Edward Thomas

“ Says Edward, with a laugh; "But thou shalt not be a loser, Tom, We'll share it half and half." "Alas! my kind young gentleman, This sharing cannot be; 'Tis written in the testament That Brentford spoke to me, 'I do forbid Prince Ned to give Prince Tom a halfpenny. "'He hath a store of money, But ne'er was known to lend it; He never help'd his brother; The poor he ne'er befriended; He hath no need of property Who knows not how to spend it. "'Poor Edward knows but how to spend, And thrifty Tom to hoard; Let Thomas be the steward then, And Edward be the lord ”

“ Edward followed him quaking. On reaching the desk, he stopped, and holding out the bottle, said, “That’s yours, is it not?” “Yes.” “Take it then, that is the way out,” pointing to the door; “go as fast as you can, and never come back; and take that too,” bringing the taws down heavily upon his back. Tom thought that his back was broken, and that he would never get his breath again.
A few days after, Tom was preparing to go [29] out, after breakfast, when his mother asked him, “Where are ye gaun the day, laddie?” “Till my school,” said he. “To your school, are ye? where is’t? ”

“ His father came home from his work for the purpose of taking the boy to school; but Tom had disappeared. He would not go back. He went first to the fish-market, where he spent the greater part of the day. Then he went down to the Inches. From thence he went towards the logs, and [38] whilst there with a few more boys preparing sparrow-traps, one of them called out “Tam, there’s yer faither!” Tom immediately got up, and ran away; his father, following him, called out “Stop, sir! stop, sir! come back, come back, will you!” Tom’s father was a long slender man, and could not stand much running. ”

“ Edward Thomas had wandered over literature and England, and shaped a mind that, at first opinionated, had saddened and mellowed. In the end he became a poet and a soldier almost at the same time, and now is dead. His success in prose had always been middling, breeding further discontent; do his poems [1] greatly succeed? Every time I read them I like them better. ”

“ At his request I accompanied him to the royal presence, and Edward received them with chivalrous courtesy.
"We do not make war on women," said the king; "and I am bound to protect you against all dangers. But, if there is any stronghold to which you wish to be conducted, name the place, and thither you shall be escorted without delay."
"To Corbie," was the reply.
"It shall be as you wish," said Edward; and then turning to Sir Thomas Norwich, he added with a smile, "Sir Thomas, be yours the honour of escorting the noble demoiselles to the castle whither they wish to proceed." ”

“ No braver man ever lived than William Thomas. I believe you are the worthy son of a noble sire and incapable of any act that could reflect disgrace upon his name."
The general continued: "You cannot link yourself to an unjust cause and escape censure; such a course would put you at war with yourself and at war with those who hope to see you add new honors to a name already dear to your countrymen. When you aid and abet Amos Royson, in his attempt to put a stigma upon Edward Morgan, you aid and abet him in an effort to do that for which there is no excuse. ”

“ At Ashcott, where a man is free to choose between very good water from a fountain on the right and the coloured drinks of the “Bell” opposite, I was two hundred feet up. I went into the church—a delightful place for a retired deity—and enjoyed this inscription on an oval tablet of marble, behind the pulpit, relating to the “remains” of Joseph Toms, who died in 1807, at the age of sixteen,—
“This youth was an apprentice to a grocer in Bristol, and as long as health permitted proved that inclination no less than duty prompted the union of strict integrity with industry. ”

“ Edward every success in the various fields of research upon which he has entered. It is but justice to a most deserving person to draw attention to his praiseworthy endeavours, in the midst of many difficulties, to perfect his knowledge of Natural History, and to recommend it to all around him, especially the young. ”

“ Thomas Edward, shoemaker in Banff, who is a zealous admirer of Nature and an excellent preserver of animals. Occasionally he tears himself, as it were, from the employment to which necessity compels him, and slakes his thirst for the contemplation of zoological scenes and objects by a solitary ramble amid the mountains and hills which so greatly abound in the upper portion of the shires of Aberdeen and Banff. ”

“ Edward was then called to the floor. “You’ve been at your old trade, Edward, I see; but I’ll now take it out of you. I have warned you not to bring any of your infernal beasts here, and now I have just found one creeping up my arm and biting me. Hold up.” Edward here ventured to say that he had not brought the beast, that he had not brought anything for a long while past. “What! a lie too?” said the master: “A lie added to the crime makes it doubly criminal. Hold up, sir!” Tom held up his hand, and the master came down upon it very heavily with the taws. “The other!” ”

“ Edward’s family were surprised at hearing some person, very heavily shod, ascending the stairs. One said it was a horse and cart; another said it was the Rooshians. The door was suddenly opened and flung bang against the wall, when in rushed—neither the horse and cart nor the Rooshians,—but a little urchin, out of breath, with his mouth wide open. There he stood, staring bewildered round the room; but [289] with a fish of a silvery hue dangling from his hand. After he had regained his breath he roared out, “Is Tam in?” “No.” “’Cause I ha’e a beast till him.” “Fa gi’ed ye’t?” “A man.” ”

“ A man may be a well-disposed man out of doors, yet altogether different in his domestic circle. Follow him home, and see what he is there. We have seen that Edward was a happy father and a happy husband. His children, as we have said, were brought up well and virtuously. There was no better conducted family in Banff. When young they assisted him in his labours amongst his fishes and crustaceans; and, when old, they were proud to help him in all ways. Is not this a great feature in a man’s character? ”

