Was he really mad? and other sketches, being incidents in the life of a curate

Introduction

. T is several years now since I took any active part in parochial work. Whether I ever shall be enabled to return to it again is a matter depending entirely upon my physical strength. Forty-eight is rather an early age to give up all thoughts of usefulness in life, and I cannot bring myself to believe that my sphere of usefulness is over. But at present I have to content myself with being wheeled about in a Bath-chair ; all power having gone out of my lower limbs. Thank God, my head and my hands are as vigorous as ever, so that I can find occu pation for the time which would otherwise lie so heavily on my hands. Very often, though more frequently of late years since my illness, I have spent many an hour in living over again scenes that are now long past. And I am sometimes led to wonder whether my life, more especially in the earlier days, was not spent among scenes of a character which do not B

INTRODUCTION.

. 2 always fall to the lot of a young curate. Many such scenes are fixed indelibly on my mind; nothing but death can eradicate them. Some few of these I have — aided by my old note-book — sketched in the following pages. At the time I jotted them down I little thought I should ever make use of them to while away the hours of an all but bedridden life, nor did I ever think of sub mitting them to public view. I should not do so now only that I feel convinced that most of the actors in the scenes are scattered far away or have fallen asleep; some few only remain in and near the old spot where the scenes were enacted. And it seems to me that we each of us know only too little of the thrilling incidents which go on around us, often at our very doors. If more were known our hearts might be the more enlarged.

I have only this to add, that in the following incidents I have carefully avoided making mention of anything which was practically confided to me under the seal of confession. Maberly Walker. Matlock, 1877. ?

Chapter I

RST-SaT the time that I was ordained to the W^ft^J curacy of Park Green, the Phœnix Iron Works, at Deavonstoke — our nearest town, about three miles away — was owned by two partners, William Cole and Thomas Johnson, trading under the name of Cole, Johnson, and Co. They had been known to each other nearly a dozen years before they entered into partnership. Mr. Cole was a North Country man, with but little edu cation, but a thorough practical knowledge of engineering. The Phœnix Iron Works had been started by him in his younger days, and for years he had worked alone, gradually gaining for the ? 4 works a world-wide reputation. Mr. Cole was essentially a clever inventor and a shrewd man in seeing what was needed for the market. His chief delight was in agricultural machinery; in that he had made his name, had increased his works, until he had in his employ nearly five hundred hands ; but one thing he had not been able to accomplish, and that was to make a foitune.

It often does happen so. Mr. Cole is not the only clever inventor I have known who has made a great name without reaping the benefit of it from a monetary point of view. And for this reason, that where money is concerned they seem quite helpless. They part with their inventions for a mere trifle, oftentimes for the sake of the pleasure they derive from seeing them brought out, oftentimes because they have not the means to bring them out themselves ; while, on the other hand, if they have the idea of something new in their brain, they cannot rest either night or day until it is perfected, and that regardless of the expense they may be put to in experimenting on it before it can be brought out to perfection. There seems to ? 5 be the same infatuation in the life of an inventor as there was in the lives of the old alchymists ; every penny they have often goes in the pursuit of or in perfecting some new idea, and add to this the fact that a man absorbed in any new discovery or invention is not the man as a rule to look after his money matters at the same time, and you will see good cause why William Cole, afterwards of the firm of Cole, Johnson, and Co., had for the first fifteen years of his career never been able to lay a penny by.

He had enlarged his works, it is true, but that was to enable him to carry out his own ideas to greater perfection as well as to meet the growing demand for his machinery. So that it need not surprise any one (though it was a terrible blow to Mr. Cole to realise) that the time came when he was clearly brought to under stand that, unless something very nearly allied to a miracle intervened, he would, perforce, have to proclaim himself a bankrupt. Thomas Johnson, on the other hand, though he, too, had served a seven years' apprenticeship to an engineer, was by no means a clever one. ? 6 He knew all the routine of the work, how it was done, and how it ought to be done, but of the practical part he was never very fond. If he had one delight above another it was in organising, in clearing up the tangled threads of business matters, and in keeping accounts.

