In Great Stockington there lived a race of paupers. From the year of the
42nd of Elizabeth, or 1601, down to the present generation, this race
maintained an uninterrupted descent. They were a steady and unbroken
line of paupers, as the parish books testify. From generation to
generation their demands on the parish funds stand recorded. There were
no _lacunæ_ in their career; there never failed an heir to these
families; fed on the bread of idleness and legal provision, these people
flourished, increased, and multiplied. Sometimes compelled to work for
the weekly dole which they received, they never acquired a taste for
labour, or lost the taste for the bread for which they did not labour.
These paupers regarded this maintenance by no means as a disgrace. They
claimed it as a right,—as their patrimony. They contended that one-third
of the property of the Church had been given by benevolent individuals
for the support of the poor, and that what the Reformation wrongfully
deprived them of, the great enactment of Elizabeth rightfully—and only
rightfully—restored.
Those who imagine that all paupers merely claimed parish relief because
the law ordained it, commit a great error. There were numbers who were
hereditary paupers, and that on a tradition carefully handed down, that
they were only manfully claiming their own. They traced their claims
from the most ancient feudal times, when the lord was as much bound to
maintain his villein in gross, as the villein was to work for the lord.
These paupers were, in fact, or claimed to be, the original _adscripti
glebæ_, and to have as much a claim to parish support as the landed
proprietor had to his land. For this reason, in the old Catholic times,
after they had escaped from villenage by running away and remaining
absent from their hundred for a year and a day, dwelling for that period
in a walled town, these people were amongst the most diligent attendants
at the Abbey doors, and when the Abbeys were dissolved, were, no doubt,
amongst the most daring of these thieves, vagabonds, and sturdy rogues,
who, after the Robin Hood fashion, beset the highways and solitary farms
of England, and claimed their black mail in a very unceremonious style.
It was out of this class that Henry VIII. hanged his seventy-two
thousand during his reign, and, as it is said, without appearing
materially to diminish their number.
That they continued to “increase, multiply, and replenish the earth,”
overflowing all bounds, overpowering by mere populousness all the severe
laws against them of whipping, burning in the hand, in the forehead or
the breast, and hanging, and filling the whole country with alarm, is
evident by the very act itself of Elizabeth.
Amongst these hereditary paupers who, as we have said, were found in
Stockington, there was a family of the name of Deg. This family had
never failed to demand and enjoy what it held to be its share of its
ancient inheritance. It appeared from the parish records, that they had
practised in different periods the crafts of shoemaking, tailoring, and
chimney-sweeping; but since the invention of the stocking-frame, they
had, one and all of them, followed the profession of stocking weavers,
or as they were there called, stockingers. This was a trade which
required no extreme exertion of the physical or intellectual powers. To
sit in a frame, and throw the arms to and fro, was a thing that might
either be carried to a degree of extreme diligence, or be let down into
a mere apology for idleness. An “idle stockinger” was there no very
uncommon phrase, and the Degs were always classed under that head.
Nothing could be more admirably adapted than this trade for building a
plan of parish relief upon. The Degs did not pretend to be absolutely
without work, or the parish authorities would soon have set them to some
real labour,—a thing that they particularly recoiled from, having a very
old adage in the family, that “hard work was enough to kill a man.” The
Degs were seldom, therefore, out of work, but they did not get enough to
meet and tie. They had but little work if times were bad, and if they
were good, they had large families, and sickly wives or children. Be
times what they would, therefore, the Degs were due and successful
attendants at the parish pay-table. Nay, so much was this a matter of
course, that they came at length not even to trouble themselves to
receive their pay, but sent their young children for it; and it was duly
paid. Did any parish officer, indeed, turn restive, and decline to pay a
Deg, he soon found himself summoned before a magistrate, and such pleas
of sickness, want of work, and poor earnings brought up, that he most
likely got a sharp rebuke from the benevolent but uninquiring
magistrate, and acquired a character for hardheartedness that stuck to
him.
