THOMAS AIRAY,
The Grassington Manager and his Theatrical Company, Craven, Yorkshire.
For the Table Book.
“Nothing like this in London!”
John Reeve in
Peregrine Proteus.
At this season, every thing appears dull and lifeless in the neighbourhood of my favourite mountain village. In my younger days it was otherwise. Christmas was then a festival, enlivened by a round of innocent amusements, which the present enlightened age has pronounced superstitious or trifling. Formerly we had a theatre, at this season, and perhaps a few particulars relating to it may not be uninteresting.
Gentle reader! should you ever visit Skipton-in-Craven, go on the market-day, and stand opposite to the vicarage-house in the High-street; there you will see a cart with this inscription, “Thomas Airay, Grassington and Skipton carrier.” Keep your eye on that cart, and about the hour of three in the afternoon you will behold approach the owner, a little, fat, old man, with reddish whiskers and a jolly face, that Liston or John Reeve would not be ashamed to possess. In that countenance a mere tyro in physiognomy may discover a roguish slyness, a latent archness, a hidden mine of fun and good humour. Then when Airay walks, mark his stately gait, and tell me if it does not proclaim that he has worn the sock and buskin, and trod the Thespian floor: he was the manager of the Grassington theatre—the “Delawang” of Craven.
I fancy some rigid moralist bestowing a cold glance on poor Tom, and saying to himself, “Ah, old man, this comes of acting; had you, in your youth, followed some industrious pursuit, nor joined an idle strolling company, instead of now being a country carrier, you might have been blessed with a comfortable independence!” Think not so harshly of Airay; though not the manager of a patent theatre, nor of one “by royal authority,” he never was a stroller, nor an associate with vagabonds, nor did he ever, during his theatrical career, quake under the terrors of magisterial harshness, or fear the vagrant act.
No idle, worthless, wandering man was he,
But in the dales, of honest parents bred,
Train’d to a life of honest industry,
He with the lark in summer left his bed,
Thro’ the sweet calm, by morning twilight shed,
Walking to labour by that cheerful song,
And, making a pure pleasure of a tread,
When winter came with nights so dark and long,
’Twas his, with mimic art, to amuse a village throng!
Tom Airay’s sole theatre was at Grassington; and that was only “open for the season”—for a few weeks in the depth of winter, when the inclemency of the weather, which in these mountainous parts is very severe, rendered the agricultural occupations of himself and companions impossible to be pursued. They chose rather to earn a scanty pittance by acting, than to trouble their neighbours for eleemosynary support.