Reminiscences, Sad and Consolatory

One precious privilege of a rural district is that seldom any sudden catastrophe happens to plunge it into grief and sorrow. Not so with the neighbourhood of large works. There the morn sometimes opens its tender eyelids upon a scene already awake and bustling, smiles upon it sweetly, as a happy child upon the mother found by his cradle when he awakes. Droves of colliers may be discerned turning out of their houses, with lamps hanging from their belts. The patter of their clogs along the hard road and uneven pavement makes music unto the ears of some Welshwomen I have known, while it re-awakens the sorrow of here and there a widow, who comes to the door with one child in her arms and another clinging to her apron, and looks after the crowd, as if expecting John to return. If you observe, you shall see a well-built powerful man hastening out of his house, with a step of pride at the thought that he is going forth to labour for wife and children. Before he has taken many paces a tiny, bare-footed, bare-legged, half-dressed boy, not wholly clean, for there are remnants of last night’s supper upon his round, fat face, runs after him; the father, in his hurry, having forgotten to kiss him before setting out. Reminded of his remissness, he takes the child up on his strong, broad breast, and, regardless of the mixture upon the cheek, gives him a sounding kiss, at which the mother, who by this time has got to the doorway, laughs right merrily. Is there one of them who dreams that that kiss shall be the last? The pit-engine— heart of the district—pulsates rapidly and regularly. The smoke of the great stack ascends in thick, black columns, straight to heaven, the morning being fair, and God—as I used to fancy when a boy—being in need of the smoke to make clouds with! ‘Team after team, wagon after wagon, may be found coming from the pit’s head, laden with the best coal; the wagoner, knee-breeched, and with whip on shoulder, walking as if he had one foot in a furrow, and making furtive eyes at all he meets, to see whether they have noticed his well-fed horses, whose tails he took such trouble, the night before, to plait and tie with blue and yellow ribbon. Children play about the streets, make fun of the wagoner’s thin shanks, and mimic his fashion of putting a “y” after his horses’ names: “Boxer-y,” “Blaze-y,” and the rest. “Our man” pays no heed to them. All appear happy and contented, from the obese butcher—half asleep in his shop chair, in the interval between his customers’ visits, and looking as if long poring over fat had made him, also, “it for the knife”—to the lean, sallow-faced cobbler, going homewards at a jog trot with an apron full of mending jobs. Although still early, the tidiest among the colliers’ wives are already in Mr. Roberts’s shop, looking out something nice for their husbands’ dinners; for how can men work hard if they have nothing to their taste to eat? They earn good money, so why should they not have a few delicacies found them now and then? There is a thriving look about the business establishments, whose owners employ the morning’s respite to remove the dust and put things in order. The ancient dame who keeps the toy shop is said to have an “old stocking.” And what wonder? Watch the boys, of every age and size, going to school, and you shall see them, all of a row, slates slung over shoulder, scored with the previous night’s home lesson—from the strokes of the boy, to the vulgar fractions of the stripling—all of a row, I say, flattening their noses against the window pane, and vowing each to have his toy with his next allowance of pocket money. Happy creatures!

But, possibly within the hour, the news will have run like wild-fire that there has been a “fall” underground, and that so many men have been killed; or that the water has broken in, and that so many have been drowned or shut up in the upper portions of the work. Lamentations, loud and deep, are heard all over the neighbourhood. The lad who, on his way to school in the morning, had looked forward to his father’s assistance in buying a bat, finds himself, before mid- day, an orphan. ‘The stalwart father, in the flower of health, whom we saw lifting his child like a feather upon his breast, for his morning kiss is brought home at night in a trolly, dead. Ye simple folk of Anglesey! What know ye of sudden heartrending visitations such as these? When, in long nights of winter, ye sit warming yourselves by your coal fires—not those of peat—remember that that which ye enjoy is often bought with blood!

