'Shoddy.' A Yorkshire tale of Home

Front matter

"SHODD Y." u S H O D D Y." % gorksjnre Cak 0s BY ARTHUR WOOD. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1877. [Sight of Tramlation returned by the Author.] lO-TDO-f: GAVILL, EDWAEDS AOTJ CO., PETNTEES, CHANDOS STBEBI COVENT GAEDEN. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. •CHAP. p1SB I. DAISY HILL 1 II. DALESFORD 10 III. WORSDALE HOUSE 31 IV. A CONVERT 59 V. JOE BOOTHROYD 84 VI. STEPPER 114 VII. REDWELL-SUPER-MARE 137 "VIII. HOME AGAIN 167 IX. THE MAN IN THE CLOAK 213 X. MR. TITHERADGE HUMS A TUNE 232 XI. A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR ! . 242 XII. A SLIGHT SURPRISE "SHODD Y."

Chapter I. Daisy Hill

K-ftJ-i'-. "^ Dame is Worsdale ; but they call me BcSI 1 -D°lly a* tome." The rich mellow sunlight of a warm evening in July, struggling through the thick foliage of a large sycamore tree, fell for a second on the happy and innocent face of a girl of nineteen, who, with her summer hat laid on the seat beside her, and her soft brown hair falling loosely on her shoulders, was resting after the exertion of the dance in which she had been recently engaged. Her companion, thoughtful and earnest looking, who spoke habitually in a subdued tone, seemed to be a man of six or eight and twenty, though the slight frown which appeared natural to his cast of face, and his somewhat bronzed complexion, added several years to his appearance: The well-cut vol. i. " SHODDY." clothes, so carelessly worn, and the dark and almost shaggy beard and moustache, with the broad shoul ders, and a certain look of quiet determination in his grey eyes, invested him with an individuality apart from the crowds, who passed and repassed the rustic form, on which the two were seated.

The music of a band stationed in an alcove, near the lawn set apart for the dancers, had for the time ceased, and the different sounds of the various forms of amusement, supposed to contribute to the attrac tions of this Daisy Hill Gala, were easily heard in the calm summer air. Two miles away to the south, the tall factory chimneys and the roofs of the larger buildings, with the square tower of the old church of Dalesford, stood out clean and sharp in the evening sunlight. Occasionally a shrill feminine scream, and the hoarse shout and laughter of a broken-voiced youth of sixteen, en gaged in the horse-play of some of the local games, jarred unpleasantly with the softened chime of the distant clocks, striking the hour of seven, and seemed strangely at variance with a zealous party of some twenty or thirty persons, who, promenading the grounds, three or four abreast, were singing to some popular melody, words of a devotional and a religious character.

" Why do those worthy persons," said the man with the heavy moustache and the thoughtful eyes. " select a gala day in a ' People's Park' for the exercise of their devotions, I wonder ?" " They are some of our Hallelujah Band," said the girl, " and are very numerous in this part of the country." " I have read somewhere," returned her com panion, " that, in streets and synagogues, certain persons were accustomed to sound a trumpet before them — but they were hypocrites." The girl turned her honest brown eyes on the speaker, and after a moment's pause remarked — " They are weU intentioned, I believe — but they are noisy I" He remained silent for a few moments, plucking some of the little wild flowers that grew within easy reach, and having formed them into a small and simple bouquet, and secured their stems by a long blade of delicate grass, tossed them carelessly away.

" And your name is Worsdale, ' and they call you Dolly at home ?' " he asked abruptly, taking her hand that lay on the seat beside her, and looking earnestly in her bright young face, which flushed crimson under his gaze. " Shall I ever see you again, Dolly Worsdale ? — and when ? — I wonder, when ?" The girl rose with a startled look, and hastily replacing the light summer scarf that had fallen from her shoulders, said nervously — 1—3 " SHODDY." 4 " Please let me return to my friends : we pro mised to leave the Park at eight, and they will be waiting for me." The dreamy, thoughtful manner from which her companion seemed to have been for a moment aroused, returned, and he added in his habitually quiet and subdued tone — " Permit me to accompany you to your party ; and allow me to offer some apology for the little ceremony I have used in forcing myself upon your acquaintance.

