66

The stubborn spearmen still made good,
Their dark impenetrable wood

round their wounded king; how the
trumpets pealed under the Sorcian
height as the great Twin Brethren
couched their lances for the last charge,

fared on St. Crispin's day, when the | est place. But it was his own Muse English arrows stung like to ser- who taught him this precious secret ; pents; how, as evening deepened and this material form of comfort will over Flodden, not come to every man, though too many seem to think they have found it. Yet, after all, if writing bad verses console a man, we should not grudge him so easy a mode of consolation. In this matter, too,. let each man, as Bacon says, be heed not to impose himself as a law unto a law unto himself; let him only take others. In these few pages-pages whose sole merit lies in the many wise and beautiful words they have borrowed from others we have not wished to be a law unto any man; not to the Spectator, if we have not misunderstood him and he does find consolation in Dr. Watts; assuredly not to Mr. Birrell, who is more capable than most men of framing laws for his own guidance and

while

Behind them Rome's long battle
Came rolling on the foe,
Ensigns dancing wild above,

Blades all in line below;

or how on that memorable summer day in Plymouth market-place three hundred years ago the stout old sheriff raised the standard of defiance to the Spaniard :

Look how the Lion of the sea lifts up his who, like the old wolf of Rome, will

ancient crown,

And underneath his deadly paw treads the
gay lilies down.

So stalked he when he turned to flight, on
that famed Picard field,
Bohemia's plume, and Genoa's bow, and
Cæsar's eagle shield.

So glared he when at Agincourt in wrath
he turned to bay,

And crushed and torn beneath his claws

the princely hunters lay.

Many indeed and various are the consolations which poetry affords, such as a volume would barely do justice to, much less one short paper in a magazine. But they are not to be dictated or prescribed. No man can be hectored into a love of poetry; nor will the lover bear that the particular object of his love shall be forced upon him at the pen's point.

If she be not so to me,

THIS is how I first met with Matt, and had a curious half-hour with him. I had been staying for a time in the old-world village of Denhilton, lying far from busy ways of traffic in a slumberous nook in Surrey, and on a quiet summer evening had turned for a stroll down a green narrow footpath starting What care I how fair she be ? out of the main street, and known as One of the most charming of George the "Abbots' Lane." The footpath Wither's poems is called "The Conso- led in winding ways between thickly lations of Poetry." No fitter title man twined hedges of hawthorn, interever found for his work, for the poem spersed here and there with growths of was written in the Marshalsea prison wild honeysuckle, and at an abrupt turn where his satirical vein had lodged him it brought you to a little brook, crossed for a brief space soon after he had come by a few planks by way of bridge. It to push his fortune in London. The was a tiny rustic streamlet, stealing by Muse, he assures us, could comfort him | lawns and grassy plots, with plenty of in the midst of sorrow and in the black-slim, nimble trout gliding about in the VOL. LXXX. 4135

LIVING AGE.

dark, clear water. No angler could | lowed with a penknife), and said he, catch them with rod and line, but the “Ye're a teacher, I b’lieve ? ” young folks sometimes got them with I nodded assent. the naked hand. "What d'ye teach?

What can ye

teach ?" cried the wheelwright, with a nasty, cynical leer.

I had reached the water's edge. The evening was perfectly still; no sound arose from this side or from that; and I knew that Matt had a theory that as I had gone to this same spot many a the world was all wrong, that man knew night without meeting a single soul, I nothing, and that no gleam of light scarcely expected to see any one. But could be seen until one obtained a persoon, however, I became aware of a sonal interview with the “Great Engibent, grisly-looking individual, who neer," or the "Apple-grower," as he stood partly concealed by an alder bush was wont to designate the Ruler of the on the opposite bank, with an old spade universe. The existence of the Great in his hand, on which he half leaned as Engineer was as cardinal and all-suffihe gazed steadily on the green turf. cient an article in Matt's faith as is the After a long pause he commenced to Eternal Energy from which all things dig energetically in the soil. A broad proceed" in the philosophy of Mr. Herslouched hat was on his head; he wore bert Spencer. But until one got a a snuff-colored old coat, with nether word wi' him, jest a word, good Lor'! garments of clean, rough canvas; and we know nought." The world spins a long "cherry" pipe hung at a curious and the apple grows, that is all. "What angle from his mouth. Now I remem- can ye teach ?" said Matt. bered it was Matt Decker, the wheelwright, whom I had seen before, and of whose eccentricities I had heard much, but to whom I had not yet spoken. I went across and accosted him.

