IN Christmas week, 1784, while I was amusing myself with sliding on the
ice at Ovingham, which was as smooth almost as a looking glass, between
Eltringham and that place,—I know not what came over my mind, but
something ominous haunted it, of a gloomy change impending over the
family. At this I was surprised, for I had never before felt any such
sensation, and presently scouted it as some whim of the imagination. The
day was to be one of cheerfulness; for Mr. and Mrs. Storey—distant
relations of my father’s, and for whom my parents had the greatest
regard—had been, with other friends, invited to dine with us at
Cherryburn. At dinner all was kindness and cheerfulness, and my father
was, as usual, full of his jokes, and telling some of his facetious
stories and anecdotes. For two, or perhaps three Sundays after this, I
was prevented from getting over the water, by the ice and other floods,
and returned from Ovingham without seeing or hearing how all were at
home. The Sunday after, upon my making my usual call at the gardener’s
in Ovingham,—where, when at school, we always left our dinner poke, and
dined,—he informed me, with looks of grief, that my mother was very
unwell. I posted off, in haste, across the river, to see her. Upon my
asking her, earnestly, how she was, she took me apart, and told me it
was nearly all over with her; and she described to me how she had got
her death. She had been called up, on a severe frosty night, to see a
young woman in the hamlet below, who was taken ill; and, thinking the
bog she had to pass through, might be frozen hard enough to bear her,
she “slumped” deep into it, and, before she had waded through it, she
got very wet and a “perishment” of cold; and, in that state, she went to
give her advice as to what was best to be done with her patient. I
employed my friend, Dr. Bailes, to visit her; and I ran up from
Newcastle two or three times a week with his medicines for her; but all
would not do: she died on the 20th February, 1785, aged 58 years. She
was possessed of great innate powers of mind, which had been cultivated
by a good education, as well as by her own endeavours. For these, and
for her benevolent, humane, disposition, and good sense, she was greatly
respected, and, indeed, revered by the whole neighbourhood. My eldest
sister, who was down from London on a visit to her home, at the time of
my mother’s illness and death, by her over-exertion and anxiety, brought
on an illness; and, for the convenience of medical aid, and better
nursing, I brought her to my hitherto little happy cot, at the Forth,
where she died on the 24th June, 1785, aged 30 years. These were gloomy
days to me! Some short time before my sister died, upon her requesting
me, and my promising her, that I would see her buried at Ovingham, she
proposed to sing me a song. I thought this very strange, and felt both
sorrow and surprise at it; but she smiled at me, and began her song of
“All Things have but a Time.” I had heard the old song before, and
thought pretty well of it; but her’s was a later and a very much better
version of it.
During this time I observed a great change in the looks and deportment
of my father. He had, what is called, “never held up his head” since the
death of my mother; and, upon my anxiously pressing him to tell me what
ailed him, he said he had felt as if he were shot through from the
breast to the shoulders with a great pain that hindered him from
breathing freely. Upon my mentioning medical assistance, he rejected it,
and told me, if I sent him any drugs, I might depend upon it he would
throw them all behind the fire. He wandered about all summer alone, with
a kind of serious look, and took no pleasure in anything, till near the
15th November, which, I understand, was his birthday, and on which he
completed his 70th year, and on that day he died. He was buried beside
my mother and sister at Ovingham. After this, I left off my walks to
Cherryburn; the main attractions to it were gone; and it became a place
the thoughts of which now raked up sorrowful reflections in my mind.
Some particulars respecting my father, and illustrative of his
character, may, perhaps, be thought not uninteresting. I shall give a
few of such as I recollect them. In his person, he was a stout,
square-made, strong, and active man, and through life was a pattern of
health. I was told by some of my aunts, who were older than he, that he
was never ill from a disease in his life; and I have heard him say “he
wondered how folks felt when they were ill.” He was of a cheerful
temper, and he possessed an uncommon vein of humour and a fund of
anecdote. He was much noticed by the gentlemen and others of the
neighbourhood for these qualities, as well as for his integrity. He had,
however, some traits that might be deemed singular, and not in order. He
never would prosecute any one for theft; he hated going to law, but he
took it at his own hand, and now and then gave thieves a severe beating,
and sometimes otherwise punished them in a singular and whimsical way. I
have known him, on a winter night, rise suddenly up from his seat, and,
with a stick in his hand, set off to the colliery, in order to catch the
depredators whom he might detect stealing his coals. I remember one
instance of his thus catching a young fellow, a farmer, with his loaded
cart, and of his giving him a severe beating, or, what was called, a
“hideing,” and of his making him leave his booty and go home empty. The
thieves themselves were sure to keep the business secret, and he himself
never spoke of it beyond his own fireside. In these robberies, which he
saw with his own eyes, he conceived he did not need the help of either
witnesses, judge, or jury, nor the occasion to employ any attorney to
empty his pockets. I have sometimes heard him make remarks upon people
whom he knew to be hypocrites, and on their loud praying and holding up
their hands at church. After having noticed that one of these, one
Sunday, had acted thus, and remained to take the Sacrament, some person
called, in the afternoon, with the news that this very man had, on his
way home, caught a poor man’s galloway, which had entered through a gap
in the hedge into his field, and had driven it before him into the
pinfold. This was sufficient; this was the spark which kindled up and
increased to a blaze, which my father could not muster temper enough to
keep down. Next morning, he set off to the smith’s shop, and sent for
this choleric, purse-proud man, to whom, in rude terms, he opened out
upon his hypocrisy, and at length obliged him to release the galloway
from its hungry imprisonment. He recommended him to make his peace with
the poor but honest and respected man, and to go no more to church, nor
to take the Sacrament, till a change had taken place in his mind. He
also told him that he ought that very night, before he slept, to sit
down on his bare knees, and implore forgiveness of the God he had
offended.
