The bonfire

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.

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.