Part 27

Meantime, besides the almost unique interest and beauty of its surroundings,--the steep cliffs, on which the quaint old red-roofed houses, with their wooden balconies, are piled in most picturesque and unaccountable groups; the grand old abbey ruin looking down from the highest point; the swing-bridge between the two harbours, and the estuary beyond, running up into a fine amphitheatre of green meadow and dark wood, dotted with village churches and old windmills, and backed by the high moors,--there is a joyous side to Whitby harbour, even on days when the market goes most against the Dogger Bank fishermen. If the fathers have too often to eat sour grapes, their children’s teeth are not set on edge,--such merry, well-fed, bare-footed urchins of both sexes I never remember to have seen elsewhere. They swarm, out of school hours, along the quays; skim up and down the water-worn harbour-walls wherever there is a rope hanging; run over the herring boats lying side by side, as soon as the freights are cleared; and toboggan down the boat slides at the gangways, dragging themselves along on their stomachs when these are not slippery enough for the usual method of descent. There seems, too, to be a large supply of old rickety tubs kept for their special use; for all day long you see two or three of them scrambling into one of these, and sculling about the harbour, no man hindering or apparently noticing them. Finer training for their future life would be hard to find, and one cannot help doubting as one sees their straight toes, as handy almost as fingers in their climbing feats, whether the last word has been spoken as to clothing the human foot, at any rate up to the age of ten or twelve. It is not often, I think, that one comes on early surroundings and heroes entirely suited to each other; but Whitby’s hero--patron saint I had nearly called him--could have found no such suitable place to have been raised in all the world round. James Cook was born in a neighbouring village, but first apprenticed on board a Whitby collier, and to the last days of his life retained a most loving remembrance of the old town. Every one of his famous ships, the _Endeavour_, the _Resolution_, and the _Discovery_, were built at Whitby. The house, of his master, Mr. Walker, with whom he lived during his apprenticeship as a sailor lad, and to whom most of his letters were written after he had mapped the Quebec reaches of the St. Lawrence under the fire of the French guns, and was a gold-medallist of the Royal Society and the most famous of eighteenth century navigators, is still fondly pointed out in a narrow street running down to the inner harbour.

Sunday by the Sea, Whitby, 7th September 1888.

We saw something of the industrial life of Whitby last week. The spiritual is quite as interesting, and certainly, so far as my observation goes, has a character of its own, distinct from that of any other of our popular seaside resorts. It may be the presence of so large a seagoing element; at any rate, unless appearances are quite misleading, there is an earnest and deep though quiet religious impulse working amongst the harbour-folk and townspeople, not without its influence in the new quarter which has grown on to the old town, and with its casino and large cricket and lawn tennis grounds, is becoming a popular--though, happily, not a fashionable--summer resort. This is, of course, most apparent on Sundays, on which the absence of anything like the annoyances, both religious and secular, which spoil the day of rest at so many health-resorts, is very noteworthy. Not that Whitby is without its open-air services. On the contrary, they are at least as frequent as elsewhere, on quays, shore, cliffs; but after watching them with some care I do not remember anything fanatical or startling, or in the bad taste of coarse familiarity with mysteries which so often revolts one in street and field preaching elsewhere. One of these I had never seen the like of before, and am inclined to think it may interest your readers. On my first Sunday afternoon I was watching a crowded service on the quay, at the foot of the West Cliff, from above. As it ended, and began to disperse, a man in sailor’s Sunday suit of thick blue cloth severed himself from the crowd, and came leisurely up the stone steps, with a Bible and hymn-book in his hand. At the top of the steps is a public grass-plot, some thirty by twenty yards in size, the only part of the sea-front which has escaped enclosure on this cliff. Round it are some fifteen or sixteen benches, very popular with those who will not pay to go into the casino enclosure. They were all occupied by people chatting, smoking, courting, looking at the view, when the newcomer walked into the middle of the plot, took off his fur-trimmed sailor’s cap, opened his Bible, and looked round. He was good to look at, with his strong, weather-beaten, bronzed features, short-cropped, grizzled hair, and kindly blue eye, part-owner and best man in one of the Penzance boats, I heard. On looking at him, passages in the lives of Drake and Hawkins, and Wesley and Whitfield, and Charles Kingsley’s loving enthusiasm for the Cornish sailor-folk, became clearer to me. Not a soul noticed him or moved from their seats, and the talking, smoking, courting went on just as though he were not there, standing alone on the grass, Bible in hand. I quite expected to see him shut his book and depart. Not a bit of it. Clearly he had come up there to deliver his testimony. That was his business; whether any one chose to listen to it or not, was theirs. So he read out two or three verses from the Epistle to the Romans, and began to preach. His subject was Paul’s conversion, which he described almost entirely in St. Luke’s and the Apostle’s own words, which he quoted without referring to his Bible, and then urged roughly, but with an earnestness which made his speech really eloquent, that the same chance was open to every one. He himself had heard the call thirty years ago, and had been happy ever since. He had been in peril of death again and again since then, had seen boats founder with all hands, but had no fear, nor need any man have, by sea or land, who would just hear and follow that call. Then he stopped, wiped his brow, and looked round. The sitters had all become silent, but not a soul of them moved or spoke. I was standing, with one or two others, behind the high rails of the enclosure, or I think we should have gone and stood by him as he gave out a hymn; but we knew neither words nor tune, so were helpless. He sang it through by himself, made a short prayer “that the word that day might not have been spoken in vain,” and then put on his cap, and went down the steps into the crowd below. One voice from the benches said “Thank you!” as he left the plot.

