The Early Life of Mark Rutherford | Page 6

useful as it lets through the most light." A word, by the way, on Burkitt. He was born in 1650, went to Cambridge, and became rector, first of Milden, and then of Dedham, both in Suffolk. As rector of Dedham he died. There he wrote the Poor Man's Help and Young Man's Guide, which went through more than thirty editions in fifty years. There he wrestled with the Baptists, and produced his Argumentative and Practical Discourse on Infant Baptism. I have wandered through these Dedham fields by the banks of the Stour. It is Constable's country, and in its way is not to be matched in England. Although there is nothing striking in it, its influence, at least upon me, is greater than that of celebrated mountains and waterfalls. What a power there is to subdue and calm in those low hills, overtopped, as you see it from East Bergholt, by the magnificent Dedham half- cathedral church! It is very probable that Burkitt, as he took his walks by the Stour, and struggled with his Argument, never saw the placid, winding stream; nor is it likely that anybody in Bedford, except my father, had heard of him. For his defence of the schools my father was presented at a town's meeting with a silver tea- service.
By degrees, when the battle was over, the bookselling business very much fell off, and after a short partnership with his brother-in-law in a tannery, my father was appointed assistant door-keeper of the House of Commons by Lord Charles Russell. He soon became door- keeper. While he was at the door he wrote for a weekly paper his Inner Life of the House of Commons, afterwards collected and published in book form. He held office for twenty-one years, and on his retirement, in 1875, 160 members of the House testified in a very substantial manner their regard for him. He died at Carshalton on February 11, 1882. There were many obituary notices of him. One was from Lord Charles Russell, who, as Serjeant-at-Arms, had full opportunities of knowing him well. Lord Charles recalled a meeting at Woburn, a quarter of a century before, in honour of Lord John Russell. Lord John spoke then, and so did Sir David Dundas, then Solicitor-General, Lord Charles, and my father. "His," said Lord Charles, "was the finest speech, and Sir David Dundas remarked to me, as Mr. White concluded, 'Why that is old Cobbett again MINUS his vulgarity.'" He became acquainted with a good many members during his stay at the House. New members sought his advice and initiation into its ways. Some of his friends were also mine. Amongst these were Sir John Trelawney and his gifted wife. Sir John belonged to the scholarly Radical party, which included John Stuart Mill and Roebuck. The visits to Sir John and Lady Trelawney will never be forgotten, not so much because I was taught what to think about certain political questions, but because I was supplied with a standard by which all political questions were judged, and this standard was fixed by reason. Looking at the methods and the procedure of that little republic and at the anarchy of to-day, with no prospect of the renewal of allegiance to principles, my heart sinks. It was through one of the Russells, with whom my father was acquainted, that I was permitted with him to call on Carlyle, an event amongst the greatest in my life, and all the happier for me because I did not ask to go.
What I am going to say now I hardly like to mention, because of its privacy, but it is so much to my father's honour that I cannot omit it. Besides, almost everybody concerned is now dead. When he left Bedford he was considerably in debt, through the falling off in his book-selling business which I have just mentioned, caused mainly by his courageous partisanship. His official salary was not sufficient to keep him, and in order to increase it, he began to write for the newspapers. During the session this was very hard work. He could not leave the House till it rose, and was often not at home till two o'clock in the morning or later, too tired to sleep. He was never able to see a single revise of what he wrote. In the end he paid his debts in full.
My father was a perfectly honest man, and hated shiftiness even worse than downright lying. The only time he gave me a thrashing was for prevarication. He had a plain, but not a dull mind, and loved poetry of a sublime cast, especially Milton. I can hear him even now repeat passages from the Comus, which was a special favourite. Elsewhere I have told how when he was young and stood