cherry endeavours to remember if she were pretty.—a water-party.
nd now my memory flies on to the time when, i suppose, i was as happy a girl as any on the bridge. i know not whether i were pretty or not,—i rather suppose i was, but my father praised me too much, and my dear mother never praised me at all, so that i have no clue to what was really thought of me. there’s an old saying, “even a little beetle is a beauty in the eyes of its mother,”—i am bold to think that if i had been a little black-beetle, i should still have been a beauty 18in the eyes of my father. my mother used to tell him “all his geese were swans,” which was as much as to say that hers were not: be that as it may, if she praised me less, i always felt she loved me as much as he did; and i loved her to the full as much as i loved him.
i remember coming down stairs one sunday morning, dressed for church,—(we had no liturgy, nor church of england clergymen then, such was the will of parliament,)—dressed in a primrose petticoat and grass-green mantua neatly bundled up behind; black mits without a crease in them for tightness, white pinners starched and crimped, and a small steeple-crowned hat,—when mark, meeting me at the stair-foot, stepped out of my way with a sliding bow, said, “bless me, how pretty we are!” and looked attentively after me. i felt ashamed and yet 19elated; and thought somewhat more of myself and of him after that; yet i am not quite sure, now, that his speech was not ironical, after all.
of my friend and schoolfellow, violet armytage, there could not be two opinions. she was excessively pretty, and knew it too well: which was partly the fault of her father, who was always calling her his “sweet wi-let;” and yet, even if he had not, i think she would have found it out, for all that. my father called me his rosy cherry, but i knew it for his manner of speaking. but violet always believed everything that was said in her praise. she was fond of me by fits and starts; and when the affectionate fit was on, she would bring her work and sit with me in the arbour at the top of our house, by the hour together. sometimes my father and mother would join 20us there in the long summer evenings, and we would sup in the open air; no one objecting to it but dolly, who had to carry the things up so many pair of stairs.
at other times, when my father and mother were otherwise engaged, mark would come up to us; and sit upon the roller or watering-pot, and say ever so many funny things to us both; which we thought very pleasant. sometimes violet would let her ball of thread roll through the rails and drop down into the street, and send him to fetch it; and when he had brought it she would do the same thing again; which he said was too bad, but i don’t think he minded it. i never played him such tricks myself; for, what was singular, though we lived in the same house together, i was shyer of him than she was.
21our first floor was let to a very learned and excellent man, though a very singular one, the reverend nathanael blower, who had been curate of st. magnus till the form of religion changed. then he was hard put to it, where to lay his head without fleeing the country or getting into trouble; for the independents were mighty intolerant; and he whom we used to think it a great honour to get a passing word and a smile from, was now thankful to take up his rest among us. holy writ tells us that some have entertained angels unawares: if we entertained an angel, it was not unawares, though he was a very eccentric and untidy one. he said he would have called my mother the good shunammite if it had not been a shame to provoke comparison between himself and the prophet elijah. indeed his was somewhat like the “chamber on 22the wall,” for the back-room in which he slept was a lean-to that stuck against the main wall like a swallow’s nest, and hung perilously over the foaming river, trembling at every half-ebb tide; but use inures us to everything, and he said he slept as well in his nest as a sailor in his hammock. as to his sitting-chamber, it was soon a perfect pig-sty (if pigs ever had books) of papers, parchments, books, pamphlets, old shoes, hats and coats, medicines, cordials, snuff-boxes, pipes, walking-sticks, and everything that is untidy. after a time he began to think whether he might not, by a conscientious conformity, be a working-bee rather than a drone in the hive; and, having some acquaintance with master john howe, the whitehall preacher, who was known to be forward in assisting the royalists and episcopalians in distress, 23if they were but men of merit, he went and took his advice on the subject before he presented himself before the triers, that is to say, those who tried the ejected ministers whether they might be allowed to officiate again in public or not. along with him went doctor fuller, so well known by his wise and witty books; who was generally upon the merry pin, for as pious a man as he was. he, presenting himself before master howe, said,
the back-room in which he slept was a lean-to that stuck against the main wall
“sir, you may observe i am a pretty corpulent man, and i am to go through a passage that is very strait. i beg you would be so kind as to give me a shove, and help me through!”
master howe smiled, and frankly debated the subject with him and master blower; and the end of it was, that when the triers put it to master fuller whether he had ever had any experience of a 24work of grace upon his heart, he made answer, that he could appeal to the searcher of hearts, that he made conscience of his very thoughts; and master blower said in other words what amounted to the same thing; howbeit, like pharaoh’s butler and baker, one was accepted—the other not.
and the reason was, that they got upon the question of particular faith, which was very prevalent in oliver cromwell’s court, and put it to him whether he did not believe that all who asked for anything in faith would have it granted them, as well as have an assurance on the spot that it would be so. which he said, in that large, unqualified sense, he did not, for that he believed many timid believers had the faith of adherence who had not the faith of assurance; and that if prayer were made for some unreasonable 25thing, however fervently, he did not think it would be granted. that would not stand master blower; so he had to come back to his swallow’s nest.
“but is it not an extraordinary thing, now,” saith he to my mother, “that they should, except for the sake of catching a man in his talk, so hardly insist on the literal acceptance of a dogma which they themselves must know they overstrain? for would one of them dare to pray that his father or mother might come to life again in this present world, however much he might long to see them in the body? or that all jews, infidels, and heretics, might be converted this very moment, however desirable a thing it might be? we do the word of god dishonour and make it of none effect when we interpret by the letter instead of the spirit.”
