Theo. Kennedy — Chapter I

FAMORTH. CHAPTER I. Eighteen years ago! A great many changes have taken place since that period. Wonderful events have come to pass since then. Eighteen years ago! The commercial treaty was undreamt of, and crinoline unknown. Stiff collars tortured our miserable ears, and a Niagara of satin flowed into our waistcoats. Eighteen years ago! Stout Mr. Smith, of the firm of Orleans & Co., armed with an umbrella, rushed with coward haste across the Channel, and the inscrutable one was in the throes of that coup d'etat, which was to work so many mighty changes in civilized Europe. Eighteen years ago ! The heroes of Alma, Inkermann, and the Redan were callow ensigns, glorying in three-cornered tarts and cherry bounce. Eighteen years ago! King Midas reigned, though slightly tottering on his throne, and Countess Lola scattered terror in the breasts of Jesuits. Where are they now, these two last, the Steam King and the Comtesse de la Cirque ? Poor dethroned monarch of Scrip! Is there anything of Midas left you, but the ears ? I fear me not. And the beautiful sinner, who set society at defiance, and for the sake of whose black-lashed violet eyes a doting king gave up his crown : where is she ? Dead, your worships. Grim paralysis and penitence laid her prostrate in her prime. The rising generation know nothing of Lola, and ’tis just as well they do not. Eighteen years have wrought some changes in you and me, dear middle-aged reader. The halcyon days, when our whiskers were beyond suspicion, and not a button of our waistcoats overtasked, are over. Wisdom has set in with our wrinkles ; though faith in earthly things may have vanished in company with our teeth and hair. We have had our sorrows ; we have buried many bright hopes, beautiful beings, healthy enough to all seeming, but sickening and dying notwithstanding. We have had our joys perhaps. We have grinned, and mouthed it finely in our motley, nous autres, and now, alas ! there is but little left to us. We are only banner-bearers on this mortal stage, no chance of playing Hamlet or Macbeth, so we will pose ourselves as best we may, and flutter our colours jauntily. Eighteen years ago, we, the inhabitants of Farnorth, the most picturesque corner of Blankshire, were by no means so well up with the world as we are at present. Steam had not penetrated our lovely hills and dales — Madame La Mode ignored our existence: she comes to us now in twenty-four hours direct from Paris, and bedizens our wives and daughters in her newest fancies. Her mighty influence has extended to our poorest rustics. She has swept away the linsey-woolsey petticoat, the short jacket, and the snowy mob cap, and supplanted them with crinoline and shabby finery. I do not think we have gained much by this last change. Nature has been no step-dame to Farnorth. She has scattered her choicest gifts with a prodigal hand: she has given to this favoured district undulating plains, with a distance of azure mountains, steep crags clothed with lichens and brightly tinted heather, hedge-rows green with fern and gay with flowers, tiny cataracts sparkling in the sunshine, little rivers winding through hill and dale as though in tender haste to rest upon the hosom of the sea, feathery larches, wooing the soft south wind, graceful as exotic palms. All these and many other beauties has Nature bestowed on Farnorth. I have not half exhausted the catalogue. Moreover, the riches are not all upon the surface. Deep down in those lovely hills and dales lie hidden veins of choicest metals. As you wander along among the green fields you will come upon enclosures of shafts and trams, and straight tall chimnies. Unsightly murkylooking spots these are; blots upon the fair landscape in the eyes of every one, save those of the fortunate proprietors. [Fortunate proprietors, indeed, they frequently are, expanding from comparative poverty into chronic opulence with the aid of these disfiguring objects.] Nearly all the peasantry of Farnorth are miners. You will meet them on every side, their faces stained with the rich red ore, giving them an appearance not unlike Pawnees. They are infinitely more picturesque-looking than their coal-gummed brethren of Northumberland and Durham. These miners are a hard-working, harmless race enough, without any special evil characteristic, unless drunkenness be considered one. Their interests are bounded by their district, and those living twenty miles beyond are regarded as "offcomes" and foreigners. They speak the very broadest patois; they have a strong sense of humour, but they can scarcely be considered very intellectual. They take little or no interest in politics ; and so long as no Act is passed to restrict them in their beer, I do not think there is much chance of a rising amongst them. As a rule the men are infinitely superior to their wives (I am speaking of Farnorth working men, not of men in general, Messieurs et Mesdames). These ladies are not remarkable for reticence, and their conversation is calculated to appal fastidious ears, it is so very freely be sprinkled with .strong adjectives. They have forgotten their catechism—if, indeed, they ever knew it—and do not comport themselves lowly and reverently to all their betters. They will not recognise caste, and their easy familiarity would scare a fine south country lady into fits. Farnorth has its market-town, and its society. This latter abounds in cliques, which require the ingenuity of Dickens' artist in hair properly to define. I will not attempt it, feeling myself totally unequal to such a delicate task. I am writing now of eighteen years ago, although I speak in the present tense. The lovely hills and dales are dotted with handsome houses. Foremost amongst them stands Fcxoroft, the residence of the Plantagenet family. The old baronet, a very notorious man in his day, is dead. It is said the death of his eldest son killed him; but I do not attach much faith to that little romance. Sir Mortimer, the present baronet, has been of age for some years now; but he lives abroad with his mother and sisters. Foxcroft is a fine old building, having the remains of a moat and portcullis, dating heaven knows how far back. The Plantagenets are no gourds, I can confidently assure you. The park is very fine ; but it is intersected with iron railings, and each enclosure is tenanted by milch cows, belonging to the different farmers in the neighbourhood. Foxcroft