of an inexorable fate came over him, the eagerness for life had faded
away, and was succeeded by indifference as to what befel him, this to
make way, as the cold and misery intensified, for impatience that all
might be over speedily. He still looked up at the moon, but no longer
cared what the life of the Selenites was like, it was their concern, not
his. The thought of anchovy toast no longer had power to bring its
flavour to his tongue. Then the moon passed behind a drift of vapour
that obscured but did not extinguish it, and Jeremiah,
half-unconsciously with his stiffening lips, found himself murmuring the
words of Milton which he had learned at school, and had not repeated
since:
'The wandering moon
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that hath been led astray
Through the heav'ns wide pathless way,
And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.'
And so murmuring again, and more brokenly, at last fell into complete
unconsciousness.
The critic who generally hits on those particulars in a story which are
facts, to declare them to be impossibilities, and those characters to be
unnatural, which are transcripts from nature, is certain to attack the
author for making a man who trembles on the confines of death think of
anchovy toast and quote 'Il Penseroso;' to which criticism we answer
that he has had no experience such as that described, or he would know
that what has been described above is in accordance with nature.
For how long Mr. Pennycomequick was unconscious he never knew, and no
one, of course, was able to inform him. When he returned to himself, he
found that he was lying in a contracted and queer bed, in the side of a
chamber equally contracted and queer, tenanted, as far as he could make
out, only by a contracted and queer human being, whose sex was not to be
determined at first glance. If Mr. Pennycomequick had recovered his
sense of smell at the same time that he recovered his other senses, he
would have supposed that during the period of unconsciousness he had
been steeped in creosote, for the atmosphere about him was charged with
the odour of tar.
He was, in fact, on board a coal-barge, in the little low cabin, and in
the little low berth that occupied almost an entire side of the cabin.
This cabin was but five feet high; it was lighted by the hatchway,
through which the steps descended into it. At the extremity, opposite
the hatch, was an iron stove, the pipe from which poked through the deck
above. At this stove was done all the cooking ever done in this
establishment, and all the washing supposed to be necessary in it, as a
concession to public prejudice. On the side opposite Mr.
Pennycomequick's berth was another, on which were heaped gowns, coats,
wading-boots, a frying-pan, a bird-cage, a broken jug, Tom
Treddlehoyle's 'Bairnsley-Folks' Almanack,' and a Bible. When that
berth was tenanted by a human inmate, then the gowns, coats, boots,
frying-pan, bird-cage, broken beer-jug, almanack and Bible were
transferred to the floor.
Near the stove, peeling potatoes, and as she peeled them chucking the
peelings on to the berth, with its accumulation of gowns, coats,
frying-pan and other articles, was a woman wearing a man's black felt
wide-awake, a man's coat, and smoking a mahogany-coloured pipe.
Her face was so brown, rugged, and masculine, that it was only possible
to determine her sex when she stood up. Then she revealed petticoats,
short, and fastened together between the calves, so as to convert them
into something like Turkish trousers. Beneath them protruded feet as
big as those of a man, encased in stout boots.
'Bless me!' exclaimed Mr. Pennycomequick. 'Where am I?'
Then the woman half rose. She could not stand upright in the cabin, she
was so tall; and she came over to the berth in stooping posture.
'Eh, lad, tha'rt wick! Dos't a' want to know wheer tha' art? Why, for
sure, tha'rt i't _Conquering Queen_, as carries coils t' Goole.'
'How came I here?'
'Ah reckon ah hugged (drew) thee aht o't water mysen. Ah saw thee
floatin' by on tha' rig (back) taizled like i' an owd tree. Sea (so) I
had thee aht i' a jiffy. If ah hed'dnt, tha'd been dead long agone. Hev
naw a sup o' tea, and we'll talk after.'
Mr. Pennycomequick tried to move--to raise himself--but he was stiff in
all his joints, and unable to stir more than his head.
'Weel naw!' exclaimed the woman, 'tha'rt wor nor I thowt. Ah be main
sorry for thee. Ah'll bring t' peggy-tub, and turn't upside daan, and
sot me a top, t'll do as weel as owt Ah can talk ta thee a bit--I da'ant
mind. But I'm glad tha'rt better, lad. Come na,' if tha woant ha' no
tea, mebbe tha'll tak a sup o' tar-water.'
By degrees Mr. Pennycomequick got to understand how he had been rescued,
and where he was.
