[Illustration:
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED DY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 125.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]
COACHING-DAYS.
The old stagecoaches, having served their day and generation, are now
a thing of the past, save such as are used for pleasure by societies
like the Coaching Club. The relics of these bygone days are to be
found in roomy inns, with their broad gates, their commodious yards,
and extensive stabling, which have been rendered comparatively useless
and deserted by the diversion of the traffic that maintained them. Our
fathers and grandfathers can yet interest us by relating stories of
their experiences in the old slow coaches with six inside, the improved
fast coaches and flying machines running twelve miles per hour with
four inside passengers; or the crawling, lumbering stage-wagon, which
carried merchandise and the poorer passengers, and which was considered
to have travelled quickly if it rolled over four miles of road per hour.
Previous to the introduction of coaches, journeys were performed on
horseback or by postchaise, and goods were carried on packhorses. Stow
says that the Earl of Arundel introduced coaches into England about
1580; but some give the honour to Boonen, a Dutchman, who is said
to have used this class of vehicle so early as 1564. These coaches,
however, were for private use, and it was not until 1625 that they
were let for hire at the principal inns. In 1637, there were fifty
hackney-coaches in London and Westminster, and soon after, stagecoaches
came into general use. Here is a copy of an old coachbill of that date:
‘YORK FOUR DAYES.—Stagecoach begins on Monday, the 18th of March 1678.
All that are desirous to pass from London to York, or return from York
to London, or any other place on that road, let them repair to the
_Black Swan_ in Holborn in London, and the _Black Swan_ in Cony Street
in York. At both which places they may be received in a stagecoach
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, which performs the whole journey
in Four Days (if God permit) and sets forth by Six in the Morning. And
returns from York to Doncaster in a Forenoon; to Newark, in a Day and
a Half; to Stamford, in Two Days; and from Stamford to London, in Two
Days more.’
Nearly one hundred years after, the coaches were called ‘machines,’
and the fast ones, ‘flying machines;’ while, to continue the metaphor,
one man thus advertises his coach—‘Pruen’s Machine will begin flying
as follows: Hereford Machine, in a day and a half, twice a week, sets
out from the _Redstreak-tree Inn_ in Hereford, Tuesday and Thursday
mornings, at 7 o’clock; and from the _Swan with Two Necks_, Lad Lane,
London, every Monday and Wednesday evenings. Insides £1. Outsides,
half-price. Jan. 5, 1775.’
During these palmy days, they had not the good macadamised roads that
we now enjoy. In winter, the roads were often so bad that the coaches
could not run, but were laid up, like ships during an arctic frost. If
the roads were defined at all, it was most frequently by ditches, into
which many a luckless outsider has been thrown by the numerous coach
accidents of the period. In many places, there was no road boundary at
all, for we read that Ralph Thoresby the antiquary lost his way between
York and Doncaster; and the diarist Pepys between Newbury and Reading.
A writer in 1770 thus speaks of the Lancashire roads: ‘I know not, in
the whole range of language, terms sufficiently expressive to describe
this awful road. Let me most seriously caution all travellers who may
accidentally propose to travel this terrible country, to avoid it as
they would a pestilence; for a thousand to one they break their necks
or their limbs by overthrows or breakings-down, as they will here meet
with ruts, which I actually measured, four feet deep, and floating with
mud, in summer-time.’
Besides the dangers of bad roads, the drivers did not render life,
limb, and property anymore secure by the furious driving which
opposition coaches inspired. As in rival ocean steamers, competition
led to a speed not compatible with safety. In Driffield (East
Yorkshire) churchyard there is a tombstone to the memory of the guard
of a coach who was killed by the coach being overturned; and the way
in which the local newspaper speaks of the accident, leads you to
believe there had been racing between it and another coach. Richard
Wood, of the _Reindeer_ and _Ram Inns_, High Street, Doncaster, in his
advertisements, says that his coaches are the best—the horses keep good
time—and _no racing_.
These days were the days of highwaymen and footpads. Lady Walpole
in her Letters relates how she and Lady Browne were robbed of their
purses, when going to the Duchess of Montrose. ‘After the thief had
gone, Lady Browne was most fearful lest he should return and wreak
vengeance; “for,” said she, “I always prepare for such-like people,
and carry an old purse filled with bad money, which I give them, and
so save my good money.” Her fears were groundless, however, for we
reached our journey’s end without further mishap.’ These highwaymen
were a source of great danger and trouble to coach-travellers, in spite
of precautions to guard against them. A post-office notice issued in
York, October 30, 1786, says with regard to the mailcoach passengers:
‘Ladies and gentlemen may depend on every care and attention being paid
to their safety. They will be guarded all the way by His Majesty’s
servants, and on dark nights, a postillion will ride on one of the
leaders.’ There is also a note to the effect that the guard was well
armed.
During very wet weather and on low-lying roads, it was most unpleasant
to drive through deep water; while, to add one misfortune to another,
the trace might break or something else give way; and the mishap must
be mended before we could get on to dry land. The writer has heard of
the water over the axle-trees; and on one occasion it ran into the
coach, and all but set afloat two old ladies who were inside. Their
dismay may be easily imagined, and their supplications to the coachman
to stop were quite affecting. Those on the outside were nearly as much
to be pitied; for it had rained without ceasing all day—that kind
of pitiless rain which comes down straight in solid stripes, like
the water from a shower-bath, which in nautical language goes by the
appellation of ‘raining marlin-spikes with their points downwards.’ The
only difference between the outsiders and the old ladies being, that
while they got it from below, the outsiders got it from above.
