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    THE LIFE
    OF
    THOMAS WANLESS,
    PEASANT.

    Manchester:
    JOHN DALE, 296 & 298, STRETFORD ROAD.
    ABEL HEYWOOD & SON, 56 & 58, OLDHAM STREET.

    London:
    SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT.

    INDEX.

    CHAP.                                 PAGE.
           INTRODUCTORY,                     1
       I. A HELOT'S NURTURE,                11
      II. A PHILANTHROPIC PARSON,           24
     III. THE "ALLOTMENT" CURE FOR HUNGER,  31
      IV. MANUFACTURING CRIMINALS,          48
       V. JAIL LIFE,                        69
      VI. NATURE OF A SERMON,               85
     VII. MEN FOR A STANDING ARMY,          96
    VIII. VERY ARISTOCRATIC COMPANY,       115
      IX. AN OLD, OLD STORY,               123
       X. THE PARSONAGE,                   131
      XI. A MERE PEASANT MAIDEN,           139
     XII. HIGH AND LOW BREEDING,           150
    XIII. PREACHERS OF "WORDS",            157
     XIV. "CHRISTIAN" RESPECTABILITY,      166
      XV. TOO BAD FOR DESCRIPTION,         179
     XVI. A BETTER QUEST,                  186
    XVII. NOTHING THAT IS NEW,             195
   XVIII. SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERSITY, 209
     XIX. THE LOST ONE IS FOUND,           217
      XX. THE LAST LONG SLEEP OF ALL,      226
     XXI. THE JOURNEY'S END,               236




    THE LIFE OF
    THOMAS WANLESS,
    PEASANT.


INTRODUCTORY.

Some years ago it was my habit to spend the long vacation in a quiet
Warwickshire village, not far from the fashionable town of Leamington. I
chose this spot for its sweet peace and its withdrawnness; for the
opportunities it gave me of wandering along the beautiful tree-shaded
country lanes; for its nearness to such historical spots as Warwick,
Kenilworth, and Stratford-on-Avon, to all of which I could either walk
or ride in a morning. But I love a quiet village for its own sake above
most things, and would rather spend my leisure amongst its simple
cottage folk, take my rest on the bench at the village alehouse door,
and walk amid the smock-frocked peasantry to the grey village church,
than mingle with the fashionable, over-dressed, prurient,
hollow-hearted, and artificial products of civilisation that constitute
themselves society--yea a thousand-fold rather. To me the restfulness
of a little village, with its cots nestling among the drowsy trees in a
warm summer day, is a foreshadowing of the rest of heaven. So I settled
myself in little Ashbrook, in a room sweet and cool, of its little inn,
and laughed at the foolish creatures who, with weary, purposeless steps
trode daily the Leamington Parade with hearts full of all envy and
jealousy at sight of such other descendants of our tattooed ancestors as
fortune might enable to gaud their bodies more lavishly than they. These
droned their idle life away flirting, reading the skim-milk, often
unwholesome, literature of the fashionable library; jabbering about
dress, and picking characters to pieces; shooting in the gardens at
archery meetings; patronising religious shows and thinking it
refinement. And I? I wander forth alone, filling my sketch-book with
whatsoever takes my fancy, or, in sociable moods, drink my ale in rustic
company, talking of hard winters and low wages, the difficulty of
living, of rural incidents, and the joys and sorrows of those toilers by
whose hard labour the few are made rich. They are not faultless, these
rustics, but they are very human, and their vices are unsophisticated
vices--the art of gilding iniquity, of luxuriously tricking out a
frivolous existence in the most subtle conceits of dress and demeanour,
has not yet reached them. When they sin they do not sublimise their sins
into the little peccadilloes and amusements incident to civilisation. So
I love them; marred and crooked and dull-witted though they may be, they
suit my humour, and fall in with my tastes for the open air, the free
expanse of landscape, the grand old trees, and the verdure-clothed
banks of the sleepy streams.

