All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography

Never since that morning have I been more keenly alive in every sense and more ready for every event that might come; the first of which was the meeting and passing of three great wains loaded high with wheat, and going to a squire’s manor, whose name I have forgotten. There were some very piquant words passed between the drivers about the coach going a bit to the wrong side. On the top of the three wagons about a dozen men were lying at their ease singing the prettiest harvest song I ever heard, but I only caught three lines of it. They went to a joyful melody thus:

“Blest be the day Christ was born!We’ve gotten in the Squire’s corn,Well bound, and better shorn.Hip! Hip! Hurrah!”

But as they sang the dispute between the drivers was growing less and less friendly, and the driver of the coach whipped up his horses, and took all the road he wanted, and went onward at such a rattling pace as soon left Shipley forever behind me.

CHAPTER III

WHERE DRUIDS AND GIANTS DWELT

“… upon the silent shoreOf memory, we find images and precious thoughts,That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.”

I was greatly delighted with Penrith. It was such a complete change from Shipley, and youth is always sure that change must mean something better. In the first place the town was beautiful, and generally built of the new red sandstone on which it stands; but our house was white, being I think of a rough stucco, and it stood on one of the pleasantest streets in the town, the one leading up to the Beacon. Its rooms appeared very large to me then; perhaps I might not think so highly of them now. Its door opened directly into the living-room, and it was always such a joy to open it, and step out of the snow or rain into a room full of love and comfort. Since those days I have liked well the old English houses where the front door opens directly into the living-room. Ten or twelve years ago a lady built in Cornwall-on-Hudson a handsome house having this peculiarity, and I often went to see her, enjoying every time that one step from all out doors, into the sweet home influence beyond it.

The sound of the loom and the shuttle were never heard in the broad still streets of Penrith. Business was a thing rather pushed into a corner, for Penrith was aristocratic, and always had been. The great earls of Lonsdale lent it their prestige, and circling it were some of the castles and seats of the most famous nobility. It had been often sacked, and had many royal associations. Richard the Third had dwelt in its castle when the Duke of Gloucester, and Henry the Eighth’s last wife, Catherine Parr, came from Kendal. The castle itself had been built by Edward the Third, and destroyed by Cromwell. All these and many more such incidents I heard the first day of my residence in the town from a young girl we had hired for the kitchen, and she mingled with these facts the Fairy Cup of Eden Hall, and the great Lord Brougham, Long Meg and her daughters, and the giant’s grave in Penrith churchyard; and I felt as if I had stepped into some enchanted city.

Up to this time I had never been to what I called a proper school. The dame’s school at Shipley I had far outstepped, and I was so eager to learn, that I wished to begin every study at once. There were two good schools in Penrith, one kept by a Miss Pearson, and the other by a man whose name I have forgotten. I wanted to go to Miss Pearson. She had the most select and expensive school. The man’s school was said to be more strict and thorough, and much less expensive; but there was a positive prejudice against boys and girls being taught together. I could tell from the chatter of the girl in the kitchen, that it was looked down upon, and considered vulgar by the best people. I was anxious about the result. Jane and I whispered our fears to each other, but we did not dare to express any opinion to our parents. At last I talked feelingly to Ann Oddy about the situation, and was glad to find her most decidedly on our side.

“I am for the woman,” she said straight out, “and I shall tell the Master so plainly. What does that man know about trembling shy little girls?” she asked indignantly, “and I’ve heard,” she continued, “that he uses the leather strap on their little hands – even when they are trying to do the best they know how. His own children look as if they got plenty of ‘strap.’ I’ve told your mother what I think of him.”

“What did Mother say, Ann?” we eagerly asked.

“She said such a man as that would never do. So I went on – ‘Mrs. Huddleston, our society wouldn’t like it. He teaches girls to write a big, round man’s hand. You may see it yourself, Mrs. Huddleston, if you’ll lift his letter to you – good enough for keeping count of what money is owing you, but for young ladies, I say it isn’t right – and his manners! if he has any, won’t be fit to be seen, and you know, Mrs. Huddleston, how men talk, he won’t be fit to be heard at times; at any rate that is the case with most men – except Mr. Huddleston.’”

