Crying for the Light Volume Iii Part 2

Such thoughts as these kept the Baronet wide awake, much to his disgust.

It was the dinner, it was the wine, it was the cigar that kept him awake.

Perhaps they did. But there was something else that did so, though the Baronet did not see it-the accusal of a conscience in which he did not believe, the workings of a divine law which he laughed at.

The next day no one was up early, and no one made his appearance at the breakfast-table save the elderly members of the party. Most of the gentlemen visitors overslept themselves, and the ladies were served in their own rooms. Then came the carriages and the departure of the guests-some to town, some to fashionable health resorts. Business required the presence of the great merchant in London, and he took his daughter with him. Sir Watkin managed to get down in time to see them off, and to promise to follow them next day. The lady left quite content; she knew what was to come, and what would be her reply.

Very dull and gloomy seemed the old house as the company one by one departed. Sir Watkin took up the morning papers-there was nothing in them; the society journals-he was better informed than their writers. No novel could interest him in his then state of mind. He had a headache; he would go for a ride, a sovereign remedy for such maladies as gentlemen in his station suffer from. Accordingly the horse was brought round, and he was in the saddle. He would be back before dark, and did not require his groom, and he trotted gaily away from the ancestral Hall under the ancestral oaks, along the gravelled drive through the park, feeling a little fresher for the effort. He would see his steward, and have a talk with him on business matters.

At the lodge-gate he stopped for a moment to order a general smartening up of that quarter. Alas! on the other side was an objectionable old woman, a friend who had before given him so much trouble. Sir Watkin's disgust was only equalled by his anger. He was in no amiable mood, as the old woman clearly saw. She almost wished she had not come; she felt all of a tremble, as she said, as she asked him kindly to stop and hear what she had got to say. He muttered something very much unlike a blessing on his tormentor. He would have ridden over her had he not stopped his horse, which strongly opposed the idea of stopping. Could that old creature have any claim on him? The idea was ridiculous. And as to listening to her, why, that was quite out of the question for so fine a gentleman. She made an effort to clutch the rein. The high-spirited steed resented the indignity. In the scuffle the Baronet was unseated, and was taken up insensible.

'Sure 'nough he's dead as a stone,' said the ploughman, who had first noticed him.

'He's nothing of the kind,' said the gate-keeper, who was soon on the spot, 'Get on the horse and ride to Sloville for the doctor,' said he to the ploughman, while he and the other servants bore the body to the lodge-gate, where it was laid upon a bed.

The doctor came. 'No bones broken,' said he, after a cursory examination, 'but a severe concussion of the brain. Draw down the blinds; put ice on his forehead; keep him quiet, and he may yet rally.

In the meantime I will telegraph to London for the great surgeon, Sir Henry Johnson. If anybody can save him he can.'

The hours that day in that low lodge moved very slowly. No wife, no mother, no sister was there. The old mother had left that day for Scotland. Only one sister was alive, and she was with her husband in Italy; only the housekeeper from the Hall was there to sit and watch and sigh, for she had known Sir Watkin from a baby, and was as proud of him as it behoved her to be, never believing any of the scandals connected with his name, and, indeed, scarcely hearing of them, for his wilder life was out of her sight and hearing. At home he was the model English gentleman; and then, again, when evil things were said of him, she refused to listen.

'It was not her place,' she said, 'to hear bad spoken of any of the family of which she and hers generations before had been retainers.'

About mid-day came a telegram to say that the great Sir Henry was coming down, and that there was to be a carriage at the railway-station to meet him. In a couple of hours after came Sir Henry himself-a calm, dignified man of science, who lived in a world of which science is G.o.d, and was interested in humanity as a subject of dissection or operation. Apart from that, he had a poor opinion of human nature.

'It is a bad case-very bad,' said he to the country doctor, who had explained to him all the particulars of the accident. 'It is a very bad case, but I think science is equal to the emergency. I suppose we must have an operation. I have brought my a.s.sistant with me, and my case of instruments. We'd better begin at once.' Turning to look at the insensible patient, the great Sir Henry exclaimed: 'I have come down for nothing; Sir Watkin is dead!'

