OLD YORK AND ITS CATHEDRAL.
Wall, as we got back to Edinburgh it was on the first edge of the evenin’, and I had the chance of hearin’ a real Scotch ministrel; not one of them bagpipes of theirn, which sounds perfectly awful to me, but which Josiah wuz dretful took with (of which more anon), but this man had a violin, or fiddle, and sung in a sweet, high voice some of the best ballads of the country.
JOSIAH WUZ DRETFUL TOOK WITH IT.
I shed tears and wept to hear some on ’em.
“Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.”
And “Auld Joe Nickleson’s Bonnie Nannie.”
My heart sort o’ listened as I hearn the words. I had hearn our Tirzah Ann sing ’em in the melancholy stillness of a June evenin’, when through the open winder the distant sounds of the frogs and the tree-tuds would come in from the cedar swamp, fur off, and the moonlight throw all over her and the organ the long shadders of the mornin’-glories.
This is one of the verses—
“There is mony a joy in this world below,
But sweet are the hopes that to sing were uncanny;
But of all the joys I aer hae known,
There is nane like the love of my Bonnie Nannie;
Oh my Nannie, my sweet little Nannie,
My dear little niddlesome, noddlesome Nannie.
There naer was a flower,
In garden or bower,
Like auld Joe Nickleson’s bonnie Nannie.”
And then he sung “John Anderson, my Jo, John,” and my mind onconsciously reverted to my beloved pardner, as he sung words tellin’ how he looked—
“When they were first acquent.”
And then—
“John Anderson, my Jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither,
And mony a canty day, John,
We’ve had wi’ ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we’ll go;
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my Jo.”
There wuzn’t hardly a dry eye in my head as I heard it, and I looked round to see how my Josiah wuz a-takin’ it.
But right behind that sweet singer wuz a man with a bagpipe, and after the melodious warbler had moved away he piped up, right under our winder, that screechin’, awful sound; and Josiah’s attention wuz all took up with him.
And there wuz a distant, dreamy look to my pardner’s eyes as he gazed onto him, of which I did not git the full meanin’ till bime-by—of which more anon.
After we had had our supper and had gone to our room Adrian come a-runnin’ in and told us that a company of Scotch soldiers wuz marchin’ through the place on their way to Sterling.
So we quickly made our way out onto a balcony, where we could git a good view of ’em, with their short kilt skirts, bare legs, plaid stockin’s, and feathers. If it hadn’t been for their whiskers and mustaches, you’d most thought they wuz wimmen.
Sez Alice, “Oh, how picturesque they look! don’t they?”
And I sez, “More picturesque than comfortable!” Sez I, “What clothes them must be to wear into a battle-field, or to pick rosberrys in! What would hender thorns and bullets from stickin’ right into them bare legs?”
Sez I, “They don’t use no reason; we see to-day that they ust to dress in iron all over, when they ust to go into battle, but now they go half naked.”
Sez I, “Oh, the beauty of megumness! They wore too much in old times, and now not enough, which, I’ll bet, their cold legs would testify to, if they could speak up.”
As I said of the bagpipes—but more anon.
It wuz that night, jest as I wuz preparin’ my body for rest, that Josiah’s dreamy study a-lookin’ at the bagpipes become manifest. I see my companion foldin’ up two handkerchiefs kinder queer and a-measurin’ ’em by his arm, and anon kinder layin’ his jack-knife between ’em, and actin’.
And I sez, “What are you a-doin’, Josiah Allen?”
“Why,” sez he, “I wuz a-thinkin’ of makin’ a bagpipe.”
“Out of two handkerchiefs!” sez I mockin’ly.
“No; I wuz jest a-layin’ out the work and gittin’ a view of its nater;” sez he, “I wuz a-layin’ out to use two bags.”
“Bags?” sez I.
“Yes, meal bags,” sez he; “take them bags, and dip ’em into starch to stiffen ’em, and then paint and varnish ’em, and there you are as fur as the wind is concerned; the music,” sez he, “I believe could be rigged up some way with a mouth-organ or sunthin’, or mebbe our old accordeun; fix the bags onto both ends on’t and then draw ’em out, or shet ’em up, with wind accordin’.
