Browning's England Part 37

It loves you as mine loves! Confirm me, Henry!

[_Dies._

_Tresham._ I wish thee joy, Beloved! I am glad In thy full gladness!

_Guendolen_ [_without_]. Mildred! Tresham!

[_Entering with AUSTIN._] Thorold, I could desist no longer. Ah, she swoons!

That's well.

_Tresham._ Oh, better far than that!

_Guendolen._ She's dead!

Let me unlock her arms!

_Tresham._ She threw them thus About my neck, and blessed me, and then died: You'll let them stay now, Guendolen!

_Austin._ Leave her And look to him! What ails you, Thorold?

_Guendolen._ White As she, and whiter! Austin! quick--this side!

_Austin._ A froth is oozing through his clenched teeth; Both lips, where they're not bitten through, are black: Speak, dearest Thorold!

_Tresham._ Something does weigh down My neck beside her weight: thanks: I should fall But for you, Austin, I believe!--there, there, 'Twill pa.s.s away soon!--ah,--I had forgotten: I am dying.

_Guendolen._ Thorold--Thorold--why was this?

_Tresham._ I said, just as I drank the poison off, The earth would be no longer earth to me, The life out of all life was gone from me.

There are blind ways provided, the foredone Heart-weary player in this pageant-world Drops out by, letting the main masque defile By the conspicuous portal: I am through-- Just through!

_Guendolen._ Don't leave him, Austin! Death is close.

_Tresham._ Already Mildred's face is peacefuller.

I see you, Austin--feel you: here's my hand, Put yours in it--you, Guendolen, yours too!

You're lord and lady now--you're Treshams; name And fame are yours: you hold our 'scutcheon up.

Austin, no blot on it! You see how blood Must wash one blot away: the first blot came And the first blood came. To the vain world's eye All's gules again: no care to the vain world, From whence the red was drawn!

_Austin._ No blot shall come!

_Tresham._ I said that: yet it did come. Should it come, Vengeance is G.o.d's, not man's. Remember me!

[_Dies._

_Guendolen_ [_letting fall the pulseless arm_].

Ah, Thorold, we can but--remember you!

In "Ned Bratts," Browning has given a striking picture of the influence exerted by Bunyan upon some of his wicked contemporaries. The poet took his hints for the story from Bunyan himself, who tells it as follows in the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman."

"At a summer a.s.sizes holden at Hertford, while the judge was sitting upon the bench, comes this old Tod into the Court, clothed in a green suit, with his leathern girdle in his hand, his bosom open, and all on a dung sweat, as if he had run for his life; and being come in, he spake aloud, as follows: 'My lord,' said he, 'here is the veriest rogue that breathes upon the face of the earth. I have been a thief from a child: when I was but a little one, I gave myself to rob orchards and to do other such like wicked things, and I have continued a thief ever since.

My lord, there has not been a robbery committed these many years, within so many miles of this place, but I have either been at it, or privy to it.' The judge thought the fellow was mad, but after some conference with some of the justices, they agreed to indict him; and so they did of several felonious actions; to all of which he heartily confessed guilty, and so was hanged, with his wife at the same time."

Browning had the happy thought of placing this episode in Bedford amid the scenes of Bunyan's labors and imprisonment. Bunyan, himself, was tried at the Bedford a.s.sizes upon the charge of preaching things he should not, or according to some accounts for preaching without having been ordained, and was sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment in the Bedford Jail. At one time it was thought that he wrote "Pilgrim's Progress" during this imprisonment, but Dr. Brown, in his biography of Bunyan conjectured that this book was not begun until a later and shorter imprisonment of 1675-76, in the town prison and toll-house on Bedford Bridge. Dr. Brown supposes that the portion of the book written in prison closes where Christian and Hopeful part from the shepherds on the Delectable Mountains. "At that point a break in the narrative is indicated--'So I awoke from my dream;' it is resumed with the words--'And I slept and dreamed again, and saw the same two pilgrims going down the mountains along the highway towards the city.' Already from the top of an high hill called 'Clear,' the Celestial City was in view; dangers there were still to be encountered; but to have reached that high hill and to have seen something like a gate, and some of the glory of the place, was an attainment and an incentive." There Bunyan could pause. Several years later the pilgrimage of Christiana was written.

