Howard Pease

“ Now this form of procedure with a selfish man usually produces excellent results. If he is sufficiently selfish, he does not stay to inquire why or wherefore, but takes all he can, as a cat her cream, without delay, without a thank you—nay, unlike tabby, without even an inward purr.
It was so with Geordie, who began incontinently to brag about his ‘missus’s trainin’,’ and how he was ‘champion’ at ‘fettlin’ a wife’s nonsense,’ and, swollen with self-satisfaction, began now to treat her with a sort of contemptuous toleration. ”

“ The morning of the show-day came, and Geordie, having finished packing his exhibits with extraordinary care, had just returned with the small cart the grocer had lent him to convey his treasures to the show-field, about a mile and a half distant, when up came Maggie, Scotty’s wife, who, notwithstanding the little difference between their respective men, had always kept up her friendship with Geordie’s wife. Her arms bore a large green case, tied round with a many-knotted cord. ”

“ It so chanced that I was detained in Bridgeton on the day of the annual fair and hiring, and having two hours to wait for my train, I determined to pass the time away by noting the humours of the festival. Farmers’ wives, laden with ‘remnants’ and cheap bargains in the hardware line, were slowly surging through the throng, towards the various publics, in search of their ‘men’ and the ‘trap.’ Hinds, male and female, having now ‘bound their bargains’ with their masters, were coasting round the booths and stalls, ‘putting in’ at all the ale-houses they passed in their uncertain voyaging. ”

“ Should the puddings emerge whole, gossip is dumfoundered; should they come forth broken, the man is proved to have a ‘fancy’ wife.
Mary, indeed, found she could scarcely control her impatience when the fatal day came, and, the pig duly slaughtered, she ‘gave’ the puddings to her husband, Geordie. ”

“ You’ll have heard tell of Squire Dennington of Dennington Hall? A great rider he was once, and a sportsman generally—“Jockey Jack” his own private friends called him, and his horse, “Pit Laddie”—ye’ll heard of him?—won the “Plate” some thirty years back.
‘Well, his lady, Mrs. Dennington, was just the proudest woman in the whole county of Northumberland—scarcely what ye would call “bonny,” but just tarr’ble handsome, and the Squire, he fair worships her. ”

“ Sometimes the sinner in question had been unwittingly tempted into the ‘narrow path’ by the gratification of his ambitions on some point or other, conversion resulting, as in the case of Tom Appleby—once a fire-hot Socialist, now a sleek Conservative—from unexpected prosperity. ”

“ Why, the whole show was a got-up job, the cargo saw-dust, salvage stocks worth £20 at an outside figure. The skipper, being a pal of mine, lent me his duds, this morning, for I knew you’d be down there sniffing and spectacling about with the morning’s sunrise, and I had the show ready for you, John, to walk into, and in you walked like blue blazes. The £400 will about pay for my trouble, and for the premiums on the store shares. Your principals will have to buy the shares back from the banks—they mustn’t buy below par, though, John—you remind them of that. ”

“ But if ye’ll bide here three minutes till I’ve seen the mare looked to properly I’ll tell ye a tale of t’ Squire—same as grandfather told it me.’
So saying Jack Skelton cantered round to the farm, where he was now employed as horse-breaker and showyard rider, while I strolled down to view the leap at the end of the field till he was free to join me. I could see The Ford opposite to me as I walked along—a square keep flanked with castellated wings rising proudly amongst its trees beyond the winding river in a circle of fir-clad hills. ”

“ Nothing could exceed the contempt of [152] the latter when he heard of Geordie’s trying to grow pansies—‘him that’s just a vegetable man, a tormut (turnip) grower, a sort o’ ha’penny farmer,’ and as for anything good in the way of seedlings coming out of the south-country, it was just ‘bang ridi’klous, for a’ folk kenned that a’ the best growers lived in auld Scotland.’
By-and-by some mischievous individual told Scotty that Geordie was ‘full’ set upon being pansy champion, and was so cock-sure about it that he was willing to back himself to win. ”

“ Defeat has little effect upon a ‘champion’: like Antæus, he picks himself up the stronger for a fall, and having advertised himself in the papers as ‘not being satisfied’ with his beating, challenges another attempt forthwith. ”

“ Wey, I’ll gang an’ fetch her awa at aince!’
So boasting, the proud champion reeled off in triumph, inadvertently knocking up against a silent looker-on, who was standing in melancholy guise against a tent-pole some little distance away.
One morning, a day or so after the flower-show, it chanced that Tommy was late for school, and, rounding a corner hurriedly, ran up against a big boy, who was sporting a pansy in his buttonhole. ”

