Part 4

A boat was called, and leaving the pebbly beach that 'Stott of Oldham' so delights to paint, we rowed across the flooding tide of the Ravenglass harbour to the sand-dunes of happy quietude, where the oyster-catchers were sunning themselves, and where the sheldrake in her nesting season loves to hide. As one went forward over the dunes one felt back in the great desert of the Badiet-Tih, and expected to see Bedouins start from the ground, and camels come in single file with solemn sway round the sedge-tufted, wind-blown hillocks and hummocks of glaring sand.

Then suddenly the silence of the waste was broken by a marvellous sound, and a huge cloud of palpitating wings, that changed from black to white and hovered and trembled against the grey sea or the blue inland hills, swept by over-head. The black-headed gulls had heard of our approach, and mightily disapproved of our trespass upon their sand-blown solitude.

We sat down and the clamour died: the gulls had settled. Creeping warily to the crest of a great billow of sand, we peeped beyond. Below us lay a natural amphitheatre of grey-green grass that looked as if it were starred with white flowers innumerable. We showed our heads and the flowers all took wing, and the air was {62} filled again with sound and intricate maze of innumerable wings.

We approached, and walking with care found the ground cup-marked with little baskets or basket-bottoms roughly woven of tussock grass or sea-bent. Each casket contained from two to three magnificent jewels. These were the eggs we had come so far to see. There they lay--deep brown blotched with purple, light bronze marked with brown, pale green dashed with umber, white shading into blue. All colours and all sizes; some as small as a pigeon's, others as large as a bantam's. Three seemed to be the general complement. In one nest I found four. The nests were so close to one another that I counted twenty-six within a radius of ten yards; and what struck one most was the way in which, instead of seeking shelter, the birds had evidently planned to nest on every bit of rising ground from which swift outlook over the gull-nursery could be obtained.

Who shall describe the uproar and anger with which one was greeted as one stood in the midst of the nests? The black-headed gull swept at one with open beak, and one found oneself involuntarily shading one's face and protecting one's eyes as the savage little sooty-brown heads swooped round one's head. But {63} we were not the only foes they had had to battle with. The carrion crow had evidently been an intruder and a thief; and many an egg which was beginning to be hard set on, had been prey to the black robber's beak. One was being robbed as I stood there in the midst of the hubbub.

Away, for what seemed the best part of a mile, the 'gullery' stretched to the north in the direction of Seascale; and one felt that, thanks to the public-spirited owner of the seaboard, and the County Council of Cumberland, the black-headed gull was not likely to diminish in this generation.

Back to the boat we went with a feeling that we owed large apologies to the whole sea-gull race for giving this colony such alarm, and causing such apparent disquietude of heart, and large thanks to the lord of Muncaster for his ceaseless care of the wild sea-people whom each year he entertains upon his golden dunes.

That evening I went back in memory to the marvellous sight in the Gullery at Ravenglass. My thoughts took sonnet form as follows:

THE HOPE OF LIFE.

Sudden the lilies of each lonely mound Sprang into voice and palpitating wing; I seemed a guilty and unwelcome thing; {64} Ten thousand shadows round me and around Perplexed the air and danced along the ground; Each sooty head, in passion, dared to fling A world's defiance--and I felt the sting And arrows of that deprecating sound.

Then gazing downward at my feet I saw The silent cause of all these sorrowful cries, --Large jewels, blotched and brown and green and blue, In simple caskets wove from rushy straw; I thanked high Heaven for hearts so good and true, And shared their hope for life that never dies.