Browning, however, adopts the tradition that the book was written during the twelve years' imprisonment, and makes use of the story of Bunyan's having supported himself during this time by making tagged shoe-laces.

He brings in, also, the little blind daughter to whom Bunyan was said to be devoted. The Poet was evidently under the impression also that the a.s.sizes were held in a courthouse, but there is good authority for thinking that at that time they were held in the chapel of Herne.

Nothing remains of this building now, but it was situated at the southwest corner of the churchyard of St. Paul, and was spoken of sometimes as the School-house chapel.

Ned Bratts and his wife did not know, of course, that they actually lived in the land of the "Pilgrim's Progress." This has been pointed out only recently in a fascinating little book by A. J. Foster of Wootton Vicarage, Bedfords.h.i.+re. He has been a pilgrim from Elstow, the village where Bunyan was born near Bedford, through all the surrounding country, and has fixed upon many spots beautiful and otherwise which he believes were trans.m.u.ted in Bunyan's imagination into the House Beautiful, The Delectable Mountains, Vanity Fair and so on through nearly all the scenes of Christian's journey.

The House Beautiful he identifies with Houghton House in the manor of Dame Ellen's Bury. This is one of the most interesting of the country houses of England, because of its connection with Sir Philip Sidney's sister, Mary Sidney. After the death of her husband, Lord Pembroke, James I. presented her with the royal manor of Dame Ellen's Bury, and under the guidance of Inigo Jones, it is generally supposed, Houghton House was built. It is in ruins now and covered with ivy. Trees have grown within the ruins themselves. Still it is one of the most beautiful spots in Bedfords.h.i.+re. "In Bunyan's time," Mr. Foster writes, "we may suppose the northern slope of Houghton Park was a series of terraces rising one above another, and laid out in the stiff garden fas.h.i.+on of the time. A flight of steps, or maybe a steep path, would lead from one terrace to the next, and gradually the view over the plain of Bedford would reveal itself to the traveler as he mounted higher and higher."

From Houghton House there is a view of the Chiltern Hills. Mr. Foster is of the opinion that Bunyan had this view in mind when he described Christian as looking from the roof of the House Beautiful southwards towards the Delectable Mountains. He writes, "One of the main roads to London from Bedford, and the one, moreover, which pa.s.ses through Elstow, crosses the hills only a little more than a mile east of Houghton House, and Bunyan, in his frequent journeys to London, no doubt often pa.s.sed along this road. All in this direction was, therefore, to him familiar ground. Many a pleasant walk or ride came back to him through memory, as he took pen in hand to describe Hill Difficulty with its steep path and its arbor, and the House Beautiful with its guest-chamber, its large upper room looking eastward, its study and its armory.

"Many a time did Bunyan, as he journeyed, look southwards to the blue Chilterns, and when the time came he placed together all that he had seen, as the frame in which he should set his way-faring pilgrim."

Pleasant as it would be to follow with Mr. Foster his journey through the real scenes of the "Pilgrim's Progress," our main interest at present is to observe how Browning's facile imagination has presented the conversion, through the impression made upon them by Bunyan's book, of Ned and his wife.

NED BRATTS

'T was Bedford Special a.s.size, one daft Midsummer's Day: A broiling blasting June,--was never its like, men say.

Corn stood sheaf-ripe already, and trees looked yellow as that; Ponds drained dust-dry, the cattle lay foaming around each flat.

Inside town, dogs went mad, and folk kept bibbing beer While the parsons prayed for rain. 'T was horrible, yes--but queer: Queer--for the sun laughed gay, yet n.o.body moved a hand To work one stroke at his trade: as given to understand That all was come to a stop, work and such worldly ways, And the world's old self about to end in a merry blaze.

Midsummer's Day moreover was the first of Bedford Fair, With Bedford Town's tag-rag and bobtail a-bowsing there.