The flood had caught the _Conquering Queen_ coal barge some way below
Mergatroyd, where the land was flat, and where accordingly the water had
spread and its violence was expended. It had snapped the cable that
fastened the boat, and she had been carried on down the canal. She had
not been lifted and stranded beyond the banks, but had gone along with
the current in the proper course. The _Conquering Queen_ was the
property of Ann Dewis, who inhabited and managed her, along with a boy,
a gawky lad of fifteen, all legs and arms, which became entangled among
ropes and chains, and stumbled over lumps of coal and mooring posts, who
never descended the ladder without slipping and falling to the bottom in
a heap; and whose face and body, if not perpetually begrimed with coal
dust, would have shown blue with bruises.
Ann Dewis had given up her berth to the man she had drawn out of the
water, and slept on the floor beside the clothing, bird-cage, cooking
utensils, and literature sacred and profane.
'Sure sartain,' said Mrs. Dewis, 't'ull be a long time wal (until)
thar't better; and curias it es, but all wor profezied i' Tom
Treddlehoyle i' hes predicshons for 1870. Jest yo listen till this.
November: Ah look for menny foakes bein' brawt low, throo abaht t'
middle ta t'end a' t'munth; hahiver, theaze a good prospecht a' ther'
sooin lookin' up agean, if it is at they're laid flat a' ther' back.
T'es fortunate these floods doant come offance (often) or we'd a' be
ruined. Looik here, lad, ah'l clap t' pot o't'stove an' mak thee
poultices for thy joints.'
Six weeks were passed by Mr. Jeremiah Pennycomequick in the cabin of the
_Conquering Queen_, in great pain, sometimes in delirium, for he was
attacked with rheumatic fever. Throughout his illness he was attended
indefatigably by Ann Dewis. She called in no doctor, she procured no
medicine. The sole remedy she knew and favoured, and which she
exhibited against all diseases, was tar-water, a remedy easily made on
board the barge, of material always at hand.
Ann Dewis was reduced to temporary inactivity by the destruction wrought
by the flood. The canal was closed for repairs, and the repairs were
likely to consume many months. Accordingly she could no longer ply
between the coalpits and the wharf on the Humber. This enforced
inactivity enabled her to devote her undivided attention to her patient.
She had no house of her own--not an acre; no, not a foot of garden
ground of her own in any of the various forms of ownership--freehold,
copyhold or leasehold. She had no other home than her barge. She paid
no taxes--no rates; the only charges that fell on her were the dues
levied at the locks. And 'Darn it!' said Ann; 'that flood will ha' sent
up the dues like scaldin' water sends up t'momenter.'
She belonged to no parish, came into no census, was attached to no
denomination, and was identifiable as a Yorkshire woman of the West
Riding only by her brogue. When the fever quitted Jeremiah
Pennycomequick, it left him weak as a child. He lay in the berth
powerless to rise, and long after his mind had cleared his joints were
swollen and painful. He foresaw that many weeks, perhaps months, must
elapse before he regained his former strength.
She did her best to amuse her patient as well as to cure him. She read
to him the richest jokes out of 'Tom Treddlehoyle,' and puzzled him with
questions from the same, compounded as conundrums. But what interested
him chiefly was her account of herself.
She had been married, but that was nowt but a scratch, she said. 'Wunce
I thowt for sartain sure ah'd hev to give up to be Dewis, and stick to
the Schofield.'
'Schofield!' said Mr. Pennycomequick, and passed his hand over his brow.
His memory was somewhat affected. The name was familiar to him, but he
did not recollect when he had heard it.
'Eh, lad, it wor a thing of no consekans. Ah'll tell thee t' tale.'
For the benefit of south country readers we will to some extent modify
the broad West Riding brogue.
'It was na' lang that Earle and I were acquainted----'
'Earle?'
'Eh, every man has two names, as he has two legs, and two arms, and two
eyes and ears. He was called Earle Schofield for sartain; and he used
to come and visit me in t' _Conquering Queen_. My mother was dead, and
had left me a tidy bit o' brass, for shoo was a saving woman, an' shoo
had been cap'n, boatswain, steward, and all to t' _Conquering Queen_
ever sin' my father died. All t' brass he and she had addled (earned)
was kip in--but there I wi'nt tell thee, not that I mistrust thee, but
we're all frail creeturs, and terribly tempted. So there, lad, this
here pipe belonged to Earle. He wor a bit o' a gentleman, he wor. He'd
niver been in a coil barge trading up an' down t'canal. We'd a famous
scheme atwixt us. He was to set up a coil store an' a hoffis by t'warf
at Hull, an' he sed that he knew o' a chap as 'ud sell t'good-will and
all his custom for a hundred pounds. And Earle--he wor an uncommon
clever hand at accounts, he figured it a' up on a slate, and he showed
me how great 'ud be our profits. And he to'd me that it wor the coil
marchants as got a' t'profits out o' t'sale o' coils, and I got nobbut
their crumbs, as I may say. And he showed me how if he sold and I
carried coils we'd be rich in no time, and after we'd got married then I
tow'd him where I kep' t'brass. I didn't tell him before--believe me.
