Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 1 [of 3]

by J. Ewing Ritchie

It was not true that she had given up religion, as was indicated by some of her associates; the fact was she had none to give up worth speaking of. She had gone to chapel with her mother as a matter of course, and being intelligent and good-natured and willing to be useful, she had been worked into the Sunday-school. It was interesting to her to teach the young idea how to shoot, and she was fond of children, and so she went as a Sunday-school teacher. She had left the chapel because it was dark and dull; because the people were censorious and hard; because the service was uninteresting; because the preacher was always full of the Jews and the prophecies, and seemed to have no idea of life as she saw it around her, and was perpetually railing at a world which seemed to her so bright and fair; because in her heart, as in that of most of us at her age, there was a love of pleasure, impetuous and impatient of control.

Nor was it true that she had gone to church, as intimated above. The fact was, she had summoned up her energies for an awful step for anyone to take: she had run away from poverty, and hard work, and privation, and discomfort, and wretchedness, in the hope and belief—alas! too rudely to be shaken—that henceforth there was to be perpetual sunshine in her path, and perpetual joy in her heart.

We are all of us too ready to fancy that grapes grow on thorns, and Rose was no exception to the general rule. She had never read Wordsworth, and perhaps if she had she would not have understood that grand ode, though the knowledge did painfully come to her in after-life, where he invokes Duty as stern daughter of the voice of God:

‘Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity.’

At home for a long time she had been disappointed at her lot. She was getting tired of hard work and humble fare, ignorant of the fact that God gives us what is best for us, and that His wisdom is as omnipotent as His love. She had no companions to guide her aright, and was tired of the awkward admiration of the homely and lubberly lads with whom she came in contact. She had taken to reading trashy novels, which had not merely amused her, but filled her head with nonsense. Greedily she drank in all their poison. Little by little they broke down all the defences of her common-sense, as she read of splendid marriages made by simple village girls, of runaway matches, of wonderful elopements. They taught her how pleasure was the supreme good, how true happiness consisted in having wealth, in riding in a brougham, in being dressed in silks and satins, in wearing diamonds, in going to grand balls; in short, in realizing what at the meeting-house had been pretty plainly denounced as the pleasures of sin for a season.

The more the poor girl reasoned on her condition the harder to her it seemed to be. It must be false what the parsons said; people who had money, who lived sumptuously, who were arrayed in purple and fine linen, must be happy—as she herself was when she had a crown-piece in her pocket, a dress a little smarter than usual, or a bonnet of the latest fashion. There was the senior deacon, who more fond of money than he? though he always called it dross and filthy lucre. Then there were the senior deacon’s daughters and wife; did not they always look a little more amiable when they had new clothes on? There was the old parson himself; did not everyone laugh at him because he was poor and shabby, and had not his long life of poverty reduced him to such a state that he could not say ‘Bo!’ to a goose? Money meant health, and happiness, and honour, and power; that was clear. Why, the wickedest men in the town, who had money, were made more of than the old parson, who had never done harm to anyone, and whose long record was unsullied. Naturally, this sort of reasoning made the poor girl a little discontented and out of sorts.

At times she had all the youthful recklessness of her sex, and not a little was her mother terrified. A father or a brother might have taught her a little common-sense, but her only confidante was her mother—as fond as she was foolish—who felt herself that her daughter had a smile as sunny, a carriage as graceful, an air as distinguished, and a birth as gentle, as any of the leaders of society in Sloville. She always insisted on her daughter’s fitness for something higher. Love levels all distinctions of rank, and Rose herself was half a Radical—at any rate, much more of one than pretty women generally are. She was also ambitious. She had a charming voice, and danced well. Why should she not shine in society? Why should not she be the star of the ball-room and the theatre? Why should not she have a brougham and drive in the parks? Why should not the men fall down and worship at her shrine? Beauty had a magic power, and wonders were ever being performed daily by the sorcery of Love. Did not King Cophetua take a beggar-maid to be his queen?

‘I’ll be a lady yet,’ said the silly girl; ‘I am tired of stitching and sewing from morn to night; I am tired of this dull street and this dull town; I’ll be a lady yet, mother,’ she said, ‘and you shall come and live with me in a fine house in town with plenty of servants to wait on us and real nice dinners to eat.’

‘Nonsense, girl!’ said the mother. ‘You had better marry the deacon’s shopman; he is very fond of you, and I am sure, by this time, he could furnish a house well and keep a wife comfortable.’

Now, as the individual in question was as fat as a porpoise, and very much the shape of one; as his manners were as plebeian as his appearance, and as he never had anything to say for himself, Rose regarded him with infinite disgust, and vowed she’d rather go into a nunnery or die an old maid.