Bond Slaves. The story of a struggle

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR Crown Svo, cloth, price 2s. 6d. each THE MANCHESTER MAN STUNG TO THE QUICK CALEB BOOTH'S CLERK WOOERS AND WINNERS MORE THAN CORONETS THROUGH THE NIGHT THE WATCHMAKER'S DAUGHTER FORBIDDEN TO WED SYBILLA IN HIS OWN. HAND GLORY [?V^~ RIPPLES A^TSgftEAKERS: POEMS GRIFFITH FARRAN &> CO. 39 CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON The Story of a Strttggle By Mrs. G. LINNÆUS BANKS Author of ' God's Providence Hotise ' i The Manchester Man ' Glory ' ' In His Oivn Hand ' etc. etc. LONDON GRIFFITH FARRAN & CO. NEWBERY HOUSE, 39 CHARING CROSS ROAD l393 [ The Rights of Translation and of Reproduction are Reserved. ]

Preface

. ||1I1|^IHEN, in the year 1SS5 or 6, I undertook to write a URdul Luddite story at the instance of a well-known l^t^H^fl publishing firm, it was my impression that I was pretty fairly equipped for the task. Previous studies had carried me over the ground ; I had a tolerably good local library; had both visited and resided in Yorkshire ; was connected with the county by family ties on both sides the house; and in my early home in Manchester was not merely familiarised with rioting, but with Luddite episodes of which history has made small account, and with the persons of chief actors therein. For instance, the cap worn by the amateur Othello was embroidered for him by my own mother — then a girl in her fourteenth year — to resemble the one worn by Edmund Kean. Rioters forced themselves into the house of an aunt, pitched provisions out into the street, tore the gold rings from her ears, knocked her down, and would have trampled her to death but for the heroic bravery of a strong servant-woman, who strode across her mistress and kept the mob at bay.

The husband was the aforesaid Othello, and had a post of trust and authority in a neighbouring factory. Then another sister of my mother had married a Yorkshireman from Halifax, a cousin had married a wealthy Yorkshire carrier, and another

PREFACE.

. 2 a cloth merchant from Purlwell Hall, the very centre of the disaffected area. This gentleman, T. Tempest Taylor, being widowed, came to reside under our roof; and as a family connection, Mr. Joshua Ingham of Mirfield visited us occasionally, when the business of his bank brought him into the town. I was a little school -girl. My father was a strong politician, and any fresh grievance or outbreak among the operatives was certain to revive stories of bygone riots and outrages for animated discussion on our hearth, to all of which I listened with ears attent. But when, so much later in life, I sat down to the task I had undertaken, I found I had so wide an area to cover that I needed much more than the discursive stories told by the fireside. I had the separate counties to connect, and to make myself better acquainted with not merely bygone topography, but with old processes of manufacture in different branches and trades, such as were common before machinery set hand labour aside.

Fortunately I had had opportunities for observing these in many trades, both when I was young, and as I grew in years and moved from place to place. Ill health speedily set a seal on researches at the British Museum ; then I ransacked old book-dealers' catalogues, made heavy purchases, and laid Yorkshire friends, and comparative strangers, under contribution. I was surprised at the generous response. Rare books came to me in piles. Plans were drawn for me of places as they were in the past, and of which nothing otherwise existed. In one instance a parish map on a roller, a map drawn in 1797, was entrusted to me. Sketches were made to illustrate personal description. Correspondents borrowed books for me, else unattainable, and one or two were presented to me. Among the books lent was one which I have been permitted to retain until this day, one containing the 'Proceedings at the York Special Commission, January 1813,' as reported alike for Luke Hansard (official) and for the Leeds Mercury.

PREFACE.

. 3 And, to show the interest taken over a wide area in my proposed romance of history, I may perhaps be allowed to give a list of those to whom my earnest thanks are tendered for help in one or other of these lines of research. The late Sir Edward Baines of the Leeds Mercury ; Alderman Bairstow, ex-Mayor of Halifax ; Mr. Bradley, stepson and successor to George Bickerdike, host ofthe ' Packhorse,' Huddersfield; Mr. J. Potter Briscoe, F.R.H.S., Chief Librarian of the Nottingham Public Libraries ; Miss Brown, Huddersfield ; Mr. W. Down ing, Chaucer Head Library, Birmingham ; the Rev. Marshall Hartley, B.A. ; Mr. John Holmes, Roundhay, Leeds ; Mr. William Smith, F.S.A.S., editor of Old Yorkshire; and Mr. Woodcock, bookseller, of Huddersfield. It will be easily understood that it was not possible, with this access of material, so wide a geographical area to cover, and three separate bases of action, to confine my story within the narrow limits originally assigned to it.

