In the meantime, Caine had also published an anthology of sonnets, entitled Sonnets of Three Centuries (a particularly handsome volume, prefaced by a very capable and original essay on the history of the sonnet), and a volume of essays entitled Cobwebs of Criticism. Neither of these books did much to widen his reputation, but the volume of sonnets was a labour of love, and the essays contained in the latter consisted chiefly of lectures delivered in Liverpool.
CHAPTER IV
THE SHADOW OF A CRIME AND A SON OF HAGAR
After the death of Rossetti, Hall Caine spent eighteen months in daily journalism in London writing his Rossetti recollections, and reviewing books, etc., for the Academy and Athenæum. He was also employed as a leader-writer on the Liverpool Mercury at a salary beginning at a hundred pounds per annum. This life, honourable and fascinating as it was, did not satisfy him, however. He was beginning to look further afield. Besides, he was being dominated by the legend which was to be the germ of his first novel.
So, in order to obtain complete immunity from all interruption, social and professional, he “settled in a little bungalow of three rooms in a garden near the beach at Sandown in the Isle of Wight.” In the meantime he had married, and at the time of settling at Sandown he had enough money to keep him going for about four months. But his story was deeply rooted in his mind and heart, and he feared nothing—not even failure. The legend that so dominated him was as follows. (I quote from The Idler, to which magazine Mr Caine contributed an article entitled My First Book):—
“One of the oldest legends of the Lake mountains tells of the time of the plague. The people were afraid to go to market, afraid to meet at church and afraid to pass on the highway. When any lonely body was ill, the nearest neighbour left meat and drink at the door of the afflicted house, and knocked and ran away. In these days a widow and two sons lived in one of the darkest of the valleys. The younger son died, and the body had to be carried over the mountains to be buried. Its course lay across Sty Head Pass, a bleak and ‘brant’ place, where the winds are often high. The eldest son, a strong-hearted lad, undertook the duty. He strapped the coffin on to the back of a young horse, and they started away. The day was wild, and on the top of the pass, where the path dips into Wastdale, between the breast of Great Gable and the heights of Scawfell, the wind rose to a gale. The horse was terrified. It broke away and galloped over the fells, carrying its burden with it. The lad followed and searched for it, but in vain, and he had to go home at last, unsatisfied.
“This was in the spring, and nearly all the summer through the surviving son of the widow was out on the mountains, trying to recover the runaway horse, but never once did he catch sight of it, though sometimes, as he turned homeward at night, he thought he heard, in the gathering darkness, above the sough of the wind, the horse’s neigh. Then winter came, and the mother died. Once more the dead body had to be carried over the fells for burial, and once again the coffin was strapped on the back of a horse. It was an old mare that was chosen this time, the mother of the young one that had been lost. The snow lay deep on the pass, and from the cliffs of the Scawfell pikes it hung in great toppling masses. All went well with the little funeral party until they came to the top of the pass, and though the day was dead calm the son held the rein with a hand that was like a vice. But just as the mare reached the spot where the wind had frightened the young horse, there was a terrific noise. An immense body of the snow had parted at that instant from the beetling heights overhead, and rushed down into the valley with the movement as of a mighty earthquake, and the deafening sound as of a peal of thunder. The dale echoed and re-echoed from side to side, and from height to height. The old mare was affrighted; she reared, leapt, flung her master away, and galloped off. When they had recovered from their consternation, the funeral party gave chase, and at length, down in a hollow place, they thought they saw what they were in search of. It was a horse with something strapped on its back. When they came up with it they found it was the young horse, with the coffin of the younger son. They led it away, and buried the body that it had carried so long, but the old mare they never recovered, and the body of the mother never found sepulchre.”
It will be seen at a glance that this legend contains great dramatic and imaginative possibilities, but for Hall Caine its fascination lay in its “shadow and suggestion of the supernatural.” When Rossetti was still alive, Mr Caine had discussed with him its merits as the foundation for a novel; but the poet, as we have seen, was against the idea. He did not see the possibility of getting any sympathy into it. This judgment, coming from so expert and experienced a quarter, disheartened the younger man, and he “let the idea go back to the dark chambers of memory.” But it was of no use, the ghost would not be laid. The idea recurred to him at intervals, and each time it impressed him more and more. At last, when settled in the Isle of Wight, he thought he had found a way of evading Rossetti’s criticism. “The sympathy was to be got out of the elder son. He was to think God’s hand was upon him. But whom God’s hand rested on had God at his right hand; so the elder son was to be a splendid fellow—brave, strong, calm, patient, long-suffering, a victim of unrequited love, a man standing square on his legs against all weathers.” Then he began to write; but he was faced by a thousand difficulties. It was his desire to grip the reader’s interest from the very outset, and it took him a fortnight’s hard work to make what he judged to be a satisfactory beginning. Within three months it was practically finished. He showed it first to Mr J. S. Cotton, an old and valued friend and at that time editor of the Academy. “His rapid mind saw a new opportunity. ‘You want peine forte et dure,’ he said. ‘What’s that?’ I asked. ‘An old punishment—a beautiful thing,’ he answered. ‘Where’s my dear old Blackstone?’ and the statute concerning the punishment for standing mute was read to me. It was just the thing I wanted for my hero, and I was in rapture, but I was also in despair. To work this fresh interest into my theme half of what I had written would need to be destroyed!”
But destroyed it was, and after two months’ arduous labour, he took it to the late John Lovell, editor of the Liverpool Mercury. “It’s crude,” he said. “But it only wants sub-editing.” Imagine the young author’s feelings! Sub-editing, indeed! But again he re-wrote it, and this time to some purpose, for Mr Lovell offered him a hundred pounds for the serial right in the Liverpool Weekly Mercury. This offer was, of course, accepted.