With such words Ann reasoned, and if I remembered the very words used it would be only natural, for I heard them morning, noon and night, until Mother went to see Miss Pearson, and came home charmed with her fine manners and method of teaching. Then our dress had to be prepared, and I shall never forget it; for girls did not get so many dresses then as they do now, and I was delighted with the blue Saxony cloth that was my first school dress. Dresses were all of one piece then, and were made low with short baby sleeves, but a pelerine was made with the dress, which was really an over-waist with two little capes over the shoulders. My shoes were low and black, and had very pretty steel buckles; my bonnet, a cottage one of coarse Dunstable straw. It had a dark blue ribbon crossed over it, and a blue silk curtain behind, and some blue silk ribbon plaited just within the brim, a Red Riding Hood cloak and French pattens for wet weather completed my school costume, and I was very proud of it. Yet it is a miracle to me at this day, how the children of that time lived through the desperate weather, deep snows and bitter cold, in such insufficient clothing. I suppose it was the survival of the fittest.

My first school day was one of the greatest importance to me. I have not forgotten one incident in all its happy hours. I fell in love with Miss Pearson as soon as I saw her; yes, I really loved the woman, and I love her yet. She was tall and handsome, and had her abundant black hair dressed in a real bow knot on the top of her head; and falling in thick soft curls on her temples, and partly down her cheeks. An exceedingly large shell comb kept it in place. Her dress was dark, and she wore a large falling collar finely embroidered and trimmed with deep lace, and round her neck a long gold chain. She came smiling to meet us, and as soon as the whole school was gathered in front of the large table at which she sat, she rose and said,

“Young ladies, you have two new companions. I ask for them your kindness – Jane and Amelia Huddleston. Rise.”

Then the whole school rose and curtsied to us, and as well as we were able, we returned the compliment. As soon as we were seated again, Miss Pearson produced a large book, and as she unclasped it, said,

“Miss Huddleston will come here.”

Every eye was turned on Jane, who, however, rose at once and went to Miss Pearson’s table. Then Miss Pearson read aloud something like the following words, for I have forgotten the exact form, though the promises contained in it have never been forgotten.

“I promise to be kind and helpful to all my schoolmates.

“I promise to speak the truth always.

“I promise to be honorable about the learning and repeating of my lessons.

“I promise to tell no malicious tales of any one.

“I promise to be ladylike in my speech and manners.

“I promise to treat all my teachers with respect and obedience.”

These obligations were read aloud to Jane and she was asked if she agreed to keep them. Jane said she would keep them all, and she was then required to sign her name to the formula in the book, which she did very badly. When my turn came, I asked Miss Pearson to sign it for me. She did so, and then called up two girls as witnesses. This formality made a great impression on me, the more so, as Miss Pearson in a steady positive voice said, as she emphatically closed the book, “The first breaking of any of these promises may perhaps be forgiven, for the second fault there is no excuse – the girl will be dismissed from the school.”

I was in this school three years and never saw one dismissed. The promise with the little formalities attending it had a powerful effect on my mind, and doubtless it influenced every girl in the same way.

After my examination it was decided that writing was the study to be first attended to. I was glad of this decision, for I longed to write, but I was a little dashed when I was taken to a long table running across the whole width of the room. This table was covered with the finest sea sand, there was a roller at one end, and the teacher ran it down the whole length of the table. It left behind it beautifully straight lines, between which were straight strokes, pothooks, and the letter o. Then a brass stylus was given me, and I was told to copy what I saw, and it was on this table of sand, with a pencil of brass, I took my first lessons in writing. When I could make all my letters, simple and capital, and knew how to join, dot, and cross them properly, I was promoted to a slate and slate pencil. In about half a year I was permitted to use paper and a wad pencil, but as wad, or lead, was then scarce and dear, we were taught at once how to sharpen and use them in the most economical manner. While I was using a wad pencil I was practicing the art of making a pen out of a goose quill. Some children learned the lesson easily. I found it difficult, and spoiled many a bunch of quills in acquiring it.