The next service I came across was a strange contrast. Under the cliff, in front of the Union Jack planted in the sands, was a large gathering, composed mostly of children sitting in rows, with mothers and nurses interspersed, and a number of men and women standing round the circle. As I came up, I was handed a leaflet of hymns, which explained that it was a gathering of the “Children’s Special Service Mission,” which has its head-quarters, it seems, in London, and is presided over by Mr. Stuart, the vicar of St. James’s, Holloway. The service was conducted by a young man not in orders, with a strong choir to help him. He, too, did his preaching earnestly and well; and though it seemed to me above the younger children’s heads, who for the most part made sand-castles or mud-pies furtively, was evidently listened to sympathetically by the elder part of the audience who stood round. But if the teaching scarcely touched the children, they all left their mud-pies and enjoyed the singing. The Mission, I was told, holds these services on the sands through the seaside season, at all the chief resorts on the coast. The leaders and organisers are mostly young men and women, and all, I believe, volunteers. A noteworthy sign of our time the Mission seemed to me, and I was glad to hear that it is countenanced, if not actively supported, by the resident Church clergy.

If we turn from the volunteer to the regular side of Church work, Whitby still has an almost unique attraction for the student of the religious movement in England. The late Dean Stanley, who loved every phase of the historical development of the life of the National Church, and mourned over the thoroughness of recent restorations, which, as he thought, threaten the entire disappearance of the surroundings and forms of the worship of the Georgian era, would have thanked God and taken courage if he could have visited Whitby Parish Church in 1888, for church and service are a perfect survival. The wave of Victorian ecclesiastical reform, without destroying anything, seems to have gently removed all that was really objectionable, and breathed new life into the dry bones of Georgian worship. I am not sure that I should say “everything objectionable,” for probably the vast majority of even truly Catholic church-goers would not agree as to the big shield with the national arms which hangs over the centre of the chancel arch, dividing the two tables of the Ten Commandments. I am prepared to admit that this particular lion and unicorn are not good specimens of discreet beasts of their respective kinds. But even as they stand they are national symbols, and no reminder that Church and nation are still one can be spared nowadays; and they are not half so grotesqile as most of the gurgoyles you will see in the noblest Gothic cathedrals. And then they vividly remind my generation of the days when they first toddled to church in the family procession. The church itself is a gem, though with no orthodox architectural beauty, for it retains traces of the handiwork of thirty generations in its walls, pillars, galleries, and stunted square tower,--from the round arches (there are still two, though the best, a fine Norman window, has been bricked up) of its earliest builders in the twelfth, to the white-washed walls and ceilings and square-paned windows of eighteenth century churchwardens. I should think the three-decker (I am obliged to use the profane name, having forgotten the correct one), the clerk’s desk, reading-desk, and pulpit rising one above the other in front of the chancel, must be unique, the last of its race. The clerk has, indeed, retired into the choir; but the rector still reads the prayers and lessons admirably from his desk, and ascends the pulpit, where he is on a level with the faculty pew of the squire, and the low galleries, to deliver his excellent short discourses. Long may he and his successors do so. One is only inclined to regret that he does not take off his surplice in the reading-desk, and ascend to preach in his black gown. Curious it is to remember that less than thirty years ago Bryan King and others excited riots in many parishes by preaching in the surplice. The pews on the floor are all high oaken boxes with doors, though the great majority of them are now free. The visitor in broadcloth is put into one of the larger ones, lined with venerable baize, once green. These are somewhat narrow parallelograms with seats round the three sides, so that it requires caution in kneeling to avoid collision with your opposite neighbour. And the body of the church being nearly square by reason of the addition of side aisles at different periods, and the “three-decker” well out on the floor, the pews have been planned so that they all face towards it, and consequently all the congregation can see each other. This is supposed to be a drawback to worship; probably is--must be, where people have been always used to looking all one way. That it really hinders a hearty service, no one would maintain who has attended one in Whitby Parish Church. It was quite full, when I was there, of a congregation largely composed of men, and the majority of these sailors and other working folk. Let any reader who still goes to church make a point of ascending the 190 stone steps which lead up to it from the old town, and looking at the matter with his own eyes, if ever he should be within reach. The rector is a sort of successor to the old abbots of St. Hilda, with ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the whole town, wherein are five or six churches worked by curates, all in the modern style, seats facing eastward, no three-deckers, surpliced choirs, and chanted psalms, and canticles. Indeed, in one place of worship, those who have a taste for gabbled prayers, bowings and posturings, lighted candles, and the rest of the most modern ritual, can find it, but in a proprietary chapel not under the jurisdiction of the rector.

