Mary Barton

Mary was glad she had not gone into service, and said so.

‘Eh, lass! thou little knows the pleasure o’ helping others; I was as happy there as could be; almost as happy as I was at home. Well, but next year I thought I could go at a leisure time, and missis telled me I should have a fortnight then, and I used to sit up all that winter working hard at patchwork, to have a quilt of my own making to take to my mother. But master died, and missis went away fra Manchester, and I’d to look out for a place again.’

‘Well, but,’ interrupted Mary, ‘I should have thought that was the best time to go home.’

‘No, I thought not. You see it was a different thing going home for a week on a visit, may be with money in my pocket to give father a lift, to going home to be a burden to him. Besides, how could I hear o’ a place there? Anyways I thought it best to stay, though perhaps it might have been better to ha’ gone, for then I should ha’ seen mother again’; and the poor old woman looked puzzled.

‘I’m sure you did what you thought right,’ said Margaret gently.

‘Ay, lass, that’s it,’ said Alice, raising her head and speaking more cheerfully. ‘That’s the thing, and then let the Lord send what He sees fit; not but that I grieved sore, oh, sore and sad, when toward spring next year, when my quilt were all done to th’ lining, George came in one evening to tell me mother was dead. I cried many a night at after;* (#ulink_2b5904e6-7f7b-5d61-a0df-0ed757dd1bd8) I’d no time for crying by day, for that missis was terrible strict; she would not hearken to my going to th’ funeral; and indeed I would have been too late, for George set off that very night by th’ coach, and the letter had been kept or summut (posts were not like th’ posts now-a-days), and he found the burial all over, and father talking o’ flitting; for he couldn’t abide the cottage after mother was gone.’

‘Was it a pretty place?’ asked Mary.

‘Pretty, lass! I never seed such a bonny bit anywhere. You see there are hills there as seem to go up into th’ skies, not near may be, but that makes them all the bonnier. I used to think they were the golden hills of heaven, about which mother sang when I was a child:

“Yon are the golden hills o’ heaven,

Where ye sall never win.”

Something about a ship and a lover that should hae been na lover, the ballad was. Well, and near our cottage were rocks. Eh, lasses! ye don’t know what rocks are in Manchester! Grey pieces o’ stone as large as a house all covered over wi’ mosses of different colours, some yellow, some brown; and the ground beneath them knee-deep in purple heather, smelling sae sweet and fragrant, and the low music of the humming-bee for ever sounding among it. Mother used to send Sally and me out to gather ling and heather for besoms, and it was such pleasant work! We used to come home of an evening loaded so as you could not see us, for all that it was so light to carry. And then mother would make us sit down under the old hawthorn tree (where we used to make our house among the great roots as stood above th’ ground), to pick and tie up the heather. It seems all like yesterday, and yet it’s a long long time agone. Poor sister Sally has been in her grave this forty year and more. But I often wonder if the hawthorn is standing yet, and if the lasses still go to gather heather, as we did many and many a year past and gone. I sicken at heart to see the old spot once again. May be next summer I may set off, if God spares me to see next summer.’

‘Why have you never been in all these many years?’ asked Mary.

‘Why, lass! first one wanted me and then another; and I couldn’t go without money either, and I got very poor at times. Tom was a scapegrace, poor fellow, and always wanted help of one kind or other; and his wife (for I think scapegraces are always married long before steady folk) was but a helpless kind of body. She was always ailing, and he were always in trouble; so I had enough to do with my hands, and my money too, for that matter. They died within twelvemonth of each other, leaving one lad (they had had seven, but the Lord had taken six to hisself), Will, as I was telling you on; and I took him myself, and left service to make a bit on a home-place for him, and a fine lad he was, the very spit of his father as to looks, only steadier. For he was steady, although nought would serve him but going to sea. I tried all I could to set him again a sailor’s life. Says I, “Folks is as sick as dogs all the time they’re at sea. Your own mother telled me (for she came from foreign parts, being a Manx woman) that she’d ha’ thanked any one for throwing her into the water.” Nay, I sent him a’ the way to Runcorn by th’ Duke’s canal, that he might know what th’ sea were; and I looked to see him come back as white as a sheet wi’ vomiting. But the lad went on to Liverpool and saw real ships, and come back more set than ever on being a sailor, and he said as how he had never been sick at all, and thought he could stand the sea pretty well. So I told him he mun do as he liked; and he thanked me and kissed me, for all I was very frabbit* (#ulink_f657c662-edeb-55b5-8d6f-9fd8ca90feab) with him; and now he’s gone to South America, at t’other side of the sun, they tell me.’

Mary stole a glance at Margaret to see what she thought of Alice’s geography; but Margaret looked so quiet and demure, that Mary was in doubt if she were not really ignorant. Not that Mary’s knowledge was very profound, but she had seen a terrestrial globe, and knew where to find France and the continents on a map.

After this long talking Alice seemed lost for a time in reverie; and the girls, respecting her thoughts, which they suspected had wandered to the home and scenes of her childhood, were silent. All at once she recalled her duties as hostess, and by an effort brought back her mind to the present time.

‘Marget, thou must let Mary hear thee sing. I don’t know about fine music myself, but folks say Marget is a rare singer, and I know she can make me cry at any time by singing “Th’ Owdham Weaver.” Do sing that, Marget, there’s a good lass.’

With a faint smile, as if amused at Alice’s choice of a song, Margaret began.

Do you know ‘The Oldham Weaver’? Not unless you are Lancashire born and bred, for it is a complete Lancashire ditty. I will copy it for you.

The Oldham Weaver

I

Oi’m a poor cotton-weyver, as mony a one knoowas,

Oi’ve nowt for t’ yeat, an’ oi’ve worn eawt my clooas,

Yo’ad hardly gi’ tuppence for aw as oi’ve on,

My clogs are both brosten, an’ stuckings oi’ve none,

Yo’d think it wur hard,

To be browt into th’ warld,

To be – clemmed,* (#ulink_417fe9cb-8925-56e7-8411-39fde853918f) an’ do th’ best as yo con.

II

Owd Dicky o’ Billy’s kept telling me lung,

Wee s’d ha’ better toimes if I’d but howd my tung,

Oi’ve howden my tung, till oi’ve near stopped my breath,

Oi think i’ my heeart oi’se soon clem to deeath,

Owd Dicky’s weel crammed,

He never wur clemmed,

An’ he ne’er picked ower i’ his loife.* (#ulink_b2682054-99f5-520f-8161-5c8c06083770)

III

We tow’rt on six week – thinking aitch day wur th’ last,

We shifted, an’ shifted, till neaw we’re quoite fast;

We lived upo’ nettles, whoile nettles wur good,

An’ Waterloo porridge the best o’ eawr food,

Oi’m tellin’ yo’ true,

Oi can find folk enow,

As wur livin’ na better nor me.

IV

Owd Billy o’ Dans sent th’ baileys one day,

Fur a shop deebt oi eawd him, as oi could na pay,

But he wur too lat, fur owd Billy o’ th’ Bent

Had sowd th’ tit an’ cart, an’ ta’en goods for th’ rent,

We’d neawt left bo’ tho’ owd stoo’,

That wur seeats fur two,