But you will admit that formality is more dispensed with in this kind of gathering than is usually the case, and which may or may not be an advantage, according to the views we take. I need not say, with the happy experience of the last hour, what my own are." Dolly looked up with a frank and happy smile, and with an expression of halfwonder in her eyes, when — " Oh ! here you are at last, ma'am !" cried the shrill voice of a boy behind the seat on which they had been resting. " Haven't I been looking for you all over the Park ! Come along ! we're just going home, and Miss Skimple is in a dreadful way about you. Martin has been waiting an hour with the carriage !" " I'll come directly, Philip," said the girl ; and added, in a low voice, " go and tell them so, there's a dear boy !" "Not without our Dolly, says Philip!" cried the lad, with a grin on his round face, and a twinkle of mischief in his great eyes, as he stood with his hands in his pockets, and with a pair of stout little legs set apart — a picture of sturdy independence which his knickerbocker dress considerably assisted.

" Pray let me go, sir," said Dolly, appealing to the stranger — and her lips for a moment paled and quivered, and the soft brown eyes filled with tears — " Please let me go — and — good-by." Her companion took her unresisting little hand, and retaining it in his own, was silent for a few seconds ; then, while the boy's attention was other wise attracted, raised it to his lips and kissing it gently and respectfully, said — " God bless you, Dolly Worsdale !" and turned away. " My goodness me ! wherever have you been !" cried a singularly pretty and graceful girl of seven teen, or thereabout, as Dolly rejoined her own party — " how hot and flustered you look ! Why you must have danced yourself off your feet \" "■ I should like to stop and see the fireworks !" said the boy they called Philip ; " shouldn't you, Dolly ?"

" I don't care about them myself," said the girl, " but" — after a moment's pause — " I will stop with you, if you wish." " SHODDY." " Ha, that's right !" cried the boy. " Look here, Miss Skimple, let Dolly and me stop and " But the boy was checked at once by the lady whom he addressed, replying in a short and some what hard tone and manner — "It is eight o'clock. Open the carriagedoor, Martin." So the ladies took their seats in the vehicle, and Phil jumping on the box, after vainly endeavouring to persuade the coachman to allow him to drive, beguiled the journey by a vivid account of the many and varied pleasures of the gala, and they reached home as the first rocket announced the commencement of the grand pyrotechnic display in the People's Park at Daisy Hill. At the roar of the rocket, the visitors at the gala began to rush eagerly towards the platform set apart for the fireworks.

" Here, see thee ! catch hold of our Tilly — I'se getten our Bob, thou knows !" cried a rough voice in the broad accents of the West Riding dialect of Yorkshire. " Here, maybe, mate, you'll give us a light ?" And the speaker, a short broad figure, who walked with a limp, leading a stout boy by the hand, and followed by a woman carrying a delicate looking girl in her arms, stopped for a moment to beg a light from a gentleman who, seated on a rustic bench, was smoking a cigar, and swinging his legs in an absent, dreamy manner. Then the distant report of some detonating fire work, that exploding high in the air shot forth a shower of many-coloured stars, was followed by the hoarse murmur of amazement and applause from the crowds beneath ; and the Yorkshireman, catching up the little boy, hurried away, followed by the woman, leaving the lonely figure on the bench, dreamily swinging his legs, and smoking his cigar.

Then came the Roman candles, and some in genious devices with rapid changes and continual explosions, and more rockets ; then some fiery serpents hissing and flying tbis way and that ; then the same over again or nearly so, and each time greeted with the hoarse plaudits of the crowd, and at last the great effect of all — the storming of Strasburg, with appropriate scenery and appliances ; and if in the strong glare thrown by the con flagration of the city, the spectator might have discovered among the forces on the walls the painted figures of one or more Sepoys, their pre sence might have been explained by the fact, of the same scene having done duty previously as a siege of Delhi, when the appearance of the native troops was, of course, perfectly natural. " Eh, it was a grand sight, yon, thou knows !"