“What a sensation it would create in Jonesville! How it would stir the people up!” sez he.
“WHAT A SENSATION IT WOULD CREATE IN JONESVILLE!”
“And I might on occasions, on 4th of July and sech, wear the Tarten costume. I could take that old plaid overskirt of yours, Samantha, it’s dressy, you know—red and green—cut it off a little above my knees, and my own red stockin’s would look all right. And the old rooster would furnish very stylish feathers—I should look beautiful! And of course,” sez he, “I should sing with it.”
“Yes,” sez I, “your rumatic old knees would look beautiful bare naked, and them bags and accordeun, and your singin’ would empty Jonesville as soon as a cyclone would, or a water-spout.” And, in the name of duty, I said further, “Your singin’ is like thumb-screws and gullotines, and with that bagpipe added, it would cry to Heaven!”
“There it is! there it is!” sez he! “throw cold water on it.”
“Better that,” sez I, “than the hot water you would be deluged with if you should try it in public. Nobody would stand it, and you’d find it out they wouldn’t without scaldin’ you.”
Wall, from Edinburgh Martin said that we would start for London, and so we took the train goin’ south and sot off in the early mornin’ and in pretty good sperits.
We only made one stop on our way to London, and that wuz at York—the quaint, old, walled city, in which Americans take an interest on account of their own New York bein’ named after it.
Our New York is some younger—about seventeen hundred years younger, and that is a good deal of difference between a Ma and a young child. But, then, it hain’t common to have the youngster about twenty times bigger than its Ma.
Wall, we went to a good tarvern and recooperated a little durin’ the night from the fatigues of travel, and the next mornin’ bright and early we sot out to see the sights of the city, knowin’ that our stay there wuz to be but short.
Martin engaged a guide, though he didn’t often want one, sayin’, as he did, that he felt that he wuz so familar with history and all those places that a guide was “an unnecessary outlay and a drug.”
But bein’ in a hurry to git on to-day, we went first to see the great wall that has stood for centuries, and seems able to stand quite a number more of ’em. I got out of the carriage and laid my hand on the wall, feelin’ that it would be a satisfaction to put my hand on the stun.
Josiah said, “That looks foolish, Samantha; you have never tried once to put your hand on to the stun wall between our paster and Deacon Gowdy’s.”
“But,” sez I, “that wall has never been looked upon by Adrian and Constantine the Great; it has never been trod by Britons, Picts, Danes, and Saxons, each on ’em a-warrin’ for and defendin’ their native land.”
“Wall,” sez he, “our wall is a crackin’ good one.” Josiah looked kinder scorfin’ at me for my enthoosiasm, but I didn’t mind it any.
And Martin, seein’ my enthoosiasm, and though he didn’t share it, not at all, he asked me if I didn’t want to go up and walk on the great wall—which I did. So we had the carriage stopped at one of the gates, and he and I and Alice and Al Faizi went up and walked on the parapets.
And I probble had as many as 70 or 80 emotions as I felt that eight-foot wall under my feet and looked up at the solid, round watch-towers, with narrer slits in the stun, for arrers to be shot out of onto the enemies, and way up above ’em the little turrets for the sentinuls to look out.
I wonder how that sentinul felt there on cool moonlight nights twelve or fourteen hundred years ago—I wonder what century old grief or pain hanted his lonely heart through the night-watches—Love, Hope, mebby they lightened his lonely watch jest as they do in 1900.
Tenny rate, the same sun and moon looked down on him, and Love and Hope is as old as they be—as old as the world.
Al Faizi, I believe, had a sight of emotions, too. He stood still and looked off with a dreamy look on his face.
Martin thought the stun wuz good and solid, and might be utilized for buildin’ depots and grain elevators and sech.
Alice looked good-natered and didn’t say much.
