CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library The original of tiiis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013660976 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES ^ A /f;/ "MY SON-IN-LAW."— W. P. Frith. FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES BY THE AUTHOR OF "LEAVES FROM A LIFE ' The old order ohangeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways." BRENTANO'S NEW YORK 1909 ( '/ tl IM.vt;^ TO THE DEAE MEMORY OF T.P. ; A.P. ; C.A.P. ; and A.G.T. WHOM I LOVED WHO LIE ASLEEP IN THE SWEETEST COUNTY IN ENGLAND AND WHO ARE NOW INCORPORATED IN ITS SOIL I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. I THINK THEY WILL KNOW WHY. 1858 to 1908. CONTENTS UHAJ I. What do they know of England ? PAGE 1 II. The County . 26 III. Townsfolk . 65 IV. More Townsfolk^ and Others . 91 V. The Oldest Inhabitant .... . 120 VI. Church and Chapel .... . 146 VII. Free and Independent Electors . . 173 VIII. Defenders of their Country . . 204 IX. Finding the General .... . 226 X. " Come Out : 'tis now September ! " . 251 XI. Some of the Farms . 274. XII. Round the Coast . 298 XIII. Alarums and Excursions . 322 XIV. Uprooting . 344 XV. Green Pastures . S66 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "My SoN-IN-Law" — W. P. Frith . . . Frontispiece Pillar from Roman Villa .... Tofaeepage 234 Lydia Languish „ 246 Pamela „ 248 Sketch to Illustrate "The Fallen Idol" . „ 354 FRESH LEAYES AND GREEN PASTURES CHAPTER I WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND? It was only the other day that a man turning up the ground on a bare hill-side, whereon no digging had been done since the days of the Romans, came upon what appeared to be a coflfin. A square end protruded from the dip which had been hollowed out to make a tennis lawn. Some one who knew happened to be on the spot; careful investigation of the ground was made, and finally a species of lid, sides and ends were uncovered and on the bare ground lay a few tiny bones, and the skull of a grown- up person who once, before history was written down, walked over the exquisite downs around his burial-place and took his part, no doubt, manfully, in the life that surged around him. Or, indeed, it might be the skull of a woman ; albeit the length of the coffin denoted it had held a creature above the average height. Some FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES one who sat and watched her hero sail away to battle with her country's foes; or who may even have trembled at the fight that hurtled up and down the valley beneath her; while on the heights she clasped her children to her, and wondered what the end of it all would be. No one knows, no one will ever know whose brain once beat in that empty bone ; no one can reconstruct the hfe-story of the human being who was laid to rest before the Roman legions came to Britain, and civilisation began to leave its mark on the rude people of those early days. Only just a few miles from where the coffin turned up was once a church surrounded by dwellings : now and then the ploughman's share grits on a specially stubborn stone. Curiosity causes him to dig ; he may find an exquisitely carved capital belonging once to a Norman arch ; he may find a burned flat stone that speaks to the initiated of where a house-place once stood and a hearth fire sparkled ; or again farther away across the hills he may strike even a greater find, and turn up a beautiful pavement that shows where the Roman conqueror made his home, and no doubt lived and died too, far away from his own beloved sunny Italian skies. There are those who from the skull just found, from the Norman capital, from the Roman villa, can bring before us the whole life and times when these things were part and parcel of the daily life that once meant England, to WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? those who lived there at that special period and called it by the name that then was hers. Some- how or other, by careful digging, by surmise, by study, they have remade for themselves to a certain extent places and people as they were wont to be ; and if we have no certainty that such were their existence, their homes, them- selves, yet we obtain glimpses into the past. Sometimes the curtain seems to lift entirely, and we realise that after all evolution has not done quite as much for humanity as the believers in that theory think, that even in some ways we have gone back, and we are not as artistic, as clever, as charming as the barbarians we have succeeded and whose lives, as far as we ourselves are personally concerned, need never have been. After all the world is round ; all is a circle ; words we cast into the air circle about, and unless caught by some Marconi receiver that may exist unseen and unknown to us, continue to circle until they reach, may be, the recording angel himself. Stones cast into the pond make circles, and it is only when they reach the edge that the circle ceases to widen out and breaks. Families live, too, in circles. Starting always from the dust, they reach their apogee and then begin the descent, ending once more in the dust from which their first known ancestor sprang. What would it have meant to us if beside the coffin and the skull we could have dug up the equivalent of a 3 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES library or a daily paper, even that banal and feeble publication, the orthodox parish magazine ! After all the British Museum does not go back very far if we allude to printed, matter only, and one is inclined to wonder if even these records will last, when the New Zealander spoken of by Macaulay sits on the broken bridge and surveys the blasted and shattered ruins of a city that once deemed herself mistress of the world. All the same, I do not think the New Zealander can come yet awhile, albeit folks have been heard to prophesy that the endless tunnelling beneath ground that goes on nowadays will hasten the catastrophe. Therefore it may be as well to put down on paper — for the time for the skull and coffin cannot be long — how people used to live, breathe and move in a distant country-place more years ago than one likes quite to confess to. For already people are beginning to forget: why should they remember in these days of rush and hurry and motor-cars ? They tear through the beautiful lanes, rattle through the streets of what they call, and with some justice, their dead-alive towns and villages; and while they see the village mother rush out and angrily shake the child, who has escaped death by a bare inch, because her mere nervousness makes her sharp; and note the rather dowdily dressed girls and women and the badly arranged shop- windows ; they may thank Providence for London and the big cities, but they do not recognise 4 WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? how the cities have starved the country and battened on the brave lads and lasses that once were content, happy and joyful members of the lif^ that, alas ! alas ! has for ever ceased to be. " What do they know of England that only England know?" asks the forceful poet of the latter part of the last century, but I go still farther and ask what does any one of the present generation know of England at all ? What are her wide and spacious heaths, what her ever- rolUng hills and downs, her rippling rivers and her delicious sea-coasts, what her darling birds and her tiny four-footed creatures ? What, oh ! what to them, are the wide silences of the moors and fields where never a reveller screams or a motor-horn toots ? Nothing, surely, save places to flee from, unless for a " week-end " or a " shooting-party." Soon, alack ! they will not even have that, for the quiet places are doomed, and where the skull turned up the other day the circle has begun to revolve once more. It is two thousand or more years since a village was built on that cliff; now wooden houses are being put about for week-enders and life is again astir on the peaceful and solitary hill- side. Yet never again will the life I knew fifty years ago come back to the old town I knew and loved ; the houses are there, but though the houses themselves are unaltered they are lived in by the tradesfolk, good and worthy people, no doubt, much, much better read and 5 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES educated than were their predecessors, but they are not " gentry," not in the least the people on whom the County called once or twice a year. Not expecting their call to be returned except perfunctorily and respectfully, but with an eye to asking the men to shoot and the women to an occasional "tea-party" on the lawn should a " Village versus Town " cricket-match be played. Or later on again the volunteer prizes to be given, or even an archery-meeting bring together two sides of the " County," one to shoot against the other, before the enraptured eyes of the towns- people and their friends. When I had my first glimpse of this Hfe it was in the year 1858, and oh ! how I loved my visits to the town I knew the best of all, albeit it was embittered to me by the fact that the servants would take us out at night and show us the great comet blazing away across the bam. How well I remember standing on the water butt, clutching the faithful Susan round the neck and looking at the fearful thing and pre- tending I did not mind ; but I did, and thankful was I for the day, and the cloudy nights when we could not see it and when it ceased to appear at all as far as we were concerned. Fifty years ago ! yet I can with one touch of the wand recon- struct the pictvire, albeit one has not much more than the skull and the few small bones left, as far as the human element is concerned, at any rate. 6 WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? Here is the house : a long, low house with a verandah, a circular drive in front of the windows, beyond that a fence, then a field, then the river and a deep red cUff where the sand-martins built and the reed- warblers' charming nests were found in the reeds by the river-bank. In the field itself grew scores and scores of mushrooms, and almost as soon as it was light the boys and I used to be off, returning home to heather-honey and new-laid eggs, and a dreadful scolding from Susan. Albeit we were soon forgiven when our stores were disclosed and an enormous stew turned up at dinner as a vast surprise for our elders and betters. The household was the typical one of the times, and as such deserves description. Only the other day I walked down the lane and seeing the old-time nursery window stirring to and fro in the wind unheeded, un- noticed, I could have wept ; the last child in that nursery is nearly fifty years of age and there has never been another one there since her day. I do not believe, look at it how one will, that the same spirit of open-handed hos- pitaUty exists now which one used to experience in the bygone days, neither do I see how such a thing could be possible. Quick transit brings distant friends even to remote spots for luncheon or tea, and takes one about even to dinners and balls ; while no one has time to stay in a place, even if there were a place to stay in, which I for one do not believe exists. But in 7 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES the time I am now writing about, that house- door stood ever open and the guest-rooms were never empty. True there were but two, but I have known four girls packed into them or even more on an occasion, while the master's room was turned into a den for a lad, particularly in the shooting season when sport was to be had on the farm and on some land the master rented, where is now a big and charming house. The mistress was the real relation, by the way ; the master was only made one by marriage ; but he was one of the most hospitable of men. He was some years older than his wife, and she was his second wife, his first wife and family having died one after the other, but he simply worshipped her and into his wide heart he took all her sisters and brothers — these latter a thank- less task enough — ^while in later years nieces were as welcome as brothers-in-law and we always spent some of the summer there at any rate, and were made to feel as if it were as much home as any other place in the wide world. I wish I could draw the sweet and charming mistress as I remember her first. I thought her quite old ; I suppose she may have been thirty, but if so that is quite the outside, but to me she was venerable indeed. She wore her hair in curls on each side of her delightful face, and I can never recollect her saying or doing one hasty or bad-tempered action or word. I sup- pose her life would be thought very dull nowa- 8 WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? days, but she at any rate never found it so. She superintended all the domestic details of the house, and then when she had completed this work we used to go for a walk, I very impatient at the delays caused by meeting so many people she knew, or by the necessary shopping in the queer, small-paned, bow-windowed shops, where often enough we had to step down from the street into comparative darkness and were met by a mingled scent of new cheese, peppermint and dried cod, all of which smells are always connected in my mind with those very early days. Shopping in that town meant too a very great deal more than the mere ordinary buying and selling, looking at, comparing and pricing the goods. To begin with, all the week's news had to be discussed, the little happenings in the town, in the special house, and in the nurseries and school-rooms; the doctor, may be, had been seen to call, a black-edged letter was spoken of by the post-mistress as she placed it in the bag for the house. Inquiries for the absent sisters were made and indeed one was lucky if one only spent a quarter of an hour over the grocery counter, and about the same, nay, even more, in the very distasteful atmosphere of the butcher's shop. The butcher himself was then a great power, an abject tyrant, for he had no powerful rival in the shape of New Zealand meat or parcel-post ; he killed just so many " beasts " during the week and woe betide the 9 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES housewife who offended him or did not give her order in due time. In either ease she had to go without, lucky indeed if she could fall back on her poultry yard, for if she could not there were no tinned stores or things preserved in glasses to be had in those days, and to housekeep in the country then was indeed a fine art, or a desperate deed, according to the manner in which it was done. I was fortunate in my housekeeping days to have found favour in the eyes of the butcher, and we were great friends. Once I had an embarrassing and sudden call on my resources and I rushed up to his shop. It was a Thursday, and the place was empty, swept and garnished, save for one superb saddle of mutton which I knew somehow was being tended and watched until quite ready for the Squire's table, but I threw myself on the mercy of my good friend ; I had that saddle, and I fear the one the Squire was furnished with the following week was not quite up to the usual mark. Another time I sent up and word was brought back that what I reqmred could not be had. In the afternoon I went to the shop myself and saw the joint staring me in the face. " Oh ! you base deceiver ! " I remarked, as I paid his book ; " you have a leg of lamb after all ! " He looked