Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar - Anonymous - Страница 44

Peace bent his steps in the direction of the bar of the establishment.

As he was proceeding along, a voice shouted out—

“Yer’re beant a goin’ to leave us, sir, be’est thou!”

“No, no, friend,” returned our hero. “I shall join you in a minute or so.”

“Aye, that be right,” exclaimed the same voice.

Peace went in front of the bar, and said to the landlord—

“I don’t want to go any further to-night. Can I have a bed here?”

“Ah! surely,” answered the host; “for as many nights as thee likes. The more the merrier.”

“Good. Then that’s settled.”

He returned to the parlour. Over the mantel-piece of this was a smoke-bleached board, on which was inscribed, in dingy yellow letters—

When first I came I some did trust,

And did my money lend;

But when I asked for the same

They soon forsook their friend.

Now my cure is no man’s sorrow—

Pay to-day and trust to-morrow.

However a scrawl of chalked hieroglyphics on the bar door proved that the practice of the publican was less resolute than his professions.

“I think I’ll ha’ another half pint,” said the old man, who had been called Nat. A little girl, who served the beer and tobacco brought in the liquor the old man ordered.

“Ye’ve travelled a greatish distance, maybe?” said one of the company to Peace, glancing at his boots, which were begrimed with mud and sand.

“Pretty well, as far as that goes. I can’t say exactly how far I’ve walked, not knowing the ground.”

“Ah! I see. A stranger to these parts.”

“Yes. I’m on a tour.”

“For pleasure?”

“Well, no, not altogether pleasure—​business. I’m a picture-frame maker by trade, and deal in prints and photos. Would you like to see some of my wares?”

“Ah! that un should,” said several.

“Well, then, so you shall.”

He was about to open his pack when a noise of footsteps was heard descending the stairs, and in another moment the broad form of Farmer Wilmot filled the doorway.

“Here, my lads,” said he. “It isn’t often I give you a treat; but as I’ve sold my whate and got a good price for it, and as, moreover, this be my son’s birthday, I’ll give ’ee somthing to drink his health.”

He placed several pieces of silver in the girl’s hand, and said—

“Give it ’em out in the sixpenny, my little maid, and then what they do drink will do ’em good.”

The rustics gave a loud cheer and thanked him again and again for his generosity.

He appeared to be well known to all present, with the exception of Peace, who never remembered to have seen him before.

“Good-by, lads, and don’t mek beasts on yourselves. Ale, in moderation, won’t hurt anyone; but too much on it is good for no man. Good-night to all.”

And with these words the honest farmer mounted his gray mare, which was standing at the door of the hostelry, and trotted off in company with two friends, similarly mounted.

“I be downright glad he’s sold his whate,” said one of the rustics. “He aint all eyes and ears like some measters, and he knows how to let a poor man off his first fault.”

“He was one of us once, ye see, sir,” said another, addressing himself to Peace. “He’s bin taught to eat poor man’s bread and to do poor man’s work, and he knows what it is as comforts a poor man’s heart. It is only such as he as pities the poor. The rich and idle don’t pity, know not what hard work, nor hunger, nor sufferin’s loike.”

“Aye-that be true enough,” said Nat. “He’s as good as gold, an’ his ’art be in the right place.”

“I hope he’ll get home safe and sound,” said Peace; “but I suppose there aint many robbers about this part?”

“Lord, love ye, no—​never a one,” cried several voices.

“You’ve forgotten young Measter Boucher,” quavered the aged Nat. “I be an old man, but I mind things better nor you do, seemingly. He was a drivin’ home from Bilstoke Fair, and just as he was agoin’ up a bit of a hill, with trees on both sides, he felt heavy on his chest, as if he had a fit comin’ on, only instead of a fit it was a stout rope, which two men held across the road, and tiddled him over out of his gig. And when he was down they was on him in a minnit, and plundered him of his watch and ten yellow sovereigns.”