I remember a clumsy pen in my father’s desk almost as early as I remember anything. It was a metal tube, fastened to an ivory handle, and originated just before I was born. I never saw my father use it; he wrote with a quill all his life. In 1832, the year after my birth, thirty-three million, one hundred thousand quills were imported into England, and I am sure that at the present date, not all the geese in all the world would meet the demand for pens in the United States alone. Penny postage produced the steel pen. It belonged to an age of machinery, and could have belonged to no other age; for the great problem to be solved in the steel pen, was to convert iron into a substance as thin as the quill of a dove’s wing, yet as strong as the strongest quill of an eagle’s wing. When I was a girl not much over seven years old, children made their own pens; the steam engine now makes them.

A short time before Christmas my mother received the letter from Uncle Will Singleton she had been expecting. It came one Saturday morning when the snow lay deep, and the cold was intense. Jane and I were in the living-room with Mother. She had just cut a sheet down the middle, where it was turning thin, and I had to seam the two selvedge edges together, thus turning the strong parts of the sheet into the center. This seam required to be very neatly made, and the sides were to be hemmed just as neatly. I disliked this piece of work with all my heart, but with the help of pins I divided it into different places, for the pins represented the cities, and I made up the adventures to them as I sewed. Jane, who was a better needlewoman than I, had some cambric to hem for ruffling, but the hem was not laid, it had to be rolled as it was sewn between the thumb and first finger of the left hand. Jane was always conceited about her skill in this kind of hemming, and as I write I can see her fair, still face with its smile of self-satisfaction, as her small fingers deftly and rapidly made the tiny roll, she was to sew with almost invisible needle and thread. Mother was singing a song by Felicia Hemans, and Father was in the little parlor across the hall reading a book called “Elijah, the Tishbite;” for he had just been in the room to point out to Mother how grandly it opened. “Now Elijah the Tishbite,” without any weakening explanations of who or what Elijah was, and Mother had said in a disconcerting voice, “Isn’t that the way it opens in the Bible, William?” There was a blazing fire above the snow-white hearth, and shining brass fender, and a pleasant smell of turpentine and beeswax, for Ann Oddy was giving the furniture a little rubbing. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and Ann rose from her knees and went to open it. The next moment there was evident disputing, and Ann Oddy called sharply, “Mr. Huddleston, please to come here, sir.”

When Father appeared, Mother also went to the door, and Jane and I stopped sewing in order to watch and to listen. It was the postman and he had charged a shilling for a letter, that only ought to be eight pence and while Ann was pointing out this mistake, my mother took the letter from her hand and looked at it.

“William,” she said, “it is a death message, do not dispute about that toll.” So Father gave the postman the shilling, and the door was shut, and Mother went to the fireside and stood there. Father quickly joined her. “Well, Mary,” he said, “is it from your brother? What does he say?”

“Only eight words, William,” Mother answered; and she read them aloud, “Come to me, Mary. The end is near.”

Father was almost angry. He said she could not go over Shap Fells in such weather, and that snow was lying deep all the way to Kendal. He talked as though he was preaching. I thought Mother would not dare to speak any more about going to Kendal. But when Father stopped talking, Mother said in a strange, strong way,

“I shall certainly go to my brother. I shall try to get a seat in the coach that passes through here at ten o’clock to-night.” I had never seen Mother look and talk as she did then, and I was astonished. So was Father. He watched her leave the room in silence, and for a few minutes seemed irresolute. Then Ann came in and lifted the beeswax, and was going away when Father said,

“Where is your mistress, Ann?”

“In her room, Mr. Huddleston.”

“What is she doing?”

“Packing her little trunk. She says she is going to Kendal.”

“She ought not to go to Kendal. She must not go.”

“She’s right enough in going, Mr. Huddleston, and she is sure to go.”

