Part 1

[Illustration: THE BONFIRE. _Page 18._]

Tales of the Village Children.

THE BONFIRE.

BY FRANCIS E. PAGET, M.A., RECTOR OF ELFORD.

RUGELEY: JOHN THOMAS WALTERS.

LONDON: JAMES BURNS, PORTMAN STREET.

MDCCCXLIV.

[Illustration]

The Bonfire.

A sour, cross, old man was Jasper Crabbe, living all by himself, and seeing little of his neighbours, and not at all liking their children,--so, at least, our Yateshull boys said,--and his coat was of such an old-fashioned cut, and his waistcoat and breecees were so patched and darned, and all his clothes hung so loose about his thin, withered limbs, that he looked more like a scarecrow than a man. He came to Yateshull from a distance, and everybody wondered why he took that little farm on the edge of the Common, for it was quite a ruinous tumble-down place: though, to be sure, when the neighbours saw him, they said that he and his farm were well suited to each other.

By and by, when they found that he said very little about himself and lived in such a lonely way, they set their wits to work, to discover who, or what he was, and when they could find out nothing, some of our silly gossips began to say what they thought he must be, and then, in a short time, all these guesses were talked of, and believed as though they were true.

Some said he was an old miser; others said he was a convict returned from Botany Bay; and all agreed that he must have been very wicked, and have a very bad conscience, to shun his neighbours in the way he did.

Now this was very wrong, and very uncharitable on the part of these gossiping busy-bodies. What business had they to think the worst of, and spread false reports about a harmless old man, of whose real circumstances and history they knew nothing? It was a cruel act; and no wonder that Jasper Crabbe avoided such neighbours as much as he could. He had much better reasons for being silent about his affairs, than they had for inquiring into them.

He was neither rich, nor a miser; but he was very poor, and almost heart-broken, for his only son had joined himself to bad company, and not only plundered his father of nearly all he had in the world, but had committed a crime which forced him to fly the country. And so Jasper Crabbe left his native place, and came to hide his shame and sorrow at Yateshull, where, as I have said, he was quite unknown.

When the children in the village heard their parents laugh at the old man’s manner of dress, they began to think that it became them to do so too; and so they would grin and jeer when they met him, or perhaps make faces, or shout after him, and when they saw that such conduct vexed him, and made him cross, they did it ten times more. I think it was silly of Jasper to let such a trifle vex him, and I am sure it was very wrong of the children to behave in such a way to him: they should have had respect to his grey hairs, and they should have remembered that awful story in Scripture, how Bears out of the wood came and devoured the rude, bad youths that mocked Elisha.

But I am sorry to say that there are rude bad children at Yateshull, as well as of old at Bethel, and so they made it their delight to plague Jasper Crabbe. Had he complained to Mr. Warlingham or the schoolmaster, this sad, disgraceful conduct would have been put a stop to at once, but he did not do this and was only very cross, and drove the boys off his premises, whenever he found them there. But he was one against many, and so when his back was turned, and he was in one place, two or three would be doing some petty mischief or another. I will do them the justice to say that I do not think the boys had any wish to injure him; only as he was cross to them,--they tried to vex him.

It was a custom in Yateshull, as I believe it is in most country-places, that the school-children should have a half-holyday on the Fifth of November, and be allowed to make a Bonfire as soon as it was dusk.--The half-holyday was given in order to allow the children time to pick sticks in our Squire’s park, or to beg a few faggots of the farmers; but I am sorry to say, that instead of giving themselves the trouble to do this, the boys sometimes broke the hedges. This made the farmers very angry, and they would give no more faggots, and so the boys were puzzled where to find wood for burning: indeed one year they could get nothing but a parcel of wet straw from an old thatch, which only made a thick choking smoke, and would not burn up at all.

The next year, Peter Perks, who was always a leader in all kinds of mischief, took it into his head to go and take sticks out of Jasper Crabbe’s hedges, and so accompanied by three or four other lads, he contrived,--without doing any great injury to the hedges, it is true,--but still very wrongly,--to collect a large bundle of sticks. But just as he and his companions were going away, old Jasper suddenly pounced upon them, and charged them with stealing, and said he should take them all before Justice Burns, and have them sent to prison.

The boys were in a great fright, for some who or other they had persuaded themselves that it could not be called _stealing_, to carry off a few old dead sticks. I wish they would have considered that stealing is taking what belongs to another person, without that person’s leave: and therefore it is just as much a _theft_, whether the thing stolen be valuable or useless.