CHAPTER XXIII THE FUNERAL.

'Worldly people,' wrote one of our greatest novelists, 'never look so worldly as at a funeral.' The truth of this was very apparent at the funeral of the deceased Baronet. There was the usual parade of outward grief at the churchyard, and in the town all the blinds were drawn down and the shops shut-with the exception of those set apart for the sale of beer and wine and spirits, which were rather better patronized than usual. It is said grief makes men thirsty. That certainly was the case at Sloville, for the usual topers of the place had been increased in number by the addition of numerous thirsty souls from all the adjacent country, drawn together not so much by grief as by a pardonable curiosity.

Heavily tolled the bell of the old-fashioned church, in the gloomy vaults of which slept the family ancestors, whose varied virtues were recorded in marble in all parts of the building, and whose rotting carcases poisoned the atmosphere of the place, and had done so for many generations.

When are we going to reform this and to cremate our dead, so that we may go to church in safety and with no fear of detriment to our physical well-being? The ancients burnt their dead. Is there any earthly reason why we moderns should not do the same? I know none, except a stupid prejudice unworthy of a generation that loves to think itself enlightened, and that flatters itself it is wiser than any that has gone before. If it is to be talked of after death, surely the urn can be as fitting a remembrance of the departed as the costly and c.u.mbrous marble monument, with its deception and untruth. 'Five languages,' writes Sir Thomas Brown, of Norwich, 'secured not the epitaph of Gordia.n.u.s. The man of G.o.d lives longer without a tomb than any by one visibly interred by angels, and adjudged to obscurity, though not without some marks directing human decency. Enoch and Elias, without either tomb or burial, in an anomalous state of being, are the great examples of perpetuity in their long and living memory, in strict account being still on this side death and having a late part yet to act upon the stage of earth.' In vain is all earthly vanity, but there is no vanity so vain as that connected with the grave. 'Yet man is a n.o.ble animal,' as the same writer remarks, 'splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave!'

And thus it was at the funeral of the deceased Baronet. All the clergy round had come to do him honour, and all the county families had come to put in an appearance-or, at any rate, sent their empty carriages to follow in the procession, which is supposed to be the same as attending one's self. A fashionable undertaker from town had been retained for the occasion, and never did men wear so mournful an expression as he and his many men. I had almost written 'merry' men, for none were merrier when the dismal farce was over and they were back to town-refreshed by stimulants, with which they had been plentifully supplied.

There was a great crowd in the church-a great crowd in the churchyard, and a great crowd all the way from the Hall. The heir, the deceased's brother, naturally came in for a good deal of criticism, and he was quite equal to the occasion-apparently mourning for the deceased as if he had loved him as much as everyone was aware he had done the reverse.

Relatives from all parts were there, hoping against hope that they might find their names put down for something in the will. The tenantry made a decent show, for to many of them the deceased was a man after their own hearts-fond of sport, of racing, of good cheer, of fast living. All the world loves a gay spendthrift more than a sober and careful man who tries to live within his means and to save a little money. The enlightened British workman has, as a rule, an intense hatred for the capitalist, who is, after all, his best friend.

The peasantry were there in great force, glad to have a show of any kind to relieve the dull monotony of their lives-though feeling that it would make little difference to them who reigned at the Hall, and expecting little: as it had gone forth that the new Baronet was somewhat of a skinflint, and that little was to be expected from the mother and daughters who were in future to take up their residence at the old Hall.

It is needless to add that the tradesmen of the town were present in great numbers. They knew on which side their bread was b.u.t.tered.

Tradesmen generally do. At any rate there was show enough and funereal pomp to give occasion for the county paper of the following Sat.u.r.day to devote considerable s.p.a.ce to the affair, which-so the reporter wrote, with a touch of imagination which did him credit-had saddened the county and made everyone deplore the sudden and untimely decease of one of its most distinguished men.