When the explosion took place at the Red Fields pit, which caused the death of my brother Bob and divers others, there was, of course, not a moment’s warning; and the neighbourhood which, a few minutes before, was all peace and happiness, was plunged into sore and indescribable sorrow. Every workman had his Davy lamp, so that how the accident happened no one knew, and no one ever did know. It was not, however, the why and the wherefore of the occurrence that troubled the bereaved—amongst them mother and myself—but the results. Mother lost a son who, since a mere youth, had stood her in a husband’s stead, upon whom she was wholly dependent for her livelihood, and whom she loved much better than her own life. I know she did not concern herself much about me; but there was never a day, nor an hour of the day, that her soul was not entwined with Bob’s. As for me, I lost a brother of brothers, to whom I felt indebted for nearly all I possessed in the shape of learning. Even to this minute I feel certain I should be something wholly different to what I am but for him. If I attempted to describe my grief at his loss I should make myself an object of contempt in these my reminiscences. I envied mother, whom I saw holding up so bravely, whilst I was but a worthless, inert mass. How precious now is the remembrance of her behaviour! Were all the works of the Puritan fathers, and everything ever written on behalf of Christianity, placed in one great pile before me, and could I, by one single effort, comprehend the whole of their reasoning, my mother’s calmness and self-restraint in the face of this terrible affliction would present an infinitely stronger argument, to my mind, of the truth and divinity of the religion of the Gospel. Did she feel as deeply as other women bereaved by this catastrophe, who screamed and became hysterical? She did, and much more so, I shall believe. But she had some hidden spiritual support to fall back upon which enabled her to view the most direful calamity as but an indispensable verse in the chapter of her life, without which the context could not be made clear. It was not her physical strength which sustained her, for, to my sorrow, I perceived that that had for some time been rapidly declining. In her foolish fancy she had thought Bob the smartest, handsomest fellow in the neighbourhood, and suspected every girl who came to the house of having designs upon him. So dreadfully disfigured was he by the fire that she resolved, the moment his spirit fled, she would never look upon his face again. When his coffin was brought home (fearful object in a cot with no room in it to which to escape the sight!) mother gave the carpenter strict orders to screw it down at once. She was jealous lest a grim curiosity should lead someone to gaze upon the unsightly features. Is it not a fact that when those we love are overtaken by death—by sudden death more particularly— the failings and faults which were theirs when living retreat into the distance and grow smaller to the view? Memory does not care to look upon the departed ones save in their Sunday best. I was quite sure mother had prayed a deal for Bob, and had troubled greatly about his condition, although there was nothing in his conduct to need the intercession, with the sole exceptions of his taciturnity and the fact that he had not, for some time, been a member of the church. But now his burnt body lay at rest between four boards in the loft, she did not seem to concern herself in the slightest about the safety of his soul, at length far removed from all human aid. I remember well, after a silence of about an hour, occupied in pleating her apron and staring abstractedly into the fire, that she asked me: “What said he”—using the pronoun as if we had been talking of him only a minute previously—“What said he, tell me, in English to Dr. Bennett?”

“That it was broad daylight,” I replied.

“And what did the doctor say?”

“That he was beginning to ramble,” was my answer.

“I thought that was what he said; so Festus told Paul —‘Thou art beside thyself.’ ‘The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.’” And she added, as if to herself, “Ramble indeed! No fear of Bob’s rambling. It was of the spiritual light he spoke—that for which he had been groping, as he used to say. ‘And there shall be light in the evening!’ Wonderful! Wonderful! Obliged to lose both eyes before beginning to see! ‘For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see.’ I would rather than a good deal had he been professing; but I never considered him irreligious. Abel Hughes always said Bob had a better grain about him than the half of us. But what makes my mind easiest is his saying, a fortnight ago, that he was not careless about the things of religion, and that the cry of his soul was for the light. God has said, ‘Ye shall seek me and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.’ ‘I said not unto the seed of Jacob, seek ye me in vain.’ ‘Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and ye shall find,’ said the Saviour on the Mount. I shall not readily believe Bob to be lost. I hope I’m not sinning, but I feel so certain he is in heaven that, if I go there myself, as I expect I shall, and find him not there, it will be enough to destroy utterly all my happiness.”

Well, there is nothing for me, at this moment, but to trust that my mother’s faith was true. Some learned man, reading what I am about to say, would, doubtless, laugh at me. Let him laugh. But I believe that pious people, however ignorant they may be, possess some sort of spiritual perception, and receive, perhaps unconsciously, some kind of telegraphic communications from the eternal world, which are not permitted to the Godless or, if permitted them, not understood. I am perfectly well aware that this notion is incompatible with the knowledge of some able men in this (enlightened) age —an age in which religious people are often looked upon as old-fashioned, and the Bible is considered a harmless little book enough, the promise being hinted that the discoveries of science will shortly enable the boy at school to write upon his slate, between breakfast and dinner, all the mysteries of nature, the secrets of being, and the aspirations of the immortal soul.