But the Court House, Quality crammed: through doors ope, windows wide, High on the Bench you saw sit Lords.h.i.+ps side by side.

There frowned Chief Justice Jukes, fumed learned Brother Small, And fretted their fellow Judge: like threshers, one and all, Of a reek with laying down the law in a furnace. Why?

Because their lungs breathed flame--the regular crowd forbye-- From gentry pouring in--quite a nosegay, to be sure!

How else could they pa.s.s the time, six mortal hours endure Till night should extinguish day, when matters might haply mend?

Meanwhile no bad resource was--watching begin and end Some trial for life and death, in a brisk five minutes' s.p.a.ce, And betting which knave would 'scape, which hang, from his sort of face.

So, their Lords.h.i.+ps toiled and moiled, and a deal of work was done (I warrant) to justify the mirth of the crazy sun As this and t'other lout, struck dumb at the sudden show Of red robes and white wigs, boggled nor answered "Boh!"

When asked why he, Tom Styles, should not--because Jack Nokes Had stolen the horse--be hanged: for Judges must have their jokes, And louts must make allowance--let's say, for some blue fly Which punctured a dewy scalp where the frizzles stuck awry-- Else Tom had fleered scot-free, so nearly over and done Was the main of the job. Full-measure, the gentles enjoyed their fun, As a twenty-five were tried, rank puritans caught at prayer In a cow-house and laid by the heels,--have at 'em, devil may care!-- And ten were prescribed the whip, and ten a brand on the cheek, And five a slit of the nose--just leaving enough to tweak.

Well, things at jolly high-tide, amus.e.m.e.nt steeped in fire, While noon smote fierce the roof's red tiles to heart's desire, The Court a-simmer with smoke, one ferment of oozy flesh, One spirituous humming musk mount-mounting until its mesh Entoiled all heads in a fl.u.s.ter, and Serjeant Postlethwayte --Das.h.i.+ng the wig oblique as he mopped his oily pate-- Cried "Silence, or I grow grease! No loophole lets in air?

Jurymen,--Guilty, Death! Gainsay me if you dare!"

--Things at this pitch, I say,--what hubbub without the doors?

What laughs, shrieks, hoots and yells, what rudest of uproars?

Bounce through the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast!

Thumps, kicks,--no manner of use!--spite of them rolls at last Into the midst a ball which, bursting, brings to view Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too: Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes uplift At the sight of yawning h.e.l.l, such nostrils--snouts that sniffed Sulphur, such mouths a-gape ready to swallow flame!

Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same, Mixed with a certain ... eh? how shall I dare style--mirth The desperate grin of the guest that, could they break from earth, Heaven was above, and h.e.l.l might rage in impotence Below the saved, the saved!

"Confound you! (no offence!) Out of our way,--push, wife! Yonder their Wors.h.i.+ps be!"

Ned Bratts has reached the bar, and "Hey, my Lords," roars he, "A Jury of life and death, Judges the prime of the land, Constables, javelineers,--all met, if I understand, To decide so knotty a point as whether 't was Jack or Joan Robbed the henroost, pinched the pig, hit the King's Arms with a stone, Dropped the baby down the well, left the t.i.thesman in the lurch, Or, three whole Sundays running, not once attended church!

What a pother--do these deserve the parish-stocks or whip, More or less brow to brand, much or little nose to snip,-- When, in our Public, plain stand we--that's we stand here, I and my Tab, bra.s.s-bold, brick-built of beef and beer, --Do not we, s.l.u.t? Step forth and show your beauty, jade!

Wife of my bosom--that's the word now! What a trade We drove! None said us nay: n.o.body loved his life So little as wag a tongue against us,--did they, wife?

Yet they knew us all the while, in their hearts, for what we are --Worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged--search near and far!

Eh, Tab? The pedler, now--o'er his noggin--who warned a mate To cut and run, nor risk his pack where its loss of weight Was the least to dread,--aha, how we two laughed a-good As, stealing round the midden, he came on where I stood With billet poised and raised,--you, ready with the rope,-- Ah, but that's past, that's sin repented of, we hope!

Men knew us for that same, yet safe and sound stood we!