Mary Barton. Элизабет Гаскелл

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      “An’ ye shall walk in silk attire,

      An’ siller hae to spare.”’

      ‘Nay, don’t stop; or else give me something rather more new, for somehow I never quite liked that part about thinking o’ Donald mair.’

      ‘Well, though I’m a bit tired I don’t care if I do. Before I come, I were practising well-nigh upon two hours this one which I’m to sing o’ Thursday. The lecturer said he were sure it would just suit me, and I should do justice to it; and I should be right sorry to disappoint him, he were so nice and encouraging like to me. Eh! Mary, what a pity there isn’t more o’ that way, and less scolding and rating i’ th’ world! It would go a vast deal further. Beside, some o’ th’ singers said, they were a’most certain that it were a song o’ his own, because he were so fidgety and particular about it, and so anxious I should give it th’ proper expression. And that makes me care still more. Th’ first verse, he said, were to be sung “tenderly, but joyously!” I’m afraid I don’t quite hit that, but I’ll try.

      “What a single word can do!

      Thrilling all the heart-strings through,

      Calling forth fond memories,

      Raining round hope’s melodies,

      Steeping all in one bright hue –

      What a single word can do!”

      Now it falls into th’ minor key, and must be very sad-like. I feel as if I could do that better than t’other.

      “What a single word can do!

      Making life seem all untrue,

      Driving joy and hope away,

      Leaving not one cheering ray,

      Blighting every flower that grew –

      What a single word can do!”’

Margaret certainly made the most of this little song. As a factory worker, listening outside, observed, ‘She spun it reet^* fine!’ And if she only sang it at the Mechanics’ with half the feeling she put into it that night, the lecturer must have been hard to please, if he did not admit that his expectations were more than fulfilled.

      When it was ended, Mary’s looks told more than words could have done what she thought of it; and partly to keep in a tear which would fain have rolled out, she brightened into a laugh, and said, ‘For certain th’ carriage is coming. So let us go and dream on it.’

^* ‘Wick’, alive. Anglo-Saxon, cwic. ‘The quick and the dead.’ – Book of Common Prayer.

^† ‘At after.’ ‘At after souper goth this noble king.’ – CHAUCER, The Squire’s Tale.

^* ‘Ritling’, probably a corruption of ‘ricketling’, a child that suffers from the rickets – a weakling.

^* ‘Cotched’, caught.

^* ‘Letting on’, informing.

^* ‘Reet’, right; often used for ‘very’.

CHAPTER 9

       Barton’s London Experiences

      ‘A life of self-indulgence is for us,

      A life of self-denial is for them;

      For us the streets, broad-built and populous,

      For them unhealthy corners, garrets dim,

      And cellars where the water-rat may swim!

      For us green paths refreshed by frequent rain,

      For them dark alleys where the dust lies grim!

      Not doomed by us to this appointed pain –

      God made us rich and poor – of what do these complain?’

      MRS NORTON’S ‘CHILD OF THE ISLANDS’

      The next evening it was a warm, pattering, incessant rain – just the rain to waken up the flowers. But in Manchester, where alas! there are no flowers, the rain had only a disheartening and gloomy effect; the streets were wet and dirty, the drippings from the houses were wet and dirty, and the people were wet and dirty. Indeed, most kept within doors; and there was an unusual silence of footsteps in the little paved courts.

      Mary had to change her clothes after her walk home; and had hardly settled herself before she heard some one fumbling at the door. The noise continued long enough to allow her to get up, and go and open it. There stood – could it be? yes it was, her father!

      Drenched and wayworn, there he stood! He came in with no word to Mary in return for her cheery and astonished greeting. He sat down by the fire in his wet things, unheeding. But Mary would not let him so rest. She ran up and brought down his working-day clothes, and went into the pantry to rummage up their little bit of provision while he changed by the fire, talking all the while as gaily as she could, though her father’s depression hung like lead on her heart.

      For Mary, in her seclusion at Miss Simmonds’, – where the chief talk was of fashions, and dress, and parties to be given, for which such and such gowns would be wanted, varied with a slight-whispered interlude occasionally about love and lovers, – had not heard the political news of the day; that Parliament had refused to listen to the working-men, when they petitioned, with all the force of their rough, untutored words, to be heard concerning the distress which was riding, like the Conqueror on his Pale Horse, among the people; which was crushing their lives out of them, and stamping woe-marks over the land.

      When he had eaten and was refreshed, they sat for some time in silence; for Mary wished him to tell her what oppressed him so, yet durst not ask. In this she was wise; for when we are heavy-laden in our hearts it falls in better with our humour to reveal our case in our own way, and our own time.

      Mary sat on a stool at her father’s feet in old childish guise, and stole her hand into his, while his sadness infected her, and she ‘caught the trick of grief, and sighed’, she knew not why.

      ‘Mary, we mun speak to our God to hear us, for man will not hearken; no, not now, when we weep tears o’ blood.’

      In an instant Mary understood the fact, if not the details, that so weighed down her father’s heart. She pressed his hand with silent sympathy. She did not know what to say, and was so afraid of speaking wrongly, that she was silent. But when his attitude had remained СКАЧАТЬ