The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford

I was born, just before the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was opened, in a small country town in one of the Midland shires. It is now semi-manufacturing, at the junction of three or four lines of railway, with hardly a trace left of what it was fifty years ago. It then consisted of one long main street, with a few other streets branching from it at right-angles. Through this street the mail-coach rattled at night, and the huge wagon rolled through it, drawn by four horses, which twice a week travelled to and from London and brought us what we wanted from the great and unknown city.

My father and mother belonged to the ordinary English middle class of well-to-do shopkeepers. My mother’s family came from a little distance, but my father’s had lived in those parts for centuries. I remember perfectly well how business used to be carried on in those days. There was absolutely no competition, and although nobody in the town who was in trade got rich, except the banker and the brewer, nearly everybody was tolerably well off, and certainly not pressed with care as their successors are now. The draper, who lived a little way above us, was a deacon in our chapel, and every morning, soon after breakfast, he would start off for his walk of about four miles, stopping by the way to talk to his neighbours about the events of the day. At eleven o’clock or thereabouts he would return and would begin work.

It was my custom on Saturdays to go out for the whole of the day by the river, seawards, to prepare for the Sunday. I was coming home rather tired, when I met this same man against a stile. He bade me good evening, and then proceeded to thank me for my speech, saying many complimentary things about it. I asked who it was to whom I had the honour of talking, and he told me he was Edward Gibbon Mardon. “It was Edward Gibson Mardon once, sir,” he said, smilingly. “Gibson was the name of a rich old aunt who was expected to do something for me, but I disliked her, and never went near her. I did not see why I should be ticketed with her label, and as Edward Gibson was very much like Edward Gibbon, the immortal author of the Decline and Fall, I dropped the ‘s’ and stuck in a ‘b.’ I am nothing but a compositor on the Sentinel, and Saturday afternoon, after the paper is out, is a holiday for me, unless there is any reporting to do, for I have to turn my attention to that occasionally.”

Mr. Edward Gibbon Mardon, I observed, was slightly built, rather short, and had scanty whiskers which developed into a little thicker tuft on his chin. His eyes were pure blue, like the blue of the speedwell. They were not piercing, but perfectly transparent, indicative of a character which, if it possessed no particular creative power, would not permit self-deception. They were not the eyes of a prophet, but of a man who would not be satisfied with letting a half-known thing alone and saying he believed it.

At last, wearied out, I turned homeward, and diverging from the direct road, I was led past the house where the Misses Arbour lived. I was faint, and some beneficent inspiration prompted me to call. I went in, and found that the younger of the two sisters was out. A sudden tendency to hysterics overcame me, and I asked for a glass of water. Miss Arbour, having given it to me, sat down by the side of the fireplace opposite to the one at which I was sitting, and for a few moments there was silence. I made some commonplace observation, but instead of answering me she said quietly, “Mr. Rutherford, you have been upset; I hope you have met with no accident.”

How it came about I do not know, but my whole story rushed to my lips, and I told her all of it with quivering voice. I cannot imagine what possessed me to make her my confidante. Shy, reserved, and proud, I would have died rather than have breathed a syllable of my secret if I had been in my ordinary humour, but her soft, sweet face altogether overpowered me.

As I proceeded with my tale, the change that came over her was most remarkable. When I began she was leaning back placidly in her large chair, with her handkerchief upon her lap; but gradually her face kindled, she sat upright, and she was transformed with a completeness and suddenness which I could not have conceived possible.

“I still held my peace, but I rose and went into the best bedchamber, and sat there in the dark till bedtime. I heard James come upstairs at ten o’clock as usual, go to his own room, and lock himself in. I never hesitated a moment. I could not go home to become the centre of all the chatter of the little provincial town in which I was born. My old nurse, who took care of me as a child, had got a place in London as housekeeper in a large shop in the Strand. She was always very fond of me, and to her instantly I determined to go. I came down, wrote a brief note to James, stating that after his base and lying sneer he could not expect to find me in the morning still with him, and telling him I had left him forever. I put on my cloak, took some money which was my own out of my cashbox, and at half-past twelve heard the mail-coach approaching. I opened the front door softly⁠—it shut with an oiled spring bolt; I went out, stopped the coach, and was presently rolling over the road to the great city.

“Oh, that night! I was the sole passenger inside, and for some hours I remained stunned, hardly knowing what had become of me. Soon the morning began to break, with such calm and such slow-changing splendour that it drew me out of myself to look at it, and it seemed to me a prophecy of the future.

Thither I accordingly went one Monday afternoon in January, about two days before the term commenced. When I got there, I was shown into a long schoolroom, which had been built out from the main building. It was dark, save for one candle, and was warmed by a stove. The walls were partly covered with maps, and at one end of the room hung a diagram representing a globe, on which an immense amount of wasted ingenuity had been spent to produce the illusion of solidity. The master, I was told, was out, and in this room with one candle I remained till nine o’clock. At that time a servant brought me some bread and cheese on a small tray, with half-a-pint of beer. I asked for water, which was given me, and she then retired. The tray was set down on the master’s raised desk, and sitting there I ate my supper in silence, looking down upon the dimly-lighted forms, and forward into the almost absolute gloom.

At ten o’clock a man, who seemed as if he were the knife and boot-cleaner, came and said he would show me where I was to sleep. We passed through the schoolroom into a kind of court, where there was a ladder standing against a trapdoor. He told me that my bedroom was up there, and that when I got up I could leave the ladder down, or pull it up after me, just as I pleased.