"SHODDY." remarked the father of little Bob as the pair trudged homewards, followed by the patient wife with the little girl. " I call this sort of thing slow, after you've seen it once or twice/' said a youth of sixteen, as he applied a fusee to a small meerschaum pipe, tipped with silver and with an amber mouthpiece ; and taking the arm of a companion, he turned into a refreshment saloon, where he called for a " brandy and-soda," and talked pleasant nonsense to the barmaid. " Look here, Tim, let's go to the Talbot and have a turn at billiards for an hour," said the other. " Not to-night," replied the first young gentle man. " Our folks have gone home, and if I am late I shall hear of it — the governor is rather cranky on early hours, you know — besides I've promised not to go to the Talbot.

Now, Mary, two brandies and a split soda." " Well, then, the Boar's Head," said the other. " It's a better table and not so far to go/' " Right you are ! and I only made the promise for the Talbot !" cried the ingenious Tim; " so, Mary, my dear, take for these liquids, and if for ever, still for ever fare thee well !" With which and other witticisms of a similar character, the two youths strolled out. " Now, sir ! if you please !" cried a park-keeper to a solitary figure seated on a bench, smoking a cigar, " time's up ; we want to close the gates." '"' All over — eh ?" lazily replied the one addressed. " All right : what time is it ?" " Past ten," said the park-keeper. " Been asleep, sir ?" " No," said the other with a half-laugh, " but I think I have been dreaming !" And he lit another cigar and turned his steps townwards.

Chapter II. Dalesford

ig?y^|T would be quite five-and-thirty years ago, i |p6 Wa when the old Saxon town of Dalesford was still an unpretentious place ; when the low-roofed cottage and the weaver's shed stood where the handsome residence or the huge factory may now be seen ; — when the little river, rippling over its shallow bed of pebbly sand, eddied round in a tiny vortex, or settled into dark pools, in which the trout might be descried placidly lying, that a stout young fellow of twenty paused on the hill overlooking the town to contemplate the view before him. He was poorly clad and travel-stained ; he had slung his boots over his arm and had been plodding on barefoot — a not uncommon plan with tramps — while a small bundle in a handkerchief, and a staff cut from an ash-plant, seemed to constitute the whole of his worldly possessions.

Leaning on his stick, and shading his eyes from the bright June sun, he looked long and earnestly at the DALESFORD. 11 quiet town at his feet. It was market-day, and the country people with their various wares passed him on their way to the town. Comely country lasses, seated on stout plough-horses, with baskets of eggs and butter, rode placidly by. ' Small carriers' carts from some adjacent village, plodded slowly on, or the better kind of farmer on his plump nag, jog-trotted by him, as he still stood gazing before him and seeming to look right away into some far-off future — some distant landscape, which hope had conjured up, and youthful fancy painted. At length his attention was roused by the tolling of a bell, and looking in the direction from which the sound came, he remarked a small building with a factory appearance about it, and one or two sheds adjoining.

A little removed, but still near enough to imply a connexion between them, was a quiet but comfortable dwelling with a small garden. It was the breakfast hour, and at the sound of the bell the " hands" — perhaps not more than twenty altogether — turned out aud hurried away in different directions. This seemed to give a new impulse to his thoughts. Turning aside to where a little spring trickled through the stones, and formed a small rivulet and pool, he washed his tired and dusty feet, and resumed his boots and stockings, and taking from his bundle some odd scraps of bread and meat, ate with a keen " SHODDY." 12 enjoyment. Then he took from his pocket an old leather bag, and having counted the few coins it contained, carefully replaced it. That done, he knocked the dust from his clothes and, making as clean an appearance as he could, descended the hill.