Fortunately for them, just as Jasper Crabbe had seized two of them by the collar, and two others were running away, Mr. Warlingham appeared in sight, and to him the old man dragged the trembling culprits, while the sound of Mr. Warlingham’s voice brought back the two others. Jasper was at first in a great passion, but as Mr. Warlingham listened patiently, and the boys did not attempt to run away, he became cool by degrees, and instead of desiring to take them before the Justice, (which, however, he had a full right to do) he said that as they were only little boys, he should beg the Vicar to take their punishment into his own hands: “he did not want to be cruel to them,” he said, “though he had been shamefully used by the boys since he had been at Yateshull.”

Mr. Warlingham looked very grave when he heard this, and when, upon making further inquiries, he learned the true state of the case, he was most deeply grieved at the misbehaviour of these young members of his flock. What was done, however, could not be undone; so he promised Jasper Crabbe that from henceforth he should have no further cause of complaint.

“I know, Sir,” answered the old man, “that boys will be boys.”

“Yes,” replied the Vicar; “and I love to see them happy and enjoying themselves, but there is no reason why they should be thoughtless and mischievous, and this they shall not be if I can prevent it. And now,” he continued, “as for you boys who have behaved so ill, and thought so little of your duty to your neighbour, you must be made to feel that such conduct is not to be passed over, and though by Mr. Crabbe’s kindness you escape prison, you will not escape punishment, and that punishment will include others also, who in other ways have behaved as ill as you. In the first place, then, you must go and put all those sticks in the places from whence you took them. In the next, you will go and tell the other boys that in consequence of your fault, and of what I have now learned of their conduct to Mr. Crabbe, there will be no half-holyday allowed this evening, nor any bonfire after it, and, also, that the whole school will be kept at their lessons an hour longer every day for a fortnight. And I further desire that the whole school will go in a body to Mr. Crabbe to-morrow morning, and beg his pardon.”

So there was an end of the old man’s troubles from the Yateshull boys: and when he found that they were really sorry and ashamed of themselves, he went and begged Mr. Warlingham to excuse them the remainder of their punishment. But this the Vicar would not do. “I never punish, if I can help it,” said he, “but when I do, I take care that the punishment shall be both felt and remembered.”

“Well then, Sir,” said the old man, “if I live till next year, and they are good boys, and spare the hedges, I will give them some sticks to make a famous bonfire with.”

And so he did; but meanwhile the Vicar had been turning in his mind how he could secure the boys their pleasure, and at the same time keep them out of their temptation to do mischief. Accordingly, a day or two before the next Fifth of November he went down to the school, and told the boys that it was his intention to give them half-a-crown yearly on that day to buy faggots with, so that they might make their bonfire with what was honestly their own: but he told them at the same time, that if, after this, he heard any more complaints of hedges being broken, he should not only not give any more half-crowns, but put a stop to the bonfire altogether.

You may guess how pleased the boys were when they heard Mr. Warlingham’s kind intentions, and they all promised that they would not draw a stick from the hedges, and I am glad to say they kept their promise.

Well, on the Fifth of November, they got up almost before it was light, and as they went along the village in their way to the place where the bonfire was usually made, you might have heard some forty or fifty voices shouting with all their might the old song,

“Remember, remember, The Fifth of November, Gunpowder Treason, and Plot. I don’t see the reason Why Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot.”

I dare say there were not half-a-dozen in the whole number who thought, or perhaps knew anything about the Gunpowder Plot; that dreadful crime which was so nearly being accomplished about 240 years ago, when some most wicked men plotted together to blow up and kill the King and all the Parliament. The boys had always been in the habit of throwing an old scarecrow into the bonfire, and of calling it their “Guy,” but there were not many, I believe, who could tell anything about Guy Fawkes.

If any of my readers are in the same state of ignorance, I advise them to get some friend to tell them all about this conspiracy. They will find it a most interesting story; one that shews the wonderful working of God’s Providence, and the wickedness at which men may arrive, when they forget their duty to their neighbour, and permit themselves to do evil, in order that what _they_ call good may come of it.

But to go back to the boys. Mr. Warlingham did not forget them; and by noon that day they had their half-crown all safe and sound; so as soon as they had had their dinners, they hastened to the place they had cleared in the morning, which was an open space at the top of a round hillock at the edge of the common: a famous place too it was for a bonfire, for this spot being the highest ground about, and quite free from trees, the fire, when lighted, could be seen to a great distance.

“Oh! what a famous blaze we shall have to-night!” said Dick Middleton rubbing his hands, and skipping about with great glee.

“What a way off they will see our fire! I dare say they will see it at Derby and Lichfield, and wonder what it is!” said Charley Salt.