So parish overseers learnt to let the Degs alone; and their children
regularly brought up to receive the parish money for their parents, were
impatient as they grew up to receive it for themselves. Marriages in the
Deg family were consequently very early, and there were plenty of
instances of married Degs claiming parish relief under the age of
twenty, on the plea of being the parent of two children. One such
precocious individual being asked by a rather verdant officer why he had
married before he was able to maintain a family, replied, in much
astonishment, that he had married in order to maintain himself by parish
assistance. That he never had been able to maintain himself by his
labour, nor ever expected to do it; his only hope, therefore, lay in
marrying, and becoming the father of two children, to which patriarchal
rank he had now attained, and demanded his “pay.”
Thus had lived and nourished the Degs on their ancient patrimony, the
parish, for upwards of two hundred years. Nay, we have no doubt whatever
that, if it could have been traced, they had enjoyed an ancestry of
paupers as long as the pedigree of Sir Roger Rockville himself. In the
days of the most perfect villenage, they had, doubtless, eaten the bread
of idleness, and claimed it as a right. They were numerous, improvident,
ragged in dress, and fond of an alehouse and of gossip. Like the blood
of Sir Roger, their blood had become peculiar through a long persistence
of the same circumstances. It was become pure pauper blood. The Degs
married, if not entirely among Degs, yet amongst the same class. None
but a pauper would dream of marrying a Deg. The Degs, therefore, were in
constitution, in mind, in habit, and in inclination, paupers. But a pure
and unmixed class of this kind does not die out like an aristocratic
stereotype. It increases and multiplies. The lower the grade, the more
prolific, as is sometimes seen on a large and even national scale. The
Degs threatened, therefore, to become a most formidable clan in the
lower purlieus of Stockington, but luckily there is so much virtue even
in evils, that one, not rarely cures another. War, the great evil,
cleared the town of Degs.
Fond of idleness, of indulgence, of money easily got, and as easily
spent, the Degs were rapidly drained off by recruiting parties during
the last war. The young men enlisted, and were marched away; the young
women married soldiers that were quartered in the town from time to
time, and marched away with them. There were, eventually, none of the
once numerous Degs left except a few old people, whom death was sure to
draft off at no distant period with his regiment of the line which has
no end. Parish overseers, magistrates, and master manufacturers,
felicitated themselves at this unhoped-for deliverance from the ancient
family of the Degs.
But one cold, clear, winter evening, the east wind piping its sharp
sibilant ditty in the bare shorn hedges, and poking his sharp fingers
into the sides of well broad-clothed men by way of passing jest, Mr.
Spires, a great manufacturer of Stockington, driving in his gig some
seven miles from the town, passed a poor woman with a stout child on her
back. The large ruddy-looking man in the prime of life, and in the great
coat and thick worsted gloves of a wealthy traveller, cast a glance at
the wretched creature trudging heavily on, expecting a pitiful appeal to
his sensibilities, and thinking it a bore to have to pull off a glove
and dive into his pocket for a copper; but to his surprise there was no
demand, only a low curtsey, and the glimpse of a face of singular
honesty of expression, and of excessive weariness.
Spires was a man of warm feelings; he looked earnestly at the woman, and
thought he had never seen such a picture of fatigue in his life. He
pulled up and said,
“You seem very tired, my good woman.”
“Awfully tired, Sir.”
“And are you going far to night?”
“To Great Stockington, Sir, if God give me strength.”
“To Stockington!” exclaimed Mr. Spires. “Why you seem ready to drop.
You’ll never reach it. You’d better stop at the next village.”
“Ay, Sir, it’s easy stopping, for those that have money.”
“And you’ve none, eh?”
“As God lives, Sir, I’ve a sixpence, and that’s all.”
Mr. Spires put his hand in his pocket, and held out to her the next
instant, half-a-crown.
“There stop, poor thing—make yourself comfortable—it’s quite out of the
question to reach Stockington. But stay—are your friends living in
Stockington—what are you?”
“A poor soldier’s widow, Sir. And may God Almighty bless you!” said the
poor woman, taking the money, the tears standing in her large brown eyes
as she curtsied very low.
