Chapter XXI: The Black Country

My letter was from Archdeacon Williams. I had never met him but had read his books and been much influenced by them, as I know you have been. To tell the truth, I hesitated about accepting his invitation to spend the "week-end," for I feared I might be disappointed! Authors are like miners: they put the precious metal into their books, but when one gets to the mine there is apt to be a lot of "slag" lying about! But it was not so in this case. The books are the man--he lives as he talks.

England is the land of contrasts. Shropshire seems to belong to another planet, when one gets into the dark and chilly atmosphere of the black country. It was most depressing. Instead of the charming vicarage I had pictured, I found a plain brick house on the street of the town, and instead of a blooming garden, a few sickly shrubs, blackened, like everything else, by the smoke from the mills.

But within all was sweetness and light. The house was overflowing with delightful children, and every one seemed to be at work. Or, perhaps I should say, every one seemed to have a purpose, for as I arrived at tea-time, work had been suspended.

There was but one drawback: the archdeacon does not smoke, and does not seem to have heard that any one else does! I thought that three days would be more than I could bear. But, indeed, mind and body were kept so busy that I hardly missed my pipe at all! Can I say more?

The archdeacon and I sat up until all hours of the night, talking of the things which are most worth while.

He is an extraordinary man--not only a good classical scholar but also a notable mathematician. He is quite at home in all the scientific theories which are the vogue to-day, and insisted that theology can have no interest for the modern mind until theologians abandon the mediæval, _a priori_ method for the inductive, and use words as the symbols of truths which can be verified. Then it will be found that the "faith" for which the saints contended was the reality without which man cannot live. He said many things of which I will tell you when we meet; but one I send you now, for you might have said it yourself! "Men are forever talking about 'faith' as if the important thing were the _quantity_ of it, whereas the thing that matters is its _quality_. The faith which overcame the world is not the mass of opinion which has accumulated through the ages, but the deep conviction that God is Spirit, and that the character of that Spirit has been revealed in the person of Jesus."

The way the man works would, I think, astonish you. This is what we did on Saturday: breakfast at 8, then prayers in the parish church at 9. He agrees with Bishop Creighton that it is better to have many of the parish come together for prayers each day than to have family prayers, with which, I am sure, you will no more agree than I do! At 9.30 he shut himself in his study and did not appear again until 1 o'clock. Then we had dinner, all the family taking part in the talk, which was good, and I listened. The last you will not believe, but it is true!

Mrs. Williams is as remarkable in her way as he, and is a real intellectual companion. When I spoke to him of her, he said: "Think of the men who are asphyxiated by dull wives!" I did!

The children adore their father, though Rose--a girl of about twelve--told me they could have a pony if their father did not give so much to the poor. When I suggested that this was a good way to use money, she agreed, but added: "It seems a pity there is not enough for both." In which opinion, no doubt, many will agree.

At 2.30 a large van drove up to the door, and into it we all piled, except the very little ones, to go to the Sunday-school treat. We stopped at many a corner to pick up the teachers--all of whom were workers in the mills--and drove to a grove some miles away, where the feast was spread.

I sat next a man of about fifty years of age, who, when he learned that I was an American, "let himself go." He had friends who had migrated to the "States," and admitted that the wages were much larger than in England, but added that, as the expense of living was so much greater, there was not much in it. I did not remind him that the greater expense meant also better living conditions, for I wanted to hear him talk. He complained that our people worked longer hours than they did, and were so tired at the end of the day that they could not enjoy the rest when it came. He wanted to know if the tariff helped our trade. I laughed and told him there was great difference of opinion on that subject, and that I did not pretend to be an authority, but was inclined to think that the willingness of the workers to use new machinery had more to do with our prosperity than anything the government did.

"Ay," said he, "that is what the masters tell us, but we do not heed them. We know that this new machinery can be speeded up till a man's heart is broke."

It was not the man's opinion that interested me so much as his willingness to talk; for I had heard frequent complaints that the working men would talk freely only with their mates. But I got a new light on that, for, when we had risen and sung "God Save the King," my neighbor turned to me and said: "You will excuse me if I have talked too free, but this is the first time in my life that I ever talked with a gentleman."

I could have wept. "But," I said, "you must often have talked to the vicar?"

"Ay," he replied, "but he is a _man_." And with this cryptic saying I had to be content!