"Good-evening, Matt!"

"And t' you, friend," said Matt, somewhat startled and ill-pleased to find a fellow-mortal near him.

66

There was some usefulness in "teaching" at least the three R's, I dare say, but Matt would not have admitted it, in this maelstrom of a world. So I hazarded, "I try to teach folks their ignorance, Matt."

Matt smiled grimly, but I could see that the answer was scarcely what he had expected. Then, said he, "So ye're ignorant yerself?"

"Very," owned I.

Here Matt swung the spade around his head, and struck it into the ground, So ye're a foo-oo-l!" he cried. Maybe," " said I serenely.

Then we stood for a few moments looking at each other. Matt had a funny way of turning his eyes upon you. He held his head erect, inclining," indeed, to the level of his broad rounded shoulders; his sharp black eyes were "Then why the d- -l d' ye pretend half shut, and they seemed to be look-t' teach any one?" shouted my intering at an impersonal shadow in an op- locutor, and just at the moment a lusty posite direction to yourself; but as you trout flopped himself in the water, as if glanced at the low-drawn, shaggy eye- to emphasize the remark. brows and the fiery little balls within them you became aware that Matt was duly beholding the man in the flesh before him, though he was prepared to wage cynical warfare with a spiritual foe pictured in his mental vision. Matt lived and thought so much alone that his battles were in the spirit, and above mundane things. When he had conjured the desired mental picture of me, slavin' t' get it, and I'm slavin' t' bury he took a deliberate pull at his pipe (it it out o' my sight. 'Bury my was a bit of cherry, as I have told, hol-lo' my sight,' cried the man in the

This was a poser, so I mumbled something about the necessity of steering clear of poverty and want.

Hereat Matt burst into a loud, hearty laugh, for he knew he had got the advantage of me. The bowl of his dark cherry pipe, now in the ascendant, fairly stood against his brow and under the rim of his capacious hat. "Ye're

dead out

A

Bible o' a seemilar bit o' carrion," said | dare say; take it, keep it, and never let Matt, as he giggled again. Then he me look on't again. It's blood money," pulled from the pocket of his long brown he added. The bag was heavy. coat (it was of strange cut, such an one hundred and fifty or two hundred sovas Oliver Goldsmith, M.B., my prede-ereigns were in it. How could I accept cessor in the sorrows of ushership, it? Besides, Matt kept chattering might have worn in his seediest and shadiest days) a little soiled cotton bag, full and weighty, and he flung it into the ground, shovelling, at the same time, a big spadeful of earth over it. They're bawbees, friend," said he. Then he added, "That's my bank. Filthy lucre t' the filthy earth."

away, "It's blood money, that it is." Matt was a queer character, so much every one knew; but, like all queer characters, he was the hero of queerer stories. Village gossip told that he had been concerned in strange doings as a kind of ship's carpenter upon a vessel plying between Sydney and the Fijis, and there were rumors that he had seen bloodshed and death by the shores of the Pacific. He had also been twice

