Sybil, Or, The Two Nations
Page 9
The situation of the rural town of Marney was one of the most delightfuleasily to be imagined. In a spreading dale, contiguous to the margin ofa clear and lively stream, surrounded by meadows and gardens, and backedby lofty hills, undulating and richly wooded, the traveller on theopposite heights of the dale would often stop to admire the merryprospect, that recalled to him the traditional epithet of his country.
Beautiful illusion! For behind that laughing landscape, penury anddisease fed upon the vitals of a miserable population!
The contrast between the interior of the town and its external aspect,was as striking as it was full of pain. With the exception of the dullhigh street, which had the usual characteristics of a small agriculturalmarket town, some sombre mansions, a dingy inn, and a petty bourse,Marney mainly consisted of a variety of narrow and crowded lanes formedby cottages built of rubble, or unhewn stones without cement, and fromage, or badness of the material, looking as if they could scarcely holdtogether. The gaping chinks admitted every blast; the leaning chimneyshad lost half their original height; the rotten rafters were evidentlymisplaced; while in many instances the thatch, yawning in some partsto admit the wind and wet, and in all utterly unfit for its originalpurpose of giving protection from the weather, looked more like the topof a dunghill than a cottage. Before the doors of these dwellings, andoften surrounding them, ran open drains full of animal and vegetablerefuse, decomposing into disease, or sometimes in their imperfect coursefilling foul pits or spreading into stagnant pools, while a concentratedsolution of every species of dissolving filth was allowed to soakthrough and thoroughly impregnate the walls and ground adjoining.
These wretched tenements seldom consisted of more than two rooms, inone of which the whole family, however numerous, were obliged tosleep, without distinction of age, or sex, or suffering. With the waterstreaming down the walls, the light distinguished through the roof, withno hearth even in winter, the virtuous mother in the sacred pangs ofchildbirth, gives forth another victim to our thoughtless civilizationsurrounded by three generations whose inevitable presence is morepainful than her sufferings in that hour of travail; while the father ofher coming child, in another corner of the sordid chamber, lies strickenby that typhus which his contaminating dwelling has breathed into hisveins, and for whose next prey is perhaps destined, his new-born child.These swarming walls had neither windows nor doors sufficient to keepout the weather, or admit the sun or supply the means of ventilationthe humid and putrid roof of thatch exhaling malaria like all otherdecaying vegetable matter. The dwelling rooms were neither boardednor paved; and whether it were that some were situate in low and dampplaces, occasionally flooded by the river, and usually much below thelevel of the road; or that the springs, as was often the case, wouldburst through the mud floor; the ground was at no time better than somuch clay, while sometimes you might see little channels cut fromthe centre under the doorways to carry off the water, the door itselfremoved from its hinges: a resting place for infancy in its delugedhome. These hovels were in many instances not provided with thecommonest conveniences of the rudest police; contiguous to everydoor might be observed the dung-heap on which every kind of filth wasaccumulated, for the purpose of being disposed of for manure, so that,when the poor man opened his narrow habitation in the hope of refreshingit with the breeze of summer, he was met with a mixture of gases fromreeking dunghills.
This town of Marney was a metropolis of agricultural labour, for theproprietors of the neighbourhood having for the last half century actedon the system of destroying the cottages on their estates, in order tobecome exempted from the maintenance of the population, the expelledpeople had flocked to Marney, where, during the war, a manufactory hadafforded them some relief, though its wheels had long ceased to disturbthe waters of the Mar.
Deprived of this resource, they had again gradually spread themselvesover that land which had as it were rejected them; and obtained fromits churlish breast a niggardly subsistence. Their re-entrance intothe surrounding parishes was viewed with great suspicion their renewedsettlement opposed by every ingenious contrivance; those who availedthemselves of their labour were careful that they should not becomedwellers on the soil; and though, from the excessive competition, therewere few districts in the kingdom where the rate of wages was moredepressed, those who were fortunate enough to obtain the scantremuneration, had, in addition to their toil, to endure each morn andeven a weary journey before they could reach the scene of their labour,or return to the squalid hovel which profaned the name of home. To thathome, over which Malaria hovered, and round whose shivering hearth wereclustered other guests besides the exhausted family of toil--Fever,in every form, pale Consumption, exhausting Synochus, and tremblingAgue,--returned after cultivating the broad fields of merry England thebold British peasant, returned to encounter the worst of diseases witha frame the least qualified to oppose them; a frame that subdued by toilwas never sustained by animal food; drenched by the tempest could notchange its dripping rags; and was indebted for its scanty fuel to thewindfalls of the woods.
The eyes of this unhappy race might have been raised to the solitaryspire that sprang up in the midst of them, the bearer of presentconsolation, the harbinger of future equality; but Holy Church at Marneyhad forgotten her sacred mission. We have introduced the reader to thevicar, an orderly man who deemed he did his duty if he preachedeach week two sermons, and enforced humility on his congregation andgratitude for the blessings of this life. The high Street and someneighbouring gentry were the staple of his hearers. Lord and Lady Marneycame, attended by Captain Grouse, every Sunday morning with commendableregularity, and were ushered into the invisible interior of a vast pew,that occupied half of the gallery, was lined with crimson damask, andfurnished with easy chairs, and, for those who chose them, well-paddedstools of prayer. The people of Marney took refuge in conventicles,which abounded; little plain buildings of pale brick with the namespainted on them, of Sion, Bethel, Bethesda: names of a distant land,and the language of a persecuted and ancient race: yet, such is themysterious power of their divine quality, breathing consolation in thenineteenth century to the harassed forms and the harrowed souls of aSaxon peasantry.
But however devoted to his flock might have been the Vicar of Marney,his exertions for their well being, under any circumstances, must havebeen mainly limited to spiritual consolation. Married and a father hereceived for his labours the small tithes of the parish, which securedto him an income by no means equal to that of a superior banker's clerk,or the cook of a great loanmonger. The great tithes of Marney, whichmight be counted by thousands, swelled the vast rental which was drawnfrom this district by the fortunate earls that bore its name.
The morning after the arrival of Egremont at the Abbey, an unusualstir might have been observed in the high Street of the town. Roundthe portico of the Green Dragon hotel and commercial inn, a knot ofprincipal personages, the chief lawyer, the brewer, the vicar himself,and several of those easy quidnuncs who abound in country towns, and whorank under the designation of retired gentlemen, were in close and veryearnest converse. In a short time a servant on horseback in the Abbeylivery galloped up to the portico, and delivered a letter to the vicar.The excitement apparently had now greatly increased. On the oppositeside of the way to the important group, a knot, larger in numbersbut very deficient in quality, had formed themselves, and remainedtransfixed with gaping mouths and a Curious not to say alarmed air. Thehead constable walked up to the door of the Green Dragon, and thoughhe did not presume to join the principal group, was evidently inattendance, if required. The clock struck eleven; a cart had stopped towatch events, and a gentleman's coachman riding home with a led horse.
"Here they are!" said the brewer.
"Lord Marney himself," said the lawyer.
"And Sir Vavasour Firebrace, I declare. I wonder how he came here," saida retired gentleman, who had been a tallow-chandler on Holborn Hill.
The vicar took off his hat, and all uncovered. Lord Marney and hisbrother magis
trate rode briskly up to the inn and rapidly dismounted.
"Well, Snigford," said his lordship, in a peremptory tone, "this is apretty business; I'll have this stopped directly."
Fortunate man if he succeed in doing so! The torch of the incendiary hadfor the first time been introduced into the parish of Marney; and lastnight the primest stacks of the Abbey farm had blazed a beacon to theagitated neighbourhood.
Book 2 Chapter 4