I fear I must be of a somewhat gruesome turn of mind. My sympathies are
always with the melancholy side of life and nature. I love the chill
October days, when the brown leaves lie thick and sodden underneath
your feet, and a low sound as of stifled sobbing is heard in the damp
woods—the evenings in late autumn time, when the white mist creeps
across the fields, making it seem as though old Earth, feeling the
night air cold to its poor bones, were drawing ghostly bedclothes round
its withered limbs. I like the twilight of the long grey street, sad
with the wailing cry of the distant muffin man. One thinks of him, as,
strangely mitred, he glides by through the gloom, jangling his harsh
bell, as the High Priest of the pale spirit of Indigestion, summoning
the devout to come forth and worship. I find a sweetness in the aching
dreariness of Sabbath afternoons in genteel suburbs—in the evil-laden
desolateness of waste places by the river, when the yellow fog is
stealing inland across the ooze and mud, and the black tide gurgles
softly round worm-eaten piles.
I love the bleak moor, when the thin long line of the winding road lies
white on the darkening heath, while overhead some belated bird, vexed
with itself for being out so late, scurries across the dusky sky,
screaming angrily. I love the lonely, sullen lake, hidden away in
mountain solitudes. I suppose it was my childhood’s surroundings that
instilled in me this affection for sombre hues. One of my earliest
recollections is of a dreary marshland by the sea. By day, the water
stood there in wide, shallow pools. But when one looked in the evening
they were pools of blood that lay there.
It was a wild, dismal stretch of coast. One day, I found myself there
all alone—I forget how it came about—and, oh, how small I felt amid the
sky and the sea and the sandhills! I ran, and ran, and ran, but I never
seemed to move; and then I cried, and screamed, louder and louder, and
the circling seagulls screamed back mockingly at me. It was an “unken”
spot, as they say up North.
In the far back days of the building of the world, a long, high ridge
of stones had been reared up by the sea, dividing the swampy grassland
from the sand. Some of these stones—“pebbles,” so they called them
round about—were as big as a man, and many as big as a fair-sized
house; and when the sea was angry—and very prone he was to anger by
that lonely shore, and very quick to wrath; often have I known him sink
to sleep with a peaceful smile on his rippling waves, to wake in fierce
fury before the night was spent—he would snatch up giant handfuls of
these pebbles and fling and toss them here and there, till the noise of
their rolling and crashing could be heard by the watchers in the
village afar off.
“Old Nick’s playing at marbles to-night,” they would say to one
another, pausing to listen. And then the women would close tight their
doors, and try not to hear the sound.
Far out to sea, by where the muddy mouth of the river yawned wide,
there rose ever a thin white line of surf, and underneath those crested
waves there dwelt a very fearsome thing, called the Bar. I grew to hate
and be afraid of this mysterious Bar, for I heard it spoken of always
with bated breath, and I knew that it was very cruel to fisher folk,
and hurt them so sometimes that they would cry whole days and nights
together with the pain, or would sit with white scared faces, rocking
themselves to and fro.
Once when I was playing among the sandhills, there came by a tall, grey
woman, bending beneath a load of driftwood. She paused when nearly
opposite to me, and, facing seaward, fixed her eyes upon the breaking
surf above the Bar. “Ah, how I hate the sight of your white teeth!” she
muttered; then turned and passed on.
Another morning, walking through the village, I heard a low wailing
come from one of the cottages, while a little farther on a group of
women were gathered in the roadway, talking. “Ay,” said one of them, “I
thought the Bar was looking hungry last night.”
So, putting one and the other together, I concluded that the “Bar” must
be an ogre, such as a body reads of in books, who lived in a coral
castle deep below the river’s mouth, and fed upon the fishermen as he
caught them going down to the sea or coming home.
From my bedroom window, on moonlight nights, I could watch the silvery
foam, marking the spot beneath where he lay hid; and I would stand on
tip-toe, peering out, until at length I would come to fancy I could see
his hideous form floating below the waters. Then, as the little
white-sailed boats stole by him, tremblingly, I used to tremble too,
lest he should suddenly open his grim jaws and gulp them down; and when
they had all safely reached the dark, soft sea beyond, I would steal
back to the bedside, and pray to God to make the Bar good, so that he
would give up eating the poor fishermen.
Another incident connected with that coast lives in my mind. It was the
morning after a great storm—great even for that stormy coast—and the
passion-worn waters were still heaving with the memory of a fury that
was dead. Old Nick had scattered his marbles far and wide, and there
were rents and fissures in the pebbly wall such as the oldest fisherman
had never known before. Some of the hugest stones lay tossed a hundred
yards away, and the waters had dug pits here and there along the ridge
so deep that a tall man might stand in some of them, and yet his head
not reach the level of the sand.
