AT SHIPLEY, YORKSHIRE
"Sweet childish days that were as long
As twenty days are now."
* * * * *
"A child to whom was given
So much of earth, so much of heaven."
Before I was three years old my father removed to Yorkshire, to
Shipley, in the West Riding. I never can write or speak those two last
words, "West Riding," without a sensible rise of temperature, and an
intense longing to be in England. For the West Riding is the heart of
England, and, whatever is distinctively English, is also distinctively
West Riding. Its men and women are so full of life, so spontaneously
cheerful, so sure of themselves, so upright and downright in speech
and action, that no one can for a moment misunderstand either their
liking or disliking. Their opinions hold no element of change or
dissent. They are as hearty and sincere in their religion, as their
business, and if they form a friendship with a family, it will likely
be one to the third and fourth generation. I correspond today with
people whom I never saw, but whose friendship for my family dates back
to a mutual rejoicing over the victory of Waterloo.
Of course I was not able to make any such observations on West Riding
humanity when I first went there, but I _felt_ the goodness of the
people then, and in later years I both observed and experienced it.
And it was well for me in my early childhood to live a while among
such a strong, happy people. They impressed upon my plastic mind their
confidant cheerfulness, and their sureness that life was a very good
thing.
Shipley was then a pretty country town, though it is now a great
manufacturing city, not far behind Bradford and Leeds. I was three
years there and during those years gradually dropped all remains of
infancy, and became a child, a child eager for work and for play, and
half-afraid the world might not last until I found out all about it.
At first I went to a dame's school. She did not take children over
five years of age, and to these babies she taught only reading and
needlework and knitting. We sat on very low benches in a room opening
into a garden, and we spent a good deal of time in the garden. But she
taught me to hem, and to seam, to fell and to gather, to stroke and to
backstitch, and when I left her I could read any of the penny chap
books I could buy. Most of them contained an abbreviated adventure
from the "Arabian Nights" collection.
Soon after we removed to Shipley a woman came into our lives, called
Ann Oddy, and my sister and I were told to be respectful to her and to
obey her orders. She was a clever housekeeper, a superior cook, and
had many domestic virtues; but she was authoritative, tyrannical, and
quite determined to have things her own way. Fortunately I won her
favor early, and for two simple reasons: first, my hair was easy to
curl, and Sister Jane's had to be carefully put in papers, and then
did not "keep in." Second, because she thought Jane was always ready
to go "neighboring" with Mother, and then was so secret as to where
she had been, and so "know nothing" of what was said; but I was better
pleased to stay in the children's room with a book and herself for
company.
Indeed I liked Ann's society. She had a grewsome assortment of
stories, chiefly about bad fellows and their young women, but
sometimes concerning bad children who had come to grief for disobeying
their good parents, or for breaking the Sabbath Day. There was
generally, however, an enthralling climax, relating to a handsome
young man, whom she _saw_ hanged at York Castle for murdering his
sweetheart. At this narration I usually laid down my book, and
listened with trembling interest to the awful fate of this faithless
lover, and Ann's warnings against men of all kinds who wanted helpless
women to marry them. In those days I felt sure Ann Oddy had the true
wisdom, and was quite resolved to look upon all handsome young men as
probable murderers.
The three years I spent at Shipley were happy years. I enjoyed every
hour of them, though the days were twenty times as long as days are
now. There was a great deal of visiting, and visiting meant privileges
of all kinds. We were frequently asked out to tea with our parents,
especially if there were children in the house to which we were going,
and there were children's parties nearly every week at somebody's
house.
It was a good thing, then, that our usual fare was very plain, and not
even the quantity left to our own desire or discretion. Breakfast was
always a bowl of bread and milk boiled, and a rather thick slice of
bread and butter after it. Fresh meat was sparingly given us at
dinner, but we had plenty of broth, vegetables, and Yorkshire pudding.