Overwhelmed with a mass of facts, I was compelled both to condense and to reject. Derbyshire I had to drop altogether, for there Luddism had a longer lease, under a different 'General,' who escaped the halter until 1817. As it is, I am doubtful whether the ordinary reader will thank me for overloading my thread of fiction with so many beads of indubitable history. And to those who imagine the novelist's stock-in-trade to be merely pens, ink, paper, and imagination, I feel tempted to quote from the quaint preface Anthony-a-Wood affixed to his History of Oxford, in 1670 : 'A painful work it is, I'll assure you, and more than difficult, wherein what toyle hath been taken, as no man thinketh, so no man believeth, but he that hath made the tryal.' ISABELLA BANKS. London, 1893. CONTENTS. BOOK THE FIRST.

CHAP. PAGE I. A PROPHECY, ..... . . 9 II. THE HOME ON THE MOORSIDE, . . . . l8 III. GOING TO MARKET, ...... 26 IV. PUT TO THE TEST, ...... 36 V. GERMS OF FATE, ...... 47 VI. JOSIAH AND HIS FRIENDS, ..... 55 VII. HAUNTED BY A PRESENTIMENT, . . . .65 VIII. STORMS LET LOOSE, ...... 72 IX. AN ILL WIND, ...... 80 X. IN ITS WAKE, ...... 88 XI. A LUCKLESS JOURNEY, . . . . -97 XII. GOOD SAMARITANS, ...... 107 XIII. JOHN BOOTH, . . . . . . . Il8 XIV. FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES, . . . ... I26 XV. A BOLD CHAMPION, ...... 137 BOOK THE SECOND. I. AN IMPORTANT LETTER, . . . . .147 II. IN THE GRIP OF AN IRON HAND, . . . • "55 CONTENTS. 6 CHAP. PAGE III. THE LUDDITE OATH, . I^3 IV. THE DAY AFTER, . . . • • I7° V. BRUISED SHOULDERS, ..... I7§ VI. A SUNDAY AT SIDE-O'-BECK, ..... 1 86 VII. THE WAINWRIGHTS OF GREENFOLDS, . . . 195 VIII.

AT A SACRIFICE, ...... 204 IX. THE FIRST BLOW, . . . . . • 212 X. THE FIRST MARTYR, ...... 219 XI. A REED SHAKEN BY THE WIND, .... 229 XII. A CRUSHING BLOW, ...... 239 XIII. FETTERED, ....... 249 XIV. THE MEETING AT THE ' ST. CRISPIN,' . . . 259 XV. UNCLE TOM, . . . . ... 27 1 BOOK THE THIRD. I. THE NIGHT OF THE PLAY, ..... 283 II. AT THE DUMB STEEPLE, ..... 29I III. THE ALARM BELL, . . . . . 30I IV. VICTIMS, ....... 3IO V. A DOG'S LIFE, .... . 318 VI. BRAVERY AND RASHNESS, ..... 327 VII. ON HIS WAY HOME, ...'... 337 VIII. SCOT FREE, ....... 347 IX. DAVID'S DELIVERANCE, ..... 357 X. AT LAST, ....... 365 XI. LYDIA AND THE LUDDS, ... . 374 XII. THE VALUE OF THE OATH, ..... 382 XIII. THE LAST WRENCH, ...... 39-. XIV. THE DAWN OF A NEW DAY, .... BOOK THE FIRST

Chapter I

A PROPHECY. Walter Hartland married Marian Greenwood s(m HI) 1 s^e was one °^ l^e Prett'est g'r's m Arnold, ay, or IJ^^M (| within the wide range of Sherwood Forest, for that matter. She was the only daughter of a forester or under-keeper, who, in his attachment to ancient traditions, had named his first-born son Robin, his next John, and the girl who came between the two, Marian. And had not the rough-and-ready clergyman who baptized them seconded the remonstrances of Greenwood's common-sense wife, the three children would have gone forth to bear the burden of life additionally burdened from their baptism as Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Little John. Greenwood was a stalwart, robust man himself; Robin, also a woodsman, was fairly proportioned, with clear brown eyes and ruddy countenance ; whilst Little John, whose poll and eyes bore a like tinge of chestnut, had about the same right to his prenomen as had his ancient prototype.