“ He rows, he plays football and cricket, he debates, all indifferently, but with such an air that he and even some others for a time believe that he is the life and soul of the college.
He has been captain and president of everything, when he finds that there is no further honour open to [Pg 295] him, and he muses almost with melancholy. The others find it out somewhat later; he is dejected. Though fallen, he is still majestic. He stalks about like a foxhound in July, or like a rebellious archangel ”

“ How often do they ride rough-shod over the intellectual man, not so much on his own account, as for those dependent on him. I have been thinking of Edward’s excellent wife and her flock of seven girls, which I saw when at Banff. ”

“ Notwithstanding Edward’s power of will and indomitable perseverance, and the amount of useful scientific work which he has accomplished, it was easy to see that he was rather disappointed at the results of his labours. It is true that his zoological labours did not enable him to earn money: indeed, he had not worked for money considerations. Natural science is always unremunerative, especially to those who have to work for their daily bread. [61] Nor had his self-imposed labours lifted him above his position in any way. He began life as a shoemaker, and he continued a shoemaker to the end. ”

“ He meant to say that we are limited creatures, not angels, and that our immediate surroundings are enough to exercise all our faculties of mind and body: there is no need to flatter ourselves with the belief that we could do better in a bigger or another world. Only the bad workman complains of his tools.
“There was another poet who hailed England, his native land, and asked how could it but be dear and holy to him, because he declared himself one who (here Mr Stodham grew very red and his voice rose, and Lewis thought he was going to sing as he recited) ”

“ Edward was flurried and out of breath; he rested in the tree for a short time, then descended and ran along the road for some miles until he thought that he was out of reach of further danger.
RESTS NEAR STONEHAVEN.
This was the only adventure that he met with on his homeward journey. He passed through Bervie without molestation. But, instead of reaching Aberdeen that night, as he had intended, he rested near Stonehaven. He went through the town, and got into a corner of the toll-bar dyke, where he sat or lay until daybreak. He then got up and commenced the last stage of his journey. ”

“ We have said that when Edward opened his exhibition in Aberdeen, he expected that there would be a large influx of visitors to see the collection of objects in natural history, which he had made with so much labour and difficulty. But there was no rush whatever. The attendance was always very small. The exhibition-room was for the most part empty. Edward at first thought that he had fixed the price too high. But he could remedy that defect. The better classes had failed him; now he would try the working-people. He would call “the millions” to his aid. ”

“ God have mercy upon him now, when we come face to face!" His manner alarmed the general. He caught him by the arm.
"Easy now, my young friend; the poor woman's fate has unnerved you; not a step further." He led Edward to the wing-room and forced him down to the divan. "Stay until I return!" The summons without had been renewed; the general responded in person and found Marsden Thomas at the door, who gazed in amazement upon the stately form before him, and after a moment's hesitation said, stiffly:
"I have a communication to deliver to Gerald Morgan. Will you kindly summon him, general?" ”

“ The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. ”

“ He would at need devise a new coat of arms for Magdalen or St. John’s, or improve “the devil that looks over Lincoln.”
Of “his own college” he knows everything, from the cobweb on Jeremy Taylor in the library to the [Pg 341] oldest beam in the kitchen roof. He knows the benefactors and their benefactions, their rank, and everything but the way to pronounce their names; and has a kind of unofficial bidding prayer in celebration of their good deeds. His ideal of a head of a college is an odd mixture of Dean Gaisford and Tatham of Lincoln ”

“ As one of the “lords ordainers” he was a recognized leader of the opposition to Edward II. By the heiress of the Tonis he left at his death in 1315 a son Earl Thomas, who distinguished himself at Crécy and Poitiers, was marshal of the English host, and, with his brother John, one of the founders of the order of the Garter. ”

“ When the family removed to Aberdeen, young Edward was in his glory. The place where he lived was close to the outside of the town. He was enabled to roam into the country by way of Deeside and Ferryhill. Close at hand were the Inches,—not the Inches of to-day—but the beautiful green Inches of sixty years ago, covered with waving algæ. There, too, grew the scurvy grass, and the beautiful sea daisy. Between the Inches, were channels through which the [8] tide flowed, with numerous pots or hollows. These were the places for bandies, eels, crabs, and worms. ”

“ Next morning, Edward received orders to destroy a lot of useless stuff which lay on the floor, consisting of broken-down astronomical and philosophical instruments, moth-eaten beasts, birds, and fishes, together with other wrecked specimens of the long-neglected museum. Edward went to work, and whilst groping amongst the rubbish at the bottom of the heap, he came upon a round dark object. He brought it up, and lo! it was the “auld been”—in other words, the old bone! ”

“ Edward was warned against returning to his old habits. He was told that although his constitution had originally been sound and healthy, it had, by constant exertion and exposure to cold and wet, become impaired to a much greater degree than had at first been supposed. Edward was also distinctly informed that if he did not at once desist from his nightly wanderings, his life would not be worth a farthing. Here, it appeared, was to be the end of his labours in Natural History. ”

“ Some of Edward’s other acquaintances also called, and they, like the others, declared that it was perfectly impossible for any working-man to have made such a collection by himself without any extraneous aid. One of his old shopmates called frequently, and Edward endeavoured to convince him that the thing was quite feasible; but he insisted that he must have got assistance or help in some way or another.
“Well,” said Edward, “you remember how I worked beside you in the old garret in Shoe Lane, how I was never idle, and was always busy at something, whether I had shoemaking to do or not. ”