A good story has been told of four young undergraduates who had taken
the four inside seats of the Oxford coach ‘Defiance.’ Just as the
coach was about to start, a very pretty girl came up, attended by her
grandfather, and asked if she could have an inside seat. As all the
seats were occupied, the guard was unable to grant her request; but the
young gentlemen inside vowed they would bear any amount of crushing
and discomfort for her sake. The fare was paid, and she gently handed
in her grandfather, saying: ‘Mind you thank the young gentlemen,
grandpa!’ The feelings of the young gallants can be better imagined
than described; but the coach drove off amid a general chorus of anger
and dismay.
A gentleman-coachman gives the following incident: ‘In or about
November 1834, I got upon the “Albion” coach, which ran from Birkenhead
to London. There was no one on the box, a most unusual thing, so I got
by the side of the coachman. “I suppose you know what kind of a load
we’ve got, sir?” said he. “No,” I answered; “they look a queer lot!
What are they?”—“Why,” said he, “they’re all jail-birds.” “Where are
they going?” said I.—“Why, to Botany Bay; and I wish they were there
now, for they are inclined to give some trouble, and would do if they
had not got ‘ruffles’ on; but they’re pretty safe, I think.” They had
two turnkeys with them; and there was no one else on the coach but
these worthies, their keepers, myself, coachman, and guard. I left the
coach at Wolverhampton, and a lucky thing for me it was; for, before
reaching Walsall, the horses shied at some sparks flying across the
road from a blacksmith’s shop, bolted, ran against a post, and upset
the coach. No one was killed; but the coachman ultimately died of the
injuries then received. During the confusion caused by the accident,
and whilst another coach and coachman were being got ready to take them
on, some of the convicts contrived to get files and other implements,
and by these means put their handcuffs into such condition that they
could slip them whenever they chose to do so. At a given signal they
freed themselves, sprang upon and overpowered their keepers, guard, and
coachman, handcuffed them, cut the traces, let loose the horses, and
decamped. The greater number of them were, however, recaptured.’
With what ease, rapidity, and comfort we now perform our journeys, is
best shown by contrast with the way in which our grandfathers thought
wonders were performed. On a cold day in winter, your hands were
frozen, your feet were frozen, your very mouth felt frozen; and, in
fact, you felt frozen all over. Sometimes, with all this cold, you
were also wet through—your hat wet through; your coat wet through;
the lame wrapper that was meant to keep your neck warm and dry, wet
through; and you felt wet through to your very bones. Only twenty
minutes was allowed for dinner; and by the time you had got your hands
warm enough to be able to untie your neck-wrapper, and had got out of
your greatcoat, which, being wet, clung most tenaciously to you, the
time for dinner was half-gone. Before you had eaten one quarter of what
you could have consumed, if your mouth had been in eating trim, and
if your hands had been warm enough to handle your knife and fork, the
coachman would put in his head and say: ‘Now, gentlemen, if you please;
the coach is ready.’ After this summons, having struggled into your
wet greatcoat, bound your miserable wet wrapper round your miserably
cold neck, having paid your half-crown for the dinner you had the will
but not the time to eat, with sixpence for the waiter, you wished your
worthy host good-bye, grudging him the half-crown he had pocketed for
your miserable dinner. You then again mounted your seat, to be rained
and snowed on, and almost frozen to death before you reached your
journey’s end.
The following is from _Notes and Queries_, August 1856: ‘There being
persons who seriously lament the good old time of coaches, when they
could travel leisurely and securely, see the country, and converse with
the natives, it may be well to register some of the miseries before
they are altogether effaced from the memory.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
It is certainly not desirable that the good of coaches should be
interred with their bones; neither is it by any means to be wished
that the evil should entirely cease to live after them, so as to
render us indifferent, and thankless, and insensible to the superior
advantages of modern locomotion. (1) Although your place has been
contingently secured days before, and you have risen with the lark,
yet you see the ponderous vehicle arrive full, full, full; and this,
not unlikely, more than once. (2) At the end of a stage, beholding the
four panting, reeking, foamy animals, which have dragged you twelve
miles; and the stiff, galled, scraggy relay, crawling and limping out
of the yard. (3) Being politely requested, at the foot of a tremendous
hill, to ease the horses, by getting out and walking. (4) An outside
passenger resolving to endure no longer the pelting of the pitiless
storm, takes refuge inside, to your consternation, with dripping hat,
saturated cloak, and soaked umbrella. (5) Set down with a promiscuous
party to a meal, bearing no resemblance to that of a good hotel save
in the charge; and no time to enjoy it. (6) Closely packed in the
coach, “cabined, cribbed, confined” with five companions morally or
physically obnoxious, for two or three comfortless days and nights.