Josiah wuz a-makin’ a cat’s cradle with Adrian when we went back to the buggy. And I told him I didn’t see how he could be a-playin’ with weltin’ cord at sech a time as this, when he could see this wall.
And he sez, “Dum it all! mebby you wouldn’t take so to stun walls if you had broke your back, and got so many stun bruises as I have a-layin’ ’em.”
“Wall,” sez I soothin’ly, “do jest as you feel, Josiah. But I wouldn’t have missed the sight for a dollar bill.”
Yes, it rousted up sights of emotions in me.
Another thing that endeared York to me: here in this city wuz Christmas celebrated for the first time by King Arthur, fourteen hundred years ago.
THAT SENTINUL TWELVE OR FOURTEEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
I don’t spoze he ever gin a thought at that time of what a train of turkeys, Christmas presents, trees, plum puddin’s, bells, stockin’s, Santa Clauses, etc., etc., etc., would foller on his wake. But it wuz a good idee, and he wuz quite a likely creeter—buildin’ up the meetin’-housen the Saxons had destroyed.
Wall, we thought we would leave the Cathedral, or Minster, as they call it for the last. And anon we see a almost endless procession of anteek gate-ways, and housen, museums, churches, the ruined cloisters of St. Leonard founded by Athelstane the Saxon, and the ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey, with its old Norman arch and shattered walls.
But from most every part of the city where we might be we could see the Cathedral towerin’ up above us, some like a mountain of sculptured turrets and towers. And anon we found ourselves within its walls, and its magnificent and grand beauty almost struck us dumb with or.
The guide said that it wuz the most gorgeous and beautiful in the world. But I considered it safe to add a word to his description, which made it one of the most gorgeous and magnificent cathedrals in the world—and that I spoze is true.
It wuz about two hundred years a-buildin’, and I don’t believe there is a carpenter in Jonesville that could have done it a day sooner. Seth Widrick is a swift worker on housen, but I believe Seth would have been a week or two over that time at the job.
The guide said that it wuz 500 and 24 feet long, and 250 feet broad—24 feet longer than St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and 145 feet longer than Westminster Abbey, and the most magnificent minster in the world. The greatest beauty of the hull interior is, I spoze, the immense east winder. Imagine a great arched winder 75 feet high and 30 feet broad all aglow and ablaze with the most magnificent stained-glass. A multitude of saints, angels, priests, etc., all wrought in glass, the colors of which are so soft and glowin’, so harmonious, that they can’t be reproduced in this day by the most cunnin’ workmen; the secret is lost.
This winder is known as The Five Sisters; the pattern bein’ took, it is said, from embroideries these maiden wimmen made.
Josiah said, when the guide mentioned it, “Good for the old maids! they done well.”
But as I looked upon that marvellous poem of glowin’ color, I felt beyend words, but I could still think. And I thought proudly of the exquisite work my sect had wrought, and I wuz glad for the moment that I too wuz a woman; and though seven hundred years lay between them noble sisters and myself, yet I felt that our hearts, our souls, touched each other in that pleasant day of 1895.
Wall, Passin’ Time and Josiah tore me away from the contemplation of that glory, that wonder, that delight—unequalled, I believe, in the hull world.
And at Martin’s request, for he said that he should be asked about it probble, and would wish to be prepared with answers, we went out on a little stun platform or bridge outside, from which we had a view of the hull glowin’ interior—a vista of leafy gothic arches, and sculptered columns, more’n five hundred feet in length, and at the end the great west winder, with the figgers of the eight earliest Archbishops of York, and to keep ’em company, eight saints and other figgers.
All seemin’ly a-standin’ in the glowin’ light took from the most gorgeous western sunset. They wuz put up about five hundred years ago, and I can’t begin to describe the beauty and richness of colorin’, and design, nor Josiah can’t.
There wuz lots of other winders, too, that would be remarkable anywhere else. And among ’em wuz one over the entrance that they called the Marygold winder, circles of small arches in the form of a wheel, the color of which makes it look some like that flower.