“ Ye can ride, an’ ye can shoot, an’ ye can look a gal i’ the face, an’ ye can crack a bottle, but if ye turn priest, ye’ll neither be man nor woman, but a —— bad mixture o’ both.”
‘So he would talk o’ nights, pourin’ oot his ribaldries an’ drinkin’ doon his wine, yet never gettin’ fair drunk; for he had a marvellous stomach for liquor, had the Squire—no butt o’ Malmsey wine could ever have drooned him, I’s warn’d—an’ the only way he betrayed himself was by gettin’ a bit hotter i’ the face an’ fiercer i’ his talk. ”

“ I says, “will ye tak’ us, Betty?” for I kenned nicely beforehand she was the right sort for us, havin’ obsarved her previous, an’ walked oot wiv her a Sunday night or two. “Ay, an’ I will, Geordie,” she says thankfully, an’ as meek as skim milk; but for aal that I’ve been got the best o’ lots o’ time biv her ambition, an’ noo, here I is, wiv a fam’ly o’ seven, an’ the missus insistin’ upon Harry’s—that’s the eldest boy, ye ken—gannin’ ti the Grammar School ti parfect hissel’ as a scholar. Ay, wor Harry’s a proper scholar, I’s warn’d, but schoolin’s tarr’ble expensive. ”

“ For now is the critical time,’ he added solemnly, with the professional manner of a physician making his diagnosis; ‘if he gets safely over this his cure may be regarded as practically assured.
‘The great thing is to believe in a man, to cultivate little by little his sense of self-respect; by “believing men to be better than they are,” one may even, as has been so well said, “make them better than they are.” ”

“ There is no “pauperizing” here, you see; it is simply giving a man a fair chance. And now,’ he continued briskly, ‘come out and inspect the garden.’
The protégé, it appeared, had been making himself useful therein, which my friend thought was a highly encouraging sign, ‘for,’ said he, ‘no bad man ever cared for gardening.’
The next few days I spent contentedly in absolute idleness, now strolling up the waterside, now smoking and reading peacefully in the little arbour behind the herbaceous border. ”

“ It’s for the brass. Ye ken Tom, my brother? Well, it’s for him i’ pairt, an’ i’ pairt for my mother, who wants a bit frae me for my keep, ye ken. Noo, Tom’s a bonny fellow, ain’t he?—just a joy ti the eye ti look upon; an’ he’s aye wantin’ a bit mair brass for this, an’ that, an’ t’ither, an’, man, it’s a pleasure ti me ti slave a bit for him. There’s nae use o’ brass for me—me that’ just the puir “Caleb Jay”—but Tom’s like a live lord when he’s plenty of brass; an’, man, but he spends it weel!’
I was silent for a while, thinking of the tragedy of it all. ”

“ In England we have always gone on a wrong principle; we worship success, worldly success, far too much, and have scant sympathy with the unfortunate. My friend outside says that he stole a leg of mutton for his starving daughter. ”

“ Noo, [82] Tom was a “spirritualist,” ye ken, as weel as a scholar, an’ he swears that the spirits forbade the match, an’ would be properly savage if they was disobliged.
‘She was a narvious sort, was Mary, an’ she tell’t Jack ov’t, an’ Jack, he says, iv his queer clipp’t Yorkshire way o’ talk, “T’ spirrits be d——d!” says he; “an’ if that softy Tom comes interferin’ ’twixt thoo an’ me, I’ll make him softier than ever,” he says, shakin’ a great big hairy fist that looked like a bullock’s head. ”

“ Weel, I’s no coward, I’s warn’d, an’ I’ll face any man livin’ that ye like ti mention, but I got a fair gliff at that, for I couldn’t make oot what it might mean—Nicholson an’ us bein’ the only folk aboot doon there. “Gox, it’s Jack’s ghost!” think I ti mysel iv a sudden sweat o’ fear. Sae oot at once I turns my davy (lamp) , an’ the lad’s, fearin’ lest he might notice us, an’ shrinks back inti the corner o’ the wall as small as could be, with the lad tremblin’ aal ower next us. ”

