1843-1844.
A painful chapter to write.--My father calls me home.--What kind of a
house it was.--Paternal education and discipline.--My life at that time
one of dulness varied by dread.
The writing of this chapter is so painful to me that the necessity for
it has made me put off the composition of this autobiography year after
year. Then why not omit the chapter altogether? The omission is
impossible, because the events of the year 1843-1844 were quite the most
important of my early boyhood, and have had a most powerful and in some
respects a disastrous influence over my whole life.
Notwithstanding my father's kindness to me during our Welsh tour, my
feelings towards him were not, and could not be, those of trust and
confidence. He was extremely severe at times, often much more so than
the occasion warranted, this being partly natural in a strong
authoritative man, and partly the result of irritability brought on by
his habit of drinking. When inflamed with brandy he became positively
dangerous, and I had a well-founded dread of his presence. At all times
he was very uncertain--he might greet me with a kind word or he might be
harsh or silent, just as it happened. During my visits to him at Shaw,
one of my two aunts invariably accompanied me and stayed as long as I
stayed, which was a great protection for me. The idea of being left
alone with my father, even for a day, was enough to fill me with
apprehension; however, it did not seem likely that I should have to live
with him, as I should probably be sent to some distant school, and only
come home for the holidays.
This was the view of my future that was taken by my aunts and myself,
when one day in the year 1843, I believe in the month of June, there
came a letter from my father peremptorily declaring, in terms which
admitted of no discussion, that although a child might live with ladies
it was not good for a boy, and that he had determined to have me for the
future under his own roof. The news came upon me like a thunderclap in a
clear sky. I had grateful and affectionate feelings towards both my
aunts, but to the elder my feelings were those of a son, and a very
loving son, towards his mother. She had, in fact, taken the place of my
mother so completely that I remained unconscious of my loss. I reserve
for a pleasanter chapter than this the delightful duty of painting her
portrait; at present it is enough to say that a separation from her in
childhood was the most bitter grief that could be experienced by me, and
my father's ukase made this separation seem destined to be eternal,
except perhaps a short visit in the holidays. In a word, my filial life
with her seemed at an end.
I was taken to my father's and left alone with him. Some years before,
he had bought a house in Shaw called Ivy Cottage,--a house with a front
of painted stucco, looking on a garden,--and though the gable end of the
house looked on a street, the other end had a view over some fields, not
then built over. My father rented one or two of these fields for his
horses and cows, and some farm buildings just big enough for his small
establishment. He did not keep a carriage, and had even given up his
dogcart, but he always had a saddle-horse for himself and a pony for me;
at one time I had two ponies. His horses were his only luxury, but he
was as exacting about them as if he had been a rich nobleman. He would
not tolerate careless grooming for an instant; bits and stirrups were
always kept in a state of exemplary brightness, and when he rode through
Shaw he was quite fit to be seen in Hyde Park. At that time he had a
jet-black mare of a vicious temper, which only gratified his pride as a
horseman, and it so happened (I am not inventing this for a contrast)
that my pony was of the purest white with full mane and tail of the
same, and shaped exactly like the sturdy war-horses in old pictures. As
he was still a fine-looking, handsome man and I was a healthy boy, no
doubt we looked well enough, and it is probable that many a poor factory
lad envied me my good luck in being able to ride about in that way,
instead of working in a mill; but I rode in constant dread of my
father's heavy hunting-whip. It had a steel hammer at the end of the
long handle, and if at any time its owner fancied that I was turning my
toes out, he did not say anything, but with a dexterity acquired by
practice he delivered a sharp blow with that hammer on my foot which
made me writhe with pain. Nothing vexed him more than any appearance of
gentleness or tenderness. I loved my pony, Lily, and did not like to
beat her when she was doing her best, and she had hard work to keep up
with my father's ill-tempered mare, so he would say, "D--n it, can't you
whip her? Can't you whip better than that? The strokes of that whip of
yours are so feeble that they wouldn't kill a fly!" Nobody could say
that of _his_ hitting. I had a little young dog that was very dear to
me, and when it pleased my father one day to walk into the kitchen, it
unluckily so happened that the dog was, or seemed to be, in his way, so
he gave it a kick that sent it into the middle of the room, and there it
lay quivering. He took no notice of it, said what he had to say, in his
usual peremptory tone, and then left the room. I knelt down by the poor
little dog, which was in its death-agony, and shortly breathed its last.
During our rides my dreaded companion would stop at many inns and
private houses, where he slaked his perpetual thirst in stirrup-cups, or
sometimes he would go in and sit for a long time whilst the horses were
cared for by some groom. The effects of these refreshments could not
fail to be evident as we returned home; and it was more by good luck
than anything else, except his habitually excellent horsemanship, that
he was able to ride at all in that condition. I clearly remember one
particular occasion when he seemed to be keeping his seat with more than
usual uncertainty, and at last fairly rolled out of it. We were riding
along a paved street, so that the fall would have been very serious; but
two or three men who were watching him foresaw the accident just in
time, and rushed forward to catch him as he fell. On another occasion
when I was not present (indeed this happened before my settled residence
with my father) he fell in a most dangerous way, with his foot caught in
the stirrup, and was dragged violently down a steep hill till the horse
was brought to a stand. Fortunately my father wore a top-coat at the
time, which was soon torn off his back by the friction, and so were his
other clothes, and the back itself was almost flayed; but the doctor
said that if he had been lightly dressed the accident would have been far
more serious.
