Kidderminster

“ The work done by Richard Baxter in Kidderminster has passed into history. Whereas in the beginning the moral (not to speak of the godly) were to be counted on the ten fingers, ere very long a passing traveller along the streets at a given hour heard the sounds of praise and prayer in every household. For the evidences of his power in his preaching, 'Reliquiæ Baxterianæ' and Calamy's 'Account,' and other easily accessible authorities may be consulted. Baxter had only been two years at his post in Kidderminster when the civil war burst out. ”

“ The carpet trade is centred in Halifax, Kidderminster and Glasgow. Whether further centralization may be looked for is questionable. Specialization undoubtedly favours Bradford, as there the wool, top, yarn and fabric branches of the industry are individually developed to great advantage; but the development of means of communication and some such factor as electric or water power may radically disturb the present balance of the industry. (A. F. B.)
Imports of Wool into the United Kingdom from the Principal Countries, Foreign and Colonial. ”

“ Lee, struggling to hide her emotions from her child, said, in a cheerful voice, "Well, Lucy, dear, we'll go next to Mrs. Kidder's; those who know what work is ought to have most consideration for their servant." And to Mrs. Kidder's, a full mile from the office, they went. The door was opened by a rude, dirty boy (Mrs. Kidder's eldest hope) , who, running to the landing-places on the stairs, shouted, "Ma—I say, can't you come down—here's somebody after a place."
"Tell 'em to come up here, Lorenzo."
"Follow your nose, ma'am," called out the boy, "and go to where you hear the tum-tumin." ”

“ In those days colonial governorships were less sought after than they are now; and it was hopeless to expect any man of mark at home to accept one.
From an “Account of the proceedings in relation to Captain Kidd in two letters from a Person of Quality to a kinsman of the Earl of Bellamont,” published in 1701, the year of Kidd’s death, with the avowed object of vindicating the memory of Bellamont, who was then dead, it appears that New York had at that time, rightly or wrongly, earned a bad name in England. ”

“ From so much of his previous history as this poor man told to the chaplain at Newgate, it appears that he was an Irishman, born near Londonderry, kidnapped when young and shipped for the plantations, where he had followed various honest avocations without any conspicuous success. Most of Kidd’s grown-up recruits, it is to be feared, were men of this kind, who for one reason or another were indisposed to remain long in any one employment, and likely to abandon the enterprise as soon as they got tired of it. ”

“ In pre-war days he wore the ordinary single, perpendicular variety of collar, with sharp turn-over points, starched and white to match his shirts.
Before leaving England to join his laundry, Kidger, with a magnificent gesture, abandoned his fine collection of collars to his aunt, bidding her convert them to some patriotic end. The fond lady, however, fearing lest anything should befall her nephew if a hot sector of the line moved up to the laundry, preserved them carefully, and Kidger was very glad to reclaim them on his demobilisation. ”

“ Though Cedric was born and had lived till his sixteenth year in the woodland cottage of his father, the forester of Pelham, his speech was not as that of the churls around us; and at Castle Mountjoy he had learned the ways of gentleness as readily as one of noblest blood. My lady mother was never aweary of lessoning such a pupil in the manners of a knight and gentleman; and now had reason to look with pride on her work. Withal Cedric ne’er forgot the class from which he sprung nor carried himself as a lord over them when given authority. ”

“ Kidder and his wife were both killed in their bed in the palace at Wells by the falling of a stack of chimneys through the roof in the great storm of 26 Nov. 1703.
Few men were more obnoxious to high churchmen than Kidder, but it is hardly fair to charge him, as he has been charged, with being a mere time-server. ”

“ For years we helped Kidd guard his idle capital. All sorts of men came after it. Several times Kinisi and Kidd visualized when the wrong people were getting [35] too close to the big iron chests. They could of course only do this at night. In the day time all we could do was to keep the dirt falling back into the hole until it became dark. Teach wanted to let the diggers get the hole well opened and then tumble them in and cover them up, the way he used to do when he had somebody help him dig a treasure hole. ”

