simple matter for the court. The main thing was to sentence him. By an
unhappy chance the judge was in one of his occasional bad moods; he had
been entertained too well by one of the local magnates on the previous
evening and had sat late, drinking too much wine, with the result that
he had a bad liver, with a mind to match it. He was only too ready to
seize the first opportunity that offered--and poor Johnnie's case was
the first that morning--of exercising the awful power a barbarous law
had put into his hands. When the prisoner's defender declared that this
was a case which called loudly for mercy, the judge interrupted him to
say that he was taking too much upon himself, that he was, in fact,
instructing the judge in his duties, which was a piece of presumption on
his part. The other was quick to make a humble apology and to bring his
perfunctory address to a conclusion. The judge, in addressing the
prisoner, said he had been unable to discover any extenuating
circumstances in the case. The fact that he had a wife and family
dependent on him only added to his turpitude, since it proved that no
consideration could serve to deter him from a criminal act. Furthermore,
in dealing with this case, he must take into account the prevalence of
this particular form of crime; he would venture to say that it had been
encouraged by an extreme leniency in many cases on the part of those
whose sacred duty it was to administer the law of the land. A sterner
and healthier spirit was called for at the present juncture. The time
had come to make an example, and a more suitable case than the one now
before him could not have been found for such a purpose. He would
accordingly hold out no hope of a reprieve, but would counsel prisoner
to make the best use of the short time remaining to him.
Johnnie standing in the dock appeared to the spectators to be in a
half-dazed condition--as dull and spiritless a clodhopper as they had
ever beheld. The judge and barristers, in their wigs and robes and
gowns, were unlike any human beings he had ever looked on. He might have
been transported to some other world, so strange did the whole scene
appear to him. He only knew, or surmised, that all these important
people were occupied in doing him to death, but the process, the meaning
of their fine phrases, he could not follow. He looked at them, his
glazed eyes travelling from face to face, to be fixed finally on the
judge, in a vacant stare; but he scarcely saw them, he was all the time
gazing on, and his mind occupied with, other forms and scenes invisible
to the court. His village, his Marty, his dear little playmate of long
ago, the sweet girl he had won, the wife and mother of his children,
with her white, terrified face, clinging to him and crying in anguish:
"Oh, Johnnie, what will they do to 'ee?" And all the time, with it all,
he saw the vast green slope of the down, with the Salisbury road lying
like a narrow white band across it, and close to it, near the summit,
the solitary old tree.
During the delivery of the sentence, and when he was led from the dock
and conveyed back to the prison, that image or vision was still present.
He sat staring at the wall of his cell as he had stared at the judge,
the fatal tree still before him. Never before had he seen it in that
vivid way in which it appeared to him now, standing alone on the vast
green down, under the wide sky, its four separate boles leaning a little
way from each other, like the middle ribs of an open fan, holding up the
widespread branches, the thin, open foliage, the green leaves stained
with rusty brown and purple; and the ivy, rising like a slender black
serpent of immense length, springing from the roots, winding upwards,
and in and out, among the grey branches, binding them together, and
resting its round, dark cluster of massed leaves on the topmost boughs.
That green disc was the ivy-serpent's flat head and was the head of the
whole tree, and there it had its eyes, which gazed for ever over the
wide downs, watching all living things, cattle and sheep and birds and
men in their comings and goings; and although fast-rooted in the earth,
following them, too, in all their ways, even as it had followed him, to
break him at last.
POSTSCRIPT
I
DEAD MAN'S PLACK
One of my literary friends, who has looked at the Dead Man's Plack in
manuscript, has said by way of criticism that Elfrida's character is
veiled. I am not to blame for that; for have I not already said, by
implication at all events, in the Preamble, that my knowledge of her
comes from outside. Something, or, more likely, _Somebody_, gave me her
history, and it has occurred to me that this same Somebody was no such
obscurity as, let us say, the Monk John of Glastonbury, who told the
excavators just where to look for the buried chapel of Edgar, king and
_saint_. I suspect that my informant was some one who knew more about
Elfrida than any mere looker-on, monk or nun, and gossip-gatherer of her
own distant day; and this suspicion or surmise was suggested by the
following incident:
After haunting Dead Man's Plack, where I had my vision, I rambled in and
about Wherwell on account of its association, and in one of the cottages
in the village I became acquainted with an elderly widow, a woman in
feeble health, but singularly attractive in her person and manner.
