Hogglestock

“ There is not a gentleman's house in the parish of Hogglestock besides that of the clergyman; and this, though it is certainly the house of a gentleman, can hardly be said to be fit to be so. It is ugly, and straight, and small. There is a garden attached to the house, half in front of it and half behind; but this garden, like the rest of the parish, is by no means ornamental, though sufficiently useful. ”

“ And then, in the course of eighteen months, this poor piece of preferment fell in the dean’s way, this incumbency of Hogglestock with its stipend reaching one hundred and thirty pounds a year. Even that was worth double the Cornish curacy, and there was, moreover, a house attached to it. Poor Mrs. Crawley, when she heard of it, thought that their struggles of poverty were now well nigh over. What might not be done with a hundred and thirty pounds by people who had lived for ten years on seventy? ”

“ Providence had not supplied Hogglestock with a Lady Lufton, or with any substitute in the shape of lord or lady, squire or squiress. The Hogglestock farmers, male and female, were a rude, rough set, not bordering in their social rank on the farmer gentle; and Lady Lufton, knowing this, and hearing something of these Crawleys from Mrs. Arabin, the dean’s wife, trimmed her lamps, so that they should shed a wider light, and pour forth some of their influence on that forlorn household.
And as regards Mrs. Crawley, Lady Lufton by no means found that her work and good-will were thrown away. Mrs. ”

“ The technical cleverness of the last Act is noticeable. In the original editions the play is divided into acts but not into scenes. These are now indicated for the first time.
Hogsdon, i.e. Hoxton, in the parish of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, was described by Stow, in 1598, as “a large street with houses on both sides.” It was in the adjacent fields that the duel was fought between Ben Jonson and Gabriel Spenser, a player belonging to Henslowe’s company, which resulted in the death of the latter and put Jonson in peril of his life.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. Young Chartley, a wild-headed Gentleman. ”

“ And thereupon, I looked away from the negro's grinning countenance, and straight in the black, pig-like eyes of Amos Baverstock.
If I had feared him before, I was well-nigh terrified of him then; for there was black murder in the look he gave me, and his mouth was working horribly.
For all that, he straightened his face in half a second, and turned to Hogg as calm as the sea itself.
"I'll settle with you in a moment," said he. "I've not lived more than half my life without learning how to deal with a buck nigger who's three parts tipsy. ”

“ Up here there was not a soul, and Miss Hoggs, without being seen, climbed over the railing and scrambled into one of the boats suspended above the watery abyss. As soon as she was well inside, she congratulated herself upon her wisdom and foresight. That was the advantage of having a clear and cool head, she thought. She knew that when once the boat was lowered there would be a wild scramble for it; the crush in the gangway and on the companion ladder would be something awful. Again and again she congratulated herself on having thought of getting into the boat beforehand. ”

“ Hogg, after a moment's hesitation, followed.
“The laugh's agin you, farmer,” said the latter gentleman, taking his arm.
Mr. Rose shook him off.
“Better make the best of it,” continued the peace-maker.
“She's a girl to be proud of,” said Lawyer Quince, keeping pace with the farmer on the other side. “She's got a head that's worth yours and mine put together, with Hogg's thrown in as a little makeweight.”
“And here's the White Swan,” said Mr. Hogg, who had a hazy idea of a compliment, “and all of us as dry as a bone. Why not all go in and have a glass to shut folks' mouths?” ”

“ Hogg, during his lifetime, never liked to hear its demolition proposed. Here he had lived as a child, and here he lived when grown up, and rented the farm, before going to Altrive. He used always to inquire of people from Ettrick, if the house really were yet destroyed. I believe it stood till after his death, but it is now quite gone. The bricklayers? There is no such thing here; all is built of the iron-like, hard whinstone of the hills;—the builders, then, with a sentiment which does honor to them, were reluctant to pull down the birthplace and home of the shepherd-poet ”

“ And if he wanted more income, had not he his pen, and was not he very popular with the periodicals? But he was always wanting to take great farms, without any money to stock them. He was hand and glove with great men in Edinburgh, Professor Wilson, and Scott, and the like; he was aye going to Abbotsford and Lord Napier's; and so he thought himself a very great man too, and Mrs. Hogg thought herself a great woman, and looked down on her neighbors. These poets think nothing's good enough for them. Hogg paid the duke no rent, but he caught his fish, and killed his game ”