The deceased Baronet had been the great man of the district-a leading magistrate, with power to ameliorate the condition of the poor-a power that he had never used. The workhouse was old and unhealthy, yet he had opposed every effort to build a better one; the relieving-officers were drunkards, and generally unable to keep their accounts correctly. The selection of such officers was, in fact, a job in order to make provision for some aged, feeble, drunken bankrupt, a boon companion of the farmers; nor were the medical officers much better. The outdoor paupers were victims of the grossest abuses. The aged were set to eke out their miserable existence by breaking stones on the road, and thus these poor creatures, half-clad, ill-fed, and suffering from rheumatism, had to work on the bleak roadside, exposed to the inclemency of the weather, till they ceased to be a parochial charge at all; and, as a rule, their homes were unfit for human habitation. The vagrants suffered from the grossest ill-usage. One quarter of the workhouse, ill or scarcely provided with bedding accommodation, was appropriated to a cla.s.s consisting of honest seekers for work, tramps, vagabonds, and thieves of all ages, huddled indiscriminately together, using or listening to the vilest language, initiated in the mysteries of vice and crime, quarrelling and fighting.

There were no vagrant wards, and any attempt to introduce them was strenuously resisted, and thus, in spite of the Reformed Poor Law, as it was called, the state of the poor grew more wretched every day.

Sir Watkin knew all this. A word from him would have inaugurated a better state of things, but he never spoke that word. He was far too busy in his pursuit of pleasure to think of the poor on his estate, or to plead their cause, and the guardians were content to let things slide.

Dr. Chalmers maintained that the one main drawback to the effectual working of the new Poor Law would be the defective attendance at the boards of the landlords, and, as far as Sloville was concerned, the doctor was right. Had the deceased Baronet discharged the duties of his position, and concerned himself about the welfare of the poor, he might have been a blessing to the district. As it was, he was very much the reverse. In his time, as in that of the old Hebrew Psalmist, it might truly be said: 'The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor.'

A few days and the astonishment of the town was over, and the sun was gay, and the earth as fair as ever. Nature takes no heed of death; it keeps on all the same its eternal way. The common people had their talk of old scandals, and the lodge-keeper became quite an oracle as he hinted at the appearance of an old woman at the gate, and expressed his wonder at what had become of her. He went so far as to hint at the possession of mysterious knowledge, of which the presumptive heir would be glad to avail himself; but gradually even that form of mild excitement pa.s.sed away. The public soon got over the event, as it generally does.

In the gay world, of which Sir Watkin had been a leading figure so recently, things went on much as usual. The old captain in the club, it is true, felt the loss of a man younger than himself, and on whom he had, to a certain extent, leaned. The manager of the Diamond Theatre was inconsolable, as his bills were many in the hands of the Jews, and he looked to the Baronet to take them up as they fell due. A little regret and wonder was expressed that the deceased Baronet did not cut up quite so well as was expected. Well, of course, he was a gentleman, and you can't expect a gentleman to be a good man of business. But a good many who lost by the deceased were not quite so easily consoled. It is pleasant to be able to pay twenty shillings in the pound, but that is not the whole duty of man, nevertheless. If Shakespeare had been unfortunate in business, if Milton had had to make an arrangement with his creditors, we should have thought just as well of them; nor does one think a penny the worse of De Foe, that he was in pecuniary difficulties, or of d.i.c.k Steele that he could not make both ends meet, or of Goldsmith that he left two thousand pounds of debt behind him. In the case of Sir Watkin Strahan the estate was strictly settled, and only his debts of honour got paid. As it was, there was little left for the new Baronet to start with.

