Bladys of the Stewponey. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ by no means to the lowest class. The gentlemen of the road comprised, for the most part, wastrels and gamesters of good blood, who thought it no dishonour to recover on the high-road what they had lost on the green table. Occasionally, but only occasionally, one was captured and hung, but the gang was not broken up, the gap was at once refilled. Of applicants there no lack, and the roads remained as insecure before. The facilities for escape at the confines of three counties, and in a country honeycombed with places of refuge, were too many, and the business was too profitable, to enable the sheriffs, during an entire century, to put an end to a condition of affairs which was at once a scandal and a nuisance.

      The great canal planned and carried out by Telford runs from the Stour at Stewponey, and passes under a low bluff that is dug out into houses still in occupation. This canal follows the river Stour and connects the Severn, where navigable, with the Grand Trunk Canal, that links the Mersey with the Trent, and connects the St. George's Channel with the German Ocean. At the Stewponey, it is joined by the Stourbridge canal. This point is accordingly a centre about which much water traffic gathers, and did gather to a far larger extent before the railroads carried away the bulk of the trade from the canals.

      Cornelius Rea, landlord of the Stewponey Inn, was in his cellar, tapping a cask of ale.

      He was a stout man, coarse in feature, yet handsome, with one of those vast paunches which caricaturists represent as not uncommon a century ago, but which we never encounter at present. We might suppose that these caricatures were extravagant had we not here and there preserved, as bequests from the past, mahogany dining-tables, with semi-circles cut out of them for the accommodation of the stomachs of stout diners.

      The face of Cornelius was red and puffed. It looked peculiarly so, as he stooped at the spigot, by the light of a lamp held by his daughter Bladys. He was in his shirt sleeves, and wore a white nightcap on his head, a yellow, long-flapped waistcoat, and black, shabby knee-breeches.

      Bladys was tall and slender—an unusual feature in the district, where women are thickset and short; she had inherited from her Spanish great-grandmother a pale face and dark hair and eyes. She held the light with a trembling hand, not above her head, lest she should set fire to the drapery of cobwebs that hung from the vault. What little daylight penetrated to the cellar fell from the entrance door, and lay pale on the steps that led down into it, in gradually reduced brilliancy, and left the rest of the cellar wholly unillumined.

      "It's well up—prime!" said the host. "Fine October brew, this. One cask will never suffice 'em. I'll e'en tap another. Bush-sh-sh! It spits out like an angry cat. It smells good."

      He heaved up his clumsy person.

      "This stooping don't suit me at my time o' life, girl. What! has the ale spurted into and washed your face?"

      "No, father."

      "I say it has. Don't contradict me. Your cheeks are wet. I see them glitter. Why dost say 'No, father,' when I say Yes?"

      Then all at once a sob broke from her heart.

      The heavy man turned his red face and looked at his child. Instinctively she lowered the light.

      "Hold up the lamp that I may see!"

      She obeyed, but let her head sink on her bosom.

      With an oath—he seasoned his every sentence with one—he thrust his hand under her chin, and forced her to raise her face.

      "Turn your cheek, wench! What's the sense of this, eh?"

      "O father! you put me to shame."

      "I—by Ginger! How so?"

      "By this bowling match, that is hateful to me—a dishonour; I am ashamed to be seen—and then to send round the crier!"

      "Pshaw! Some wenches don't know when they are well off."

      "Father! you disgrace me in all men's eyes—on all lips."

      "I! never a bit. It's an honour to any woman to be bowled for. 'Taint every wench can boast she's been an object of contest. My grandmother used to say that in Spain swords were often crossed before a woman could be wed, and that a lady never deemed herself properly married till blood had flowed on her account. Now folk will pay their shillings and half-crowns to see which is the best man. Bless you! There came round a caravan with a giraffe and a laughing hyena, and a roaring lion. Hundreds of people paid sixpence to see these beasts all the way from Africa. Just you think of that. A roaring lion, the king of beasts, only sixpence, let alone the giraffe and the hyena: and shilling and half-a-crown to see you. There's honour and glory, if you like it. I didn't think I'd have lived to see the day and feel such a father's pride, but I do—and I bless you for it. I bet you a spade guinea we shall take the money up in shovels."

      "I do not wish it, father."

      "I don't care a hanged highwayman whether you wish or not. It is as I choose. Who is the proper person to care and provide for his child but the father? I'm not going to be put off for any foolish girl's whimsies. All the take—every stiver—shall go to you as your portion. I have none other to make."

      "I do not desire at all to be married."

      "Here you cannot stay. You understand well that you and she as is to be your stepmother can't agree. As soon as you have cleared out, then in comes she; and as I powerfully want her in the house, the sooner you go the better. If you'd taken to her in a friendly and daughterly way, that would have been another matter; but as you have fixed your mind so dead against her there's no help for it. Go you must, and that to-night. And what is more, as a virtuous and respectable man, and a man with a conscience in my stomach, you shall go out respectably, and not be cut off with a shilling. None shall say that of me. I'm a man as does his duty in that station of life and situation as I finds myself in."

      "I don't consider it respectable to be bowled for."

      "Then I do. I am nigh on forty years older than you, and know the world. Which is most like to be right, you or I? If you leave my house, you leave it respectable."

      "If you would suffer me to be alone, I would do nothing that is not respectable."

      "Whither would you go? Who would take charge of you? In good sooth, until I put you into the arms of a husband I have no freedom, and unless I do that I am responsible."

      Bladys set the lamp on the floor, sank on an empty barrel-horse, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed. The host uttered an oath.

      "This angers me. Folly always doth that," said he. "I leave you to yourself whilst I go fetch another spigot, and if you're not in a proper frame of mind when I come back I'll wash your face with stale beer."

      The taverner staggered away.

      His daughter looked after him as he stumbled up the stair. Then she was left alone in the cellar. The lamp on the floor flickered uneasily in the descending current of air, and the folds of cobwebs waved, catching the light, then disappearing again. The air was impregnated with a savour of mildew and wine and ale. The floor was moist. Spilt liquor had been trodden over the tiles and left them wet and slimy.

      Bladys had not been long an orphan. Her mother had died but a few months ago, after a lengthy and painful illness. She had been a shrewd, firm woman, an excellent manageress, who had kept order in the house and controlled her husband. Cornelius was a weak, vain man, and he allowed himself to be swayed by his customers, especially by those of the best class.

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