Singing-Matches in Wessex, 28th September 1888.

I remember, sir, that some quarter of a century ago, you were interested in the popular songs of our English country-folk, and so may possibly think gleanings in this field still worthy of notice. In that belief, I send this note of some “singing-matches,” which, by a lucky chance, I was able to attend last week in West Berks. The matches in question were for both men and women, a prize of half a crown being offered in each case. The occasion was the village “veast,” or annual commemoration of the dedication of the parish church, still the immemorial day of gathering and social reunion in every hamlet of this out-of-the-way district. I was glad to find the old word still in use, for as a Wessex man it would have been an unpleasant shock to me to find the “veast” superseded by a “festival,” habitation, or other modern gathering. In some respects, however, I must own that the character of the “veast” has changed; these singing-matches, for instance, being a complete novelty to me. There used to be singing enough after the sports, as the sun went down, and choruses, rollicking and sentimental, came rolling out of the publicans’ booths--for the most part of dubious character--but singing-matches for prizes I never remember. I suppose the craze for competitive examination in every department of life may account for this new development; anyhow, there were the matches to come off--so the bills assured us--in the village schoolroom, of all places, which was thrown open for this purpose, and for dancing, at sunset. Hither, then, I repaired from the vicar’s fields, where the sports had been held, in the wake of a number of rustic couples and toffee-sucking children. The school is a lofty room, fifty feet long, with a smaller class-room as transept at the upper end, along which ran a temporary platform. Upon this the Farringdon Blue-Ribbon Band, in neat uniforms, were already playing a vigorous polka. Presently this first dance ended, the band stood back, and the three judges coming to the front, announced the terms of the competition, the men to begin, and a dance to be interpolated after every two songs, every singer, one at a time, to come up on the platform. There was no hesitation amongst the singers, the first of whom stepped up at once, and so the matches went on, two songs and a dance alternately, until all who cared to compete had sung. Then, at about 9 P.M., the prizes were awarded, and I left, the dancing going on merrily for another two hours.

I was amused by the award of the men’s prize to the singer of a vociferously applauded ditty, entitled “The Time o’ Day,” for it showed that the keenest zest of the Wessex rustic is still, as it was thirty years ago, to get a rise out of--or, in modern slang, to score off--“thaay varmers.” It began:--

A straanger wunst in Worcestershèer,

A gen’lman he professed,

He lived by takin’ o’ people in,

He wuz so nicely dressed.

Wi’ my tol-de-rol, etc.

This stranger, having a gold chain round his neck, swaggers in the farmers’ room on market-day, till--

He zets un in a big arm-cheer,

And, bein’ precious deep,

Sticks out his legs, drows back his arms,

And “gammots” off to sleep.

The farmers canvas him, and doubt if he has any watch to his chain. His friend, “by them not understood,” pulls out the chain, shows a piece of wood at the end, and puts it back. The stranger wakes; the farmers ask him “the time o’ day”; he excuses himself, on the plea that last night, having taken a glass too much, he did not wind up his watch. At this--

The varmers said, and did protest,

Ez sure ez we’re alive,

Thet thee dost not possess a watch

Of pounds we’ll bet thee vive.

The stranger covers the bets, pulls out a piece of wood, touches a spring, and shows a watch inside:--

‘Bout vifty pounds thaay varmers lost,

Which in course thaay hed to paay,

And the bwoys run arter’em down the street,

Wi’ “Gee us the time O’ daay.”

Wi’ my tol-de-rol, etc.

I did not, however, concur in the award myself. I should have given the prize for a love-song, a sort of rustic rendering of “Phyllis is my only Joy,” the chorus of which ran:--

For ef you would, I’m sure you could

Jest let a feller know;

Ef it strikes you as it likes you,

Answer yes or no.

The judges, however, followed, if (two being “varmers”) they did not thoroughly sympathise with, the obvious feeling of the crowded room. The patriotic songs, I noticed, had quite changed their character. They never were of the vulgar jingo kind in Wessex, but there used to be much of the old Dibdin and tow-row,-row ring about them. “The Poor Little Soldier Boy” may be taken as a specimen of the new style. His father dies of wounds; he ’lists; comes home; is discharged; wanders starving, till, opposite a fine gate, he sinks down, asking the unknown inmates how they will like to find him, “dead at their door in the morn.” At this crisis a lady appears, who takes him in and provides for him for life. The only lines I carried away were from a song even more pacific in tone than “The Poor Little Soldier Boy.” They ran:--

Ef I wur King o’ France,

Or, better, Pope o’ Rome,

I’d hev no fightin’ men abroad,

Nor weepin’ maids at home.