It was in this village that I met my peasant. He was not a man easy to
pick acquaintance with, for he mingled little among the gossips of the
place. Never once did I see him at the village inn or in church. He
lived apart in a little cottage near the Warwick end of the village,
with his wife and a little lass of ten or eleven summers--his
granddaughter. I often met him in the early morning going to market with
his baskets of vegetables, or in the cool of the evening, when he would
go out with his little girl skipping and dancing by his side. And the
very first time I saw him he awakened in me a strong interest. There was
something striking in his aspect--a still calm was on his face, and at
the same time a hardness lay about the mouth, and in the wrinkles around
the eyes, which was almost repellant. His figure had been above the
middle height; and although now bent and gaunt-looking, had still an
aspect of calm energy and decayed strength. But what struck me most was
the grand, almost majestic outline of his profile, and the keenness of
his yet undimmed eye, which flashed from beneath grey shaggy eyebrows
with a light that entered one's soul. The face was thoroughly English in
type, with features singularly regular, the forehead broad, the nose
aquiline, the chin large; and still in old age round and clean and full,
though the cheeks had fallen in and the mouth had become drawn and hard.
Had one met this man in "society," dressed in correct evening costume,
surrounded by courtly dames in half-dress, one would have been struck
by the individuality of that grand, grey face. Meanly clad, bent, and
leaning on a common oaken staff, the face and figure of this old peasant
were such as once looked at could not be easily forgotten. This also was
a man with a soul in him; ay, and with a heart too; for does not his eye
rest with an inexpressibly sad tenderness on the slim girl by his side
when she interrupts his reverie with the eager query, "Grand-dad,
grand-dad! Oh look at this poor dead bird in the path; who could have
killed it?"

My interest in this solitary man was keenly roused; and, from the
inquiries I made, I learned enough of his history to make me anxious to
know him. But that was not a desire easily gratified. Although always
courteous in returning my "good evening," he did so with an air that
forbade conversation, and gave me back but monosyllables to any remarks
I might make about the weather, the crops, or the child. He was not
rude, only reserved and dry, and that not with me only. To nearly all
the villagers his manner was the same. Only two may be said to have been
frequenters of his house, the old schoolmaster and the sexton. Even his
wife had few or no gossips. Yet everyone seemed to respect him, and many
spoke of him with a kind of friendly pity. Whether or not the respect
was partly due to the fact that the old man was supposed to have
means--that is, that although no longer able to do more than cultivate
his little garden and allotment patch, he was yet not on the parish--I
cannot say, but it was clear that the kindliness at least was genuine.
And so no one intruded on him. All saluted him respectfully and left
him to himself, save perhaps when one of the village milk dealers might
give him a lift on his way to market. Sometimes on a warm evening I have
seen him seated at his cottage door with a newspaper on his knee,
smoking his evening pipe, and answering the greetings of passers by. But
except his two old friends, and perhaps some village children playing
with his little one, there was no gathering of neighbours; no gossips
leant over his fence to discuss village scandals and local politics. He
was a man apart; and thus it happened that my first holiday in the
village passed away leaving me still a stranger to old Thomas Wanless.

But for an accident we might have been strangers still, and I would not
have troubled the world with this old peasant's history. I was walking
home one morning from Leamington, whither I had gone to buy some fresh
colours and a sketch-book, when I heard in a hollow behind me a vehicle
of some sort coming along the road at a great pace. Almost immediately a
dog-cart driven tandem overtook and passed me. It contained a stout,
rather blotched-looking man, who might be any age from thirty-five to
fifty, and a groom. Just beyond the road took rather a sharp turn to the
right, dipping into another hollow, and the dog-cart had hardly
disappeared round the corner when I heard a shrill scream of pain,
followed by oaths, loud and deep, uttered in a harsh, metallic, but
husky voice. I ran forward and immediately came upon Thomas Wanless's
little girl lying moaning in the road, white and unable to move,
grasping a bunch of wild flowers in one hand. Half-a-crown lay amongst
the dust near her, and the dog-cart was dashing over the crest of the
further <DW72>, apparently on its way to the Grange. Without pausing to
think, but cursing the while the heartlessness of those who seemed to
think half-a-crown compensation enough for the injury done to this
little one, I flung my parcel over the hedge, and gathering the
half-fainting child as gently as I could in my arms, hurried with her to
her grandfather's cottage. It was a good half-mile walk, partly through
the village. The child was heavy, and I arrived hot and out of breath,
followed by several matrons who had caught sight of me as I passed by,
and who stood round the door with anxious faces. A milkman's cart met me
on the way, and I begged its occupant to drive with all speed to Warwick
for a surgeon, as the child had been run over. The man answered yes, and
went.