Our evening meal was bread and milk, rice or tapioca pudding, and a
thick slice of sweet loaf--that is, bread made with currants, and
caraway seeds, and a little sugar. But when we went out for dinner or
tea, we had our share of the good things going; and, if the company
was at our house, Ann Oddy usually put a couple of Christ Church
tarts, or cheesecakes, among our plain bread. She always pretended to
wonder where they came from; and, if I said pleadingly, "Don't take
them away, Ann," she would answer in a kind of musing manner, "I'll be
bound the Missis put them there. Some people will meddle." Then Jane
would help herself, and I did the same, and we both knew that Ann had
put the tarts there, and that she intended us to eat them. Yet this
same little pretense of surprise was kept up for many years, and I
grew to enjoy the making of it more perfect, and the changing of the
words a little.
The house at which I liked best of all to visit was that of Jonathan
Greenwood. He had a pretty place--with a fine strawberry bed--at
Baildon Green. He was then a handsome bachelor of about forty years of
age, and I considered him quite an old man. I knew also that he was
Miss Crabtree's sweetheart, and Ann's look of disapproval, and the
suspicious shake of her head made me anxious about both of them. What
if Miss Crabtree should have another sweetheart! And what if Jonathan
killed her because she had deceived him! Then there might be the York
tragedy over again. These thoughts troubled me so much that I
ventured to suggest their probability to Ann. She laughed my fears to
scorn.
"Martha Crabtree have another sweetheart! Nay, never my little lass!
It will be the priest, not the hangman, that will tie Jonathan up."
"Tie Jonathan up, Ann!" I ejaculated.
"To be sure," she answered. "Stop talking."
"But, Ann----"
"Do as I bid you."
Then I resolved to ask Jonathan that afternoon. It was Thursday, and
he would be sure to call for a cup of tea as he came from Leeds
market. I did not do so, because he asked permission for me to go to
Baildon Green with him, and stay until after the fair, and during the
visit I knew I should find many better opportunities for the question.
To go to Baildon Green, was the best holiday that came to me, unless
it was to go to Mr. Samuel Wilson's, at the village of Baildon. He had
a much finer house, and a large shop in which there were raisins and
Jordan almonds, and he had also a handsome little son of my own age,
with whom I loved to play. But one visit generally included the other,
and both were very agreeable to all my desires.
At Baildon Green I had many pleasures. I liked to be petted and
praised and to hear the women say, "What a pretty child it is! God
bless it!" and I liked to hang around them, and listen to their
conversation as they made nice little dinners. I liked in the evening
to look at the _Penny Magazine_, and to have Mr. Greenwood explain the
pictures to me, and I certainly liked to go with him in his gig to
Leeds on Leeds market day. Sometimes he took me with him into the
Cloth Hall; sometimes also men would say, "Why, Jonathan, whose little
lass is that?" And he would answer, "It is Mr. Huddleston's little
lass." "_Never!_" would be the ejaculation, but I knew the word was
not intended for dissent, but somehow for approval.
When I was at Baildon Green Saturday was the great day. Very early in
the morning the weavers began to arrive with the web of cloth they had
woven during the week. In those days there were no mills--all the
cloth was made in the weavers' homes. Baildon Green was a weaving
village. In every cottage there was a loom and a big spinning wheel.
The men worked at the loom, the women and children at the wheel. At
daybreak I could hear the shuttles flying, and the rattle of the
unwieldy looms in every house. On Saturday they brought their webs to
Jonathan Greenwood. He examined each web carefully, measured its
length, and paid the weaver whatever was its value. Then, giving him
the woolen yarn necessary for next week's web, he was ready to call
another weaver. There were perhaps twenty to thirty men present, and,
during these examinations many little disputes arose. I enjoyed them.
The men called the master "Jonathan," and talked to him in language as
plain, or plainer, than he gave them. Sometimes, after a deal of
threaping, the master would lose his temper, then I noticed he always
got the best of the argument. In the room where this business took
place there was a big pair of scales, and I usually sat in them,
swinging gently to and fro, and listening.
These weavers were all big men, the master bigger than any of them;
and they all wore blue-checked linen pinafores covering them from neck
to feet. Underneath this pinafore the master wore fine broadcloth and
high shoes with silver latchets. I do not know what kind of cloth the
men wore, but it was very probably corduroy, as that was then the
usual material for workingmen's clothes, and on their feet were heavy
clogs clasped with brass, a footgear capable of giving a very ugly and
even dangerous kick.
