I now found that my new friend had some humour in his conversation; and I confess, I did not like him the worse for it. He continued:—“I am from the north. I was born in one of the wildest parts of the country you ever saw, in the midst of lakes and mountains. It has been fashionable lately to visit the lake country, but most persons go in their carriages or on horseback, and they miss the very finest parts and the grandest scenes. I did not think much of the beauties of the country then; but since I left it, and came to live in this smoky dungeon, my heart has often gone back to the place of my birth; and it now looks much more beautiful in my mind than it did then to my eyes, or than it probably would if I were ever to see it again.—I wonder if that will ever be!”—he here half whispered to himself—“Sir, the house in which I was born stood in one of the most retired parts of the lake country—a spot, I dare say, never visited at all by strangers. They call it Yewdale. The house (I see it now!) was low, and built of cobbles, but firm as a rock; one end, indeed, had fallen in, and was used as a hen-roost and cart-house, but the main part of the house was well slated with good brown flat stones, out of Coniston Old Man, and had two chimneys at the top as tall and round as a churn. The house stood on the side of the hill, just where the road makes a turn to run right down upon Coniston Water Head. There was a great broad plane tree at the end of it,”—“and a large thorn before the door,” interrupted I, “with the top of it cut into the shape of a cock.”
“Exactly so!” exclaimed he, looking up into my face with much surprise, “why you have seen the very place!”
“To be sure I have, and that the very last summer, when I was strolling about Yewdale and Tilberthwaite, the finest part of all the lake country.”
“Eh, sir!” said he, his native dialect unconsciously returning with his early recollections,—“Eh, sir, and is it not a bonny bit?—and so the old cock is still crowing on the top of the old thorn!”
“Indeed it was,” said I; “but as I passed by, I saw a ladder reared up to its side, and a decent looking man, apparently the owner, diligently employed, with a pair of shears, in cutting off the cock’s tail!”
“Confound Tom Hebblethwaite,” said my companion, more seriously vexed than I thought it possible for him to be,—“I wish—but I am a fool for being angry with him—what better could be expected from him? At school he was always a stupid fellow; he never could catch a trout out of the lake in his life, and whenever he tried to rob a hen-roost, he was sure to tumble down the ladder, and waken all the cocks and hens in the parish!”
I was much amused at the reasons which the old man assigned why nothing good could be expected from Tom Hebblethwaite, but said nothing more to provoke his indignation, which I saw he soon became rather ashamed of. After a pause he regained his wonted composure, and proceeded:—“In that house I was born. My earliest recollection is the death of my grandmother. I do not know how old she was, but she must have been near a hundred years old. I yet remember her calling me to her bed side, just before her death, giving me a shilling, which she seemed to have concealed somewhere about the bed-clothes, and saying, in a deep and earnest tone, ‘God bless you.’ She died that night. I have never forgotten her blessing, and I have never parted with her shilling—I never will!” There was a tear in his eye as he said this, and he paused for a few moments in his narrative.
CHAPTER II.
“Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber;
Than in the perfum’d chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull’d with sounds of sweetest melody!”Shakspere.
“My early days,” the old man continued, “were, as all the rest have been, a mixture of happiness and troubles. I believe the troubles were, at the time, rather the more abundant part, though, in looking back on my past days I remember the bright spots more distinctly than the dark: just as, in youth, I have stood on Yewdale crag, and distinctly seen the distant top of Snafell in the Isle of Man, because a sunbeam happened to fall on it, while all was dark and indistinct around it. My father was a little Statesman; by which, as you know, is not meant, in Cumberland, any thing like Lord John Russell, as such a term would be understood in Manchester; for he never, I believe, read a newspaper in his life; nay, probably never saw one, unless it might be upon Lady le Fleming’s hall table, when he went, as he did, once a year, to Rydal, to pay his boon rent to her, as lady of the manor. A statesman, in Cumberland, is the owner of a little land; and as proud he is of his little holding, as Sir Robert Peel can be (and proud indeed he may be!) of governing the state. How long we had lived upon this little estate, I cannot tell, nor, I suppose, any body else. There were no title deeds in existence; nor, I believe, many wills, if any. When the father died, the son quietly buried him in Hawkshead church-yard, and then as quietly stepped into his shoes, wore out his old coats, (if they could be worn out,) and every thing went on just as before. My father was the most silent man I ever met with in my life. He never spoke unless he had something to say, and that seemed to be only once or twice in the course of the day. He was always the first up in the morning, and the last in bed at night, and worked like a slave on his farm from sunrise to sunset. Of course I could not understand his character then, but I have often tried to understand it since he was taken away, and I became capable of reflection. He never shewed me much kindness, but was never harsh, though always firm. I had great respect for him, because I saw my neighbours had; and I believe it is true, generally, that children learn to value their parents a good deal by the way in which they see them treated by indifferent persons. All my life I have always treated parents with respect in the presence of their children.”