puzzled. " Was it you wanted it ? " he asked. " There, I thought the message came from them 'Enries " (another branch of the family and one he could not bear) ; "of 10 WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? course you shall have it" — and I did, while my aunt was told that if a sheep had four legs mutton had only two, and that she ought to know better than order three legs of mutton in a week, for have them she certainly could not. The manner of paying one's bills in the earliest days I recollect was also a curious and happy-go-lucky one. Many were paid in kind ; the doctors, who were partners, set their bills against the tradesmen's bills ; they had no partnership account at the bank, but whoever received the cheque or cash seized and kept it, and though there was an apparent settlement once a year, it was a mere farce. Moreover, I have known a change in the partnership held up for years because it was quite impossible to disentangle the confusion between the doctor's own accounts with the shops, and those of the medical part of the affair. The lawyers were the same ; the different tradesfolk were the samp, and I fancy the only man who paid his accounts straight out in money was the parson, for the pew-rents were duly collected by the clerk, who also brought round a grimy book at Easter in which one was supposed to enter a certain sum as Easter offering for the rector, the curate and the clerk, but as I never saw this book myself I am only giving a hearsay account of it, after all. As a child I quite well recollect we sat up in a gallery from whence I could see the parson's II FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES sermon and knew exactly how long it would last ; he preached from a regular " three-decker," the Sunday-school children sat on benches in the chancel, and the choir and the organ were up in a gallery at the west end, where is now a fine open arch. In later days the children were removed to the galleries and the choir to the chancel; this latter improved vastly from their more prominent position, but the children's conduct became so infamous that a late rector did away with his galleries because he could not keep order there. I should like to have seen the faces of the old rector, clerk and churchwardens could they have heard such a statement ! Why, the boys' heads would have been rapped and the girls' too had they dared to misbehave ; and I have even seen young men and maidens at the evening service brought to book and many blushes by the churchwardens' sudden appear- ance in the galleries, or by a glance from the rector who had but to look in their direction to ensure utter silence at once. But I have strayed somewhat away from a day in the life of a gentlewoman fifty years ago ! When we had gone home after the shopping there was dinner; not limch, please recollect, but dinner; sometimes at two, sometimes at four, according to the day of the week; then we would find the day's paper and often discover simdry cards on the marble slab in the square hall. Calls were then made between twelve and 12 WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? three, or between twelve and four, this latter on market-days and only by folks grand enough to own carriages. Will it be believed that it quite shocked the elder ladies if young and giddy creatures walked up the street on market-days? The farmers might — and no doubt did — make personal remarks ; they might — oh ! awful idea ! — see one's ankles. As the market house stood at a corner in the square where all four streets met, this was not unlikely, more especially as the wind had a fine habit of careering up and down the streets up which, when there was not a market, a cannon-ball might have been shot, said strangers, and no one a penny the worse. I am always grieved to see the disappearance of these market-days, and nowadays I don't think any one would object on the score of the possible remarks of the farmers to walk boldly up, aye, and even down the street on the day on which it is still supposed to be held. In the early days the little town was crowded ; then would drive in the great carriages with their two stalwart horses strong enough to breast the tremendous hills, their coachman and footmen complete ; the ladies inside, doing their shopping, calling for the afternoon letters and finally picking up the husbands who may have driven in earlier on magisterial work intent, or even to buy animals under their bailiffs' superintend- ence. For some of them were interested in model farming and all, to a man, dearly loved to hear 13 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES and talk over the gossip of the week in the town itself. We never lived quite in the town, and so missed what I always like to see, the mere va-et-vient of any place ; but we generally found a friendly window out of which to gaze on market-days even when we were quite small. The house we loved the most was a marvel, a microcosm of the last hundred years, for it was taken and lived in, quite a hundred and fifty years ago now, by the parents of those who were living there when I was a child. It stood square and solid opposite the market-house, which then was a small building with a cupola, outside of which the hustings were erected, whence speeches used to be made at election times and the poll declared ; and the furniture was almost priceless, though honestly we con- sidered it more frightful than anything we had ever beheld, but as it was owned by the oldest inhabitant I shall describe that later on. I believe on market-days dinner there was at four, and therefore we could remain there later than at other places where it was at the earlier hour of three. If we dined at three the waggon- ette used to come round after dinner and we drove out solemnly for two hours ; always on the same road, unless we had calls to pay ; for the master of the establishment had compounded for the tolls on that special road, as he had farm land in that direction although he was a lawyer ; and so we had not to stand and deliver 14 WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? the ninepence it would otherwise have cost us every time we went out for a drive. Tolls were a nuisance, but I beg to state that they were far and away the fairest means of enforcing pay- ment for the roads, and I think that Government would be wise who restored the toll-bars and took the chance of being cursed by the users of the roads, for the nuisance and delay they most undoubtedly were. I have myself used the roads in that district for four years and never paid anything towards a highway rate ; the motors that destroy the roads as fast as they are made pay nothing ; they pass from county to county without the smallest fee of any sort or kind. While the toll-bars would make excellent almshouses for old retainers, and they could be checked by some manner of self-register- ing gate which should mark the number of times it is opened and so make the old system of farming out the tolls unnecessary and impossible. Neither need the toll-bars be quite as frequent as they were ; on one road we could have paid three and, had we desired to go one way and return another, should have been obliged to do so; which would certainly have made the drive rather an expensive undertaking. After our drive came tea, a real sit-down tea, with cakes, jam, more honey and any amount of fruit in the summer, when the mistress used to garden and we played games with the" boys. Sometimes I sat out in the meadow and scored for the very 15 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES amateur cricket for cricketers, one of whom afterwards played for his 'varsity, or we played croquet. None of your scientific games, but the good old spiteful, hard-hitting business, when the boundaries were the shrubs and when we became so excited over the matter, that we have rubbed the balls with phosphorus, and hung lamps on the hoops, and played until nearly midnight, never recking that the dew was falling and the damp rising, and that we were becoming almost as wet as if we had been in the river. What, after that dreadful comet and the mushroom gathering in 1858, are my first re- collections ? I think the discovery of the delicious inner garden and that strawberries and goose- berries grew out of doors and did not come into a damp and somewhat battered existence in a greengrocer's shop. What can equal the freedom of a fruit garden to a London child to whom fruit was a high privilege reserved for Svmdays or when some was left over from dessert after a party? Or what marvels equal the discovery, that bought fruit cannot resemble strawberries hot with splendid simshine, and just fit to eat on the spot; or even the humble gooseberry, red, plump, delicious and warm too in the sun, while, though our fingers and frocks suffered, no one scolded, for every one in the country took such destruction as a matter of course. Then to be allowed to gather flowers that did not blacken our hands, to even hold the tiny wooden i6 WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? pegs used to keep the heads of the verbenas in place in the round beds, and finally to help water the greenhouse, the warm, delicious scent from which I materialise as I write. Can Heaven give one anything dearer, sweeter, or purer than a London child's first spring and summer in the country ? I doubt it, but if it can the sooner the gates open wide and let me in the sooner I will welcome the call to go ! I say a London child advisedly, for one born in the country does not, cannot, realise all the country can mean to one born in a city; and if as one grows old one remembers how good London is both for young and old, one can but look back at the peace that irked one at the time and at the long silences that were then as death itself, and realise that, kind as the country is to the town-bird for a change, it is not liveable in as part and parcel of it, unless one is born and brought up there, and so in a measure assimilates, under- stands, and becomes part of it and its little ways. After all, human nature is much the same in every corner of the globe. I know, though I am not supposed to hear, that the crossing-sweeper at the comer and the neighbours round about talk of us and speculate about us in London ; but there one need not care ; in the country one must. In the country, also, one has to realise with amazement the hundred and one differences in rank, so infinitesimal that it almost takes a microscope to discover them ; which all B 17 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES the same are far more real than the same divisions are or can be in London, where it is impossible to know that they even exist. In London at least creed matters nothing except to oneself; in the country even now it is a social crime to be a Dissenter of any sort or kind, while any of the fads which are a species of Open Sesame nowadays in London would be regarded with open disfavour, and raise at once an impassable barrier between the owner of such fads, and the ordinary people living in the country even in these present times. Very Uttle interest in literature, music, or art was taken, yet politics were always of burning interest, though not as poUtics, merely as a question of party. " Follow my leader " was the political motto, and not a bad one, were the leader to be trusted ; and in the same way that wives were mere echoes of the men of the house- hold, so did the men echo and uphold the opinions of the party to which they were attached. The women talked of their nurseries, their gardens* their poultry, and their neighbours, but quite in a different way from the manner in which they discuss these matters now. The children were not examined critically and scientifically; tem- pers were tempers, and not nerves; heredity had not come into sight, and therefore could not be taken into consideration. Children were expected to obey, and not argue; they were kept to nursery and schoolroom; while if the i8 WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? girls did not expand as they do nowadays they were far more pleasant and useful, albeit they did not live and enjoy their lives in the style of to-day. If they are better women I do not know ; I do not think they are ; yet I scarcely like to say so, because I know full well that to every generation the one that is to succeed it always appears unsatisfactory; and after all, though we have different views, it does not follow that both are good or both are bad, or, indeed, that one is one thing and the other the other; they are different, so let the matter rest at that. In this age of rush and hurry I like to close my eyes and see once more the dear old place lying half asleep in the silence and beauty of a summer afternoon. The river slips under the grey bridge as it has sUpped since the days the Normans built it, and the men linger and gossip there as men may have done when the builders left off work at the castle, and looked at the exquisite sunsets behind the long, lovely range of hills. But I hked even better than that the rising and falling sloping green walls that still encompass the town; where one could see both rivers and the reach where the bigger one of the two, spreads out to the sea, and note the tiny steamer puffing home up to the wharf from its day's work ajnong the clay-barges ; or watch the brown sail of some boat gliding down to the harbour, the owner thereof intent 19 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES on fishing or shooting, according to the special time of year. In our day no one troubled especially about the place ; we knew its history ; settled this thing or that to our own satisfaction ; and the old inhabitants specially prided them- selves on being bred, born, and brought up within the walls. And it is a curious revenge that I, who scoffed and sneered at the life and people, as youth always does scoff at age and slowness, have lived to pine for the peace and silence ; and the dear, good, kind folk who are gone; who have vanished for evermore from that special spot. One returns, says the proverb, always to one's first love ; as a child and a young girl I loved the place, and the people then were kindly and most hospitable. I recollect a round of mild gaieties which were joy indeed to me after the heated and stuffy rooms of London. The picnics were delightful, and more amusing than one could say, they were so different to anything I had ever experienced. It did strike me as weird that each " guest " brought his or her own contribution to the feast, but in the eariiest days of all, the organiser of the party took possession of every basket, and all was in common. The shadow of the times had begun to fall when separate tablecloths were added to the baskets and each lady sat in state at the head of her own "cloth"; outsiders were creeping in, "Johnny New-comes" arriving on the scene. It behoved the old inhabitants to 20 WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? draw a line, which ultimately proved a gulf into which all kindly feeling and fellowship fell and quietly disappeared, and now it would be hard indeed to find half a dozen representatives of the old families who once all talked and walked and played together. Nay, there are but two left, only two where we could have numbered once a gay and gallant show. My hostess herself never cared about the river, and therefore I saw very little of that when I was with her. I think she always