I have never seen a prouder or more independent class of men than
these home weavers; and just at this time they had been made
anxious and irritable by the constant reports of coming mills and
weaving by machinery. But their religion kept them hopeful and
confident, for they were all Methodists, made for Methodists, and
Methodism made for them. And it was a great sight on a Sabbath
morning to see them gathering in their chapel, full of that
incompatible spiritual joy which no one understands but those who
have it, and which I at that time, took for simple good temper. But I
know now that if I was a preacher of the Word, I would not ask to be
sent to an analyzing, argumentative, cold Scotch kirk; nor to a
complacent, satisfied English church; nor even to a meditative,
tranquil Quaker meeting-house; I would say, "Send me to an inspiring,
joyful, West Riding Methodist chapel."
This visit to Baildon Green was the last of my Shipley experiences.
During it Mr. Greenwood told me that he would have "a handsome wife"
when I came again, and that she would take me about a bit. I was not
much pleased at the prospect. Men were always kinder to me than women,
and not so fussy about my hair being in curl, and my frock clean. So I
did not speak, and he asked, "Are you not pleased, Milly?"
"No," I answered bluntly.
"But why?" he continued.
"Because I like you--all to myself." Then he laughed and was much
pleased, and I learned that day that you may wisely speak the truth,
if it is complimentary.
The event of this visit was Baildon Feast, a great public rejoicing on
the anniversary of the summer solstice. It had been observed beyond
the memory of man, beyond historical notice, beyond even the
traditions of the locality. There was no particular reason for its
observance that I could ever learn; it was just Baildon Feast, and
that was all anybody knew about it.
I was awakened very early on the first day of the feast by the bands
"playing the sun up," and before we had finished breakfast the
procession was forming. Now Baildon Green is flat and grassy as a
meadow, and when I was six years old it had a pond in the center,
while from the northwest there rose high hills. Only a narrow winding
path led to the top of these hills, and about half way up, there was a
cave which tradition averred had been one of Robin Hood's retreats--a
very probable circumstance, as this whole country-side was doubtless
pretty well covered with oak forests.
A numerous deputation from the village of Baildon, situated on the top
of the hill, joined the procession which started from Baildon Green at
an early hour. The sun was shining brightly, and I had on a clean
white frock, pretty white sandals, a new blue sash, and a gypsy hat
trimmed with blue ribbons. When the music approached it put a spirit
into my feet and my heart kept time to the exciting melody. I had
never walked to music before, and it was an enchanting experience.
The procession appeared to my childish apprehension a very great one.
I think now it may have consisted of five hundred people, perhaps
less, but the great point of interest was two fine young heifers
garlanded with flowers, and ornamented with streaming ribbons of every
color. Up the winding path they went, the cattle lowing, the bands
playing, the people singing and shouting up to the high places on
which the village of Baildon stood. There at a particular spot,
hallowed by tradition, the cattle garlanded for sacrifice were slain.
I do not know whether any particular method or forms were used. I was
not permitted to see the ceremony attending their death, and I confess
I was much disappointed.
"It isn't fit for a little lass to see," said my friend Jonathan, "and
I promised thy father and mother I wouldn't let thee see it, so there
now! Nay, nay, I wouldn't whimper about such a thing as that. Never!"
I said I wasn't whimpering, and that I didn't care at all about seeing
the animals killed, but I did care, and Baildon Fair without its
tragedy no longer interested me, yet I stayed to see the flesh
distributed among all who asked for it. There was an understanding,
however, that those who received a festival roast should entertain any
stranger claiming their hospitality. This ancient rite over, the
people gave themselves up to sports of all kinds.