Now it was known in the village that Matt the wheelwright had a little pile of money, but it had been thought generally that it lay in a big worsted shipwrecked once upon the Southern stocking stowed away under a broad Seas, and again on the passage in a hearthstone in the little house where he sailing ship from the United States. dwelt, and had dwelt for twelve years, As Matt had frequently expressed a alone. But here was surely some new wish to cross the seas once more, and freak. I tried to argue the matter with lay his bones in a land where the storms him; called it madness; said the first of an English winter are unfelt (he was thief who got whiff of its whereabouts a worshipper of the sun god), some of would pounce upon the money; but the old folks, who looked upon him as Matt was inexorable. "Bury my dead a black heathen who had no right to be out of my sight" had evidently got into among good Christian souls, shook their his brains and would not be dislodged. heads and murmured, "Twice saved, I did my best to ascertain the cause of once lost; it's the third that'll do for this change in Matt, for by nature he 'im." Now as to the bloodshed, there was a miser, and as much given to might have been some truth in that. hoarding as Silas Marner, the weaver We know it is well, even at the present of Raveloe. But Matt would not un-moment, to cast a veil over the doings burden his soul, except that he mum- of some Englishmen in the South Sea bled something about "the fly-wheel o' Islands; and though the days.of the time," "the blood o' the hours o' the pirates are over, and we shall never past," and "better fight than sit by t' again be disturbed by old rovers coming chimney." So he began again to com- home to frighten quiet people by swearplete his task of covering over the ing and singing, buried coins.

"Ye'll have a chance of bein' the thief ye spoke o' yerself; the first chance," said Matt to me. It was certain that I had obtained the first knowledge of it, and the situation was a little awkward. Whether Matt perceived this and was somewhat sorry, or whether an entirely new thought passed through his mind, I know not, but he began immediately to reverse operations, and to shovel back the earth out of the hole. When the bag was recovered he handed it to me. "Ye're slavin' t'get it; slavin' day and night, I

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest,
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum ;

Drink and the devil had done for the rest,

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Yet it was just possible that Matt's gains were illgotten, and that they were very literally "filthy" lucre.

"What mean you by blood money, Matt ?" said I.

"The price o' blood," cried he.
"Whose blood? What blood?"

said I.

"Not yours, friend," answered he. "Take it back," I enjoined.

"Never," declared Matt stoutly.

I threatened to leave it as plunder for the first comer, and I set the bag down in the middle of the planks forming the little bridge, and walked away.

Matt followed, and vowed that there the money would remain, so far as he was concerned. So I was forced to return and pick up the bag. "This is madness," said I angrily.

"D'ye teach the blessedness o' wrath as a portion o' people's ignorance ?" rejoined Matt, as he quietly relit his black" cherry."

He had been engaged in scrubbing his kitchen floor, and he resumed his task apparently without troubling himself about me at all. But I think he took some pains that I should taste of the suds, for he splashed about with vigor. The bag of money was in my pocket, but as Matt was so busy I awaited a more favorable opportunity of mentioning it. The kitchen was a rarity; I call it kitchen, but it was bedroom as well. The walls were clean, and as bare as when they came from the hands of the builder. There was not a picture, shelf, or nail upon any of them. But the roof was a curiosity. Small pieces of wood crossed and recrossed it, and into them a host of staples were driven with short There was no use arguing further just chains and hooks hanging down, and it then with the whimsical wheelwright, was there that Matt's household goods so I determined to retain the money-were stowed away. On one hook you bag till the following day, when, per- could see a wooden trencher, on another haps, Matt, miser as he was, would a tin teapot, on a third hung a clasp repent of his folly. I wished him "Good-night," and struck away into one of the fields. "Good-night, friend," called Matt pended (mostly all of white canvas), cheerily.

I declared he was out of his mind. He admitted it. "We wander i' the dark, and are dazed, till we get a word wi' the Great Engineer."

knife with a hole driven through the haft; from others, farther away in the corners, articles of clothing were sus

and it was only in the very centre of Next evening I called at Matt's cot- the room and by the fireside that it was tage and found him at home. He lived possible for one to stand erect. Just in a quiet side street, leading on to the by the fireplace, and along the wall, main or High Street, as it was called, stretched Matt's bed — a veritable plankand his house was clean enough upon bed. Like the two chairs and tiny the outside. But I was curious to see round table which constituted the furits inside, for Matt was his own house- niture, it was of clean deal boards with keeper. His house, too, was in very a canvas sheet and canvas covering. truth his castle, for he barricaded him- At household work Matt was the primself against the intrusion of his neigh-itive man, otherwise he may be said to bors, and only one villager-then dead have lived in canvas. There was evi- had ever been admitted within it. dently inspiration in it, like the CamGlimpses of its interior had been ob- bridge gown, of which we read in Lamb : tained, however, by passers-by-curi- And I walk gownèd-feel unusual powers. ous visions also of its occupant. In response to my knock I heard the bolts drawn, the door was opened just wide enough to let me squeeze in, and across the threshold I stood face to face with Matt. He was in puris naturalibus ! So the gossips of Denhilton were right, and it was perfectly true that "queer Matt Decker" was wont to wash and scrub and clean generally in all the unclothed freedom of the primitive man. Matt said ne'er a word about himself; he was naked, but unashamed. of his.

