(_Extract from a Lecture on “The People of the English Lake Country,
in their Humorous Aspect.”_)
Still harping upon married life, I wish to draw your attention to one
of the finest passages in Wordsworth’s greatest poem—_The Excursion_,
which abounds in fine passages. In that I refer to, the poet gives a
very charming account of the daily life of a humble couple in Little
Langdale, on whose hospitality he describes himself, or his hero, as
being thrown, when benighted and lost in that narrow vale, where,
as _I_ have found occasionally, the closely encircling belt of high
mountains makes a dark night very black indeed. The poet says—
“Dark on my road the autumnal evening fell,
And night succeeded with unusual gloom,
So that my feet and hands at length became
Guides better than mine eyes—until a light
High in the gloom appeared, too high, methought,
For human habitation.”
Climbing the heights, however, he finds that the light proceeds from
a lantern, held out by a woman to guide her husband homewards from
the distant slate quarry. The poet proceeds to tell of his hospitable
reception, the husband’s arrival, and the unusual beauty of the
good-man’s face, adding—
“From a fount
Lost, thought I, in the obscurities of time,
But honoured once, those features and that mien
May have descended, though I see them here.
In such a man, so gentle and subdued,
Withal so graceful in his gentleness,
A race illustrious for heroic deeds,
Humbled, but not degraded, may expire.”
Thus much for Jonathan Yewdale. His wife, Betty, is made to speak for
herself—but to speak in language very different from that she really
used, as may be seen in a still more remarkable work than that I quote
from—_The Doctor_, namely, by Robert Southey, wherein Betty Yewdale,
in her “oan mak’ o’ toke,” relates “The true story of the terrible
knitters of Dent.” In _The Excursion_, however, she is made to speak
thus—
“‘Three dark mid-winter months
Pass,’ said the Matron, ‘and I never see,
Save when the sabbath brings its kind release,
My helpmate’s face by light of day. He quits
His door in darkness, nor till dusk returns.
And through Heaven’s blessing, thus we gain the bread
For which we pray; and for the wants provide
Of sickness, accident, and helpless age.
Companions have I many; many friends,
Dependants, comforters—my wheel, my fire,
All day the house-clock ticking in mine ear,
The cackling hen, the tender chicken brood,
And the wild birds that gather round my porch.
This honest sheep-dog’s countenance I read;
With him can talk; nor seldom waste a word
On creatures less intelligent and shrewd.
And if the blustering wind that drives the clouds
Care not for me, he lingers round my door,
And makes me pastime when our tempers suit;—
But, above all, my thoughts are my support.’”
This, no doubt is, as I have said, a very charming picture of humble
house life in a lonely home; but the picture is drawn by a poet, and,
in _his_ words—certainly not in those of the worthy dame from whose
lips they are made thus melodiously to flow.
I have conversed with many elderly people who knew this couple
familiarly, and several have told me of the almost seraphic beauty of
the old man’s features, lowered, as it was, by a lack of expression,
denoting a weakness of mind and character, which, in the opinion of
neighbours, perfectly justified Betty in maintaining full domestic
supremacy and undisputed rule.
Of the manner in which she sometimes asserted that supremacy, and
brought her husband back to his allegiance, when, as was rare, he
happened to stray from it, an amusing instance was told to me by a
respectable widow, who for many years occupied the farm of Oxenfell,
a lonely spot, amid the wild craggy uplands on the Lancashire side of
Little Langdale, and nearly opposite to Hackett, where the Yewdales
resided. Were it only to show how differently great poets and ordinary
people regard the same subject, this is worthy of preservation, and I
give it, very nearly, in my informant’s own phraseology.
“Ther’ hed been a funeral fray about t’ Ho’garth, an’ varry nār o’ t’
men fooak about hed geean wi’ ’t till Cūnniston. Nixt fooarneeun, Betty
Yewdale com’ through fray Hackett, an’ says she till me, ‘Hes yower
meeaster gitten back fray t’ funeral?’ ‘Nay,’ says I, ‘he hesn’t!’ ‘An’
irrn’t ye gān ut lait him?’ says Betty. ‘Lait him!’ says I, ‘I wodn’t
lait him if he didn’t cù heeam for a week.’ ‘Why, why!’ says she, ‘yee
ma’ due as ye like, but I mun bring mine heeam, an’ I _will_!’ An’ off
she set i’ t’ rooad till Cūnniston. On i’ t’ efterneeun, she co’ back,
driving Jonathan afooer her wi’ a lang hezle stick—an’ he sartly was
a sairy object. His Sūnda’ cleeas leeūk’t as if he’d been sleepin i’
them on t’ top of a durty fluer. T’ tye of his neckcloth hed wūrk’t
round till belā’ t’ ya lug, an’ t’ lang ends on’t hung ooer ahint his
shoulder. His hat hed gitten bulged in at t’ side, an’ t’ flipe on ’t
was cock’t up beeath back an’ frūnt. O’ togidder, it wod ha’ been a
queerly woman body ’at wod ha’ teean a fancy till Jonathan that day.
“Says I till Betty, ‘What, ye _hev_ fūnd him than?’ ‘Fūnd him!’ says
she, ‘ey, I’ fūnd him! I knā’t whār ut lait him! I fūnd him at t’ Black
Bull, wi’ yower meeaster, an’ a lock meear o’ t’ seeam sooart. They
wor just gān ut git the’r dinner, wi’ a girt pan o’ beef-steeaks set
on t’ middle o’ t’ teeable. I meead t’ frying pan an’ t’ beef-steeaks
flee gaily murrily out o’ t’ duer, an’ I set on an’ geh them o’ sike a
blackin’ as they willn’t seeun forgit. Than I hail’t Jonathan out fray
amang them; bit when I’d gitten him out wi’ mè, I shām’t ut be seen on
t’ rooads wi’ him. Dud iver yè see sike a pictur’?’ ‘Why, nay! nit sa
offen, indeed,’ says I. ‘Well,’ says Betty, ‘as I wodn’t be seen i’
t’ rooads wi’ him, we hed to teeak t’ fields for’t, an’, as it wosn’t
seeaf ut let him climm t’ wo’s, I meead him creep t’ hog-hooals.[7] I
meead him creep t’ hog-hooals,’ says Betty, ‘an’ when I gat him wi’ his
heead in an’ his legs out, I dūd switch him.’”
This true story shows Wordsworth’s humble heroine in not quite so
romantic a light as he throws round her in the passages I have quoted;
but I don’t see that it need lower her in our esteem.