But their Methodism kept them within the bounds of decency, for there
were favorite preachers invited from all the towns around, and if the
men and boys were busy in the cricket fields all day, they were sure
to be in the chapel at night. There was also a chapel tea party the
last afternoon of the feast, and after it a great missionary meeting
at which Bishop Heber's hymn, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," was
sung with such mighty fervor as made me thrill and tremble with an
emotion I can yet recall. That night I solemnly determined to be a
missionary. I would go to the darkest of all heathen lands, and be the
first to tell the story of Jesus. I went home in a state of beatific
surrender, and whenever I think of that night, I am aware of a
Presence, and the face I wore when I was a little child turns to me.
And I am troubled and silent before that little ghost with its eager
eyes and loving enthusiasms, for I have done none of the things I
promised to do, and an intangible clutch of memory gives me a spell of
sadness keen and regretful.
This Baildon experience was one of those instances of learning in
childhood things of no immediate use. I was hardly six years old then;
I was seventy-six when it struck me, that I had perhaps taken part in
a non-intentional sacrifice to the God Baal. For four years ago I was
much interested in discovering that the Shetlanders, even to the close
of the nineteenth century, kept the same feast at the summer solstice,
and also made their children in some of the lonely islands pass
through the Beltane fires, in fact paying the old God Bel or Baal the
same services as the Hebrew prophets so often reproached the
Israelites with performing. But I believe that wherever Druidical
remains are found, relics of this worship may be traced either in
names, superstitions, signs or traditions. In a letter I received from
a Bradford lady dated September twenty-seventh, A.D. 1911, she says,
"It was rather strange but we had a man at our house from Thornton the
other day, and he was telling us how they paraded the cattle they were
going to kill at the feast through the streets, and I thought of you,
and what you remembered of it in Baildon."
These details may seem to the reader trivial and futile; on the
contrary, they were the very material from which life was building
character. For all that surrounds a child, all that it sees, hears,
feels or touches, helps to create its moral and intellectual nature.
See then how fortunate were my first six years. My physical being was
well cared for by loving parents in a sweet orderly home, and my
mental life well fed by books stimulating the imagination. Through the
"Arabian Nights" tales I touched the domestic life of the wonderful
East, China, India, Persia and Arabia; and at the missionary meetings,
and at my home, I met men who had been to these far away places, and
brought back with them curious and beautiful things, even the very
gods they worshipped. There had been hitherto in other respects a
good deal of judicious neglect in my education. Books had never been
anything but a source of wonder and delight to me. I had never heard
of a grammar and an arithmetic, and had never been deprived of a visit
or a holiday because if I did not go to school, I would miss a mark,
or lose my place in a class.
Fortunately this desultory education was marbled all through with keen
spiritual incidents and issues. For the spiritual sight of children
turns more sharply upon the world within the breast, than they show,
or that anyone imagines. They hold in their memories imperishable days
which all others have forgotten, visions beautiful and fearful, dreams
without name or meaning, and they have an undefined impression of the
awful _oldness_ of things. They see the world through doors very
little ajar, and they know the walking of God through their dreaming
sleep.
The happy and prosperous children are those, who had before all else
the education that comes by reverence. This education is beyond all
doubt the highest, the deepest, the widest and the most perfect of all
the forms of education ever given to man. A child that has not been
taught to reverence God, and all that represents God to man--honor,
honesty, justice, mercy, truth, love, courage, self-sacrifice, is sent
into the world like a boat sent out to sea, without rudder, ballast,
compass or captain.
But the education by reverence must begin early. Children of very
tender years may be taught to wander through those early ages of
faith, when God took Enoch, and no one was astonished; when Abraham
talked with God as friend with friend; when the marvelous ladder was
let down by Jacob's pillow; when Hagar carrying her dying child in the
desert saw without surprise the angel of the Lord coming to help her.
Nor is there any danger in permitting them to enter that dimmer world
lying about childhood, to which _Robinson Crusoe_ and _Scheherazade_
hold the keys. The multiplication table can wait, until the child has
been taught to reverence all that is holy, wise and good, and the
imagination received its first impulse. So I do not call such events
as I have chronicled trifling; indeed, I know that in the formation
of my character, they had a wide and lasting influence.
