Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn: Postscript

Postscript

I

DEAD MAN'S PLACK

One of my literary friends, who has looked at the Dead Man's Plack in
manuscript, has said by way of criticism that Elfrida's character is
veiled. I am not to blame for that; for have I not already said, by
implication at all events, in the Preamble, that my knowledge of her
comes from outside. Something, or, more likely, _Somebody_, gave me her
history, and it has occurred to me that this same Somebody was no such
obscurity as, let us say, the Monk John of Glastonbury, who told the
excavators just where to look for the buried chapel of Edgar, king and
_saint_. I suspect that my informant was some one who knew more about
Elfrida than any mere looker-on, monk or nun, and gossip-gatherer of her
own distant day; and this suspicion or surmise was suggested by the
following incident:

After haunting Dead Man's Plack, where I had my vision, I rambled in and
about Wherwell on account of its association, and in one of the cottages
in the village I became acquainted with an elderly widow, a woman in
feeble health, but singularly attractive in her person and manner.
Indeed, before making her acquaintance I had been informed by some of
her relations and others in the place that she was not only the best
person to seek information from, but was also the sweetest person in the
village. She was a native born; her family had lived there for
generations, and she was of that best South Hampshire type with an oval
face, olive-brown skin, black eyes and hair, and that soft melancholy
expression in the eyes common in Spanish women and not uncommon in the
dark-skinned Hampshire women. She had been taught at the village school,
and having attracted the attention and interest of the great lady of the
place on account of her intelligence and pleasing manners, she was taken
when quite young as lady's-maid, and in this employment continued for
many years until her marriage to a villager.

One day, conversing with her, I said I had heard that the village was
haunted by the ghost of a woman: was that true?

Yes, it was true, she returned.

Did she _know_ that it was true? Had she actually seen the ghost?

Yes, she had seen it once. One day, when she was lady's-maid, she was in
her bedroom, dressing or doing something, with another maid. The door
was closed, and they were in a merry mood, talking and laughing, when
suddenly they both at the same moment saw a woman with a still, white
face walking through the room. She was in the middle of the room when
they caught sight of her, and they both screamed and covered their faces
with their hands. So great was her terror that she almost fainted; then
in a few moments when they looked the apparition had vanished. As to the
habit she was wearing, neither of them could say afterwards what it was
like: only the white, still face remained fixed in their memory, but the
figure was a dark one, like a dark shadow moving rapidly through the
room.

If Elfrida then, albeit still in purgatory, is able to re-visit this
scene of her early life and the site of that tragedy in the forest, it
does not seem to me altogether improbable that she herself made the
revelation I have written. And if this be so, it would account for the
_veiled_ character conveyed in the narrative. For even after ten
centuries it may well be that all the coverings have not yet been
removed, that although she has been dropping them one by one for ages,
she has not yet come to the end of them. Until the very last covering,
or veil, or mist is removed, it would be impossible for her to be
absolutely sincere, to reveal her inmost soul with all that is most
dreadful in it. But when that time comes, from the very moment of its
coming she would cease automatically to be an exiled and tormented
spirit.

If, then, Elfrida is herself responsible for the narrative, it is only
natural that she does not appear in it quite as black as she has been
painted. For the monkish chronicler was, we know, the Father of Lies,
and so indeed in a measure are all historians and biographers, since
they cannot see into hearts and motives or know all the circumstances of
the case. And in this case they were painting the picture of their hated
enemy and no doubt were not sparing in the use of the black pigment.

To know all is to forgive all, is a good saying, and enables us to see
why even the worst among us can always find it possible to forgive
himself.

II

AN OLD THORN

I was pleased at this opportunity of rescuing this story from a far-back
number of the _English Review_, in which it first appeared, and putting
it in a book. It may be a shock to the reader to be brought down from a
story of a great king and queen of England in the tenth century to the
obscure annals of a yokel and his wife who lived in a Wiltshire village
only a century ago; or even less, since my poor yokel was hanged for
sheep-stealing in 1821. But it is, I think, worth preserving, since it
is the only narrative I know of dealing with that rare and curious
subject, the survival of tree-worship in our own country. That, however,
was not the reason of my being pleased.

It was just when I had finished writing the story of Elfrida that I
happened to see in my morning paper a highly eulogistical paragraph
about one of our long-dead and, I imagine, forgotten worthies. The
occasion of the paragraph doesn't matter. The man eulogised was Mr.
Justice Park--Sir James Allan Park, a highly successful barrister, who
was judge from 1816 to his death in 1838. "As judge, though not eminent,
he was sound, fair and sensible, a little irascible, but highly
esteemed." He was also the author of a religious work. And that is all
the particular Liar who wrote his biography in the D.N.B. can tell us
about him.

It was the newspaper paragraph which reminded me that I had written
about this same judge, giving my estimate of his character in my book,
_A Shepherd's Life_, also that I was _thinking_ about Park, the sound
and fair and sensible judge, when I wrote "An Old Thorn." Here then,
with apologies to the reader for quoting from my own book, I reproduce
what I wrote in 1905.

