Adventures and Recollections - Bill o'th' Hoylus End

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little surprised to see me, and wanted to know all particulars as to my wanderings. I offered an explanation as best I could. Mr. Lund provided me with refreshment, which I badly needed, and paid my railway fair to Keighley. When I got into this “Golden Valley of the West Riding,” as Keighley has been called, I had no little difficulty in getting to my home at the North Beck Mills. My feet were intensely sore with my long tramp, and I could scarcely put one before the other—which, of course, is a necessary performance if one wants to walk anywhere. However, I reached home in time—after an absence of something like nine months. I was received there with all the welcome it was possible for a prodigal son to be. My mother said she dreamed the night before I was coming home. I don’t exaggerate facts much when I say there were great rejoicings in the camp at my home-coming. Of course, with paternal regard, my father wanted to know where I had been, and, when I had given him a hurried account of my peregrinations, he strongly recommended me to “jump into a peggytubful o’ water an’ hev a wesh.” I accordingly executed the order of the bath, and donned a suit of clothes, which I had left behind me. My father said, “Well, I don’t want them to lose anything by you at Hull;” and with those few, but expressive remarks, he took my sailor’s suit and pitched it into the North Beck—which ran near by our homestead. I regret I have no proof before me that the clothes ever reached Hull. But we will let byegones be byegones. I was put back to warp-dressing at North Beck Mills, where I remained for a few months.

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      Then my father determined that I should have a trade of some sort. I began to have a little taste for sculpture in a primitive kind of way, and I used to smuggle big stones into my bed-chamber, and, when opportunity offered, try to carve figures, busts, &c., out of them, with tools which, I must confess, were far from having a razor’s edge on them. My father came to know of my efforts in this line, and he and my mother held a confab, the result of which was that I was apprenticed to an uncle of mine, a mason named Joshua Hill, of Harden. I remained at this business for a fair time and helped my uncle to build Ryecroft Primitive Methodist Chapel. He gave me every opportunity to become efficient in my new calling if practice goes for anything. When I pass the chapel at Ryecroft I look with some amount of pride on the two stoops, enclosing the door, which I hewed out. After finishing the chapel my uncle Joshua commenced the erection of a tavern, called the “Moorcock,” at Harden. But in my new situation my pocket-money was very limited. I didn’t appreciate this limitation, and I left the service of my uncle and went to Bingley.

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      It happened to be the Tide, and going into the Gas Field I fell in with the proprietor of a travelling theatre, a Frenchman, rejoicing in the name of “Billy Shanteney.” He asked me to join his company, which I eventually did. At night, before the performance commenced, I paraded on the platform outside as a gay spangled warrior, and while thus engaged I was somewhat astonished to behold my uncle Joshua making his way to what seemed the entrance, but he darted on to me and attempted to drag me, as he himself said, “back home.” However, I didn’t go back home, and we went on with the performance. At the close of the Tide week, the company went to Idle, and I went with them; and thence to the Bradford Fairground. It goes without saying that when Bill o’th’ Hoylus End was playing as a king one night and next morning getting a red herring to his breakfast, there was something radically wrong somewhere. Still I had a hearty reverence for the “silvery fish,” as will be apparent from the sentiments in the following

      ODE TO A HERRING

      Wee silvery fish, who nobly braves

       The dangers o’ the ocean waves,

       While monsters from the unknown caves

       Make thee their prey,

       Escaping which the human knaves

       On thee lig way.

       No doubt thou was at first designed

       To suit the palates of mankind;

       Yet as I ponder now, I find

       Thy fame is gone,

       With dainty dish thou art behind

       With every one.

      . … .

      When times are hard we’re scant o’ cash,

       And famine hungry bellies lash

       And tripe and trollabobble’s trash

       Begin to fail—

       Asteead o’ soups an’ oxtail ’ash,

       Hail! herring, hail!

       Full monny a time ’tas made me groan

       To see thee stretched, despised, alone;

       While turned-up noses past have gone

       O’ purse-proud men!

       No friends, alas! save some poor one

       Fra’ t’ paddin’ can.

      . … .

      If through thy pedigree we peep,

       Philosophy from thee can reap,

       To me I need not study deep

       There’s nothing foreign,

       For I, like thee, am sold too cheap,

       My little herring!

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      I left the employ of my friend the Frenchman, and joined “Mother” Beach’s “grand theatrical combination.” The business was formerly owned by Mr. Beach, and at his death the widow undertook the management of the concern, with assistance from her son William, whose stage cognomen was “Little Billy Beach.” Mr. Beach, junior, was a better class comedian. The company consisted of, in addition to the last-named, Tom Smith, Jonas Wright, Edward Tate, Jack Buckley, John Spencer, Arthur Bland and myself, and a quartette of ladies, viz.—“Bella,” afterwards Mrs. William Beach; Ann Tracey, afterwards Mrs. John Spencer; and Mrs. Wright and “Mother” Beach, who were sisters. Certainly not a very powerful company as regards numbers! We visited such towns as Batley, Adwalton, Gomersal, &c. Well do I remember being with the company at the Roberttown Races. Races were not actually run there at the time of our visit, but they had been, and the name was kept up. It was really the Feast or Tide, for which Roberttown was somewhat notorious, and the old race course was used for the fair ground. There was a conglomeration of scores of twopenny circuses, penny “gaffs”, round-abouts, swings, cocoa-nut shies, shooting ranges, &c. People flocked from far and near to the Fair. Our company made a great “hit.” It was the custom for a few of us, myself included, to promenade in front of the assembled crowd, in “full dress,” and then, after we had executed a picturesque Indian dance, the manager would strongly recommend the people to “Come forward, ladies and gentlemen, the show’s just a-going to begin.” The performance consisted of a short play, a comic song by “Billy,” and a portion of the pantomime, “Jack and the Beanstalk,” the whole lasting under half-an-hour. We gave about a score performances a day: it was very hard work, and, what was more, hot weather. I don’t want to figure in these pages as a champion boozer—for I know that the Herald is a warm advocate of temperance principles;—but it is nevertheless a fact that one hot day I drank no less than three shillings’

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