest centres in the two chief actors of the little play—Aaron Hartley, with his apparently rejected addresses to the statesman's daughter up at Hardcragg Farm, and Betty Braithwaite. Aaron comes into his mother's kitchen, and, as far as any Westmoreland man dare let himself go, allows her to see that things are all up between himself and Betty. He must go off to 'Lunnon,' for he cannot face living on in the dale now, and all the hay grass but one meadow has been got in.

'I think I must be going away, muther, for a bit. I don't see but that you'll mannish finely without me. We've gitten a' the hay in but t' midder, and that'll not take so lang. It's nobbut a light crop, and then it'll be verra slack till bracken time, and what, Jonty's match to make a good start with that if I sudn't be back.'

Just then the farm servant Jonty enters. I believe that he was a coachman in the village, but he was a consummate actor, and his quaint, silent ways and the lifting up of his hand and scratching his head behind his ear when talking were quite admirable. He has had, from youth up, the wish to have something from London, and he tells Aaron that he's 'wonderin' whether he could mannish to bring him a "spead" fra Lunnon' when he comes back; 'but maybe the railway folk wad charge ower dear for carryin' on it.' Aaron chaffs him out of the idea that a 'spead' made in London is better than one made in Kendal, and suggests a nice silk handkerchief. 'I never thowt o' that,' says Jonty; 'that wad be as like as aught.' Libby, the pretty farm servant breaks in here, and says: 'I wish tha would think on it, and not be so ready with thy jacket sleeve.'

'Ye'll not can tell me (says honest Jonty) how much t' silk handkercher'll be until ye've bought it, I doubt; but if ye'll send word I can just send ye the brass in a letter.'

And, saying, 'Well, I mun see all's reet afore goin' to bed,' the faithful farm servant leaves the cottage to go round the byre.

But the actress of the piece throughout is Aaron's mother, Mrs. Hartley. She sits there at her knitting, with her pretty crossover on her shoulders, sair troubled at heart by her son Aaron's love affair; she drops her stitches, for her eyes can hardly keep back the tears, but she seems to know intuitively how much and how little comfort she may give her son, and how far she may insist upon his confidences. The attempt on her part to make it appear as if it did not matter at all and that everything will come right in the end is very bravely done. Fewest words are best.

'Good night, mother,' says Aaron. 'You'll not mind a' I've said.'

'Nay, lad, not I. Good night.'

And so the curtain falls. The second scene in the second act brings Jonty and Mattha Newby (the village tailor) together. Mattha, as I heard, was the son of a village tailor. To-day, evidently from his boyhood's remembrances, he is able to play the tailor's part well. Jonty has been 'wrestling with a dyke' and torn his jerkin, and Mattha volunteers to mend it. A song was introduced into this scene which I had written for the occasion. It ran as follows:

Come! sweet April, whom all men praise,
Bring your daffodils up to the Raise,
Bid the delicate warbler trill,
Come with the cuckoo over the hill
Sprinkle the birch with sprays of green,
Purple the copses all between;
Bend the rainbow, and swell the brooks,
Fill the air with the sound of rooks,
Rubies lend, for the larch to wear,
The lambs are bleating, and May is near.

August comes, and the speckled thrush
Sings no more in the lilac bush,
Lambs in the meadow cease to bleat,
The hills are dim with the noontide heat,
From all her hedges the rose is fled,
And only the harebell lifts her head;
But green are the new-mown vales with grass
As if the Spring were again to pass,
And children bring from the far-off fell
The rose-red heather—the bee loves well,

Comes October with breath more cold,
She breathes, and the bracken turns to gold,
The cherry blushes as red as blood,
The rowan flames in the painted wood,
The larch-tree tresses are amber bright,
The birch is yellowing up on the height,
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And over the valley and over the hill
A deep hush broods and the sheep are still,
But rainbow gossamers fill the air,
Tho' the old earth rests, the world is fair.