“Ah, but then they will be so busy with their own that they won’t think of our’s,” said Billy Blake.

“I don’t know that,” replied Charley, “their’s will be quite a poor concern to our’s I’m sure. I dare say nobody will give them half-a-crown to buy faggots with.”

“I hope it won’t rain,” said Johnny Drew, “but that’s a heavy cloud coming up: ‘Rain, rain go away, and come again another day.’”

“Rain? no, man, it won’t rain to-day,” said Tom Dunn. “My father’s rheumatics are as good as a weather glass, and he says he knows by his legs it won’t rain to-day. I asked him afore I came out. But, I say, Kennedy, I wonder who’ll sell us any faggots?”

“I should like to see the man who’ll refuse us, now we’ve got money to pay for them. Why look there! there’s old Crabbe with ever so many faggots in his donkey cart: let’s ask him: he isn’t so surly now as he used to be. Come, do you try, Harry Martin; _you_ never get into trouble with him.”

Harry Martin had no objection; so as soon as they got along side of the old man, the boys all gathered round him; and then Harry asked if “he was willing to sell them those sticks?”

“Sell them!” cried the old man quite sharply, “no, I’ll see you all hanged first.”

“Well, I hope there’s no offence,” said Harry, colouring at such an unexpected rebuff.

“Yes, there’s very great offence. Didn’t I tell you all that if you were good lads, I’d _give_ you some faggots. And after that, how dare you ask me to _sell_ you some?” And the old man shook his fist at the boys, while a smile came over his grim weather-beaten face. “Come,” he continued, “I was just going to leave them for you at Dinah Marjoram’s gate. You can carry them up the hill yourselves.”

I need not say how pleased the boys were, or how much they thanked the old man for keeping his promise, which, to say truth, they had quite forgotten. Two or three did not speak, but they felt the more; they felt ashamed of themselves, and grieved over their bad conduct, and misbehaviour. How sad it is that people will not save themselves these bitter after-regrets, by reflecting on the consequences of misbehaviour _before_ they misbehave!

“And now,” said Kennedy, when the last faggot had been carried to the top of Beacon-knowe, as the mound on the Common was called, “what shall we do with our half-crown? I’m sure we needn’t buy any more faggots: there’s sticks enough here for two bonfires. What do you vote for Dunn?”

“Oh, I vote that we spend it!”

“Spend it?” exclaimed the other, laughing, “yes, I should think so indeed! But _how_ shall we spend it?”

“Oh, I vote for getting puffs at Peggy Brandrick’s,” cried Billy Blake.

“No, that will never do,” replied several at once. “Peggy’s puffs are a penny each, and there’s but thirty pence in half-a-crown, while there’s fifty boys in the school. Whatever we have should go all round.”

“Yes, that is but fair, certainly,” said Kennedy. “Well, Billy, you must think of something else.”

“Lollypops for me,” answered Billy sturdily.

“I’m tired of lollypops,”--“I vote against lollypops,” cried half-a-dozen voices.

“Well, I wish somebody would think of something. What do you say, Harry Martin?”

“Oh, if you ask me, I should say we ought to take the money back to Mr. Warlingham. If it is not spent in the manner in which he intended it should be spent, I think he ought to settle for us.”

“But suppose when he gets the half-crown back, he pockets it,” said Dick Middleton, who was quite taken aback at what Martin had suggested.

“Dick, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying such a thing. You know quite well that Mr. Warlingham would not use us so. I dare say he would tell us to get a new foot-ball, or something of that kind. We are in great want of a new foot-ball.”

Some of the boys agreed with this, but the greater part of them were not very well pleased. They thought the money was their own, and that they might do what they liked with it. They had none of Harry Martin’s scruples, and thought it very hard that he should have put them into their heads.

“Come,” said Dunn, all of a sudden, “I’ve thought of a scheme that will please everybody, and will be a spending of the money in the kind of way the Vicar meant. Let’s go over to Weston and buy some squibs and crackers!”

A shout of applause was the answer that Dunn received. The boys were quite delighted; nobody listened to Martin and his scruples, and when he endeavoured to put in a word, half-a-dozen lads began to push him about, jumping and capering all round him, and whenever he began to speak, his words were drowned in the shout,

“Remember, remember, The Fifth of November!”

It was all done good-humouredly: but Harry saw there was no chance of being listened to, so he said no more, and gave it up as a bad job, though it was not without sorrow that he saw Dunn and Middleton set off for Weston.