They are a far-wandering nation these black-headed gulls. I had seen separate members of the tribe on the banks of the Neva, and later, on the banks of the Nile; for they are an adventurous race, and may be found as far north as Archangel and as far south as Nubia, but the next time that I saw them in any number they had changed not only their appearance but their manners. The black or, more properly speaking, brown head of the gull had become grey. It seems they only wear their black helmets or bonnets in summer time. Now it was winter, and they were as mild as doves--tamer birds could hardly be seen, and the history of their taming, as indeed of their presence so far inland as the Keswick valley, was very simple. There had been a very cruel wholesale {65} poisoning of the fish in the river Greta--the black-headed gulls had heard of it, and came up the Derwent in great numbers to the feast. It cannot have been all pleasure, and to judge by the looks of some of the greedier of the class colic abounded. Whether it was the abundance of the feast or the after pain, that made an impression on the gull, I know not, but from that day to this the black-headed gentry of the seaboard have had such affection for our vale that any storm at sea or any scarcity of food brings them in great numbers to our valley pastures.

We had a hard winter three years ago, and wherever the rooks were seen upon the ground, the black flock was dappled with the white sea gull, and the dolorous voice of the crow was drowned in the laughter of the black-headed gull.

Very grateful were we in those sad and sombre winter mornings to hear the gulls laughing round our house-roofs, and not the least enjoyable thought as we went to our breakfast-table was the knowledge that these wild sea-people had come to trust us, and were willing to be our almoners.

There was one house in the valley, set upon a grassy hill overlooking the lake, which {66} seemed especially to have charm for the bird visitors. Swift of ear, as of eye, the black-headed gulls noticed that the family went to breakfast at the sound of a gong. No sooner did that gong echo across the lawn, than the heaven became white with wings--a click at the gate was heard, and a maid with a large pancheon of food specially prepared--hot and tasty--was seen to come on to the grass and toss out the meal, in splotches, round about her. Then what had been a silent grey undulating cloud of wings broke up into a tangled mass of down-sweeping pink legs and up-sweeping white wings, and with the noise of laughter and talk unimaginable, the happy people fell to feeding.

I do not think that anything more dainty can be imagined than that swift balance of up-tilted wing and down-reaching rosy feet, unless it be the consummate care and nicety with which, before the black-headed gull put beak to food, it tucked those long sweeping slender wings close to its side.

Now and again as they fed, the whole flock would rise momentarily into air and float up as though blown from the earth by some invisible breath, and then, as silently and simultaneously, sink to earth again.

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At times one noticed how, rising up, they seemed to move in exactly one position, moving their yellow rosy-stained beaks and grey heads from right to left as though they feared an enemy. Yet they had no need to fear, for it was quite clear that the rooks had been specially engaged by them to be their sentinels. There they sat each in solitary sable-hood, on the trees all round the lawn,--policemen on guard, and of such good manners, that until the visitors from the sea had eaten and were full, they did not think of claiming their share of the broken victual.

What astonished one most as these black-headed gulls came morning after morning to the sound of the gong, was their apparent determination to lose no time about their food. They sat down to table and rose up as one bird, but they were not more than ten minutes about their meal, and there was some reason for this. There were other breakfast tables spread for them on other lawns; the gong at Derwent Hill was after all but summons to a first course.

How mild, how gentle, with what dove-like tenderness did these grey-headed people of the sea appear as with merry laughter they sailed about my head, their feet tucked {68} up like coral pink jewels against their breast; how unlike those fierce black-headed guardians of their nests and young, who had dashed at one, with open beak and scolding voice and angry wing, upon the spring-tide dunes of Ravenglass.

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AT THE GRASMERE PLAY.

What a wonderful people these Westmoreland folk are; we see them on the Wrestling Ground at Pavement end, and we think we never saw such 'playing.' We enter a Westmoreland dale farm, and we feel, if ever men and women were born to make two ends meet by the care of sheep or cattle, these are the people. We take lodgings in a Westmoreland village for a holiday season, and though it may be quite true that the landlady doesn't rave about the scenery, and is rather of the type of the good woman-body who had lived at Rydal Mount before she became lodging-house keeper, and who said to my friend, 'Yes, yes, I am a tidy good cook and a decentish housekeeper, but I don't know nowt about sunsets or sic like, and I don't need, they've never been in my line,' it is at the same time true that, for looking after one's creature wants and entering into the doings {70} of every day and making one feel part and parcel of the household, a Westmorland housekeeper is bad to beat.