expected the boys to be drowned; and also there were then only about three or four available boats. Now every one has a boat. I have seen motor- launches tied up at the spot where the Danes once landed to burn and ravage the town ; all the meadows round are dotted with white um- brellas, under each of which sits an "artist.'' Why, in the early days no one had heard of the spot, and picture-postcards were as xmknown as the itinerant photographer himself, who now has his ubiquitous camera at every corner of the place! Oh, how I hated the town in the first years I was married and lived there! I was like a wild animal caught and caged before I under- stood what life meant at all. I had been egre- giously spoiled and petted by the most enter- taining set of mid- Victorian times. I did not understand the country people ; they naturally did not understand me. Why should they ? Why 21 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES should they trouble to do so ? If they bored me, I was a blister to them, and having the training alone that bid me look to my " home duties " for all occupation, and that made me feel a traitor to my sex when my yearnings went beyond that narrow circle ; I did not avail myself of the small local pleasures, and only pined for the rush and hurry I had been so eager to escape. I hit out right and left, and made as much mischief and so many enemies — for which I did not care one jot — ^that I can only compare those first years to the time spent by a wounded animal in a trap, which hurts itself with its struggles and snaps at any kindly hand held out to mitigate its sufferings just a little. Now what would I not give to go back to those scented, gently gliding days; but they do not exist even in that special spot. For we had only two posts then, one in the morning, the second at midday, which we could have if we fetched the letters ourselves. The day's paper came between one and two, and after that neither post nor paper arrived; and when it grew dark at four what was there to do ? Afternoon tea was not the common occurrence it is to-day ; after the midday dinner callers were not wanted, even if one had cared to call on the dull and to me stupid women-folk ; books were dear, novels in the three-volume form filled Mudie's box with enough reading to last me a few days only; carriage was expensive. Nowadays one could not suffer as one suffered 22 WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? then ; one has but to walk up to the station and get the evening papers and as many books as one requires ; while that greatest of all boons to dwellers in the country, the parcel post, makes housekeeping quite easy and pleasant; and even if it harms the tradespeople it only hurts those who obstinately refuse to march with the times, for one never sends away, and pays postage for a thing, one can get as well or better at home than one can elsewhere. One or two curious features of the early days may perhaps be mentioned. The men of the household always went to the butcher, and with great care and nicety chose the joint for the day or week. At midday most of the gentlemen in the town called in at either inn, according to their politics, and had a " glass of something." On market-days there was a market dinner, at which all attended, and at some time in the afternoon or evening they went to the reading- room and assimilated the news, talking it over with each other, and afterwards administering it in small doses to the ladies at home. That is to say, if anything specially startling had oc- curred, or if there were any Court news; as a rule women cared nothing for politics and never read the newspaper. I have known my aunt's Standard unopened by her for a week if my uncle were away from home ; and to the day of my leaving the place but one family imderstood and shared my craze for news, and they, being 23 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES Unitarians by faith, were well away from the rest, having always lived to some extent in an intellectual milieu. From the first I inspired distrust among my own people, because the fact of creed never did and never could interfere with my private friendships. How could it? In London a man might be a Jew, Turk, heretic, or infidel ; we neither knew nor cared ; but in the country ! Oh, dear dead friend of mine, whose every battle I fought, and who was worth all the Church-people in the place, what did I not suffer from my friendship? Ah, well! aU her children go to church now whenever they go anywhere, and if she can see, no doubt she smiles at the strife of creeds, amongst which at one time no one bore a braver or a lonelier part. Smiles as I used to smile when the unanswerable reason why I should not see so much of her, " She's a Unitarian," was thrown at my head, and as I still smile when princesses change their special creed for a crown, and while the Church fights Dissent and the Romans fight both about the schools ; while the education given to the children is a farce, and does nothing but unfit them for that special state in life to which they shall be called. But stay ! the Church catechism is too much out of date now to quote ; one is not called to any state of hf e — one simply snatches what one can get, and, kicking out hard as one climbs the ladder, cares for nothing save success and enough money to enjoy oneself, regardless 24 WHAT DO THEY KNOW OF ENGLAND ? of duty or the hundred and one ambitions and hopes one used to have. Yet in yearning over the England I know and love far better now than when I had it, I often think the present day appears to us who are passing out of the crowd, as it must have looked to the first bewildered sufferers from the railway demon. We who came into our inheritance of steam as a matter of everyday life think nothing of the raging fiend that tears past every old-world spot, but what can this have meant to our grandparents ? Precisely what the motor and electricity, tubes, rush and hurry mean to us; so let us try and bear it. We would not go back for a moment to the stage-coach, the candles which had to be snuffed, or the dreary gurgling lamps which burned colza oil and had to be wound up with a final jerk at the most interesting moment of the evening ; so let us possess our souls in patience, knowing that if we do not live long enough to take the alterations which motors have made in a reasonable manner, some one else will, though no one will ever know the England we knew, because it has long ceased to exist. 25 CHAPTER II THE COUNTY For better or for worse, the old county families have altered, and in a great measure disappeared, while the old-fashioned tradesman and the small society in a coimtry town have one and all ceased entirely to be. In my day there were about seven county families which ruled the place ; all more or less kind, if they had their own way ; all more, not less, condescending to the towns- folk ; while I suppose there were about twenty families all more or less friendly, and who could, were they so disposed, visit the one among the other, and might have had extremely good times had they been able to keep on speaking terms with each other at one and the same time, but that was never possible for one moment. The older people were censorious, the younger im- patient, and there was always too much talk and gossip going about to make Hfe easy for those who cared in the least for what their acquaintance said and thought of them. Personally, the " County " did not trouble me 26 THE COUNTY at all ; but I could not fail to be amused at the manner in which their visits were received and they themselves spoken of ; yet I am sure some of them at least did their utmost for their special corner of England, and kept it far ptu-er and better than it has ever been since their day. One of the families, now vanished entirely; not one member of the large family I recollect being alive at the moment; had in its time made a considerable part of the history of England; and among my many regrets for the wasted opportunities I had, had I only recognised them ; is one for the manner in which I did not avail myself as I could have done of the stores of history pushed away in the desks and drawers of that house. Stores which were ruthlessly burned in the stable-yard of the mansion when the grandson came into possession, could not afford to live there, and in this manner disposed of priceless historical records, because the house was to be let furnished, and he had neither time nor wish to go through the multitudinous docu- ments which filled every available place. I have never seen a handsomer family in my life than that special one. The mother was tall and stately, moved in the most beautiful manner, and spoke in a low, musical voice ; and she was one of the most militant and fervent old- fashioned Protestants I have ever met. The house was about six miles from a very small station, and lay in a hollow behind some hills 27 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES covered with beautiful plantations sacred to pheasants and game of all sorts and kinds, and the house itself faced a little-used road. But despite this fact, a second road was sacred to the house itself, and on this no one was supposed to drive, unless one had business at the Squire's. The upper road was public only. Now there are gates added to the lower road to keep folks away. In the old times these were not necessary ; we knew our place and kept it, and would no more have driven on the lower road than we would have flown. The Squire himself was one of the most magnificent old men that I have ever seen, and I should think had given his wife cause for anxiety in the days of old ; and indeed at the present time one can recognise his brilliant eyes and magnificent hair and build in many a person round who has never heard his name ; and the daughters and sons of the house were one and all good to look at. The three sons never married; all the daughters did, however; and one can only wonder how they found husbands, for they never seemed to leave home, or to have many people there, though no doubt the sons brought home friends who were kept out of the sight of the townsfolk. Yet how this was managed I do not know, as every one who went to the house must have come to the station and been driven the whole six mUes in the great landau, which, painted to imitate basket-work, 28 THE COUNTY was one of the carriages we never failed to see on the weekly market-days. When I was first married that stately carriage turned up our lane and brought the owner to call ; and as I was out a message was left bidding me to ret\irn the call on a certain day. Not being accustomed to such ways, I swore and declared I would do nothing of the kind, but I was persuaded to go, and found the stately lady at her stateliest in one of the most arid drawing-rooms I have ever been in. The room was large and well proportioned, and possessed six windows, each window being provided with a skimpy pair of red rep curtains ; the furniture was in hoUand covers bound with red braid, no doubt concealing beauties I for one never saw; the carpet was green, with large red roses all over it. There were a few ornaments about, a clock, and some engravings of portraits of the family and other local celebrities ; but there was not a book, not a flower, not a plant, and her ladyship sat very upright by the fire, sparkling in its steel grate; tatting, her foot in a species of stirrup, and her pale long fingers twisting the thread as she endeavoured to find some common ground on which we could meet. I think I must have appeared to her somewhat as a savage appears to the discoverer of a strange island, for I naturally had not one single thing in common with her, nor had she with me. She tried local topics, of which I knew nothing, 29 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES gardening, of which I was then profoundly ignorant, and finally fell back upon religion, which I suppose she imagined was all alike and not to be argued about, as she was much surprised that I knew Colenso and had read "Essays and Reviews." This brought us on a little, but when she remarked quite calmly that she could not understand how any one could read the " un- edifying talk of an intoxicated old man," by which she meant the " Pickwick Papers," we sheered off Dickens, and, having received a tract and an invitation to a prayer-meeting in the near future, we parted, and never met again- Though I constantly saw the men of the family, more especially about election times; and was as constantly asked by them why I never appeared at any of the aforesaid religious cere- monies, at which, by the way, they were most conspicuously absent. For years and years I saw her driving through the streets in the carriage, gradually getting older and older. Her husband died, then her children, until she was left alone with one elderly son; and when she too passed away she was placed in her stupendous coffin by two of the undertaker's men; such poor common folk that she would not have dreamed they could ever have been admitted to her bed-chamber to clean it out, let alone to touch her sacred remains. I think if she knew aught of the fact, and realised that she was placed in her last bed 30 THE COUNTY by such humble, gnarled hands, she would then have understood what the bitterness of death could be, and recognised that nothing is as humbling as is one's status, after one has left the body to any one who likes to do the last offices for it. Even now I cannot understand why such sacrilege was allowed. Her ladyship died in the room to which she came as a bride nearly seventy years before the day of her death, which occurred when she was ninety-one, and the room was as it was in those days, now over a hundred years ago, for she has been dead nearly twenty years. The bed was an enormous four-post erection, which stood out in the centre of the great room, and was made of beautifully carved oak, and at the head thereof were carved the initials and dates of the different couples who had slept therein, and had gone to their last rest from beneath its sheltering canopy. It was so extremely high from the ground that a set of three steps was used to climb into it, and it was furnished with two separate sets of curtains, one for the summer, of the most marvellous Indian chintz, and the other of a dull grey moreen, a stiff fabric never seen now, but which apparently never wore out, for I could put my hand at the moment on portions of this same material that was old when I was born, and which seems as strong and good now as the day on which it was made. The carpet was a good old Brussels, with a large 31 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES square cut out imder the bed, because it was considered healthy in those days for the house- maid to go over it with a damp cloth every morning when she "did" the room; and I daresay the fact that the great bed was made of feathers caused this operation to be necessary. Anyhow, it was done, and the space was hidden from sight by a deep flounce which went all round the bed, which in its turn served as a regular dust-trap, or would have done, had not dust been conspicuous by its absence in that clean country place. It always saddens me to see a similar bed-chamber, and this one remains even now as it must have been well over a hundred years ago. In fact, the bed itself is a very great deal older, for I think it was bought for the first member of the