The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies Part 23

As to the Australian servant-girl's dream about the place where another murdered body lay, and the dreams which led to the discovery of the Red Barn and a.s.synt murders, and (May 1903) to the finding of the corpse of a drowned girl at Shanklin, all these may be mere guesses by the sleeping self, which is very clever at discovering lost objects.

X. THE MYSTERY OF LORD BATEMAN

Ever and again, in the literary and antiquarian papers, there flickers up debate as to the Mystery of Lord Bateman. This problem in no way concerns the existing baronial house of Bateman, which, in Burke, records no predecessor before a knight and lord mayor of 1717. Our Bateman comes of lordlier and more ancient lineage. The question really concerns 'The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman. Ill.u.s.trated by George Cruikshank, London: Charles Tilt, Fleet Street. And Mustapha Syried, Constantinople. MDCCCx.x.xIX.'

The tiny little volume in green cloth, with a design of Lord Bateman's marriage ceremony, stamped in gold, opens with a 'Warning to the Public, concerning the Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman.' The Warning is signed George Cruikshank, who, however, adds in a postscript: 'The above is not my writing.' The ballad follows, and then comes a set of notes, mainly critical. The author of the Warning remarks: 'In some collection of old English Ballads there is an ancient ditty, which, I am told, bears some remote and distant resemblance to the following Epic Poem.'

Again, the text of the ballad, here styled 'The Famous History of Lord Bateman,' with ill.u.s.trations by Thackeray, 'plain' (the original designs were coloured), occurs in the Thirteenth Volume of the Biographical Edition of Thackeray's works. (pp. lvi-lxi).

The problems debated are: 'Who wrote the Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman, and who wrote the Notes?' The disputants have not shown much acquaintance with ballad lore in general.

First let us consider Mr. Thackeray's text of the ballad. It is closely affiliated to the text of 'The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman,' whereof the earliest edition with Cruikshank's ill.u.s.trations was published in 1839.* The edition here used is that of David Bryce and Son, Glasgow (no date).

*There are undated cheap broadside copies, not ill.u.s.trated, in the British Museum.

Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, in his 'Life of Cruikshank,' tells us that the artist sang this 'old English ballad' at a dinner where d.i.c.kens and Thackeray were present. Mr. Thackeray remarked: 'I should like to print that ballad with ill.u.s.trations,' but Cruikshank 'warned him off,' as he intended to do the thing himself. d.i.c.kens furnished the learned notes.

This account of what occurred was given by Mr. Walter Hamilton, but Mr.

Sala furnished another version. The 'authors.h.i.+p of the ballad,' Mr. Sala justly observed, 'is involved in mystery.' Cruikshank picked it up from the recitation of a minstrel outside a pot-house. In Mr. Sala's opinion, Mr. Thackeray 'revised and settled the words, and made them fit for publication.' Nor did he confine himself to the mere critical work; he added, in Mr. Sala's opinion, that admired pa.s.sage about 'The young bride's mother, who never before was heard to speak so free,' also contributing 'The Proud Young Porter,' Jeames. Now, in fact, both the interpellation of the bride's mamma, and the person and characteristics of the proud young porter, are of unknown antiquity, and are not due to Mr. Thackeray--a scholar too conscientious to 'decorate' an ancient text. Bishop Percy did such things, and Scott is not beyond suspicion; but Mr. Thackeray, like Joseph Ritson, preferred the authentic voice of tradition. Thus, in the text of the Biographical Edition, he does not imitate the c.o.c.kney tw.a.n.g, phonetically rendered in the version of Cruikshank. The second verse, for example, runs thus:

Cruikshank:

He sail-ed east, he sail-ed vest, Until he came to famed Tur-key, Vere he vos taken and put to prisin, Until his life was quite wea-ry.

Thackeray:

He sailed East, and he sailed West, Until he came to proud Turkey, Where he was taken and put to prison, Until his life was almost weary.

There are discrepancies in the arrangement of the verses, and a most important various reading.

Cruikshank:

Now sevin long years is gone and past, And fourteen days vell known to me; She packed up all her gay clouthing, And swore Lord Bateman she would go see.

To this verse, in Cruikshank's book, a note (not by Cruikshank) is added:

'"Now sevin long years is gone and past, And fourteen days well known to me."'

In this may be recognised, though in a minor degree, the same gifted hand that portrayed the Mussulman, the pirate, the father, and the bigot, in two words ("This Turk").

'"The time is gone, the historian knows it, and that is enough for the reader. This is the dignity of history very strikingly exemplified."'

That note to Cruikshank's text is, like all the delightful notes, if style is evidence, not by d.i.c.kens, but by Thackeray. Yet, in his own text, with an exemplary fidelity, he reads: 'And fourteen days well known to THEE.' To whom? We are left in ignorance; and conjecture, though tempting, is unsafe. The reading of Cruikshank, 'vell known to ME'--that is, to the poet--is confirmed by the hitherto unprinted 'Lord Bedmin.' This version, collected by Miss Wyatt Edgell in 1899, as recited by a blind old woman in a workhouse, who had learned it in her youth, now lies before the present writer. He owes this invaluable doc.u.ment to the kindness of Miss Wyatt Edgell and Lady Rosalind Northcote. Invaluable it is, because it proves that Lord Bateman (or Bedmin) is really a volkslied, a popular and current version of the ancient ballad. 'Famed Turkey' becomes 'Torquay' in this text, probably by a misapprehension on the part of the collector or reciter. The speech of the bride's mother is here omitted, though it occurs in older texts; but, on the whole, the blind old woman's memory has proved itself excellent. In one place she gives Thackeray's reading in preference to that of Cruikshank, thus:

Cruikshank:

Ven he vent down on his bended knee.

