Bridgenorth

“ She had been thinking all night with intensity, and Mrs. Bridgenorth's generosity, coupled with Mrs. Bridgenorth's promptitude, had kept her awake. Thence, for a woman nervous and critical, imaginations, visions, questions. "Why, in writing me last night, did you take for granted it was she who had swooped down? Why," asked Mary Tredick, "should she swoop?"
Well, if I could drive a bargain for Mary, I felt I could a fortiori lie for her. "Because it's her way. She does swoop. She's impatient and uncontrolled. ”

“ I take it that we Bridgenorths are a pretty typical English family of the sort that has always set things straight and stuck up for the right to think and believe according to our conscience. But nowadays we are expected to dress and eat as the week-end bounders do, and to think and believe as the converted cannibals of Central Africa do, and to lie down and let every snob and every cad and every halfpenny journalist walk over us. Why, theres not a newspaper in England today that represents what I call solid Bridgenorth opinion and tradition. ”

“ This Lady Peveril would not permit, and Bridgenorth left the castle. The arrival of Sir Geoffrey from London with news that the council had sent a herald with the king's warrant for the Countess of Derby's arrest, made flight to the Isle of Man imperative. Bridgenorth, with a number of the old Roundheads, attempted to prevent the escape, but were beaten off by Sir Geoffrey and his men, and the countess embarked safely for her son's hereditary dominions, until the accusation against her for breach of the royal indemnity by the execution of Christian could be brought to some compromise. ”

“ Mrs Bridgenorth rises to receive her brother-in-law, who enters resplendent in full-dress uniform, with many medals and orders. General Bridgenorth is a well set up man of fifty, with large brave nostrils, an iron mouth, faithful dog's eyes, and much natural simplicity and dignity of character. He is ignorant, stupid, and prejudiced, having been carefully trained to be so; and it is not always possible to be patient with him when his unquestionably good intentions become actively mischievous; but one blames society, not himself, for this. ”

“ But the course of true love was not destined even in this little island to run entirely smooth; for the old spirit of Bridgenorth is awakened to restore England to the greatness of the days of Cromwell. He endeavors to arouse the same zeal in young Peveril; he had just returned from the south of France, and had many stories to tell of the French Huguenots, who already began to sustain those vexations, which a few years afterward were summed up by the revocation of the edict of Nantz. He had been in Hungary, and spoke from personal knowledge of the leaders of the great Protestant insurrection. ”

“ Bridgenorth castle; But Bridgenorth still keeps one object of surpassing interest in our present story, that which is of a truth the very cradle and kernel of the place, the shattered keep of Robert of Bellême. Robert’s keep. There we have the good luck which we enjoy but seldom in examining the military remains of this age, the strongholds of the men of the Conquest and their immediate successors. Most commonly we light on little more than the mere site, or the works of earlier or of later times ”

“ Whereas in his imaginations of women,--in the characters of Ellen Douglas, of Flora MacIvor, Rose Bradwardine, Catherine Seyton, Diana Vernon, Lilias Redgauntlet, Alice Bridgenorth, Alice Lee, and Jeanie Deans,--with endless varieties of grace, tenderness, and intellectual power, we find in all a quite infallible sense of dignity and justice; a fearless, instant, and untiring self-sacrifice, to even the appearance of duty, much more to its real claims ”

“ Bridgenorth, or Quatbridge.—The Winchester MS. of the Chronicle says the Danes wrought a geweorc at Quatbridge, in 896, and passed the winter there. There is no such place as Quatbridge now, only Quatford; and seeing there were so few bridges in those days, we are disposed to accept the statement of the Worcester MS., which must have been the best [Pg 53] informed about events in the west, that Bridgenorth was the site of their work, especially as the high rock at Bridgenorth offers a natural fortification. ”

