Grain and Chaff from an English Manor Part 5

Mrs. J.E. was, and is, one of those kind persons always ready to do a good turn to a neighbour. She and her husband brought up a large family, all of whom have done well, and a son in the Grenadier Guards especially distinguished himself in the war. She has a remarkable memory for dates of birthdays, weddings, and such-like events, and often writes us one of her interesting letters, full of information of the old village.

I had many experiences of the honesty of the agricultural labourer, but one especially remains in my mind. I.P., a man living some two miles from Aldington, regularly walked the four miles there and back for many years, in addition to his day's work. He was an excellent drainer, and a most useful all-round man, exceedingly strong and willing, bright and cheerful in conversation, and I had a very high opinion of him. I had just reached the end of a long pay when he reappeared--having taken his wages earlier in the proceedings--and asked if I had made a mistake in his money; a sovereign was missing, and he could not remember actually taking it from the table with the rest of the cash. I at once balanced my payments and receipts for the evening, but they corresponded exactly. It was a serious matter, as a half-year's rent was due to the owner of his cottage that day, and I.P. was one of those men who take a pride in paying up with punctuality. I could see, as he realized that the sovereign was lost, how disappointed and worried he felt, and being glad of an opportunity to do him a good turn, I gave him another, and sent him away very grateful. Later still he returned again, placed a sovereign on my table, and said that he had nearly reached home when he felt something hard against his knee, inside his corduroys, where he found the missing coin; there was a hole in his pocket, but the encircling string which labourers tie below the knee had prevented its escape.

CHAPTER VI.

CHARACTERISTICS OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS AND VILLAGERS.

"My crown is in my heart, not on my head: Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,"

--_3 Henry VI_.

The agricultural labourer, and the countryman generally, does not recognize any form of property beyond land, houses, buildings, farm stock, and visible chattels. A groom whom I questioned concerning a new-comer, a wealthy man, in the neighbourhood, summed him up thus: "Oh, not much account--only one hoss and a brougham!" A railway may run through the parish, worth millions of invested capital, but the labourer does not recognize it as such, and a farmer, employing a few men and with two or three thousand pounds in farm stock, is a bigger man in his eyes than a rich man whose capital is invisible.

The labourer in the days of which I am writing was inclined to be suspicious of savings banks and deposit accounts at a banker's; his savings represented a vast amount of hard work and self-denial; and he looked askance at security other than an old stocking or a teapot. He had heard of banks breaking, and felt uncomfortable about them. A story was current in my neighbourhood of a Warwickshire bank in difficulties, where a run was in progress. A van appeared, from which many heavy sacks were carried into the bank, in the presence of the crowd waiting outside to draw out their money. Some of the sacks were seen to be open, and apparently full of sovereigns; confidence was restored, and the run ceased. Later, when all danger was over, it transpired that these supposed resources were fict.i.tious, for the open sacks contained only corn with a thin layer of gold on the top.

Formerly it was said of a certain street in Evesham, chiefly inhabited by market-gardeners and their labourers, that the houses contained more gold than both the banks in the town, and I have no doubt that, even at the present day, there is an immense amount of h.o.a.rded money in country places. Only a short while ago, long after the commencement of the Great War, the sale of a small property took place in my neighbourhood, when the purchaser paid down in gold a sum of 600, the bulk of which had earned no interest during the years of collection.

No doubt people, as a rule, in these days of war bonds and certificates, have a better idea of investment, but probably a vast sum in possible loans has been lost to the Government through want of previous information on the subject. It should have been a simple matter, during the last fifty years of compulsory education, to teach the rudiments of finance in the elementary schools, and I commend the matter as worth the consideration of educational enthusiasts.

The labourer's att.i.tude, as I have said, is suspicious towards lawyers. I was chatting with a man, specially taken on for harvest, who expressed doubts of them; he continued, "If anybody were to leave me a matter of fifty pounds or so, I'd freely give it 'em," meaning that by the time all charges were paid he would not expect more than a trifle, because he supposed stamps and duties to be a part of the lawyer's remuneration, and that very little would be left when all was paid.

I was once discussing farming matters with a labourer when prospects were looking very black, and ended by saying that I expected soon to be in the workhouse. "Ah, sir," said he, "I wish I were no nearer the workhouse nor you be!" It should not be forgotten that the agricultural labourer's financial horizon does not extend much beyond the next pay night, and were it not for the generosity of his neighbours--for the poor are exceedingly good to each other in times of stress--a few weeks' illness or unemployment, especially where the children are too young to earn anything, may find him at the end of his resources.