(7) During a halt, overhearing the coarse language of the hostlers and
tipplers at the roadside pothouse; and besieged by beggars exposing
their mutilations. (8) Roused from your nocturnal slumber by the horn
or bugle, the lashing and cracking of whip, a search for parcels under
your seat, and solicitous drivers. (9) Discovering at a diverging point
in your journey that the other coach you wished to take runs only every
other day, or has finally stopped. (10) Clambering from the wheel to
your elevated seat by various iron projections. (11) After threading
the narrowest streets of an ancient town, entering the innyard by a
low gateway, requiring great care to escape decapitation. (12) Seeing
the luggage piled up “Olympus high,” so as to occasion an alarming
oscillation. (13) Having the reins and whip placed in your unpractised
hands, while coachee indulges in a glass and a chat. (14) When dangling
at the extremity of a seat, overcome with drowsiness. (15) Exposed
to piercing draughts, owing to a refractory glass; or, _vice versâ_,
being in a minority, you are compelled, for the sake of ventilation,
to thrust your umbrella accidentally through a pane. (16) At various
seasons, suffocated with dust and broiled by a powerful sun; or
cowering under an umbrella in a drenching rain; or petrified by cold;
or torn by fierce winds; or struggling through snow; or wending your
way through perilous floods. (17) Perceiving that a young squire is
receiving an initiatory practical lesson in the art of driving, or that
a jibing horse or a race with an opposition coach is endangering your
existence. (18) Losing the enjoyment or employment of much precious
time, not only on the road but also from consequent fatigue. (19)
Interrupted before the termination of your hurried meal by your two
rough-coated, big-buttoned, many-caped friends, the coachman and guard,
who hope you will remember them.’
No doubt these olden times had their delights as well as discomforts,
and old coachmen still speak enthusiastically of the charm of a bright
moonlight night in summer-time, in which, not marred by the beat of the
horses’ feet or the rumble of the wheels, you heard sounds, saw sights,
and felt conscious of perfumes that are unknown to railway travellers.
Yes, though many may greatly regret that steam has superseded
horse-flesh, that the grimy engine-driver and stoker have displaced the
coachman, that the discordant, screeching whistle is heard instead of
the long mellow horn, the balance is in our favour, in spite of all the
annoyances to which we are subjected by the stupidity and carelessness
of railway officials, or by the red-tapeism and apparent indifference
of railway directors.
IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER XXVII.
On the morning when Harry Noel was to arrive in Trinidad, Mr Dupuy and
Edward Hawthorn both came down early to the landing-stage to await the
steamer. Mr Dupuy condescended to nod in a distant manner to the young
judge—he had never forgiven him that monstrous decision in the case of
Delgado _versus_ Dupuy—and to ask chillily whether he was expecting
friends from England.
‘No,’ Edward Hawthorn answered with a bow as cold as Mr Dupuy’s own. ‘I
have come down to meet an old English friend of mine, a Mr Noel, whom I
knew very well at Cambridge and in London, but who’s coming at present
only from Barbadoes.’
Mr Dupuy astutely held his tongue. _Noblesse_ did not so far impose
upon him as to oblige him to confess that it was Harry Noel he, too,
had come down in search of. But as soon as the steamer was well
alongside, Mr Dupuy, in his stately, slow, West Indian manner, sailed
ponderously down the special gangway, and asked a steward at once to
point out to him which of the passengers was Mr Noel.
Harry Noel, when he received Mr Dupuy’s pressing invitation, was
naturally charmed at the prospect of thus being quartered under the
same roof with pretty little Nora. Had he known the whole circumstances
of the case, indeed, his native good feeling would, of course, have
prompted him to go to the Hawthorns’; but Edward had been restrained
by a certain sense of false shame from writing the whole truth about
this petty local race prejudice to his friend in England; and so Harry
jumped at once at the idea of being so comfortably received into the
very house of which he so greatly desired to become an inmate. ‘You’re
very good, I’m sure,’ he answered in his off-hand manner to the old
planter. ‘Upon my word, I never met anything in my life to equal
your open-hearted West Indian hospitality. Wherever one goes, one’s
uniformly met with open arms. I shall be delighted, Mr Dupuy, to put up
at your place—Orange Grove, I think you call it—ah, exactly—if you’ll
kindly permit me.—Here, you fellow, go down below, will you, and ask
for my luggage.’
Edward Hawthorn was a minute or two too late. Harry came forward
eagerly, in the old friendly fashion, to grasp his hand with a hard
grip, but explained to him with a look, which Edward immediately
understood, that Orange Grove succeeded in offering him superior
attractions even to Mulberry. So the very next day found Nora and Harry
Noel seated together at lunch at Mr Dupuy’s well-loaded table; while
Tom Dupuy, who had actually stolen an hour or two from his beloved
canes, dropped in casually to take stock of this new possible rival, as
he half suspected the gay young Englishman would turn out to be. From
the first moment that their eyes met, Tom Dupuy conceived an immediate
dislike and distrust for Harry Noel. What did he want coming here to
Trinidad? Tom wondered: a fine-spoken, stuck-up, easy-going, haw-haw
Londoner, of the sort that your true-born colonist hates and detests
with all the force of his good-hater’s nature. Harry irritated him
immensely by his natural superiority: a man of Tom Dupuy’s type can
forgive anything in any other man except higher intelligence and better
breeding. Those are qualities for which he feels a profound contempt,
not unmingled with hatred, envy, malice, and all uncharitableness. So,
as soon as Nora had risen from the table and the men were left alone,
West Indian fashion, to their afternoon cigar and cup of coffee, Tom
Dupuy began to open fire at once on Harry about his precious coloured
friends the Hawthorns at Mulberry.
