The American Fugitive in Europe/Chapter 22
CHAPTER XXII.
"Proud pile! that rearest thy hoary head,
In ruin vast, in silence dread,
O'er Tenue's luxuriant vale,
Thy moss-grown halls, thy precincts drear,
To musing Fancy's pensive ear
Unfold a varied tale."
It was in the latter part of December, and on one of the coldest nights that I have experienced, that I found myself seated before the fire, and alone, in the principal hotel in the town of Ludlow, and within a few minutes' walk of the famous old castle from which the town derives its name. A ride of one hundred and fifty miles by rail, in such uncomfortable carriages as no country except Great Britain furnishes for the weary traveller, and twenty miles on the top of a coach, in a drenching rain, caused me to remain by the fire's side to a later hour than I otherwise would have done. "Did you ring, sir?" asked the waiter, as the clock struck twelve. "No," I replied; but I felt that this was the servant's mode of informing me that it was time for me to retire to bed, and consequently I asked for a candle, and was shown to my chamber, and was soon in bed. From the weight of the covering on the bed, I felt sure that the extra blanket which I had requested to be put on was there: yet I was shivering with cold. As the sheets began to get warm, I discovered, to my astonishment, that they were damp; indeed, wet. My first thought was to ring the bell for the chambermaid, and have them changed; but, after a moment's consideration, I resolved to adopt a different course. I got out of bed, pulled the sheets off, rolled them up, raised the window, and threw them into the street. After disposing of the wet sheets, I returned to bed and got in between the blankets, and lay there trembling with cold till Morpheus came to my relief. The next morning I said nothing about the uncomfortable night I had experienced, and determined to leave it until they discovered the loss of the sheets. As soon as I had breakfasted, I went out to view the castle. For many years this was one of the strongest baronial fortifications in England. It was from Ludlow Castle that Edward, Prince of Wales, and his brother, were taken to London and put to death in the Tower, by order of their uncle, Richard III., before that villain seized upon the crown. The family of Mortimer for centuries held the castle, and, consequently, ruled Herefordshire. The castle rises from the point of a headland, and its foundations are ingrafted into a bare gray rock. The front consists of square towers, with high connecting walls. The castle is a complete ruin, and has been for centuries; large trees are still growing in the midst of the old pile, which give it a picturesque appearance. It was here that the exquisite effusion of the youthful genius of Milton—The Masque of Comus—was composed, and performed before His Majesty Charles I., in 1631. Little did the king think that the poet would one day be secretary to the man who should put him to death and rule his kingdom. Although a ruin, this fact is enough to excite interest, and to cause one to venerate the old building, and to do homage to the memory of the divine poet who hallowed it with his immortal strains. From a visitor's book that is kept at the gate-house, I copied the following verses:
"Here Milton sung; what needs a greater spell
To lure thee, stranger, to these far-famed walls?
Though chroniclers of other ages tell
That princes oft have graced fair Ludlow's halls,
Their honors glide along oblivion's stream,
And o'er the wreck a tide of ruin drives;
Faint and more faint the rays of glory beam
That gild their course—the bard alone survives.
And, when the rude, unceasing shocks of Time
In one vast heap shall whelm this lofty pile,
Still shall his genius, towering and sublime,
Triumphant o'er the spoils of grandeur smile;
Still in these haunts, true to a nation's tongue,
Echo shall love to dwell, and say, Here, Milton sung."
I lingered long in the room pointed out to me as the one in which Milton wrote his "Comus." The castle was not only visited by the author of "Paradise Lost," but here, amidst the noise and bustle of civil dissensions, Samuel Butler, the satirical author of "Hudibras," found an asylum. The part of the tower in which it is said he composed his "Hudibras" was shown to us. In looking over the different apartments, we passed through a cell with only one small window through which the light found its way. On a stone, chiselled with great beauty, was a figure in a weeping position, and underneath it some one had written with pencil, in a legible hand:
"The Muse, too, weeps; in hallowed hour
Here sacred Milton owned her power,
And woke to nobler song."