A few days after the fair, Jonathan Greenwood was going to Bradford so
he left me at my home as he passed there, and as soon as I came in
sight of our house, I saw my sister running to the gate to meet me.
"I have a little brother!" she cried. "I have a little brother,
Amelia."
"Mine, too," I asserted; and she answered, "Yes, I dare say."
"Is he nice?" I asked.
"Middling nice. You should see how everyone goes on about him."
"My word!" cried Jonathan, "you girls will be nobodies now. But, I
shall stick by you, Milly."
"Yes," I answered dubiously, for I had learned already that little
girls were of much less importance than little boys. So I shook my
head, and gave Jonathan's promise a doubtful "yes."
"Tell Ann Oddy," he said, "that I will be in for a cup of tea at five
o'clock." Then he drove away, and Jane and I walked slowly up the
garden path together.
"Father called him John Henry, first thing," said Jane, "and Mother is
proud of him, as never was."
"I want to see him," I answered. "Let us go to the children's room."
"He is in Mother's room, and Mother is sick in bed, and Ann is so busy
with the boy, she forgot my breakfast, so I had breakfast with
Father."
"Breakfast with Father! Never!"
"Yes, indeed, and dinner, too, for three days now. Perhaps as you have
come home, Ann will remember that girls need something for breakfast.
Father wasn't pleased at her forgetting me."
"What did she say?"
She said, "Mr. Huddleston, I cannot remember everything, and the
Mistress and the little lad _do_ come first, I should say."
"Was Father angry?" I asked.
"He said something about Mrs. Peacock."
"What is Mrs. Peacock doing here?"
"She is hired to help, but I think she never leaves her chair. Ann
sniffed, and told Father, Mrs. Peacock had all she could do to take
care of Mrs. Peacock. Then Father walked away, and Ann talked to
herself, as she always does, when she is angry."
This conversation and much that followed I remember well, not all of
it, perhaps, but its spirit and the very words used. It occurred in
the garden which was in gorgeous August bloom, full of splendid
dahlias and holly-hocks, and August lilies. I have never seen such
holly-hocks since. We called them rose-mallows then which is I think a
prettier name. The house door stood open, and the rooms were all so
still and empty. There was a bee buzzing outside, and the girl Agnes
singing a Methodist hymn in the kitchen, but the sounds seemed far
away, and our little shoes sounded very noisy on the stairway.
I soon had my head on my mother's breast, and felt her kisses on my
cheek. She asked me if I had a happy visit, but she did not take as
much interest in my relations as I expected; she was so anxious to
show me the new baby, and to tell me it was a boy, and called after
his father's brother. I was jealous and unhappy, but Mother looked so
proud and pleased I did not like to say anything disagreeable, so I
kissed Mother and the boy again, and then went to the children's room
and had a good cry in Ann Oddy's arms.
"Ann," I said, "girls are of no account;" and she answered, "No,
honey, and women don't signify much either. It is a pity for us both.
I have been fit to drop with work ever since you went away, Amelia,
and who cares? If any man had done what I have done, there would be
two men holding him up by this time."
"Ann, why do men get so much more praise than women, and why are they
so much more thought of?"
"God only knows child," she answered. "Men have made out, that only
they can run the world. It's in about as bad a state as it well can
be, but they are proud of their work. What I say is, that a race of
good women would have done something with the old concern by this
time. Men are a poor lot. I should think thou would want something to
eat."
I told her I was "as hungry as could be," but that Jonathan was coming
to tea at five o'clock.
"Then he'll make it for himsel'," she said. "Mr. Huddleston has gone
to Windhill to some sort of meeting. Mrs. Huddleston can't get out of
bed. I have the baby on my hands, and Mrs. Peacock makes her own tea
at five o'clock--precisely."
"Then Ann let me make Jonathan's tea. I am sure I can do it, Ann. Will
you let me?"
"I'll warrant thee." Then she told me exactly what to do, and when
Jonathan Greenwood came, he found a good pot of tea and hot muffins
ready, and he had given Agnes some Bradford sausage, with their fine
flavoring of herbs, to fry, and Agnes remembered a couple of Kendal
wigs[1] that were in the house and she brought them in for a finishing
dish. I sat in my mother's chair, and poured out tea; but I sent for
Jane when all was ready, and she gave me a look, still unforgotten,
though she made no remark to disturb a meal so much to her liking.