“A soldier’s widow,” said Mr. Spires. She had touched the softest place
in the manufacturer’s heart, for he was a very loyal man, and vehement
champion of his country’s honour in the war. “So young,” said he, “how
did you lose your husband?”
“He fell, Sir,” said the poor woman; but she could get no further; she
suddenly caught up the corner of her grey cloak, covered her face with
it, and burst into an excess of grief.
The manufacturer felt as if he had hit the woman a blow by his careless
question; he sate watching her for a moment in silence, and then said,
“Come, get into the gig, my poor woman; come, I must see you to
Stockington.”
The poor woman dried her tears, and heavily climbed into the gig,
expressing her gratitude in a very touching and modest manner. Spires
buttoned the apron over her, and taking a look at the child, said in a
cheerful tone to comfort her, “Bless me, but that is a fine thumping
fellow, though. I don’t wonder you are tired, carrying such a load.”
The poor woman pressed the stout child, apparently two years old, to her
breast, as if she felt it a great blessing and no load: the gig drove
rapidly on.
Presently Mr. Spires resumed his conversation.
“So you are from Stockington?”
“No Sir, my husband was.”
“So: what was his name?”
“John Deg, Sir.”
“Deg?” said Mr. Spires. “Deg, did you say?”
“Yes, Sir.”
The manufacturer seemed to hitch himself off towards his own side of the
gig, gave another look at her, and was silent. The poor woman was
somewhat astonished at his look and movement, and was silent too.
After awhile Mr. Spires said again, “And do you hope to find friends in
Stockington? Had you none where you came from?”
“None Sir, none in the world!” said the poor woman, and again her
feelings seemed too strong for her. At length she added, “I was in
service, Sir, at Poole, in Dorsetshire, when I married; my mother only
was living, and while I was away with my husband, she died. When—when
the news came from abroad—that—when I was a widow, Sir, I went back to
my native place, and the parish officers said I must go to my husband’s
parish lest I and my child should become troublesome.”
“You asked relief of them?”
“Never; Oh, God knows, no, never! My family have never asked a penny of
a parish. They would die first, and so would I, Sir; but they said I
might do it, and I had better go to my husband’s parish at once—and they
offered me money to go.”
“And you took it, of course?”
“No, sir; I had a little money, which I had earned by washing and
laundering, and I sold most of my things, as I could not carry them, and
came off. I felt hurt, Sir; my heart rose against the treatment of the
parish, and I thought I should be better amongst my husband’s
friends—and my child would, if anything happened to me; I had no friends
of my own.”
Mr. Spires looked at the woman in silence. “Did your husband tell you
anything of his friends? What sort of a man was he?”
“Oh, he was a gay young fellow, rather, Sir; but not bad to me. He
always said his friends were well off in Stockington.”
“He did!” said the manufacturer, with a great stare, and as if bolting
the words from his heart in a large gust of wonder.
The poor woman again looked at him with a strange look. The manufacturer
whistled to himself, and giving his horse a smart cut with the whip,
drove on faster than ever. The night was fast settling down; it was
numbing cold; a grey fog rose from the river as they thundered over the
old bridge; and tall engine chimneys, and black smoky houses loomed
through the dusk before them. They were at Stockington.
As they slackened their pace up a hill at the entrance of the town, Mr.
Spires again opened his mouth.
“I should be sorry to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Deg,” he said, “but I
have my fears that you are coming to this place with false expectations.
I fear your husband did not give you the truest possible account of his
family here.”
“Oh, Sir! What—what is it?” exclaimed the poor woman; “in God’s name,
tell me!”
“Why, nothing more than this,” said the manufacturer, “that there are
very few of the Degs left here. They are old, and on the parish, and can
do nothing for you.”
The poor woman gave a deep sigh, and was silent.
“But don’t be cast down,” said Mr. Spires. He would not tell her what a
pauper family it really was, for he saw that she was a very feeling
woman, and he thought she would learn that soon enough. He felt that her
husband had from vanity given her a false account of his connections;
and he was really sorry for her.