As for Maid Marian, neither in figure nor bearing could there be any trace of the bold and buxom bride of the noted outlaw. She did not set her foot down with the resolute tread of one born to command. She had rather learned the doctrine of love and obedience, words now rapidly losing their joint and sweet significance. Slight and lissom as a willow-wand, she tripped along over the grassy ways lightly, as one who had no burden of care to carry. The ' windows of her soul ' were blue and clear as summer skies, set well apart under thoughtful brows, and tenderly guarded by lids with a sensitive tendency to droop, as did the pitiful corners of her mouth when the pain or suffering of others touched her heart. There were lines in her face indicative of energy as well as strong affec tions, though the rounding fulness of youth softened any angularity that time or anxieties might develop.

But the crowning glory of the village maiden was her wealth of flaxen hair that glinted in the light with just the faintest suggestion of yellow gold. Of this she was as proud as any lady in courtly circles ; although she simply tied back her tresses with ribbons bought by her brother Robin or her sweetheart from travelling pedlars or at country fairs, perching above them a smaller and more coquettish cap than altogether satisfied her sober-minded mother. She, good woman, had for long years smoothed her own pale locks away under a matronly linen mutch with flap ping ears or pinners, and sighed over the vanity of youth, whilst in secret proud of her girl's attractiveness. From that hard working mother Marian had early learned to spin the wool of the Forest sheep into yarn for the use of the Arnold frame knitters and hosiers.

But as machinery came into competition with the spinning-wheel, the girl found fresh employment for her busy fingers. All frame-knitted hose being then woven flat, as the best stockings are to this day, the labour of the men found occupation for women as seamers, and as a seamer Marian worked for a hosier in Arnold, named Bolton, who had a number of frames at work under his own roof, besides others let out at a rental to men working for him in their own homes. To this Mr. Bolton, John had been apprenticed several years before her marriage, but he neither liked the work nor the close appli cation demanded. Collisions between himself and his master were frequent; he was angry at his father for tying him down to an occupation so monotonous and irksome, and looked forward eagerly to the time when he might himself hire a frame, and work or play as best suited his own inclinations. ' It's not much work will be got out of you,' said his master one day, in reply to his openly-expressed desire for freedom. ' You are the laziest lout that ever set foot on a treadle.' ' I wish they'd ne'er touched a treadle.

My long legs warr ne'er meant to be cramped in a frame all day. Faither should'n ha' made a woodman or a frame-smith on me, an' then I'd ha' worked wi' a will. A lad's bound to doze wi' the croak of a corn-craik fur ever in his ears ; gi' me th' tune o' hammer or axe to put spirit an' work in one. If I'm lazy, blame them as set me in a stocking frame, not me. Faither should'n ha' bound me to Mestur Wrigley, not to yow. I'd rayther make frames than work them.' ' Lazybones never lacks an excuse. Joe Wrigley and you are a pair. He slouches about and says he would rather work at a frame than set one up. You are the two laziest lads in all Arnold,' was Mr. Bolton's rebuke, as he turned away with the addendum, 'Your sisters shame you both with their industry.' Arnold, now but one of the northern suburbs of Notting ham, was then a mere straggling village in a Forest clearing, and although the new highway to Mansfield ran pretty near, the waste of Thorney Wood spread for three or four miles between the town and village.

It was still sufficiently rural to find employment for a peri patetic tailor, who took up his temporary abode with his employers, sleeping in a loft or on the oaken settle, until the masculine wardrobes of the several families were set in order, whether by the making of new garments, the repair of damage in old ones, or the conversion of big cast-offs into brand-new suits for smaller bodies. In villages where the rustics went to church in their smock frocks there was not much new suit-making. Wedding garments or mourning suits were put by with perfumed lavender for use on rare occasions, to last a lifetime ; if not to pass with other heirlooms to a successor. But Arnold, like other villages north of Nottingham, held a manufacturing population along with the agricultural, and in any case strong frieze, fustian, and hodden grey for hard wear needed replacing as well as broad cloth ; and as Walter Hartland traversed a wide district, and only came round once a year, there was generally work for his shears and needle to keep him in the neighbourhood of Sherwood Forest six or seven weeks at a stretch.