Almost the first time I went to Evesham, in pa.s.sing Chipping Norton Junction--now Kingham--three or four men on the platform, in charge of the police, attracted my attention. I was told that they were rioters, guilty of a breach of the peace in connection with the National Agricultural Labourers' Union, then under the leadership of Joseph Arch. Being so close to my new neighbourhood, where I was just beginning farming, the incident was somewhat of a shock. Arch undoubtedly was the chief instrument in raising the agricultural labourer's wages to the extent of two or three shillings a week, and the increase was justified, as every necessity was dear at the time, owing to the great activity of trade towards the end of the sixties.

The farmers resisted the rise only because, already in the early seventies, the flood of American compet.i.tion in corn-growing was reducing values of our own produce; and as all manufactured goods which the farmer required had largely increased in price, he did not see his way to incur a higher labour bill.

Arch sent a messenger to me a few years later, to ask permission to hold a meeting in Aldington in one of my meadows. I saw at once that opposition would only stimulate antagonism, and consented. The meeting was held, but only a few labourers attended, and no farmers, and agitation, so far as we were concerned, died down. One or two of my men were, I think, members of the Union, but having already obtained the increased wages there was nothing more to be gained for themselves by so continuing, and they soon dropped out of the list. Eventually the organization collapsed. Arch was a labourer himself, and exceedingly clever at "laying" hedges, or "pleaching," as it is still called, and was called by Shakespeare in _Much Ado About Nothing_:

"Bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter."

Pleaching is a method of reducing and renovating an overgrown hedge by which all old and exhausted wood is cut out, leaving live vertical stakes at intervals, and winding the young stuff in and out of them in basket-making fashion, after notching it at the base to allow of bending it down without breakage. Arch was a native of Warwickshire, the home of this art; it takes a skilled man to ensure a good result, but when well done an excellent hedge is produced after two or three years' growth. The quickset or whitethorn (May) makes the strongest and most impervious hedge, and it flourishes amazingly on the stiff clay soils of the Lias formation in that county and its neighbour Worcestershire.

I have often wondered at, and admired, the labourer's resignation and fort.i.tude in adversity; a discontented or surly face is rarely seen among them; they have, like most people, to live lives of self-sacrifice, frugality, and industry, which doubtless bring their own compensation, for the exercise and habit of these very virtues tend to the cheerfulness and courage which never give up. Possibly, too, the open-air life, the vitalizing sunshine, the sound sleep, and the regularity of the routine, endows them with an enviable power of enjoyment of what some would consider trifles. After a long day out of doors in the natural beauty of the country, who shall say that the labourer's appet.i.te for his evening meal, his pipe of tobacco beside his bright fireside, and his detachment from the outside world, do not afford him as great or greater enjoyment than the elaborate luxury of the millionaire, with his innumerable distractions and responsibilities?

The labourer has, as I have said, little appreciation of the invisible or what does not appeal strongly to his senses; he cannot understand, for instance, that a small bag of chemical fertilizer, in the form of a grey, inoffensive powder, can contain as great a potentiality for the nutrition of crops as a cartload of evil-smelling material from the farmyard; nor is he aware that, in the case of the latter, he has to load and unload 90 pounds or thereabouts of worthless water in every 100 pounds with which he deals. Possibly, however, his preference for the natural fertilizer is not wholly misplaced, for there is, no doubt, much still to be learned concerning the relative values of natural and artificial compounds with special reference to the bacterial inoculation of the soil and its influence on vegetable life.

He is not without some aesthetic feeling for the glories of Nature daily before him, and though like Peter Bell, of whom we are told that

"A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more,"

and putting aside the metaphysical a.n.a.logy and the moral teaching which are presented by every tree and plant, he enjoys, I know, the simple beauty of the flower itself, the exhilarating freshness of the bright spring morning, the prodigality of the summer foliage, the ripe autumnal glow of the harvest-field, and the sparkling frost of a winter's day. But he very rarely expresses his enthusiasm in superlatives: "a usefulish lot," and "a smartish few," meaning in Worcestershire "a very good lot," and "a great many," is about the limit to which he will commit himself. His natural reticence in serious situations and calamity, and his reserve in the outlet of feeling by vocal expression, give a wrong impression of its real depth, and may even convey the impression of callousness to anyone not conversant with the working of his mind.

