I asked him why he did it, and he seemed surprised at the question, and said—“Why, all folk do it.” I then asked him whether he thought it really did much good, and the reply was—“Well, as much good as sloppin’ water over’n in church.”
Some years ago there was an ash-tree growing in the hedge of a field of mine at Moreton. The field was let as allotments; and the tree was a nuisance to the man who had the allotment next it, as its roots spread out along his ground. He asked me several times to have the tree cut down; but I liked the look of the tree, and was unwilling to lose it. And then there came a thunder-storm, and the tree was struck by lightning and destroyed. I thought it strange, but he explained it simply:—“I’d prayed ag’in’ that tree.”
He was a very old man; and people of his generation never looked upon your actions as your own, but as the actions of a Power that directed you. I am pretty sure he said that the Lord had hardened my heart about that tree, though I did not actually hear him say it. In a case where I was able to do a kindness, I got no thanks till some months after; and then I got them in this form:—“I’ve a-said it to othern, and I don’t know as I mind a-sayin’ it to you—I do believe as you were sent for some good purpose.” In another case I heard indirectly how the thanks were given:—“I were a-sittin’ there, a-wonderin’ whatever I should do, when I lifted up my eyes, and there were Mr Torr like an Angel o’ God a-comin’ down the path.” I was all the more flattered by the comparison, as one of my neighbours had lately been mistaken for the Devil.
My father notes in his diary, 7 April 1844:—“Witch-craft a common belief to this day in Lustleigh, and prevalent even among the better-informed classes.” My grandfather writes to him, 21 December 1851:—“I am very curious to know the origin of the Horse Shoe, having had to walk over and under so many in my time. I believe they have generally disappeared now, but thirty or forty years ago you could scarcely go into a house without seeing one nailed over or under the durns [frame] of the door. They said it was to prevent the Witches coming in. You have heard me relate the story of the broom that I took up, when a little boy, in a passage down in the village. It was laid for a Witch, and I was put down for one, as having taken it up. I was told no one but a Witch would think of taking it up: so it appears everyone stepped over it, for fear of being counted a Witch. I believe this has all passed away.”
He had great skill in bandaging the cuts and wounds that are inevitable in agricultural work; and he always said some words, while he was doing this. I do not know if these were magic Words of Power, or only little objurations at the wincing of the sufferers. But he always saw that wounds were washed out thoroughly with water and with brandy; and that was perhaps the cause of his success.
He writes to my father, 12 April 1842:—“Since you left, one of our cows got very lame, and I discovered she had a shoe-nail in her foot, and I went with the men about taking it out, when Farmer ***** of ***** came by, and did it for us. He missed the nail in the straw, and could not find it, which he appeared very anxious to do. I said it was of no consequence, the straw should be removed, and I would take care that it should not get there again. He looked up with such astonishment at my ignorance, and said he was surprised I did not know no better, for the cow’s foot would surely rot, if the nail was not found and stuck into some bacon. However, I said I would run all risks, and desired him to make his mind easy: so I threw in some brandy, and the remainder I gave him to drink for his trouble. He went away still saying it would be sure to rot. She was lame for two days, but now is quite well, bacon or no bacon.”
Staying at Poitiers, 13 August 1861, my father writes:—“Then went to the church of S. Radegonde, to whose coffin pilgrims are now (in this month of August) repairing to get healed of their diseases by touching the coffin; and numbers of children, lame and diseased, were brought to touch it, while we were there. The streets leading to the church are lined with stalls for sale of votive offerings to hang on the coffin. In a side chapel is a large figure of Christ appearing to S. Radegonde over a stone on which there is a print-mark like a foot, declared to be Christ’s footprint in the apparition.”
All this has passed from Poitiers to Lourdes, the apparition being modernized by putting the Madonna for the Christ and a peasant for a queen, and altering the date from the Sixth Century to 11 February 1858. My father and mother stayed a night at Lourdes, 27 August 1861; but their diaries say nothing of Bernadette or any cures or miracles there. My father just notes “walking out by the small rocky hill”; and that, I presume, was the hill where one sees processions of pilgrims now.
I went to Lourdes, 11 September 1894, and it profited me £1. 14s. 7d. or thereabouts. I was going to Gavarnie in the Pyrenees, and found that the fare to Lourdes was lower than the fare to Pau, though Lourdes was further off from Paris, and further on towards Gavarnie. Zola’s Lourdes had come out in the spring; and I took it with me, and read it in the train, holding it well up at the window. It acted as a scare-crow, and gave me a compartment to myself. On reaching Lourdes, I bought the antidote that was on sale there—Réponse complète au Lourdes de M. Zola. But the antidote seemed hardly powerful enough to counteract the poison.
There were pilgrims there in thousands, not nearly so much in earnest as pilgrims I have seen in Palestine, but much more so than some I encountered at Ancona going to Loreto, 20 August 1898. They were certain of absolution there, and meant to make it cover a multitude of sins.