‘So you’ve come across partly to see that new man at the Westmoreland
District Court, have you?’ he said sneeringly. ‘Well, I daresay he was
considered fit company for gentlemen over in England, Mr Noel—people
seem to have very queer ideas about what’s a gentleman and what’s not,
over in England—but though I didn’t like to speak about it before
Nora, seeing that they’re friends of hers, I think I ought to warn you
beforehand that you mustn’t have too much to say to them if you want to
get on out here in Trinidad. People here are a trifle particular about
their company.’
Harry looked across curiously at the young planter, leaning back in
awkward fashion with legs outstretched and half turned away from
the table, as he sipped his coffee, and answered quietly, with some
little surprise: ‘Why, yes, Mr Dupuy, I think our English idea of what
constitutes a gentleman does differ slightly in some respects from
the one I find current out here in the West Indies. I knew Hawthorn
intimately for several years at Cambridge and in London, and the more
I knew of him the better I liked him and the more I respected him.
He’s a little bit too radical for me, I confess, and a little bit too
learned as well; but in every other way, I can’t imagine what possible
objection you can bring against him.’
Tom Dupuy smiled an ugly smile, and gazed hard at Harry Noel’s dark
and handsome face and features. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, a malevolent
light gleaming hastily from his heavy eyes, ‘we West Indians may be
prejudiced; they say we are; but still, we’re not fond somehow of
making too free with a pack of niggers. Now, I don’t say your friend
Hawthorn’s exactly a nigger outside, to look at: he isn’t: he’s managed
to hide the outer show of his colour finely. I’ve seen a good many
regular white people, or what passed for white people’—and here he
glanced significantly at the fine-spoken Londoner’s dark fingers,
toying easily with the amber mouthpiece of his dainty cigar-holder—‘who
were a good many shades darker in the skin than this fellow Hawthorn,
for all they thought themselves such very grand gentlemen. Some of ’em
may be coloured, and some of ’em mayn’t: there’s no knowing, when once
you get across to England; for people there have no proper pride of
race, I understand, and would marry a coloured girl, if she happened to
have money, as soon as look at her. But this fellow Hawthorn, though
he seems externally as white as you do—and a great deal whiter too, by
Jove—is well known out here to be nothing but a coloured person, as his
father and his mother were before him.’
Harry Noel puffed out a long stream of white smoke as he answered
carelessly: ‘Ah, I daresay he is, if what you mean is just that he’s
got some remote sort of negro tinge somewhere about him—though he
doesn’t look it; but I expect almost all the old West Indian families,
you know, must have intermarried long ago, when English ladies were
rare in the colonies, with pretty half-castes.’
Quite unwittingly, the young Englishman had trodden at once on the
very tenderest and dearest corn of his proud and unbending West Indian
entertainers. Pride of blood is the one form of pride that they
thoroughly understand and sympathise with; and this remote hint of a
possible (and probable) distant past when the purity of the white race
was not quite so efficiently guaranteed as it is nowadays, roused both
the fiery Dupuys immediately to a white-heat of indignation.
‘Sir,’ Mr Theodore Dupuy said stiffly, ‘you evidently don’t understand
the way in which we regard these questions out here in the colonies,
and especially in Trinidad. There is one thing which your English
parliament has not taken from us, and can never take from us; and that
is the pure European blood which flows unsullied in all our veins,
nowhere polluted by the faintest taint of a vile African intermixture.’
‘Certainly,’ Mr Tom Dupuy echoed angrily, ‘if you want to call us
niggers, you’d better call us niggers outright, and not be afraid of
it.’
‘Upon my word,’ Harry Noel answered with an apologetic smile, ‘I hadn’t
the least intention, my dear sir, of seeming to hint anything against
the purity of blood in West Indians generally; I only meant, that if
my friend Hawthorn—who is really a very good fellow and a perfect
gentleman—does happen to have a little distant infusion of negro blood
in him, it doesn’t seem to me to matter much to any of us nowadays.
It must be awfully little—a mere nothing, you know; just the amount
one would naturally expect if his people had intermarried once with
half-castes a great many generations ago. I was only standing up for my
friend, you see.—Surely,’ turning to Tom, who still glared at him like
a wild beast aroused, ‘a man ought to stand up for his friends when he
hears them ill spoken of.’
‘Oh, quite so,’ Mr Theodore Dupuy replied, in a mollified voice. ‘Of
course, if Mr Hawthorn’s a friend of yours, and you choose to stand by
him here, in spite of his natural disabilities, on the ground that you
happened to know him over in England—where, I believe, he concealed
the fact of his being coloured—and you don’t like now to turn your
back upon him, why, naturally, that’s very honourable of you, very
honourable.—Tom, my dear boy, we must both admit that Mr Noel is acting
very honourably. And, indeed, we can’t expect people brought up wholly
in England’—Mr Dupuy dwelt softly upon this fatal disqualification,
as though aware that Harry must be rather ashamed of it—‘to feel upon
these points exactly as we do, who have a better knowledge and insight
into the negro blood and the negro character.’
‘Certainly not,’ Tom Dupuy continued maliciously. ‘People in England
don’t understand these things at all as we do.—Why, Mr Noel, you mayn’t
be aware of it, but even among the highest English aristocracy there
are an awful lot of regular coloured people, out-and-out mulattoes.