Such was the room in which I now found myself with Matt. When he finished his task I succeeded in opening conversation with him. I begged him to take back his money, but he was still obstinate. He had meant what he said, and the unburied coin was my absolute property. So there only remained now the alternative of holding the money in trust for Matt, and this I determined to do in conjunction with another friend

"What did you mean by blood money, | space." This was all-sufficient.

Matt?" said I, harking back to his words of the previous evening.

"I mean that each gold piece represents a drop o' human blood-my blood," added he.

"Explain," said I.

"When I was a lusty young fellow," continued Matt, "I determined t' see the world. I've been over a good bit o' it. Years an' years I've been runnin' here an' there an' everywhere, an' what for? 'T' get knowledge,' said I t' myself ; t' get gold an' nowt else was the truth. Am I the lusty man I was then? Does t' same blood run in my veins ? No! The blood is cold an' thin now; the drops are gone, and they're in the gold. 'Save it for t' rainy day,' said I; save it for old age.' Good Lor'! I'm an old man a'ready, but I can work. It's nat❜ral for man t' work. Man works as t' tree grows; when t' tree stops growin' it dies; when Matt stops workin', he dies like t' tree."

Matt

was certain that the Great Engineer did not, and in his wisdom could not, construct a bit of the universe on principles such as these. Even the lesser engineer, Matt himself, would have done it better than that!

Then we got upon religious subjects, and we discussed the authority and inspiration of the Bible. Matt was familiar with the Scriptures, both old and new, but he did not accept them as a divine revelation.

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"How could I?" said Matt; "if t' Great Engineer had wished t' speak t' us; if he had wished t' let us have a chance o' gettin' a word wi' him, would he not have come t' us in person, spoken to us, heark'ned to us? Ay! that would he; he wouldn't have sent us a book." In short, Matt was so fond of "having words with " people, so desirous of arguing the question, that he could not conceive of the Supreme Engineer using any go-beOn this subject Matt would say no tween in his dealings with a man; the more. But he told me what had first first step must necessarily be to show induced him to voyage to Australia. It himself, prepared presumably to subwas connected with a theory which he mit to Socratic examination, and "to entertained as to the conformation of the argue the question." It was no use earth. No argument could convince emphasizing the fact that, according to him then, no demonstration was ade- the Bible, God had thus appeared to quate now, that this planet was spherical men, and had even argued the quesin form. Moreover, Matt had seen tion" with them, for if to one, why not nothing in all his travels to prove the to all? And, above all, why not to rotundity of the earth. What he ex- Matt Decker, who had a series of pected to see I could not quite gather, questions personal to himself and to nor, perhaps, did he himself know. I none others, upon which he wanted battered him with all the stock argu- light. Similarly it was no use to pray. ments and proofs (some of them were apparently new to him) but in vain. Two counter arguments were clinching. First, he had been all over the world and knew more about it than I, for knowledge was at first sight; then if the world were round, here was a poser; Suppose you bore a hole through the Then Matt told me that he had centre to the antipodes, and suppose, throughout his life been endeavoring further, you go in at this side with feet to get light thrown upon the Scriptures, foremost and head to the sky you are and it was his constant practice to enter bound to come out on the other side churches and chapels and alarm strect with feet foremost, and what are you meetings by his persistent inquiries for going to stand upon? Your head? this light. As he couldn't criticise the No! You must inevitably drop away Great Engineer, he would have a out, heels still foremost, into illimitable word" at least with those who stood

The Great Engineer had no doubt so made the universe that the wheels would turn round, and the machinery rattle along, while he listened to a mortal's petition; but it takes two to make an argument, and as one-sided talk is useless, why pray at all?