family who built the house, and, leaving his great business in London, retired to end his days far from town, hoping to found a race of stalwart men and women that should continue until the world ended. But it is curious to note how these yast famihes have died out in the male line, and how names that should have gone on from father to son have entirely disappeared; and I for one should not blame that daughter's son who went back to the old cognomen and once more revived the traditions which must always cling to the very name. It would be a revelation to many nowadays could they see the enormous wardrobes, the stupendous chests of drawers, 32 THE COUNTY and the hideous washing-stands to be found in such a house ; and which point to the fact that the daintier Chippendale and Sheraton furniture was removed for the last bride who ever came to the Hall, and replaced by that which still remains precisely where it was then put. The wardrobe is eight feet long and of solid mahogany, and all the shelves and linings are of cedar-wood, while the washing-stands are quite awful, with low backs and furnished with a double set of ware, apparently to hint that dressing-rooms were not needed, and that husband and wife could never be absent from each other at any moment of the night or day. Bath-rooms, of course, were never dreamed of, but these have been placed in the house now, as without them it would not let at all. Yet, as no young bride has come to the Hall, the furniture has never been replaced or altered, as it has only been let to bachelors for the shooting. Because even in these days of motors few women would consent to live in such an out-of-the-way spot, the arid drawing-room is still arid, and what life is in the place is centred in the great untidy hall, the library and dining-room, and the gaunt bed- chambers, with their vast beds and their out-of- date carpets and gear. I often wonder where the big landau has gone, or if it is mouldering in the coach-house. I have never heard of its being sold; if it were I trust it has long since been broken up for firewood. I should not like c 33 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES to think of that stately vehicle filled to over- flowing by Bank HoUday people at half a crown an hour ; rather let it stand idle, falling gently to pieces in its old home, standing where it stood when it returned from the funeral of the last son of the house, who ought to have married and continued the family history, but who never did, no one could think why. No stories hung to his name as they did to those of his forebears ; he was a gentle, melancholy, unambitious man, much loved, much looked up to; but grea;tly concerned with his health, which need not have troubled him had he gone out into the world more and lived more away from the sohtary place where he was born, and lived, if living it could be called, and where he died, not very long after his very old mother passed peacefully away. Not many months ago I was talking to a friend in the town, in whose welfare as a shopkeeper I had always taken a keen interest, and we were sadly recounting stories of the days that are no more, and amongst other things we were speaking of the many carriages which were driven into the town on market-days, and amongst others we mentioned this special landau. Then we passed on to speak of one particular carriage, which was owned by a bride we both recollected in her early bridal days. We were almost children, but we never forgot the pony- phaeton, the like of which has not been seen for years, and ceased to exist long before the 34 THE COUNTY all-devouring motor traction arrived, to keep such gay and gallant little carriages out of the country roads. Very different from the stern mistress of the Hall was the driver of those scuttering little steeds, albeit she too was one of the County folk, and married to a member of the only really old family in the neighbourhood, and she always lives among my most cherished memories. It would astonish the brides of to-day if they could turn back the pageant of life and for an hour gaze upon the hfe of a country lady, a lady in the very best sense of the word, forty-five years ago, and know how much she did for every one except for herself, and how seriously she took her hfe and the duties of her position. When I see rich Jews and retired tradesfolk in the places of my old friends and acquaintances I cannot think that the extinction of the landed gentry is a good thing, and that the legislation of late years; though it sounds fair enough; has not cruelly crushed and extinguished a class that when it was good — and it was good more often than not — ^had an enormous influence on all around, and did far more for the country than anything else ever will. In my youthful days I natiirally believed that every one was born free and every one was born equal. I think this is an idea a Londoner has more than any one else. In London one is free to do as one Ukes, to go into society or stay out of it, to 35 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES choose one's milieu or to have none, and unless one has envious yearnings after social pleasures or for heaps of money one is equal with any one. We all of us own the most splendid pictures, the most magnificent buildings, and can see anything and any one we want. But in the country, if money could buy tolerance — and in those days it bought tolerance only — brains were nowhere, or else regarded as such dangerous possessions that the owner thereof had better be left alone. Yet it is curious to recognise nowadays how much cleverer these County folk were than I, for one, used to give them credit for being, and I am always sorry when I see the irre- sponsible newspaper-man speak with contempt of the " unpaid magistracy " and the " cruel " sentences passed by these said men on the destroyers of the countryside; and on the folk who, for lack of substance, or from choice, persist in " sleeping rough," as sleeping out of doors is invariably termed in the special corner of England of which I am now writing. For really no Londoners can understand that the sentence of which they read is really given because the last straw has been placed on the camel's back, and that the " sleeping rough " means that barns and ricks and whole tracts of heather and gorse have been destroyed, by the careless lighting of a pipe ; or even a field of wheat done for by the same means. While I for one know of entire districts where ferns and flowers have 36 THE COUNTY been destroyed utterly because the " few flower- roots " which sound so pathetic in a newspaper paragraph have been really basketsful carted off and sold in a neighbouring town; until exquisite daffodil dells have ceased to be, and the wild and lovely snowdrop no longer blossoms freely as it used to blossom; because of these said tramps, who have made a few dishonest pence by dragging up the bulbs as well as the flower; often as not casting the roots away to perish, and only loading themselves with the blossoms to sell. But in thinking of the flowers she loved and so warmly protected, I have gone away from my dear little lady of the flowing curls and the flitting pony-phaeton; and so well do I recollect her that I can never think she is dead and lies asleep in one of the most peaceful, beautiful churchyards in the whole world. It was always a charming sight to see her in her quaint boat-shaped hat, with its two long feathers, and her silk mantle, with her gauntleted hands holding a whip with a parasol fixed on the stem, and the white reins, driving in over the bridge. At first alone, her sweet young face very calm, very joyous, as became a bride, and driving very carefully and with many blushes to greet her young husband, his magistrate's work done, and to bear him off to their home. Very soon the phaeton began to overflow with babies and small children, all ridiculously like their mother, but to the day of her death she kept her young, kind, 37 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES fair face, and the gentle voice and manner that used to set her special class apart, in an atmo- sphere of peace and patience that we of the class just below her never seemed to be able to attain. The parents of the husband were very different material, and they really were deserving of all that the worst Radical could say of their caste. But I suppose their age was one that, having seen and survived the Reform Bill, felt it neces- sary to erect and maintain barriers which only existed in their own eyes, and were scouted by us in the manner they richly deserved. The man of the household was one of the old-fashioned squarsons, and was Squire and Rector all in one. The property, curiously enough, has never gone from father to eldest son ; and there were some who believed that because Henry VIII. had boldly snatched the property from some remark- ably dissolute old monks, and sold it for a round sum of money to a man from whom the representative of the present owner bought it, there was a curse on the place. However that may be, the Squire I knew first was the third son, the other two having died unmarried and childless; and he had an amiable feud with his younger brothers because he clung to and kept the dower-house, usually the property of the second son. But as the second son was dead and only the fourth and fifth remained, the third naturally kept it for his second son, albeit he never lived there, for he too died unmarried ; 38 THE COUNTY and, indeed, out of all that special family only one member now remains aKve. He was the husband of the pretty bride, and is the very last surviving specimen of the real old country gentle- man that still exists. For, bad times having fallen, the big houses are let to strangers, the owner inhabits a tiny cottage on the estate, while the sons are earning their living; and I have no doubt the daughters would too if they knew how, but naturally they have not the smallest idea how to do anything of the kind. Personally, I bitterly regret the passing of the old-fashioned Squire. True, when he was bad he was very, very bad, as the poet hath it, but when he and his were good their goodness was wide-reaching, and the whole countryside was the better for their kindly if autocratic care. Even the last-mentioned folk did good in an unpleasant manner, and if only they would have realised that there were grades between them and the labourers on their estate they would have left a far more fragrant memory behind them than they have done, at least where I am concerned. I remember well once discussing with Thomas Hardy some of the people he and his folk had known, and being much astonished at the extraordinary stories he could tell of those who gave themselves the most wonderful airs, and in after years I found for myself that his knowledge was in no manner peculiar, but at the same time I never met anything quite as 39 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES amusing as one episode he related to me. We were discussing some very "proper" people with whom we had just parted, and who had lately purchased a most beautiful old house, the last owner of which had gone hopelessly bankrupt, and had in consequence thereof been sold up. " They have been years in the county," he said, "but not as long as those they are following, and they are capital people, but oh, the old grandfather! I recollect my grand- mother tellii^ me about a very pretty girl who had married a farmer in the neighbourhood. Well, this man was always calling to see her when the farmer was down at the end of his fields. Some one gave the farmer a hint, and he returned home in the middle of the afternoon. The wife saw him coming, and the Squire had only time to climb up the wide chimney and put himself across the iron from which the pots were suspended over the open hearth. The farmer looked all round the room, saw nothing except his wife very busy, sweeping and dusting and singing, and he explained that he had returned home for a drink. She advised him to go and get it, and as he went into the dairy she saw the Squire's legs were hanging down. Without changing the tune of her song she sang 'Tuck up thee lags. Sir John, Sir John, tuck up thee lags. Sir John,' and the unhappy Squire tucked up one and left the other in view, and she had only time to sing out, 'Tuck up the 40 THE COUNTY other lag, Sir John, Sir John,' before the husband returned, quite satisfied that he had been misled. Then he departed to resume his work, and the Squire descended very black and very irate at the ignominious position, and he never again went after that special farmer's wife." They certainly had fine times in the good old days, for all the ladies in Hardy's "Group of Noble Dames " can be named by those who live in his special county, while I well recollect his dear old mother saying that " Tom's stories were nothing to what she could tell," if she only would. But thinking of Thomas Hardy has taken me away from my special place and people, and we must return to them, for they in their way were quite as interesting and peculiar as any Mrs. Hardy the elder had ever met. There is one house close by the sea that has a particular interest, for it was the home of one of the Chan- cellors of England, and I often wonder what he would say if he could return and see how many of his prophecies have come true, though perhaps not exactly in the manner he expected them to ! It is sad indeed to see the empty, shuttered mansion that once teenaed with hfe, rang with the voices of children, and was the well-loved home of at least three generations. Here the old man used to come after his fierce Parliamen- tary fights to rest with his beloved wife and children, and with his almost equally beloved dog, who 41 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES is buried on the hills behind the house and has a tombstone especially raised to his memory. Here, one by one, his children left him, dying away, some in the fresh promise of their youth, some after great disappointments and trouble; then his adored wife died; and finally he too departed, dying in London, and being brought back to be buried on the windy heights in the hideous mausoleum near the melancholy chxlrch. There still linger in the neighbourhood quaint stories of the eccentric couple and of the manner in which they never could realise that they had no need to save every penny. When they were very, very young they had eloped and got married, and every shilling was required until he had worked himself into the front rank. He must have been a strong, dour man, deter- mined to have and keep his own way ; but despite him they passed the Reform Bill and the Catholic Emancipation Act ; and it is a bitter, ironic deed of the gods that the next owner of the fine old Protestant's house will be a Roman Cathohc, and that those he so hated and abhorred will come into possession sooner or later of all that he made for himself. That it may be later and not sooner is the devout prayer of all who know and love the place. I am not at all sure that it is a good thing to have known a place and people for so many, many years as I have done, for how often have I not seen the fairest hopes withered, and the best of all die 43 THE COUNTY and fade, yet there is at the same time vast interest in looking back and going over once more the old familiar stories, and I only wish I could write down half those I have heard. One very amusing one about the Chancellor that