Round one of these holes a small crowd was pressing eagerly, while one
man, standing in the hollow, was lifting the few remaining stones off
something that lay there at the bottom. I pushed my way between the
straggling legs of a big fisher lad, and peered over with the rest. A
ray of sunlight streamed down into the pit, and the thing at the bottom
gleamed white. Sprawling there among the black pebbles it looked like a
huge spider. One by one the last stones were lifted away, and the thing
was left bare, and then the crowd looked at one another and shivered.
“Wonder how he got there,” said a woman at length; “somebody must ha’
helped him.”
“Some foreign chap, no doubt,” said the man who had lifted off the
stones; “washed ashore and buried here by the sea.”
“What, six foot below the water-mark, wi’ all they stones atop of him?”
said another.
“That’s no foreign chap,” cried a grizzled old woman, pressing forward.
“What’s that that’s aside him?”
Some one jumped down and took it from the stone where it lay
glistening, and handed it up to her, and she clutched it in her skinny
hand. It was a gold earring, such as fishermen sometimes wear. But this
was a somewhat large one, and of rather unusual shape.
“That’s young Abram Parsons, I tell ’ee, as lies down there,” cried the
old creature, wildly. “I ought to know. I gave him the pair o’ these
forty year ago.”
It may be only an idea of mine, born of after brooding upon the scene.
I am inclined to think it must be so, for I was only a child at the
time, and would hardly have noticed such a thing. But it seems to my
remembrance that as the old crone ceased, another woman in the crowd
raised her eyes slowly, and fixed them on a withered, ancient man, who
leant upon a stick, and that for a moment, unnoticed by the rest, these
two stood looking strangely at each other.
From these sea-scented scenes, my memory travels to a weary land where
dead ashes lie, and there is blackness—blackness everywhere. Black
rivers flow between black banks; black, stunted trees grow in black
fields; black withered flowers by black wayside. Black roads lead from
blackness past blackness to blackness; and along them trudge black,
savage-looking men and women; and by them black, old-looking children
play grim, unchildish games.
When the sun shines on this black land, it glitters black and hard; and
when the rain falls a black mist rises towards heaven, like the
hopeless prayer of a hopeless soul.
By night it is less dreary, for then the sky gleams with a lurid light,
and out of the darkness the red flames leap, and high up in the air
they gambol and writhe—the demon spawn of that evil land, they seem.
Visitors who came to our house would tell strange tales of this black
land, and some of the stories I am inclined to think were true. One man
said he saw a young bull-dog fly at a boy and pin him by the throat.
The lad jumped about with much sprightliness, and tried to knock the
dog away. Whereupon the boy’s father rushed out of the house, hard by,
and caught his son and heir roughly by the shoulder. “Keep still, thee
young ---, can’t ’ee!” shouted the man angrily; “let ’un taste blood.”
Another time, I heard a lady tell how she had visited a cottage during
a strike, to find the baby, together with the other children, almost
dying for want of food. “Dear, dear me!” she cried, taking the wee
wizened mite from the mother’s arms, “but I sent you down a quart of
milk, yesterday. Hasn’t the child had it?”
“Theer weer a little coom, thank ’ee kindly, ma’am,” the father took
upon himself to answer; “but thee see it weer only just enow for the
poops.”
We lived in a big lonely house on the edge of a wide common. One night,
I remember, just as I was reluctantly preparing to climb into bed,
there came a wild ringing at the gate, followed by a hoarse, shrieking
cry, and then a frenzied shaking of the iron bars.
Then hurrying footsteps sounded through the house, and the swift
opening and closing of doors; and I slipped back hastily into my
knickerbockers and ran out. The women folk were gathered on the stairs,
while my father stood in the hall, calling to them to be quiet. And
still the wild ringing of the bell continued, and, above it, the
hoarse, shrieking cry.
My father opened the door and went out, and we could hear him striding
down the gravel path, and we clung to one another and waited.
After what seemed an endless time, we heard the heavy gate unbarred,
and quickly clanged to, and footsteps returning on the gravel. Then the
door opened again, and my father entered, and behind him a crouching
figure that felt its way with its hands as it crept along, as a blind
man might. The figure stood up when it reached the middle of the hall,
and mopped its eyes with a dirty rag that it carried in its hand; after
which it held the rag over the umbrella-stand and wrung it out, as
washerwomen wring out clothes, and the dark drippings fell into the
tray with a dull, heavy splut.
My father whispered something to my mother, and she went out towards
the back; and, in a little while, we heard the stamping of hoofs—the
angry plunge of a spur-startled horse—the rhythmic throb of the long,
straight gallop, dying away into the distance.
My mother returned and spoke some reassuring words to the servants. My
father, having made fast the door and extinguished all but one or two
of the lights, had gone into a small room on the right of the hall; the
crouching figure, still mopping that moisture from its eyes, following
him. We could hear them talking there in low tones, my father
questioning, the other voice thick and interspersed with short panting
grunts.