We were sitting on this deck, drawed up by t'side o' t'wharf at Hull, as
he showed a' that, and as I tow'd him where I had my brass. Then he took
t'pipe he wor smoking out o' his mouth and put it into mine, and sed I
wor to kip it aleet wall he came back, he'd go an' deposit a hundred
pound, he sed, for t'good-will, and secure the hoffis at wunce. And I
let him take all my brass, for sartain I thow't as we'd been married for
three weeks all war right, and what was mine was his. He took t'brass,
and he went ashore, and t'last words he sed to me wor, "Ann, keep t'pipe
aleet wall I return." I waited, but from that day I've niver clapt eyes
on him.'
'And your money?'
'Nor on that noather.'
'What a great rascal he must have been!'
'Nay, I won't say that. We're a' sinful creeturs, and our temptations
is terrible. Wot became o' him I can'na say, but fur sure sartin he'd a
mind to retarn to me, or he'd not ha' tow'd me keep t'pipe aleet. Wha
can tell, he may ha' got a drop o' liquor on shore, and ha' been robbed,
and then ashamed to come back and tell me; or he may ha' found t'chap
none so ready to sell t'good-will--and so ha' gone about looiking for
summat else and not found it--or he may ha' been took by them rampagin'
an' roarin' lions, as seek whom they can lock up--the perlice. Nay!
I'll not condemn him, and allow that he wor a rascal, for what sez Tom
Treddlehoyle:
'"This world, we all naw, hez its ups and its daans,
An' shorter, wi'r time keeps windin',
An' day after day we are crost i' wir way,
Then speak of a man as yo find him."
'But I think you found him serve you badly enough,' said Mr.
Pennycomequick, from his berth, 'to walk off with your savings and leave
you with nothing.'
'Nay, not exactly,' answered Anne. 'There wor this pipe for wun, he
left; and,' after a pause, 'there wer Jozeph. T'bairn came varra
comfortin' when I wer i' a tew aboot loising ma' brass. Besides, t'
lad, Joe, ha' been ov use to me as much as I paid a lad afore seven
shilling a week, and he hev a' been t'same to me for six years. If tha
comes ta reckon at fifty-two weeks i't year, that's eighteen pound ten
per hannum; and for six year that mounts up to nigh on a hundred and ten
pound, which is a scoering off of t' account.'
'And that is his pipe you are smoking?'
'Ees, for sartaen. I sed I'd keep't aleet, and if he comes back at t'
end o' seven more year, I'll say, "There, Earle, is t'pipe burning, and
as for't account, Joe hev a' scored it off, interest and principal."'
*CHAPTER XVI.*
*WHO? WHAT?*
It is hateful--hateful as poison--the packing, the turning out of
drawers, and then the tilting of the drawers to get out the dust and
grit and flue that has accumulated in the corners; the arranging of
correspondence, the discrimination between valuables and things that may
become valuable, and things that are not, but were valuable; the
throwing away of rubbish, the consideration as to what things are to be
disposed of, and if disposed of, how to be disposed of, and to whom, and
all the business and care and misery of change of quarters.
And yet, how out of thorns spring roses, and out of troubles virtues
come into bloom! Never, probably, in our whole career did charity, the
bond of all virtues, so luxuriate, throw out such all-embracing
tendrils, emit such fragrance, ripen into such fruit, as on the occasion
of change of quarters. Old boots, slightly damaged bonnets, heavy
battered pieces of furniture, for which a dealer would not give
sixpence; articles that would fetch nothing in a sale, antiquated
school-books, magazines five years old, novels that have lost their
backs, games, deficient in one or two pieces, odd gloves, iron bedsteads
minus their brass knobs, and that have to be tied together with wire;
cracked dishes, snipped tumblers, saucepans corroded with rust--with
what lavish and lordly magnificence we distribute them to all who will
accept such alms.