“That’s the story he went home and told his mother,” said Nell, scornfully, “but I can pretty well guess how it was. Some of them flaunting hussies got and colly-fogled him into the booths to dance with ’em, and while he wer a thinkin’ how pretty he wer a doin’ his steps, whip! goes his money and watch out of his pocket into theirs.”

This speech was greeted with roars of laughter.

“Ah, Nell, thee beest a knowin’ one,” cried several.

A portion of the beer the farmer had paid for was now brought in by the little waitress. It was handed round in brown mugs to the company. The farmer’s health was drunk, also that of his son.

Peace opened his folio of prints, plain and coloured.

Several were spread out upon the table, and regarded with curious and inquiring eyes by the occupants of the parlour.

Peace had pictures to please persons of different tastes. Some were bits of rustic scenery, farm-yards, horses ploughing, hay-making; others consisted of highly-coloured sporting subjects, such as hunting, ratting, and deer stalking; but, as it would never do for an itinerant dealer in these commodities to confine himself to one particular class of art, he had specimens of every conceivable variety, suitable to persons of opposite tastes; pictures addressed to persons of a devotional turn of mind formed a large element in his stock in trade. The Holy Family, the head of our Saviour, together with three young gentlemen in surplices, casting up their eyes, were there in abundance; also a young lady clinging to an impossible-looking cross, her garments dripping with wet, was another. This fine specimen was called “The Rock of Ages,” the title of the young gentlemen in surplices being, “We Praise Thee, O Lord.” He had also large photos of the “Light of the World,” together with a variety of others of a similar character. These subjects went down with some of his customers, while others would not honour them with a cursory glance.

One print, entitled the “Labourers’ Best Friends,” was greatly admired by the frequenters of the “Old Carved Lion.”

The subjects represented were a substantial piece of fat bacon, a quartern loaf, half a cheese, a foaming tankard of ale, and a clay pipe.

“Ah, that be summut loike,” exclaimed several, “I call that wonderfully natural, as real as life itself; I should loike to ha’ that. How much be it, measter?”

“Cheap enough,” answered Peace, “only half-a-crown.”

“Umph, I wish it was in a frame.”

“I’ll undertake to frame any of my prints at cost price.”

“Do un, now?”

“Yes, you can have a frame from a shilling to a sovereign-according to the quality.”

“I’ll come and sit by you,” said Nell to Peace, “because you are a clever man, I’m thinking.”

“I am very much flattered, I am sure,” he answered with a smirk.

“So un ought to be,” said another of the company, “it aint many as Nell condescends to flatter.”

A young peasant and peasantess as Mark Twain would say, making eyes at one another after the approved fashion, attracted the young woman’s attention.

“Now I call that a wonderfully well done picture,” said she.

“Do you like it?” asked Peace.

“Yes, very much.”

“Well then I shall beg of you to accept it.”

The girl coloured up, not rightly understanding his meaning.

“What be hesitating about, Nell?” said old Nat, “Don’t ye understand it’s given to you as a present?”

“Oh, I cannot think of having it without paying for it.”

“But I desire you to do so—​nay, I insist,” cried Peace, rolling up the print in a sheet of paper, and handing it to the young woman.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to beg it of you,” said she.

“I know that—​I give it to you of my own free will; so say no more about it.”

This act of generosity produced a favourable impression on all present, and Peace became very popular. Several present bespoke prints, and after the whole of them had been inspected they were packed up and put aside for the rest of the evening.

The whole of the company then sat down to enjoy themselves, and, to say the truth, in their homely way they did so, very much more so than many of their betters.

“Ah, I yoosed to be mighty fond of picturs,” said old Nat, “but, lord, I don’t seem to ha’ the taste for anything loike I had formerly. When a man gets old and well nigh worn out he’s not so easily pleased as the young uns—​be he, measter?”

“Well, I suppose not, friend,” returned Peace, “but we shall all get old and worn out if we live long enough—​we ought not to forget that.”

“Now none of your croaking Nat,” said a lusty young fellow. “You’re good for many years yet. Come, jest give us a song, old man. Nat’s been a foine singer in his time,” observed the speaker in a whisper to Peace.

