Part 37 (1/2)

I.

”O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, Across the sands o' Dee;”

The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam, And all alone went she.

II.

The creeping tide came up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see; The blinding mist came down and hid the land-- And never home came she.

III.

”Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair-- A tress o' golden hair, O' drowned maiden's hair, Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair, Among the stakes on Dee.”

IV.

They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea: But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home, Across the sands o' Dee.

There--let it go!--it was meant as an offering for one whom it never reached.

About mid-day I took my way towards the dean's house, to thank him for his hospitality--and, I need not say, to present my offering at my idol's shrine; and as I went, I conned over a dozen complimentary speeches about Lord Ellerton's wisdom, liberality, eloquence--but behold! the shutters of the house were closed. What could be the matter? It was full ten minutes before the door was opened; and then, at last, an old woman, her eyes red with weeping, made her appearance. My thoughts flew instantly to Lillian--something must have befallen her. I gasped out her name first, and then, recollecting myself, asked for the dean.

”They had all left town that morning,”

”Miss--Miss Winnstay--is she ill?”

”No.”

”Thank G.o.d!” I breathed freely again. What matter what happened to all the world beside?

”Ay, thank G.o.d, indeed; but poor Lord Ellerton was thrown from his horse last night and brought home dead. A messenger came here by six this morning, and they're all gone off to * * * *. Her ladys.h.i.+p's raving mad.--And no wonder.” And she burst out crying afresh, and shut the door in my face.

Lord Ellerton dead! and Lillian gone too! Something whispered that I should have cause to remember that day. My heart sunk within me. When should I see her again?

That day was the 1st of June, 1845. On the 10th of April, 1848, I saw Lillian Winnstay again. Dare I write my history between those two points of time? Yes, even that must be done, for the sake of the rich who read, and the poor who suffer.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE PLUSH BREECHES TRAGEDY.

My triumph had received a cruel check enough when just at its height, and more were appointed to follow. Behold! some two days after, another--all the more bitter, because my conscience whispered that it was not altogether undeserved. The people's press had been hitherto praising and petting me lovingly enough. I had been cla.s.sed (and heaven knows that the comparison was dearer to me than all the applause of the wealthy) with the Corn-Law Rhymer, and the author of the ”Purgatory of Suicides.” My cla.s.s had claimed my talents as their own--another ”voice fresh from the heart of nature,”

another ”untutored songster of the wilderness,” another ”prophet arisen among the suffering millions,”--when, one day, behold in Mr. O'Flynn's paper a long and fierce attack on me, my poems, my early history! How he could have got at some of the facts there mentioned, how he could have dared to inform his readers that I had broken my mother's heart by my misconduct, I cannot conceive; unless my worthy brother-in-law, the Baptist preacher, had been kind enough to furnish him with the materials. But however that may be, he showed me no mercy. I was suddenly discovered to be a time-server, a spy, a concealed aristocrat. Such paltry talent as I had, I had prost.i.tuted for the sake of fame. I had deserted The People's Cause for filthy lucre--an allurement which Mr. O'Flynn had always treated with withering scorn--_in print_. Nay, more, I would write, and notoriously did write, in any paper, Whig, Tory, or Radical, where I could earn a s.h.i.+lling by an enormous gooseberry, or a sc.r.a.p of private slander. And the working men were solemnly warned to beware of me and my writings, till the editor had further investigated certain ugly facts in my history, which he would in due time report to his patriotic and enlightened readers.

All this stung me in the most sensitive nerve of my whole heart, for I knew that I could not altogether exculpate myself; and to that miserable certainty was added the dread of some fresh exposure. Had he actually heard of the omissions in my poems?--and if he once touched on that subject, what could I answer? Oh! how bitterly now I felt the force of the critic's careless las.h.!.+ The awful responsibility of those written words, which we bandy about so thoughtlessly! How I recollected now, with shame and remorse, all the hasty and cruel utterances to which I, too, had given vent against those who had dared to differ from me; the harsh, one-sided judgments, the reckless imputations of motive, the bitter sneers, ”rejoicing in evil rather than in the truth.” How I, too, had longed to prove my victims in the wrong, and turned away, not only lazily, but angrily, from many an exculpatory fact! And here was my Nemesis come at last. As I had done unto others, so it was done unto me!

It was right that it should be so. However indignant, mad, almost murderous, I felt at the time, I thank G.o.d for it now. It is good to be punished in kind. It is good to be made to feel what we have made others feel. It is good--anything is good, however bitter, which shows us that there is such a law as retribution; that we are not the sport of blind chance or a triumphant fiend, but that there is a G.o.d who judges the earth--righteous to repay every man according to his works.

But at the moment I had no such ray of comfort--and, full of rage and shame, I dashed the paper down before Mackaye. ”How shall I answer him?

What shall I say?”