To a nephew of mine who was surprised to see his gardener's little son leaving the garden, the man explained: "That little fellow be come to tell I a middlinish bit of news; 'e come to say as his little sister be dead." Notice the "middlinish bit of news," where a much stronger expression would have been justified, and note the restraint as to his loss, suggesting an unfeeling mind, though in reality very far from the grief he was shy of expressing.

An old woman in a parish adjoining mine, having lost a child, received the condolences of a visitor with, "Yes, mum; we seems to be regular unlucky, for only a few weeks ago we lost a pig."

A lady well known to me, the daughter of the Vicar of a c.u.mberland parish, was calling on a woman whose husband had died a few days previously, and expressing her sympathy with the widow in her affliction, spoke of the sadness of the circ.u.mstances. The widow thanked her visitor, and added: "You know, miss, we was to have killed a pig that week, but there, we couldn't 'ave 'em both about at the same time"!

All these incidents suggest callousness, but in reality they were plain statements of fact from persons with a limited vocabulary and unskilled in the niceties of polished language.

Another incident will ill.u.s.trate how faulty expression may give an unintended impression. A lady, calling at a cottage, exclaimed with appreciation at the fragrant odour of frying bacon which greeted her.

The cottager was busy with it at the fire. "Yes, miss," she said, "it _is_ nice to 'ave a bit of bacon as you've waited on yourself"--of course, referring to the fact that she knew the animal was always fed on really good food, an important and rea.s.suring condition, though a tender heart might have regretted the sacrifice of an intimate creature which some would have regarded almost as a pet.

The cottager does not look upon his pig in that light; it is fed well and comfortably housed with a definite object, and very little love is lost between the pig and his master. Children in some places in Worcestershire were formerly kept at home in order to be present on the great occasion of the pig's obsequies. A woman, asked why her children were absent from school, replied: "Well, sir, you see, we killed our pig that day, and I kept the children at home for a treat; there's no harm in that, sir, I'm sure, for pigs allus dies without malice!"

Villagers accept the novel significations which time or fashion gradually confer upon old words very unreadily. I could see, at first, that they were puzzled by my use of the word "awful," now long adopted generally to strengthen a statement, very much as they themselves make use of "terrible," "desp'rate," or "de-adly." They connect the word "friend" with the signification "benefactor" only; a man, speaking of someone born with a little inherited fortune, said that "his friends lived before him." I told an old labourer that my little daughter considered him a great friend of hers. He looked puzzled, and replied: "Well, I don't know as I ever gave her anything." They still distinguish between two words now carrying the same meaning. I told a man that I was afraid some work he had for me would give him a lot of trouble. He corrected me: "'Twill be no _trouble_, master, only _labour_."

The labourer does not appreciate a sudden order or an unreasonable change in work once commenced; he does not like being taken by surprise in such matters: the necessary tool--for farm labourers find their own hand implements--may not be readily available, may be out of order, require grinding, or a visit to the blacksmith's for repair or readjustment. The wise master introduces the subject, whenever possible, gradually beforehand. "We shall have to think about wheat-hoeing, mowing, potato-digging, next week," prepares the man for the occasion, so that when the time comes he has his hoe, axe, scythe, or bill-hook, as the case may be, ready. The job, too, may demand some special clothing--hedging gloves, gaiters, new shoes, and so forth.

He is often suspicious of new arrangements or alteration of hours, and is inclined to attribute an ulterior motive to the proposer of any change in the unwritten but long-accustomed laws which govern his habits; he lives in a groove into which by degrees abuses may have crept, and some alteration may have become imperative.

When we introduced a coal club for the villagers, with the idea of buying several trucks at lowest cash price, collecting their contributions week by week during the previous summer, when good wages were being earned, and delivering the coal gratis in my carts shortly before winter, they seemed very doubtful as to the advantage of joining. Some saw the advantage at once, knowing the high prices of single half-tons or hundredweights delivered in coal-merchants' carts; others would "let us know in a day or two," wanted time to consider the matter, being taken "unawares"; others, a.s.sured that n.o.body would undertake such a troublesome business without an eye to personal profit, but anxious not to offend my daughter, who was visiting each cottage, replied: "Oh yes, miss, if 'tis to do _you_ any good"!

Eventually, however, they were all satisfied and very grateful, appreciating the fact that the cartage was not charged for, and that they were getting much better coal than before at a lower price.

