NO: he was no Professor in the recognised sense of the term; not a bit of
it. Neither can I tell you how he acquired the title, unless it were in
recognition of his original wit. He was simply my factotum or Man
Friday, ready for shooting, fishing, game-keeping, or gardening, as the
emergency of the moment required. He could neither read nor write. But
what are trifling details like these in comparison with ’cuteness.
Institute a Tripos for originality and native wit, and Matthew would even
now, at the age of seventy, pass with high honours. But the examination
must be strictly _viva voce_, and not allowed to wander into the region
of conventional knowledge.
“Matthew,” I said, “this isn’t work,” as I bestowed a kick upon an object
that lay prone upon the lawn, when it ought to have been digging at our
garden border.
“No, sir; but it’s _preparin_’ for it,” was the prompt reply. For
myself, I was knocked out of time, though I felt I was clearly within my
rights. Fancy a man, roused from a peaceful siesta, being ready with a
retort of such preternatural smartness!
Unhappily Matthew had two failings, by which his career was handicapped.
He was always lazy, and sometimes inebriate. Of the former he never
repented so long as I knew him; the latter he was always repenting of and
always repeating. And the stage of repentance was the more acute and the
more grievous, at any rate to his neighbours. After a bout of drinking
he would wander through the house with his hands on the pit of his
stomach—as if the seat of his iniquity lay there—moaning in a dreary,
exasperating way, “The Lord forgie I; I’ll never be drunk agin.” “How
can you _expect_ him to?” said his wife, in a tone of the bitterest
sarcasm.
Every time he repented he took the pledge anew. The consequence was, his
bosom was garnished with blue ribbons—his “decorations” he called
them—for he never cast off one when he assumed another, but regarded them
as an old soldier does his medals, traces of many a scar and many a
conflict, in which, unhappily, he always fell.
“Decorations!” said his wife, “fine decorations! Call ’em rather
sign-posts along the road to perdition. If you stick to ’em all when
you’re buried, they’ll have no trouble in fixing _your_ whereabouts.”
Sometimes, when he was particularly exasperating, she would take the law
in her own hands. “My head’s swimmin’ like a tee-total,” Matthew would
say pathetically. “The very last thing it ought to swim like,” retorted
his wife, a woman with a ready wit, “but I’ll soon make it do so.” And
with that she would take him in her strong arms and give him a twist, as
boys do when they give its first impetus to a top, after which she would
wait patiently for the result. The result was, of course, collapse as
soon as the primary impulse had run down; whereupon she would catch him
up when he was on the point of falling, and bear him off to repentance
and bed.
Matthew’s dialect was unique. I question whether a specialist could have
reproduced it in its integrity, if only because it never reached
finality, but was always in process of development. For myself, I had
studied it for years, and could never get any nearer towards the
discovery of its principles. Every day he was startling you with some
new combination, as a rule strictly ungrammatical, but often a reversion
to some lost or more accurate phraseology. For example: “Let I go,”
“Would you like I to do it”?—the latter a reproduction, as near as may
be, of the Latin formula _visne ego faciam_? A still more perplexing
characteristic in his speech was that he used many of his words in a
variety of senses.
“Cuss they nigglin’ weeds,” he’d say, and “Cuss my nigglin’
toothache”—phrases in which the adjective (or participle) carried an
appreciable meaning, even when he didn’t add the word “darn’d” as an
explanatory gloss. But when he transferred the phrase a minute
afterwards to a splendid crop of potatoes, in which my inexperienced eye
could detect no possible fault, I was all at sea again, and had to ask
him to explain himself.
“I means they’m small,” he answered, with a contemptuous sniff at my
ignorance.
“But, Matthew, you told me just now that ‘nigglin’’ meant ‘darn’d.’”
“And so it do—darn’d small;” looking at me as if he thought the epithet
suited me as much as the potatoes.
When Matthew had pneumonia and lay _in extremis_, his friends came round
to console him with the assurance that he would die at the turn of the
tide.
“What time, Matthew, do ’en begin to turn?” they said.
“At seven o’clock, ezzactly,” whispered the inveterate old humorist. And
it was not till the next morning they discovered that he had defrauded
them of one whole hour of pleasant anticipation.
In his sober moments Matthew was a brilliant story-teller (in both
senses, I fear); though his brilliancy now is limited to occasional
flashes of wit. The following is one of his best reminiscences. I have
selected it out of many because I have since discovered that it was
founded on fact. Not only was it authenticated by a clergyman in whose
neighbourhood it was enacted, but it was told and re-told by one of the
actors in the tragedy, though he had passed to a land from which no
testimony is available long before I heard the story at second-hand from
Matthew.
