Stage-coach and Tavern Days

Considerable jealousy was shown by both paupers in their eager desire to talk with us, and we learned that the dwarf was regarded as a genius; he composed wonderful epitaphs, and had written poetry for the county newspaper. He could set type, and could thus earn his living, but was temporarily more feeble than usual, on account of a weight falling on his back; after a few months he would go to work again. He represented the brilliant and intellectual element of communal life, but was hopelessly plebeian; while Mr. Bourne stood for blood and breeding. This the dwarf Peter scorned, being a Socialist in his creed. A curious and touching atmosphere of simplicity and confidence filled the old kitchen. The farmer and his wife were deeply solicitous for the comfort and health of their two charges; and as I sat there, tired by my long drive, a little lonely from the strangeness of the surroundings, there was nevertheless a profound sense that this poorhouse was truly a home.

It was in the middle of this night that the experience came to me of the greatest sense of passive comfort that I have known – and think of the absurdity, in a poorhouse! We heard at midnight a light patter of quick rain, and soon soft footsteps entered and our window shutters were carefully closed. “It’s me,” said our landlady, ungrammatically and pleasantly. “I didn’t mean to wake you, but I always go to Mr. Bourne’s room when it rains to close his window for fear he’ll take cold, so I looked at yours,” and the old-time figure in petticoat, shawl, and ruffled nightcap withdrew as quietly as it had entered. Then came the hour of half-sleep, a true “dozy hour,” as Thackeray said. In this poorhouse, with no book, no ready light, I fain must lie in silence, hence an hour such as has been told in perfection in a simple yet finished piece of descriptive English; let me give the classic prose of Sam Pepys – the words are his – but the happy hour was mine as well as his: —

“Rode easily to Welling, where we supped well, and had two beds in the room, and so lay single, and still remember it that of all the nights that I ever slept in my life I never did pass a night with more epicurism of sleep; there being now and then a noise of people stirring that wakened me, and then it was a very rainy night, and then I was a little weary, that what between waking, and then sleeping again one after another, I never had so much content in all my life.”

When we awoke the following morning Mr. Bourne was awaiting our coming with some eagerness. The dwarf was absent, and the old man apologized for one or two of Peter’s remarks the night before which had seemed to him uncivil. These were, however, only some of Peter’s mild bitternesses about division of property, the injustice of modern laws, the inequalities of taxation, etc., which had seemed harmless enough in the mouth of a pauper.

While waiting the leisurely repairs of our vehicle at the hands of the captured blacksmith, I yielded to Mr. Bourne’s eager invitation to come with him to see a piece of land he owned. “It’s been in the family near two hundred years,” he said proudly. “Peter says I ought to be ashamed to tell of my folks’ grasping all them years God’s gift of the soil that ought to be just as free as the ocean and the sky; but I’m glad I’ve got it. Peter’s folks came from Middleboro way, and never did own no land nor nothin’, and I’ve noticed it’s them sort that’s always maddest at folks as does have family things.” After a few minutes of silence he added: “Peter can’t help it. It’s born in him to feel that way, just as it’s born into me to feel proud of my property.” We walked along the sandy road under the beautiful autumnal sky. A dense group of stunted cedars and one towering fir tree rose sombrely in a little enclosed corner below the church. “This is my property,” said the old man, cheerfully, “and they’re all Bournes and Swifts in it. There lies my great-grandfather, the old parson, under that flat stone come from England. Here is my mother. That slate headstone over there is for my brother lost at sea on one of his voyages. I am going to be put exactly here. Them four stones I put to mark it. And Peter hasn’t any graveyard – don’t even know where his father is buried – so he’s going to lie over here in this corner. He’s the only one as ain’t a Swift or a Bourne, and it’s a great honor to him. He’s had to pay me for it, though; he’s written me an epitaph, and it’s a good one; it’ll be the best one in the whole graveyard.”