“ The disastrous suggestion that Kidd should be sent out in command of a ship, provided at the expense of persons of consideration, and manned by a scratch crew of undisciplined men, emanated from Livingstone, and was assented to by the King as a pis-aller. At the worst the King could not lose a farthing by it. If it succeeded, he would not only gain his object, but pocket a substantial share of the plunder. The adventurers might pocket more, but they would run some risk of parting with their money and getting no return for it. ”

“ The pertinacious Livingstone, as might have been expected, was not to be staved off in this fashion; and before long he hit upon a new project. “He did propose to the Earl, that if persons of consideration might be induced to join in the expense of buying and fitting out a proper ship, he had such an opinion of Kidd’s capacity and good meaning, and so great a desire that some stop might be put to these practices that he would be one of the undertakers” (incurring little risk so long as he stood in with [28] persons of sufficient consideration) ”

“ Let us try to put ourselves in Kidd’s place, when the bulk of his men went over to the enemy. Forcibly deprived of his command at the moment when he saw success within his grasp; deserted by nearly all his crew; plundered of the greater part of the spoil he was taking home to his employers; on board the sinking Adventure Galley; [83] confined to his stifling cabin with its barricaded approaches. What course can it be suggested that he could have taken and have been held blameless by an English court? What course ought any man to have taken in his place who sought to do his duty by his owners? ”

“ Few, if any, of such men have less deserved their fate than Captain Kidd, one of the unluckiest men that ever lived, who left this world on Friday the 23d of May, 1701, after woeful experiences at sea of the doings of an unruly crew, and on shore of the schemings of unscrupulous politicians and [4] lawyers at Boston, Newgate, the Old Bailey, and the Execution Dock at Wapping.
To most of those who woo her, reputation is a coy and fickle mistress. ”

“ Something was stumbling heavily about the patch of garden—some animal. A cropping of grass, a snorting breath, and more stumbling hoofs, and she knew that Childe Harold had managed to loosen his bridle and limp out of the shed. The mere sense of his nearness seemed a sort of protection.
He had limped and stumbled to the front part of the garden before Nigel heard him. When he did hear, he came out of the house in the humour of a man the inflaming of whose mood has been cumulative; Childe Harold's temper also was not to be trifled with. ”

“ Then, turning to Cedric,
“Any who fights the Carleton wolves is a friend to all true Mountjoys. Come my lad, thy hand! And thy pardon if I did speak a thought rough, not knowing thy deserts. Wert thou sore beset? And did thy bolts make good men and quiet of some of those restless knaves?”
“Some of them, my lord, will ne’er again rob an honest farmer of his stores or burn a woodman’s cottage,” said Cedric with a smile.
“By’r Lady! Thou’rt a man, and shall be a Mountjoy, if guerdon can keep thee,” cried my father. “But hold! Give thy mounts to the grooms, and come to the hall. ”

“ Ken himself greatly disliked the appointment, and spoke of Kidder as a ‘latitudinarian traditor,’ a ‘hireling,’ who, ‘instead of keeping his flock within the fold, encouraged them to stray,’ ‘a stranger ravaging his flock.’ Kidder seems to have been continually in trouble with the cathedral chapter; they refused to attend his ordinations, thinking that he ordained nonconformists without having properly ascertained that they had really become churchmen. ”

“ He said that though the [22] pirates were many in number yet they had at that time no ship of considerable size. Livingstone affirmed that Kidd was a bold and honest man and he believed better than any other to be employed on that occasion.”
In the light of subsequent events it is much to be regretted that poor Kidd happened at that juncture to have come to London from New York and, whether in his cups or otherwise, made these disclosures to Livingstone. ”

“ Money, however, came in rapidly. Kidd, with all his crimes, possessed the elements of success in method, organisation, and power of command. His sailors forgot the horrors they had inflicted and their own degradation when they counted the pile of doubloons that constituted their share of plunder. Amongst the swarm of rovers who then swept the seas, Captain Kidd was considered the most successful, and even in a certain sense, notwithstanding his enormities, the most respectable of all. ”