Johnny Drew’s fears about the weather were not realized. The heavy cloud rolled away; there was no rain; and what was no less lucky there was no fog. A fog would have spoilt half the sport. What would have been the good of lighting a noble bonfire if nobody could see it? However there was no fog, but a clear dark night; the moon had not risen, and though the stars twinkled brightly there was no danger of their light out-shining that of the bonfire.

Johnny Drew, and Willy Stubbs, and some of the younger boys could not help thinking that it was a very long time,--much longer than usual--till the sun set behind the Fisherton woods, and Ned Jubber said that for his part he did not see why a bonfire was not just as good by day as by night; but Ned only got laughed at for his impatience, and all the rest were content to wait till six o’clock. What a comfort it was to hear the church clock strike five! and then, as each successive quarter struck, how glad were the Yateshull boys!

“Come, Kennedy, get your lantern ready!” cried many voices at the last quarter; and, lantern in hand, Kennedy was on the road, the moment the hour struck.

“Where’s Dunn?” was the eager inquiry when it was found that he was not yet in the merry company.

“Oh! he’ll meet us at Beacon-knowe,” answered Kennedy; and to the Knowe they all hastened, shouting as they went their accustomed song, and carrying on a pole an old sack stuffed with straw, surmounted with a crownless hat, and with a bunch of matches stuffed in the rope which was tied round it by way of hat band.--This was meant to represent Guy Fawkes. Certainly it was not very like a human being: but it would _burn_ well, and that was the chief thing to be thought about.

“Are you all ready?” cried Kennedy, as soon as he had lighted his lantern, at old Dinah Marjoram’s.

“Aye, aye,” was the reply: the door of the lantern was opened, the stout brown paper kindled, and applied to the straw at the bottom of the pile. There was a brisk wind, and the sticks and straw were quite dry, so that in a minute’s time the faggots were all alight, and blazing higher and higher every moment. Oh! it was a glorious bonfire! and I wish you had been there to see it! How the kindling sticks crackled and sparkled, and how, as more fuel was heaped on, the flames leaped up, till they were--oh! I can’t tell how many feet above the boys’ heads.

“I hope all the people at Lichfield and Derby are on the look out,” cried Charley Salt.

“I hope Jasper Crabbe sees it,” said Harry Martin, “for we owe it all to him, and he ought to have the benefit of it.”

“Oh yes,” cried Kennedy, “get out of the way of the smoke, and you’ll see him fast enough; and there’s Dinah Marjoram, and Molly Salt, and old Granny Grendon, and ... and all the parish,--or, at any rate a good part of it, turned out to see us.”

“Nay, I don’t see above a dozen of the neighbours,” replied Harry.

“There’ll be more by and by, I’ll warrant, as soon as we begin the fire-works. Now then, Tom Dunn; bring out the crackers.”

And then the crackers were brought out and fired off. How they made the boys start as they banged, and bounced, and flew in all directions!--“Now then for the squibs!” continued Kennedy,--“Come, Charley Salt, let’s see you fire off a squib.”

“I don’t know how,” replied Charley, drawing back, “I’d rather see you do it first.”

“Nonsense, Charley! Why you’re not a coward, are you? See here; take it in your hand, and now put a lighted stick to the blue paper at the end. There, that’ll do, it’s alight; hold it fast!”

Phiz ... phiz ... phiz--went the blue touch-paper, till it got to the powder, and whiff! what a shower of sparks!

Charley threw down the squib and run away.

“Ah you silly fellow, why didn’t you mind what I said to you?” cried Kennedy catching up the squib from the ground, and whirling it round and round about his head, now in this direction, and now in that, till the air seemed filled with sparks, and the boys ran away from him as if pursued by a fiery serpent; and then in his mischief he flung it among them, and just above their heads it exploded.

How the boys scampered away; you would have laughed to have seen them; and they laughed too--all but Johnny Drew and Martin Salt; Charley’s little brother, Johnny Drew, began to cry, for he said he was sure it would bring the stars down; and as for Martin Salt, he thought that his brother could not have touched such a thing without being badly hurt, and so he cried too, till he saw Charley as merry as all the rest.

As soon as the boys saw how to manage the squibs they ceased to be afraid of them, and then their fun was to chase each other round and round the top of Beacon-knowe, whizzing the squibs about like so many mad creatures. And then one of them, (I never knew which) either through accident or love of mischief, threw one down the hill among the spectators.

“Come, come,” cried Jasper Crabbe, “I’m not going to be squibbed, you young monkeys--don’t throw them down here, or you’ll set Goody Grendon’s bonnet on fire, mayhap!”