Later, however, when we were undressing for bed, and had said our
prayers, she reminded me that she was the eldest, and that I had taken
her place in making tea for Mr. Greenwood. Many a time I had been
forced to receive this reproof silently, but now I was able to say:
"You are not the oldest any longer, Jane. John is the oldest now.
Girls don't count."
In my childhood this eldest business was a sore subject, and indeed to
this day the younger children in English families express themselves
very decidedly about the usurpation of primogenital privileges, and
the undue consideration given to boys.
A few weeks after the advent of my brother, John Henry, we removed to
Penrith in Cumberland, and the night before leaving, a circumstance
happened which made a great impression on me. There was a circle of
shrubs in the garden, and a chair among them on which I frequently
sat to read. This night I went to meet Mother at the garden gate, and
as we came up the flagged walk, I saw a man sitting on the chair. "Let
us go quickly to the house," said Mother; but a faint cry of "_Mary!_"
made her hesitate, and when the cry was repeated, and the man rose to
his feet, my mother walked rapidly towards him crying out, "O Will!
Will! O my brother! Have you come home at last?"
"I have come home to die, Mary," he said.
"Lean on me, Will," she replied. "Come into the house. We leave for
Penrith to-morrow, and you can travel with us. Then we shall see you
safely home."
"What will your husband say?" the man asked.
"Only kind words to a dying man. Are you really so ill, Will?" And the
man answered, "I may live three months. I may go much sooner. It
depends----"
Then my mother said, "This is your uncle, Dr. Singleton, Milly;" and I
was very sorry for a man so near death, and I went and took his hand,
but he did not seem to care about me. He only glanced in my face, and
then remarked to Mother, "She seems a nice child." I felt slighted,
but I could not be angry at a man so sick.
When I went upstairs I told Ann that my uncle had come, and that he
said he was going home to Kendal to die. "He will travel with us
to-morrow as far as Kendal; Mother asked him to do so," I added.
"I dare say. It was just like her."
"Don't you like my uncle, Ann? I thought he was a very fine
gentleman."
"Maybe he is. Be off to your bed now. You must be up by strike-of-day
to-morrow;" and there was something in Ann's look and voice, I did not
care to disobey.
Indeed Ann had every one up long before it was necessary. We had
breakfast an hour before the proper time; but after all, it was well,
for the house and garden was soon full of people come to bid us
"good-bye." Some had brought lunches, and some flowers and fruits, and
there was a wonderful hour of excitement, before the coach came
driving furiously up to the gate. It had four fine horses, and the
driver and the guard were in splendid livery, and the sound of the
horn, and the clatter of the horses' feet, and the cries of the crowd
stirred my heart and my imagination, and I believe I was the happiest
girl in the world that hour. I enjoyed also the drive through the
town, and the sight of the people waving their handkerchiefs to Father
and Mother from open doors and windows. I do not think I have ever
since had such a sense of elation and importance; for Father and I had
relinquished our seats inside the coach to Uncle Will Singleton, and I
was seated between the driver and Father, seeing well and also being
well seen.
Never since that morning have I been more keenly alive in every sense
and more ready for every event that might come; the first of which was
the meeting and passing of three great wains loaded high with wheat,
and going to a squire's manor, whose name I have forgotten. There were
some very piquant words passed between the drivers about the coach
going a bit to the wrong side. On the top of the three wagons about a
dozen men were lying at their ease singing the prettiest harvest song
I ever heard, but I only caught three lines of it. They went to a
joyful melody thus:
"Blest be the day Christ was born!
We've gotten in the Squire's corn,
Well bound, and better shorn.
Hip! Hip! Hurrah!"
But as they sang the dispute between the drivers was growing less and
less friendly, and the driver of the coach whipped up his horses, and
took all the road he wanted, and went onward at such a rattling pace
as soon left Shipley forever behind me.