The World's Greatest Books - Volume 6 Part 41

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD

Our Village

Mary Russell Mitford was known first as a dramatist, with tragedy as her forte, and in later years as a novelist, but by posterity she will be remembered as a portrayer of country life, in simply worded sketches, with a quiet colouring of humour. These sketches were collected, as "Our Village," into five volumes, between 1824 and 1832. Miss Mitford was born Dec. 16, 1787, at Alresford, Hampshire, England, the daughter of a foolish spendthrift father, to whom she was pathetically devoted, and lived in her native county almost throughout her life. In her later years she received a Civil List pension.

She died on January 10, 1855. The quietness of the country is in all Miss Mitford's writing, but it is a cheerful country, pervaded by a rosy-cheeked optimism. Her letters, too, scribbled on small sc.r.a.ps of paper, are as attractive as her books.

_I.--Some of the Inhabitants_

Will you walk with me through our village, courteous reader? The journey is not long. We will begin at the lower end, and proceed up the hill.

The tidy, square, red cottage on the right hand, with the long, well-stocked garden by the side of the road, belongs to a retired publican from a neighbouring town; a substantial person with a comely wife--one who piques himself on independence and idleness, talks politics, reads the newspapers, hates the minister, and cries out for reform. He hangs over his gate, and tries to entice pa.s.sengers to stop and chat. Poor man! He is a very respectable person, and would be a very happy one if he would add a little employment to his dignity. It would be the salt of life to him.

Next to his house, though parted from it by another long garden with a yew arbour at the end, is the pretty dwelling of the shoemaker, a pale, sickly-looking, black-haired man, the very model of sober industry.

There he sits in his little shop from early morning till late at night.

An earthquake would hardly stir him. There is at least as much vanity in his industry as in the strenuous idleness of the retired publican. The shoemaker has only one pretty daughter, a light, delicate, fair-haired girl of fourteen, the champion, protectress, and play-fellow of every brat under three years old, whom she jumps, dances, dandles, and feeds all day long. A very attractive person is that child-loving girl. She likes flowers, and has a profusion of white stocks under her window, as pure and delicate as herself.

The first house on the opposite side of the way is the blacksmith's--a gloomy dwelling, where the sun never seems to shine; dark and smoky within and without, like a forge. The blacksmith is a high officer in our little state, nothing less than a constable; but alas, alas! when tumults arise, and the constable is called for, he will commonly be found in the thickest of the fray. Lucky would it be for his wife and her eight children if there were no public-house in the land.

Then comes the village shop, like other village shops, multifarious as a bazaar--a repository for bread, shoes, tea, cheese, tape, ribbons, and bacon; for everything, in short, except the one particular thing which you happen to want at the moment, and will be sure not to find.

Divided from the shop by a narrow yard is a habitation of whose inmates I shall say nothing. A cottage--no, a miniature house, all angles, and of a charming in-and-outness; the walls, old and weather-stained, covered with hollyhocks, roses, honeysuckles, and a great apricot-tree; the cas.e.m.e.nts full of geraniums (oh, there is our superb white cat peeping out from among them!); the closets (our landlord has the a.s.surance to call them rooms) full of contrivances and corner-cupboards; and the little garden behind full of common flowers. That house was built on purpose to show in what an exceeding small compa.s.s comfort may be packed.

The next tenement is a place of importance, the Rose Inn--a whitewashed building, retired from the road behind its fine swinging sign, with a little bow-window room coming out on one side, and forming, with our stable on the other, a sort of open square, which is the constant resort of carts, waggons, and return chaises.

Next door lives a carpenter, "famed ten miles around, and worthy all his fame," with his excellent wife and their little daughter Lizzy, the plaything and queen of the village--a child three years old according to the register, but six in size and strength and intellect, in power and self-will. She manages everybody in the place; makes the lazy carry her, the silent talk to her, and the grave to romp with her. Her chief attraction lies in her exceeding power of loving, and her firm reliance on the love and the indulgence of others.

How pleasantly the road winds up the hill, with its broad, green borders and hedgerows so thickly timbered! How finely the evening sun falls on that sandy, excavated bank, and touches the farmhouse on the top of the eminence!

_II.--Hannah Bint_

The shaw leading to Hannah Bint's habitation is a very pretty mixture of wood and coppice. A sudden turn brings us to the boundary of the shaw, and there, across the open s.p.a.ce, the white cottage of the keeper peeps from the opposite coppice; and the vine-covered dwelling of Hannah Bint rises from amidst the pretty garden, which lies bathed in the sunshine around it.