was current for years is worth relating. He had gone into the neighbouring town, where there was a salmon river, and as he happened to be present at a lucky haul, he had with much trepidation purchased a large piece out of the middle, at the awful price of two shillings a pound, and bore it back to his thrifty wife. As he reached home he could not make up his mind to tell her the exact truth ; salmon was always looked upon as an almost sinful luxury, and the consumption thereof was alone justified when a dinner-party was to be given, and two shillings a pound seemed criminal. When he produced his purchase there were groans and exclamations; but the Chancellor temporised, declared it a bargain at a shilling a pound, and the good lady, satisfied, consigned it to the larder, and no more was said. When dinner- time arrived the Chancellor looked out for the salmon, but it did not arrive. " Oh, I have been so fortunate," said her ladyship, in reply to his demand. " The Colonel called this afternoon, and I told him about the salmon, and he was glad to take it off our hands at one and sixpence a pound, a clear gain of three shillings." And the Chancellor, deprived of his favourite dish, could 43 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES only congratulate his exultant spouse on her " bargain," and vow internally that he would never again prevaricate about the price he had given for any single thing. But somehow the story got out, and it was a bold soul in the County who dared to ask the Chancellor's lady what was the price of salmon. It is not difficult when the mist climbs up the hills and drifts along the lovely valley to imagine one sees the spirits of those who once made this place their own. The favourite walks of the old lord and his children are still there, but no one ever sees them. At one time any one could walk there who liked ; now, owing to the fact that no place is sacred from the modern tripper, the beloved spot is closed, and is as silent and deserted as the tomb. The next house was inhabited when I knew it first by a family which had obtained it after a most remarkable law-suit, won by a fluke; which determined it, and that most rightly too, in their favour. About the year 1836 the last male representative of the original family, one of the oldest for miles round, was living there alone with his housekeeper, her daughter, and a maid-of-all-work. Gradually, one by one, his relations were estranged from him. The girl was very well educated, singularly so for those days, and as the old gentleman became older and older all his correspondence passed through her hands, and she gradually assumed the position 44 THE COUNTY of mistress of the house; and even the house- keeper-mother, recognising the stronger spirit, was content to leave matters in her daughter's hands and to help her in every way she could to carry out her schemes. The old Squire had one sister, whose butler was his housekeeper's hus- band ; and it was to this sister's married daughters that all the property should come if the owner made his will, as, of course, he ought, in their favour; but, try how she would, she could never obtain adcess to her brother's house. She would write, to receive a polite reply via Elizabeth stating that " Mr. John " was too ill to see any one. She once arrived at the house to find it closed against her, and while " Mr. John " was bemoaning the fact that his sister would not trouble to come and see him until he was dead and all would be hers, the sister was told that her brother distinctly refused to see her, because he knew she was only coming to look for a dead man's shoes. It is a desolate spot nowadays, for gates bar such roads as exist, and the roads themselves would keep away even a stout-hearted motorist. In '36 the gates were more numerous and the roads fifty times worse, and presently no one went near the big house at all. One evening one of the neigh- bouring gentry was about to sit down to dinner at about six — a very late hour at that date — when the husband of one of the co-heiresses rode furiously up to his house. One of Mr. John's 45 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES servants, who had suffered from the house- keeper's vagaries, had sent a mysterious letter. " Mr. John " was dying, and he thought the heir-at-law should know. The dinner was allowed to cool on the board, and the great carriage and pair was ordered out, and in the darkness of the winter night the two men drove up and down those terrible, terrible roads, and at last drew up at the door of the house. The whole place was lighted, ajnd evidently things were happening. The friends sprang from the carriage, and as they did so the housekeeper flung open the front door and peered out into the darkness. It was a wild, wet night; great splashes of rain whirled about, and the wind blew and howled as it all too often does in that part of the world. At last she spoke. " Mr. John is just dead." The two men looked at each other. " We must come in and search for the will, then." " Before God," she replied, drawing herself up to her height, " there is no wiU." '' Then the Colonel takes possession as repre- senting the heirs," said the County Magistrate, and before the housekeeper could object they shouldered their way into the hall and closed the door on the rough and fearful darkness. Inside there were evidences that no members of the family were expected that night at all events ; for chests and parcels were everywhere standing about, and there were other significant trifles, thought of after, but not troubled about 46 THE COUNTY then. The housekeeper proposed supper and beds, but as the beds had probably not been slept in for years the gentlemen ordered food and wine and fire in the cedar parlour, and spent the night searching all the downstairs rooms for the missing will. All through the hours of darkness they heard mysterious movements about the house, much coming and going, lifting and pushing of heavy weights, and opening and closing cupboards and drawers; but the wind was terrific, and, moreover, sad and necessary things had to be done for the dead. It was only afterwards that suspicion was aroused, and, two and two being placed together, after- events proved that all through the long hours of darkness the house had been almost gutted, and when morning came the two men found themselves alone in the house with one servant and the body of the dead man lying unattended, uncoffined, overhead. In those days a remote country house was always victualled as if for a siege ; as a siege — by the elements — was always more than a possibility. Yet in that huge mansion there was not a pound of butter, a dozen eggs, a flitch of bacon, or a bag of flour, or a pound of tea or coffee ; the wine cellar was empty ; and above all not a shilling of cash was to be discovered high or low. Now Mr. John always made a practice of keeping the rents from one audit in the house until another audit was due. It had been audit day not ten 47 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES days back : where was the money ? Not in the room where he lay stiff and stark ; nowhere in the house. Well, all that could be done now was to summon a staff of servants and the undertaker, and then decently bury the dead man, and enter into possession as soon as might be. Remember, this is no fancy tale ; everything happened just as I write it down, just as it was told me by the son of the County Magistrate, whose presence on that dark and dreadful night saved the estate for the rightful heirs. " Before God, there is no will," said the housekeeper ; yet just six months after the Colonel, his wife and her sister— these latter being co-heiresses — were settling " into the saddle," and things were beginning to go smoothly once more, a letter arrived from a small lawyer in a neighbouring town to say that Mr. John's will was in his possession, and that, failing the production of a later one, he should proceed to prove it and take possession in the name of the legatee, who was, he stated, the late bailiff of the late owner of the place, and of all the land for miles and miles round. I have always wanted Mr. Hardy to draw Elizabeth and her mother as they must have been, and I wish he had heard the story before he gave up writing novels and thrilled us all with his magnificent drama J%e Dynasts, for they only require his marvellous pen to spring once more into life. The girl was delicate, fragile, ladylike, and had once kept a small 48 THE COUNTY " genteel school," until, her health giving way, her mother had begged " Mr. John " to allow her to live with her and act as his reader and amanuensis. The mother was strong, scheming, extraordinary ; but perhaps not so extraordinary when one realises her name was once Churchill, and that in her veins ran some of the same blood that drove John Churchill onwards and made him Duke of Marlborough. Anyhow, the two together existed, planned, schemed, and were so nearly successful, that it took a judge and jury^several days, before the will was pronounced a forgery, and only proved so by an accident that sounds improbable, but as it is on record in the papers of the time there is no doubt the thing is true. There was at first sight one object of suspicion. The seal on the will was blurred and indistinct, but this Elizabeth ex- plained by saying she had carried the will about inside her dress and the heat of her body had caused the wax to run, so that doubt was dis- posed of easily. She had promised, she said, not to produce the will for six months; hence the delay. Now mark the subtlety of the women ! The will was beautifully written in Elizabeth's exquisite penmanship, everything was left to the bailiff except a few small legacies to " Mr. John's " sister and her daughters, and while the two women and four men of the bailiff's family had witnessed " Mr. John's sig- nature," nothing was left to them. The case D 49 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES was proceeding merrily when some question of the date and hour of the signing of the will came up ; the two women swore to their sig- natures, the four brothers swore to theirs, and they one and all gave such exact accounts of how " Mr. John " was seated at such a table, such an inkstand being used, and such chairs being sat in, that it was evident to the meanest capacity that the matter had been rehearsed until it was word for word alike, and that there was not one atom of truth in the whole abomin' able story. But how to prove it ? At the last moment a woman rose in the court and said that at any rate one of the brothers could not have been present. For on the day and at the particular time, they all swore to as the moment almost when the will was signed ; and in proving too much gave themselves away ; she was talking to one of the brothers for a good hour. She knew the date and time, as her daughter's wedding was on that day, and she looked at the clock and had remarked to the man that by now it must be over, and she only wished they were near enough to hear the bells. As he could not have reached the house where the will was supposed to have been signed under at least eight hours, the case was done for, though the judge remarked that what made him think the will was invalid, was more the manner in which the housekeeper had denied the existence of a will in the presence of a witness, than aught SO THE COUNTY else. While to me the most curious part of the whole matter is that no one was punished, the lawyer flourished, the women disappeared ! The bailiff to whom the property was willed refused to marry Elizabeth, to whom he was engaged, and Elizabeth and her mother were never seen again, though Elizabeth is supposed to have died quickly in a rapid decline, and the mother to have looked out for another situation, as her husband the butler absolutely refused to have anything more to do with her. One of my friends was a little girl of nine in the year of the trial, and she told me she perfectly well recollected the stir it made. Her father was the Colonel's lawyer and had the working up of the case, and one Sunday he, having discovered an unexpected clue to the making of the will, rode over to tell the Colonel about it. On his way he passed through a small village where the rector was standing at his gate, resting for a moment after his excellent dinner before going in to the afternoon service. At the sound of the horse's feet the rector stepped out and held up his hand, and despite the fact that every moment was precious and the congrega- tion was awaiting his presence, he held forth for half an hour on the evils of breaking the Sabbath, and ended by prophesying an unhappy end to any law case that had such a man as her father to engineer it through the courts. What he said when all returned in triumph from the Assizes 51 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTtJRES history saith not, but he never ceased to tell the lawyer what the end of men who did business on a Sunday could not fail to be. True, the lawyer's end was not a very comfortable one, but that will be told later on, for except as a humble servant of many imperious wills the lawyer has no place among the old-fashioned County folk, whose decadence and disappearance I for one most profoundly regret. For, despite the success- ful end to the law-suit, the Colonel's family do not live in the beautiful old house ; there is no hunting among the hills ; the present owner only cares for that ; and so the house passes from hand to hand, from casual renter to casual renter. No one cares for the village or the church or the people, and I should like myself to see the owner made to sell all his land to some one who will live on it, and help those who so badly need help, and who can only be really assisted by folk who are born and bred among them, and who are known even as they know the people from whom they in a measure receive their means of living. Even in these degenerate days the village is a picture to the casual visitor; it ceases to be one to any one who absolutely knows the place and people ! At first sight what can surpass the beautiful thatched cottages, some of the gardens radiant with flowers at almost every season of the year ? But look closer ! Many of the cottages are empty, albeit a tiny place on the 52 THE COUNTY coast is much sought after by the inland clerk, or even the small professional man, as a holiday resort. Many have not the smallest decent accommodation for a family, which is often found there in the closest of close quarters, because farm-labourers must be near the work, to perform which it is becoming more diffi- cult every year to find hands. When the " Family " lived at the big house the cottages were spick and span, and if the people were dragooned by a martinet, it was good for them. The martinet was kindly, he was as a real father to his people, and he treated them as his own children, scolded, rewarded, punished, and, in truth, turned out most excellent men and women, many of whom were trained by him and his wife, and who went away from the village into the larger world, but equipped in such a manner that they made successes of their lives. If the parson at the tiny church described himself, half laughingly, half bitterly, as the Squire's " ecclesiastical butler," he was helped in every possible manner, his garden was kept stocked and in fine order, a horse and carriage were at his disposal, and, always supposing' he had no hankerings