“ Bridge then, the stronghold of Æthelflæd, became the stronghold of Robert of Bellême; and now, perhaps from its position with regard to his father’s dwelling at Quatford, it came to be specially distinguished as Bridgenorth. A steep cliff overhangs the river at a point where the opposite ground is high, where the stream is far wider than it again becomes lower down, and where the channel is divided by an island, such as those by which the Danes loved to anchor, whether in the Seine or in the Severn. Oldbury. ”

“ Gatacre, of this County, (Salop) killed in Bridgnorth by a Quarter Master, and the Quarter Master killed too by him.” “Friday, Oct. 17. A Scott was tryed at Bridgenorth, at a Council of Warre, that he put on his hatt before his Majestie, and being reprehend for it by the Govr., he told them he was equal to all but the Govr., and they committed him for it.”
[55] I am indebted to Mrs. Stackhouse Acton for the copy of these two letters of King Charles’s. They are found in an 8vo. Vol. of King Charles’s letters to his Secretary Nicholas, in which the ciphers are explained as above. ”

“ But Mrs. Bridgenorth and I, between us, had clearly made the figure too high. "You think that, if she had guessed, I would naturally work it to 'extract' more?"
She turned away from me on this and, looking blank in her trouble, moved vaguely about. Then she stopped. "I see him set up there. I hear her say it. What you said she would make him pass for."
I believe I foolishly tried—though only for an instant—to look as if I didn't remember what I had said. "Her husband?" ”

“ When on my return from dinner that night I let myself in, my first care, in my dusty studio, was to make light for another look at Mary's subject. I felt the impulse to bid him good night, but, to my astonishment, he was no longer there. His place was a void—he had already disappeared. I saw, however, after my first surprise, what had happened—saw it moreover, frankly, with some relief. As my servants were in bed I could ask no questions, but it was clear that Mrs. Bridgenorth, whose note, containing its cheque, lay on my table, had been after all unable to wait. ”

“ He looked at Julian as he spoke, much as he who proves a horse offers some object suddenly to his eyes, then watches to see if he starts or blenches from it. But Julian’s thoughts were too much bent on other topics to manifest any alarm. His answer referred to a previous part of Bridgenorth’s discourse, and was not returned till after a brief pause. “War, then,” he said, “war, the grand impoverisher, is also a creator of wealth which it wastes and devours?” ”

“ Nevertheless, each party being put upon the alert by the consequences of Major Bridgenorth’s embassy, so many points of doubt and delicate discussion were started in succession, that the Lady Peveril, the only person, perhaps, who was desirous of achieving an effectual reconciliation between them, incurred, in reward for her good intentions, the censure of both factions, and had much reason to regret her well-meant project of bringing the Capulets and Montagues of Derbyshire together on the same occasion of public festivity. ”

“ When marrying Reginald she told her friends that there was a great deal in him which needed bringing out. If she were a middle-aged man she would be the terror of his club. Being a pretty young woman, she is forgiven everything, proving that "Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner" is an error, the fact being that the secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.
She runs in fussily, full of her own importance, and swoops on Lesbia, who is much less disposed to spoil her than Mrs Bridgenorth is. ”

“ You don’t deserve your cousin—Miss Eyrecourt I mean—to be so good to you,” said Eugenia, reproachfully.
“Don’t I? I fancy I fully deserve all the goodness I get from her,” replied Beauchamp, with a tinge of bitterness in his tone which made Eugenia tell him he had certainly been rubbed the wrong way by some one or something, he was so moody and captious, which little scolding he took in good part and exerted himself to a greater appearance of amiability, till the few hours of his visit were over and he was due again at Bridgenorth. ”

“ He still continues at Bridgenorth, and has apparently lived through all the hostility and prejudice which his preaching and residence among them once excited. He begins also to see some important fruits of his labours. How cheering is all this! Well, my dear friend, let us catch the animating glow, and strive to live more for our loving Saviour and the great glory of his name.
Kind faithfulness towards our friends is a truly Christian grace—this grace the subject of this p. ”