Mr. Cole was a born inventor with no idea of business; Mr. Johnson was a born accountant with no idea of invention. The two had known each other, respected each other, had been all but brothers for years. What wonder, then, that Mr. Cole should think of Mr. Johnson in his distress ? Mr. Johnson was at that time managing a small works at Nottingham, and to Nottingham Mr. Cole went to unburden his trouble. " Could Mr. Johnson help him ?" he asked. Mr. Johnson's eyes glistened with delight at the very thought. It was the one thing that his soul loved, and the bargain was there and then made, that night, that if Mr. Johnson could extricate his friend from the ruin which threatened him, he should be taken as partner at a salary of a year and a quarter share in the profits. ? 7 " Nothing I should like better," said Mr. John son.

" To tell the truth, it's come like a provi dence to me. I had got tired of Nottingham ; there's too little to do here, and my time with the company ceases on Monday week. On Tuesday week you shall see me at Deavonstoke, and then your affairs are in a very bad state if we can't work them round." And with this promise Mr. Cole returned home to complete the perfecting of another invention which had already cost him hundreds of pounds. Mr. Johnson was true to his word. On the Tuesday week he took his seat in the manager's office, and, I was going to say, never left it until he had put matters on a safe footing. He did leave it, but it was only to eat and drink and sleep. Early morning used to see him there, midnight and often early morning used to come, and he was at his desk still, but at last he conquered.

It was a three months' task, but to the delight of Mr. Cole he proved to him that he was solvent, with a little cash in hand, but, as Mr. Johnson observed, "a world-famed reputation to make more money with.' ? 8 From that time the firm prospered, not only in name but in wealth. No wonder, then, that a bond of affection akin to brotherhood already existing, ripened to an extent rarely known between man and man, within the breasts of two partners. No one would have ever dreamed at that time of its being broken or marred, but we cannot see into the future, and perhaps it's as well we can't. I had known Mr. Johnson ever since I was a boy at school. He was, I remember very well, the one man of all others, next my father, whom I respected. At that time he lived close to us in Shrewsbury, where I spent most of my young days, and when my father died, Mr. Johnson took me under his especial protection.

He was like a father to me, and as I grew up the affection I had for him ripened into a real and lasting friendship. Park Green was a scattered country parish with just one or two good houses in it, the church itself being about three miles from the market place at Deavonstoke, and it was chiefly the ? 9 view of being near to Mr. Johnson that made me apply to the rector for a title to deacon's orders, when I was in a position to be ordained. Through Mr. Johnson's influence and recommendation, I was accepted, and in the year 1853 was licensed to the curacy under Rector Wilmers, a fine specimen of the old High Church party, though somewhat shaky in health. Mr. Johnson lived at Moreton Villa, on the Park Green Road, about three-quarters of a mile from the town; his partner, Mr. Cole, living about a quarter of a mile from him on another road, called the Walcot Road — leading from Deavonstoke to Walcot — at least it was a quarter of a mile from Mr. Johnson's across the fields; if you went down to Deavonstoke and then along the Walcot Road it was nearly a mile and a half, the two roads forming an angle, and meeting in the heart of the town.

After I had taken up my residence at Park Green, a great deal of my spare time, before I was married, was spent with Mr. Johnson. I used to dine with him at seven, after business was over, ? 10 and then invariably we used to repair to Mount Cottage, and spend the rest of the evening with Mr. Cole, where we would discuss the events of the day — it was just the commencement of the Crimean war, I remember — or else the two would talk over business matters. Quite half Mr. John son's evenings were spent in this manner, and I must own that it was a source of annoyance to Mrs. Johnson. She didn't see why she should be left alone so often in the evening after her husband had been away at business all the day. It was hard on her, I know, and it was the only point on which Mr. Johnson and I disagreed.

But for all this, I knew that he was devotedly attached to his wife and family ; it was more a matter of habit than anything else — a habit brought on by the brother-like affection he had for his partner. Mr. Cole was a man who never visited with any one ; nothing would induce him. If anybody wanted to see him they had to see him at his own house, where they were always made welcome. The only two occasions in the year when Mr. Cole was tempted to break his rule were Christmas Eve, and once in the middle of summer, when he used to spend his evenings at Moreton Villa. This had been his regular practice for years. Mrs. Johnson was a handsome, fine-built woman, with very dark hair and dark-brown eyes, tall, and elegant in her appearance ; but she had two great faults — she was unsystematic and un punctual in her house, and rather inclined to be jealous in her temperament.