He had good stout limbs and a hardy frame, and he needed both, for his own home was far away among the Yorkshire moors ; and in addition to the ordinary tools of his trade — shears, goose, sleeve-board, and so forth — he carried with him a heavy pack of cloth on his back, though, to be sure, the latter gradually lightened as he went his rounds. If he did not ' whistle as he went,' he whistled as he worked, a proof that he had a light heart as well as nimble fingers. And he had a tender heart withal, an inborn love for every living thing. It was this brought him first into contact with Marian Greenwood. Some three years prior to the altercation between John Greenwood and Mr. Bolton, just recorded, Walter Hartland was sitting in his shirt sleeves cross-legged on a kitchen table by an open casement in the summer-time, when he heard a girlish voice say, ' Oh, don't, Jack ! ' in a tone of pitiful entreaty.

Lifting his head and bending sideways towards the window, he beheld not only a pretty flaxen -haired lass, about sixteen, but a great hulking lad, some couple of years younger, whose ruddy brown hair was all in a tangle, and he was amusing himself with the agonised gyrations of a suspended cockchafer spitted upon a pin, at the same time laughing heartily at the distress on the compassionate face of the girl. ' What odds ! ' cried the lad ; ' it caun't feel. It's fun ! ' Stretching his body out of the window, Walter Hartland, in angry indignation, ran his sharp needle into the fleshy part of the young scapegrace's arm. Jack started, cried out lustily, ' Oh-h-h ! ' and dropped the buzzing cockchafer, on which the girl promptly put down her heavily-shod foot, as she said, 'to end the poor thing's misery.' ' What warr that fur ? ' growled young hopeful, rubbing the sleeve of his jacket up and down, and scowling defiance at the tailor. ' Dost think I'm made o' wood ? ' 'What?

Did'st thou feel it ? ' ' Feel it, thou brute ? Ay ; ' and the scowl deepened as the tailor further asked — ' Were you ever in the Squire's kitchen, my lad ? ' ' Ay, many a time ! ' snapped the youth ; ' what'n o' that ? ' 'Then thou'll ha' seen th' lang iron spit as th' cook runs through geese an' such like for roasting?' assumed Walter, looking the angry lad in the face. 'Ay,' assented Jack surlily, still rubbing his uncomfortable arm. ' Well, suppose a giant twice as tall as yon poplar tree wur to run that spit through thee just for the fun o' seeing thee spin round and round in pain, dost think thou'd feel it ? ' Jack looked askance. 'I'm a lad, not a buzzard. Them little things caun't fees 'So a monstrous giant mowt say to thee. But, Jack, if that's thy name, big or little, all living things feel pain.

You wur a terrible giant to the cockchafer, the pin wur sharp and cruel as a big spit, an' the spinning an' buzzing you'd call fun mowt ha' told you as th' poor thing felt a million times moore pain than the bit of a prick I gave thy arm.' ' Dun yow think it did ? ' and Jack looked up with wide open eyes, as if confronted with a new idea. ' To be sure it did, I telled you so,' put in the girl promptly. ' Sarve it reet then. The farmers wishes they warr all killed. Their grubs ruin th' crops afore they come up. Theere's been a regular plague on 'em down Mansfield way,' was his quick retort The humane tailor's answer was ready. ' Leave their nests an' eggs alone, and the birds will rid the farmers of the chafers. Don't you put them to torture, lest thy turn come some time or other.' Another listener had come upon the scene, Joe Wrigley, the son of the frame-maker, for whom Hartland was then working.

He was spare and lithe, even to his long thin fingers; his somewhat shifty eyes were a curious admixture' of green and red, changing in the light like the ' shot silk ' of a lady's dress, and were so closely set together as to infringe on the promi nent ridge between them. His mother said his hair was ' sandy ; ' strangers pronounced it ' red ; ' his complexion took something of the same tint, and, it being then summer-time, there was a decided tendency to freckles. He carried a slate and school books in his hand, and wore a leather overall, called a 'jump,' to preserve his undergarments from hard usage. ' Nay, Wat Hartland, you're wrong. Th' farmers surely know more about birds and buzzards and their crops than a tailor. They'd ne'er pay for birds' eggs an' heads if the birds did no harm, and only killed the grubs and insects.