Indeed, before making her acquaintance I had been informed by some of
her relations and others in the place that she was not only the best
person to seek information from, but was also the sweetest person in the
village. She was a native born; her family had lived there for
generations, and she was of that best South Hampshire type with an oval
face, olive-brown skin, black eyes and hair, and that soft melancholy
expression in the eyes common in Spanish women and not uncommon in the
dark-skinned Hampshire women. She had been taught at the village school,
and having attracted the attention and interest of the great lady of the
place on account of her intelligence and pleasing manners, she was taken
when quite young as lady's-maid, and in this employment continued for
many years until her marriage to a villager.
One day, conversing with her, I said I had heard that the village was
haunted by the ghost of a woman: was that true?
Yes, it was true, she returned.
Did she _know_ that it was true? Had she actually seen the ghost?
Yes, she had seen it once. One day, when she was lady's-maid, she was in
her bedroom, dressing or doing something, with another maid. The door
was closed, and they were in a merry mood, talking and laughing, when
suddenly they both at the same moment saw a woman with a still, white
face walking through the room. She was in the middle of the room when
they caught sight of her, and they both screamed and covered their faces
with their hands. So great was her terror that she almost fainted; then
in a few moments when they looked the apparition had vanished. As to the
habit she was wearing, neither of them could say afterwards what it was
like: only the white, still face remained fixed in their memory, but the
figure was a dark one, like a dark shadow moving rapidly through the
room.
If Elfrida then, albeit still in purgatory, is able to re-visit this
scene of her early life and the site of that tragedy in the forest, it
does not seem to me altogether improbable that she herself made the
revelation I have written. And if this be so, it would account for the
_veiled_ character conveyed in the narrative. For even after ten
centuries it may well be that all the coverings have not yet been
removed, that although she has been dropping them one by one for ages,
she has not yet come to the end of them. Until the very last covering,
or veil, or mist is removed, it would be impossible for her to be
absolutely sincere, to reveal her inmost soul with all that is most
dreadful in it. But when that time comes, from the very moment of its
coming she would cease automatically to be an exiled and tormented
spirit.
If, then, Elfrida is herself responsible for the narrative, it is only
natural that she does not appear in it quite as black as she has been
painted. For the monkish chronicler was, we know, the Father of Lies,
and so indeed in a measure are all historians and biographers, since
they cannot see into hearts and motives or know all the circumstances of
the case. And in this case they were painting the picture of their hated
enemy and no doubt were not sparing in the use of the black pigment.
To know all is to forgive all, is a good saying, and enables us to see
why even the worst among us can always find it possible to forgive
himself.
II
AN OLD THORN
I was pleased at this opportunity of rescuing this story from a far-back
number of the _English Review_, in which it first appeared, and putting
it in a book. It may be a shock to the reader to be brought down from a
story of a great king and queen of England in the tenth century to the
obscure annals of a yokel and his wife who lived in a Wiltshire village
only a century ago; or even less, since my poor yokel was hanged for
sheep-stealing in 1821. But it is, I think, worth preserving, since it
is the only narrative I know of dealing with that rare and curious
subject, the survival of tree-worship in our own country. That, however,
was not the reason of my being pleased.
It was just when I had finished writing the story of Elfrida that I
happened to see in my morning paper a highly eulogistical paragraph
about one of our long-dead and, I imagine, forgotten worthies. The
occasion of the paragraph doesn't matter. The man eulogised was Mr.
Justice Park--Sir James Allan Park, a highly successful barrister, who
was judge from 1816 to his death in 1838. "As judge, though not eminent,
he was sound, fair and sensible, a little irascible, but highly
esteemed." He was also the author of a religious work. And that is all
the particular Liar who wrote his biography in the D.N.B. can tell us
about him.