“Oh, I dare say.”

“Fond of music, sir?” enquired another.

“Yes, I’m a bit of a musician myself. If our friend will oblige I’ll give you a tune or two upon the fiddle.”

This seemed to have a magic effect upon the villagers, who thumped the tables till the pots and glasses danced on the board.

“Will ’ee, though? Oh, that be grand!” exclaimed several. “Now, Nat, just mek a beginning.”

“You must excuse me, sir, if I break down,” said the old man, apologetically; “I aint what I yoosed to be.”

“He’s never satisfied unless he’s telling us that,” cried a voice. “Come, old man, fire away.”

Old Nat cleared his throat with one or two preliminary ahems, and then, in a high treble, trolled a nautical ballad—​the first verse of which described the loves of a youth and village maiden, who plighted their troth under a linden tree; the verse ended with a mournful refrain, which was as follows:—

Now this ere Jack he was hard-hearted,

Which no true lovyer ought for to be;

And this here Sall he soon desarted,

All for to sail on the salt sea.

The words of the ballad described the anguished feelings of the forlorn and broken-hearted girl, who wanders about her old haunts in the village in a half demented state—​for never a word does she hear from her cruel and heartless lover.

There is, it would appear, very good reason for this, for the ship in which the young man sailed foundered at sea, and Jack was cast upon a tropical island, where he remained for three years.

At the expiration of that time he was taken on board a passing vessel, and returned home to find his Sall dead beneath the turf in the village churchyard.

The pathetic ditty concludes thus. The young sailor is supposed to be addressing some villagers assembled in the churchyard:—

Says this ere Jack, with deep emotion,

“In this world there’s now no rest for me;

My poor Sall’s heart I’ve surely broken,

All through my sailing on the salt sea.”

It was evident enough that old Nat must have had at one time a sweet and sympathetic voice, and even in his decline there was something of it remaining.

Any one who has travelled through the rural districts of England and paid an occasional visit to old roadside inns cannot fail to have been struck by the quaint and curious ditties that are trolled by the villagers.

Many of them are singularly characteristic.

Where these extraordinary specimens of musical composition all come from—​for their name is legion—​is perfectly surprising.

In most cases the singers never had a copy of the song they sang; and, indeed, if they had, they would in all probability have been none the wiser, seeing that they were quite unable to read the notes.

They learnt it from some one, and he or she learnt it from somebody else, and so on till the original source of the melody is lost in the deep “backward abyss of time.”

When we consider with how easy a transition we may pass from the accents of speaking to diatonic sounds, when we observe how early children adopt the language of their amusements to measure and melody, however rude—​when we consider how early and universally these practices take place, there is no avoiding the conclusion that the idea of music is co-natural with man, and implied in the original principles of his constitution.

The principles on which it is founded, and the rules by which it is conducted, constitute a science.

The same maxims when applied to practice form an art; hence its first and most capital diversion is into speculative and practical music.

Go where you will, and you will see how wonderfully music and song are blended with the most laborious occupations of humble life, not only as the natural breathing of cheery thoughts and gladdening hopes, faiths, and feelings, but as giving nerve, measure, and harmony to the physical forces of men bending to the most arduous toil.

We will say nothing here of the influence of martial music on the weary battalions of an army on a forced march.

That illustration would not be apposite to the point we are considering.

Anyone who has travelled by sea and land, and visited different countries, must have been struck with the variety—​the use and universality—​of the songs of labour.

Who that has crossed the Atlantic, and been awakened at night by the “Merrily, cheerily,” of that song with which the sailors hoist the great mainsail to the rising breeze, can ever forget the thrill of those manly voices?

There they stand in the darkness, with the salt sea spray in their faces, and the tarred rope in their hands, holding the long and ponderous yard against the mast, until their rollicking song reaches the hoisting turn, and all their sinews are strung to the harmony of a unison to the telling pull.