My friend Hannah Bint is by no means an ordinary person. Her father, Jack Bint (for in all his life he never arrived at the dignity of being called John), was a drover of high repute in his profession. No man between Salisbury Plain and Smithfield was thought to conduct a flock of sheep so skilfully through all the difficulties of lanes and commons, streets and high-roads, as Jack Bint, aided by Jack Bint's famous dog, Watch.

No man had a more thorough knowledge of the proper night stations, where good feed might be procured for his charge, and good liquor for Watch and himself; Watch, like other sheepdogs, being accustomed to live chiefly on bread and beer, while his master preferred gin.

But when a rheumatic fever came one hard winter, and finally settled in Jack Bint's limbs, reducing the most active and handy man in the parish to the state of a confirmed cripple, poor Jack, a thoughtless but kind creature, looked at his three motherless children with acute misery.

Then it was that he found help where he least expected it--in the sense and spirit of his young daughter, a girl of twelve years old.

Hannah was a quick, clever la.s.s of a high spirit, a firm temper, some pride, and a horror of accepting parochial relief--that surest safeguard to the st.u.r.dy independence of the English character. So when her father talked of giving up their comfortable cottage and removing to the workhouse, while she and her brothers must move to service, Hannah formed a bold resolution, and proceeded to act at once on her own plans and designs.

She knew that the employer in whose service her father's health had suffered so severely was a rich and liberal cattle-dealer in the neighbourhood, who would willingly aid an old and faithful servant. Of Farmer Oakley, accordingly, she asked, not money, but something much more in his own way--a cow! And, amused and interested by the child's earnestness, the wealthy yeoman gave her a very fine young Alderney.

She then went to the lord of the manor, and, with equal knowledge of character, begged his permission to keep her cow on the shaw common. He, too, half from real good nature, and half not to be outdone in liberality by his tenant, not only granted the requested permission, but reduced the rent so much that the produce of the vine seldom failed to satisfy their kind landlord.

Now Hannah showed great judgment in setting up as a dairy-woman. One of the most provoking of the petty difficulties which beset a small establishment in this neighbourhood is the trouble, almost the impossibility, of procuring the pastoral luxuries of milk, eggs, and b.u.t.ter. Hannah's Alderney restored us to our rural privilege. Speedily she established a regular and gainful trade in milk, eggs, b.u.t.ter, honey, and poultry--for poultry they had always kept.

In short, during the five years she has ruled at the shaw cottage the world has gone well with Hannah Bint. She has even taught Watch to like the b.u.t.termilk as well as strong beer, and has nearly persuaded her father to accept milk as a subst.i.tute for gin. Not but that Hannah hath had her enemies as well as her betters. The old woman at the lodge, who always piqued herself on being spiteful, and crying down new ways, foretold that she would come to no good; nay, even Ned Miles, the keeper, her next neighbour, who had whilom held entire sway over the shaw common, as well as its coppices, grumbled as much as so good-natured and genial a person could grumble when he found a little girl sharing his dominion, a cow grazing beside his pony, and vulgar c.o.c.ks and hens hovering around the buckwheat destined to feed his n.o.ble pheasants.

Yes! Hannah hath had her enemies, but they are pa.s.sing away. The old woman at the lodge is dead, poor creature; and the keeper?--why, he is not dead, or like to die, but the change that has taken place there is the most astonishing of all--except perhaps the change in Hannah herself.

Few damsels of twelve years old, generally a very pretty age, were less pretty than Hannah Bint. Short and stunted in her figure, thin in face, sharp in feature, with a muddied complexion, wild, sunburnt hair, and eyes whose very brightness had in them something startling, over-informed, too clever for her age; at twelve years old she had quite the air of a little old fairy.

Now, at seventeen, matters are mended. Her complexion has cleared; her countenance has developed itself; her figure has shot up into height and lightness, and a sort of rustic grace; her bright, acute eye is softened and sweetened by a womanly wish to please; her hair is trimmed and curled and brushed with exquisite neatness; and her whole dress arranged with that nice attention to the becoming which would be called the highest degree of coquetry if it did not deserve the better name of propriety. The la.s.s is really pretty, and Ned Miles has discovered that she is so. There he stands, the rogue, close at her side (for he hath joined her whilst we have been telling her little story, and the milking is over); there he stands holding her milk-pail in one hand, and stroking Watch with the other. There they stand, as much like lovers as may be; he smiling and she blushing; he never looking so handsome, nor she so pretty, in their lives.

There they stand, and one would not disturb them for all the milk and the b.u.t.ter in Christendom. I should not wonder if they were fixing the wedding-day.

_III.--A Country Cricket Match_

I doubt if there be any scene in the world more animating or delightful than a cricket match. I do not mean a set match at Lord's Ground--no!

the cricket I mean is a real solid, old-fashioned match between neighbouring parishes, where each attacks the other for honour and a supper.