And then--what a lesson does change of quarters teach us, to
discriminate between the worthless and the valuable; and with equanimity
to endure separation from things which have become interesting to us,
but which we cannot remove. When the author was a boy, his life was
spent in travelling on the Continent; in rambles from the Pyrenees to
the plains of Hungary, from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, and
wherever he went, he made collections of objects of curiosity, crystals,
petrifactions, dried flowers, butterflies, mediaeval armour, books.
Before quitting any place of sojourn for a winter, or halt for a night,
his father explored every pocket and crevice of the carriage, and turned
out the treasures there secreted, on which his son's heart were set and
his pocket-money had been expended.
Nothing escaped his eye, nothing melted his heart. The author came to a
place bringing nothing with him, and left it, carrying nothing with him
away, all he acquired he was forced to leave. It was an excellent
discipline for life, and yet hardly attained; even to this day he finds
that he clings to trifles.
How many times since boyhood has he had to shift quarters? and each time
he has experienced a struggle, and has had to surrender some things on
which his heart was fixed, but from which it was, perhaps, well to be
free. He recalls how one winter at Bayonne, he collected every match
and spill-end that had been used for lighting cigars and candles till he
had accumulated a trunk full. When, in spring, the move came, his
father peremptorily refused to despatch this trunk-load of scorched
paper scraps by _grande_ or _petite vitesse_ to Vienna, and they were
consigned to the flames. When he was in Yorkshire, he had collected
some prehistoric querns, stone hand-mills. When he contracted with a
furniture-mover to translate his goods to the south of England, the man
struck at the mill-stones, they were not in his bond. The author had to
resign them; but his heart aches for those stones to this day.
When a family has inhabited a house for nigh on twenty years, it is
incredible what accumulations have gathered round them, how every
corner, cupboard, closet, drawers, the cellar, the attic are stuffed
with articles of various utility and importance, or let us rather say of
different degrees of inutility and worthlessness; none of which,
however, can be spared without a pang, for to every one of them a
recollection clings.
The Cusworths had been, not indeed twenty years, but approaching that
time, in the house of Mr. Pennycomequick. Every room, the garden, the
attic, were crowded with reminiscences, mostly pleasant; to the ordinary
eye a thin veil of soot took the brilliance and sharpness off all things
in this smoke-laden part of England, but to the girls, Salome and Janet,
everything was overlaid with the gold dust of childish memories. Mrs.
Cusworth had come to regard the house as a quiet home in which she might
spend her declining days, without a care for the future of her children,
for Janet was provided for, and Salome would not be forgotten. But now,
with the loss of Mr. Pennycomequick, the prop had fallen on which the
future was reared; and suddenly she found herself in bad health, obliged
to think about her prospects, and leave the house in quest of another
home.
Mrs. Sidebottom, with the eagerness with which some women fly to do a
spiteful thing, had taken advantage of her position to give the widow
notice to remove.
The Cusworths had received notice to move within a fortnight, and it was
not easy for them to find quarters into which to go. Salome had sought
lodgings in Mergatroyd, but in vain. There none were vacant, and she
had been obliged to engage temporarily a part of a house in the nearest
manufacturing town, a house that was called Redstone, but which was
popularly known only as Blackhole. It was a low house, surrounded by
tall factories that crushed it into a well between them, into which no
sun could penetrate, but which received all day and night showers of
condensed soot. She counted herself fortunate in having secured this,
and she had already given orders for the removal to it of some of the
packing-cases filled with their goods.
The time had been one of strain to Salome, already distressed by the
loss of her best friend, and the subsequent doubt about the identity of
the corpse recovered. Mrs. Sidebottom had gone out of her way to make
her feel uncomfortable, had said ill-natured things, had slighted her
mother, and irritated Janet to the verge of an outbreak. She had been
obliged to exercise great self-control, to disregard the sneers of Mrs.
Sidebottom, to screen her mother and hold her sister in check. She had
been painfully affected, moreover, by the mistrust Philip had shown, and
though he had apologized for what he had said, the wound dealt to her
self-respect was unhealed. She felt this blow the more because she had
unconsciously reposed confidence in Philip; not that he had given her
reason for reliance on him, but that she had felt the need for someone
to whom to look, now that Mr. Jeremiah Pennycomequick was removed, and
she had trusted that he would be honourable and considerate in his
conduct, as behoved a Pennycomequick.
To add to her difficulties, her mother had suddenly and unaccountably
had a relapse, was seriously shaken, and in no condition to be moved.