West Indian heiresses in the old days used to go home—brown girls,
or at anyrate young women with a touch of the tar-brush—daughters
of governors and so forth, on the wrong side of the house—you
understand’—Mr Tom Dupuy accompanied these last words with an upward
and backward jerk of his left thumb, supplemented by a peculiarly ugly
grimace, intended to be facetious—‘the sort of trash no decent young
fellow over here would have so much as touched with a pair of tongs (in
the way of marrying ’em, I mean); and when they got across to England,
were snapped up at once by dukes and marquises, whose descendants,
after all, though they may be lords, are really nothing better, you
see, than common brown people!’
He spoke snappishly, but Harry only looked across at him in mild
wonder. On the calm and unquestioning pride of a Lincolnshire Noel,
remarks such as these fell flat and pointless. If a Noel had chosen to
marry a kitchen-maid, according to their simple old-fashioned faith,
he would have ennobled her at once, and lifted her up into his own
exalted sphere of life and action. Her children after her would have
been Lincolnshire Noels, the equals of any duke or marquis in the
United Kingdom. So Harry only smiled benignly, and answered in his
easy off-hand manner: ‘By Jove, I shouldn’t wonder at all if that were
really the case now. One reads in Thackeray, you know, so much about
the wealthy West Indian heiresses, with suspiciously curly hair, who
used to swarm in London in the old slavery days. But of course, Mr
Dupuy, it’s a well-known fact that all our good families have been
awfully recruited by actresses and so forth. I believe some statistical
fellow or other has written a book to show that if it weren’t for the
actresses, the peerage and baronetage would all have died out long ago,
of pure inanition. I daresay the West Indian heiresses, with the frizzy
hair, helped to fulfil the same good and useful purpose, by bringing
an infusion of fresh blood every now and then into our old families.’
And Harry ran his hand carelessly through his own copious curling black
locks, in perfect unconsciousness of the absurdly malapropos nature of
that instinctive action at that particular moment. His calm sense of
utter superiority—that innate belief so difficult to shake, even on the
most rational grounds, in most well-born and well-bred Englishmen—kept
him even from suspecting the real drift of Tom Dupuy’s reiterated
innuendoes.
‘You came out to Barbadoes to look after some property of your
father’s, I believe?’ Mr Dupuy put in, anxious to turn the current of
the conversation from this very dangerous and fitful channel.
‘I did,’ Harry Noel answered unconcernedly. ‘My father’s, or rather
my mother’s. Her people have property there. We’re connected with
Barbadoes, indeed. My mother’s family were Barbadian planters.’
At the word, Tom Dupuy almost jumped from his seat and brought his
fist down heavily upon the groaning table. ‘They were?’ he cried
inquiringly. ‘Barbadian planters? You don’t mean to say, then, Mr Noel,
that some of your own people were really and truly born West Indians?’
‘Why on earth should he want to get so very excited about it?’
Harry Noel thought to himself hastily. ‘What on earth can it matter
to him whether my people were Barbadian planters or Billingsgate
fishmongers?’—‘Yes, certainly, they were,’ he went on to Tom Dupuy
with a placid smile of quiet amusement. ‘Though my mother was never in
the island herself from the time she was a baby, I believe, still all
her family were born and bred there, for some generations.—But why do
you ask me? Did you know anything of her people—the Budleighs of the
Wilderness?’
‘No, no; I didn’t know anything of them,’ Tom Dupuy replied hurriedly,
with a curious glance sideways at his uncle.—‘But, ’pon my honour,
Uncle Theodore, it’s really a very singular thing, now one comes to
think of it, that Mr Noel should happen to come himself, too, from a
West Indian family.’
As Harry Noel happened that moment to be lifting his cup of coffee
to his lips, he didn’t notice that Tom Dupuy was pointing most
significantly to his own knuckles, and signalling to his uncle, with
eyes and fingers, to observe Harry’s. And if he had, it isn’t probable
that a Lincolnshire Noel would even have suspected the hidden meaning
of those strange and odd-looking monkey-like antics.
By-and-by, Harry rose from the table carelessly, and asked in a casual
way whether Mr Dupuy would kindly excuse him; he wanted to go and pay a
call which he felt he really mustn’t defer beyond the second day from
his arrival in Trinidad.
‘You’ll take a mount?’ Mr Dupuy inquired hospitably. ‘You know, we
never dream of walking out in these regions. All the horses in my
stable are entirely at your disposal. How far did you propose going, Mr
Noel? A letter of introduction you wish to deliver, I suppose, to the
governor or somebody?’
Harry paused and hesitated for a second. Then he answered as politely
as he was able: ‘No, not exactly a letter of introduction. I feel I
mustn’t let the day pass without having paid my respects as early as
possible to Mrs Hawthorn.’
Tom Dupuy nudged his uncle; but the elder planter had too much
good manners to make any reply save to remark that one of his
niggers would be ready to show Mr Noel the way to the district
judge’s—ah—dwelling-place at Mulberry.
As soon as Harry’s back was turned, however, Mr Tom Dupuy sank back
incontinently on the dining-room sofa and exploded in a loud burst of
boisterous laughter.
‘My dear Tom,’ Mr Theodore Dupuy interposed nervously, ‘what on
earth are you doing? Young Noel will certainly overhear you. Upon my
word, though I can’t say I agree with all the young fellow’s English
sentiments, I really don’t see that there’s anything in particular
to laugh at in him. He seems to me a very gentlemanly, well-bred,
intelligent—— Why, goodness gracious, Tom, what has come over you so
suddenly? You look for all the world as if you were positively going to
kill yourself outright with laughing about nothing!’