For the last three weeks our village has been in a state of great excitement, occasioned by a challenge from our north-western neighbours, the men of B----, to contend with us at cricket. Now, we have not been much in the habit of playing matches. The sport had languished until the present season, when the spirit began to revive. Half a dozen fine, active lads, of influence among their comrades, grew into men and yearned for cricket. In short, the practice recommenced, and the hill was again alive with men and boys and innocent merriment. Still, we were modest and doubted our own strength.

The B---- people, on the other hand, must have been braggers born. Never was such boasting! Such ostentatious display of practice! It was a wonder they did not challenge all England. Yet we firmly resolved not to decline the combat; and one of the most spirited of the new growth, William Grey by name, and a farmer's son by station, took up the glove in a style of manly courtesy that would have done honour to a knight in the days of chivalry.

William Grey then set forth to muster his men, remembering with great complacency that Samuel Long, the very man who had bowled us out at a fatal return match some years ago at S--, our neighbours south-by-east, had luckily, in a remove of a quarter of a mile last Lady Day, crossed the boundaries of his old parish and actually belonged to us. Here was a stroke of good fortune! Our captain applied to him instantly, and he agreed at a word. We felt we had half gained the match when we had secured him. Then James Brown, a journeyman blacksmith and a native, who, being of a rambling disposition, had roamed from place to place for half a dozen years, had just returned to our village with a prodigious reputation in cricket and gallantry. To him also went the indefatigable William Grey, and he also consented to play. Having thus secured two powerful auxiliaries, we began to reckon the regular forces.

Thus ran our list. William Grey, 1; Samuel Long, 2; James Brown, 3; George and John Simmons, one capital, the other so-so--an uncertain hitter, but a good fieldsman, 5; Joel Brent, excellent, 6; Ben Appleton--here was a little pause, for Ben's abilities at cricket were not completely ascertained, but then he was a good fellow, so full of fun and waggery! No doing without Ben. So he figured in the list as 7.

George Harris--a short halt there too--slowish, but sure, 8; Tom Coper--oh, beyond the world Tom Coper, the red-headed gardening lad, whose left-handed strokes send _her_ (a cricket-ball is always of the feminine gender) send her spinning a mile, 9; Harry Willis, another blacksmith, 10.

We had now ten of our eleven, but the choice of the last occasioned some demur. John Strong, a nice youth--everybody likes John Strong--was the next candidate, but he is so tall and limp that we were all afraid his strength, in spite of his name, would never hold out. So the eve of the match arrived and the post was still vacant, when a little boy of fifteen, David Willis, brother to Harry, admitted by accident to the last practice, saw eight of them out, and was voted in by acclamation.

Morning dawned. On calling over our roll, Brown was missing; and it transpired that he had set off at four o'clock in the morning to play in a cricket match at M----, a little town twelve miles off, which had been his last residence. Here was desertion! Here was treachery! How we cried him down! We were well rid of him, for he was no batter compared with William Grey; not fit to wipe the shoes of Samuel Long as a bowler; the boy David Willis was worth fifty of him. So we took tall John Strong. I never saw any one prouder than the good-humoured lad was at this not very flattering piece of preferment.

_They_ began the warfare--these boastful men of B----! And what think you was the amount of their innings? These challengers--the famous eleven--how many did they get? Think! Imagine! Guess! You cannot. Well, they got twenty-two, or, rather, they got twenty, for two of theirs were short notches, and would never have been allowed, only that, seeing what they were made of, we and our umpires were not particular. Oh, how well we fielded.

Then we went in. And what of our innings? Guess! A hundred and sixty-nine!

We headed them by a hundred and forty-seven; and then they gave in, as well they might. William Grey pressed them much to try another innings, but they were beaten sulky and would not move.

The only drawback in my enjoyment was the failure of the pretty boy David Willis, who, injudiciously put in first, and playing for the first time in a match amongst men and strangers, was seized with such a fit of shamefaced shyness that he could scarcely hold his bat, and was bowled out without a stroke, from actual nervousness. Our other modest lad, John Strong, did very well; his length told in the field, and he got good fame. William Grey made a hit which actually lost the cricket-ball.

We think she lodged in a hedge a quarter of a mile off, but n.o.body could find her. And so we parted; the players retired to their supper and we to our homes, all good-humoured and all happy--except the losers.

_IV.--Love, the Leveller_

The prettiest cottage on our village green is the little dwelling of Dame Wilson. The dame was a respected servant in a most respectable family, which she quitted only on her marriage with a man of character and industry, and of that peculiar universality of genius which forms what is called, in country phrase, a handy fellow. His death, which happened about ten years ago, made quite a gap in our village commonwealth.