And this state of things is the consequence of the law of primogeniture, says the ignorant reformer. It is not so. Our laws of settlement are to be blamed as unfair and unjust. The main causes of agricultural depression, and of continued wrongdoing on the part of landed proprietors, are the laws which allow the owners to make deeds and wills which for many years, and often long after the owners' deaths, prevent the land from being sold, or the estate from being divided, no matter how expedient it may be that it should he sold, or no matter how foolish or extravagant the owner may be. Mr. Kay ill.u.s.trates this in a case in which he had acted as trustee. This estate, about fifty or sixty years ago, came into the hands of a young n.o.bleman, whom he calls Lord A., when he was twenty-one. He married when he was twenty-two, and the marriage-deed gave him only a life interest in the estate, and settled the property on his children. He had one child, and as soon as that child was twenty-one another deed was made, giving that child only a life interest in the estate, and settling it after his death on the children he might leave in succession. Lord A. was an extravagant and reckless man. He hunted the county; he kept open house; he lived as if his estate were ten times as great as it really was. He gambled and lost heavily.

He raised money on his life interest. He finally fled from England deeply in debt, and lived abroad. The remainder of the life interest was sold to a Jew, who knew that he would lose all when Lord A. died, and found his only profit in thinning the woods. That state of things lasted forty years. The farmers had no leases or any security for expenditure.

The Jew would not spend a penny, nor would the gentleman who took the mansion, because he could not tell when he might be turned out; and the tenantry were prevented from doing fairly to the land or to themselves.

There was no one to support the schools or the church, or to look after the labourers on the estate. The farm-buildings fell into decay; the land was not properly drained or cultivated; the plantations were injured, and the mansion was dilapidated. And all this vast extent of mischief was the result of the deeds which the law had allowed the lord and his heir to execute. Nor are such cases isolated. Nor is it possible to over-estimate the wretchedness and poverty they create in rural England. Perhaps, in time, Englishmen will demand the abolition of laws which entail such bitter wrong on the community at large.

CHAPTER XXIV THE HONEYMOON.

At that very time-in autumn, when everyone is supposed to be out of town and blinds are drawn down in all Belgravia; when the moors of Scotland and the health resorts of our own highly-favoured land or of the Continent are crammed, and white-winged yachts, like sea-fowl or flakes of snow, bedeck the peaceful waters of the Solent, and sparkle as they shine along our summer seas-a small party might be seen drawing up at the registrar's office somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Strand. No one knew what was going on, and the single brougham at the door attracted little attention. The first to get out was our old friend Buxton, the medical man; then came Wentworth, a little gayer than usual. In another, which followed immediately, were Rose, looking lovelier than ever and perhaps a trifle more serious, and her mother, a quiet old lady, much given to garrulity when she had a chance, and to self-effacement when she found no one wanted to hear her. The poor old soul had no idea of being married at the registrar's. The business was a very simple one-merely to make a declaration before the officer appointed for that purpose that they were to be married, and to sign a declaration to that effect, which was duly witnessed ere it was sent away to be preserved among our national archives. This done and the registrar's fee paid, they drove away as quietly as they came to the Midland Railway Station in the Euston Road, where they had a pleasant lunch; and thence the newly-married couple took the train to the busy city of Liverpool, ever overflowing with a very migratory population. Here to-day, gone to-morrow. Of course they did not stop there long. The next day they left the dark cloud of Liverpool smoke behind for the romantic Isle of Man.

One of the first things they did was to take a trip round the island, and we will accompany them. For this purpose we step on board the _King Orrey_, as she lies at the Douglas Pier. King Orrey was one of the far-famed Monarchs of the Isle, and is now commemorated in a way of which he could have no idea.