“Don’t be cast down,” he went on, “you can wash and iron, you say; you
are young and strong: those are your friends. Depend on them, and
they’ll be better friends to you than any other.”
The poor woman was silent, leaning her head down on her slumbering
child, and crying to herself; and thus they drove on, through many long
and narrow streets, with gas flaring from the shops, but with few people
in the streets, and these hurrying shivering along the pavement, so
intense was the cold. Anon they stopped at a large pair of gates; the
manufacturer rung a bell, which he could reach from his gig, and the
gates presently were flung open, and they drove into a spacious yard,
with a large handsome house, having a bright lamp burning before it, on
one side of the yard, and tall warehouses on the other.
“Show this poor woman and her child to Mrs. Craddock’s, James,” said Mr.
Spires, “and tell Mrs. Craddock to make them very comfortable; and if
you will come to my warehouse to-morrow,” added he, addressing the poor
woman, “perhaps I can be of some use to you.”
The poor woman poured out her heartfelt thanks, and, following the old
man servant, soon disappeared, hobbling over the pebbly pavement with
her living load, stiffened almost to stone by her fatigue and her cold
ride.
We must not pursue too minutely our narrative. Mrs. Deg was engaged to
do the washing and getting up of Mr. Spire’s linen, and the manner in
which she executed her task insured her recommendations to all their
friends. Mrs. Deg was at once in full employ. She occupied a neat house
in a yard near the meadows below the town, and in those meadows she
might be seen spreading out her clothes to whiten on the grass, attended
by her stout little boy. In the same yard lived a shoemaker, who had two
or three children of about the same age as Mrs. Deg’s child. The
children, as time went on, became playfellows. Little Simon might be
said to have the free run of the shoemaker’s house, and he was the more
attracted thither by the shoemaker’s birds, and by his flute, on which
he often played after his work was done.
Mrs. Deg took a great friendship for this shoemaker: and he and his
wife, a quiet, kindhearted woman, were almost all the acquaintances that
she cultivated. She had found out her husband’s parents, but they were
not of a description that at all pleased her. They were old and infirm,
but they were of the true pauper breed, a sort of person, whom Mrs. Deg
had been taught to avoid and to despise. They looked on her as a sort of
second parish, and insisted that she should come and live with them, and
help to maintain them out of her earnings. But Mrs. Deg would rather her
little boy had died than have been familiarised with the spirit and
habits of those old people. Despise them she struggled hard not to do,
and she agreed to allow them sufficient to maintain them on condition
that they desisted from any further application to the parish. It would
be a long and disgusting story to recount all the troubles, annoyance,
and querulous complaints, and even bitter accusations that she received
from these connections, whom she could never satisfy; but she considered
it one of her crosses in her life, and patiently bore it, seeing that
they suffered no real want, so long as they lived, which was for years;
but she would never allow her little Simon to be with them alone.
The shoemaker neighbour was a stout protection to her against the greedy
demands of these old people, and of others of the old Degs, and also
against another class of inconvenient visitors, namely, suitors, who saw
in Mrs. Deg a neat and comely young woman with a flourishing business,
and a neat and soon well-furnished house, a very desirable acquisition.
But Mrs. Deg had resolved never again to marry, but to live for her boy,
and she kept her resolve in firmness and gentleness.
The shoemaker often took walks in the extensive town meadows to gather
groundsell and plantain for his canaries and gorse-linnets, and little
Simon Deg delighted to accompany him with his own children. There
William Watson, the shoemaker, used to point out to the children the
beauty of the flowers, the insects, and other objects of nature; and
while he sate on a stile and read in a little old book of poetry, as he
often used to do, the children sate on the summer grass, and enjoyed
themselves in a variety of plays.
The effect of these walks, and the shoemaker’s conversation on little
Simon Deg was such as never wore out of him through his whole life, and
soon led him to astonish the shoemaker by his extraordinary conduct. He
manifested the utmost uneasiness at their treading on the flowers in the
grass; he would burst with tears if they persisted in it; and when asked
why, he said they were so beautiful, and that they must enjoy the
sunshine, and be very unhappy to die. The shoemaker was amazed, but
indulged the lad’s fancy. One day he thought to give him a great treat,
and when they were out in the meadows, he drew from under his coat a bow
and arrow, and shot the arrow high up in the air. He expected to see him
in an ecstacy of delight: his own children clapped their hands in
transport, but Simon stood silent, and as if awestruck. “Shall I send up
another?” asked the shoemaker.