It was the newspaper paragraph which reminded me that I had written
about this same judge, giving my estimate of his character in my book,
_A Shepherd's Life_, also that I was _thinking_ about Park, the sound
and fair and sensible judge, when I wrote "An Old Thorn." Here then,
with apologies to the reader for quoting from my own book, I reproduce
what I wrote in 1905.
"From these memories of the old villagers I turn to the newspapers of
the day to make a few citations.
"The law as it was did not distinguish between a case of the kind just
related, of the starving, sorely-tempted Shergold, and that of the
systematic thief: sheep-stealing was a capital offence and the man must
be hanged, unless recommended to mercy, and we know what was meant by
'mercy' in those days. That so barbarous a law existed within memory of
people to be found living in most villages appears almost incredible to
us; but despite the recommendations to 'mercy' usual in a large majority
of cases, the law of that time was not more horrible than the temper of
the men who administered it. There are good and bad among all, and in
all professions, but there is also a black spot in most, possibly all
hearts, which may be developed to almost any extent, to change the
justest, wisest, most moral men into 'human devils.' In reading the old
reports and the expressions used by the judges in their summings-up and
sentences, it is impossible not to believe that the awful power they
possessed, and its constant exercise, had not only produced the
inevitable hardening effect, but had made them cruel in the true sense
of the word. Their pleasure in passing dreadful sentences was very
thinly disguised by certain lofty conventional phrases as to the
necessity of upholding the law, morality, and religion; they were,
indeed, as familiar with the name of the Deity as any ranter in a
conventicle, and the 'enormity of the crime' was an expression as
constantly used in the case of the theft of a loaf of bread, or of an
old coat left hanging on a hedge, by some ill-clad, half-starved wretch,
as in cases of burglary, arson, rape, and murder.
"It is surprising to find how very few the real crimes were in those
days, despite the misery of the people; that nearly all the 'crimes' for
which men were sentenced to the gallows and to transportation for life,
or for long terms, were offences which would now be sufficiently
punished by a few weeks', or even a few days', imprisonment. Thus in
April, 1825, I note that Mr. Justice Park commented on the heavy
appearance of the calendar. It was not so much the number (170) of the
offenders that excited his concern as it was the nature of the crimes
with which they were charged. The worst crime in this instance was
sheep-stealing!
"Again, this same Mr. Justice Park, at the Spring Assizes at Salisbury,
1827, said that though the calendar was a heavy one, he was happy to
find, on looking at the depositions of the principal cases, that they
were not of a very serious character. Nevertheless he passed sentence of
death on twenty-eight persons, among them being one for stealing half a
crown!
"Of the twenty-eight all but three were eventually reprieved, one of the
fated three being a youth of 19, who was charged with stealing a mare
and pleaded guilty in spite of a warning from the judge not to do so.
This irritated the great man who had the power of life and death in his
hand. In passing sentence the judge 'expatiated on the prevalence of the
crime of horse-stealing and the necessity of making an example. The
enormity of Read's crime rendered him a proper example, and he would
therefore hold out no hope of mercy towards him.' As to the plea of
guilty, he remarked that nowadays too many persons pleaded guilty,
deluded with the hope that it would be taken into consideration and they
would escape the severer penalty. He was determined to put a stop to
that sort of thing; if Read had not pleaded guilty no doubt some
extenuating circumstance would have come up during the trial and he
would have saved his life.
"There, if ever, spoke the 'human devil' in a black cap!
"I find another case of a sentence of transportation for life on a youth
of 18, named Edward Baker, for stealing a pocket-handkerchief. Had he
pleaded guilty it might have been worse for him.
"At the Salisbury Spring Assizes, 1830, Mr. Justice Gazalee, addressing
the grand jury, said that none of the crimes appeared to be marked with
circumstances of great moral turpitude. The prisoners numbered 130; he
passed sentences of death on twenty-nine, life transportations on five,
fourteen years on five, seven years on eleven, and various terms of hard
labour on the others." (_A Shepherd's Life_, pp. 241-4.)