“ Kildare's fortune had come from some almost forgotten lumber lands that his father had failed to heave into the Confederate maelstrom. Perhaps it had come a little soon for the very best upbuilding of the character of David Kildare, but he had stood shoulder to shoulder with them all in the fight for the establishment of the new order of things and his generosity with himself and his wealth had been superb. The delight with which he made a gift of himself to any cause whatsoever, rather tended to blight the prospects of what might have been a brilliant career at law. ”

“ Hast thou forgotten the two sentries in the lower pathway?”
Cedric smiled broadly.
“And hast thou forgotten, Sir Dickon, the oak tree from which we spied them but now? Old Marvin and I together shall care for the sentries.”
I drew a deep breath as I caught the full working of his plan. “Cedric,” I said, “thou wilt never remain a simple squire. Thou hast a head as well as an arm. The King hath need for such in many places of trust.”
“Let us first make this plan succeed,” replied Cedric evenly, though I could see that my words had warmed him to the heart. “Now shall we tell Lord Mountjoy?” ”

“ Lord Cadbury remained behind, to the intense annoyance of Goring, who, with his two companions, went back to the camp at a canter to be in time for mess; and while Sir Ranald—Cadbury's senior by some fifteen years—dozed and slept after dinner in his easy chair, Alison, till she was weary and well-nigh desperate, had to undergo the prolonged visit, the society, and the unconcealed tenderness, or would-be love-making, of her odious old admirer. ”

“ Then he spoke again:
“’Tis e’en as I thought. The Monkslayer hath his fastness in a wide cavern at the head of yonder gully. There is no approach save by that winding path you saw where half a dozen men might well stop a thousand. He thinks to guard my Lady Carleton there until her ransom be paid. And whether even then he will let her go unharmed we know not.”
Sir Geoffrey ground his teeth in rage.
“Hast thou any plan?” I asked of Cedric.
“Aye,” he replied, “though ’tis something ticklish; and if it fail, ’twill be an ill chance indeed.” ”

“ Kidwell, catching up the child lest its red petticoat might scare away the visitor, and popping into the dairy, she saw the hare, after a little demur, hobble into the cow-house. Having seen her well in, Mrs. Kidwell emerged from her hiding-place, and locking the door, she put the key in her pocket, and resumed her occupation with her churn. Presently the familiar melody—the yow, yow, yap, yap, yow, yow of the hounds broke upon her ear, increasing in strength as she listened, making her feel glad she was at hand to befriend the poor hare. ”

“ Minns was not his parent, he endeavoured to attract his notice by scraping his drab trousers with his dirty shoes, poking his chest with his mamma’s parasol, and other nameless endearments peculiar to infancy, with which he beguiled the tediousness of the ride, apparently very much to his own satisfaction.
When the unfortunate gentleman arrived at the Swan, he found to his great dismay, that it was a quarter past five. The white house, the stables, the ‘Beware of the Dog,’—every landmark was passed, with a rapidity not unusual to a gentleman of a certain age when too late for dinner. ”

“ One seeks excuses. Overnight there had been an encounter of Chitterlow and young Walshingham in his presence, that had certainly warped his standards. They had called within a few minutes of each other, and the two swayed by virile attentions to Old Methuselah Four Stars, had talked against each other, over and at the hospitable presence of Kipps. Walshingham had seemed to win at the beginning, but finally Chitterlow had made a magnificent display of vociferation and swept him out of existence. ”

“ The peasants had gone from Kilderry because Denys Barry was to drain the great bog. For all his love of Ireland, America had not left him untouched, and he hated the beautiful wasted space where peat might be cut and land opened up. The legends and superstitions of Kilderry did not move him, and he laughed when the peasants first refused to help, and then cursed him and went away to Ballylough with their few belongings as they saw his determination. In their place he sent for laborers from the North, and when the servants left he replaced them likewise. ”