My father would sometimes send me on errands to a considerable distance
with the pony, and as he hated all dawdling and loitering in others,
though he had become a perfectly undisciplined man himself, he would
limit me strictly to the time necessary for my journey, a time that I
never ventured to exceed. In some respects the education that he was
giving me, though of Spartan severity, was not ill calculated for the
formation of a manly character. He quite understood the importance of
applying the mind completely to the thing which occupied it for the
moment. If he saw me taking several books together that had no
connection with each other, he would say, "Take one of those books and
read it steadily, don't potter and play with half-a-dozen."
Desultory effort irritated him, and he was quick to detect busy idleness
under its various disguises. He swore very freely himself, and as I
heard so many oaths I was beginning to acquire the same accomplishment,
when he overheard me accidentally and gave me such a stern lecture on
the subject that I knew ever after I was not to follow the paternal
example. What his soul hated most, however, was a lie or the shadow of a
lie. He could not tolerate the little fibs that are common with women
and children, and are often their only protection against despotism.
"Tell the truth and shame the devil" was one of his favorite precepts,
though why the devil should feel ashamed because I spoke the truth was
never perfectly clear to my childish intellect. However, the precept
sank deep into my nature, and got mixed up with a feeling of
self-respect, so that it became really difficult for me to tell fibs. I
remember on one occasion being a martyr for truth in peculiarly trying
circumstances. It was before I lived permanently under the paternal
roof, and on one of those visits we paid to my father. An aunt was with
me (not the one who accompanied us to Wales), and she was often rather
hard and severe. My father had made a law that I was to practise with
dumb-bells a quarter of an hour every morning, and this exercise was
taken in the garden, but before beginning I always looked at the clock
which was in the sitting-room. On coming back into the house one
morning, I met my father, who said, "Have you done your fifteen
minutes?" "Yes, papa." "That is not true," said my aunt from the next
room, "he has only practised for ten minutes; look at the clock!" My
terrible master looked at the clock; the finger stood at ten minutes
after eleven, and this was taken as conclusive evidence against me. I
simply answered (what was true) that I had begun five minutes before the
hour. This "additional lie" put my father into a fury, and he ordered me
to do punishment drill with those dumb-bells for two hours without
stopping. Of those hundred and twenty minutes he did not remit one. Long
before their expiration I was ready to drop, but he came frequently to
show that he had his eye upon me, and the horrible machine-like motion
must continue. On other occasions I got punished for lying, when my only
fault was the common childish inability to explain. "Why did you tear
that piece of paper?" "Please, papa, I did not tear it; _I pulled it,
and it tore_." Here is a child attempting to explain that he had not
torn a piece of paper voluntarily, that he had stretched it only, and
had himself been surprised by the tearing. In my father's code that was
a "confounded lie," and I was to be severely punished for it.
His system of education included riding as an essential part, and that
he taught me well, so far as a child of that age could learn it. But
though there were harriers within a few miles he could not take me to
hunt, as children are sometimes taken in easier countries, the fields in
Lancashire being so frequently divided by stone walls. The nature of our
neighborhood equally prevented him from teaching me to swim, which he
would otherwise have done, as there were no streams deep enough, or left
in their natural purity. To accustom me to water, however, he made me
take cold shower-baths, certainly the best substitute for a plunge that
can be had in an ordinary room. In mental education he attached great
importance to common things, to arithmetic, for example, and to good
reading aloud, and intelligible writing. His own education had been very
limited; he knew no modern language but his own, and I believe he knew
no Greek whatever, and only just enough Latin for a solicitor, which in
those days was not very much; but if he was a Philistine in neglecting
his own culture, he had not the real Philistine's contempt for culture
in others and desired to have me well taught; yet there was nobody near
at hand to continue my higher education properly, and I was likely, had
we lived long together at Shaw, to become like the regular middle-class
Englishmen of those days, who from sheer want of preliminary training
were impervious to the best influences of literature and art. I might
have written a clear business letter, and calculated interest
accurately.
To accustom me to money matters, child as I was, my father placed gold
and silver in my keeping, and whatever I spent was to be accounted for.
In this way money was not to be an imaginary thing for me, but a real
thing, and I was not to lose the control of myself because I had my
pocket full of sovereigns. This was a very original scheme in its
application to so young a child, but it perfectly succeeded, and I never
either lost or misapplied one halfpenny of the sums my father entrusted
to my keeping. He was evidently pleased with his success in this.
There was a village school near his house kept by a respectable man for
children of both sexes, and there I was sent to practise calligraphy and
arithmetic. During school-hours there was at least complete relief from
the paternal supervision, and besides this I managed to fall in love
with a girl about a year older than myself, who was a very nice girl
indeed, though she squinted to an unfortunate degree. That is the great
advantage of having the young of both sexes in the same schoolroom,--the
manners of the brutal sex may be made tender by the presence of the
refined one. Boys and girls both went to the Grammar School at Burnley,
in the now forgotten days when Mr. Raws was head-master there; but that
was long before my time.
My existence at Ivy Cottage was one of extreme dulness varied by dread.
Every meal was a _tête-à-tête_ with my father, unrelieved by the
presence of any lady or young person, and he became more and more gloomy
as his nervous system gradually gave way, so that after having been
simply stern and unbending, he was now like a black cloud always hanging
over me and ready, as it seemed, to be my destruction in some way or
other not yet clearly defined. It was an immense relief to me when a
guest came to dinner, and I remember being once very much interested in
a gentleman who sat opposite me at table, for the simple reason that I
believed him to be the Duke of Wellington. There was rather more fuss
than usual in the way of preparation, and my father treated his guest
with marked deference, besides which the stranger had the Wellingtonian
nose, so my youthful mind was soon made up on the subject, and I
listened eagerly in the hope that the hero of Waterloo would fight some
of his battles over again. He remained, however, silent on that subject,
and I afterwards had the disappointment of learning that our guest was
not the Duke, but only the holder of a high office in the county.