Mr Tom Dupuy removed his handkerchief hastily from his mouth, and
with an immense effort to restrain his merriment, exclaimed in a low
suppressed voice: ‘Why, now, Uncle Theodore, do you mean to tell me you
don’t see the whole joke! you don’t understand the full absurdity of
the situation?’
Mr Dupuy gazed back at him blankly. ‘No more than I understand why
on earth you are making such a confounded fool of yourself now,’ he
answered contemptuously.
Tom Dupuy calmed himself slowly with a terrific effort, and blurted out
at last, in a mysterious undertone: ‘Why, the point of it is, don’t you
see, Uncle Theodore, the fellow’s a coloured man himself, as sure as
ever you and I are standing here this minute!’
A light burst in upon Mr Dupuy’s benighted understanding with
extraordinary rapidity. ‘He is!’ he cried, clapping his hand to his
forehead hurriedly in the intense excitement of a profoundly important
discovery. ‘He is, he is! There can’t be a doubt about it! Baronet or
no baronet, as sure as fate, Tom, my boy, that man’s a regular brown
man!’
‘I knew he was,’ Tom Dupuy replied exultantly, ‘the very moment I first
set eyes upon that ugly head of his! I was sure he was a nigger as
soon as I looked at him! I suspected it at once from his eyes and his
knuckles. But when he told me his mother was a Barbadian woman—why,
then, I knew, as sure as fate, it was all up with him.’
‘You’re quite right, quite right, Tom; I haven’t a doubt about it,’ Mr
Theodore Dupuy continued helplessly, wringing his hands before him in
bewilderment and horror. ‘And the worst of it is I have asked him to
stop here as long as he’s in Trinidad! What a terrible thing if it
were to get about over the whole island that I’ve asked a brown man to
come and stop for an indefinite period under the same roof with your
cousin Nora!’
Tom Dupuy was not wanting in chivalrous magnanimity. He leaned back
on the sofa and screwed his mouth up for a moment with a comical
expression; then he answered slowly: ‘It’s a very serious thing, of
course, to accuse a man offhand of being a nigger. We mustn’t condemn
him unheard or without evidence. We must try to find out all we can
about his family. Luckily, he’s given us the clue himself. He said his
mother was a Barbadian woman—a Budleigh of the Wilderness. We’ll track
him down. I’ve made a mental note of it!’
Just at that moment, Nora walked quietly into the dining-room to ask
the gentlemen whether they meant to go for a ride by-and-by in the cool
of the evening. ‘For if you do, papa,’ she said in explanation, ‘you
know you must send for Nita to the pasture, for Mr Noel will want a
horse, and you’re too heavy for any but the cob, so you’ll have to get
up Nita for Mr Noel.’
Tom Dupuy glanced at her suspiciously. ‘I suppose since your last
particular friend fell over the gully that night at Banana Garden,’ he
said hastily, ‘you’ll be picking up next with a new favourite in this
fine-spoken, new-fangled, haw-haw, English fellow!’
Nora looked back at him haughtily and defiantly. ‘Tom Dupuy,’ she
answered with a curl of her lip (she always addressed him by both names
together), ‘you are quite mistaken—utterly mistaken. I don’t feel in
the least prepossessed by Mr Noel’s personal appearance.’
‘Why not? Why not?’ Tom inquired eagerly.
‘I don’t know by what right you venture to cross-question me about such
a matter; but as you ask me, I don’t mind answering you. Mr Noel is a
shade or two too dark by far ever to take my own fancy.’
Tom whistled low to himself and gave a little start. ‘By Jove,’ he
said, half aloud and half to himself, ‘that was a Dupuy that spoke that
time, certainly. After all, the girl’s got some proper pride still left
in her. She doesn’t want to marry him, _although_ he’s a brown man.
I always thought myself, as a mere matter of taste, she positively
preferred these woolly-headed mulattoes!’
JOHN HULLAH.
In 1870, when Mrs John Hullah was canvassing on behalf of Miss Garrett,
M.D., then a candidate for the London School Board, several persons
suggested that Mrs Hullah herself should have been proposed—‘For it’s
a name that ought to be on the Board.’ That the name of Hullah must
at one time have been a household word might be gathered from Lord
Wharncliffe’s statement in the House of Lords, that between the end of
1841 and July 1842, fifty thousand persons were enlisted as musical
students under the superintendence of Mr Hullah and his pupils. Very
early in life, Mr Hullah’s thoughts had been occupied with the great
problem of popularising the noble and refining art of music, and this
problem it was his life’s labour to deal with, bringing to the task
considerable wisdom and culture, magnificent patience, and generous
enthusiasm. At a time when musical culture was very limited indeed,
Hullah stood forward to proclaim that this evil was readily curable,
that almost any child might learn to sing on scientific principles, so
as to be able to pursue the study after leaving school, and that music
deserved to be dealt with systematically, instead of being treated as a
mere ‘relaxation from severer studies.’ As showing how these ideas were
promoted during a long and busy career, the _Life of John Hullah_, now
published by his widow (London: Longmans), and including a few pages
of autobiography, will be welcome not only to musicians but to social
reformers, and all who have any respect for the pioneers of progress.