But there was an approach to “waving the flag” amongst the women, one of whom, a strapping damsel, sang:--

We’ve got the strength of will,

And old England’s England still,

And every other nation knows it--“rather”!

which word “rather” ended every verse of a somewhat vulgar ditty. She did not get the prize, nor did the matron whom I fixed on as the winner, who sang without a hitch a monotonous and, I began to think, never-ending ballad on the rivalries of “young Samuèl” and one “Barnewell” for the graces of an undecided young woman. The attention with which this somewhat dreary narrative was listened to deceived me, for the prize went, without public protest, to a young woman of whose song I could not catch a line, though I could just gather that it was feebly sentimental. My impression is that it was her bright eyes, and pretty face and figure, that carried it with the judges, rather than her singing. If I am right, it will neither be the first nor last time that the prizes in this world fall to _tes beaux yeux_.

The school faces the upper end of the village green, and I left it so crowded that it was a wonder how the dancers could get along at all with their polkas and handkerchief dances, the latter a kind of country dance, which were the only ones in vogue. When I got out, I saw lighted booths at the other end of the green, and went down to inspect. It was a melancholy sight.

There was the publican’s dancing-booth without a soul in it. One swing only was occupied in the neighbouring acrobatic apparatus, and the round-about was motionless. The gipsies were there, ready and eager to tell fortunes, and with a well-lighted alley for throwing at cocoa-nuts with bowls rather larger than cricket-balls--the most modern and popular substitute, I am told, for skittles. There they were, but not a customer in sight, the only human being but myself being the solitary county policeman, who patrolled the green with most conscientious regularity, only slackening his pace for a moment or two as he passed under the bright open windows of the schoolroom, from which the merry dance-music came streaming out into the moonlight. I could almost find it in my heart to pity the publican and gipsies, so overwhelming did their defeat seem, for not a glass of beer had been allowed all day in the vicar’s fields, where the cricket-match had been played and all the races run, on milk, tea, or aerated waters. The whole stock of these last beverages, supplied from the “Hope Coffee Room,” which has faced the public-house on the village green now for about three years, was drunk out before the dancing ended and the school closed on “veast” night, to the exceeding joy of the vicar’s niece and her lieutenants, two bright Cornish damsels, handy, devoted, and ardent teetotalers. These three have been fighting the publicans since 1886, when they started the “Hope Coffee Room,” supplied with bread, butter, and cakes from the vicarage, and aerated drinks and light literature, all, I take it, at something under cost price, though this the three ardent damsels will by no means admit. The vicar, who is no teetotaler himself, shrugs his shoulders laughingly, plays his fiddle, pays the bills, and lets them have their own way, with an occasional protest that some night he shall have his barn and ricks burnt. There is, however, no real danger of this, as he has lived with and for his poor for more than thirty years with scarcely one Sunday’s break, and gipsy or publican would get short shrift who damaged him or anything that is his. I found him quite ready to admit the great improvement which is apparent in the “veast,” as in many other phases of rustic life, though he cannot get over, or look with anything but dislike and distrust at, the cramming and examining system, which, as he mourns, embitters the only time in the lives of his poor children which used to be really happy, when they could play about on the village green and in the lanes regardless of Inspector and Government grant. Nor am I sure that he does not look with regret at the disappearance of cudgel-playing and wrestling out of the programme of the yearly “Veast-Sports.” Cricket, fine game as it is, does hot bring out quite the same qualities. No doubt there were now and then bad hurts in those sports, and fights afterwards; but these came from beer, and might happen just as easily over cricket. So he muses, and I rather sympathise. As has been well sung by the ould gamester:--

Who’s vor a bout O’ vrendly plaay,

As never should to anger move,

Sech spworts be only meant for thaay

As likes their mazzards broke for love.

But I should be sorry to believe that there are fewer youngsters to-day in the West country who “likes their mazzards broke for love” than there used to be half a century ago.

The Divining-Rod, 21st September 1889.

About a quarter of a century ago, I had the chance of seeing some experiments in the search for water by the use of “the divining rod” on a thirsty stretch of the Berkshire chalk range. Oddly enough (what a lot of odd things there are lying all round us!) at the highest points of this very range you might come on “dew-ponds,” which never seemed to run dry, though how the white chalky water got there, or kept there, no one, I believe, has ever been able to explain from that day to this. But these “dew-ponds” were of no use, of course, to the cottages scattered along the hillside, and whoever wanted spring-water, had to go down about 400 feet for it. Well, I neglected that chance, and ever since have been regretting it.