Her affection was of a very demonstrative kind, and in this, if the truth must be told, her temper followed suit. I often used to think that this accounted for Mr. Johnson seeming glad at times to spend his evenings away from home. He was the pattern of order and neatness, calm in temper, and very trusting, and it seemed to me that Mrs. Johnson's opposite tendencies used to jar upon him. Not that he ever mentioned such a thing to me. If he had any domestic trouble he was not the man to spread it abroad, it was kept sacred — as it should be — in his own breast. But his manner was oftentimes so different at Mr. Cole's from what it was at home. At Mr. Cole's he was full ? 12 of sparkling wit and merriment, at home he generally wore the aspect of a man who was trying to endure things patiently without murmuring, especially at times, and those times were not un frequent, when he would come home to find the house upset and the children unruly or crying, Mrs. Johnson in not a very amiable humour, and everything behindhand.

Then the servants, too, were a continual plague at Moreton Villa ; whether it was Mrs. Johnson's bad management or not, I don't know, but they were constantly having fresh ones, and the fresh ones never suited. Taking it altogether, Moreton Villa was not the happiest place in the world for a man who loved peace, order, and punctuality. The only remark I ever heard Mr. Johnson make upon the subject was one evening when we were going across the fields to Mount Cottage, and all he said then was, "Mab, I'm not the man to complain, but they ought to have things nice at home. The amount of money that house costs is something incredible. I don't know where it will all end ;" and I noticed that he was very quiet all that night, but I didn't ? 13 take much notice of it at the time, for I knew that he had just been paying the quarter's bills, though I have often looked back upon it since and wondered if it was really the beginning of evils.

Mrs. Johnson was more communicative. She had found a cause for her husband spending so much of his time at Mount Cottage, and did not hesitate to express her opinion. She seldom went there herself, but she accounted for Mr. Johnson's visits by saying that Mrs. Cole was the attraction. " Friendship to Mr. Cole indeed ! I know what that means," she has said to me many a time. I knew better, though I could never make her believe it, for nice though Mrs. Cole was, we seldom saw her after the first few minutes. Mr. Johnson's coming was always the signal for her to retire. She left the two alone, knowing that their lives were almost made up in each other. All this is, perhaps, very uninteresting, but it is necessary to account for what came afterwards, necessary, at least to my mind, to account for that one mad act which so nearly cost the life of the man I so respected. ? 14 I had been at Park Green about ten months ; yes, I was married about eight months after I went there, and it was about two months after that, and went one evening to dine with Mr. Johnson, and, as I thought, to go to Mount Cottage with him afterwards, but, to my surprise, he seemed altogether different.

I had noticed for a month or more, ever since the night going across the fields, that he hadn't been himself; he appeared to be depressed and melancholy as though he had some great trouble on his mind ; but this evening he was cross and irritable, a thing I had never known in him. After dinner, noticing that he made no pre paration, I asked him if he wasn't going to see Mr. Cole as usual, but he wouldn't, " He wasn't fit," he said ; " he was very far from well." He complained, too, I remember, of great pain in the head and back, and went to bed early. I was disappointed, for I hadn't seen much of him since my marriage, but thought he would be all right again in a few days, so I stayed and had a chat with Mrs. Johnson and the children. Mrs. Johnson thought he had taken cold. If he wasn't ? 15 better on the morrow she was going to send for the doctor.

The day but one after, when I called, I found Mr. Johnson ill in bed with a severe attack of brain fever, though he was sensible when I went into his room. " It's all over with me, Mab," he said, as soon as he saw me; "I shall never get off this bed," and he struck the bedside by way of emphasis. "Nonsense, man, you mustn't give way like that ; you'll be well and about again in a week or two," was my reply. " Never again, never again ! " he moaned. " Oh, Mab !" he exclaimed, after a pause, looking round to see that no one was near, "What will they do when I am gone ! And the books !" Then he was lost in thought. That he alluded to his wife and family in the first instance I was fully aware, but his concluding remark about the books was a mystery to me. He seemed truly agonised when he mentioned them.