dependents have been known to shed tears of agony over this last terrible fact. There is also a lack of timber about the property ; many trees have been ruthlessly felled lately. The old baronet, Sir Mortimer Plantagenet Plantagenet, was very wild in his youth, and on intimate terms with the first gentleman in Europe. [A portrait of that padded old profligate, taken in his latter days, when he might be called the wreck of the Royal George, faces you as you enter the large dining-hall.] It is whispered that all the unentailed part of the Foxcroft estate—a very considerable portion by the way—is heavily mortgaged, and that necessity more than inclination exiles the present baronet. That handsome Gothic house, with its straight. walks and quaintly clipped evergreens, is the property of Giles Houndly, Esq., one of Her Majesty's justices of the peace for the county. Some years ago this gentleman was not by any means so prosperous as he is now. It was a grand thing for him when the heiress of Gothic Hall fell in love with, and married him. Giles is a widower now; he is as welcome at some of the houses in Farnorth as flowers in May,’ for he is the purveyor in general, as well as the principal incubator, of all the malicious scandal and gossip which is hatched in the neighbourhood. That pretty cottage with its sloping lawn, its trim beds, and its wilderness of roses, is the dwelling place of two maiden ladies, and was, until lately, the home of their nephew. I can remember to this day what a commotion the advent of these good people occasioned in Farnorth. How it knitted its brows and shrugged its shoulders at the scandal of two young women (the eldest was scarcely thirty then), alighting as it were from the clouds, bringing with them a little boy—for whose presence they offered neither apology nor explanation —and betaking themselves to humble apartments in the High Street of the market town ! The local Mrs. Grundy was fright fully outraged, and the delinquents formed the principal topic of conversation at the card-parties for months. Giles Houndly, Esq.—he was then a solicitor in very poor practice—had a greal deal to say on this subject, he delivered himself of many brilliant speeches, quite outshone himself in short, and with his usual benevolence penetrated into the sanctum of the ladies, and presented them with a choice nosegay, culled with the greatest care from every hotbed of scandal in the neighbourhood. He did not, however, gain much by this. To all his hints and innuendoes about the boy, he received but one answer—the child was their orphan nephew. Their purses, poor ladies, were evidently light enough when first they came ; how otherwise would they have reconciled themselves to those mean rooms, and to that dirty old termagant, their landlady? Some five or six years after their arrival, considerable property reverted to them. They were not much more communicative on this subject than they had been on others : but it gradually became known that Major-General Snowe, H.E.I.C.S., had left to his beloved nieces, Alathea and Mary Snowe, the sum of five-and-twenty thousand pounds in the three per cent, consols; and when, subsequently, they applied for and purchased the cottage they now occupy, Farnorth smoothed out all the wrinkles on its forehead, and held out the right hand of fellowship. It was by no means cordially grasped at first, but time works wonders, and the Misses Snowe being possessed of gentle and forgiving natures, gradually allowed themselves to drift into acquaintanceship and even friendship with some of the families in the neighbourhood. Not long after the descent of the golden shower, young Horace, the principal cause of Mrs. Grundy's convulsions, was sent to Sandhurst, and in due course a commission was purchased for him in her Majesty's service. He has grown up a noblehearted, handsome man, and his two aunts wept unceasingly for days when he sailed for India, three months ago, to join his regiment there. The market-town of Farnorth is old-fashioned and quaint-looking enough, its one High Street is its glory. The parish-church is built in the good old style, and the service is conducted after the good old fashion. Our white-haired pastor would as soon think of picking your pocket as departing one iota from the beaten track made sacred by the footsteps of our forefathers. When the last curate—he came straight from Oxford and brought his young sister to live with him, and they were both wonderfully popular before this unhappy event—when, I say, the handsome Oxonian and his pretty sister undertook the decoration of the church at Christmas—holly had been permitted from time immemorial to hang from the old arches at this festive season—confiding Farnorth consented, unsuspicious of evil; but when the day arrived, and the startled congregation saw, lurking amongst the holly, scarlet crosses made of its berries—when their eyes fell upon green wreaths above the altar, where here and there artificial flowers showed their brazen meretricious faces, the hubbub and commotion were something terrible. Giles Houndly, Esq., was very busy, you may rest assured, and babbled loudly of the scarlet lady. The poor young curate and his pretty sister could make no stand against the storm; Farnorth had raised its banner of " No Popery," and waved it wildly aloft. The unhappy criminals were glad enough to rush away and shelter themselves in some less conservative district. Last Christmas, the good old pastor and his new coadjutor did not venture to admit even the green holly into the sacred edifice. Dr. Banques—I very much doubt whether he has any legal right to the prefix, but we give surgeons and apothecaries brevet rank in Farnorth—Dr. Banques occupies the large white house in the middle of High Street. Allopathy reigns supreme amongst us ; Homoeopathy does not dare to show its cloven foot. We believe in blue-pills, black-draughts, and occasional blood lettings. Mr. Sparkles is our principal legal adviser. He succeeded Giles Houndly, Esq., when that gentleman rose to marital preferment, but he has a much better practice than his predecessor had. He lives in that house with the two large bay-windows immediately facing you as you enter the town of Farnorth. There are a great many more handsome houses both in the town and neighbourhood, but as the occupants of most of them will only form a part in my choruses I do not intend to give them any special mention.