Although my recollection of it is still fresh, I neither wish nor intend to linger long over the period when that which was mortal of my brother lay waiting to be taken from our sight for ever. Were I to attempt a description of my feelings at the time, it might be regarded by some of those who took the trouble to read this autobiography as a want of taste in the writer. Although every family knows Death, yet is he at all times a stranger. He visits us unasked, and is never anywhere welcome. And the less welcome the more likely is he speedily to return. I know I am relating a not uncommon experience when I say that is a strange and wonderful occasion on which the body of a beloved one lies in the same house with us, and we are waiting the hour appointed by the custom of the country and what is considered propriety, for its conveyance to its last resting place. How difficult it is to realise that he who the day before, looked at us, spoke to us, ate, drank and walked about as we did, is now lying still and cold, dumb and deaf. How cruel it seems to leave him in a room all by himself. The season is inclement, and we have lit no fire. How hard! Does he think us unkind towards him? Would he so leave us? We know him to be—him —far away from us; and yet are conscious, all the time, that he is in the adjoining room; else why do we speak so softly, as if we were afraid to wake him? How slowly the hours drag! How unfeeling is that practice of shutting out the light of day, and making one night of the occasion, as if we had not night enough already in the soul! The gloom becomes oppressive, and the desire to get everything over grows strong. What! Are we in a hurry to bury him? no the dear one! But the time is long and cheerless. We try to read; the eye looks at the book, but the mind wanders off to some strange place. The slightest movement makes us listen, and listen eagerly. Our ear is strained in the direction of the next room. How like the sound of his well-known cough! Did he move? All is but fancy; the house is as quiet as the grave. We drop into a slumber of short duration and, on awaking, doubt whether we have not been in a dream. We go over the whole of the circumstances once more. Everything appears in a different aspect now. By this time life, wealth and fame have lost their charm for us. Vain are the things of this world in our sight; and we wonder how anyone can devote himself to matters earthly, particularly how he can laugh; forgetful that we ourselves, a few days previously, were guilty of the like conduct, and that in a short time to come we shall again be exactly as we were. The number of good resolutions we form; all to be sadly qualified, if not entirely forgotten in two months’ time! Death is a black and hideous monster; but it throws some gleams of light on things even for the living. How much more so for him it takes away?

When death has ploughed the heart, and trouble has softened it, the evangelist and the man of counsel have an excellent opportunity of sowing the good seed, which then finds a “deepness” with ease. And though the earth should harden again, still the seed may some day sprout, and. breaking forth through its crusted covering, bear fruit, possibly a hundred fold. The visits of the chapel friends to mother and me in our trouble brought us a blessing and a comfort such as I can neither properly describe nor value. I recollect my mother saying that next to the priceless promises of Scripture and her faith in God as Over-ruler of all, she valued the cheering words of the religious brethren and sisters. They were not a few who came to comfort us, and not the least faithful among them were Thomas and Barbara Bartley; both so childish, so simple, and showing a sympathy so real and so genuine that it was impossible not to prize it. Mother could hardly help smiling at some of Thomas’s artless questions, such as:—

“Mary, do you think Bob has told Seth yet that Barbara and I have come to the Society? That is, if they have dropped across one another, for there’s such a crowd of them, isn’t there?”

“For all I know, it may be he has, Thomas,” replied mother.

“They’ll light on each other some day, surely,” said Thomas. “Two men will meet before two mountains, so they say.”

After a minute’s silence he resumed:—

“Barbara and I thought a deal about you last night, Mary, and we couldn’t in no way see what on this blessed earth you are to do now, ’cept come to us to live. We have as much room as you want, and a hundred thousand welcomes, is’nt there, Barbara? We’ve made the place ready for you, and you two must come over to-night. You don’t bury Bob till the day after to-morrow, and why should you stay here breaking your heart, eh Barbara?”

Barbara gave a nod.

“Your’e very kind and very neighbourly, Thomas,” said mother; “but I can’t for a moment think of leaving Bob by himself here; though ’tis all a fancy.”

“To be shŵar,” observed Thomas. “I never thought of that. No, no, honour bright; now I come to think of it, it would look a bit cold in you to leave him, ’specially since you’ve no fear. But we shall talk of that some other time.”