Village people, I am afraid, are rather fond of horrors; the newspaper accounts of events which come under that description, such as murders, suicides, and sensational trials, afford, apparently, much interest. A man was working for me on some repairs close to my door; as he was a stranger, I tried, as usual, to induce him to talk whenever I pa.s.sed.

I had no success and could not get a word out of him, until, one morning, I chanced to see a sensational headline in a local paper about a suicide in a neighbouring town. On pa.s.sing my workman, he immediately broke out in great excitement, "Did you read in the paper about that bloke who went to his father's house at W----, sat down on the doorstep, and cut his throat?" The account had evidently seized upon his imagination, and had thoroughly roused him out of himself, but the following day he was as silent as before.

Births, marriages, and deaths are interesting topics in the village, and perhaps with reason, for, after all, they are the most important events in our lives, and in the villages most of the cottagers are more or less related. All the inhabitants were much excited when a poor old widow, living very near my house, sitting on a low circular stone parapet round her well, lost her balance in some way, fell in, and was drowned. I was foreman of the jury at the inquest, and after hearing the evidence, which amounted to no more than the finding of the body soon after the event, the coroner expressed his opinion that it was a case of accidental death, with which I at once concurred.

With some reluctance, the other jurymen agreed; they had, I imagine, as usual, made up their minds for a more sensational verdict, but scarcely liked to suggest it, and a verdict of accidental death was accordingly returned. Afterwards I heard that the villagers were saying that it was very kind of me to bring in such an indulgent verdict, but they "knowed very well it was suicide."

I was invited to the wedding feast of my bailiff's daughter, and being, I suppose, regarded as the princ.i.p.al guest, was, according to custom, requested to carve the excellent leg of mutton which formed the _piece de resistance_. The parish clerk, considerably over eighty at the time, was one of the most sprightly members of the company; he kept us interested with historical recollections going back to the Battle of Waterloo, and spoke of Wellington and Napoleon almost as familiarly as we now speak of Earl Haig and the Kaiser. He had a strong sense of humour, and, after a very hearty meal, announced that he didn't know how it was, but he'd "sort of lost his appet.i.te,"

pretending to regard the fact as an injury, premeditated by the hospitality of our host and hostess.

The labourer dearly loves a grievance, not exactly for its own sake, but because it affords an interesting topic of conversation. One autumn, returning from a holiday in the Isle of Wight, I found the whole village agog with the first County Council election. A magistrate candidate, in the neighbouring village of Broadway, was to be opposed by an Aldington man. I found a local committee holding excited partisan meetings on behalf of the latter, active canva.s.sing going on, a villager appointed as secretary (always called "seckert_ar_y" in these parts), and the election the sole topic of conversation. The village people, always delighted in the possession of a common enemy and a common cause, were making the election a village affair, as opposed to the village of the other candidate; popular feeling was running very high, Badsey, of course, joining up with Aldington as strong allies. Some young men had lately been before the magistrates at Evesham, and fined for obstructing the footpath, and the magistrate candidate was selected as the scapegoat for the affront to our united villages. At the election the Aldington man was returned, and his supporters started with him on a triumphal progress through the const.i.tuency. Of course, they visited Broadway, to crow over the conquered village, but the wind was somewhat taken out of their sails when the defeated candidate at once came forward, shook hands with his opponent, and congratulated him upon his success! The return journey was not so hilarious; one of the men of Broadway, noticing a string of carts in the procession, conveying sympathizers with the victor, in addition to the owners of the vehicles--thus rendering the latter liable to the carriage duty of 15s. each--and strongly resenting the spirit which brought the victorious party to Broadway, sent a telegram to the Superintendent of Police at Evesham, who met the returning procession and took down their names, with the ultimate result of a substantial haul in fines for the excise!

During the Boer War the common foe was, of course, "Old Kruger" (with a soft _g_), and we hoisted the Union Jack in front of the Manor whenever our side scored a substantial success. The news of Lord Roberts's victory at Paardeburg reached Badsey in the morning, after the papers, and, returning by road from my farm round, I heard great rejoicings and cheering from the direction of the village. Meeting a boy, I learned that "Old Cronje" was defeated and a prisoner, with "'leven thousand men!"--a report which proved to be correct with the trifling discount of 9,000 of the latter! The same spirit of union for a common cause was almost as evident at that time as in the far more strenuous struggle of 1914-1918, and so long as England to herself remains but true, doubtless our enemies will fulfil the part a.s.signed to them by the greatest of English poets.