“No, no,” exclaimed the child, imploringly. “You say God lives up there,
and he mayn’t like it.”
The shoemaker laughed, but presently he said, as if to himself, “There
is too much imagination there. There will be a poet, if we don’t take
care.”
The shoemaker offered to teach Simon to read, and to solidify his mind,
as he termed it, by arithmetic, and then to teach him to work at his
trade. His mother was very glad; and thought shoemaking would be a good
trade for the boy; and that with Mr. Watson she should have him always
near her. He was growing now a great lad, and was especially strong, and
of a frank and daring habit. He was especially indignant at any act of
oppression of the weak by the strong, and not seldom got into trouble by
his championship of the injured in such cases amongst the boys of the
neighbourhood.
He was now about twelve years of age; when, going one day with a basket
of clothes on his head to Mr. Spires’s for his mother, he was noticed by
Mr. Spires himself from his counting-house window. The great war was
raging; there was much distress amongst the manufacturers; and the
people were suffering and exasperated against their masters. Mr. Spires,
as a staunch tory, and supporter of the war, was particularly obnoxious
to the workpeople, who uttered violent threats against him. For this
reason his premises were strictly guarded, and at the entrance of his
yard, just within the gates, was chained a huge and fierce mastiff, his
chain allowing him to approach near enough to intimidate any stranger,
though not to reach him. The dog knew the people who came regularly
about, and seemed not to notice them, but on the entrance of a stranger,
he rose up, barked fiercely, and came to the length of his chain. This
always drew the attention of the porter, if he were away from his box,
and few persons dared to pass till he came.
Simon Deg was advancing with the basket of clean linen on his head, when
the dog rushed out, and barking loudly, came exactly opposite to him,
within a few feet. The boy, a good deal startled at first, reared
himself with his back against the wall, but at a glance perceiving that
the dog was at the length of his tether, he seemed to enjoy his
situation, and stood smiling at the furious animal, and lifting his
basket with both hands above his head, nodded to him, as if to say,
“Well, old boy, you’d like to eat me, wouldn’t you?”
Mr. Spires, who sate near his counting-house window at his books, was
struck with the bold and handsome bearing of the boy, and said to a
clerk, “What boy is that?”
“It is Jenny Deg’s,” was the answer.
“Ha! that boy! Zounds! how boys do grow! Why that’s the child that Jenny
Deg was carrying when she came to Stockington: and what a strong,
handsome, bright-looking fellow he is now!”
As the boy was returning, Mr. Spires called him to the counting-house
door, and put some questions to him as to what he was doing and
learning, and so on. Simon, taking off his cap with much respect,
answered in such a clear and modest way, and with a voice that had so
much feeling and natural music in it, that the worthy manufacturer was
greatly taken with him.
“That’s no Deg,” said he, when he again entered the counting-house, “not
a bit of it. He’s all Goodrick, or whatever his mother’s name was, every
inch of him.”
The consequence of that interview was, that Simon Deg was very soon
after perched on a stool in Mr. Spires’ counting-house, where he
continued till he was twenty-two. Mr. Spires had no son, only a single
daughter; and such were Simon Deg’s talents, attention to business, and
genial disposition, that at that age Mr. Spires gave him a share in the
concern. He was himself now getting less fond of exertion than he had
been, and placed the most implicit reliance on Simon’s judgment and
general management. Yet no two men could be more unlike in their
opinions beyond the circle of trade. Mr. Spires was a staunch tory of
the staunch old school. He was for Church and King, and for things
remaining for ever as they had been. Simon, on the other hand, had
liberal and reforming notions. He was for the improvement of the people,
and their admission to many privileges. Mr. Spires was, therefore, liked
by the leading men of the place, and disliked by the people. Simon’s
estimation was precisely in the opposite direction. But this did not
disturb their friendship; it required another disturbing cause—and that
came.