after Rome, he did as he liked, and spent many, many years under the Squire's wing. Fortunately that special man was a scholar and a gentleman, he was profoundly interested in the folk-lore, the zoology and geology, every ology of the place, and when he 53 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES died he could never be replaced. The big house was empty, or inhabited casually by strangers ; times and men have changed, and there are few elderly scholars left nowadays to whom the charm of the place would appeal. Even old men want some one of their own kind to speak to, and in consequence cleric succeeds cleric, and the few folk left neither care about the church nor the church about them, and so one other stronghold of the faith has gone down before the bitter assault of the Time-spirit. Yet there is not one inch of that special coast that has not the most profound interest either for a student of history or a mere lover of the picturesque. I never understood the heimweh of the Swiss until I abode under the charm of those " everlasting hills," but now I comprehend it right well, and the laugh of the black-headed gull or the croak of a jackdaw winging its way home to the old castle in the gap from whence it takes its name is dearer to me than the most marvellous music played by the most splendid band in the wide world ! Can nothing save rural England from the desolation brought upon her by the landowner ? Think what this owning means even in this one solitary spot. When I knew it first there were large and delightful families in the houses of which I have spoken, and there were other people besides. One big house held kind and generous people ; it is now a girls' school. Another was 54 THE COUKTY the property of a most extraordinary woman, who spent her money lavishly, and kept the villagers amused by a good band and many other entertainments got up at her own cost. True she emptied the church, for, having the usual feud on with the parson, her band played gaily during service-time, and the girls and boys at least preferred that to the scoldings and prohibitions they were treated to by the parson in charge. That house is now a preparatory school for boys, and a most excellent one too ! Then came the Chancellor's house, now shuttered and closed ; then the Colonel's ; then yet another house, the summer home of the most charming of all that charming coterie ; and then once more came a beautiful old manor-house; yet as beautiful despite the gruesome fact that sash windows in a moment of madness replaced the ancient muUions ; and though that is still inhabited by the owners they are on the move. The Time-spirit has jogged their arms, and reminded them they are now but survivals of a time when a man could do as he liked with his own. So, as the beautiful silence is broken by gramophones and motor- horns, and the exquisite cliffs deformed by obtru- sive buildings over which no one save the special owner has any control, the manor turns its back on all, and the old inhabitants are off. If they cannot rule, they will abdicate, despite the fact that at least a hundred people will be miserable for their departure, and another village will be left 55 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES derelict, because, the head once gone, there is no one to keep things together in the good old way. It is sad to see the death of an era, and I doubt if anything will replace the real " County " folk, who are rapidly ceasing to exist. I liked their calm benevolence myself, admired their absolute certainty of their superiority to the rest of the world, and if I laughed at them, their queer garments, their hideous furniture, and their assumption, I should not do so now. I should not have done so had I understood them and known how they loved their own people and land. Tyrants, maybe, now and then ; still, they tried to do their best, and I for one mourn over their rapid passing. Naturally there was often enough a reverse side to the picture, and curiously enough that came on the other side of the valley where those I have been writing about dwelt for so long. How well I recollect the " wicked Squire " — a man who might have come straight out of a penny dreadful, and whose existence would, I should think, be quite impossible in these days, for surely some journalist would have slain him with his pen, and pilloried his doings in many a paragraph. He was an old man when I knew him forty years ago, but he looked as evil as any Mephistopheles could look, and his language was as revolting as his manners and customs. He had inherited large estates from his wife, who soon died, leaving him with two daughters, to 56 THE COUNTY whom the property was to go should they marry. This would not, naturally, have suited his book at all, and they were kept in strict seclusion, but somehow the younger managed to make acquaintance with a neighbour's son ; they eloped out of the library window and married. The Squire had to give up her share of the pro- perty, and he kept the elder sister closer and closer, until she became a melancholy wreck, and took to winding all the clocks, to mark the passing of the sorrowful hours, so that they should never be an instant different from each other. Then she never went out except to church, where she sat in the square pew that she would never allow to be cleared out of the chancel — she was lay rector — or improved in any way. Indeed, her interest in the church once took the em- barrassing form of cleaning and repainting it in such a manner that it resembled a music-hall more than a grave place of worship, and all were thankful when the decorations faded and were replaced at her death by others more in keeping with the sacred building. I always wondered how much truth there was in the stories told of this especial man. I have heard, when he owned the hounds, that his servants hunted in white satin breeches ; that money and wine flowed like water; that he breakfasted at dinner-time and dined in the middle of the night ; that the many lodges round the estate each held a fair and frail friend, and at the end a broken heart ; that 57 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES he scourged the lads with his hunting-whip whom he found picking the snowdrops in Feb- ruary in the Park, and that finally he built himself a mausoleum, which he kept warmed because he did not want the place to be damp when his time came to be placed there. Finally he had a grand rehearsal of his funeral one wet day when he had nothing much to do, and was found by his agent swearing profusely, because the tall gamekeepers entrusted to carry the coffin could not keep step, and so would shake his corpse uncomfortably when it was placed therein. About all these items I can say nothing personally, except about the denizens of the lodges ; some of those at least owed their fall to the " wicked Squire," while I quite well recollect the hurry the village mothers were in to get their girls away from home and into decent service before the Squire realised they were pretty and grown up, lest they too should find themselves an object for his attention and be found a place under the housekeeper at the Hall. What a cruel tyrant he was, too, to the wretched tenant- farmers ! But more of that in another chapter, as I saw specimens of that side of his character myself. As I also heard samples of his lan- guage; once when he fell over a croquet-hoop on the lawn, when he was endeavouring to get a promise of a vote out of a man who had never voted for him, and never would. The last time was when the poll was declared after an election 58 THE COUNTY that saw his back turned on the town, for his name was at the bottom. So he solemnly cursed the place and people, and, ordering his carriage, told his coachman at the top of his voice to drive him to a locality, where, if it exist, he is at the moment no doubt paying some of his many, many debts. " I will die with M.P. on my coffin," he used to swear, but when he died the letters were not there, and the borough he had bullied and coerced for years had ceased to return a representative to ParUament, and had been merged into one of the four quarters of the county. Hard drinking, hard riding, hard swearing, distinguished yet another County family, and to hear them on the hunting-field was to liberally increase, if one wanted to, one's vocabulary ; but beyond these three characteristics, which were, I fancy, a survival of the olden times, one heard nothing either for or against them : they were sportsmen first and individuals afterwards, and personally I never got beyond the first- mentioned aspect of the family. In my time one of the most interesting of the County folk was a man of a venerable Roman Catholic family, and his forebears had had wretched times now and again. Before the Emancipation days they were called on for any and every thing the king or State was supposed to require. Their horses were requisitioned, their plate and money borrowed and never returned, troops 59 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES were quartered on them; they were allowed to have a chapel, but it had to look more like a Moorish mosque than anything else, while the hideous, very Protestant church was planted down at their front door, a constant eyesore in more ways than one. Moreover, it was an un- failing reminder that they were aliens of the faith of the land where they were just allowed to live. It is a curious fact that time, which brings about its own revenges, is now handing over that special village body and soul to the Pope of Rome. Those to whom the houses are let must all profess that special form of faith, and in consequence one by one the cottages are filled by Roman Catholics, who once would not have been allowed to set their feet within the portals. The dreamy mysticism of that faith is strangely out of joint with this bustling twentieth century ; but for all its bustle it is a time of superstition and quest after the unknown, and the Roman Catholics, being no longer harried, are a strong and powerful body in that little place. Though the owner of the Castle cannot live there, some distant members of the family are there for some few weeks in the year, while during the sweetest and best months the place is closed and there is no money spent, and no coming and going between the Castle and the country round. There are treasures of pictures and documents locked up there : old letters, old 60 THE COUNTY diaries, old papers, that would make the fortune of an historian, as there are in many an old country house; while gentle ghosts walk the terraces and wail over the days when they had bodies and were real and tangible forms them- selves. I once had a talk with the oldest member of that household— it must be quite forty years ago— and he told me one of the most charming ghost stories I ever heard, but naturally I do not believe it. I could see how it grew until he was firmly convinced of the truth of the tale, and I only wish I could possess his serene faith and look forward as he did to the realisation of all his hopes after death ! He was a dreamy man, very charming, very quiet, and, our talk somehow verging on the unseen, he told me that he was once walking in the streets of Southampton when he saw across the road his son, who was, as he thought, in Rome with a tutor, but who appeared to be, to his aston- ishment, in Southampton, talking earnestly to a man of whose identity he could not be sure. He crossed the street, but in the confusion of the traffic missed his son, and, having finished his business, went home, expecting to find that something had brought the lad back without his being able to give notice to his father of his intention. But the son was not there, only a wire to beg him to come at once to Rome, for the lad was ill. Before he realised what it meant a second wire was brought to say that 6i FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES he was dead — ^must have died at the moment the father saw him in the streets of Southampton I A hurried visit to Rome did not obtain for the broken-hearted father the information he wanted as to who was with the lad when he died,', for there were only the tutor and an old priest pre- sent, both of whom were well known to him, and neither of whom was the least like the man he had seen. So the mystery remained unsolved until some years afterwards ; then a portrait in the gallery at Dresden solved the problem. The companion was St. Charles Borromeo, to whom the lad had been dedicated, and who was his patron saint ! A pretty story truly, and a com- forting one to those who, like my one afternoon's acquaintance, thoroughly believed in the story as he told it to me. I was truly sorry I could not beheve it, but I hope he thought I did ; at any rate, he never knew I did not, for I never told the story to any one until he had been dead for many years. It would fill a volume were I to dilate on all the romances I have heard about the old-fashioned County folk ; the tragedies that touched the quiet houses ; the sons who fought and died for their country, and the girls who died as young wives or faded away as spinsters in the rigid home circle. Or of the curious survivals of the old haughty Norman spirit that came out in more than one story, the hero or heroine af which has gone back into the earth out of which they 62 THE COUNTY sprang. No one can require a novel who can read old registers and hear old tales standing by the graves where the men and women lie at rest. For think for a moment of this one ! A spoiled beauty, no money, a rich sister willing to give her a season in Bath ; a successful suitor mainly for the riches he thought hers, then the drive back from church. He, knowing that the money did not exist, was prepared to make the best of it if she in her turn would effect a compromise ; an illegitimate daughter, his daughter, had always lived with him ; she must still do so, now that their means did not allow of a second establish- ment. The beauty stopped the coach, the bride- groom had to alight there and then, and they never met again. He left her money when he died, and never claimed large sums that came to her during his lifetime, and I like him the better of the two, for he at least never bore malice. All the same, if the money had been forthcoming at once the daughter would never have been mentioned ; and the bride and bride- groom would have jogged on comfortably. As it is, one rests in one part of England and the other sleeps at her old home, and one wonders if their spirits met and talked over the marriage that never was a marriage, and the long years during which they never met, or, indeed, com- municated with each other. If the graves could only give up the dead, one would hear even more curious stories than these. 