Passing through the mill-yard he made straight for the door of the house. A rough and ill-conditioned dog that lived in a barrel, — one that evidently smelt " poverty" and probably suspected " lar ceny," — made a fierce onslaught on the stranger ; but the voice of a hearty man, his master, some what above thirty years of age perhaps, who had been breakfasting in his shirt sleeves, called from the open doorway of the house, and asked in the rough, but kindly accents of the West Yorkshire dialect — " Eh, mate ! What's to do ?" " I want work, master," the lad said, stoutly ; " and I don't care what it is, if I can but get it !" " Where's feyther and mother, my lad ?" said the man standing in the doorway. "Dead," replied the tramp. "I've no friends, master, and I have no money ; I wont thieve and I can't beg — and there you have it."

The master of the house, leaning against the door-post, proceeded leisurely with his breakfast, cutting large wedges of bacon with a clasp-knife, on a huge slab of brown bread, casting keen glances DALESFORD. 13 at the young fellow as he did so. At last he ex claimed, as if from the inevitable conclusion to which he had been driven — " Well ! — thou'rt a bonnie devil !" And then he added, after a few seconds' pause, " You want some food, I reckon ?" " No," said the lad, " not now. Give me some thing to do first, and then something for dinner, if you like." The homely, but, withal, well-to-do master of the place, looked at the poor tramp, with something Uke respect in his blue bright eyes, and then muttering between his teeth what sounded very like an oath, either as an involuntary compliment or an expres sion of wonder, cried out to an old workman who was returning to the mill — " Here ! you Noah !

Here's a new hand ; set him to pick that ' rag' in t' old shed — dost hear ?" and with that he returned to breakfast. " What's thy name ?" said the old man, as they crossed the yard together. " My name is Matthew," replied the stranger. •' Matthy, eh ? Ah but, see thee, you don't be long to these parts, thou knows," Noah observed. " I'm on tramp," said tbe lad ; " I come from the south." " Who told you to come to Sherwin's mill ?" Noah asked. " SHODDY." 14 " Sherwin's mill ?" repeated Matthew. " Ah, this is Sherwin's mill, thou knows ; that was Job Sherwin you seed at door of t' house." By this time they had got to the shed. On the floor were several heaps of woollen and cotton fragments, carefully divided ; while in the centre was a mound of refuse rags of every description, from which arose an odour offensive and unwhole some, and which even the currents of air through the many cranks and crevices of the rudely-constructed shed could not remove.

" Sort them rags," said the old man, and so left him j and Matthew commenced his first day's work in the Shoddy trade of Yorkshire. He earned his dinner that day, and the next, and at the end of the week received his wages, as a " sorter," at the rate of six shillings ; and so the poor homeless tramp went on, and his new master had no reason to repent his bargain. Five years later, Matthew was lodging in a neat little cottage, and one evening, while digging in the garden, old Noah looked over the wall. " So, Job's made thee foreman, Matthy, eh ?" asked the old man. " Ah well, well ! I'm getting old, thou kuows, and it wur more nor I could do." Five years more to that, and there was a great stir and commotion in the mill-yard. The sheds had been cleansed and decorated with flowers and DAiLESFORD. 15 evergreens ; the unsightly refuse and the imple ments of the trade had, for the time, been removed, and long tables, formed of planks resting on trestles, and covered with clean cloths, had been substituted.

The neighbours wondered what a " 'cute chap like Job Sherwin was a-thinking on," to get married then, when the depression of trade had been the greatest; others remarked it was because Job was a "'cute chap," that he selected the time when a wealthy wife would be a material assistance, after the loss aud damage following the Chartist agitation, in the years '40 to '43. And some of the smaller class of millowners, who had collapsed after that disastrous period, and had been, in consequence, reduced to their previous position as operatives, had plenty to say on the matter; nor were they sparing of their sarcasms on Sherwin's new partner, Matthew Worsdale. But they came to the dinner in honour of Mr. Sherwin's marriage for all that, and were loud enough in their congratulations ; and when Matthew, in the absence of his senior, who had started on his wedding tour, proposed his partner's health, and took occasion to own, fairly and man fully, his own obligations to his true and valued friend and master, Job Sherwin, they all cheered lustily, and drank in turn to Matthew's honour as a self-made man.