Simon Deg and the daughter of Mr. Spires, grew attached to each other;
and, as the father had thought Simon worthy of becoming a partner in the
business, neither of the young people deemed that he would object to a
partnership of a more domestic description. But here they made a
tremendous mistake. No sooner was such a proposal hinted at, than Mr.
Spires burst forth with the fury of all the winds from the bag of
Ulysses.
“What! a Deg aspire to the hand of the sole heiress of the enormously
opulent Spires?”
The very thought almost cut the proud manufacturer off with an apoplexy.
The ghosts of a thousand paupers rose up before him, and he was black in
the face. It was only by a prompt and bold application of leeches and
lancet, that the life of the great man was saved. But there was an end
of all further friendship between himself and the expectant Simon. He
insisted that he should withdraw from the concern, and it was done.
Simon, who felt his own dignity deeply wounded too, for dignity he had,
though the last of a long line of paupers—his own dignity, not his
ancestors’—took silently, yet not unrespectfully, his share—a good,
round sum, and entered another house of business.
For several years there appeared to be a feud and a bitterness between
the former friends; yet it showed itself in no other manner than by a
careful avoidance of each other. The continental war came to an end; the
manufacturing distress increased exceedingly. There came troublous
times, and a fierce warfare of politics. Great Stockington was torn
asunder by rival parties. On one side stood pre-eminent, Mr. Spires; on
the other towered conspicuously, Simon Deg. Simon was grown rich, and
extremely popular. He was on all occasions the advocate of the people.
He said that he had sprung from, and was one of them. He had bought a
large tract of land on one side of the town; and intensely fond of the
country and flowers himself, he had divided this into gardens, built
little summer-houses in them, and let them to the artisans. In his
factory he had introduced order, cleanliness, and ventilation. He had
set up a school for the children in the evenings, with a reading-room
and conversation-room for the workpeople, and encouraged them to bring
their families there, and enjoy music, books, and lectures. Accordingly,
he was the idol of the people, and the horror of the old school of the
manufacturers.
“A pretty upstart and demagogue I’ve nurtured,” said Mr. Spires often,
to his wife and daughter, who only sighed, and were silent.
Then came a furious election. The town, for a fortnight, more resembled
the worst corner of Tartarus than a Christian borough. Drunkenness,
riot, pumping on one another, spencering one another, all sorts of
violence and abuse ruled and raged till the blood of all Stockington was
at boiling heat. In the midst of the tempest were everywhere seen,
ranged on the opposite sides, Mr. Spires, now old and immensely
corpulent, and Simon Deg, active, buoyant, zealous, and popular beyond
measure. But popular though he still was, tho other and old tory side
triumphed. The people were exasperated to madness; and, when the
chairing of the successful candidate commenced, there was a terrific
attack made on the procession by the defeated party. Down went the
chair, and the new member, glad to escape into an inn, saw his friends
mercilessly assailed by the populace. There was a tremendous tempest of
sticks, brickbats, paving-stones, and rotten eggs. In the midst of this,
Simon Deg, and a number of his friends, standing at the upper window of
an hotel, saw Mr. Spires knocked down, and trampled on by the crowd. In
an instant, and, before his friends had missed him from amongst them,
Simon Deg was seen darting through the raging mass, cleaving his way
with a surprising vigour, and gesticulating, and no doubt shouting
vehemently to the rioters, though his voice was lost in the din. In the
next moment, his hat was knocked off, and himself appeared in imminent
danger: but, another moment, and there was a pause, and a group of
people were bearing somebody from the frantic mob into a neighbouring
shop. It was Simon Deg, assisting in the rescue of his old friend and
benefactor, Mr. Spires.
Mr. Spires was a good deal bruised, and wonderfully confounded and
bewildered by his fall. His clothes were one mass of mud, and his face
was bleeding copiously; but when he had had a good draught of water, and
his face washed, and had time to recover himself, it was found that he
had received no serious injury.