On the authority of Grove’s _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_,
Mr Hullah informs us that he first saw the light in the city of
Worcester, on the 27th of June 1812. In a private school, he received
a remarkably good education in English literature, but apparently in
nothing else; and his future career was still an open question, when
it was suggested, by a musical family very intimate with the Hullahs,
that John should be trained to the profession of music. Accordingly,
he became a pupil of William Horsley, the celebrated glee-writer.
At the age of seventeen or eighteen, Hullah himself ventured on the
composition of a glee; and in 1833, he became a student at the Royal
Academy of Music, then possessing, in his opinion, a reputation which
it has never exceeded. Here, among his fellow-students, he met Miss
Fanny Dickens, sister of the novelist, and shortly afterwards he
appears to have become intimately acquainted with Charles Dickens
himself. Mr Hullah’s first marriage took place on December 20, 1838;
and early in the following year, the idea of a popular method of
teaching singing began to engage his attention. He went to Paris to
observe the method of M. Wilhem, and soon afterwards began teaching on
a small scale at the Normal School at Battersea. Through Sir James Kay
Shuttleworth, the sympathy of many influential persons was secured, and
Hullah awoke to find himself famous. All classes from royalty downward
were eager for information as to the new method. Lectures were required
in all parts of the country; and owing probably to Mr Hullah’s own
enthusiasm, very many of his pupils became teachers.
In 1844, Hullah became Professor of Music at King’s College, London,
an office which he filled with acceptance for thirty years. He held
similar appointments at Bedford College and Queen’s College, two
well-known schools for girls; and, indeed, was associated with F. D.
Maurice in the founding of the latter institution.
The erection of St Martin’s Hall, the scene of his most public
labours, was an enterprise entered upon by him with characteristic
light-heartedness. ‘To the work carried out in St Martin’s Hall,’ says
Mrs Hullah, ‘is undoubtedly traceable the present all but universal
study of music by every class in England; but it may certainly be
said that for the chief director of that early movement, splendidly
as he was supported and encouraged by his immediate friends, the
results were ruinous in every way.’ In this costly building he took
up his residence, in order to be near the scene of his classes and
concerts, and for more than fourteen years he carried on a severe
struggle for the cause which lay so near his heart. In 1861, when the
Hall was destroyed by fire, and ‘Mr Hullah, now past his prime, stood
a ruined man in the midst of a large family,’ a host of influential
friends—including Charles Dickens, Henry Chorley, Sir J. Kay
Shuttleworth, Sir Arthur Helps, and Mr (now Lord) Coleridge—rallied
round him, and gave him a new start in life.
In 1861, Hullah published his Royal Institution Lectures on _The
History of Modern Music_, a work which met with a cordial reception,
and has since been translated into Italian by Alberto Visetti. Hullah’s
failure in 1865 to gain the appointment of Professor of Music at
Edinburgh was apparently as crushing as any misfortune could be to so
buoyant a nature. There was scarcely a spot in the world which he would
have chosen for his home in preference to Edinburgh. His lectures at
the Philosophical Institution and his numerous concerts had made him
well known there, and gained him many warm friends, who apparently
encouraged him to suppose that his election was certain. There can be
no doubt that he would have been a brilliant professor and an honour
to the university; for he was a man of wide culture and boundless
enthusiasm for his art. That ‘capacity for general appreciation,’ which
he pointed to in Mendelssohn, was very properly cited by a friend
as the striking feature in Hullah’s own character. Natural scenery,
poetry, painting, and especially architecture, all found in him a
thoughtful appreciation.
But admirably as he was fitted for such a professorship, perhaps the
post which he received in 1872 of government Inspector of Music was
even more suited to call forth his best talents and energies. His
great objects were, firstly, to abolish singing by ear; and secondly,
to encourage the formation of mixed choirs. He wished women to have
more systematic training in choirs, so as to supersede the passionless
soprano of boys and the falsetto counter-tenor of men. What he did
towards the promotion of a scientific method of singing, may be judged
from the fact, that during nine years, he examined sixteen thousand
male and female students who expected to become teachers, and in that
case would probably give their pupils the benefit of his system.
His official position brought him into delicate relations with the
advocates of other singing methods, but although of course we find
occasional depreciatory remarks, his tone is generally very fair.
Referring to the tonic sol-fa system, he went so far on one occasion
as to recommend the government to refuse their sanction to ‘a notation
or alphabet absolutely unknown out of Great Britain, the closest
acquaintance with which fails to enable its possessors to read music
as it is written by musicians.’ This seems at first sight inconsistent
with his repeated deprecation of ‘any attempt to enforce on the musical
instructors in training-schools directly or indirectly the adoption of
any particular method of instruction, books, or exercises whatever;’
but possibly his meaning was that the tonic sol-faists, however their
course might begin, should ultimately include in it a knowledge of the
old notation—a provision to which they could not possibly object.
As a composer, Hullah attained no great distinction. In 1836, _The
Village Coquettes_—an opera for which Charles Dickens supplied the
libretto, and Hullah the music—was very successfully produced at the St
James’s Theatre, where it ran for sixty nights. It was also played in
Edinburgh under the management of Mr Ramsay. Charles Kingsley praised
very highly Hullah’s setting of _The Three Fishers_, a song which is
still met with in concert programmes. Among his other songs, which, as
Mrs Hullah mentions, generally reflected his sadder moods, _The Storm_
and _The Sands of Dee_ are probably the best known.