Unaccountably, for the attack had not come on when it might have been
expected--on hearing the news of the death of the old manufacturer. She
had borne up marvellously under this trial; the bringing the corpse to
the house and the funeral had not materially affected her. She had
spoken of the necessity she was under of leaving the house with sorrow,
indeed, but not agitation; she had taken some interest in the assortment
and packing of the family goods; and then, in the midst of the
preparations to depart, had been taken alarmingly ill.
When the funeral was over, Mrs. Sidebottom had returned to her own
house. All necessity for her remaining in that of her deceased
half-brother was gone. Nevertheless, she was in and out of the house
several times during the day.
One evening she had left after nine, having dined there with her nephew,
who had moved into his uncle's apartments, and had enjoyed some of her
brother's best wine.
At half-past nine the front-door was locked and chained, and the
gaslight in the hall turned down, but not extinguished. Old Mr.
Pennycomequick had kept early hours, and the servants observed the same
routine of meals and work that had been instituted in his time, as they
had received no orders to the contrary. Now that Philip had taken
possession of his uncle's apartments on the first-floor, and went to the
mill at the same hours, and took his meals at the same hours, the house
seemed to have relapsed into its old ways, out of which it had been
bustled by the advent of Mrs. Sidebottom.
Mr. Pennycomequick's apartments consisted of a study, with a bedroom
opening out of it. The front of the house on the same floor was taken
up with a drawing-room, rarely occupied. A third door on the same
landing admitted into the spare bedroom, in which the corpse of the
drowned man had laid till the burial.
On the ground-floor were two rooms, corresponding to those occupied by
Mr. Pennycomequick, and these had been given up to Mrs. Cusworth,
one--the outer--served as sitting-room. The dining-room and a
breakfast-room--the latter under the spare bed-chamber--completed the
arrangement on the ground-floor. Formerly Mrs. Cusworth and her
daughters had slept on the story above the drawing-room and Mr.
Pennycomequick's suite, and Salome's apartment were there still; but of
late, owing to her mother's infirmity, her bed had been transferred to
the inner room, which had been transformed from the housekeeper's office
to a sleeping-apartment for the old lady, to whom it was injurious to
ascend many steps; and as it was not advisable that Mrs. Cusworth should
be alone at night, Salome had slept in the room with her. Since the
arrival of Janet, however, she had returned to her apartment upstairs,
as the old lady had expressed a wish to have her married daughter with
her.
'My dear,' she had said, 'it is not much more that I can expect to see
of Janet. She will have to return to her husband before long, and I am
not likely to live to have the pleasure of many of her visits; so, if
you do not mind, Salome, I should wish her to sleep in my room whilst
she is here, that I may have her by me as much as I may.'
Salome had accordingly returned to her chamber upstairs. She was glad
that at this time her sister was there to relieve her of attendance on
her mother, whilst she went in search of lodgings and was engaged in
packing.
'I am expecting a summons to return to Elboeuf every day,' said Janet,
'directly I get the news of the rout of the Prussians. Providence never
intended that barbarism should prevail over culture; and the French have
such accomplished manners, and such perfect taste--why, the German
ladies I have seen have no idea how to dress.'
'You forget, Janet,' said the sister, 'that the barbarians did, of old,
overwhelm Roman civilization.'
'Oh, yes; but only that they might assimilate the culture, and become
civilized themselves. If the result of this wretched war were that
German ladies learned how to put on their clothes tastefully, I almost
forgive Sedan and Metz.'
Salome had as little knowledge of the arrangement arrived at between
Mrs. Sidebottom and Philip as has the reader, and for the same reason.
It had not been divulged. She, of course, could ask no questions. The
reader does, but he must wait. He shall be told presently. Suffice it
for him to know that Mrs. Sidebottom had, unopposed, sworn to her
brother's death, without will, and had taken out letters of
administration.
Philip did not have his meals with the Cusworth party; they were served
to him apart.
On this evening, after the house was locked up, servants had retired to
bed, Salome was in her own room; she had been engaged there for some
hours, examining and sorting the house-bills, and destroying such as
were not required to be preserved. When this was done, she began to
pack her little library in a deal case, first wrapping each volume
carefully in newspaper. As she did this she came on a garden manual
that Mr. Pennycomequick had given her on her birthday when fifteen. The
sight of this book suddenly reminded her of a score of hyacinth-bulbs
she had put in a dark closet under the stairs, in which to form shoots
before they were put in their glasses. The book had advised this as a
corrective to the development of leaf at the expense of flower. In this
cupboard, which Janet and she as children had named the Pummy closet--a
name that had adhered to it ever since--she kept as well sundry garden
requisites.