Bladys of the Stewponey. Baring-Gould Sabine
anyone say that what is here described is and was impossible? That it is impossible at the close of the nineteenth century may be at once admitted, but it was quite otherwise with the latter half of the century that is gone. It is hard, almost impossible, for us to conceive that things were witnessed by our grandfathers which seem to us quite incredible. To disarm criticism, then, let me affirm that just such a contest for a woman, as is here described, did take place, and in the very same parish of Kinver, so late as within the first twenty years of the century which our readers render illustrious by living in it. On this occasion the woman entertained a decided and tender preference for one of the competitors, and unhappily he proved unsuccessful. Nevertheless, she loyally adhered to the compact entered into before the game was played, and married the man who was victor, and for whom she entertained no liking. An united and happy couple they proved to be.
To their credit be it mentioned that no women entered the wicket of the Stewponey; not that they were less interested in the contest than the men, but that they were restrained by a sense of decorum. Nevertheless, as already intimated, they congregated in the road in such dense masses as to impede traffic, and run the risk of being thrown down by the horses of some of the sporting squires who rode up or drove in their buggies to see the unusual fun of a woman being bowled for.
If they were debarred witnessing the game, they would have the gratification of seeing the prize carried off to Stourton Chapel, there to be married. If the women held back under some restraint, this was not the case with certain men who should have been leaders of the people—the parson, the doctor, and two magistrates. Of gentlemen there were over a score, of parsons happily only one, but he—the vicar of the parish.
The vicar of Kinver at this time was the Reverend Timothy Toogood—red-faced, rheumy-eyed, dressed in the shabbiest clerical garb.
The vicar was miserably poor. He was overshadowed by the evening lecturer, who received double the income of the other, without having any further responsibility laid on him than to preach one sermon on Sunday. Vicar and lecturer lived in perpetual feud, and, it must be allowed, the former laid himself open to reproach by his indiscretions and irregularities. The living hardly merited the name. It was more deserving to be reckoned as a dying. The vicarage was a mean cottage. The parishioners might have made their parson's position tolerable, and have secured a respectable incumbent, had they consented to give the lectureship to the vicar, but the latter was a nominee of the Leathersellers' Company, and the villagers delighted to exhibit their independence by appointing their own lecturer.
The main politics of the place consisted in controversy over the merits or demerits of the two ecclesiastics, and in setting one against the other. It is of no use denying the fact that poverty in certain positions demoralises. A common workman can be poor and straight as a whistle, but a man of some education and parts, and born a gentleman, if in reduced circumstances, is tempted almost beyond power of resistance to deflect from the straight course. Parson Toogood, had he been in comfortable circumstances, would have been respectable and have deserved respect. He was kind-hearted and unselfish. But his distresses deprived him of self-esteem, and blunted his moral perception. He saw one only chance of escape into a position of ease, and that was by becoming the humble servant of the Squire, not daring to oppose him lest he should lose his favour and the chance of promotion to a fat living in his gift.
Some scruple did enter the mind of the vicar when it was announced to him that he was expected to consecrate the union determined by a game of bowls, but the scruple was laid at rest by the insistence of Squire Stourton that unless he performed the sacred rite the couple would go off without it, and he clenched the argument with a promise of five guineas as fee.
Some scruple did enter the mind of the vicar, because it was impossible to publish banns or provide a licence before the contest decided who the man was who was to be united with Stewponey Bla, and no time afterwards was available, as the marriage was to follow immediately on the conclusion of the game. But this scruple yielded under the consideration that the Stourton Castle chapel was a peculiar, not under Episcopal jurisdiction, and that, therefore, as his patron said, "My dear Toogood, you may do in it just what you like; stand on your head if you will, and bless the happy pair with your toes. No one can object."
Seeing that Squire Stourton was a magistrate, the vicar assumed he ought to know the law, an assumption as great and hazardous as one that pre-supposed that every vicar was acquainted with theology. When, moreover, the Squire added, "My dear fellow, if you have any hesitation in the matter, make yourself easy. I will call in the lecturer," then every symptom of hesitation subsided.
"Make way for the umpire!" shouted the host, elbowing the crowd to the right and left. "Parson Toogood is umpire. Room for his reverence!"
The garden was full to overflow with a coarse and noisy throng of men, and the drawers had difficulty in supplying them with ale, so closely were they packed and so thirsty were the constituent atoms. As if to intimate to Bladys that retreat was impossible, the woman Catherine Barry had been called in to direct and control the house for that day. The host could not manage everything. Bladys was incapacitated by the part she had to play. Assistance he was obliged to invoke. What more reasonable than that he should summon her who was shortly to become mistress in the house? But for all that, her presence was an outrage—so the unhappy girl felt it.
The gentlemen who had paid their half-crowns occupied benches on three sides of the bowling-green. Those who had paid but a shilling stood behind them and in rear of the "footer," whence the players cast the bowls.
"Come up to the head," shouted one fellow to his mate. "I want to get a good sight of Stewponey Bla, and find out from her face which is her fancy man."
"I don't care a hang for her fancy—I want to follow the game."
"Well, you can see it finely from the top."
"Now, Roger," exclaimed another in the crush, "I'll thank you to keep your elbows in. You've spilt my ale. Good luck; it's over your mulberry cloth, and not over my new coat."
"What do you want ale for now?"
"How can I see till I've washed my eyes?"
"How many have paid up their stakes?"
"There's Tup Rivers."
"Tup Rivers! Well, that's comical. But I suppose he's aiming after the fifty or sixty guineas he's heard the gentlefolk have subscribed. I didn't think he was a marrying man."
"Lor' bless y'—any man would marry for fifty pounds."
"Has Lewis staked?"
"Ay ay, but he's too drunk to keep his legs. The Captain paid, but won't play."
"Nan has been at him—that's it."
"That stranger chap—he's in it."
"Who is he?"
"Heaven above can answer better than I. Then they tell me Crispin the bargeman has entered."
At that moment a shout and a groan. The interlocutors pressed up to the head, where sat the umpire, to learn the occasion. Tup Rivers had withdrawn, and was asking to have his guinea returned. He was a small farmer. He shrank from a game in which he would have as his opponents such men as Francis and Ravenhill.
"Then," said the man entitled Roger, "the game has thinned down amazingly to two—that's sorry sport. But for seeing who wins the prize I'd go away. Come, Matthew—a stranger against Kinver, What odds? I'll lay on Kinver, for the honour of the old place."
To revert to the first couple who were in dialogue. "Look," said one, "observe Stewponey Bla; she hangs her head, you can't see her face."
"Pshaw!" answered the man addressed. "What right has a publican's daughter to be shamefaced? It don't belong to the profession—it's put on for the occasion, take my word for it."
"Silence! They have begun."
A hush fell on the spectators. It was as intimated. Two competitors had withdrawn at the last moment, and one was incapacitated. It had been hoped that a sixth would enter before the game began, but none had done so. The number was reduced to two. Precedence in entry entitled to selection of bowls.