Thackeray:

Down on his bended knees fell he.

Old Woman:

Down on his bended knee fell he.

We have now ascertained the following facts: Cruikshank and Thackeray used a text with merely verbal differences, which was popular among the least educated cla.s.ses early in last century. Again, Thackeray contributed the notes and critical apparatus to Cruikshank's version.

For this the internal evidence of style is overpowering: no other man wrote in the manner and with the peculiar humour of Mr. t.i.tmarsh. In the humble opinion of the present writer these Notes ought to be appended to Mr. Thackeray's version of 'Lord Bateman.' Finally, Mr. Sala was wrong in supposing that Mr. Thackeray took liberties with the text received from oral tradition.

What was the origin of that text? Professor Child, in the second part of his 'English and Scottish Popular Ballads'* lays before us the learning about Lord Bateman, Lord Bedmin, Young b.i.+.c.ham, Young Brechin, Young Bekie, Young Beichan and Susie Pie (the heroine, Sophia, in Thackeray), Lord Beichan, Young Bondwell, and Markgraf Backenweil; for by all these names is Lord Bateman known. The student must carefully note that 'Thackeray's List of Broadsides,' cited, is NOT by Mr. W. M. Thackeray.

*Pt. ii. p. 454 et seq., and in various other places.

As the reader may not remember the incidents in the Thackeray, Cruikshank, and Old Woman version (which represents an ancient ballad, now not so much popularised as vulgarised), a summary may be given.

Lord Bateman went wandering: 'his character, at this time, and his expedition, would seem to have borne a striking resemblance to those of Lord Byron.... SOME foreign country he wished to see, and that was the extent of his desire; any foreign country would answer his purpose--all foreign countries were alike to him.'--(Note, apud Cruikshank.) Arriving in Turkey (or Torquay) he was taken and fastened to a tree by his captor. He was furtively released by the daughter of 'This Turk.' 'The poet has here, by that bold license which only genius can venture upon, surmounted the extreme difficulty of introducing any particular Turk, by a.s.suming a foregone conclusion in the reader's mind; and adverting, in a casual, careless way, to a Turk hitherto unknown as to an old acquaintance.... "THIS Turk he had" is a master-stroke, a truly Shakespearian touch'--(Note.) The lady, in her father's cellar ('Castle,' Old Woman's text), consoles the captive with 'the very best wine,' secretly stored, for his private enjoyment, by the cruel and hypocritical Mussulman. She confesses the state of her heart, and inquires as to Lord Bateman's real property, which is 'half Northumberland.' To what period in the complicated mediaeval history of the earldom of Northumberland the affair belongs is uncertain.

The pair vow to be celibate for seven years, and Lord Bateman escapes.

At the end of the period, Sophia sets out for Northumberland, urged, perhaps, by some telepathic admonition. For, on arriving at Lord Bateman's palace (Alnwick Castle?), she summons the proud porter, announces herself, and finds that her lover has just celebrated a marriage with another lady. In spite of the remonstrances of the bride's mamma, Lord Bateman restores that young lady to her family, observing

She is neither the better nor the worse for me.

So Thackeray and Old Woman. Cruikshank prudishly reads,

O you'll see what I'll do for you and she.

'Lord Bateman then prepared another marriage, having plenty of superfluous wealth to bestow upon the Church.'--(Note.) All the rest was bliss.

The reader may ask: How did Sophia know anything about the obscure Christian captive? WHY did she leave home exactly in time for his marriage? How came Lord Bateman to be so fickle? The Annotator replies: 'His lords.h.i.+p had doubtless been impelled by despair of ever recovering his lost Sophia, and a natural anxiety not to die without leaving an heir to his estate.' Finally how was the difficulty of Sophia's religion overcome?

To all these questions the c.o.c.kney version gives no replies, but the older forms of the ballad offer sufficient though varying answers, as we shall see.

Meanwhile one thing is plain from this a.n.a.lysis of the pot-house version of an old ballad, namely, that the story is constructed out of fragments from the great universal store of popular romance. The central ideas are two: first, the situation of a young man in the hands of a cruel captor (often a G.o.d, a giant, a witch, a fiend), but here--a Turk. The youth is loved and released (commonly through magic spells) by the daughter of the gaoler, G.o.d, giant, witch, Turk, or what not. In Greece, Jason is the Lord Bateman, Medea is the Sophia, of the tale, which was known to Homer and Hesiod, and was fully narrated by Pindar. THE OTHER YOUNG PERSON, the second bride, however, comes in differently, in the Greek.

In far-off Samoa, a G.o.d is the captor.* The gaoler is a magician in Red Indian versions.**

*Turner's 'Samoa,' p. 102.

**For a list, though an imperfect one, of the Captor's Daughter story, see the Author's Custom and Myth, pp. 86-102.

As a rule, in these tales, from Finland to j.a.pan, from Samoa to Madagascar, Greece and India, the girl accompanies her lover in his flight, delaying the pursuer by her magic. In 'Lord Bateman' another formula, almost as widely diffused, is preferred.

The old true love comes back just after her lover's wedding. He returns to her. Now, as a rule, in popular tales, the lover's fickleness is explained by a spell or by a breach of a taboo. The old true love has great difficulty in getting access to him, and in waking him from a sleep, drugged or magical.

The b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+rt I wrang for thee, The Hill o' Gla.s.s I clamb for thee, And wilt thou no waken and speak to me?