THE Workhouse for the Saddleworth Union is a low stone building of no
great dimensions, standing on about as bleak and cold a site as could
well I have been selected. It stands on the hill-side on your left hand
as you walk from Diggle to Saddleworth, part of that dorsal Pennine
Range we call "the back bone of Old England." Its exterior is grim and
forbidding, nor is the external promise redeemed by any extravagance of
luxury inside. It is in unenviable contrast to the palatial structures
modern architects design for the option of the sick and destitute. But
it is healthily situated, and that counts for much. All in front as you
look down the valley, are the green fields; at its rear stretch the
moors on which sheep graze and lambs bleat and gamble conies sport and
burrow and where the warning "Go-back, go-back" of the grouse salutes
the ear as summer softens into autumn, and the purple heather hides the
luscious bilberry.
At the time of which I write no mill chimney belched their smoke into
the air and the breezes that swept the Workhouse on every side though
blowing at times with unwelcome force, were pure and sweet. The
Workhouse kine yielded milk so abundantly that adulteration was never
thought of; the kitchen-garden, tended by the pauper hands, was rich in
its herbs and vegetables, and a small flower garden gave forth the
fragrance of the hardier roses, of musk and mignonette, whilst sweet
williams, forget-me-nots and stocks gave colour and variety, dear to the
eye of the female paupers. It is true the wards were low, the benches
hard, the light and ventilation far removed from modern notions; but in
this respect they differed in no wise, or if they differed, differed for
the better, from the houses of the well-to-do farmers and tradesmen of
the district.
Anyway there the young foundling of my story was in babyhood and boyhood
tended, petted, and made much of. Consigned to the charge of an elderly
pauper he had a not unkindly foster-mother. Rare, thank God, the women
whose hearts do not soften to the helpless child. Tom sucked his bottle
like a hero, waxing chubby and rosy, "poiting" with his legs on which
the flesh lay in creases, and crowing lustily as he grew. Mr. Redfearn,
it has been said, was the Chairman of the Guardians and did not conceal
the interest he felt in the lad; Mr. Black, a privileged visitor
everywhere for miles around, had to be restrained by the nurse from
gorging his protege with lollipops. The story of his birth had spread in
all those parts and lost nothing in the telling. For anything the master
and matron knew the Workhouse might be entertaining, if not an angel,
unawares, at least a baronet. The lad, when able to run about, was
transferred to the particular care of "Workhouse Jack," a pauper of some
thirty years of age, supposed to be "not altogether there," or as it is
sometimes put, to have at least a half slate off. Jack was the messenger
or Mercury of the Workhouse. He fetched the masters newspaper from the
village post-office, he was entrusted with commissions to the grocer and
draper by the matron, and smuggled snuff and twist and forbidden
luxuries to the inmates. He knew every farm-house and every shop for
miles around, and never wanted for a meal or a copper when he went his
rounds. But, best of all, he knew the habits and the haunts of every
bird that nested in the tree or hedge, on the greensward or, like the
stone-chat, in the crevices of the long, grey dry-walling of the
pastures. He knew, too, to an inch, the curvature of the field drains,
their exits and their entrances. He kept surreptitiously in the old,
two-stalled stable of the House a sharp-toothed ferret, which he
oft-times carried in his pocket and that allowed him to handle and
fondle it with quite appalling familiarity. It took Tom a long time to
overcome his shrinking awe of that lithe and stealthy ferret, but he did
it, and once nearly sent Mrs. Schofield into convulsions by insinuating
it from his own into the capacious pocket of this steadfast friend. For
I regret to say that Jack was a daily visitor at the _Hanging Gate_, and
was doubly welcome when the little Tommy toddled, _haud aquis passibus_,
by his side. But Jack had a seasoned head and though he called, on one
pretext or another, at many an hostelry, was never overcome and had the
rare good sense to inculcate sobriety on his admiring charge by many a
precept if not by example. To Tom, Jack was the very incarnation of
wisdom, and his very first battle was fought at the back of the
Workhouse stable with another foundling who had called his guide,
philosopher, and friend by no less derogatory a title than "Silly
Billy." From that encounter Tom emerged with streaming eyes and nose,
but in the proud consciousness of victory. Nor was Jack's lore confined
to the creatures of the air and land. Down the mountain sides trills
many a gushing stream to join the Diggle Brook, pellucid waters
murmuring over the worn pebbles and larger fragments of volcanic rock
that still, to this day, resist the action of the fretting air and
pelting storm. Who so deft a hand as Jack at tickling the shy trout that
darted among the sedges and rushes of the banks or lurked beneath leaf
and boulder motionless as the stones themselves. And if the matron, when
the dainty fish graced her table was not scrupulous to ask whence came
this toothsome addition to the dietary approved by my lords in London
town, whose business was it to interfere?