We are off in good time, and as the day is tempting we have rather a numerous company on board, and no wonder, for it is not every day that you can see England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales in the course of a few hours. The legendary history of the Isle of Man at any rate matches that of any of the countries above-named. It is true the scepticism of modern times has dealt hardly with them. No Eleanor, d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester, was imprisoned in the old Castle of Peel; no St. Patrick ever resided there, or even ever stepped from Peel to Ireland to Christianize the people there. It is also affirmed, and the candid student who sees the Ireland of to-day must admit there is a good deal in the affirmation, that if St Patrick ever did take that wonderful step, at any rate he was not very successful as regards the main object of his trip. Few people now believe that when the Manx men were fighting the ancient Britons on the other side of the water, St. German raised such a hallelujah as to make the ancient Britons run away. In the same way modern unbelief suspects the story of the Giant who had three legs, and was the terror of the land, or of that floating island which rises in Soderick Bay every seven years, and then remains on the surface thirty minutes, no one yet having had the courage to place a Bible on any part of it, lest in any case of failure the enchanter might cast his club over Mona also. Likewise we may scorn the legend which tells us how St. Trisman's is left incomplete on account of the malice of an evil spirit, who, for want of better employment, amused himself by throwing down the roof every time it was put on, accompanying his achievement with a loud fiendish laugh of satisfaction. As well we might credit the Fenella of 'Peveril of the Peak' as a living reality, and not a wild conception of Sir Walter Scott's busy brain. Indeed, if the tourist to that lovely health resort-lovely I call it, in spite of the holiday-makers and tourists, mostly denominated Lancashire Cotton b.a.l.l.s-believes all he hears, the chances are that he becomes, to quote Sir Walter-

'Speechless, ghastly, wan, Like him of whom the story ran, That spake the spectre hound in Man.'

But the captain cries, 'Go ahead,' the last bell rings, and we are off.

Apparently it is antic.i.p.ated that our wants will be numerous. We are expected not to venture to sea without a good supply of 'all round the island sweets;' ragged urchins offer us lucifer matches, aged females freshly-gathered fruits, and apparently it is presumed we cannot enjoy the day without purchasing a guide to the island, or photographs of the princ.i.p.al attractions. Of course the musicians are on board long before we are, as well as a poor fellow who is expected to keep the company on the broad grin all the trip by means of his songs and chaff.

'Poor fellow, I pity thee somewhat, in spite of thy sons and grandsons.

Thy sow, with a litter of eight "p.o.o.ps,"' as he calls them; 'thy readiness to liquor up and spout nonsense. You're not such a fool as you look, however, and that is a consolation.'

Mountebanks, whether in Church and State, in business, or on the deck of an excursion steamer, generally manage to make their nonsense pay, often better than other men their sense.

'Rose,' says Wentworth, 'let us watch the beauty of Douglas as we steam out of the Bay. In a little while we shall see Snaefell, monarch of Manx mountains. We shall pa.s.s the little glen which leads to Laxey, with that wonderful wheel of which we hear so much, and then we are in Ramsey.

Leaving Ramsey for the Point of Ayr, a lighthouse familiar to the traders between Barrow and Belfast, we shall note how the aspect of the land is changed, and that a sandy sh.o.r.e has taken the place of the rocks, which, looking across the water, seem to set England and Scotland at defiance.

In a little while we shall be off Peel, with its ancient Castle and its hardy fishermen. The further we go, the bolder becomes the scenery.

There we shall see a cavern which no one yet has had the courage to explore, but which our captain will tell us leads to Port St. Mary. Then the steam-pipe whistles, and the rocks re-echo the whistle as we float along. Then we come to cliffs white with sea-gulls, who, startled by our approach, flap their heavy wings and fly like snowflakes. As we come to the Calf of Man the picturesqueness of the scene is increased tenfold as the rocks in their wildness guard their native sh.o.r.es. Fain would we linger, but our steamer urges on her wild career, and we must needs go with her. All we can do is to admire from a distance the rough and rugged coast, with its tiny bay, where the swimmer might enjoy his pastime, only disturbed, it may be, by a merman bold, or a mermaid a little bolder, as is the habit of the female, or by a glimpse of the great sea-serpent, which a.s.suredly is to be found, if anywhere, haunting these azure waters, and then we are back in Douglas in time for dinner.'

'Yes, I know,' said the lady, laughing. 'The dinner you will be thinking of all the while.'

'How unkind of you to say so. We shall have a quarrel if you talk like that.'

'Is it not time?' said Rose, as she turned to him a look more bewitching than she had ever cast upon the buckram hero of the stage.

'Perhaps so. We have been married a week.'

'Good gracious!' said the lady archly; 'only a week! I thought it had been much longer.'

'I am sure you did nothing of the kind. There, I've caught you telling stories already.'