“ If any malignant rival had hinted aught to his prejudice, the maidens of the whole district had assembled to vindicate his cause. His personal appearance at this early period is thus described by Mr William Laidlaw:—"About nineteen years of age, Hogg was rather above the middle height, of faultless symmetry of form; he was of almost unequalled agility and swiftness. His face was then round and full, and of a ruddy complexion, with bright blue eyes that beamed with gaiety, glee, and good- [Pg 7] humour, the effect of the most exuberant animal spirits. ”

“ Sailor Smith, sturdy and white, entered and greeted Kent courteously.
“Mr. Dennett was saying,” remarked Kent, “that you know something of the history of Hedgerow House, as I believe they call it.”
“They call it!” repeated the old sailor. “Who calls it? If you mean the Blair place, that’s Hogg’s Haven, that is! You can’t wipe out that name while there’s a man living as knew the place at its worst. Old Captain Hogg built it and lived in it and died in it. And if there’s a fryin’-pan in hell, the devil is fryin’ bacon out of old Hogg to-day for the things he done in that house.” ”

“ Were the Prince to come here it might chance that your spears would talk with him. Let Nodwengo follow me to the camp yonder, where we promise him safe conduct.”
“Not so,” answered Hokosa. “‘Does a buck walk into an open pit?’ Set out your message, and we will consider it.”
“Nay, I am but a common man without authority; but I am charged to make you another offer, and if you will not hear it then there is an end. Let Hokosa advance alone to that flat rock you see yonder, and there he shall be met, also alone, by one having power to talk with him, namely, by the Lady Noma, who was once his wife. ”

“ Hokosa answered. “We did well yonder, and yet the most of us are alive to tell the tale, for I knew when and how to go. Be ready, King, for the foe press us close, and that mob behind us crawls onward like a snail.”
As he spoke the pursuers broke through the fence and gate of the burning town, and once more the fight began. They had the advantage of numbers; but Nodwengo and his troops stood in a wide road upon higher ground protected on either side by walls, and were, moreover, rested, not breathless and weary with travel like the men of Hafela. ”

“ On the dowie houms of Yarrow."
Then we come into the country of Joseph Hogg. The farm where he was tenant and failed, for Hogg was a shepherd and a poet, which means a wanderer and a dreamer. And soon to the Gordon Arms, a plain rambling cement structure, where Hogg and Scott met by appointment and took their last walk together.
Hogg is the spirit of all the Ettrick place. Can you not hear his skylark—"Bird of the wilderness, blithesome and cumberless"—in [Pg 76] that far blue sky above Altrive, where he died—"Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!" ”

“ Hogart; and before the birth of her son, she prevailed upon her husband to liquify it into Hogarth. This circumstance was told to me by Mr. Walker, who is a native of Westmoreland. By Dr. Morell, I was informed that his real name was Hoggard, or Hogard, which, himself altered, by changing d into ð, the Saxon th.
[6] On what authority this is said, I am yet to learn. The registers of St. Bartholomew the Great, and of St. Bartholomew the Less, have both been searched for the same information, with fruitless solicitude. The school of Hogarth's father, in 1712, was in the parish of St. ”

“ I saw one or two of the men turn back to speak to him, but he waved his arms and roared at them, so that they very soon faced about and left him to himself; in some circumstances would-be sympathizers only aggravate a man's trouble. So Hoggett went, baffled and solitary, never turning aside until he came to the edge of the wood, and then the passion that he had been brooding on broke all bounds, and he wheeled about suddenly, and shook his fist most vehemently at us, shouting words which in the distance I could not catch. ”

“ Having gone to chambers one morning under the impression that the trio would leave York on the morrow, Hogg was not a little surprised at his dinner-hour to discover that, whilst he was at work over legal papers, his friends had gone away in a post-chaise for Richmond. ‘When I returned to dinner, such was the precipitation of the young votaries of the Muses, that the birds were flown,’ says Hogg, in language which, at the first glance, seems to imply that he lived in the same house as the trio, till the moment of their departure. ”