“What have I to fear, Thomas? There is here but the poor body—the empty house.”

“It was not to that I was referring,” returned Thomas.

Mother guessed what he meant. Thomas knew more of our history than I was aware of. Mother nodded her thanks for his thoughtfulness, and said: “The door has a lock and a bar to it, Thomas.”

“To be shŵar. But you must come over the day after to-morrow. We’ll think no more of the bit of food you’ll eat than of a chicken’s.”

The day after to-morrow came, but my reminiscences are dark and confused. I felt as if in a dream. Two impressions are left upon my mind, which I can easily read to-day, namely, that there were a great many people at the funeral, and that Will Bryan walked beside me, with a good-sized box-plant under his left arm and a bag filled with sand in his right hand. I have some faint recollection of hearing Mr. Brown’s deep voice hurrying through the burial service, and a vivid one of Will Bryan on his knees by the grave-side sanding it, and planting it with box. Little did I then think how soon he would be at the same task again! I Will was usually a very talkative fellow but, when feeling deeply for another, he was silent, always. He spoke not a word till we were half way home from the churchyard. I remember well his remark, which was:—

“Rhys, do you know what Bob would say if he knew Mr. Brown was going to bury him? He’d have used Bobbie Burns’s last words—‘Don’t let that awkward squad shoot over my grave!’ That’s what he’d have said, I’ll take oath.”

Will was evidently thinking of Bob’s wrongful committal to prison by Mr. Brown in his capacity of a justice of the peace, and was, doubtlessly, expressing my brother’s feelings to the letter.

The reader—should I have one—will remember that Thomas Bartley was but a young convert. Old habits and notions, not strictly consonant to the religious profession, often showed themselves in him. Although ready and willing enough to renounce them, he could not do so without a bit of a wrench. On the day of Bob’s burial, Thomas asked my mother whether she did not mean to provide a little bread and cheese and beer for the people, adding it was in the “Brown Cow,” he thought, they kept the best beer, and hinting, plainly enough, he would take all the expense upon himself. While thanking him for his kindness, mother took pains to show him the unseemliness of the custom of feasting at funerals, and especially of bringing intoxicating drink to table.

“To be shŵar, Mary,” said Thomas, “You’re the best judge. You know more of your Bible’n I do, and I always give in to you. But I thought it might look a little cold not to have a bit or a drop for anybody.”

Mother met our good friends’ wishes half way by permitting Barbara, on the return from the funeral, to provide tea, and to invite a few of her nearest neighbours to partake of it and to talk of the dead, a proceeding which eased Thomas’s conscience not a little. The guests having gone and mother, I, Thomas and Barbara being left to ourselves, Thomas, after musing a while, said,—

“Now, Mary, you must pack out of this. Why should you stay here breaking your heart? People never do any good, living by themselves. You’ve no notion how comfortable we’ll all be together. It’ll save Barbara and I from coming over to hear you expounding. D’ye know what? It’ll be as good as a sermon for us to have you yonder; and, as I’ve said, we shan’t miss your bit of food any more’n if you were a chick,”

“I don’t know how to thank you enough for your kindness,” replied mother. “But after your mention of a certain matter the other night, I have made up my mind to accept your warmhearted invitation. on condition that I shall pay for my place as long as my money will hold out. I have a little put by; I shall have a little more for the things here, and possibly that may be enough to last me as long as I am with you.”

“We’ll settle all that again,” said Thomas, filling his pipe.

I was fairly bewildered. I had never dreamt my mother would stoop to receive a kindness, even from Thomas Bartley, until circumstances absolutely compelled her to do so. I knew that independence of mind and a dread of being a burden to anybody were marked traits in her character. Barbara was helping her on with her cloak and bonnet when the reason suddenly occurred to me why mother had so readily accepted Thomas Bartley’s invitation,

It was her fear of our old visitor.