“’Twas in December, 1824, that it happened. So Joseph told I.” (This,
at any rate, was Matthew’s recognised formula.) “’Tis true he were a
great liar, and I didn’t take no count o’ the main o’ his tales; for he’d
tell you most anything, he would; ’specially if he see’d the price of a
glass of fourpenny for tellin’ it. But, in proof ’tis true, they’d tell
it to the childer at night time, when they was obstrepulous and wouldn’t
go to bed—just for a joke like, to fright ’em to sleep.
“’Twas in December, 1824; and not likely he were to forget it. For ’twas
the year of the great gale (the ‘Outrage’ they calls it hereabouts), when
the sea broke clean over Rudge and washed away th’ old church, all but
the chancel. Joseph never took kindly-like to the new church they built
for ’en higher up i’ the valley, out o’ reach o’ the sea. ’Twas too
spick and span, he said, to suit he—all white and glitterin’ like
chalk—though ’twere built of the best Portland stone, and a sight
prettier to my thinkin’ than the tumble down old barn that’s all that’s
left o’ th’ old un. But the visitors and gentry, they takes after
Joseph, and for one what goes to see the new church there’s hundreds ’ll
bring their vittles and sit and peant th’ old ’un—studyin’ all the
tombstones, and what’s writ on ’em—mostly shipwrecks it be, for I doubt
if there’s half-a-dozen stones in th’ old grave-yard but what tells of
someone or t’other who was drownded at sea. In that one gale of ’24
’twas thousands that perished, and all that was found on ’em Joseph
buried there, when the sea gived back her dead, and he could get at his
grave-yard. Though, to be sure, nought was left but the chancel, so you
could scarce say as how, poor souls, they got a decent buryin’.
“Anyhow ’twas in that very month, just arter the ‘Outrage,’ that one
Price—a farmer he called hisself—was livin’ high up yonder among they
hills that you can see faint-like in the distance, nigh agin they ricks.
A bleak and dreary place it were at the best o’ times, and a job to get
at it at all when a strong so’wester were blowin’. And most every
November it _do_ blow cruel strong along they high downs, wi’ no cover to
speak on’t ’cept scraps of fuz and heather, and a small thorn tree, may
be, now and agin, wi’ ’is branches all leanin’ to the nor’-east, as
though ’twas an old man a holdin’ out his arms for shelter. And the road
to Price’s farm were no better nor a sheep run. A godless man Price
were, as you’d expect wi’ a man who lived so far from all we decent
folks. And he never com’d nigh no church. Passon, he said, didn’t suit
he, and he weren’t a goin’ to trapeze over hill and dale—not he—when
chance ’twas he’d find no passon and no service at t’other end. And if
passon went to he—as he did now and agin—he’d find the door shut in his
face. And for vittles—not a bite nor a sup of anything did he offer ’en,
though passon was a rare ’un at that kind of work. Sunday after Sunday
he’d look in reg’lar nigh about dinner time, and savour by his nose, he
would, where there was a chance for ’en of summat enticin’. Not but what
’twere bad for the childer where he _did_ settle hisself, for ’twas
little of the pudden was left for they when he’d a’ had his turn on’t.
“Howsomever, ’twas there Price lived, wi’ hisself for his company. So no
wonder strange tales got abroad about ’m. ’Twas said, though Joseph
never gived no heed to ’t, that three wives had entered his doors, and
never one of ’em had come out agin—no, not for buryin’. And Joseph must
have known on’t if so be they had, seein’ he were clerk and sexton and
grave-digger, let alone the head o’ the choir. ’Twas thought that he’d
buried ’em in another parish, more nigher to the house he lived in, and
wi’ a better road ’long which to carry ’em. But, Lord save us! tweren’t
nothin’ of the kind.
“One morning, early in December, ’twas nine o’ the clock, may be, or
thereabouts—for Joseph had just been out to pen the sheep in the
church-yard—a tall fine old genelman called at the door, and he knowed by
his dress ’twere the Bishop. Not that he’d cast eyes on ’en before, for
our youngsters are confirmed a way off; there baint enough of them to
claim a Bishop for theirselves. But he knowed ’twere the Bishop, what
wi’ his gaiters, fittin’ as though they’d grow’d to his legs, and his
broad hat as shiny as if you’d smoothed it wi’ a flat iron.