Everywhere and in all ages, the week-day music of the world has been the songs of labour by men and women at their toil, and by the birds of heaven singing to them overhead and around them.

And no ear drinks with richer relish the melodies of these outside songsters—​no home more safe and welcome does the swallow find than under the eaves of the poor man’s cottage.

Go through the densest courts and lanes of Spitalfields, and see what a companionship of bird life the silk weavers maintain in their garrets, even when the loaf is too small for their children.

The papers recently published a touching and beautiful illustration of the fondness which workingmen show for singing birds.

When the first English lark was taken to Australia by a poor widow, the stalwart, sunburnt, hard-visaged gold diggers would come down from their pits on the Sabbath to hear it sing the songs they loved to listen to at home in their childhood.

An instance still more interesting has been noted lately in connection with one of the large manufacturing towns in North Wales.

The men, women, and children employed in the factories, not many times a week heard the lark’s song, or the music of the free birds of heaven.

These loved the bright air and the green fresh meadows too well to sing many voluntaries in the smoky atmosphere of the furnace and factory.

Thus the cheap concerts of these songsters cost the operatives of the mills long walks beyond the brick and mortar mazes of the town.

But thousands thought them cheap at that price.

“Ah! I mind the time when I sang that very song in this room, more than twenty years agone,” said Nat.

“Aye—​better than that,” said a middle-aged man. “It was on the very night that Lord Ethalwood lost his son—​the last on ’em as was left. He aint bin the same man since.”

“And who might that be?” enquired Peace.

“Well, his lordship,” returned the other—​“the owner of the foine estate on the top of the hill, called Broxbridge Hall.”

“Ah! a fine place, is it?”

“Yes, surely—​a should think it was.”

“Well, never mind about that, his lordship aint half so happy as we are, I’ll bet a crown,” said another of the company. “Who’s for the next song? Come, Nelly, can’t you give us something soft and sentimental, eh?”

“Nay; I must be for getting home,” answered the girl, “an’ leave you men folks to yourselves.”

She was about to depart, but as Peace had commenced a preliminary flourish on his violin, she sat down again.

The violinist played a fantasia, introducing a number of popular airs which seemed to delight his audience amazingly.

When he brought this part of his performance to a close he was encored.

He then imitated the noises of animals in the farm-yard; this sent the rustics into perfect ecstacies of delight.

“They had never heard anything so perfectly natural in their born days”—​so they one and all declared.

“Well, thee just does know how to handle the fiddle,” said one.

“And mek it speak like a Christian,” said another.

“It be a gift,” observed another.

Nell now rose to go, but she was not permitted to do so, until she had favoured the company with a song. In a rich contralto voice she sang the following:—

I love the shepherd’s artless rhymes,

A shepherd’s joys revealing;

I love the songs of ancient times,

Their notes of simple feeling.

They echoed o’er my native hills

When last I wandered near them,

And now mine ear with rapture thrills

In distant climes to hear them.

When hopes that could the heart entrance,

On airy wings have vanished;

When all the dreams of wild romance

From memory’s page are banished.

Such strains the heart awhile may soothe,

’Mid foreign wilds deserted,

Though all the joys that pleased our youth

Have one by one departed.

Sweet as the dream of former years,

When sleep the eyelids shrouded;

Sweet as the star that oft appears,

When all the rest are clouded.

Sweet as the warbler’s latest strain,

When storms the year have shaded;

Or ling’ring rose that decks the plain

When all the rest have faded.

“Excellent! Admirably sung!” exclaimed Peace. “I’m quite delighted with your voice and your manner of singing.”

“I must not stop any longer,” said the girl; “I expect I shall catch it as it is. Good-night to all!”

And with these words she tripped out of the room.

The landlord now entered.

“Ye be making merry to-night, friends,” said he.

“Ah, surely it’s a poor heart as never rejoices. Sit down, Brickett, we ain’t goin’ to let ee off.”

The host of the “Old Carved Lion” did as he was bid.