63 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES Unmarked, unknown is the spot where sleeps the old rector who for fifty odd years preached the Gospel in the now desolate and deserted little church. He went off to the county gaol for his opinions, for he spoke out against corrup- tion in high places, but came back to his own when the king against whom he had held forth ceased to be. While one of his successors, whose grave is very evident, and well kept, for he was " County," was still more curious and worthy to be recollected for his quaint personality, though he mainly cared about his dinner, and had been known to sit down to the whole of a haunch of venison by himself, and, moreover, to eat all that was worth eating of that colossal joint. He it was who used to climb to where he cpuld see the kitchen-chimneys of seven small manor-houses smoking on Sunday, and used to claim his dinner where much smoke promised a lordly fesed ; while, not caring much for his family at any time, he built himself a house in the cleft of a hill without any drivable road. He could ride, the others could only travel in carriages, and there he remained solitary and alone until he died. " The head of an ass, and not the tail of a lion," as he remarked when asked why he lived by himself and not with his old mother in the manor-house. But the lion was known as a fierce one, and perhaps he did well to choose a position where, ass or not, he was the head. 64 CHAPTER III TOWNSFOLK Really, the proper title of this chapter would be, I think, the one word "Waste," for surely never were any lives so utterly wasted and thrown away as those lived in a country town in the middle of the last century, especially among the women-folk belonging to the professional men of the place. I do not mean that the wives and mothers were wasted, but that the young girls and women simply withered on their stalks, so few were the outlets for their energies, and so little knowledge had they of what life really could have meant, had they been given a wider atmosphere, and learned all that they could have had and done; were their lot cast in any other place than a small and obscure country town. It is a woman's own fault nowadays if she does not live a wide and amusing life ; but in mid- Victorian days she would have been at once un- classed had she had the temerity ; and I may add the brains; to enable her to leave home and make a career for herself. Indeed, how could E 65 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES she have done so? Take, for example, the people I knew myself : one " such a bright, impulsive girl when she left school," said my aunt with a sigh, when I commented angrily on the manner in which she never seemed to touch a book or newspaper or care for anything beyond the mere daily routine and gossip of the towns- people. Bright ! impulsive ! Could she ever have been either the one or the other, before she was engulphed in the toils of the family requirements, and becoming thinner, more angular, more drab^ coloured every year; finally faded away and died in the house where she was born ! She had outlived her parents and seen her brothers married, and in this dreary round fulfilled her destiny to the satisfaction of all, for such a career was considered the only right one for a woman in the so-called good old times. She was never sour or bitter, never disagreeable, and if she had the quaintest and narrowest ideas of her duty, she lived distinctly up to her ideals; and though she was once deeply in love, and most bitterly disappointed at the defection of her suitor, who left her for a more amply dowered maiden, she never allowed it to warp her kindly soul. Still, she could and did speak out when things were not just as she thought they ought to be, but she never gossiped or took away a character, but went straight to the delinquent and had it out, as she expressed it, on the spqt. It was a quaint and interesting household to me, 66 TOWNSFOLK for I had never conceived such a one could exist out of the pages of '* Cranford " or " Our Village." As in most of the houses of the town, the hours were regulated entirely to suit the men of the household, to minister to whom, apparently, was the one raison d'Stre of the female sex. The breakfast was at eight, shared by all ; the mother in her prim cap, apron, and full stuff dress at the head of the table, the father at the foot, and the sons and daughter at the sides. Oh ! prayers came first, short and sharp and to the point; and then the two maids dispersed to their duties upstairs, for the " breakfast- room " opened out of the kitchen, and while letters had to be discussed by the gentlemen, the maids were best out of the way. There was generally a dis- cussion as to which hen's eggs they were eating ; or which particular pig furnished the bacon or ham, while the quality of the butter and flour also came in for mention, favourable or otherwise. Then the head of the household would retire to the larder and discuss the meals for the day with his wife, while the young men got on their boots ; slippers being worn until then ; and the daughter went to dust the drawing-room and the bed- rooms, and to look over the linen, or to perform other small domestic tasks. Then she and her mother would sit down to two or three hours' solid needlework, all the men's shirts and their own under-garments being made at home, until it was time to make calls. Then, card-case in 67 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTXJRES hand, they would sally forth and solemnly call on women they saw every day of their lives, in the street or at each other's houses ; while after the awful midday dinner there was more needlework, sometimes of a fancy nature, for " white work " was not considered poUte after four o'clock; neither did the sparse Ughts in winter allow of much plain sewing. Knitting filled the older fingers, and tatting and crochet the younger hands, this everlasting " edging " being yet to be found on ancient garments that have served their makers for something like forty years. As a rule the men came in to tea, and rarely stirred out afterwards, in the winter at any rate, and this was supposed to be the best part of the day. For all came in with more or less thrilling accounts of the happenings in and around the town. I must have given them many a happy half -hour, for they never could make out what I was doing or going to do, except that they were quite sure it would be something that no one save myself would ever think of undertaking ; and, indeed, had I my time to go over again I should certainly have left the place abjectly alone, and it would have been none the worse had I done so. There was an awful custom when I was married that enforced a new-made bride to remain at home for at least three days after her appearance at church suggested that she was ready and anxious to receive calls. But un- 68 TOWNSFOLK fortunately I never believed that this rule could apply to me. We went to church as a matter of course in those days, and I was most surprised to see how much interest our appearance caused, and to find the pew we shared with an elderly couple empty, swept and garnished, so to speak, and left entirely to our two selves. I am afraid, too, my costume left much to be desired, for I had no idea that one's very best dress should have been donned on such an auspicious occasion. It being a very hot August Sunday, I had quite an ordinary muslin dress on. I can see it now : small mauve leaves on a spotted ground, worn over a silk skirt ; really because it is economical to wear out an old silk skirt in this manner, and saves the washing, but suggesting such depths of depravity and recklessness to the good folk in church that whatever troubles we had later on were all put down, I am convinced, to that same silk skirt. If they could only have known that it began life as a white silk ball dress, then, dyed brown, became a useful afternoon frock, and finally, when black, made a most serviceable underskirt, I think I should have won praise, and not been quite as hardly judged as I was at the time. The inexpensive muslin annoyed them as much as the silk, for had not the last bride swept into church in a splendid grey silk with broad pink stripes, and a bonnet full of pink feathers ? while she even changed for the evening service and came in yet more gorgeous apparel ; 69 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES while I, having gone to tea with my aunt, thought an evening at home in the garden very much nicer than any more church could possibly be. It is curious to recollect how the bells of the fine old church used to ring for all our domestic happenings. Nowadays nothing under a Royal visit or a victory in war-time or a wedding gets a note out of them. When we returned home from our honeymoon they rang well into the night, and when bur children were born the same rapturous peals rang out, much to the joy of the ringers, who always, of course, obtained a handsome tip. Then great pleasure was given the townsfolk also, for we one and all liked to know that things were well around and about us. There was a family feeling, too, in the place, and I think that accounted as much for a great deal of the curious gossip that went on as anything else ; for what family exists nowadays that does not consider it its duty to tell each other just what he or she thinks of their doings and comings and goings, generally putting the worst construction they can on the very simplest things of which they hear ? One chooses one's friends, one is born into one's family, and I for one think it a great pity that one cannot choose them as well as one does one's acquaint- ances. If I were to begin my life in the country over again, I should not commence it in early autumn, for the months that follow on September 70 TOWNSFOLK are the worst in all the year, at any rate for a novice and for one who does not easily make friends or take a lively interest in her neighbours' concerns. Yet now I should understand how kind those said neighbours meant to be, and know what an effect my unconventional ways had on them. The family I have described were typical of the townsfolk, and they had in their houses stores of the most beautiful things I have ever beheld ; many of which are yet in their old places. One of their relatives had been captain of an East-Indiaman and had sailed the stormy seas for many a long year. He must have been a noble seaman too, for there are yet extant great salvers boldly engraved with long lists of names of those whose gratitude took this form when he had brought them safely to shore through treacherous tempests and great cyclonic storms. The china, too, is a sight to behold : the first china bedroom ware was brought to England by him, and was actually used in the best " spare room " until some one mentioned the great value thereof, and it was put safely away in one of the tall lacquer cabinets the Captain had also brought back and housed in his brother's drawing-room until such time as he should settle down and have a place of his own to die in. But better luck was his : no tame death in a comfortable bed with doctor and parson in attendance, and the sexton ready to toll the bell. 71 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES] He went down with his ship off the coast of India, and though his passengers and many of his crew were saved, the gallant Captain went to his last sleep among the waves he had always loved, and never returned to claim the many things he had brought back from distant parts to the old home. All the china used, too, for breakfast, tea, and dinner was what is now known as " old china," and it must have survived simply because the ladies of the family washed it themselves, polishing it daintily with soft silk handkerchiefs, and taking immense pride in the work. Really the housewives of that day were actual slaves, first to the men of the house and afterwards to their " things." And no doubt they were obliged to be, because of the fearful prices of materials and the costliness of the commonest household plenishing; but I trust I may not live to see it necessary to wash up one's china oneself, and to draw down every blind and obscure every glimpse of sunshine because, once faded and rotten, new things can- not possibly be had. I believe in some houses that spring cleaning is yet a time of stress and torment ; in that town a solemn fortnight was given over to the truly awful domestic rite. It began in the attics, where were stored the summer curtains and carpets and bed-hangings that were to replace those used when the fires were de rigiteur. After Fair-day, which occurred about the middle of April, the fires were never 73 TOWNSFOLK allowed, for not only were the ordinary black bars removed from the grates, and replaced by elaborate steel ones which had passed the winter rubbed with mutton-fat and enrolled in brown paper, but vast arrangements of pulled- out fibres were placed in the grates. Moreover, if young and artistic females composed part of the household, dried fern leaves and threads of gilt paper lay gracefully over the white expanse. I have been guilty of those fern leaves myself : gathering them when fully out, putting them between blotting paper and drying them, and finally pressing them between many books to preserve them for use in the summer. But that was in my early days ; after the first summer or two I always kept my fires ready to light, despite the fact that I owned the most stupendous steel grate in the town, which, as long as I allowed it to dominate me, was the curse of my existence. It took any maid-servant three whole hours to clean and burnish, and what that meant I at least could not for one moment allow to continue where I was. I suppose, however, the women who really were cowed by their possessions were actually the happiest, for they could never have had an hour to spare or to waste in empty groans over their fate. But I for one never could make a culte of my Lares and Penates; neither had I the least idea of what house- keeping could be made to mean; and as to servants, they were more or less part of the household to 73 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES us, and so did not require the perpetual hunting up thought necessary in those days. My mother had the gift of keeping hers, and in consequence they had all beeij with us so long when I married that I could not comprehend that maids could be anything save members of the family, a matter that caused much talk when I lent one of my two maids a white petticoat to go to a " party " in and another a nightdress in which to face the doctor. For in those bygone days and in those primitive parts maid-servants prepared for rest by simply tying the flaps of their under-garments over their necks and shoulders ; folding them back, and fastening them round their waists in the day-time; and scarcely one possessed the most elementary night garment at all. There was yet more " waste " of woman's life and talents in another family, long since scattered. Indeed, most of the members thereof are dead, while those who are alive have become so rich aiid prosperous that they have quietly buried the old life, and would scarcely recognise the names of their old friends if they were whispered in their ears. Yet what a dehghtful home and family they were to be sure, though all were so unconventional and dehghtful that the more straitlaced townsfolk only received them on sufferance, and once nearly boycotted the whole family because of some imagined social lapse. I think the mother was even more remarkable than the father, but then I never liked him 74 TOWNSFOLK particularly, and to her I gave the love a young woman so often lavishes on another, who is very often the same age, if not older than her own mother ; and my friend was as old as Mama almost to a day. I recollect being the youngest married woman — ^indeed, almost the youngest woman — ^in the town, and feeling rather resentful at the manner in which I was always put with the elders. Alas ! I should now be the oldest old inhabitant if I returned, for one and all are dead; and when I