“ A fine, sunshiny October day it was, wiv a bit o’ wind from the west—the way the birds was to fly, ye ken, an’ a tarr’ble big comp’ny was assembled to see grandfeythor gie “the furrinor” his gruel.
‘Grandfeythor was i’ tremendous spirits that mornin’, an’ as full o’ gob as a torkey-cock; nothin’ could hold him; the world was a toy to him—like the geography chap [3] i’ the bairns’ books, ye ken—he felt sae tarr’ble strong an’ healthy. “Eyeball clear as a bairn’s,” says he, “hand steady as a rock, digestion a marvel,” an’ he pats hissel’ on the stomach as pleased as Punch. ”

“ Could they, noo?”
‘“No,” says I, “not they. They’re not scholars enough for that, an’ mevvies they would be gliffed at it as weel. Dis thoo nivvor get a gliff at the spirits?” I axes, careless like.
‘“Not while I’s parsonating, I divvn’t, but whiles when I’s doon the pit I gets a gliff,” says he; “it’s sae dark an’ lonesome i’ places.”
‘“Dis Tom ivvor try to make thoo parsonate doon i’ the pit?” I axes him, “for Tom, bein’ stoneman, ’ll come across thoo at times drivin’ yor galloway.” ”

“ An’ ye can have your pick o’ what’s in my stable,” adds t’ Squire, as he looks from one to t’ other of them, “while Mistress Heron an’ I will watch ye from t’ battlements an’ take time for ye; or, of course, if ye’re afraid,” he adds, as Cunliffe, hemming an’ hawing, says something about “not likin’ to take a horse out at that time o’ night,” an’ dwells heavy on the words, “we can send ye home in the landau, like a lady,” says t’ Squire. ”

“ FOOTNOTES
1 Northumberland Plate, or Pitmen’s Derby.
2 ‘Mevvies’ = maybe, perhaps. The true Northumbrian is in a threefold danger of betraying his origin: phonetically, by the ‘burr’; dialectically, by constant use of ‘mevvies,’ ‘wor’ (our) , and ‘I’s warned’ (I warrant you) ; psychologically, by a perpetual readiness to back himself, his dog, or any of his belongings, against any other man’s in the world, and for any amount, at a moment’s notice. ”

“ Everybody comes along—Noah’s Ark on a wet day ain’t in it for the pushin’ there’ll be at our doors once we get opened out—and, [193] another thing, everybody gets made into an automatic shareholder; for profits have to lie till they reach £5, when each man, woman, and child gets a share given them, will they, nill they—and you bet, John, they will. ”

“ Could Scotty not be caught hold of in some such fashion? queried Geordie to himself, as he sat by his fireside that night, deeply pondering the records he had just been studying. ‘I divvn’t think he’s ambitious, for he cares nowt aboot politics, an’ he never even thought o’ stannin’ for election on wor Parish Cooncil. Aal he cares for is his beer, an’ his quoits, an’ bettin’, an’—an’—his pansies; an’ I doot I cannot catch haud ov him in any one of those partic’lors, for it wouldn’t be fittin’ for us that’s a local preacher to gan an’ send him a barril o’ beer, or back him at a quoitin’ match. ”

“ But I’m thinkin’ mysel’,’ continued my informant reflectively, ‘that if Farmer Newton were tae give up shootin’ an’ huntin’ sae muckle, an’ took a turn at farmin’, he’d have a less reason for complaining.’
And so we passed the time away, he regaling me with all the domestic gossip of the countryside, I interrupting him now and again to point out the historical objects of interest on either hand of us; for, like all true countrymen, though he knew every stick and stone by the wayside, he was entirely ignorant of the past history of his vale. ”

“ I tell you, the thing’s fixed up, and is goin’ to give Old Quay shocks. Why, I’m buyin’ up here and there bankrupt stocks enough to bust the place with—pianners, hardware, bicycles, rose-trees, fam’ly Bibles, rat-traps—every taste will be suited, for I tell you cosmopolitanism ain’t in it with Bill Coody. I tell you I’ll be in a position to bust every single bicycle dealer in this little one-hoss place; every pianner dealer can shut up shop when I get started. ”

“ But women’s a different breed aaltigether. They divvn’t care for the same things as men, an’ ye cannet get roond them, I’s warn’d, for [123] they elwis gets roond ye instead. A man has no ambitions till he’s married, Maistor John. Mevvies he’s keen aboot this, an’ that, an’ ’tother thing, but that’s nowt. Noo, woman’s just chockfull ov ambitions aal her life long, an’s nivvor, no, nivvor, satisfied from her cradle tiv her grave, an’ even then she’s wantin’ fower horses tiv her hearse. ”