“Yo’ve got a bit o’ a musician here, among ye,” he observed with a merry twinkle in his eye as he glanced at Peace.

“Yes,” said old Nat; “another Paganini—​that’s what the gentleman be.”

“How do you know? You never heard Paganini,” returned the landlord.

“Aint I? that’s all you know about it. I remember my poor feyther a taken me to the theatre when the great fiddler gave a morning performance, and there was a sight of people there surely—​and that be a few years ago.”

“And what was it loike?”

“Oh, wonderful—​never heard anything equal to it. Not but what our friend here is very good and plays a deal in his style. Any more beer to come in, Mr. Landlord?”

“Yes, the farmer’s money aint all run out. Will ye ha’ the remainder in now, or stop till you get it?”

This venerable joke seemed to be relished by the customers.

The beer was brought in, which was relished still more.

“Now, Nat,” said a young fellow. “Here’s a pot o’ beer for ’ee if yell sing another song. How will ye have it, hob or nob?”

“Hob” is beer placed on the hob to warm; “nob,” beer on the table.

“None of your warm beer for me,” cried Nat. “Dont ’ee know what my uncle used to say? When my back wont warm my bed, sed he, and when my belly wont warm my beer, sed he, it’s time I were gone, ’cos I aint no yoose to the world, and the world aint no yoose to me.”

“That’s a good saying, I don’t doubt, but pitch us a stave, old man.”

“The landlord’s got more staves than any on us here. Ask him.”

“Ah, let’s hear Brickett,” cried several.

“I aint a goin’ to make any fuss about the matter,” said the landlord; “I’ll do my best.”

“Brayvo, brayvo!”

“So here goes while my head’s hot—

Come where the heather bell,

Child of the Highland dell,

Breathes its coy fragrance o’er moorland and lea;

Gaily the fountain sheen

Leaps from the mountain green,

Come to our Highland home, blithesome and free.

The red grouse is scattering

Dews from her golden wing,

Gemmed with the radiance that heralds the day,

Peace in our Highland vales,

Health in our mountain gales,

Who would not hie to the moorland away?

Come, then; the heather bloom

Woos with its wild perfume.

Fragrant and blithesome thy welcome shall be;

Gaily the fountain sheen

Leaps from the mountain stream,

Come to the home of the moorland and lea.

“That’s something like, Bricket. You’ve sung it better than ever, and it’s a rattling good ditty,” cried a voice. “Here’s your health, and long life to ’ee.”

A large amount of “brown October” had been consumed by this time, and some of the company were giving indications of being nearly “Three sheets in the wind.”

There had not been such a merry-making at the “Carved Lion” for many a day; this was attributable in the first place to the liberal supply of beer furnished by the farmer who had sold his wheat, and in the second by the presence of Peace, who fraternised with the rustics in a free and easy manner, which to them was quite charming.

Bricket knew pretty well when his customers had had enough, and he was, therefore, somewhat anxious for some of them to make a move.

Peace was asked to favour them with a little more music—​a request he at once acceded to. When he had concluded the landlord touched him on the shoulder, and Peace followed him into the bar parlour.

“They’re a merry set of fellows,” said he, “but it’s almost time for them to give over for to-night.”

“Certainly,” returned our hero. “I’m quite of your opinion. We’ve had a very pleasant evening—​let it now be brought to a conclusion.”

“They’ll never go away as long as they hear the fiddle going. I know ’em too well for that.”

“Then I wont play any more. Enough is as good as a feast; besides I’m tired, and shall be glad to get rest.

“I’ll go in and wish ’em good night, and then retire to my bedroom.”

“Don’t do so on my account.”

“No, but I shall upon my own.”

Peace went back into the parlour, and told the company that he needed repose, and was about to retire; he wished them all good night. There was a vast amount of shaking of hands, and reiterated expressions of gratitude and friendship, after which Peace was permitted to take his leave, with the understanding that he was to join them on the following evening.

In less than half an hour after he had retired the parlour of the “Carved Lion” was tenantless.