Hannah More (British edition 1888)/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
THE MENDIP MINING DISTRICTS.
On her return from London, Hannah found Cheddar in a satisfactory state; Mrs. Baker had proved herself equal to managing the school all the winter, as well as to conducting what would now be called a Bible Class for the elders, which had received clerical sanction, and was doing great good.
This encouraged the two sisters so much that they ventured to take in hand Shipham and Rowborrow, two neighbouring villages on the top of the Mendips, whose inhabitants were even more savage and deplorable than those of Cheddar, brutal in manners, and so ferocious that they were almost beyond the law, since anyone who durst arrest an inhabitant was sure, before long, to disappear. It was a hundred years since the vicarage had been inhabited, and the actual incumbent, who was ninety-four years of age, had held the living for fifty of them, but had never preached a sermon there for forty. There was a worthy curate, but so poor that he was held in contempt by the rude flock.
Hannah applied for a lease of the Vicarage, and obtained it; also that the place should be put in repair at the vicar's expense.
To find teachers was the next great difficulty. Her plan was to have a mistress to teach the poorest reading and work, together with a master for the Sunday-school and for the farmers' children. But no one was trained, and the only chance was to get persons of the small amount of education required, with devout spirits and some power of discipline, and form them to the work. Happily, when "teaching their own governesses," the Misses More had acquired some experience of this unusual and needful kind; and Mrs. Baker, of Cheddar, seems, like Mary More herself, to have been one of the women formed by nature for school government.
There was reported to exist a young woman, daughter to a farmer, and busied with the hard toil of a dairy in a cheese-making country, who had nevertheless formed a little Sunday-school of thirty children, buying them books and gingerbread as rewards out of her own small pittance. Hannah and Patty mounted their horses and went off to see her. They found her able to read and write fairly well, religious, good, and zealous, and with a fair knowledge of Scripture. This was all that could be hoped for in a village school-mistress, and as she spoke warmly of her halfsister, who was at service some miles off, the two, Patience Seward and Flower Waite, were engaged as mistresses of a girls'-school in the old vicarage for Rowborrow and Shipham, and readily imbibed instruction in the Misses Mores' system and manner of teaching. Two men were also found to teach the boys.
Congresbury was next taken in hand. Of this, apparently, Hannah writes: "This hot weather makes me suffer terribly; yet I have now and then a good day, and on Sunday was enabled to open the school. It was an affecting sight. Several of the grown-up youths had been tried at the last assizes; three were the children of a person lately condemned to be hanged, many thieves, all ignorant, profane, and vicious beyond belief. Of this banditti we have enlisted one hundred and seventy; and when the clergyman, a hard man, who is also the magistrate, saw these creatures kneeling round us, whom he had seldom seen but to commit or punish in some way, he burst into tears. I can do them little good, I fear, but the grace of God can do all. . . . Have you never found your mind, when it has been weak, now and then touched and raised by some little incident? Some musical gentlemen, drawn from a distance by curiosity, just as I was coming out of church with my ragged regiment, much depressed to think how little good I could do them, quite unexpectedly struck up that beautiful and animating anthem, "Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me.'"
Then followed Yatton, where the curate was hearty in his assistance, and "that phenomenon, a pious farmer," brought them seven fine boys, all able to say the Catechism. There were three more at home, but before many months were over, the mother died; and on the ladies' next visit, they met the father at church carrying a young infant, and followed by all the other ten.
Cheddar had reached a second stage, though the spinning plan did not flourish, in spite of three sorts having been tried, and Miss More having gone herself to almost every clothing town in the county. Knitting was preferred for the supply of the stocking-dealers at Axbridge. Wages being only six shillings a week, a women's clothing club at three half-pence per week was found an immense benefit. There was an annual feast at the distribution of the garments bought by the subscriptions, a service, a sermon, and a tea, when a kind of journal of the past year was read, mentioning attendance at church, and whether there was less or more fraud, bad language, scolding, or sabbath-breaking. The club served further for a sick fund, and when a girl of good character married, she received from it five shillings, a pair of white stockings, and a Bible.
The same plan was carried out in each of the other places as they became ripe for it, and more became added to the list. This year, 1790, was the first for twenty-four that Hannah did not make her usual sojourn in London, being too much engrossed with her work to go farther than Bath. Even when not visiting the schools, she had enough to do in writing text-books for them, and in trying to train the teachers, sometimes successfully, sometimes in vain, for some turned out slack and hopelessly inefficient, while the misguided zeal of others was to cause her much trouble.
Good Mrs. Baker was a tower of strength, and Cheddar became a sort of normal school. Also the old vicar of Shipham died, and his successor, Mr. Jones, was no absentee, but a hearty and zealous worker.
Axbridge was the next place attempted. It was a small stocking-making town, with a corporation very poor, yet so luxurious as never to admit a plain joint of meat at its civic banquets. The fighting vicar, however, was civil to the ladies, and sanctioned their labours. Nor did the corporation reject them; so that they were able to begin with a hundred poor little dirty, half-starved creatures. A new and promising curate, Mr. Boake, was appointed to Cheddar, and began the custom of catechising the children in church, but he lived in Axbridge, so little was the need of residence understood.