Mrs Hullah has wisely restricted herself to a bare outline of her
husband’s lifework, thus bringing her book within reach of his many
pupils and admirers. Had a larger scope been permissible, a most
interesting volume might have been produced consisting of reminiscences
of his distinguished friends. We should have had a peep at the genial
author of _Friends in Council_, for between Helps and Hullah there
existed a life-long intimacy. We hear almost nothing of Mendelssohn;
and of Spohr, we are simply told that ‘he did not play very well.’ The
simple fact of a dinner with Meyerbeer is recorded; and we also hear
of Samuel Rogers and Tom Moore as visitors at Mr Hullah’s house. His
friend Mr Chorley having reported the discovery of ‘a new composer,
Gounod by name,’ Hullah went to Paris, and reported favourably but
cautiously concerning M. Gounod’s abilities. ‘A great original musical
genius,’ he writes, ‘is such a creation, that one is slow to come to
any conclusion.’
Hardly one of the good stories Hullah was constantly picking up has
found its way into this volume. Being gifted with elocutionary and
dramatic power, he could repeat a story very effectively, and once
boasted that he had correctly given a Scottish anecdote involving two
distinct dialects.
In 1876, Hullah received the degree of LL.D. from the university
of Edinburgh, being presented to the Chancellor by his old friend,
Professor Douglas Maclagan. ‘It is fitting,’ said Professor Maclagan,
‘that the university of Edinburgh, which alone, of the universities
of Scotland, possesses a chair of Music, should show a practical
acknowledgment of past musicians by recognising one of the fine arts in
the person of this most adequate representative.’
In 1880, Hullah had a stroke of paralysis, which partially disabled his
left leg and arm; but after a short rest, his marvellous energy forced
him again into active work. Even at the age of seventy, he resented the
idea of retirement; and it was not until he had accepted Mr Gladstone’s
offer of a Civil List pension, that he fully realised that his lifework
was over. He died in the midst of his family, at Malvern wells, on the
21st of February 1884.
John Hullah devoted his whole energies to a cause in which he had
a profound faith. It was doubtless to typify this devotion that he
adopted the witty device and motto which appear on the title-page of
Mrs Hullah’s book. The ladder referred to in the motto, ‘Per scalam
ascendimus,’ is of course the musical scale, by means of which Hullah
knew he could greatly benefit his fellow-countrymen. With remarkable
courage and tenacity he pursued this object, triumphing wonderfully
over both apathy and obloquy. His name will probably not be permanently
associated with the great work of giving to all British school children
a rudimentary musical education on a thoroughly scientific basis; but
the principle was fearlessly maintained by him when it had scarcely
any other supporter, and all our future efforts must rest on the sound
foundation which he laid.
In conclusion, we may add that it is matter of congratulation that the
teaching of music in elementary schools is no longer left merely to
private enterprise, but now forms a branch of the work done under the
auspices of the Education Department. Government encourages musical
tuition by a grant of money even to infant schools, ‘if the scholars
are satisfactorily taught to sing by note’—that is, ‘by the standard,
or any other recognised, notation.’ In this way the culture and the
love of music will be sure to enter more than ever into the everyday
life of our homes and communities.
THE HERRING-FISHERY AND FISHERMEN.
IN TWO PARTS.—PART II.
Until recent years, many curious customs and superstitions prevailed
among the fisher-people, and in a year of scarcity it was nothing
uncommon to see in the streets of Fraserburgh, Peterhead, or any of
the Moray Firth ports, a considerable procession, headed by several
representative men, some on horseback, and others on foot, bearing
flags and symbols of the trade. The leaders were always comically
and fantastically attired; and while some had a number of herrings
suspended by the tail from their hat-brims, others had their clothes
stuck full of burrs; and all this demonstration was deemed to have
sufficient virtue in it to cause the herrings to rise and go into
the nets! Up to the time that such exhibitions were common, no class
was more superstitious than fishermen, and many practical jokes were
perpetrated at their expense. The seafaring classes had a pious horror
of hares and swine, and contact with them was held as portending some
serious disaster or evil; and if any jocular cooper or fishcurer,
anxious at a dull time in the fishing-season to relieve the monotony
of their daily life, surreptitiously placed a leg of either of those
animals on board a boat, its discovery led to the greatest commotion
among the crew, who would not on any account go to sea that night, lest
some dreadful accident should befall the craft.
After a period of scarcity, the unexpected arrival of a successful
craft in the early forenoon with the report that the fleet had at
length met a large shoal of fish and secured heavy takes, spreads like
wildfire through the town; and the excitement manifested by all,
from the largest fishcurer to the smallest fisher-boy, is intense.
The piers are soon crowded with visitors, interested spectators, and
those directly engaged in the trade; and the effect produced by the
loud-toned dialect spoken by the local fisherwomen mingling with the
distinctive pronunciation of the natives of Fife, Berwickshire, Banff,
and Moray, in addition to the highly pitched Gaelic of the Highland
girls, is unusually strange. As the boats round the breakwater, they
are eagerly scanned by many anxious faces; and on reaching the pier,
the crews of those craft that have been fortunate in securing unusually
heavy takes receive, in a homely way, the congratulations of their
relatives, and form the centre of attraction to all those loungers
about the harbour who have nothing particular to do.