Jack and me have had many a threepence for birdnesting afore now,' said the new-comer, as if that was a conclusive argument. ' And so the farmers pay you for bird robbery and murder ? I might have guessed as much from the strings of blown eggs on the wall ; ' and Wat glanced towards the nook where blue, brown, dappled, and speckled festoons told their own tale. ' If they were wise, they'd pay you to let the nests alone.' Joe lifted his shoulders and laughed derisively, winking at Jack with those curious eyes of his. ' Thou'rt a foo' ! ' snarled the hulking lad called Jack over his shoulder, and the two boys marched off to enjoy their joke against the tailor and his crazy notions. ' I'm glad yow took them to task, sir,' then said the girl ; ' our Jack and Joe AVrigley are always tormenting some poor helpless thing or other, an' it's no use me or mother speaking, for faither an' Robin only laugh at the excuses Joe has at his tongue's end.

But they make me cry sometimes.' ' Thou'rt a kind-hearted lass,' observed the tailor, waxing his thread as he spoke ; ' one may see it in thy face. I should like to know thy name, and who's Jack an' Robin, an' who's thy faither?' ' Dunna yow know ? Faither's Greenwood the keeper. Jack and Robin are my brothers, an' they call me Marian. Yow're Mestur Hartland the tailor, I know that. Yow boxed our Jack's ears when he warr stinging my arms wi' nettles, first year as yow come to Arnold. I remember.' ' Oh ! an' so yo're the pretty little lass I found crying in the Forest four years ago, wi' a young imp o' mischief whipping thy bare arms wi' nettles ? Why, you have grown out o' mind a'moast. Shake hands, my lass ! ' He left his busy needle in a seam whilst he extended his broad palm. She must have shown some hesitation, by his next remark. ' Nay, dunnot be afraid ; it's a hard-working, honest hand, though I say it as shouldno.

Thou needn't be ashamed to take it.' Marian put out her hand to his good-will clasp half-shyly ; he held it a moment, then, as he let it go, with a quick ' I maun be off,' she sped away with a swift foot and heightened colour towards Mr. Burton's with a bundle of stockings she had seamed, as if to make up for lost time. And that was all the introduction needed by this country couple. A congenial chord had been struck, a kindly memory evoked. She recalled his timely interference gratefully, and he with the satisfaction that follows an act of protective impulse. The shyness and reticence, the formulas and etiquette of upper class life do not reach the labouring and rustic strata. He saw her again on the Sunday at the village church, and doffed his soft slouch hat to her with a word of recognition as they passed.

This attracted the notice of Robin, and, he being a good-humoured fellow, the two readily drifted into conversa tion and acquaintance. In a day or two Wat Hartland found his way in the twilight to the keeper's picturesque cottage of timber and plaster, though Jack sullenly held aloof, and long before he shouldered his pack again, he had found opportunity to say more than one sweet word to Marian. A good deal of wooing may be compressed into a month if the swain be in earnest, but Marian was young, and he not in a foolish hurry, for it was then a time of war and revolution, and consequent pressure upon the poor. So it was not until 1 793, when successive victories gained by our troops abroad (more especially the taking of Valenciennes and Toulon) were celebrated with bonfires and rockets, and a local newspaper prophesied a speedy termination of the war, that the pair ventured to take upon themselves the cares of matrimony.

Little thought they, and less thought the writer of that boastful paragraph, all he would be answerable for. The news had been read out by the village clerk in the church yard after service to the old folk seated under the yew trees, — these relics of bygone times when it was compulsory to plant yews in every churchyard, so that the men of England might never lack bow-wood for their archery, — and being so read out, the wonderful announcement came with all the force of an official proclamation, not only to the aged, but to the young, who listened with mouths agape and ears attentive. Walter Hartland, who had reached Sherwood Forest earlier than ordinary that year, happened to be present at the reading, with Marian red as a rose by his side. ' Rare news them ! ' rang like a chorus in the open air, and the sanctity of the place barely restrained a loud hurrah.