“ There on the banks you will find the footpath of the many who have passed that way. They sat at those front windows, sewing, reading, often writing their letters on blotting pads upon their laps, scarcely conscious that the little filtering stream of life in Bridnorth drew them there. For had they been questioned on these matters, one and all, severally or together they would have laughed, saying that for the greater half of the year there was no life in Bridnorth to pass by, and certainly none that concerned them. ”

“ The historical notices of Bridgnorth which I have thus brought before the reader, will not, I hope, be considered wholly devoid of interest, at least not by those who are locally connected with the place. They are scanty indeed, but sufficient to shew them that the town, in which it is their lot to live, not only is one whose foundation is of very ancient date, and the Borough belonging to it one of the earliest [Pg 98] in the kingdom, subsequent to the Norman Conquest, but that it has been at times the theatre of events of some importance in history ”

“ After the origin of the name, the next thing to consider is the first foundation of Bridgnorth. There is no doubt that this is very ancient, probably as ancient as the age of Alfred the Great. The Saxon chroniclers inform us that Ethelfleda, the daughter of Alfred, who inherited the magnanimity which has made her father’s name so illustrious in the page of history, aided her brother Edward in resisting the incursions of the Danes; and for this purpose erected several forts and castles in different parts of the country, and among these one at Bridgnorth. ”

“ Lady Bridget now perceived behind the stockman a black boy on a young colt, leading a sturdy flea-bitten grey, laden with a pack bag on either side. He jumped off as lightly as Moongarr Bill and hitched his horses also to the veranda posts. Except that he was black as a coal, save for the whites of his eyes and his gleaming teeth, he seemed a grotesque understudy of the stockman—moleskins, not too clean and rubbed and frayed in places, fastened up with a strap; faded Crimean shirt exposing a wealed and tattooed breast; old felt hat—not a cabbage tree—with a pipe stuck in its greasy band ”

“ On Wednesday next, Harry, thou shalt set forward; On Thursday, we ourselves will march: Our meeting is Bridgnorth: and, Harry, you Shall march through Glostershire; by which account Our business valued, some twelve days hence Our general forces at Bridgnorth shall meet.”
If our dramatist had any warrant for this representation, of which I have no doubt, the town of Bridgnorth must have witnessed on this occasion a fine military muster, and have had the privilege of [Pg 111] receiving into its Castle one who has been ranked among the greatest of England’s heroes—Henry, Prince of Wales. ”

“ It stood outside the town, east of the road which led from Saint John’s Hospital to Quatford. Its founders were, probably, the community of the Borough of Bridgnorth, and such an establishment may be considered as one of the sanitary measures which they adopted for the benefit of the town. Many of the large towns in England had establishments of this nature in the thirteenth century; and there is evidence to prove, that the Leper House of Saint James, in Bridgnorth, was founded previously to 1224 ”

“ But about this time there was one connected with the Collegiate Church of Saint Mary Magdalene of Bridgnorth, whose name would cast a lustre on any church in any age; and it is pleasant to turn from these indecent scenes of ambitious strife among ecclesiastics, to contemplate a character so truly exalted as his. The individual, to whom I refer, was one whose influence on the Church and State was very considerable in his day, having been twice entrusted with the Great Seal of England, both in the reign of Edward III. and Richard II ”

“ It might be, as she had said to Sarratt, that Bridget managed because she liked managing. All the same Nelly knew, not without some prickings of conscience as to her own dependence, that when George was gone, she would never be able to get on without Bridget.
Into what a world of delight the two plunged when they set forth! The more it rains in the Westmorland country, the more heavenly are the days when the clouds forget to rain! ”

“ The Bishops on leaving the court immediately repaired to Whitehall Chapel, to return thanks to God for their deliverance, and other churches were thronged by multitudes who assembled in them for the same purpose. “The bells rung from every tower, every house was illuminated, and bonfires were kindled in every [Pg 202] street.” The joy was not confined to London, it was propagated throughout the kingdom, and felt in the remotest villages. Bridgnorth, as we have seen, fully shared in it. ”