The weather was exceedingly cold, and made more so by the stone walls partly covered with snow and frost around us; and I returned to the inn. It being near the time for me to leave by the coach for Hereford, I called for my bill. The servant went out of the room; but soon returned, and began stirring up the fire with the poker. I again told him that the coach would shortly be up, and that I wanted my bill. "Yes, sir, in a moment,"' he replied, and left in haste. Ten or fifteen minutes passed away, and the servant once more came in, walked to the window, pulled up the blinds, and then went out. I saw that something was in the wind; and it occurred to me that they had discovered the loss of the sheets. The waiter soon returned again, and, in rather an agitated manner, said, "I beg your pardon, sir, but the landlady is in the hall, and would like to speak to you." Out I went, and found the finest specimen of an English landlady that I had seen for many a day. There she stood, nearly as thick as she was high, with a red face, garnished around with curls, that seemed to say, "I have just been brushed and oiled." A neat apron covered a black alpacca dress that swept the ground with modesty, and a bunch of keys hung at her side. O, that smile! such a smile as none but a woman who had often been before a mirror could put on. However, I had studied human nature too successfully not to know that thunder and lightning were concealed under that smile; and I nerved myself up for the occasion. "I am sorry to have to name it, sir," said she, "but the sheets are missing off your bed." "O, yes," I replied; "I took them off last night." Indeed!" exclaimed she; "and pray what have you done with them?" "I threw them out of the window," said I. "What! into the street?" "Yes, into the street," I said. "What did you do that for?" "They were wet; and I was afraid that if I left them in the room they would be put on at night, and give somebody else a cold." And here I coughed with all my might to remind her that I had suffered from the negligence of her chambermaid. The heaving of the chest and panting for breath which the lady was experiencing at this juncture told me plainly that an explosion was at hand; and the piercing glance of those wicked-looking black eyes, and the rapid changes that came over that never-to-be-forgotten face, were enough to cause the most love-sick man in the world to give up all ideas of matrimony, and to be contented with being his own master. "Then, sir," said the landlady, "you will have to pay for the sheets." "O, yes," replied I; "I will pay for them; put them in the bill, and I will send the bill to The Times, and have it published, and let the travelling public know how much you charge for wet sheets!" and I turned upon my heel and walked into the room.
A few minutes after, the servant came in and laid before me the bill. I looked, but in vain, to see how much I had been charged for my hasty indiscretion the previous night. No mention was made of the sheets; and I paid the bill as it stood. The blowing of the coachman's horn warned me that I must get ready; and I put on my top coat. As I was passing through the hall, there stood the landlady just where I had left her, looking as if she had not stirred a single peg. And that smile, that had often cheered or carried consternation to many a poor heart, was still to be seen. I would rather have gone without my dinner than to have looked her in the face, such is my timidity. But common courtesy demanded that I should at least nod as I passed by; and therefore I was thrown back upon my manners, and unconsciously found myself giving her one of my best bows. Whether this bow was the result of my early training, while in slavery, the domestic discipline that I afterwards experienced in freedom, or the terror with which every nerve was shaken on first meeting the landlady, I am still unaware. However, the bow was made and the ice broken, and the landlady smilingly said, "You do not know, sir, how much I am grieved at your being put to so much trouble last night, with those wet sheets; it was all the fault of the chambermaid, and I have given her warning, and shall dismiss her a month from to-day. And I do hope, sir, that if you should ever mention this circumstance you will not name the house in which it occurred." How could I do otherwise than to acquiesce in her wishes? Yes, I promised that I would never name the inn at which I had caught the rheumatism; and, therefore, reader, you may ask me, but in vain,—I will not tell you. One more bow, and out I went, and mounted the coach. As the driver was pulling up his reins, and raising his whip in the air, I turned to take a farewell glance of the inn, when, to my surprise, I beheld the landlady at the door with a white handkerchief in her hand, and a countenance beaming with smiles that I still see in my mind's eye. I