" SHODDY." 16 And mind, reader of mine, if the abuse of good liquor leads men to quarrel and fight, as it too frequently does, the use of it also makes them forgive and shake hands ; and though the homely custom of health-drinking has passed out of fashion, and the tedious one of taking wine with one another at dinner is no more observed, depend upon it many an angry feeling has been lulled, many an inadvertent word atoned for, a doubtful understand ing set at rest, or a growing friendship confirmed, by the simple question, " A glass of wine ?" The firm of Sherwin and Worsdale continued to thrive, and their trade greatly increased, for the partners were men well adapted to each other. The more enterprising and speculative character of the senior, was restrained and disciplined by the care and watchfulness of the other.

In due time, Mat thew followed his partner's example and took a wife. The girl he chose was the bright, cheery, honest daughter of a farmer in the neighbourhood, with good sound sense behind her comely face, and an active, earnest spirit of her own, which served Matthew many times in the bewilderments of life, when the simple instincts of a true woman will often jump at once to a right conclusion, for which we may, with all our reason, toil in vain. But the wives were never intimate. Certain formal and periodical visitings were paid and en- DALESFORD. 17 dured in turn, but their characters and tempera ments were too much opposed to admit of a closer tie. Mrs. Sherwin (she was the only daughter of a banker at Leeds) was what is understood by the term " an ailing person," and was somewhat of a vacillating turn of mind.

Without the cares of a numerous family to rouse her — they had only one child, a boy with the frank face of his father, and the laziness he inherited from his mother — she gave herself up to the impressions of the hour, and adopted her political or her religious views as she chose her dress or her bonnets — with a view to novelty or effect. This frivolity of temper used to try even Job's patience, but he was a good and true fellow ; and when other men might have relieved their irritated feelings by a gust of passion, or taken refuge in a fit of dudgeon, he would order the groom to saddle the pony for his little son, and with the boy trotting by his side, he would walk briskly to some adjacent town, in the way of business ; or the two, father and son, would start for a day's fishing in some of the quiet nooks of Yorkshire, and so baffle the Evil Spirit of anger that sometimes beset him.

But he was very fond of his pretty, delicate, and tiresome wife ; and when she died, ten years later, he was nearly inconsolable for his loss. A plain granite stone — of thc best, but quite plain — marked her last. VOL. I. " SHODDY." 18 resting-place, and every Sunday after service the poor widower and his little motherless boy quietly and reverently paid a visit to the grave. But a change in the man's nature was shortly after observable. His enterprising and speculative spirit seemed to die out, and in its place was born an anxious carefulness bordering upon parsimony. All his hopes seemed to begin and to end with his son. He was to have the best education, and no luxury was denied him. Young Hopeful accepted all these concessions in a very gracious manner, and soon appeared to regard himself as one of England's young nobility.

He lorded it over the good people at home, and patronised the younger family of his father's partner with a charming absurdity. In due time he was sent to a public school of great local repute, and was then transferred to Harrow, where, thanks to a naturally robust con stitution and good abilities, he contrived to, very fairly, hold his own. Occasionally he would en deavour to domineer as of old; but it having transpired that the youth's father had made his fortune by the shoddy trade, one of the Harrow wags — and of all wags the wag of a boy's school is the most merciless— christened him " Devil's-dust ;" so young Sherwin learnt to know his place. His father soon afterwards removing to a smaller house, and one further from the town, the son's visits to DALESFORD. 19 Dalesford were more and more rare.

At such times, too, he avoided the mill and all its surroundings, and coufined his excursions to airing his gentle manhood in the market-place, or the High Street, or to the billiard-room of the hotel. But he preferred to spend his vacations in town, or at the fashionable watering-places, from whence he would write to his fond father for supplies ; and the old gentleman, with much grumbling and dismal fore boding, and with much secret pride in his tender old heart that his boy was making a figure in the world, sent off the money by return. The twenty years that had elapsed since Matthew Worsdale, tired and footsore, leaned on his staff and unconsciously contemplated his future home, had worked many changes, and, not the least, in his own fortunes. The humble factory and small sheds that had at first arrested his attention no longer existed ; but in their place a substantial, stone-built mill, and large and commodious warehouses.