“I never heard anything like this!” cried Father. He really was amazed. It was household rebellion. “Ann,” he continued, “go upstairs and remind your mistress that John Henry has been sickly for two weeks. I have myself noticed the child looking far from well.”

“Yes, sir, the child is sickly, but her brother is dying.”

“Do you think the child should be left?”

“It would be worse if the brother died alone. I will look after John, Mr. Huddleston.”

Then Father went upstairs, and Mother went by the night mail, and we did not see her again for nearly three weeks.

I do not apologize for relating a scene so common, for these simple intimacies and daily events, these meetings and partings, these sorrows and joys of the hearth and the family, are really the great events of our life. They are our personal sacred history. When we have forgotten all our labors, and even all our successes, we shall remember them.

Mother was the heart and hinge of all our home and happiness, and while she was away, I used to lie awake at nights in my dark, cold room and think of death entering our family. In his strange language he whispered many things to my soul that I have forgotten, but one thing I am sure of – I had no fear of death. My earliest consciousness had been a strong and sure persuasion of God’s goodness to men. And I had no enmity towards God; though a dozen catechisms told me so, I would not admit the statement. I loved God with all my child heart. He was truly to me “my Father who art in heaven.” Well then, death whom He sent to every one, even to little babies, must be something good and not evil. Also, I thought, if the dead are unhappy, their faces would show it, and I had never seen a dead face without being struck by its strange quiet. The easiest way to my school lay through the graveyard, and though it was in the midst of the town, I knew no quiet like the quiet of the dead men in that churchyard. I have felt it like an actual pressure on my ear drum.

In the day I talked to my sister of the changes Uncle’s death would make in our lives. When Christmas came, father would not permit us to go to any parties, and Jane was sure we would have to wear mourning, a kind of clothing I hated, I reminded her that the Pennants had not worn black when Mary Pennant died, and Jane reminded me that the Pennants were Quakers, and that when Frances and Eliza Pennant came back to school wearing their brown dresses, it was all the girls could manage, not to scorn them.

Of course we talked at school of our uncle, Dr. Singleton, and his expected death, and I do not understand how this circumstance imparted to us a kind of superiority, but it did. Jane put on airs, and was always on the point of crying, and I heard Laura Patterson correct the biggest pupil in the school for “speaking cross to a girl whose uncle was dying.” I dare say I had my own plan for collecting sympathy, for some of my classmates asked to walk home with me, others offered to help me with my grammer, and Adelaide Bond gave me the half of her weekly allowance of Everton toffy.

At last Mother returned home and, oh, how glad we were to see her! She came into the lighted room just as we were sitting down to supper, and an angel from heaven would not have been as welcome. My father was somewhere in the Patterdale country, where he went for a week or two at regular intervals; and, oh, how good, how glorious a thing it was, to have Mother home again!

The first thing Mother did the following day was to send for black stuff and the dressmaker. I pleaded in vain, though Mother, being of Quaker descent, was as averse to mourning dresses as I was, but she was sure Father would insist on them, because of what the Society, and people in general would say. Jane made no objections. She was very fair, and had that soft pearly complexion which is rendered more lovely by black. As for Ann, she could only look at the wastefulness of putting new dresses away in camphor for a year. She said, “Girls will grow long and lanky, and in a year the skirts will be short and narrow, and the waists too small, and the armholes too tight, and the whole business out of fashion and likelihood.”

In a few days Father came home. The girl was pipeclaying the hearth and building up the fire for the evening, and Ann laying the table for Mother’s tea as he entered. He was so delighted to find Mother at home that he said to her, “Let the girls stay and have a cup of tea with us tonight.” Then when he had set down by the fire, Jane drew her stool close to him, and I slipped on to his knee, and whispered something in his ear I shall never tell to any one. Such a happy meal followed, but little was said about Uncle Singleton. Father asked if all was well with him? Mother answered almost joyfully, “All is well!”

“Poor fellow,” continued Father. “His life was defeat from its beginning to its end.”