But though I thought I knew the capacity of Westmoreland folk pretty well, a new surprise was in store for me as I took my seat in the temporary play-house at Grasmere and learned that Westmoreland folk can not only play in the Grasmere wrestling ring, but can play on the boards and before the footlights also. It is quite true that the Grasmere people have had nearly a generation of training in the dramatic art. A late rector, who was much interested in looking after the recreations of the village, had translated for them many a simple pastoral play from the French, and hardly a Christmas came round, but he and his family, one of whom was herself a talented writer of country plays, trained the villagers to give their neighbours a play, and the children in the Bands of Hope to act charades. Since his time another family who are much honoured at Grasmere, and who have the same kind of enthusiasm for the dramatic capacity of the village, had carried on the work, with the result that at a moment's notice, for any simple play the daughter of the house might write or adapt, she could count on having as her players seventeen or eighteen of the {71} villagers who would seem born for the parts she entrusted to them. There was no rivalry, no 'fratching' from house to house because this person or that person was not selected for this or that particular part; on the contrary, the village had such confidence in the conductor of the village _troupe_ that if Miss S. thought that So-and-so was to take this part and So-and-so the other, that was enough, and not another word was to be said. Meanwhile the village had come to look upon the village play as part of its very life and soul. Grasmere in winter time would not be recognised by the average tourist. It is a village of peace absolute and tranquillity beyond words.

From the earliest times 'Cursmas' has been looked upon as a time when everybody in the dale should enjoy himself. In the old days, when the fiddlers went round from farm to farm between Christmas-day and New Year's Day, and when the Merry Night (or Murry Neet) was held from place to place, the Grasmere folk knew that, however hard they worked for the rest of the year, at least they would 'laike' until the Twelfth Night, and precious little work would go forward in the dales for the first fortnight of each glad new year. The desire for some simple and rational form of {72} amusement with the beginning of every year has never died out of their blood, so that a village play seems to fill a need which is part of their very nature. 'Why, we could not live without it,' said a Grasmere body to me; 'it's the brightest spot in our lives.' 'I can't tell you how dramatic it makes me feel,' said another. 'I am going thro' my dialogue at all times o' day.' My husband said, 'You've had company to-day then.' 'Ay, ay,' I replied, 'rare company. I was taking two or three parts in second Act, you see, and changing voices, that was all.'

'But where do you get your theatrical properties?' I said. 'Who manages the scene-shifting and all the rest of it?' 'Oh, as for scene-shifting, that is all managed by that great hairy-faced man that you saw going down the road just now; he is a grand stage manager and has been at it for twenty years or more.' I did not see him again until after the close of the performance, when I noticed him with his pocket-handkerchief in an unconventional way fanning out the footlights, and then going up on a ladder to puff out the oil lamps above the stage. 'And as for properties,' the good dame replied, 'if you mean by that the things we have on the stage, well everything is lent--there is {73} crockery from one house and chairs from another, and the dresses, why they are the old originals that were worn by our grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. We all know to what farm or to what house we must go for this or that particular dress, and it is lent very willingly.' 'And do you have large audiences?' I said. 'Large audiences, well, if th' room would hold double the number we could fill it, because folk of all maks and sizes come together. This year we are giving a special afternoon performance for the quality, but I am told that all reserved seats have been booked for weeks.'

It was growing dark as I stood by the cottage door. The omnibus, as it drove down from the Raise gap with folk from Keswick coming to see the play, was sending sparks out behind from its 'slipper,' as though it were making fireworks. And soon I saw the lamp-lighter lighting up the oil lamps in the quaintly intricate lanes of the village beside the Mere. Knots of people were gathered already at their door-ways talking of the play, and already folk were drawing towards the village hall near the Red Lion. I soon joined them, and passed up a break-neck stairway to a big barn-like room, the {74} back part of which was filled with rough boards knocked up into temporary benches, and the forepart had wooden cottage chairs for reserved seats. The drop-scene was down--the lake and island with Helm Crag and Dunmail Raise, as seen from Loughrigg, on a summer evening.