Though, as Josiah well said—“Nobody ever hearn before of a marygool thirty feet acrost.”
In the vestries we see some historical relicks. One of the oldest is the great Saxon Drinkin’ Horn, by which the church holds valuable estate near York.
The old chieftain, Ulphus, knelt at the altar and drinked out of the horn, and by this act gave to the church all his land, housen, etc., etc., givin’ to the fathers this horn as a title-deed.
Josiah wuz dretful took up with it, and vowed that he would save the horns from the next beef creeter he killed and make out his next deed with it.
“So strong and safe,” sez he; “no ‘whereasis’ and ‘to wits’ and ‘namelys,’ and runnin’ up to a stake, and back agin, to wit.”
Sez he, “It would be a boon to git rid of all that nonsense. That would use up one horn, and then I might make my will with the other. I could will you all my property with it, Samantha, and then we could both drink root-beer, or sunthin’, and you could jest keep the horn, and there would be no way to break the will. 2d. Wives have lots of trouble, but how could anybody break it, Samantha, when you had the horn locked up in the tin chest?”
It wuz thoughtful in him, and showed a deep kindness to me, but I felt dubersome about it.
Then there wuz another drinkin’ cup presented by Archbishop Scrope. But it wuz bigger than I love to see—I am afraid that Mr. Scrope drinked too much. But as he had his head cut off in 1405, I couldn’t labor with him about it.
Then there wuz the chair in which the Saxon kings wuz crowned. And a old Bible presented by King Charles II., and one gin by Charles 1st. A old communion plate 500 years old and oak chests, etc., etc., etc.
“WITH THE ENDS OF THE FINGERS A-HANGIN’ DOWN.”
When we looked at the communion plate Josiah nudged me, and sez he, “Don’t that make you think of she that wuz Sally Ann Plenty?” Sez he, “You know she bought a old communion service once because she could git it for a little or nothin’.” Sez he, “That wuz the same day that she bought a crosscut saw, and a box of gloves 4 sizes too big for her, and wore ’em with the ends of the fingers a-hangin’ down, jest as if they wuz onjointed.”
Sez I, “Hush! This is no place to bring up sech worldly and foolish eppisodes.”
Wall, Martin clim up into the Lantern Tower, two hundred and thirteen feet high, for he said that he would wish to say that he had been there.
But Al Faizi wuz the most took up with lookin’ at the monuments in the Cathedral. They wuz beautiful in the extreme, and some on ’em wuz saints, some on ’em Archbishops, but the most on ’em wuz riz up to men who had made themselves famous by killin’ lots and lots of folks—some in England, some in Russia, and in India, and in Burmah, etc., etc., etc.
As I stood in front of them bloody records, and meditated that a common murderer, who had only killed one or two men, couldn’t never git a statute, but it wuz those that killed hundreds and thousands who had ’em built through foreign lands, and my own native country—as I wuz a-meditatin’ on this and a-considerin’ on how the more a man killed the higher his monument wuz riz up, and the nigher he wuz buried to saints, I see Al Faizi take out that little book with the cross on’t and write down quite a lot—what it wuz I d’no, but I presoom it wuz good writin’. His idees are congenial to mine, very.
And then another place where I see Al Faizi a-writin’ down quite a lot in that book of hisen wuz at Clifford’s Tower, in the castle enclosure, where two hundred Jews were masicreed in 1490. From what the guide said, I made out as follows: When the Crusaders got back from fightin’ the Infidels they wuz kinder mad to see that the Jews wuz better off than they wuz—had better clothes, more money, etc.—so they begun to kill ’em off.
There wuz so many fightin’ Christians the Jews couldn’t defend themselves, so they come to the castle with their wives and children. And all the soldiers in York come to help the Crusaders kill the Jews. And when the poor Jews found that they couldn’t stand it any longer, they did jest as the Rabbi told ’em.
They killed the wives and children that wuz left, to keep ’em from fallin’ into the hands of their persecutors, and sot fire to the castle, and then killed themselves, so’s they shouldn’t burn to death.