raised my hat, she nodded, and away went the coach. Although the ride was a cold and dreary one, I often caught myself smiling over the fright in which I had put the landlady by threatening to publish her house. After a fatiguing stage twenty miles or more, over a bad road, we reached Hereford, a small city, situated in a fertile plain, bounded on all sides with orchards, and watered by the translucent Wye. I spent the greater part of the next day in seeing the lions of the little city. I first visited, what most strangers do, the cathedral; a building partly Gothic and partly Saxon in its architecture, the interior of which is handsome, and contains an excellent organ, a piece of furniture that often calls more hearers to a place of worship than the preacher. In passing through the cathedral I stood a moment or two over the grave of the poet Phillips, the author of the "Splendid Shilling," "Cider," etc. While in the library the verger showed me a manuscript Bible of Wickliffe's, the first in use, written on vellum in the old black letter, full of abbreviations. He also pointed out some Latin manuscripts, in various parts beautifully illuminated with most ingenious penmanship, the coloring of the figures very bright. After all, there is a degree of pleasure in handling these old and laid-aside books. Hereford is noted for having been the birth-place of several distinguished persons. I was shown the house in which David Garrick was born. From Hereford he was removed to Litchfield and became the pupil of Dr. Johnson, and eventually both master and pupil went to London in search of bread; one became famous as an actor, the other noted as surly Sam Johnson. An obscure cottage in Pipe-lane was pointed out as the birthplace of the celebrated Nell Gwynne, who first appeared in London in the pit of Drury-lane Theatre as an apple-girl, and afterwards became an actress, in which position she was seen by King Charles II., who took her to his bed and board, and created her Duchess of St. Albans. However, she had many crooked paths to trend, after becoming an actress, before she captivated the heart of the Merry Monarch. The following story of her life, told by herself, is too good to be lost; so I insert it here.
"When I was a poor girl," said the Duchess of St. Albans, "working very hard for my thirty shillings a week, I went down to Liverpool during the holidays, where I was always well received. I was to perform in a new piece, something like those pretty little affecting dramas they get up now at our minor theatres; and in my character I represented a poor, friendless orphan-girl, reduced to the most wretched poverty. A heartless tradesman prosecutes the sad heroine for a heavy debt, and insists on putting her in prison, unless some one will be bail for her. The girl replies, "Then I have no hope; I have not a friend in the world." "What! will no one be bail for you, to save you from going to prison?" asks the stern creditor. "I have told you I have not a friend on earth," was the reply. But just as I was uttering the words, I saw a sailor in the upper gallery springing over the railing, letting himself down from one tier to another, until he bounded clear over the orchestra and footlights, and placed himself beside me in a moment. 'Yes, you shall have one friend at least, my poor young woman,' said he, with the greatest expression in his honest, sunburnt countenance: 'I will go bail for you to any amount. And as for you,'turning to the frightened actor, 'if you don't bear a band and shift your moorings, you lubber, it will be worse for you when I come athwart your bows!' Every creature in the house rose: the uproar was indescribable—peals of laughter, screams of terror, cheers from his tawny messmates in the gallery, preparatory scrapings of violins from the orchestra; and, amidst the universal din, there stood the unconscious cause of it, sheltering me, 'the poor, distressed young woman,' and breathing defiance and destruction against my mimic persecutor. He was only persuaded to relinquish his care of me, by the manager pretending to arrive and rescue me, with a profusion of theatrical bank-notes."
Hereford was also the birthplace of Mrs. Siddons, the unequalled tragic actress. The views around Hereford are very sylvan, and from some points, where the Welsh mountain are discernible, present something of the magnificent. All this part of the country still shows unmistakable evidence that war has had its day here. In those times the arts and education received no encouragement. The destructive exploits of conquerors may dazzle for a while, but the silent labors of the student and the artist, of the architect and the husbandman, which embellish the earth, and convert it into a terrestrial paradise, although they do not shine with so conspicuous a glare, diversify the picture with milder colors and more beautiful shades.