We on the stairs huddled closer together, and, in the darkness, I felt
my mother’s arm steal round me and encompass me, so that I was not
afraid. Then we waited, while the silence round our frightened whispers
thickened and grew heavy till the weight of it seemed to hurt us.
At length, out of its depths, there crept to our ears a faint murmur.
It gathered strength like the sound of the oncoming of a wave upon a
stony shore, until it broke in a Babel of vehement voices just outside.
After a few moments, the hubbub ceased, and there came a furious
ringing—then angry shouts demanding admittance.
Some of the women began to cry. My father came out into the hall,
closing the room door behind him, and ordered them to be quiet, so
sternly that they were stunned into silence. The furious ringing was
repeated; and, this time, threats mingled among the hoarse shouts. My
mother’s arm tightened around me, and I could hear the beating of her
heart.
The voices outside the gate sank into a low confused mumbling. Soon
they died away altogether, and the silence flowed back.
My father turned up the hall lamp, and stood listening.
Suddenly, from the back of the house, rose the noise of a great
crashing, followed by oaths and savage laughter.
My father rushed forward, but was borne back; and, in an instant, the
hall was full of grim, ferocious faces. My father, trembling a little
(or else it was the shadow cast by the flickering lamp), and with lips
tight pressed, stood confronting them; while we women and children, too
scared to even cry, shrank back up the stairs.
What followed during the next few moments is, in my memory, only a
confused tumult, above which my father’s high, clear tones rise every
now and again, entreating, arguing, commanding. I see nothing
distinctly until one of the grimmest of the faces thrusts itself before
the others, and a voice which, like Aaron’s rod, swallows up all its
fellows, says in deep, determined bass, “Coom, we’ve had enow chatter,
master. Thee mun give ’un up, or thee mun get out o’ th’ way an’ we’ll
search th’ house for oursel’.”
Then a light flashed into my father’s eyes that kindled something
inside me, so that the fear went out of me, and I struggled to free
myself from my mother’s arm, for the desire stirred me to fling myself
down upon the grimy faces below, and beat and stamp upon them with my
fists. Springing across the hall, he snatched from the wall where it
hung an ancient club, part of a trophy of old armour, and planting his
back against the door through which they would have to pass, he
shouted, “Then be damned to you all, he’s in this room! Come and fetch
him out.”
(I recollect that speech well. I puzzled over it, even at that time,
excited though I was. I had always been told that only low, wicked
people ever used the word “damn,” and I tried to reconcile things, and
failed.)
The men drew back and muttered among themselves. It was an ugly-looking
weapon, studded with iron spikes. My father held it secured to his hand
by a chain, and there was an ugly look about him also, now, that gave
his face a strange likeness to the dark faces round him.
But my mother grew very white and cold, and underneath her breath she
kept crying, “Oh, will they never come—will they never come?” and a
cricket somewhere about the house began to chirp.
Then all at once, without a word, my mother flew down the stairs, and
passed like a flash of light through the crowd of dusky figures. How
she did it I could never understand, for the two heavy bolts had both
been drawn, but the next moment the door stood wide open; and a hum of
voices, cheery with the anticipation of a period of perfect bliss, was
borne in upon the cool night air.
My mother was always very quick of hearing.
* * * * *
Again, I see a wild crowd of grim faces, and my father’s, very pale,
amongst them. But this time the faces are very many, and they come and
go like faces in a dream. The ground beneath my feet is wet and sloppy,
and a black rain is falling. There are women’s faces in the crowd, wild
and haggard, and long skinny arms stretch out threateningly towards my
father, and shrill, frenzied voices call out curses on him. Boys’ faces
also pass me in the grey light, and on some of them there is an impish
grin.
I seem to be in everybody’s way; and to get out of it, I crawl into a
dark, draughty corner and crouch there among cinders. Around me, great
engines fiercely strain and pant like living things fighting beyond
their strength. Their gaunt arms whirl madly above me, and the ground
rocks with their throbbing. Dark figures flit to and fro, pausing from
time to time to wipe the black sweat from their faces.
The pale light fades, and the flame-lit night lies red upon the land.
The flitting figures take strange shapes. I hear the hissing of wheels,
the furious clanking of iron chains, the hoarse shouting of many
voices, the hurrying tread of many feet; and, through all, the wailing
and weeping and cursing that never seem to cease. I drop into a
restless sleep, and dream that I have broken a chapel window,
stone-throwing, and have died and gone to hell.
At length, a cold hand is laid upon my shoulder, and I awake. The wild
faces have vanished and all is silent now, and I wonder if the whole
thing has been a dream. My father lifts me into the dog-cart, and we
drive home through the chill dawn.
My mother opens the door softly as we alight. She does not speak, only
looks her question. “It’s all over, Maggie,” answers my father very
quietly, as he takes off his coat and lays it across a chair; “we’ve
got to begin the world afresh.”
My mother’s arms steal up about his neck; and I, feeling heavy with a
trouble I do not understand, creep off to bed.