“ I said, but Hoolihan scowled and flexed his enormous arms, and said, "That ain't worryin' me. I'm thinkin' about somethin' else. Here we are, there's the treasure, lyin' under five foot of sand and water. All we got to do is dig it up. But we ain't settled yet whose treasure it is."
"All right," I said, shedding my shirt, "we settles it now."
With a roar, Hoolihan ripped off his shirt and squared off, the morning sun gleaming on the red hair of his gigantic chest, and the muscles standing out in knots all over his arms and shoulders. ”

“ The whole of his career of schooling he computes at about half-a-year, but says that his old schoolmaster even denied this, declaring that he never was at his school at all! What a stock of education on which to set up shepherd, farmer, and poet!
Like Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, and other illustrious men, Hogg, of course, fell in love in his very childhood, and, to say truth, his relation of this juvenile passion is as interesting as that of any of theirs. "It will scarcely be believed that at so early an age I should have been an admirer of the other sex. ”

“ I have been sick at heart, and therefore I have not come.”
“What, Hokosa, do your doubts still torment you? I thought that my prayers had been heard, and that power had been given me to set them at rest for ever. Man, let me hear the trouble, and swiftly, for cannot you who are a doctor see that I shall not be here for long to talk with you? My days are numbered, Hokosa, and my work is almost done.”
“I know it,” answered Hokosa. “And, Messenger, my days are also numbered.”
“How is this?” asked Owen, “seeing that you are well and strong. Does an enemy put you in danger of your life?” ”

“ Hogg gives a vivid picture of his own adventures in this storm. He had gone from home the previous day, tramping over the Ettrick hills many a long mile to attend some friendly meeting of fellow-shepherds, leaving his sheep in charge of his master. Arrived at his destination, and rendered uneasy by the unwonted appearance of the sky, without waiting for rest or for anything but a little food and drink, he turned and set out straightway on his homeward journey. A tramp of thirty or forty miles over the hills is ordinarily no great matter for a young and active shepherd. But now snow was falling ”

“ Falk crossed to a table in the corner near the window, his accustomed seat. No one seemed to notice him, but soon Hogg, stout and smiling, came over to him. No one had ever seen Samuel Hogg out of temper--no, never, not even when there had been fighting in the place and he had been compelled to eject men, by force of arms, through the doors and windows. There had not been many fights there. Men were afraid of him, in spite of his imperturbable good temper. Men said of him that he would stick at nothing, although what exactly was meant by that no one knew. ”

“ I said. "I believe it means the island's south of the harbor."
"I say north!" exclaimed Hoolihan, angrily.
"South!" I snarled.
"We goes north!" bellered Hoolihan, brandishing his fists. He hadn't no control over his temper at all. "We goes north or nowheres!"
As I started to rise, my foot hit something in the bottom of the launch. It was a belaying pin. I ain't a man to be gypped out of a fortune account of the stubbornness of some misguided jackass. I laid that belaying pin over Red Hoolihan's ear with a full-arm swing. ”

“ And a verse of one of the songs of his early days, bright and blissful as they were, is thus strikingly verified, when he says—
'Flow, my Ettrick! it was thee
Into my life that first did drop me;
[Pg 42] Thee I 'll sing, and when I dee,
Thou wilt lend a sod to hap me.
Pausing swains will say, and weep,
Here our Shepherd lies asleep.'"
As formerly described, Hogg was, in youth, particularly good-looking and well-formed. ”

“ Chief Hogg walked straight up to the tramp and looked in his face. He even put out his hand and felt of the straggly beard as if desirous of making sure that it was genuine, and not assumed.
"'Taint him, Whalen! That imp Lef Seller done us up when he sent us on this fools' errand," he remarked, vigorously, turning to one of his companions.
"But we want to make sure. They say that Bill Brockholt's a crafty cove, all right," declared one of the minions of the law, suspiciously. ”

“ I believe Hoggs—I mean my cousin Howard—was coming down specially to meet him."
"Torwood Park doesn't belong to your cousin?" inquired March.
"No; it used to belong to the Winthrops, you know," replied the other. "Now a new man's got it; a man from Montreal named Jenkins. Hoggs comes for the shooting; I told you he was a lovely shot." ”