I did not ask him to explain himself. I thought in his present state it was better not. ? " You must keep yourself quiet, and not bother your head about anything," I remarked, for I was at a loss what else to say. " Yes," he said, " I know, but " " Mab," he again, " you'll not forsake them when I'm gone ?" " What ever made thing ?" you dream of such a " I don't know," he replied sadly ; " but things may be so different from what you think. Oh, what a fool I've been ! what a fool !" And then he seemed lost in thought. I waited until he roused up again, for I wanted to say good-bye to him before I left. I had been very hard worked since my ordination. My rector had been ill, and the whole parish had been left in my charge, so that I was quite ready for a rest, and had availed myself of the kind offer of a friend to take a cruise in his yacht for recreation, and I knew I should be some weeks away.

I had only been able to spare about three days when we were married. He bade me an affectionate farewell, telling me ? 17 to my astonishment, that my visits to his house had always been a true pleasure to him. And at parting he gripped my hand too much like a fare well grasp to make me comfortable. On my return, in about a month, the first place I went to was Moreton Villa, and to my surprise I found that Mr. Johnson had so far recovered that he had gone to Easthampton to recruit his health, and there I determined to follow him. I was sorry he had gone to Easthampton. I didn't think it was the place to suit him, and so it proved. It was a noted place for invalids, and supposed to be very bracing, but I had always found it just the opposite. It always made me languid and melancholy. Perhaps it was with seeing so many sick people about.

I wished he had chosen some other place. When I reached Easthampton I found Mr. Johnson's apartments very easily, and was ushered by the landlady into his presence. He afterwards explained to me that Easthampton was full when he came down, and he was forced to content himself with the rooms he had taken, though they were not all he could c ? wish. The room he was in was large enough for anything, but it was a dull, melancholy room at best. The furniture was modern and creaky, on which you had to sit very quietly for fear of a mishap. The room was lighted from one window, opposite to which, within a yard and a half, was a red-brick wall. The window faced due north, so that the sun did not trouble you much. A few pictures hung around the room, chiefly consisting of shipwrecks, and over the mantlepiece was a heavy old-fashioned pier glass.

The paper on the walls was a dark brown, spotted with a small green pattern, and the carpet — by way of contrast, I suppose — was a green ground, with brown patterns on it. Not a very cheering room for an invalid to live in by himself, especially taking into consideration that the aspect cut off all chance of the sun's rays ever entering. Nor were the con sequences of his thirteen weeks' stay there very cheering to Mr. Johnson. It would almost have been better for his peace of mind had he died in his illness. I found him lying on the sofa covered with ? 19 numerous shawls and rugs. He was cold, he said, notwithstanding the fact that it was the middle of August. True enough, the last few sultry days at Easthampton had been followed by a cutting gale of wind from the east, the periodical visits of which, I presume, constitute the bracing properties of the air.

" Well, old man," was my greeting, " how are you now ? You managed to get off that bed, then, after all ?" " How am I, Mab ? I feel as if it would have been better for me had I never got off the bed." " Why, what's the matter now ?" "Matter enough. Look what a wreck I am. Lying here all day, except when I'm wheeled about in a bath-chair. Whoever would have thought of seeing Thomas Johnson in such a state ? Here am I, away from everybody, the business going to the dogs, and the books " "Books again! are you bothering about them still ?" " Bothering about them, Mab ! you don't know all I suffer. What a fool I've been !" ? 20 " Talk of something else," he continued, after a pause ; " tell me how you have enjoyed your cruise." And I had to give him an account of my yacht ing expedition, with its pleasures and dangers.

" I never thought you would come back alive," he said, his voice all along low and melancholy. " Many a time when I've been lying on my bed have I thought of you during those westerly gales. You'd no business to have gone, and I told you so." "Why not ? I'm here safe and sound, and never spent a more profitable month in my life. It does one good to face a bit of danger, man. It gives you sympathy with those who have to meet it every day." " So it does, Mab ; so it does." " You are getting stronger, arn't you ?" I asked, after a pause. " Stronger ! No, I'm getting nearer my grave every day. I don't know what strength there is about that. Mab, what will they do when I am gone? There'll be nothing left for them, and I shall be dis " ? 21 He did not finish his sentence just then, but after a while he broke out with the lament, " I wish I was gone, and that's the truth."