26in this fashion would the excellent master blower vouchsafe to converse with my mother in my hearing, much to her edification and mine. meantime violet armytage was much more given to flirting than preaching; and had more admirers than any girl on the bridge; but the man whom she and her mother were chiefly desirous she should captivate was no admirer of hers at all. this was hugh braidfoot, the glover, who lived next door to us; and who talked the matter over with my father very freely when they had the shop to themselves; i sewing in the parlour behind.
“i can see quite plainly through the old lady,” quoth he, as he sate on his favourite seat, the counter, with his feet easily reaching the floor, “i can see what she’s driving at, and don’t respect her for it a bit. why should she always 27be buying gloves three or four sizes too small for her broad red hand, and then be sending violet over to change them again and again till they fit? i’ve a dozen pair wasted that she has stretched. and where is the other daughter, and why is she always in the background?”
“kitty is sickly and a little lame,” says my father, “and has her health better in the country.”
“i don’t believe she’s either sickly or lame,” says hugh braidfoot, “only the mother wants to get this daughter off first—and stands in her own light by her man?uvres, i can tell her. defend me from a managing mother!”
about this time, my father’s trade had a short but surprising impetus, which, as he said to my mother, “was but the flaring up of a candle in the socket, just before it goes out.” cropped heads 28and long curls being now the signs of different parties, and the round-heads having the uppermost, numerous persons that had hitherto been vain enough of their long and graceful tresses, which brought no small gain to the hairdressers, were now anxious to be shorn as close as french poodles, for fear of getting into scrapes with the reigning power. and as, like the sheep after shearing, they left their fleeces behind them, which were in many cases exceeding valuable, my father and mark were busied from morning to night, in washing, baking, and weaving beautiful sets of hair, which were carefully reserved for future occasion.
“for you will see,” quoth my father, “there will sooner or later be a reaction; i may not live to see it, but you youngsters will; people will be 29tired of puritanism and rebellion some of these days, and then the old state of things will come back; and the croppies will be as ashamed of their stubble heads as the cavaliers are of their love-locks now; and, as hair won’t grow as fast as green peas, they will then be constrained to wear wigs, and then will come a rare time for the barbers!” every word of which, like so many other of his prophesyings and presages, in due season proved strictly true!
meantime, though this fury for cropping filled the till as long as there was any long hair to cut off, yet, this being presently done, a great stagnation of business ensued; for, whereas the curled locks had required constant curling, brushing, and trimming, the round heads were easily kept short, and brought only pence where 30the others had brought shillings. my father kept his hair long to the last; and, to express his opinion of the times so as e’en they who ran might read, he set up two waxen effigies in his window, not merely heads, but half lengths; the one representing an exceeding comely and handsome young man, (very much like my cousin mark,) with long, fair tresses most beautifully crimped, falling over his vandyke collar and black velvet coat: the other, with as red a nose as old noll, close cropped, so as to show his large ears sticking out on each side. and to make the satire more pungent, the round-head made as though pointing to the cavalier, with a small label superscribed, “see what i was!”—and the cavalier, with a look of silent disgust, was signing at the round-head and saying, “see what i shall be!”
31
this comicality, which had cost my father and mark sundry hours of evening labour,—(i had made the dresses,) drew crowds of people to the window, so as even to obstruct the passage along the 32bridge; and excited peals of ironical laughter; till, at length, mirth proceeding to mischief, blows began to ensue among those who favoured opposite sides. then the bridgewardens came with constables and weapons to quell the disturbance, and an idle fellow was set in the cage, and another, with long hair, put in the stocks; and one or two of our panes of glass were broken; so that what began in sport ended much too seriously; and my father, finding he must yield to the times, changed the cavalier’s placard into “see what you had better be,” and finally removed it altogether, saying he was nauseated with time-serving. but he persisted in wearing his own long hair, come what would; which drew from the reverend master blower that similitude about the trojan horse, who, i suppose, persisted in wearing his mane and long 33tail after they had become types of a party. and when my father was called in question for it by one of the bridgewardens, and asked why he persevered in troubling israel, he with his usual spirit retorted upon him with, “how can a tonsor be expected to hold with a party that puts pence into his till instead of shillings?” whereupon the bridgewarden called him a self-interested demas, and said no more to him.
hugh braidfoot upheld him through thick and thin, laughing all the while; though he kept his own bushy head as short as a blacking-brush. indeed, this man, though the essence of mirth and good-humour, strongly built, and six foot high, had not a quarter of my father’s valour.
as for master blower, he made a wry face on it, saying that magnasheh 34miksheh (which i afterwards heard was hebrew for well-set hair) was now of no account.
—one evening,—i have good reason to remember it,—the days being sultry and at their longest,—we made a pleasure-party to greenwich, and took water below the bridge. coming back just as the moon was rising, a boat-full of uproarious and half-intoxicated young men fell foul of us and upset us. i shall never forget my sensations as i went into the water!—the next minute, i was half out of it again, and found mark’s arm close round me, while with the other he struck out, and presently brought me ashore. my dear father also rescued my mother; and hugh braidfoot’s long legs helped him more in wading out like a heron, i think, than his arms in swimming, for he, too, presently came aland, covered with mud. 35my mother and i cried, and felt very grateful to mark, who stood panting and colouring, and looking very much pleased with himself; and presently we were all in another boat on our way to the bridge stairs, drenched, quiet, and thankful for our providential escape.... i, especially, feeling, oh! how happy!—yet, in after days, there was a time when i was ready to wish mark had left me in the river—.