“‘Good morning to you,’ says he, as pleasant as anyone could say it.
‘You be clerk of the parish, baint you?’ ‘True, your wusshup,’ he
replied. ‘And sexton too’ says he. ‘Right you be; and grave-digger and
choir leader as well,’ for he thought it no sin to make the most to ’m of
his preferments. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I want you for a buryin’—this night
at eight o’clock.’ ‘A buryin’, your wusshup,’ says he, ‘and at night?’
‘Yes, and three on ’em,’ says he, ‘all in one grave.’ ‘Well, it _do_
sound mortial strange, your wusshup, but ’tis you that says it, and not
I.’ ‘You’d better go at once,’ he says, ‘and begin the grave, for you
won’t have none too much time to spare on’t, ’specially as I want it done
on the quiet, so to speak, and you mustn’t take no hand to help you, and
meet me punctually as ever is at eight o’clock at Farmer Price’s, up
along the hill, and bring a lantern and the parish hand-bier ’long wi’
’e.’
“He hadn’t much time to ponder on it, as you may suppose, with that grave
to dig, and no one to gi’ ’m a helpin’ hand. And mortial hard work he
found it, too, for the frost set in early that year, and the ground that
hard that, young and lusty as he were, he found it a job to get the
pick-axe into ’en.
“Howsomever he did get ’en done, and at eight o’clock he was at Farmer
Price’s door, and ’twas opened to ’en by the Bishop hisself. And so,
hand in hand as you may say, he and the Bishop, they went into the
kitchen. And there right facin’ ’em—packed up agin the wall like so many
old grandfeyther clocks—stood three coffins, with a piece of glass let in
’em to show the face, and a dead woman in each!
“Close handy they were to ’m when he took his meals, or smoked his pipe;
and when he felt a bit lonesome (so he told Joseph) he’d go up to ’em and
ask ’em how they did, and if they felt comferable. And fresh as peant
they were, too: only a bit shrivelled, like as ’twere an apple in April.
Perhaps ’twas the heat of the kitchen, or may be some stuff he’d put in
along wi’ ’em; anyhow you could see their faces right enough and tell
they was women.
“‘Take ’em down,’ says the Bishop; ‘Farmer Price’ll lend ’e a helpin’
hand: and we’ve none too much time to get ’em back to the churchyard and
bury ’em.’ Joseph hisself could scarce do nought but stare at ’em. To
think that that godless man had kep’ ’em there—one on ’em for nigh on ten
years—never thinkin’, not he, that he was keepin’ ’em tied hand and foot
to this world, with never no chance of a resurrection till he took it
into his wicked head to let ’em go. And there they’d a’ been for ten
years longer—for just so long he lived—if Bishop hisself hadn’t got wind
on’t and come down right away to bury ’em.
“Anyhow they _did_ get decent burial—the three on ’em—at last. For they
had Bishop, and Joseph and Farmer Price; though I don’t take no count o’
he, ’cept that he helped to lower ’em and fill in the grave.
“But Joseph were right glad, he were—and so he told I—to see the rare tug
he had in draggin’ they three dead women up hill and down hill ’cross to
the church-yard. For Joseph never gived ’en no helpin’ hand—you may take
your oath on’t—though he did make a show of pushin’ at the bier
whensomever the Bishop looked his way.
“Didn’t no one never hear on’t? Yes, they did. But they didn’t take no
count on’t. Our people baint over wise about religion, and things were
done in those days that’d make a rare potheration now. Besides, you see,
Bishop were there, and he made a sight o’ difference. ’Twas a rare fine
buryin’, people thought, wi’ a Bishop to put you unnerground; though ’tis
true he hadn’t his fine gran’ toggery on, and his girt white sleeves.”
* * * * *
The actors in our humble drama are dead and gone. The Bishop and Price
and Joseph have, each in his turn, been followed to the grave, only with
less eccentric rites. But the story of the farmer’s “Happy Family” still
lingers in the village, and is told and re-told round many a cottage
hearth under the quaint but significant title of “Price’s Menagerie.”
* * * * *
P.S. The “Professor” himself came round to-day—“for a pipe of baccy,
Sir, if you have such a thing about you”—so I have utilised him to
correct his own proof sheets. “There baint nothin’ wrong in ’em,
_Master_ Fred (this to a man of sixty!), so fur as I sees. Only you says
‘gived’ where I says ‘gi’ed.’ But taint no odds. Like enough they’ll
guess what you means whatsomever you writes down.” Thanks, Matthew, for
your tribute to my clearness of expression.