A still more arduous undertaking lay before the undaunted Britomart and Belphœbe. Nailsea then lay in the midst of a thicket, and had a glass factory, as well as collieries which attracted many of the worst characters in the country; but, like the publicans and sinners of old, they proved the most amenable, and especially eager to secure a place for the schools. A Mr. and Mrs. Young were found for the school, and the experiences here were quite unlike those of the other places.
"The colliers are abundantly more human than the people of the glass houses. The work there is irregular, and the furnaces cannot be allowed to cool, so that the Sunday brings no rest. The wages high, the eating and drinking luxurious, the body scarcely covered, but fed with dainties of a shameful description. The high buildings of the glass houses ranged before the doors of these cottages—the great furnaces roaring—the swearing, eating, and drinking of these half-dressed, black-looking human beings, gave it a most infernal and horrible appearance. One, if not two joints of the finest meat were roasting in each of these little hot kitchens, pots of ale standing about, and plenty of early delicate vegetables.
"We had a gentleman with us who, being rather personally fearful, left us to pursue our own devices, which we did by calling and haranguing every separate family. We were in our usual luck as regards personal civility, which we received even from the worst of these creatures, some welcoming us to Botany Bay, others to Little Hell, as they themselves shockingly called it."
Gradually the work extended over an area of fifteen miles, and finally of twenty-eight, so that the summer Sundays of Hannah and Patty were like those of a modern Colonial clergyman during the thirty most active years of their lives. They generally rode, on account of the bad roads, to one or other of their villages in regular rotation to assist in the teaching, keep everything up to the mark, and go with the children to church, where such of the clergy as had been stirred by their efforts catechised the children. Sometimes they slept in the village and assisted at the evening meeting of the elders for instruction. There was one place, indeed, where this could not be kept up for want of someone who could read!
In July was held what was called the Mendip Feast, when a dinner of beef and plum pudding was given to the children from all the schools. Here is a description of one of these occasions:—
"The clergy of most of the parishes attended and led the procession. A baud of rustic music, a tribute of gratitude from all the neighbouring villages, stepped forward and preceded the whole, playing 'God save the King.' We followed the clergy, then Ma'am Baker, and her two hundred Cheddarites, and so on, the procession ending with Nailsea, the girls having fine nosegays, and the boys carrying white rods in their hands, the gentlemen and ladies weeping as though we had exhibited a deep tragedy, though the pleasing idea of the hungry going to be fed, I believe, caused these tears, rather those of joy than of sorrow.
"At the entrance of our circle the music withdrew, and the children then struck up their psalms and hymns. All were then seated in circles, fifteen completing the whole. The effect was really very interesting. When all were served, they arose, and each pastor stepping into the midst, prayed for his blessing on his own flock; and this part of the ceremony they did well. Examinations, singing, &c. took place. At length every voice on the hill was permitted, nay invited, to join in one general chorus of "God save the King." This is the only pleasure in the form of a song we ever allow. Instantaneously the children, their masters and mistresses, keeping their eyes on the clergy and ourselves, fell into the procession as at the beginning, walked to the place where we first met, and every school marched off to their several districts, singing Hallelujahs till they sank into the valley, and their voices could no more be heard. At this moment every heart seemed softened and subdued, and many eyes shed tears.
"Seven or eight thousand people attended, and behaved as quietly as the sheep that grazed around us. Thus did this day open to us much matter for reflection. Farmers and their wives mixed with their own poor and rode in the same conveyances, their own waggons. The clergy headed this ragged procession with hats in their hands. Seven thousand people showed us they could be quiet on a day of merriment, not to say innocent. Upwards of nine hundred children were well fed as a reward for a year's labour, and that labour learning the Bible. The meeting took its rise from religious institutions. The day passed in the exercise of duties, and closed with joy. Nothing of a gay nature was introduced, but loyalty to the king, and this never interfered with higher duties to the King of Kings. The examinations were in the repetition of the Bible, Catechism, and Psalms, when the children received prizes according to their proficiency. Either then, or at the annual school feasts, brides of good character were presented with a Bible, a pair of stockings, and five shillings, almost a fortune, when a spinning-wheel cost four-and-six pence."
The repudiation of anything gayer than the National Anthem strikes us as strange, but the time had not yet come when the people could safely be taught to play. There was scarcely an innocent popular song in existence, simple enough for their understandings, and unconnected with evil, and the children and their parents were still too utterly rough and uncivilized to make it safe to relax the bonds of restraint for a moment.
As John Newton playfully wrote after staying at Cowslip Green, and making the round of the schools:—
In Helicon could I my pen dip,
I would attempt the praise of Mendip;
Were bards a hundred I'd outstrip 'em.
If equal to the theme of Shipham;
But harder still the task, I ween,
To give its due to Cowslip Green