A love of the marvellous is a common characteristic of country village folks, and I have already referred to such beliefs in the supernatural among my men. We had our own "white lady" on the highroad where it turns off to Aldington, though I never met anyone who had seen her; there were, too, signs and wonders before approaching deaths, and a thrilling story of a headless calf in the neighbourhood.

An old house at Badsey, once a _hospitium_ or sanatorium for sick monks from Evesham Abbey in pre-Reformation days, was reported to be haunted, and people told tales of "the old fellows rattling about again" of a night. Probably these beliefs had been encouraged in former times by the monks themselves, to prevent the villagers prying too closely into their occupations; and no doubt the scattered individuals of the same body originated the popular theory that the Abbey lands of which they were dispossessed would never, owing to a curse, pa.s.s by inheritance in the direct line from father to eldest son--an event that in the course of nature often fails, though by no means invariably.

In recent years a startling story has been told, and even appeared in a local paper, of a ghostly adventure near the Aldington turning. A young lady (not a native), riding her bicycle to Evesham from Badsey, pa.s.sed, machine and all, right through an apparition which suddenly crossed her path, without any resulting fall.

In connection with the monk's _hospitium_ I lately made an interesting discovery as to the origin of a curious name of one of my fields, which had always puzzled me. The field adjoined the _hospitium_, and was always known as "the Signhurst." Field-names are a very interesting study, they usually bear some significance to a peculiarity in the field itself, or its position with reference to its surroundings, and it has always been a hobby of mine to trace their derivations. The word "Signhurst" presented no clue to its origin except the Anglo-Saxon "burst," signifying a wood, but there was no appearance or tradition of any wood having ever occupied the spot, and the land was so good, and so well situated as to aspect, that it was unlikely to have been such a site, even in Anglo-Saxon days. I stumbled upon a pa.s.sage in May's _History of Evesham_ which mentioned the "Seyne House," meaning "Sane House," the equivalent of the modern word "sanatorium," and I saw at once the origin of the corrupted word "Signhurst"--the field near the Seyne House.

Wages are, of course, the crowning reward of the working-man's week; throughout the whole of my time 15s. a week was the recognized pay for six full summer days--"a very little to receive, but a good deal to pay away," as a neighbour once said. During harvest, and at piecework, more money was earned, and it always pleased me that I could pay much better prices for piece-work among the hops than for piece-work at wheat-hoeing or on similar unremunerative crops. The reason is obvious: the hoeing of an acre of wheat, a crop which might possibly return a matter of 10 per acre, takes no more manual effort than the hoeing of an acre of hops, where a gross return of 70 or 80 per acre is not unusual, and is sometimes considerably exceeded.

As wages must eventually always depend upon prices of produce raised by the labour for which such wages are expended, when the agricultural labourer buys his bread he is only buying back his own labour in a concrete form plus the other relative expenses on the farm, and the cost of milling, baking, and distribution, so that when he gets a high price for his labour he must expect to pay a high price for his food; and when the price of food is reduced the price of his labour also falls. Here, again, the rudiments of economics, taught in the schools, would conduce to his understanding the position, and the eradication of discontent.

It is impossible, economically speaking, to defend the system of equal wages to the most capable and industrious men on the one hand and to inefficient slackers on the other; and as a graduated scale of payment, according to results, is not practicable without arousing ill-feeling and jealousy, the farmer's only remedy is to get rid of the slackers. Inefficiency and slacking are often due to a man's enfeebled mental and physical condition, owing to neglect in his bringing up as a child, or to insufficient or unwholesome food provided by an improvident wife in his home.

I was fortunate in meeting with very few of these degenerates, but I remember one tall, delicate-looking man who seemed unable to apply either his strength or his attention to his work. He was denounced by the foreman under whom he worked as not only useless, but "the starvenest wretch as ever I see," intended to convey the impression, and confirming my own conclusion, that cold and hunger were really the cause of his inability to render a fair day's work.

I remember, too, when some elderly women, with a younger one, were hay-making, one of the old ladies, dragging the big "heel-rake" behind the waggon in course of loading--always rather a tough job--tried to induce the younger woman to take her place with, "Here, Sally, thee take a turn at it; thee be a better 'ooman nor I be." My bailiff, overhearing, at once interposed: "Be she a better 'ooman than thee, Betsy, ov a Sat.u.r.day night [pay-night]?"