Ah! It is grand upon the billowing hills to wander idly in the sweet
spring-time; to mark the lark rising above its nest high in the azure
sky, trilling joyous melody, to hear the lambs calling to their dams, to
see the kine cropping pensive, in the meadows the sweet new blades of
the greening grass; sweet is it to bask at mid-day nodding on the
heather and lulled to sleep by the hum that, like distant muffled music,
just falls upon the ear, and sweet too, is it as the western sun drops
to its rosy curtained couch, to call the cows with their swelling udders
from pasture to their byre; sweet to stand by rustic maid of rosy cheek
and buxom form as, piggin betwixt her knees and head pressed on the
flanks of patient and grateful beast, she strains the warm and frothy
fluid to the can. Glorious, too, to hearken to the whetstone drawn by
practised hand across the scythe, to bear its swish as the swathe
lengthens out before the steady strokes of the mower; glorious to strew
the damp, green grass upon the ground to catch the morning sun, and
grander still to mount upon the load of fragrant hay and be borne
triumphant with the gathered harvest of the fields. Who that has passed
his early youth on the hill sides of Marsden and Diggle can ever forget
the changing raptures of those early days or weary in recalling them
when the brain is distraught by the turmoil of the town, and the heart
turns sickening from the searing sorrows of thwarted schemes and fallen
hopes.
It may seem to the reader that Tom Pinder's workhouse life was not the
life depicted by the immortal genius who told the piteous tale of a
pinched and bruised Oliver asking for more. But be it remembered that
all masters were not and still less are not Bumbles. The Saddleworth
Workhouse in the thirties of last century had few inmates. The people on
the sparsely populated hill-sides were mostly hand-loom weavers; not a
few of them had a patch of land, a cow, a pig, and poultry. They were as
clannish as the Scotch and when age, infirmity, or affliction overtook
the declining years it was counted shame even of distant kin to suffer
one of their name and blood to go to the big House. The poor then were
mindful of the poor, and though the pinch of want was felt in the long
winter days it went hard with folk if a neighbour's cupboard was left
bare or his grate without the mountain peat. Add to this that the master
and matron were good, easy-going folk; that the Guardians knew well
every inmate of the House; had perchance played truant with them in
their youth and been birched by the same cane, or employed them in their
prime, and, to cap all, forget not that Saddleworth was an obscure
Union, scarce worth the expenditure of red-tape or the visit of an
inspector.
Mr. Black did not forget his promise to see to Tom's education. Almost
before the child could lisp he was at him with the alphabet, and with
his own hands designed alluring capital letters and emblematic animals
so that to his dying day Tom never saw the letter D without thinking of
a weaver's donkey going "a-bunting," or in other words, taking in his
master's warp. At six Tom could read big print, and at seven was set to
read chapters of the Bible to the old grannies of the women's side of
the House; at eight he could do sums in Practice and was not afraid of
Tare and Tret. But beyond this he stubbornly refused to budge. In vain
Mr. Black wooed him to decline _Rosa_, a rose, or to conjugate _Amo_.
Tom feigned indeed an interest he did not feel, but promptly forgot on
one day all the Latin he had learned the day before. Mr. Black was fain
to confess with a sigh that Tom was not bent by nature to a clerkly
calling.
"Well, he's none the worse for that," said Mr. Redfearn, consolingly.