Now are the mountains winter-white,
Helvellyn shines in the clear moonlight;
The carollers sing, and the Christmas bells
Send sweet messages up the fells;
The old folk meet for their Christmas cheer,
The young folk skate on the frozen mere;
But Spring is coming, the shy buds peep,
The snow-drop moves in her long, long sleep,
The lemon-light shines on the leafless larch,
And the wood grows purple to welcome March.

Fair, how fair, are the changing days
That keep us happy beneath the Raise,
We who, in honour of Oswald the King,
Our 'bearings' still to the Old Church bring,
We who here in the silent time
Act our part and carol our rhyme.
Seasons change, and our hair grows grey,
But merrily goes the Grasmere play,
And two things stay with us all the year—
Love of our valley, and heart of cheer.

It had been prettily set to music by a Grasmere lady, and the two bass voices chimed in with the two last lines in each verse, and Mattha the tailor and Jonty the farm servant gave great effect to the song by the sudden addition of their manly notes. Before the curtain falls on this scene, we learn that the tourist (to whom we were introduced in the first scene), Mr. Augustus Mallister, who has heard that she is an heiress, is determined, if possible, to win the heart of Betty Braithwaite. He knows that Aaron's absence has made her heart grow fonder. He determines to write a letter, which shall be posted in London, purporting to come from Aaron, in which the absent lover declares that he has become engaged to an American girl; and so the curtain falls.

In the last act, and the first scene, there is a pretty passage, although it is a pathetic one, between Mrs. Hartley and the girl Betty Braithwaite, to whom Mrs. Hartley has given Aaron's letters to read—one of them the fatal letter. In the last scene Norman Braithwaite and his wife, an excellent make-up, come in to talk matters over, and the letter from London amongst other things. Jonty remembers how that, on a certain day in August, the tourist chap, 'the fine gentleman' as he called him, had been spouting out a letter about an Aaron getting wed to an American, and they at once seemed to see light and to feel that the letter Mrs. Hartley had received was a forgery. Just at that time Aaron and Betty enter, and one can tell by a glance at them that it doesn't matter how many forged letters have been written in London; they have quite made up their minds to make a match of it. As for Mallister, 'the fine gentleman,' Jonty breaks in:

'Is it Mallister you're talkin' on? We weant see any more o' yon ne'er-do-weel here. I met t' p'liceman going off wid him to Kendal.'

Norman: 'T' p'liceman! What for?'

Jonty: 'It seems he's been wanted for some time. He's been up to some forgery or summat o' that mak.'

Poor Mrs. Rawlinson, 'the fine gentleman's' landlady, enters greatly distressed that the good name of her house has been compromised by letting lodgings to a forger. 'Why,' says she, 'I thought he was a gentleman, wi' his wawmlets to his breakfast, and his late dinners and siclike.' And so with the assertion that there is nothing to wait for and the wedding shall take place at Martinmas, the curtain goes down, and all's well that ends well.

During the acting it was quite plain that the actors themselves were as much interested as those who witnessed the play. 'I was fairly shamed of myself,' I heard one saying, 'to meet with ye when I came off the last time, for the tears on my face, but if you had given me a five pound note I could not have helped it.' Ah, thought I, that was the secret of your acting so well. Now and again an actor in undress would pass down the room to have a look at the others as they performed their parts, and to report. They would come back with much encouragement to their fellow-players with such words as these: 'Eh, but it's a grand company now, and walls is beginning to stream now'; and in truth the heat of the room and the consequent vapour bath was a thing not to be easily forgotten. But if it had been twice as hot, and the hall had been twice as crammed, and the play had been twice as long, one could still have sat with real pleasure to see such perfect acting done with such simplicity and reality to the life. One wished that Will Shakspere could have come along; how he would have blessed these village folk for their truth and their simplicity. And how good a thing, thought I, it is, that there should be a dull time at the English Lakes, so that, without any temptations to extravagance in scenery or setting of the plays—that would inevitably come with a wider public,—these natural dale-folk can delight their fellow-villagers, by dramatic talent as real as it is remarkable.