The last transaction I shall mention, on this subject,—and which bore a
more serious complexion than the foregoing,—happened when I was an
apprentice. A pitman, George Parkin, who had long wrought in the
colliery, was highly valued by my father for his industry, sobriety, and
honesty. He would not do anything unfairly himself in working the coal
in the boards, nor suffer others to do so. For this conduct he became
deservedly a great favourite,—so much so that one of the old lodges had
been comfortably fitted up for him and his family to live in rent free;
and a garth, besides, was taken off the common for his use. For these he
often expressed himself so highly pleased that he used to say, he was
happier than a prince. My father, for many years, had made it a point to
let the men down to their work himself; so that he might see with his
own eyes that all was safe. All passed on pleasantly in this way for a
long while, till one morning, when thus employed letting the men down,
George, who was always the first at his work, having fixed himself on
the chain, with his son on his arm, to be both let down together, had
given the signal, “Wise-away,” and at the same time holding up his “low
rope,” he observed the pit rope which was to bear their weight had been
cut near the chain. On this he shouted “Stop,” and started back upon the
“seddle boards,” just in time to prevent himself and the boy from being
precipitated to the bottom of the pit. The poor man was almost
overpowered with the shock, when my father, keeping the “dreg” upon the
“start,” caught hold of him and the boy, and conducted both into the
lodge. On examining the rope, my father found it had been cut through to
the last strand. He then stopped the working of the pit for that day.
George, in great distress of mind, set off to Newcastle to inform me of
what had happened. I was grieved to hear his tale; and this was
heightened by his declaring that all his pleasures were at an end; for
he never could go back to his work, nor to his happy home again.
For some time, my father seemed lost in pondering over this mysterious
affair. He, however, at length began to be fixed in his suspicions, and,
as was usual on such occasions, his indignation, step by step, rose to
the greatest height. In this state of mind, he set off unusually soon in
the morning, to let the men down to their work; knowing that the object
of his suspicions,—a wicked, ignorant, young fellow—would be the first,
and alone. He began by accusing him of the horrid deed, and instantly to
beat and overpower him; threatening him that he would drag him to the
pit, and throw him down the shaft, if he did not confess. The threat
succeeded; he was afraid of his life, and confessed. My father instantly
dismissed him from his employment. When the rest of the men came to
their work, they saw, by the blood, and the retaliating blows on my
father’s face, that something unusual had occurred. He then told them
the particulars, at which they greatly rejoiced. In this state of
things, the _accusing culprit_, while he bore the marks of violence upon
him, set crippling off to lodge his complaint to the justices, and my
father was summoned to appear before them. When met together, the
justices (Captains Smith and Bainbridge,[22] of the Riding), heard the
charge of assault, which, from the first appearance of the complainant
before them, they had no reason to doubt. They both expressed their
surprise to find such a charge against my father, with whom they had
been in habits of neighbourly intimacy, and who was the last man on
earth they could suspect as capable of committing such an outrage. After
laying down the law in such cases, they wished to hear what he had to
say for himself. He readily acknowledged what he had done, and his
reasons for doing so. They seemed much shocked at the horrid narrative;
and, after conferring together in private a short time, the business was
resumed. “Pray,” said one of them to the culprit, “were not you the man
who robbed Bywell Lock, and”—looking him sternly in the face—“was not
this master of yours the very friend by whose unceasing endeavours and
influence you were saved from transportation? Begone! leave the country,
and never let us see you more.” The man left the country for many years,
and, on his return, I was both pleased and surprised to find he was much
reformed. In addition to this long account, I must add, that my father
could not be troubled to harbour ill-will in his mind, and that, if he
were passionate, he was equally compassionate.
Footnote 22:
Now Major Bainbridge, who has been many years in the commission of the
peace, in which he is much respected as a magistrate and a man.
Without knowing what side he took in politics, I have always
considered him as a local patriot, keen of promoting everything for
the benefit of Tyneside. While I am writing this (23rd June, 1823) he
is living, and in his 87th year. Captain Smith I did not know. Major
Bainbridge died 6th December, 1826, in his 91st year.
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