“They had like to have done for me though,” said he.
“Yes, and who saved you?” asked a gentleman.
“Ay, who was it? who was it?” asked the really warm-hearted
manufacturer; “let me know? I owe him my life.”
“There he is!” said several gentlemen, at the same instant, pushing
forward Simon Deg.
“What, Simon!” said Mr. Spires, starting to his feet. “Was it thee, my
boy?” He did more, he stretched out his hand: the young man clasped it
eagerly, and the two stood silent, and, with a heartfelt emotion, which
blended all the past into forgetfulness, and the future into a union
more sacred than esteem.
A week hence, and Simon Deg was the son-in-law of Mr. Spires. Though Mr.
Spires had misunderstood Simon, and Simon had borne the aspect of
opposition to his old friend, in defence of conscientious principle, the
wife and daughter of the manufacturer had always understood him, and
secretly looked forward to some day of recognition and re-union.
Simon Deg was now the richest man in Stockington. His mother was still
living to enjoy his elevation. She had been his excellent and wise
housekeeper, and she continued to occupy that post still.
Twenty-five years afterwards, when the worthy old Spires was dead, and
Simon Deg had himself two sons attained to manhood; when he had five
times been Mayor of Stockington, and had been knighted on the
presentation of a loyal address; still his mother was living to see it;
and William Watson, the shoemaker, was acting as the sort of orderly at
Sir Simon’s chief manufactory. He occupied the Lodge, and walked about,
and saw that all was safe, and moving on as it should do.
It was amazing how the most plebeian name of Simon Deg had slid, under
the hands of the Heralds, into the really aristocratical one of Sir
Simon Degge. They had traced him up a collateral kinship, spite of his
own consciousness, to a baronet of the same name of the county of
Stafford, and had given him a coat of arms that was really astonishing.
It was some years before this, that Sir Roger Rockville had breathed his
last. His title and estate had fallen into litigation. Owing to two
generations having passed without any issue of the Rockville family
except the one son and heir, the claims, though numerous, were so
mingled with obscuring circumstances, and so equally balanced, that the
lawyers raised quibbles and difficulties enough to keep the property in
Chancery, till they had not only consumed all the ready money and
rental, but had made frightful inroads into the estate itself. To save
the remnant, the contending parties came to a compromise. A neighbouring
squire, whose grandfather had married a Rockville, was allowed to secure
the title, on condition that the rest carried off the residuum of the
estate. The woods and lands of Rockville were announced for sale!
It was at this juncture that old William Watson reminded Sir Simon Degge
of a conversation in the great grove of Rockville, which they had held
at the time that Sir Roger was endeavouring to drive the people thence.
“What a divine pleasure might this man enjoy,” said Simon Deg to his
humble friend, “if he had a heart capable of letting others enjoy
themselves.”
“But we talk without the estate,” said William Watson, “what might we do
if we were tried with it?”
Sir Simon was silent for a moment; then observed that there was sound
philosophy in William Watson’s remark. He said no more, but went away;
and the next day announced to the astonished old man that he had
purchased the groves and the whole ancient estate of Rockville!
Sir Simon Degge, the last of a long line of paupers, was become the
possessor of the noble estate of Sir Roger Rockville of Rockville, the
last of a long line of aristocrats!
The following summer when the hay was lying in fragrant cocks in the
great meadows of Rockville, and on the little islands in the river, Sir
Simon Degge, Baronet, of Rockville,—for such was now his title—through
the suggestion of a great lawyer, formerly Recorder of the Borough of
Stockington, to the crown—held a grand fête on the occasion of his
coming to reside at Rockville Hall, henceforth the family seat of the
Degges. His house and gardens had all been restored to the most
consummate order. For years Sir Simon had been a great purchaser of
works of art and literature, paintings, statuary, books, and articles of
antiquity, including rich armour and precious works in ivory and gold.
