Mary Anerley: A Yorkshire Tale

by R. D. Blackmore

From sires and grandsires Englishmen have learned the mood into which their country fell. To have fought under Nelson in his last fight was a password to the right hands of men, and into the hearts of women. Even a man who had never been known to change his mind began to condemn other people for being obstinate. Farmer Anerley went to church in his Fencible accoutrements, with a sash of heavy crape, upon the first day of the Christian year. To prove the largeness of his mind, he harnessed the white-nosed horse, and drove his family away from his own parish, to St. Oswald's Church at Flamborough, where Dr. Upround was to preach upon the death of Nelson. This sermon was of the noblest order, eloquent, spirited, theological, and yet so thoroughly practical, that seven Flamborough boys set off on Monday to destroy French ships of war. Mary did her very utmost not to cry—for she wanted so particularly to watch her father—but nature and the doctor were too many for her. And when he came to speak of the distinguished part played (under Providence) by a gallant son of Flamborough, who, after enduring with manly silence evil report and unprecious balms, stood forward in the breach, like Phineas, and, with the sword of Gideon, defied Philistia to enter the British ark; and when he went on to say that but for Flamborough's prowess on that day, and the valor of the adjoining parish (which had also supplied a hero), England might be mourning her foremost promachos, her very greatest fighter in the van, without the consolation of burying him, and embalming him in a nation's tears—for the French might have fired the magazine—and when he proceeded to ask who it was that (under the guiding of a gracious hand) had shattered the devices of the enemy, up stood Robin Cockscroft, with a score of equally ancient captains, and remembering where they were, touched their forelocks, and answered—“Robin Lyth, sir!”

Then Mary permitted the pride of her heart, which had long been painful with the tight control, to escape in a sob, which her mother had foreseen; and pulling out the stopper from her smelling-bottle, Mistress Anerley looked at her husband as if he were Bonaparte himself. He, though aware that it was inconsistent of her, felt (as he said afterward) as if he had been a Frenchman; and looked for his hat, and fumbled about for the button of the pew, to get out of it. But luckily the clerk, with great presence of mind, awoke, and believing the sermon to be over, from the number of men who were standing up, pronounced “Amen” decisively.

During the whole of the homeward drive Farmer Anerley's countenance was full of thought; but he knew that it was watched, and he did not choose to let people get in front of him with his own brains. Therefore he let his wife and daughter look at him, to their hearts' content, while he looked at the ledges, and the mud, and the ears of his horse, and the weather; and he only made two observations of moment, one of which was “gee!” and the other was “whoa!”

With females jolting up and down, upon no springs—except those of jerksome curiosity—conduct of this character was rude in the extreme. But knowing what he was, they glanced at one another, not meaning in any sort of way to blame him, but only that he would be better by-and-by, and perhaps try to make amends handsomely. And this, beyond any denial, he did as soon as he had dined, and smoked his pipe on the butt of the tree by the rick-yard. Nobody knew where he kept his money, or at least his good wife always said so, when any one made bold to ask her. And even now he was right down careful to go to his pot without anybody watching; so that when he came into the Sunday parlor there was not one of them who could say, even at a guess, where he last had been.

Master Simon Popplewell, gentleman-tanner (called out of his name, and into the name of “Johnny,” even by his own wife, because there was no sign of any Simon in him), he was there, and his good wife Debby, and Mistress Anerley in her best cap, and Mary, dressed in royal navy blue, with bars of black (for Lord Nelson's sake), according to the kind gift of aunt and uncle; also Willie, looking wonderfully handsome, though pale with the failure of “perpetual motion,” and inclined to be languid, as great genius should be in its intervals of activity. Among them a lively talk was stirring; and the farmer said, “Ah! You was talking about me.”

“We mought be; and yet again we mought not,” Master Popplewell returned, with a glance at Mrs. Deborah, who had just been describing to the company how much her husband excelled in jokesomeness. “Brother Stephen, a good man seeks to be spoken of, and a bad one objects to it, in vain.”

“Very well. You shall have something for your money. Mary, you know where the old Mydeary wine is that come from your godfathers and godmothers when you was called in baptism. Take you the key from your mother, child, and bring you up a bottle, and brother Popplewell will open it, for such things is beyond me.”

“Well done, our side!” exclaimed the tanner; for if he had a weakness it was for Madeira, which he always declared to have a musky smack of tan; and a waggish customer had told him once that the grapes it was made of were always tanned first. The others kept silence, foreseeing great events.

Then Mr. Popplewell, poised with calm discretion, and moving with the nice precision of a fine watchmaker, shed into the best decanter (softly as an angel's tears) liquid beauty, not too gaudy, not too sparkling with shallow light, not too ruddy with sullen glow, but vivid—like a noble gem, a brown cairngorm—with mellow depth of lustre. “That's your sort!” the tanner cried, after putting his tongue, while his wife looked shocked, to the lip of the empty bottle.

“Such things is beyond my knowledge,” answered Farmer Anerley, as soon as he saw the best glasses filled; “but nothing in nature is too good to speak a good man's health in. Now fill you up a little glass for Mary; and, Perpetual Motion, you stand up, which is more than your machines can do. Now here I stand, and I drink good health to a man as I never clapped eyes on yet, and would have preferred to keep the door between us; but the Lord hath ordered otherwise. He hath wiped out all his faults against the law; he hath fought for the honor of old England well; and he hath saved the life of my son Jack. Spite of all that, I might refuse to unspeak my words, which I never did afore, if it had not been that I wronged the man. I have wronged the young fellow, and I am man enough to say so. I called him a murderer and a sneak, and time hath proved me to have been a liar. Therefore I ask his pardon humbly; and, what will be more to his liking, perhaps, I say that he shall have my daughter Mary, if she abides agreeable. And I put down these here twenty guineas, for Mary to look as she ought to look. She hath been a good lass, and hath borne with me better than one in a thousand would have done. Mary, my love to you; and with leave all round, here's the very good health of Robin Lyth!”