"Look at me, schoolmaster. I can read a newspaper, make out a bill
though it's seldom called for i' my trade, thank the Lord, write a
letter, and what more do I want? How could I tell the points of horse or
beast if mi head wer' allus running on th' olden times an' chokefull o'
a lot o' gibberish, saving your presence, an' no offence, Mr. Black, as
well yo' know. We can't all be schoolmasters, nor yet parsons an' as for
lawyers and doctors aw've very little opinion o' awther on 'em, an' th'
less yo' have to do wi' 'em th' better. Not but what a cow doctor's a
handy man to ha' wi'in call; but th' lawyers! Aw've had three trials at
th' Assizes abaat one watter-course on another. An' lost one case an'
won two, an' th' two aw won cost me no more nor th' one aw lost. No! Th'
lad's fit for better things nor a black gown. He's getten th' spirit o'
a man choose wheer it comes fro'. Aw put him on Bess's back t'other day,
wi'out a saddle an' his little legs could hardly straddle fro' flank to
flank, an' he catched her bi th' mane an' med her go round th' field
like a good 'un. He rolled off into th' hedge at th' Bottom Intack, an'
'steead o' sqwawkin' and pipin' he swore at Bess like a trooper an'
wanted puttin' up again. Oh! He's a rare 'un, that he is. Larnin's
thrown away on him. It 'ud nobbut over-weight an' handicap him, so to
speak."
"I'm sorry to hear of the lad swearing," interposed Mr. Black.
"That's Work'us Jack's teachin'," commented Mrs. Schofield. "It's
surprisin' how easy th' young 'uns 'll pick up owt they shouldn't know,
when ther's no brayin' what they should know into their little heads."
"Well, well," went on Mr. Redfearn, to get out of a sore subject, for he
had recognised some of his favourite expletives in Tom's scholeric
words; "th' point is, th' lad's handier wi' his hands nor his head
piece. Yo' can tak' a horse to th' watter but yo' cannot mak' him drink.
An' talkin' o' watter, th' young scoundrel gave me a turn t' other day
an' no mistake. Yo' know th' dam aboon Hall's papper-mill? Weel it's th'
deepest dam bi a seet for miles round here. Aw'd gone up wi mi gun to
see if aw could pick up a rabbit or two for th' pot an' theer wor Tom
reight i' th' middle o th' dam, throwin' up his arms an' goin' dahn like
a stun, and then he cam up blowin' like a porpus. Aw' sent th' retriever
in after 'im an' th' young devil, 'at aw should say so, cocked his leg
over th' dog's back an' med him, carry 'im to th' bank, an' 'im laughin'
all th' time fit to crack his young ribs. He'd nobbud pretended to drown
to fley me."
"Jack's doing again," said Mr. Schofield.
"Well, but, what's to be done with him?" persisted Mr Black. "Can't you
take him on to th' farm, Fairbanks?"
"'Tisn't good enough," said Fairbanks. "He's fit for better things. At
best he could never be much more nor a sort of bailiff an' _they're_
noan wanted about here. If we could send him out to Canada now, or
Australey, theer's no tellin' what he med come to be. At least so they
sen. But i' th' owd country farmin's nowt wi'out brass, an then it's
nowt much but a carryin' on. Nah, I've thowt o' a plan. We could
'prentice th' lad out to a manufacturer. Th' lad's sharp an' 'ud sooin
sam up owt there is to larn. Th' Guardians 'ud pay th' premium for him'
an' nobbut a fi' pun note or so an' aw think aw know th' varry man to
tak' him an' sud do well by 'im if ther's owt i' religion?"
"Who is it?" asked Mr. Black.
"It's Jabez Tinker, o' th' Wilberlee Mill, i' Holmfirth. He's the main
man at Aenon Chapel,--a pillar they call 'im an' preaches hissen o'
Sundays, so he suld be fit to be trusted wi' a lad."
"I'd rather he'd ha' bin Church," commented Mrs. Schofield. "Aw've often
noticed 'at those 'at put it on so mich o' Sundays tak' it aat o' th'
Mondays. Devil dodgers, aw call 'em."