As the more active partner of the firm, Matthew lived near the works, but his house was well appointed, and his garden -grounds carefully cultivated. Nothing revolutionises a place so suddenly and entirely as the introduction and development of a new and successful branch of trade. So it was with Dalesford. Its rustic associations lived only in its name, and in the memories of the old and middle- 2—2, "SHODDY." 20 aged. The thatched cottage with the wide chimney corner, and the pretty garden running down to the little brook, which gave the place half its name, had long since retired before the low-rented dwellings, " adapted for operatives," which some long-headed speculator, guided by the increasing prosperity of the town, had constructed on sanitary (and ugly) principles. No space was wasted, and a row of six bilious-looking stone, five-roomed tenements, occupied the ground previously devoted to beehives and cabbages.

The stepping stones across the stream had long since been disused, and a com modious iron bridge formed a more convenient thoroughfare for the increasing population. The little trout stream itself was now a dismal purple coloured current, exhaling the peculiar half-acid, half sweet odour of a dye-house ; while the stream from the refuse water of the several mills, that discharged itself into the inky stream, hung over it at night like misty embodiments of the twin demons, Typhus and Cholera. The pure bracing air inhaled on the Yorkshire hills by the traveller, whose business — for it never would be in the pursuit of pleasure that he would visit Dalesford nowadays — led him to the busy town, was perceptibly changed as he descended into the valley. A strange warm odour, in which the sickly smell of very old clothes and of train-oil, appeared DALESFORD. 21 to contend for the predominance, became more and more prevalent, as he proceeded.

He would also be conscious presently of breathing an impalpable dust, which found its way into his ears and eyes, up his nostrils, amongst his hair, and on his face and hands. Half an hour's stay in the town, and the dirt would have visibly accumulated. Many of the residents of the place appeared as though their skins had been thoroughly impregnated with it, and their countenances seemed to have acquired a con firmed greasy and grimy complexion. Yet the townsfolk throve well; they married, and were given in marriage, and humble young Dalesford, out of number, was born and struggled on through a tempestuous infancy and assertive childhood to a robust youth and muscular maturity ; and having matriculated in their Shoddy Univer sity as " Piercers" or " Servers," graduated as " Grinders" or " Fullers," until they were duly qualified to take orders as " Slubbers" or " Finishers," or, better still, could start in life as manufacturers themselves, with an estate in Rags and a fortune in Refuse.

The spirit of change which had influenced the later years of Mr. Sherwin was observable also in his partner, Matthew — but with this difference : that as the senior member of the firm had become more and more careful and penurious, the other " SHODDY." one's views seemed to be broadening and extending. He had already filled several public positions of eminence with skill and address; for the man's shrewd sense and naturally quick wits supplied in a very great degree the deficiencies in his education. Never relaxing a jot in his industry, and with an unimpeachable character for integrity, he had pro bably ambitious views of one kind or another, though they might be less for himself than for his young family. After the death of the good and true woman, who had been his helpmate and skilful adviser through good and bad times, he removed with his family to another and a larger residence.

He used to account for this by saying the old place was too full of painful associations; but some of those who knew him best — though he belonged to that class of men who are not easily read or soon learnt — implied that he had other reasons, and that a love of ostentation, which his wife had held in check while she lived, had as much to do with it as any thing else. However, like his friend and partner, Matthew seemed to feel his loss deeply, though it might perhaps be in a different sort of way. It was a splendid funeral : so much so, that the resident undertaker had to call in the assistance of a brother in the trade, who did business at Leeds, before the DALESFORD. 23 requirements of the bereaved widower could be met. The mill stopped work that day, and several of the shops were closed ; probably the latter might really have been the sincere homage of respect for one who was generally esteemed and beloved.