First and foremost he gave a great banquet to his wealthy friends, and
no man with a million and a half is without them—and in abundance. In
the second place, he gave a substantial dinner to all his tenantry, from
the wealthy farmer of five hundred acres to the tenant of a cottage. On
this occasion he said, “Game is a subject of great heart-burning and of
great injustice to the country. It was the bane of my predecessor: let
us take care it is not ours. Let every man kill the game on the land
that he rents—then he will not destroy it utterly, nor allow it to grow
into a nuisance. I am fond of a gun myself, but I trust to find enough
for my propensity to the chace in my own fields and woods—if I
occasionally extend my pursuit across the lands of my tenants, it shall
not be to carry off the first-fruits of their feeding, and I shall still
hold the enjoyment as a favour.”
We need not say that this speech was applauded most vociferously.
Thirdly, and lastly, he gave a grand entertainment to all his
workpeople, both of the town and the country. His house and gardens were
thrown open to the inspection of the whole assembled company. The
delighted crowd admired immensely the pictures and the pleasant gardens.
On the lawn, lying between the great grove and the hall, an enormous
tent was pitched, or rather a vast canvas canopy erected, open on all
sides, in which was laid a charming banquet; a military band from
Stockington barracks playing during the time. Here Sir Simon made a
speech as rapturously received as that to the farmers. It was to the
effect, that all the old privileges of wandering in the grove, and
angling, and boating on the river were restored. The inn was already
rebuilt in a handsome Elizabethan style, larger than before, and to
prevent it ever becoming a fane of intemperance, he had there posted as
landlord, he hoped for many years to come, his old friend and
benefactor, William Watson. William Watson should protect the inn from
riot, and they themselves the groves and river banks from injury.
Long and loud were the applauses which this announcement occasioned. The
young people turned out upon the green for a dance, and in the evening,
after an excellent tea—the whole company descended the river to
Stockington in boats and barges decorated with boughs and flowers, and
singing a song made by William Watson for the occasion, called “The
Health of Sir Simon, last and first of his Line!”
Years have rolled on. The groves and river banks and islands of
Rockville are still greatly frequented, but are never known to be
injured: poachers are never known there, for four reasons.—First, nobody
would like to annoy the good Sir Simon; secondly, game is not very
numerous there; thirdly, there is no fun in killing it, where there is
no resistance; and fourthly, it is vastly more abundant in other
proprietors’ demesnes, and _it is_ fun to kill it there, where it is
jealously watched, and there is a chance of a good spree with the
keepers.
And with what different feelings does the good Sir Simon look down from
his lofty eyrie, over the princely expanse of meadows, and over the
glittering river, and over the stately woods to where Great Stockington
still stretches farther and farther its red brick walls, its red-tiled
roofs, and its tall smoke-vomiting chimneys. There he sees no haunts of
crowded enemies to himself or any man. No upstarts, nor envious
opponents, but a vast family of human beings, all toiling for the good
of their families and their country. All advancing, some faster, some
slower, to a better education, a better social condition, a better
conception of the principles of art and commerce, and a clearer
recognition of their rights and their duties, and a more cheering faith
in the upward tendency of humanity.
Looking on this interesting scene from his distant and quiet home, Sir
Simon sees what blessings flow—and how deeply he feels them in his own
case—from a free circulation, not only of trade, but of human relations.
How this corrects the mischiefs, moral and physical, of false systems
and rusty prejudices;—and he ponders on schemes of no ordinary beauty
and beneficence yet to reach his beloved town through them. He sees
lecture halls and academies, means of sanitary purification, and
delicious recreation, in which baths, wash-houses, and airy homes figure
largely: while public walks extend all round the great industrial hive,
including wood, hills, meadow, and river in their circuit of many miles.
There he lived and laboured; there live and labour his sons: and there
he trusts his family will continue to live and labour to all future
generations: never retiring to the fatal indolence of wealth, but aiding
onwards its active and ever-expanding beneficence.
Long may the good Sir Simon live and labour to realise these views. But
already in a green corner of the pleasant churchyard of Rockville may be
read this inscription on a marble headstone:—“Sacred to the Memory of
Jane Deg, the mother of Sir Simon Degge, Bart., of Rockville. This stone
is erected in honour of the best of Mothers by the most grateful of
sons.”