John Keble's Parishes: A History of Hursley and Otterbourne Part 13

O pardon me, St. George, O pardon me, I crave, O pardon me this once, and I will be thy slave.

Very inconsistently with his late remorse, St. George replies -

I never will pardon a Turkish knight, Therefore arise, and try thy might.

The combat is renewed, and the Turkish knight falls prostrate, on which the Foreign King comes forward, shouting:

St. George, St. George, what hast thou done, For thou hast slain mine only son!

But, after marching round the fallen hero, he cries:

Is there a doctor to be found, That can cure this man lies bleeding on the ground?

In response, the doctor appears:

O yes, there is a doctor to be found, That can cure this man lies bleeding on the ground.

The anxious father asks:

Doctor, doctor, what is thy fee?

The doctor replies:

Ten guineas is my fee, But ten pounds I'll take of thee.

The king answers:

"Take it, doctor, but what canst thou cure?"

The doctor's pretensions are high, for he says:

I can cure the ague, palsy, and the gout, And that's a roving pain that goes within and out; A broken leg or arm, I soon can cure the pain, And if thou break'st thy neck, I'll stoutly set it again.

Bring me an old woman of fourscore years and ten, Without a tooth in her head, I'll bring her young again.

The king observes:

"Thou be'st a n.o.ble doctor if that's all true thou be'st talking about."

And the doctor, taking to prose, replies:

"I'm not like those little mountebank doctors that go about the streets, and say this, that, and the other, and tell you as many lies in one half-hour as you would find in seven years; but what I does, I does clean before your eyes, and ladies and gentlemen, if you won't believe your own eyes, 'tis a very hard case."

The king agreeing that it is, the doctor goes to the patient, saying:

"I have a little bottle that I call golden foster drops. One drop on the root of this man's tongue and another on his crown, will strike the heat through his body, and raise him off the ground."

Accordingly the Turkish knight slowly rises and decamps, St. George exclaiming:

"Arise, arise, thou cowardly dog, and see how uprightly thou can'st stand. Go home into your own country and tell them what old England has done for you, and how they'll fight a thousand better men than you.

This last speech may have been added after the Crimean War, as the drama was copied out in 1857; but the staple of it was known long before, though with variations, in different villages, and it always concludes with little Johnny Jack, the smallest of the troup, with a bundle of dolls on his back, going round with a jingling money-box, saying:

Here comes I, little Johnny Jack, Wife and family at my back, My family's large though I am small, And so a little helps us all.

Roast beef, plum pudding, strong beer and mince-pies, Who loves that better than Father Christmas or I?

One mug of Christmas ale soon will make us merry and sing; Some money in our pockets will be a very fine thing.

So, ladies and gentlemen, all at your ease, Give the Christmas boys just what you please.

Before Christmas carols had to be reformed and regulated lest they should be a mere occasion of profanity and rudeness, that curious one of Dives and Lazarus was occasionally heard, of which two lines could never be forgotten -

He had no strength to drive them 'way, And so they licked his sores.

And when Lazarus afterwards sees "Divers" "sitting on a serpent's knee."

May Day too survived in a feeble state, with the little voices singing:

April's gone! May's come!

Come and see our garland.

Mr. Keble improved the song into:

April's gone, the king of showers, May is come, the queen of flowers, Give me something, gentles dear, For a blessing on the year.

For my garland give, I pray, Words and smiles of cheerful May; Birds of spring, to you we come, Let us pick a little crumb.

In the dew of the morning we gathered our flowers From the woodlands and meadows and garden bowers, And now we have twisted our garland so gay, We are come here to wish you a happy May Day.

We cannot but here add an outline of a village character from Old Times at Otterbourne:-

Mr. William Stainer was a baker. His bread was excellent, and he was also noted for what were called Otterbourne buns, the art of making which seems to have gone with him. They were small fair-complexioned buns, which stuck together in parties of three, and when soaked, expanded to twice or three times their former size. He used to send them once or twice a week to Winchester. But though baking was his profession, he did much besides. He was a real old-fashioned herbalist, and had a curious book on the virtues of plants, and he made decoctions of many kinds, which he administered to those in want of medicine. Before the Poor Law provided Union doctors, medical advice, except at the hospital, was almost out of reach of the poor.

Mr. and Mrs. Yonge, like almost all other beneficent gentlefolks in villages, kept a medicine chest and book, and doctored such cases as they could venture on, and Mr. Stainer was in great favour as a pract.i.tioner, as many of our elder people can remember. He was exceedingly charitable and kind, and ready to give his help so far as he could. He was a great lover of flowers, and had contrived a sort of little greenhouse over the great oven at the back of his house, and there he used to bring up lovely geraniums and other flowers, which he sometimes sold. He was a deeply religious and devout man, and during an illness of the clerk took his place in Church, which was more important when there was no choir and the singers sat in the gallery. He was very happy in this office, moving about on felt shoes that he might make no noise, and most reverently keeping the Church clean, and watching over it in every way. He also continued in the post of schoolmaster, which at first he had only taken temporarily, and quaintly managing it. He was found setting as a copy "A blind man's wife needs no paint," which he defended as "Proverbs, sir, Proverbs." Giving up part of his business to his nephew, he still sat up at night baking, for the nephew, he said, was only in the A B C book of baking, and he also had other troubles: there was insanity in his family, and he was much hara.s.sed. His kindness and simplicity were sometimes abused. He never had the heart to refuse to lend money, or to deny bread on credit to hopeless debtors; and altogether debts, distress, baking, and watching his sisters all night, and school keeping all day, were too much for him.

The first hint of an examination of his school completed the mischief and he died insane, drowning himself in the ca.n.a.l. It is a sad story, but many of us will remember with affectionate regard the good, kind, quaint, and most excellent little man.

A few lines, half parody, half original, may be added as picturing the old aspect of Otterbourne, about 1830:-

OLD REMEMBRANCES

I remember, I remember, Old times at Otterbourne, Before the building of the Church, And when smock frocks were worn!

I remember, I remember, When railroads there were none, When by stage coach at early dawn The journey was begun.

And through the turnpike roads till eve Trotted the horses four, With inside pa.s.sengers and out They carried near a score.