When I burst into Thomas's house he was dozing in his armchair, but the
noise woke him and brought his wife in from the garden. "Oh, my God,"
cried Thomas, as he caught sight of the child; and he tried to rise, but
sank again into his seat pale as death, and trembling all over. His wife
burst into tears, but immediately swept an old couch clear of some
clothes and child's playthings, and there I laid poor Sally, as the old
woman called her, half unconscious and still moaning. Rapidly Mrs.
Wanless loosened the child's clothes, and as she did so I told them what
had occurred. When I described the man who had run over the child, I was
startled by a sudden flash of angry scorn, almost of hate, that mantled
over the old man's face. He clutched the arms of his chair
convulsively, and half rose from his seat as he almost hissed out the
words--"By Heaven, the child has been killed by its own father." He
seemed to regret the words as soon as uttered, and tried to hide his
confusion by eagerly inquiring of his wife if she had found out where
Sally was hurt. The effort failed him, however, and he remained visibly
embarrassed by my presence. I would have left, but I too was anxious to
see where Sarah was hurt, so I turned to the couch to give Thomas time
to recover himself. As I did so, Sally screamed. Her grandmother had
attempted to draw down her loosened dress, and in doing so had disturbed
the child's legs, causing acute pain.

I judged at once that a leg was either bruised or broken, and begged
Mrs. Wanless to feel gently for the hurt. Almost immediately the child
uttered a scream, crying, "Oh, my right leg, my right leg;" and a brief
examination proved the fact that it was broken just a little way below
the knee. The sobbing of the child unnerved Mrs. Wanless, and she seemed
about to faint, so I led her to a seat, gave her a glass of water, and
returned to Sarah, turning her carefully flat on her back, and kneeling
down, gently removed her stocking from the broken limb, which I then
laid straight out on the couch, propping it on either side with such
soft articles as I could lay hands on. That done, I told Sarah to lie as
still as she could until the doctor came, when he would soon ease her
pain. Soothing the child thus, and hardly thinking of the old people, I
was suddenly interrupted by Thomas. He had risen from his chair, and,
leaning on his staff, had approached the couch. He stood there for a
little, looking at his little maiden with an expression of intense pain
and sorrow on his face. Then he turned to me, and, without speaking,
held out his hand. I rose to my feet, grasped it, and, suddenly
bethinking myself for the first time, uncovered my head. The tears
gathered in my eyes in spite of myself. I knew in my heart that Thomas
Wanless and I were friends.

And great friends we became in time. At first I went to the cottage
daily to enquire after little Sarah, who progressed favourably under the
Warwick surgeon's care; and when she was past all danger and pain, I
went to talk with old Thomas. Gradually his heart opened to me; and bit
by bit I gathered up the main incidents of his history. A commonplace
history enough, yet tragic too; for Thomas was no commonplace man. There
was a depth of passion beneath that still hard face; a wealth of
feeling, a range of thought that to me was utterly astounding. What had
not this village labourer known and suffered; what sorrow; what baffled
hope; yea, what despair; and, through despair, what peace! As I sat by
his chair on the summer evenings and listened to his talk with his old
friends, or walked with him in the by-lanes, gathering from his lips the
leading events of his life, my heart often burned within me. Yet,
refined reader, gentle reader, Thomas Wanless was only a peasant; a man
that sold vegetables and flowers from door to door in little Warwick
town to eke out his means of subsistence. His was the toiler's lot; the
lot without hope for this world, whose natural end is want, and a
pauper's grave.

Can I hope to interest you in this man's history? I confess I have my
doubts. There is tragedy in it; it is mostly tragedy; but then it is the
tragedy of the low born. I shall not be able to introduce you to any
arch plotter; to groups of refined adulteresses clad in robes of satin
and blazoned with jewels and gold, at once the sign and the fruit of
their shame. Nor can I promise to unweave startling plots, or to deal in
mysterious horrors such