Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet: An Autobiography. Charles Kingsley. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Charles Kingsley
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commendatory prayers over him, and started for the river with West. Fished all the morning in a roaring N.E. gale, with the dreadful agonized face between me and the river, pondering on THE mystery. Killed eight on 'March brown' and 'governor,' by drowning the flies, and taking 'em out gently to see if ought was there—which is the only dodge in a north-easter. 'Cause why? The water is warmer than the air—ergo, fishes don't like to put their noses out o' doors, and feeds at home down stairs. It is the only wrinkle, Tom. The captain fished a-top, and caught but three all day. They weren't going to catch a cold in their heads to please him or any man. Clouds burn up at 1 P.m. I put on a minnow, and kill three more; I should have had lots, but for the image of the dirty hickory stick, which would 'walk the waters like a thing of life,' just ahead of my minnow. Mem.—Never fish with the sun in your back; it's bad enough with a fly, but with a minnow it's strichnine and prussic acid. My eleven weighed together four and a-half pounds—three to the pound; not good, considering I had spased many a two-pound fish, I know.

      "Corollary.—Brass minnow don't suit the water. Where is your wonderful minnow? Send him me down, or else a horn one, which I believes in desperate; but send me something before Tuesday, and I will send you P.O.O. Horn minnow looks like a gudgeon, which is the pure caseine. One pounder I caught to-day on the 'March brown' womited his wittles, which was rude, but instructive; and among worms was a gudgeon three inches long and more. Blow minnows—gudgeon is the thing.

      "Came off the water at 3. Found my man alive, and, thank God, quiet. Sat with him, and thought him going once or twice. What a mystery that long, insensible death-struggle is! Why should they be so long about it? Then had to go Hartley Row for an Archdeacon's Sunday-school meeting—three hours useless (I fear) speechifying and 'shop'; but the Archdeacon is a good man, and works like a brick beyond his office. Got back at 10:30, and sit writing to you. So goes one's day. All manner of incongruous things to do—and the very incongruity keeps one beany and jolly. Your letter was delightful. I read part of it to West, who says, you are the best fellow on earth, to which I agree.

      "So no more from your sleepy and tired—C. KINGSLEY."

      This was almost the last letter I ever received from him in the Parson Lot period of his life, with which alone this notice has to do. It shows, I think, very clearly that it was not that he had deserted his flag (as has been said) or changed his mind about the cause for which he had fought so hard and so well. His heart was in it still as warmly as ever, as he says himself. But the battle had rolled away to another part of the field. Almost all that Parson Lot had ever striven for was already gained. The working-classes had already got statutory protection for their trade associations, and their unions, though still outside the law, had become strong enough to fight their own battles. And so he laid aside his fighting name and his fighting pen, and had leisure to look calmly on the great struggle more as a spectator than an actor.

      A few months later, in the summer of 1856, when he and I were talking over and preparing for a week's fishing in the streams and lakes of his favourite Snowdonia, he spoke long and earnestly in the same key. I well remember how he wound it all up with, "the long and short of it is, I am becoming an optimist. All men, worth anything, old men especially, have strong fits of optimism—even Carlyle has—because they can't help hoping, and sometimes feeling, that the world is going right, and will go right, not your way, or my way, but its own way. Yes; we've all tried our Holloway's Pills, Tom, to cure all the ills of all the world—and we've all found out I hope by this time that the tough old world has more in its inside than any Holloway's Pills will clear out." A few weeks later I received the following invitation to Snowdon, and to Snowdon we went in the autumn of 1856.

      THE INVITATION.

      Come away with me, Tom,

       Term and talk is done;

       My poor lads are reaping,

       Busy every one.

       Curates mind the parish,

       Sweepers mind the Court,

       We'll away to Snowdon

       For our ten days' sport,

       Fish the August evening

       Till the eve is past,

       Whoop like boys at pounders

       Fairly played and grassed.

       When they cease to dimple,

       Lunge, and swerve, and leap,

       Then up over Siabod

       Choose our nest, and sleep.

       Up a thousand feet, Tom,

       Round the lion's head,

       Find soft stones to leeward

       And make up our bed.

       Bat our bread and bacon,

       Smoke the pipe of peace,

       And, ere we be drowsy,

       Give our boots a grease.

       Homer's heroes did so,

       Why not such as we?

       What are sheets and servants?

       Superfluity.

       Pray for wives and children

       Safe in slumber curled,

       Then to chat till midnight

       O'er this babbling world.

       Of the workmen's college,

       Of the price of grain,

       Of the tree of knowledge,

       Of the chance of rain;

       If Sir A. goes Romeward,

       If Miss B. sings true,

       If the fleet comes homeward,

       If the mare will do—

       Anything and everything—

       Up there in the sky

       Angels understand us,

       And no "saints" are by. Down, and bathe at day-dawn, Tramp from lake to lake, Washing brain and heart clean Every step we take. Leave to Robert Browning Beggars, fleas, and vines; Leave to mournful Ruskin Popish Apennines, Dirty Stones of Venice And his Gas-lamps Seven; We've the stones of Snowdon And the lamps of heaven. Where's the mighty credit In admiring Alps? Any goose sees "glory" In their "snowy scalps." Leave such signs and wonders For the dullard brain, As æsthetic brandy, Opium, and cayenne; Give me Bramshill common (St. John's harriers by), Or the vale of Windsor, England's golden eye. Show me life and progress, Beauty, health, and man; Houses fair, trim gardens, Turn where'er I can. Or, if bored with "High Art," And such popish stuff, One's poor ears need airing, Snowdon's high enough. While we find God's signet Fresh on English ground, Why go gallivanting With the nations round? Though we try no ventures Desperate or strange; Feed on common-places In a narrow range; Never sought for Franklin Round the frozen Capes; Even, with Macdougall, Bagged our brace of apes; Never had our chance, Tom, In that black Redan; Can't avenge poor Brereton Out in Sakarran; Tho' we earn our bread, Tom, By the dirty pen, What we can we will be, Honest Englishmen. Do the work that's nearest, Though it's dull at whiles; Helping, when we meet them Lame dogs over stiles; See in every hedgerow Marks of angels' feet, Epics in each pebble Underneath our feet; Once a-year, like schoolboys, Robin-Hooding go. Leaving fops and fogies A thousand feet below.

      T. H.

      CHEAP CLOTHES AND NASTY.

       Table of Contents

      King Ryence, says the legend of Prince Arthur, wore a paletot trimmed with kings' beards. In the first French Revolution (so Carlyle assures us) there were at Meudon tanneries of human skins. Mammon, at once tyrant and revolutionary, follows both these noble examples—in a more respectable way, doubtless, for Mammon hates cruelty; bodily pain is his devil—the worst evil of which he, in his effeminacy, can conceive. So he shrieks benevolently when a drunken soldier is flogged; but he trims his