Johnnie Budd was done to death before my principal informants, one 89
years old, the other 93, were born; but in their early years they knew
the widow and her three children, and had known them and their children
all their lives; thus the whole story of Johnnie and Marty was familiar
to them. Now, when I thought of Johnnie's case and how he was treated at
the trial, as it was told me by these old people, it struck me as so
like that of the poor young man Read, who was hanged because he pleaded
guilty, that I at once came to the belief that it was Mr. Justice Park
who had tried him. I have accordingly searched the newspapers of that
day, but have failed to find Johnnie's case. I can only suppose that
this particular case was probably considered too unimportant to be
reported at large in the newspapers of 1821. He was just one of a number
convicted and sentenced to capital punishment.
When Johnnie was hanged his poor wife travelled to Salisbury and
succeeded in getting permission to take the body back to the village for
burial. How she in her poverty, with her three little children to keep,
managed it I don't know. Probably some of the other poor villagers who
pitied and perhaps loved her helped her to do it. She did even more: she
had a grave-stone set above him with his name and the dates of his birth
and death cut on it. And there it is now, within a dozen yards of the
church door in the small old churchyard--the smallest village churchyard
known to me; and Johnnie's and Marty's children's children are still
living in the village.
FINIS
* * * * *
THE WORKS OF W. H. HUDSON
BIRDS OF LA PLATA
With 22 Coloured Plates by H. Gronvold, specially drawn under
the Author's supervision.
This book contains articles on some 200 birds of La Plata actually known
to the Author, arranged under species, and characterised by that
intimate personal touch which constitutes the chief charm of his
writing. Originally published in 1888 under the title _Argentine
Ornithology_, in collaboration with Philip Lutley Sclater, it has now
been thoroughly revised by Mr. Hudson, who has deleted all except his
own work, and has written a new Introduction of considerable length.
The coloured plates of this new book have been done by Mr. H. Gronvold,
under the most careful supervision of the Author, whose intimate
knowledge of the birds in their life and true environment has helped the
artist to give a vivid and faithful presentment of the different
species.
The illustrations constitute an integral part of the book itself, and
are not mere decorative additions. This book now forms a companion
volume to another work of Mr. Hudson's, _The Naturalist in La Plata_.
A COMPANION VOLUME
THE NATURALIST IN LA PLATA
_The Naturalist in La Plata_ can now be obtained in a new and cheaper
edition than the original, which was first published in 1892. The
letterpress and the drawings in the text by J. Smit have been left as
they were; the only change is in the form of the book and in the
substitution of new plates for the old ones. This book forms a companion
volume to _Birds of La Plata_.
FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO
An Autobiographical Sketch of the Writer's Boyhood
"To read his book is to read another chapter in that enormous book which
is written from time to time by Rousseau and George Sand and Aksakoff
among other people--a book which we can never read enough of; and
therefore we must beg Mr. Hudson not to stop here, but to carry the
story on to the farthest possible limits."--_Times Literary Supplement._
"A low-pitched narrative, but once listened to it is as enthralling as
Mr. Hudson found the voice of the golden plover."--_Athenæum._
"He who does not know the work of W. H. Hudson is missing one of the
finest pleasures of contemporary literature."--_Daily News._
"Regarding the author hitherto primarily as a naturalist we rediscover
him as an acute psychologist.... For many readers the chief interest of
the book will lie in the charming reflective presentment of the thoughts
of a boy's mind."--_Bookman._
BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
With 8 Coloured Plates after E. J. Detmold
Head and Tail Pieces by Herbert Cole
"Mr. Hudson loves all birds; they are his work, his recreation, his
life; he writes about them as no one else can: he sees what others
miss."--_Manchester Guardian._
"This book is full of his unsurpassed perception and unique
charm.... Some of his best passages about birds are equally delightful
and vivid sketches of human life."--_Times Literary Supplement._
"Mr. Hudson is more than a naturalist. He is a man of genius who
transmutes lead into gold--the lead of knowledge into the gold of
feeling.... As you hear the music of his prose ... you recapture
the delicious tenderness of childhood with its wistful wonder and
vision.... Mr. Hudson is a nightingale naturalist with a voice that
throbs in waves of magical melody."
--James Douglas in _The Star_.