A few minutes later we were all four on our way to the Tump, for so was Thomas Bartley’s house called. I remember, at this very minute, the order in which we travelled—not much unlike a railway train: Thomas leading, like the locomotive, the smoke from his pipe wreathing in the night air; I at his heels, with mother after me, as passenger carriages; and Barbara, who was somewhat stout, like a luggage van behind, wobbling along pretty much as the tail end of a train does, All four were silent, save when Barbara, who was troubled with rheumatism, would groan, like the luggage van when its wheels want greasing, and Thomas, like the locomotive, would give a whistle in the form of: “are you coming, you women there?” Of course, I am only describing the journey as I look upon it now, and not as I looked upon it then. The thought of leaving the old house in which I was bred and born, where I had spent many a happy hour, and round which all my memories gathered, filled my heart with sadness. This was my first night from home. I had always considered the Tump a model of cosiness and comfort, and our welcome to it was real and unfeigned. But when I came to go to bed—the bed in which Seth died, and which was much easier lying than the one at home—such a heavy storm of regret for the old house, for Bob, and for the old days, overtook me that I had to hide my head in the bed clothes, and stuff the sheets into my mouth to prevent myself from crying aloud. In the morning mother saw by my swollen eyes how I had spent the night, and a sob rose to her throat, but she choked it back before it found utterance. I noticed Thomas Bartley making efforts to keep us cheerful, and to divert our minds from our trouble. He took us to the yard to see the pigs and fowls, talking ceaselessly the whole of the time. Mother paid great attention to everything he said; but I knew she did not consider him speaking to edification. He ran on something in this fashion:

“Mary, here’s the best pigs I ever had to thrive. I wouldn’t give a fig for one as wasn’t mischievous. These would eat the trough if they didn’t get their food in time. That one without a tail is reg’lar master of the place. I always rear two—they thrive much better—kill one and sell t?other. I never give ’em India meal, ’cause the bacon when you put it before the fire’U melt to nothing before it’s done. Taters and oatmeal’s the best stuff for fattening a pig, if you want good bacon. You may boil a little nettles now and then for ’em as a change. There’s nothing better for a pig’s as lost his appetite than to mix red raddle with his food. What’s in grains, for a pig? Nothing at all. D’ye know what, Mary, I’d never eat bacon if I had to buy that American stuff. How can you tell what they fatten their animals with out there? They say American pigs eat those Blacks who die out in the woods; and I’ll B’leeve it easy enough. Holloa, Cobbin! are you there? There’s a bird for you, Mary! If that white feather wasn’t in his tail he’d be pure game. Look at his breast! Black as the wimberry. I’ve seen the time, before I came to religion, I’d have cut that cock’s comb for him; but something tells me it is’nt right, somehow; it’s as if you were trying to better the work of the Almighty. I don’t find these game hens great layers, only their eggs are more rich. Barbara (with a shout), is breakfast ready? Right; well come directly. Fowls pay very well, Mary, if they’re well fed. Did you ever see how fond you are getting of them already? They look so well settled down when they hold their heads to one side. Let’s go into the house now, and see what the old woman’s got for us. I don’t know how you feel, but I feel as if I could eat a horse’s head.”

After breakfast I set out for the shop, and mother came to send me a part of the way, in order to have a word with me in private.

“I see,” she said, placing a hand upon my shoulder, “that you are fretting. You must buckle-to, my son. We must both, look you, submit and not give way. You are but beginning life as it were; I am drawing towards the end. If you’re a good and obedient boy—and I believe you will be— God will take care of you. Set to work to please your master, and by pleasing your master you will please God. I’ll come, directly, to ask Abel Hughes to let you sleep at his house, because it won’t do to impose too much upon our friends’ kindness. You shall run over every evening, after shutting shop, to see how we are getting along, if you like. The only thing that troubles me is the fear of being obliged to ask for parish relief. But perhaps I shall be spared that, again. I have saved a little money, which may possibly last as long as I shall.”

I, too, tried to say the thing which was on my mind, but the words stuck to my throat, and all I could do was to cry. My mother pressed my head to her breast and, when I had wept my grief away, dried my eyes with her apron, saying, “There! off you go now, and don’t forget what I told you.”

So I went; and so I did, I trust. On the road I could not help thinking of my mother’s dread of going on the parish, and the reflection made me sorry that I was neither of age nor of position to support her. Only a few months had passed since she had spoken so freely and loftily to Mr. Brown, the clergyman, to whom she expressed the hope that she would never be obliged to seek help from either “parish or parson;” and doubtless that little quarrel between her and the vicar was alive and bitter in her memory still. I was quite sure at the time that she would have much preferred throwing herself upon the mercy of that relieving officer general for all the children of adversity—Death—than stoop to Parson Brown. And I feared there was something in her voice and words that morning which showed that that had been her prayer.