" You've got a decidedly pleasant way of looking at things just now. What makes you look at everything in such a black light ? As for getting nearer your grave, how were you when you were lying unconscious in bed ? On the other side of it, I suppose ?" But he would not smile. " It's true, Mab, it's true ; but still I don't think I shall ever get over this bout. It's all been too much for poor Tom Johnson." " Well, brooding over it won't make it any better. Just let's have the facts of the case. What is your chief complaint now ? Have you any pain?" " No, I don't know that I have, except it's here," pressing his hand to his heart. " Does your head ache at all ?" I asked, for I did not like the heavy glaring look he had about his eyes. " My head ache ? No, my head's right enough, ? 22 only there's a continual buzzing in my ears.

But I'm getting used to it. It's been there for weeks." Only a buzzing in the ears — what did that mean ? " Do you dream much ?" I asked. " Dream ? Yes, badly, when I get to sleep, but it's little sleep I can get now-a-days." " How's your sight ?" " Not so good as it used to be. I've noticed it failing for a month, and more." " Hearing pretty good ?" " Nothing to boast of. It seems to be getting like the rest of me, done up. Why ?" " Nothing, only you must get out of this place as soon as possible. It's too lonely for you. Doesn't your doctor tell you so ?" " I haven't seen him since I came," was his reply. " I write to him twice a week, but he doesn't say much to encourage me." We had an early tea, and then I left him, for I had to return home that night, and it was a good two hours' journey to Deavonstoke.

I cautioned him at parting, whatever he did, not to ? 23 give way to low spirits, and advised him to get some one to stay with him. He wasn't fit to be alone. His reply puzzled me more than a little. It was the same old cry, " Ay, Mab, you give good ad vice — hut the books ?" Was his brain really beginning to go ? I asked myself on my homeward journey. What did the continual buzzing in the ears — accompanied by the failing of sight and hearing, with nervous de pression and restless dreams — mean ? I remembered what a medical friend of mine had told me not long before. That such things often were — simple though they seemed — the first signs which tell of softening of the brain. Had he so devoted himself to his business as to sacrifice his intellect? God grant not that ! I determined, if possible, to see him often, and try to cheer him up, but circumstances would not admit of my leaving home.

I wrote to him frequently, and received long melancholy letters in reply, full of nervous imaginations, but it was weeks before I was able to spare time to go again to Easthampton.

Chapter II

R. JOHNSON seemed much improved in bodily health when I saw him again. I felt sure there would be some change in him either for better or worse, for it was nearly five weeks since my last visit to Easthampton ; but he seemed to me more nervous and melancholy, trembling at the slightest noise or shadow, continually under the impression that some accident was going to befall him, and I remember particularly, after I had persuaded him to go out for a short walk, he took the middle of the road lest anything should fall upon him from the roofs of tbe houses. Nothing seemed to satisfy him or give him pleasure. The whole of the afternoon he was continually telling me of friends who had been to see him, and who he was convinced, had forsaken him because they ? 25 had been longer than usual before they had come again.

His mind seemed to me quite unsettled ; one minute he would say "yes," the next minute he would contradict himself, and then turn suddenly round and ask me to tell him what he meant, for he really didn't know. StiU, I saw and proved to him that he was slowly gaining bodily strength, and he seemed thankful to me for making him believe it. He had been eleven weeks alone at Easthamp ton. I wish he had never gone. Had I but known the consequences of it, he never should have gone ; at any rate, not to be left there by him self, though that was his own wish. He couldn't afford, he said, to have any of his family with him. Some weeks after this last visit to Easthamp ton — I think it was about four, at any rate, it was in the early part of November, I received a note asking me to go and see Mrs. Johnson at Moreton Villa.

She was ill. Mr. Johnson, it seems, un known to me, had left Easthampton, and had been home for a week, and then gone away again. ? I found Mrs. Johnson in bed, and then it was that I became aware for the first time what had been weighing on her husband's mind. I felt sure from the manner and the hints he had thrown out that some trouble hung heavily there, but didn't know what it was, and never asked, lest it might do him harm to talk about it. I shall never forget that visit to Moreton Villa. I had hardly entered Mrs. Johnson's room, ere, without giving me time to speak, she burst out — " Oh, Mab, we've had such a scene ! though I always knew it. I always told him how it would end. It took four of us to hold him. It was an awful siffht !" " Took four of you to hold him ?" I exclaimed, in amazement.