“No, William,” cried Mother, “at the end it was victory!” and she lifted her radiant face, and her eyes rained gladness, as she said the word “victory” with that telling upward inflection on the last syllable, common in the North Country. I can never forget either the words or the look with which they were uttered. I thought to myself, “How beautiful she is!”

I waited after tea, hoping that Mother would tell us more about Uncle’s death, but she talked of our black dresses and the bad weather, and then some neighbors came in, and I went upstairs to Ann. She had one of those high peaked sugar loaves before her, and was removing the thick dark purple paper in which they were always wrapped. The big sugar nippers were at her side, and I knew she was going to nip sugar for the next day’s use. It was, however, a kind of work it was pleasant to loiter over, and after talking awhile Ann said, “What did Mrs. Huddleston say about her brother?” Then I repeated what Mother said, and involuntarily tried to imitate her look and the tones of her voice. Ann asked if that was all, and I answered, “Yes.” Then I said, “Was he a bad man, Ann, or a good man, tell me;” and she said, “He was bad and good, like the rest of men. Don’t ask me any questions. Your mother will tell you all about him when the right time comes.”

And the right time did not come until eleven years afterwards.

In a week our dresses were ready, and we went back to school. We met with great sympathy. Jane looked beautiful, and received the attentions shown her with graceful resignation. I looked unlike myself, and felt as if I had somebody’s else frock on. But I had a happy heart, ready to make the best of any trouble, beside I knew I was unreasonable, since Ann, who was generally on my side, told me that I ought to be thankful I had any dress at all to wear, and so many nicer little girls than myself without one to put on their backs. And as for color, one color was just as good as another.

That was not true in my case, but I knew that it was no use telling Ann that story. Yet it is a fact, that I am, and have always been powerfully affected both by color and smell – the latter’s influence having a psychical or spiritual tendency. But how could I explain so complex a feeling to Ann, when I could not even understand it myself?

Queen Victoria ascended the throne of England a few weeks before I went to Penrith, but she was not crowned until a year afterwards. I remember the very June day so bright and exquisite it was! The royal and loyal town of Penrith was garlanded with roses, flags were waving from every vantage point, and the musical bells of the ancient church rang without ceasing from dawn until the long summer gloaming was lost in the mid-summer night. Yet child as I was, I noticed and partly understood, the gloom and care on the faces of so many who had no heart to rejoice, and no reason to do so.

Without much explanation the story of ordinary English life at this period would be incredible to us, and I shall only revert to it at points where it touched my own life and character. Is it not all written in Knight’s and many other histories at every one’s hand? But I saw the slough of despair, of poverty and ignorance, in which the working class struggled for their morsel of bread. And the root of all their trouble was ignorance. For instance, the wealthy town of Penrith had not, when I first saw it, one National or Lancastrian school, nor yet one free school of any kind, but the little Sunday school held in the Methodist chapel two hours on Sunday afternoons. Fortunately it was the kind of Sunday school Raikes intended. There were no daintily dressed children, and fashionably attired teachers in it – not one. The pupils were semi-starved, semi-clothed, hopeless, joyless little creatures; their teachers were hard working men and women, who took from their Sabbath rest a few hours for Christ’s sake. For how could such little ones come unto Him, if there were none to show the way?

There was even at this date, 1838, villages in England without either church or school, though Methodism had swept through the land like a Pentecostal fire half a century before; and at this same time, the big cities of London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol had not one ragged school in them. A parliamentary investigation two years afterward found plenty of villages such as Dunkirk with one hundred and thirteen children, of whom only ten could read and write; and Boughton with one hundred and nineteen children, where only seven went to a school that taught writing, and thirty-two to a Sunday school. Learning and literature were not in fashion then, especially for women. Yes, indeed, it is true that I knew in my youth, many women of wealth, beautiful women who managed their large houses with splendid hospitality and were keenly alive to public affairs, who looked on books as something rather demoralizing, and likely to encroach in some way upon works more in the way of their duty. I was very often reproved for “wasting my time over a book” so that my reading had a good deal of that charm which makes forbidden fruit “so good for food, so pleasant to the eyes, so much to be desired to make one wise.”