"There are good men among the Dissenters." Mr Black's spirit of fairness
compelled him to testify, "though I wish they could find their way to
heaven without making so much pother on earth." The days of the
Salvation Army were not as yet, and sound and salvation were not
convertible terms.
"There's one gooid thing abaat it," was the landlady's opinion.
"Holmfirth's nobbut over th' hill, so to speak, an' th' lad could come
to see his old friends at Whissunday and th' Feast, when th' mills are
lakin'."
"Aye, aye, a lot better nor them furrin' parts," agreed the farmer.
"Owd England for me, say I."
"And I have not lost hopes of clearing up the mystery of the boy's
birth," concluded Mr. Black. "He must stay near us."
To this time nothing had been said to Tom about his parents. He knew he
had no father and no mother--that was all. He knew other lads had
fathers and mothers, and how he came to be without did not concern him
very much. Once, indeed, one of the village lads had jeered at him as a
love-child. He did not understand what this might mean, but he had sense
to perceive something offensive was meant.
"What is a love-child?" he asked Mrs. Schofield one day, suddenly.
"All childer's love childer," fenced Mrs. Schofield, but Tom was not
satisfied.
"What's a love child, Jack?" he asked his bosom friend.
Jack ruminated. Definition was not his forte.
"It means a lad's mother's nooan as good as she should be."
Tom flushed hotly, and said nothing: but that night a village lad with
lips much swollen slept with a raw beefsteak over his eye.
The germ of thought had been sown in the youthful mind. _Why_ was he
different from other lads? Time had been when in some confused sort of
fashion he had looked on Mrs. Schofield as his mother and Mr. Black as
his father.
"Mr. Black," he asked one day, "where is my mother?"
It was a question that the Schoolmaster had looked for at every recent
visit that he courted and yet dreaded.
It was on a Sunday noon as the congregation left the porch of St. Chad's
some lingering by the gateway to exchange neighbourly greeting, others
sauntering with an air of unconcern to the door of the Church Inn across
the way, whilst yet others still made with leaden foot to a recent grave
to pay the tribute of the mourner's tears.
Tom had been with other pauper lads in the gallery, a spot of vantage
screened from the verger's eye, and where it mattered to nobody what
heed you took of the service or sermon so long as you did not make too
much noise. He had made haste to get outside the churchyard so that he
might not miss his ever gentle friend, the schoolmaster, and now stood
by the village stocks outside the graveyard wall and watched the stream
of worshippers pass slowly by. Presently his hand was in the
schoolmaster's, who turned his face to the road which led past the
workhouse boundaries down to his own home at Diggle.
"Mr. Black, where is my mother?"
The schoolmaster paused, hesitated. They had left the rough and narrow
road and crossed a stile into the fields. They were on the higher ground
and could plainly see the churchyard. The loiterers had gone their
homeward way or drifted into the Inn to seek a solace that is supposed
to be appropriate alike in the glad hours of rejoicing and the heavy
time of affliction.
"Your mother lies yonder," said Mr. Black, solemnly and sadly.
"Show me," said the boy, simply.
They retraced their steps and sought the ancient burial ground with it's
sunken crosses and mouldering mossy stones, and those little mounds
without a name that cover the humble dead. In a distant corner Mr. Black
stood with uncovered head by a small marble cross and stone slab.
sacred to the memory
OF
A. J.
AN UNKNOWN WANDERER WHO DIED IN CHILDBED
AT THE HANGING GATE, DIGGLE.
JAN. 11TH, 183--.
Tom gazed upon the simple monument till he could gaze no more, for
blinding, scalding tears welled into his eyes and trickled down his
cheeks.
"Let us go home," he said, "let me stop with you to-day."
In the evening of that peaceful Sunday the school-master told the
foundling all he knew: he placed in his hand the precious locket taken
from the mother's neck and promised that it should be transferred to
Tom's, keeping when he should be old enough to keep it safely.
"You will treasure it as the immediate jewel of your soul," he said;
"for thereby you may clear your mother's name." Then, falling on his
knees he read the evening prayer, and with his blessing dismissed the
lad.