One other thing he told me that I am sure will interest you. He said that in the dark days of the cotton famine, during our Civil War, he could remember as a little boy seeing his father go, with many others, to receive the food distributed to the poor. "That was the only time any of my name received anything from the rates, and it was bitter hard for father. There were men who came up from Liverpool and told us that if the working men of Lancashire would send a deputation to Parliament, the war would be stopped, and we could get cotton to open the mills. But my father was one of those who said that it was the cause of free labor you were fighting for, and that if the men would hold on a bit, God would come to our help. He learned that, I now know, from John Bright. And so the men held out. But it was hard." Isn't that fine? And doesn't it make Lord John Russell and Gladstone look cheap?

By some ill chance Rose and I got separated from the rest of the party, and the van drove off without us. When Rose learned this, she thought it a huge joke, and said we should have to walk. I said: "Not on your life!" This familiar saying filled her with delight, and she cried: "Oh, I say, that is a jolly saying; I must tell that to Dick, and he can take it back to school!"

"That is all very well," said I, "but what is going to take us back to home?"

She suggested a "fly." I solemnly remarked that I did not believe there was a fly big enough to carry us both.

She looked at me for a moment in astonishment and then cried: "Why, I believe you are thinking of an _insect_!"

I asked what else one could think of. She pondered this a moment and then said she believed I was making game of her. Nothing, I assured her, was farther from my thoughts.

"Well," she said, "if you are sure you don't know, I will tell you; a fly is something that a horse pulls."

I asked if it was a cart. But apparently she had given me up as hopeless, and taking me by the hand, led me to a livery-stable, where the proprietor produced a fly and announced that the price would be ten shillings, and asked if he should "put it down" to the vicar. Rose looked much alarmed at this, and was proportionately relieved when I paid the amount.

There was silence for a little space after we started, and then Rose said, as if to herself: "Daddy would have walked."

"Yes," I replied, "but you must remember he is over six feet tall, and his stride is about three-foot-three, whereas I step only about two-foot-six; so you can calculate how much longer it would take me to walk seven miles than it would him."

"Don't you hate arithmetic?" she exclaimed.

I admitted that I was not fond of it.

"I simply _loathe_ it," she declared. "Such a silly thing, I call it! Why should one spend _hours_ in trying to find out how many yards of carpet it takes to cover the schoolroom floor, when all one has to do is to run through Tod Lane and ask Mr. Small, who keeps the shop, and he can tell in a moment, without even looking at a book."

"But suppose Mr. Small thought it to his advantage to sell you more carpet than you needed?"

"Why, he wouldn't do such a thing," she indignantly replied; "he is a churchwarden."

There was another short silence and then she began again: "Ten shillings is a lot of money."

I agreed.

"However," she continued, "I suppose it doesn't signify. Americans are very rich, are they not?"

I said some were.

"But you must be to hand out ten shillings just like that."

"Oh, I don't know. My share is only five shillings. You will pay half, will you not?"

"_Not living!_" she hastily exclaimed. "There, I have that wrong. Please say it again." When I had repeated the familiar slang, she echoed it. Evidently it gave her great satisfaction, for I heard her muttering it to herself over and over again. Finally she said: "That _is_ a jolly saying." Then, with apparent irrelevance--but that no doubt was due to my slowness in following her mental processes--"I am glad you came."

I laughed and said I was glad too.

"Not," continued this artless young person, "that we were glad when we first heard you were coming--I mean except daddy. Mother said: 'Dear me! I fear he will expect a bathroom to himself!' And Dick said: 'Is he as dirty as all that?' Even daddy laughed at that. And Dick was so much pleased with himself that he got a bit above himself, and went on to say that all Americans were 'bounders.' So daddy stopped his 'sweet,' and he _did_ look silly! But it seems to me you are just like other people, only rather '_droll_.'"

As we drew near the house she evidently began to think that, after all, Dick might be an authority on "bounders," for she remarked, with studied carelessness: "I shouldn't think it necessary to repeat at home everything we have been talking about."

I gravely assured her that I made it a rule never to repeat the conversation I had had with the young lady I took buggy-riding.

"Buggy-riding?" she cried; "what is that?"

"Why, what you call a fly, we call a buggy."

Her reaction was rather deliberate, but finally she exclaimed: "Oh, I see. 'Bug' and 'fly.' That's awfully good. I must tell Dick that!"