A big moon shone in a solid sort of way in mid-heaven, and was repeated at intervals right down through the picture, as though the scene-painters would say: 'This is the moon, it is rising now, and there it is fully risen.' But I was assured that this was the result of some accident by fire that had taken place years ago in the said drop-scene, and that these moons were, after all, only the patches that repaired the beautiful picture. Three fiddlers and a piano were making lively music when the bell tinkled and the curtain went up. It was a very simple scene--the village carpenter sitting in his shop working away at a stool, but it was to the life; and the Jacob who was working there, with his red handkerchief round his throat, spoke and acted to the life, and well he might--he was a village carpenter. A tourist came upon the scene, and got very little change out of Jacob, and less still out of Jacob's mother, Mrs. Rawlinson, {75} who (after a very amusing dialogue with the tourist) determined to allow him to be her lodger. She made him pay double the usual price because he asked for 'sec a new faddlement as a seven o'clock dinner.' Dolly, the maid, comes in with a handkerchief bound over her head, as is the fashion of the North-country maids when they are dusting or brushing up. They fall to talk:

Mrs. Rawlinson: 'I'se goin' to have mair nor sebben shillings a room this time, but I was forced to ask a good price, for he'll be wanting late dinners, and a' maks o' cooking and faddlements. What does ta think wawmlets'll be, Dolly?'

Dolly: 'Nay, I never heard tell o' sec a thing.'

Mrs. Rawlinson: 'And grilled bones to his breakfast; but I kna' what them'll be, just a marra bone served up hot in a napkin. I can mannish that finely. Then he talked about a dish o' curry; that'll certainly be some mak o' a French stew, made rare and hot wid pepper and an onion or two.'

Dolly: 'What, thou's goin' to be sadly tewed.'

Mrs. Rawlinson: 'Nay. I was nobbut a bit put about at first, but I mean to ask {76} Betty Braithwaite to lend me her beuk as larns yan to mak hundreds and hundreds of things 'at I never heard of, nor naebody else, I wud think.'

As long as I live I shall remember the delightful get-up of this said Mrs. Rawlinson, with her high black cap and flower in it, and her old-fashioned criss-cross shawl, and her spotless white 'brat'; and the way in which she pronounced the word 'omelette' as 'waumlett' convulsed the house.

The second scene in that first act was one that went home to the hearts of all, for if the Westmoreland folk love one thing more dearly than another it is 'a sale.' The sale is really the excitement of the winter time. I believe that if nobody was changing farms they would compel someone in the neighbourhood to pretend that he was, that a sale might be held. It is not the fierce excitement of bidding one against the other that causes the great gathering at the sale, but 'everybody's tied to go,' as they say--bound to go to the sale, just as everybody is bound to go when they are bid to a funeral. It would not be friendly not to do so, and high, low, rich and poor, one with another, meet at the sales, as De Quincey has reminded us, to see {77} one another and to hear how the world is stirring.

The Grasmere Players in this sale scene were all of the manner born, and a young mason played the part of 'Tom Mashiter' (auctioneer) with great delight to himself and to his audience.

'Here's t' fadther and muther and t' dowter he cried, as he put three teapots together. 2s. 6d. for the lot just to get us into the bidding! Here's a pair of copper scales; see how true they hang! Now I durst bet there's not above half a dozen among us as honest as them is. There's not, howiver; and I know who's yan o' the half-dozen; ye can settle the other five amang you. Three an' six. Three an nine. Come, be quick. Nay, I'll not wait. I'll tak some on ye in, ye'll see, if ye don't bid quicker----'

And the scales were knocked down 'mid roars of laughter.

'Here's another good jar, yan o' t' auld fashion, wid a pair o' good lugs to hod by. A penny for it I have bid; who'll say tuppence? Tuppence for you, Sarah. It's a real good un, yan o' t' rare auld-fashioned mak, like me an you, Sarah. I think there's nobbut us two left o' the auld lang-eared breed.'

