NOAH COTTON.
THE WIDOW GRIMSHAWE AND HER NEIGHBOURS.
On the road to ----, a small seaport town on the east coast of England,
there stood in my young days an old-fashioned, high-gabled, red brick
cottage. The house was divided into two tenements, the doors opening in
the centre of the building. A rustic porch shaded the entrance to the
left from the scorching rays of the sun, and the clouds of dust which
during the summer months rose from the public road in front. Some
person, whose love of nature had survived amidst the crushing cares of
poverty, had twined around the rude trelliswork the deliciously fragrant
branches of the brier-rose, which, during the months of June and July,
loaded the air with its sweet breath.
The door to the right, although unmarked by sign or chequer-board,
opened into a low hedge-tavern of very ill repute, well known through
the country by the name of the "Brig's Foot," which it derived from its
near proximity to the bridge that crossed the river--a slow-moving,
muddy stream, whose brackish waters seemed to have fallen asleep upon
their bed of fat, black ooze, while creeping onward to the sea, through
a long flat expanse of dreary marshes.
The "Brig's Foot" was kept by the Widow Mason and her son, both persons
of notoriously bad character. The old man had been killed a few months
before in a drunken brawl with some smugglers; and his name was held in
such ill odour that his ghost was reported to haunt the road leading to
C---- churchyard, which formed the receptacle, but it would seem not the
resting-place, of the dead.
None but persons of the very lowest description frequented the tavern.
Beggars made it their headquarters; smugglers and poachers their
hiding-place; and sailors, on shore for a spree, the scene of their
drunken revels. The honest labourer shunned the threshold as a moral
pest-house, and the tired traveller, who called there once, seldom
repeated the visit. The magistrates, who ought to have put down the
place as a public nuisance, winked at it as a necessary evil; the more
to be tolerated, as it was half a mile beyond the precincts of the town.
Outwardly the place had some attractive features, it was kept so
scrupulously clean. The walls were so white, the floor so neatly sanded,
and the pewter pots glittered so cheerily on the polished oak-table
which served for a bar, that a casual observer might reasonably have
expected very comfortable and respectable accommodation from a scene
which, though on an humble scale, promised so fair. Even the sleek,
well-fed tabby-cat purred so peacefully on the door-sill that she seemed
to invite the pedestrian to shelter and repose.
Martha Mason, the mistress of the house, was a bad woman, in the fullest
sense of the word. Cunning, hard-hearted, and avaricious, without pity,
and without remorse; a creature so hardened in the ways of sin, that
conscience had long ceased to offer the least resistance to the
perpetration of crime. Unfeminine in mind and person, you could scarcely
persuade yourself that the coarse, harsh features, and bristling hair
about the upper lip, belonged to a female, had not the untamed tongue,
ever active in abuse and malice, asserted its claim to the weaker sex,
and rated and scolded through the long day, as none but the tongue of a
bad woman can rate and scold. An accident had deprived the hideous old
crone of the use of one of her legs, which she dragged after her by the
help of a crutch. But though she could not move quickly in consequence
of her lameness, she was an excellent hand at quickening the motions of
those who had the misfortune to be under her control.
Her son Robert, who went by the familiar appellation of "Bully Bob,"
was the counterpart of his mother. A lazy, drunken fellow, who might be
seen from morning till night lounging, with his pipe in his mouth, on
the well-worn settle at the door, humming some low ribald song to chase
away the lagging hours, till the shades of evening roused him from his
sluggish stupor to mingle with gamblers and thieves in their low
debauch. The expression of this young man's face was so bad, and his
manners and language so coarse and obscene, that he was an object of
dislike and dread to his low associates, who regarded him as a fit
subject for the gallows. In the eyes of his mother, Bob Mason was a very
fine young man--a desirable mate for any farmer's daughter in the
country.
The old Spanish proverb, "Poverty makes a man acquainted with strange
bedfellows," was never more fully exemplified than in the case of these
people and their next door neighbours.
Dorothy Grimshawe was the widow of a fisherman, whose boat foundered in
the dreadful storm of the 10th of October, 1824. Like many others, who
sailed from the little port high in health and hope, expecting to reap a
fine harvest from the vast shoals of herrings which annually visit that
coast, Daniel Grimshawe fell a prey to the spoiler, Death, that stern
fisher of men.
The following morning, after the subsidence of the gale, the beach for
miles was strewn with pieces of wreck, and the bodies of forty drowned
men were cast ashore! Most of these proved to be natives of the town;
and the bodies being carried to the town-hall, notice was sent to the
wives of the absent fishermen to come and claim their dead.
This awful summons quickly collected a crowd to the spot. Many anxious
women and children were there, and Dorothy Grimshawe and her little ones
came with the rest.
"Thank the good God! my man is not there," said a poor woman, coming out
with her apron to her face. "The Lord save us! 'tis a fearsome sight."
"He may be food for the crabs at the bottom of the sea," said a hoarse
voice from the crowd; "you are not going to flatter yourself, Nancy,
that you are better off than the rest."
"Oh, oh, oh!" shrieked the poor woman, thus deprived by envy of the
anchor of hope to which she clung. "I trusted in the mercy of God; I
could not look to the bottom of the salt deep."