This massicre of these onoffending Jews by Christians wuz one of the most barbarous acts that ever took place on earth. Lots of folks now have their souls massicreed in the same way—out of envy and jealousy.
I d’no what Al Faizi writ in his book as he looked at this place where this dretful deed wuz done in the name of Religion. But his face wuz a sight to see as he writ—solemn and awful; not mad, but sunthin’ of the expression of the Avengin’ Angel, or as I mistrust he would look—dretful sorry, but sot, awful sot.
Wall, we went back to the tarvern and got a good dinner, and I laid down for a nap—I wuz clean used up.
When I waked up it wuz sunset, and Josiah sot by the little casement with the panes of glass about four inches big, a-readin’.
And I asked him if Martin laid out to go to London in the mornin’, and he said that he guessed he did. “But,” sez he with a tone of regret—
“I did want to visit Scarborough; there’s no need hurryin’ so to London,” sez he.
“Who and what is Scarborough?” sez I in a weary axent as I got up and wadded up my back hair.
“Why, it is the fashionable waterin’-place of England,” sez he; “it is only a little more than forty milds away,” sez he; “we could go jest as well as not, and it would be so genteel. I would,” sez he, a-smoothin’ out the folds of his dressin’-gown, and bringin’ the tossels forred in a more sightly place—“I would love to mingle in fashionable circles once more, Samantha.”
I looked down at his old bald head in silent disaprobation. He wuz too old to hanker after fashion and display, and too bald, and I knew it.
But I knew that I could not make him over, after he had been made so long—no, I should have to bear up the best I could under his shortcomin’s.
But I sez mekanically, and to git his idees off—“I would kinder love to visit Whitby, Josiah; that hain’t much further away, and that is where all the most beautiful jet is made. I thought like as not that you would want to buy me a handkerchief pin, Josiah Allen.”
He looked injured, and sez he, “Where is the black pin you mourned in for Father Smith?” His tone wuz sour and snappish in the extreme.
Sez I, “That pin wuz broke over twenty years ago.”
“Wall,” sez he, “I can glue it together with Ury’s help, or we could tie it up, so’s it would be jest as good as a new one. It don’t come to any strain on your collar,” sez he anxiously.
“No, Josiah; but I shouldn’t like to wear a pin that you and Ury had contoggled up. But let it pass,” sez I; “I can do without it, if my companion don’t think enough of me right here in the headquarters of black breastpins and beads to buy me anything.”
My tone touched him. He sez—“I’d look round and see about it, but I hain’t no time, for we’ve got to be a-pushin’ right on to London; if we ever lay out to git home agin we’ve got to be on the move.”
I didn’t say nothin’ only what my liniment spoke, and anon he sez—
“If worst come to worst, Ury and I could make you a crackin’ good one out of coal. All of this jet in Whitby is made out of coal. And how much less it would cost—we could make you a hull set in one evenin’—earrings and all.”
I gin him one look, and that wuz all the argument that I would dane to waste on the subject.
Alice kinder wanted to go to Robin Hood Bay, which wuz not far from Scarborough. She said that she would love to see the place where the hero of Sherwood Forest had lived once—the bold outlaw who took from the rich with one hand and gave to the poor with the other.
But her Pa laughed at her for believin’ that there ever wuz sech a man, or if there wuz, he wuz nothin’ but a common robber, who deserved hangin’.
I believe Martin would favor drivin’ Santa Claus out of the country and killin’ his reindeers. His imagination hain’t, I really believe, not much bigger than a pea—not a marrowfat one, but a common field pea.
So Martin decided at first that we would go direct to London, but finally he concluded to go a little out of our way to visit the estate of the Duke of Devonshire—the grandest home in England. And he wanted to stop a little while at Sheffield on business—property matters, I spoze, or mebby he wanted to buy a jack-knife—I d’no what his business wuz.
I knew he could git a good jack-knife here, for they’ve been makin’ knives and sech right here for five or six hundred years.