Wat listened in silence, and remained thoughtful for some time. At length, as they strolled slowly towards her forest home, he said, ' I think, Marian, if them news be true, thee an' me had best be wed. We han courted three years, an' since mother died faither says he's lost without a woman in th' house, an' her idle wheel's a sore trouble to him. He bade me bring my wife last summer ; but I wur afraid to venture, lest the bad ness o' th' times should stop my needle altogether^ and poverty came to thee through marrying me. An' I couldn't stand that, thou knaws.' ' I'd rather share poverty wi' thee than riches wi' some folk,' murmured she, clinging closer to his arm, and setting his heart beating its wildest. And he needed no telling who was meant by the 'some folk,' since Joe Wrigley followed her like her shadow, and the hammers in his father's smithy had clinked to a profitable tune. ' Well, Marian, it's only fur thee I've been feared.

Theere's a good home an' a warm hearth ready fur thee any day. But faither's given up travelling, an' soon theere will be only me to depend on, fur he's getting old, an' must be takken care on. Yet thou heard as the war's gooin' to end, an' trade's sure to brisken up when the feightin's o'er. So if folk can live now when things are at theer worst, we can surely live when times are better.' This was his argument, to which she and her people alike assented, though her mother was loth to give her up, and only yielded on Robin's hint that he had a sweetheart ready to supply his sister's place on their hearth. A month or six weeks, whilst Wat finished his round, were all that Marian's few preparations demanded, during which time other 'glorious victories' were celebrated, with illuminations and fireworks.

And in the autumn, when Marian was not much over nineteen, and Wat about twenty-six, when the tall foxgloves had run to seed, and the bracken was shrivelling up and turning brown, when the beech was yellow, the oak almost bare, and only the dark firs and yews were in their prime, the confiding young couple walked to Arnold Church in procession with her friends, with a fiddler in front, playing ' Haste to the wedding,' and capering to his own tune. There was a feast at the crowded cottage, where the keeper's gun had helped to supply the pot, where the heartiness of welcome and rejoicing gave a zest to the entertainment, and no one complained that the wooden trenchers were not china, or the drinking horns were not glass, or that there was an insufficiency of napery, knives, and forks for the great occasion.

Robin was in high glee, for his sweetheart, Nell Barker, shared the honours with the bride ; John made himself useful and agreeable, the old father was hilarious, and only the anxious mother wore a serious and sorrowful face. Many were her counsels to the child she had reared for others, many the tears she shed at parting. But Wat was brimming over with love, hope, and confidence when Marian was seated on a pillion behind him on a stout galloway he had hired, to be borne away in triumph to take the place of his dead mother in his moorland home. And all on the strength of bonfires, and crackers, and newspaper predictions ! How were they to distinguish the false prophets from the true ? Who was bold enough to cast a doubt on the verity of ' black print ' ?

Chapter II The Home On The Moorside

cottage of the Hartlands had stood alone in a !|ytfj|||||i sheltered nook of the wild moorland extending ii\l3l8' H between Huddersfield and Halifax at a time when BsSBB there were only packhorse tracks between the two thriving towns, and only a blind path from the common road served for the use of the inmates. That did not trouble them. What has never been known can never be missed. The house had been built solidly with native millstone grit, not squared to pattern, yet compactly put together, and well cemented to with stand the strong winds and the rain. High gables gave a good pitch to the flagstone roof to prevent the lodgment of snow, and above at one end rose a wide funnel-shaped chimney. And so it had braved the storms of a century or more, occupying ground where the adventurous Roman had, all unknown to the Englishman, built in the ages before him.

If there was only a ground floor and an upper, it was evident the builder had not been stinted for room. A goodly space around had been cleared and diligently cultivated, with what pains and patience there can be no telling. A sparkling mountain beck, that had its rise somewhere on the bleak mountain ridge called Blackstone Edge, danced and sang over the stones hard by as if rejoicing in its own freshness and purity. It might have sung an invitation to the original settler, there to abide and build for his own needs, and though a lean to washhouse had been added since his day, and it was even then only a four-roomed dwelling, there had been and was a IS THE HOME ON THE MOORS IDE. 19 certain air of substantiality about the whole when Walter Hartland invited Marian to make it her home. ' Now, Marian, thou'st a'moast left the Forest behind,' said Wat to his bride, as their steady-going roadster entered Mansfield with his double load, and stopped at the ' Royal Oak ' as if he sniffed the atmosphere of a posting inn, and expected to be relieved and baited. ' Ah,' answered she, looking back, ' I may never see bonnie Birkdale again, but life goes forward, not backward, an' I can keep the picture in my mind if I ne'er see an oak or a birch again.' ' Ay, lass, so thou may.