"Trust to Him yet, Nancy, and all will be well," said an old
weather-beaten tar. "It is He who rules the winds and waves, and brings
the storm-tossed ship into a safe harbour."
"But what has He done for these poor men? Were they worse than the
rest?" sobbed Nancy.
"It is not for us to bring to the light what He has left in darkness,"
said the old sailor. "He took three fine lads of mine in one night, and
left me childless. But it is not for the like o' me to murmur against
_Him_. I always trusted to His providence, and I found that it gave me
strength in the hour of danger."
"Dorothy," cried he, turning to Mrs. Grimshawe, "it is your turn to go
in. It's no use crying and hanging back. Mayhap Dan has escaped the
storm, an' is spreading a white sheet to the fine, fresh breeze this
morning."
"My heart feels as cold as a stone," sobbed Dorothy: "I dare not go
forward; I feel--I know that he is there."
"Shall I go for you? I have known Dan from a boy."
"Oh, no, no; I must see with my own eyes," said Dorothy; "nothing else
will convince me that he is either saved, or lost;" and she hurried into
the hall.
Trembling with apprehension, the poor woman entered the melancholy place
of death. The bodies were arranged in rows along the floor, and covered
decently with coarse clean sheets. The mournful and mysterious silence
which always broods above the dead, was broken by sighs and sobs. Wives,
mothers, sisters, and little children, were collected in heartrending
groups around some uncovered and dearly-loved face, whose glassy eyes,
staring and motionless, were alike unconscious of their presence and
their tears.
Mrs. Grimshawe recoiled with a sudden backward step--"What if Dan is
here?" She pressed her hands tightly upon her breast--the stifled cry of
agony and fear that burst from her lips, nearly choked her--she clutched
at the bare walls for support, and panted and gasped for breath.
A little humpbacked child, after casting upon her mother a look of
unutterable pity, slowly advanced to the first shrouded figure, and,
kneeling down, reverentially lifted the sheet, and gazed long and sadly
upon the object beneath. "Father!" murmured the child; no other word
escaped her quivering lips. She meekly laid her head upon the dead
seaman's breast, and kissed his cold lips and brow with devoted
affection. Then, rising from her knees, she went to her pale, weeping,
distressed mother, and, taking her gently by the hand, led her up to the
object of her search.
The winds and waves are sad disfigurers; but Mrs. Grimshawe instantly
recognised, in the distorted features, so marred in their conflict with
the elements, the husband of her youth, the father of her orphan
children; and, with a loud shriek, she fell upon the bosom of the dead.
Rough, pitiful hands lifted her up, and unclasped the rigid fingers
that tightened about his neck, and bore the widow tenderly back to her
desolate home.
Weeks went by, and the fisherman slept in his peaceful grave. His little
children had ceased to weep and ask for their father, before Dorothy
Grimshawe awoke to a consciousness of her terrible loss and altered
fortunes. During the period of her mental derangement, her wants had
been supplied by some charitable ladies in the neighbourhood. Shortly
after her restoration to reason, a further trial awaited her--she became
the victim of palsy. In the meridian of life she found her physical
strength prostrate, and her body a useless broken machine, no longer
responsive to the guidance, or obedient to the will of its possessor. An
active mind shut up in a dead body,--an imprisoned bird, vainly beating
itself against the walls of its cage. Human nature could scarcely
furnish a more melancholy spectacle; speech, sight, and hearing, were
still hers; but the means of locomotion were lost to her for ever.
The full extent of her calamity did not strike her at first. Hope
whispered that the loss of the use of her lower limbs was only
temporary, brought on by the anguish of her mind; that time, and the
doctor's medicines, would restore her to health and usefulness.
Alas! poor Dorothy. How long did you cling to these vain hopes! How
reluctantly did you at last admit that your case was hopeless,--that
death could alone release you from a state of helpless suffering! Then
came terrible thoughts of the workhouse for yourself and your children;
and the drop was ever upon your cheek--the sigh rising constantly to
your lips. Be patient, poor afflicted one! God has smitten, but not
forsaken you. Pity still lives in the human heart, and help is nearer
than you think.
In her early life Dorothy had lived for several years nursery-maid in a
clergyman's family. One of the children entrusted to her care had loved
her very sincerely; he was now a wealthy merchant in the town. When Mr.
Rollins heard of her distress, he hastened to comfort and console her.
He gave her part of the red-brick cottage rent free for the rest of her
life; sent her two youngest daughters to school, and settled a small
annuity upon her, which, though inadequate to the wants of one so
perfectly dependent, greatly ameliorated the woes of her condition.
Dorothy had resided several years in the cottage, before the Masons came
to live under the same roof. They soon showed what manner of people they
were, and annoyed the poor widow with their rude and riotous mode of
life. But complaints were useless. Mr. Rollins was travelling with his
bride on the Continent; and his steward, who had accepted the Masons
for tenants, laughed at Dorothy's objections to their character and
occupation, bluntly telling her, "that beggars could not be choosers;
that she might be thankful that she had a comfortable warm roof over her
head, without having to work hard for it like her neighbours." She
acknowledged the truth of the remark, and endeavoured to submit to her
fate with patience and resignation.