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Then there were quilts sold with a deal of very amusing talk to make them go off. One was in rags and tatters, but the auctioneer suggested that it might do for a sick horse or a sick cow. I was listening with great amusement, and I heard an old fellow beside me say, 'Well, but things is goin' ower cheap,' and in another moment jerked out, 'A penny--here,' and was not a little astonished that his bid was not taken. I only mention this to show you how to the life the whole thing was done, and with what deep interest the spectators gazed upon the play.

In the second act the plot thickens, and the interest centres in the two chief actors of the little play--Aaron Hartley, with his apparently rejected addresses to the statesman's daughter up at Hardcragg Farm, and Betty Braithwaite. Aaron comes into his mother's kitchen, and, as far as any Westmoreland man dare let himself go, allows her to see that things are all up between himself and Betty. He must go off to 'Lunnon,' for he cannot face living on in the dale now, and all the hay grass but one meadow has been got in.

'I think I must be going away, muther, for a bit. I don't see but that you'll mannish {79} finely without me. We've gitten a' the hay in but t' midder, and that'll not take so lang. It's nobbut a light crop, and then it'll be verra slack till bracken time, and what, Jonty's match to make a good start with that if I sudn't be back.'

Just then the farm servant Jonty enters. I believe that he was a coachman in the village, but he was a consummate actor, and his quaint, silent ways and the lifting up of his hand and scratching his head behind his ear when talking were quite admirable. He has had, from youth up, the wish to have something from London, and he tells Aaron that he's 'wonderin' whether he could mannish to bring him a "spead" fra Lunnon' when he comes back; 'but maybe the railway folk wad charge ower dear for carryin' on it.' Aaron chaffs him out of the idea that a 'spead' made in London is better than one made in Kendal, and suggests a nice silk handkerchief. 'I never thowt o' that,' says Jonty; 'that wad be as like as aught.' Libby, the pretty farm servant breaks in here, and says: 'I wish tha would think on it, and not be so ready with thy jacket sleeve.'

'Ye'll not can tell me (says honest Jonty) how much t' silk handkercher'll be until ye've {80} bought it, I doubt; but if ye'll send word I can just send ye the brass in a letter.'

And, saying, 'Well, I mun see all's reet afore goin' to bed,' the faithful farm servant leaves the cottage to go round the byre.

But the actress of the piece throughout is Aaron's mother, Mrs. Hartley. She sits there at her knitting, with her pretty crossover on her shoulders, sair troubled at heart by her son Aaron's love affair; she drops her stitches, for her eyes can hardly keep back the tears, but she seems to know intuitively how much and how little comfort she may give her son, and how far she may insist upon his confidences. The attempt on her part to make it appear as if it did not matter at all and that everything will come right in the end is very bravely done. Fewest words are best.

'Good night, mother,' says Aaron. 'You'll not mind a' I've said.'

'Nay, lad, not I. Good night.'

And so the curtain falls. The second scene in the second act brings Jonty and Mattha Newby (the village tailor) together. Mattha, as I heard, was the son of a village tailor. To-day, evidently from his boyhood's remembrances, he is able to play the tailor's part well. Jonty has {81} been 'wrestling with a dyke' and torn his jerkin, and Mattha volunteers to mend it. A song was introduced into this scene which I had written for the occasion. It ran as follows:

Come! sweet April, whom all men praise, Bring your daffodils up to the Raise, Bid the delicate warbler trill, Come with the cuckoo over the hill Sprinkle the birch with sprays of green, Purple the copses all between; Bend the rainbow, and swell the brooks, Fill the air with the sound of rooks, Rubies lend, for the larch to wear, The lambs are bleating, and May is near.

August comes, and the speckled thrush Sings no more in the lilac bush, Lambs in the meadow cease to bleat, The hills are dim with the noontide heat, From all her hedges the rose is fled, And only the harebell lifts her head; But green are the new-mown vales with grass As if the Spring were again to pass, And children bring from the far-off fell The rose-red heather--the bee loves well,