"From these memories of the old villagers I turn to the newspapers of
the day to make a few citations.

"The law as it was did not distinguish between a case of the kind just
related, of the starving, sorely-tempted Shergold, and that of the
systematic thief: sheep-stealing was a capital offence and the man must
be hanged, unless recommended to mercy, and we know what was meant by
'mercy' in those days. That so barbarous a law existed within memory of
people to be found living in most villages appears almost incredible to
us; but despite the recommendations to 'mercy' usual in a large majority
of cases, the law of that time was not more horrible than the temper of
the men who administered it. There are good and bad among all, and in
all professions, but there is also a black spot in most, possibly all
hearts, which may be developed to almost any extent, to change the
justest, wisest, most moral men into 'human devils.' In reading the old
reports and the expressions used by the judges in their summings-up and
sentences, it is impossible not to believe that the awful power they
possessed, and its constant exercise, had not only produced the
inevitable hardening effect, but had made them cruel in the true sense
of the word. Their pleasure in passing dreadful sentences was very
thinly disguised by certain lofty conventional phrases as to the
necessity of upholding the law, morality, and religion; they were,
indeed, as familiar with the name of the Deity as any ranter in a
conventicle, and the 'enormity of the crime' was an expression as
constantly used in the case of the theft of a loaf of bread, or of an
old coat left hanging on a hedge, by some ill-clad, half-starved wretch,
as in cases of burglary, arson, rape, and murder.

"It is surprising to find how very few the real crimes were in those
days, despite the misery of the people; that nearly all the 'crimes' for
which men were sentenced to the gallows and to transportation for life,
or for long terms, were offences which would now be sufficiently
punished by a few weeks', or even a few days', imprisonment. Thus in
April, 1825, I note that Mr. Justice Park commented on the heavy
appearance of the calendar. It was not so much the number (170) of the
offenders that excited his concern as it was the nature of the crimes
with which they were charged. The worst crime in this instance was
sheep-stealing!

"Again, this same Mr. Justice Park, at the Spring Assizes at Salisbury,
1827, said that though the calendar was a heavy one, he was happy to
find, on looking at the depositions of the principal cases, that they
were not of a very serious character. Nevertheless he passed sentence of
death on twenty-eight persons, among them being one for stealing half a
crown!

"Of the twenty-eight all but three were eventually reprieved, one of the
fated three being a youth of 19, who was charged with stealing a mare
and pleaded guilty in spite of a warning from the judge not to do so.
This irritated the great man who had the power of life and death in his
hand. In passing sentence the judge 'expatiated on the prevalence of the
crime of horse-stealing and the necessity of making an example. The
enormity of Read's crime rendered him a proper example, and he would
therefore hold out no hope of mercy towards him.' As to the plea of
guilty, he remarked that nowadays too many persons pleaded guilty,
deluded with the hope that it would be taken into consideration and they
would escape the severer penalty. He was determined to put a stop to
that sort of thing; if Read had not pleaded guilty no doubt some
extenuating circumstance would have come up during the trial and he
would have saved his life.

"There, if ever, spoke the 'human devil' in a black cap!

"I find another case of a sentence of transportation for life on a youth
of 18, named Edward Baker, for stealing a pocket-handkerchief. Had he
pleaded guilty it might have been worse for him.

"At the Salisbury Spring Assizes, 1830, Mr. Justice Gazalee, addressing
the grand jury, said that none of the crimes appeared to be marked with
circumstances of great moral turpitude. The prisoners numbered 130; he
passed sentences of death on twenty-nine, life transportations on five,
fourteen years on five, seven years on eleven, and various terms of hard
labour on the others." (_A Shepherd's Life_, pp. 241-4.)

Johnnie Budd was done to death before my principal informants, one 89
years old, the other 93, were born; but in their early years they knew
the widow and her three children, and had known them and their children
all their lives; thus the whole story of Johnnie and Marty was familiar
to them. Now, when I thought of Johnnie's case and how he was treated at
the trial, as it was told me by these old people, it struck me as so
like that of the poor young man Read, who was hanged because he pleaded
guilty, that I at once came to the belief that it was Mr. Justice Park
who had tried him. I have accordingly searched the newspapers of that
day, but have failed to find Johnnie's case. I can only suppose that
this particular case was probably considered too unimportant to be
reported at large in the newspapers of 1821. He was just one of a number
convicted and sentenced to capital punishment.

When Johnnie was hanged his poor wife travelled to Salisbury and
succeeded in getting permission to take the body back to the village for
burial. How she in her poverty, with her three little children to keep,
managed it I don't know. Probably some of the other poor villagers who
pitied and perhaps loved her helped her to do it. She did even more: she
had a grave-stone set above him with his name and the dates of his birth
and death cut on it. And there it is now, within a dozen yards of the
church door in the small old churchyard--the smallest village churchyard
known to me; and Johnnie's and Marty's children's children are still
living in the village.

FINIS

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