do go back I feel as if I were a ghost among ghosts, there are so few left who even recollect a name that was familiar there for at least a hundred years. But all the fun of my first years was found in that delightful house in the North Street, which overflowed with boys and girls, and where the father and mother were one with the children, and lovers to the end. When they married first they lived out on the heath in a solitary cottage close to the clay- works where the Master's work lay, and my friend told me that she used to suffer agonies of fright during the hours she lived there alone with one young maid-servant. I think she had lived in a town in Wales, where her father was a well-known Unitarian minister ; at all events, she came from a full and bustling household, with much coming and going, and as she was married some little time before the children began to arrive she had many lonely hours. On one occasion she was standing looking out across the heath when 75 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES some man came up the garden path and asked for the Master. She was in deadly terror lest he should turn out to be a malefactor, and replied very curtly ; on being pressed to say where he had gone, she fled indoors and locked herself in, when the man, failing to get any reply to his many knocks and rings, went away in a huff, and, much to her relief, disappeared. When the Master — as he was always called — returned, he was given a dramatic account of the day's alarms, and received it with much rage and despair. The man was a wealthy peer, much interested in clay works, and who, finding himself in the neighbourhood, had hoped to have an interview, from which much new business would have accrued. Determined never to make such a mistake again, the next visitor found himself asked in, pressed to wait, was given luncheon, and begged to remain for dinner. Imagine the tableau when the visitor turned out to be the tailor, anxious to display his new patterns and to obtain orders from a man whose garments at their best would have been scorned by a mechanic and at their worst were only fit for a rag-bag. I have never in all my life seen any man so 'absolutely indifferent to his apparel as was the Master. They gave a grand dinner-party when we were married, and we had to wait quite half an hour before he turned up. " Kept at the pits," said his wife. When he did come in he had on old grey trousers, clay-stained and torn, 76 TOWNSFOLK while his upper man was clad in the whitest and most beautiful shirt and new, clean, and correct coat and waistcoat and tie. Suddenly, when we were going down to dinner, the trousers caught his eye. He stopped half-way, rumpled up his shaggy locks in the way he used to affect when he was perplexed, then gazed at me in my bridal satin, and said "Lor'!" and finally pro- ceeded, being assured at the top of his wife's voice that dinner was more important than his raiment, and she considered herself lucky that he had even recollected to change the rest of his dress ! There was nothing the Master did not know or could not do, and his hands were as useful as his head. Once a frightful accident happened at the pits, and a man and a boy were entombed there alive for four whole days. It was he who used lengths of garden and brewery hose to pump air down to the miners while the digging was going on, and it was he who con- tinued in the same primitive manner to pass down food now and then. But it was an awful time. Men and women used to stream out across the Causeway to the pits, waiting in silence for news ; and when it came the Master was brought home shoulder-high, while the bells clashed out : the bells that are never allowed to ring now unless by the Rector's permission : which I for one think a pity, as no doubt do the ringers, whose earnings can be nothing like as much as they used to be in the good old times. The Master never n FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES left the side of the pits for the whole four days and nights. His food was taken to him there, he superintended the relays of workers, knocked so that the prisoners should know that they were being rescued as swiftly as might be, and finally, when the dazed, half-starved creatures were brought triumphantly to the surface, fed them himself with hot soup, until they were fit to be t9,ken home once more. What wonder that there are still recollections of a service of thanksgiving on the Sunday afterwards at the pit-mouth, when Bibles were presented to the rescued men, and the beloved Rector preached from the text, " He brought me up from the miry pit." If in some vague manner the He meant to some of his hearers the Master, who was the worse ? The man returned to his labours at the pit, but the lad had had sufficient of them, and, making for the open sea, went for a sailor, where after long years he met his death, at any rate in the open, and not, as he expressed it, as a rat in a trap. In those days no town was ever so insanitary, so lacking every single thing it ought to have possessed, and the Master and his wife fought tooth and nail against all the wrongs they would fain have seen righted. But any rise in the rates gave the " city fathers " fits, and though the drainage was a mere matter of open gutters and cesspools ; though when one person was buried in the fearsome and overcrowded churchyard 78 TOWNSFOLK some one had to be dug up to make room for the newcomer; though there was no water-supply, and, indeed, none was obtained until two or three years ago; nothing could be done. The Master was allowed to talk, to plan baths and W9'Sh-houses, and an elaborate system of drainage yet to be carried out — for at present the old style still continues — and to storm about educa- tion and the closing of the churchyard as much as he liked. It was only when I got an old newspaper friend to call attention to the state of the phurchyard in the Daily News that an inquiry was put on foot. Some one high in a,uthority sought and found us out, the church- yard was abruptly closed, and the new cemetery consecrated as soon s-S possible. People who live nowadays have not the least idea of what really horrible things used to go on unchecked in distant country places, because there was no one to interfere, and few newspapers then cared to take upon theniselves the somewhat invidious position of inaking a stir in matters that were not supposed to concern the world at large. The " gentry " amongst the townspeople had their terrible brick graves or still worse vaults ; they were safe of a resting-place ; but I shall never fprget seeing bones with shreds of skin, and skuUs with hair still on, dug up and cast on one side by the old sexton when a grave was required for one of our men's children. While a row of cottages that skirted the churchyard and drew 79 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES their water from a well rather beldw the church- yard itself was the home of low fever, which in a hot season meant typhus, and even after the old churchyard was closed was cursed with an epidemic of diphtheria amongst the children. A pathetic patch in the new cemetery dotted with tiny crosses is spoken of as the diphtheria corner even at this day, when the " new ceme- tery " is full, and another field is about to be added to the over-full patch ! I was present at the beginning of this present year — 1908 — ^at the funeral of the very last of the old inhabitants, when she was laid to rest in the family brick grave in the old churchyard. I protest that the coffin-lid was not six inches below the surface of the ground, and though no doubt a large and heavy table-tomb is over her, the cottages still use the well- water, so perchance even now fever may return once more to its well-loved haimts of old ! How the Master used to rave against similar doings ! And I can see him as I write, his hat pushed to the back of his head, rubbing his forehead and ejaculating " Lor' ! " as he watched a new house being prepared for, the foundations being dug over one of the old " plague pits," where in the time of the plague bodies were cast in wholesale, let us hope into quicklime. Anyhow, the bones and skulls turned up in their hundreds, and were put back as the garden of the house was made. " An unlucky house that will be," said the superstitious. I 80 TOWNSFOLK have known, I think, four families live there, and not one of them has had luck or happiness or anything else good in all the thirty odd years during which it has existed. I was much astonished, as I got to know the Master and his wife better and better, to observe how very, very superior they were to any one for miles around; and I was even more astonished to discover how little they were thought of, by the people who should have been their intimates. There was not a book she had not read ; she had more than a passing acquaintance with Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and, moreover, German and French were to her as her native tongue ; she taught her own children, managed her household splendidly ; but how should her learning serve her ? She was a Unitarian ; both were Liberals ! Could there be any greater social crime in the country, I wonder, in the middle of the last century at any rate ? Those were not the days of Christian Science, but the Master had not the least belief in the ordinary medical practitioner, and nothing would induce him to allow one inside his doors. His children arrived comfortably with the assistance of himself and an old nurse ; he set his son's leg, and, regardless of the fact that he was lame until the day of his death, mended all the other fractures in the family, more or less successfully. He was only conquered by typhoid fever, caught in France ; not from the drainage he so heartily cursed at home; when he lost a most beautiful F 8i FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES daughter, who died because he had not the least idea that typhoid fever meant skilled nursing; and was only saved from the ignominy of an inquest because I happened to meet my dear old doctor and sent him straight into the sick- room, just in time to see the dear girl die ! Another daughter was ill too, but she was en- gaged to be married, her fiance's people demanded medical care for her, the fiancd s sister, a born nurse, took her in charge, and she was saved. But the Master never really recovered from the blow; it was the second child he had lost; the family removed to some little distance, and from that day to this the town has slowly perished, until there are only about four people left there who could by the utmost stretch of courtesy be called gentlefolk, and only two of these are old inhabitants. The others are migrants, clergy-folk, and doctors, and none of these remain any longer than they can possibly help. The Master and his brother were partners, but the younger brother was the richer man, and the sisters-in-law had the usual amusing feud, and it was difficult, I believe, to be friends with both households, but as the wife of the second brother was dead some time before I came on the scene, I had not to choose. If I had I should, I am sure, have selected the North Street household, and so have lost most valuable remembrances of dehghtful days. These two brothers always wore on Sundays to the day 83 TOWNSFOLK of their death regular evening coats and waist- coats. Some one suggested to me that these must have been the old-world " body coats " illustrated by " Phiz " in his pictures of Jonas Chuzzlewit, but I know they were not, as I have heard discussions in one household as to the age of the Sunday coat, and as to the pro- priety of its being relegated to evening wear, as it could no longer with due reverence bear the light of day. The younger brother always wore in church white cotton gloves, the fingers rather too long for him, but as I never went to the Unitarian chapel, save once when an entertain- ment and tea were given in the building, I do not know if the elder brother followed this weird fashion or not. It was the custom in those bygone days on Sunday to proceed straight from the different places of worship for a solemn walk round the walls, and here all religious differences were forgotten in the joy of seeing each other's Sunday garments, albeit we most of us knew them quite well by sight. Now no one walks round the walls, there is no one left to walk there; and I do not know a sadder sight than the church on Sunday : only about a dozen people are left who have been in the town anything like twenty years. I only call to mind two of the older men who were born there, while as one of these is a Unitarian he does not trouble church, though for some years his people went there, because &3 P'RESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES there were not sufficient of their creed to attract any one to the chapel, which stands dereUct and silent, away from the silent street. If it is sad to see the death of a man, of a family, truly the death of a town is even more pathetic ; and when I remember the great families of boys and girls I used to know, and see their empty places, it is almost too much to bear. There was more waste in other lives : one girl, brilliantly clever, passably good-looking, un- controlled, uncontrollable, very fond of riding, intensely alive, yet gradually starved mentally until she ceased to care to live, and fell later on in life an easy victim to consumption. Hers was another typical family of the time ; the mother not very well educated, extremely pious, very narrow, very frightened of life and its possibilities, deadly terrified for her children's future, abjectly afraid of the strong, clever, sensual, successful man she had married, much against the wish of his family, who were dour Scots by descent and selfishly anxious to keep their brother to themselves. I just recollect her sitting in an arm-chair and reproving her elder daughter for raising the top skirt of my frock, a double-skirted arrangement made of silk, and of which I was very proud. She wanted to see if silk and not lining were to be found beneath the top skirt, and I have never forgotten my relief when she saw it was silk ; nor the manner in which her mother spoke of her rude 84 TOWNSFOLK ill-behaviour to a strange child. With the elder girl I never was " friends," but with the younger one I was, and we shared all oiir secrets, until we grew up ; then the life at school contrasted with her home-life had soured her : the gentle, patient mother was dead; the elder sister, cruel, unscrupulous, and determined to take what she could out of life, put her on one side as much as possible. She had " found out " her father, and her brothers married. Financial bothers had to be faced, and when she found funds did not allow of horses and charming dresses and silk stockings, she would have none of life, and was as wretched as she made every one who would have loved her if they could. Yet she too was brilliantly clever, humorous and witty; but when she returned from a most excellent school, and understood she could never ask her school-friends to see her in that divided house- hold, that she was expected to settle down to the regular routine of a small country town life, without any of the amenities that make country hfe bearable, she practically withered on her stem, and when her father died went away and died out of England among strangers, emanci- pated too late to enjoy a life that, placed in some other entourage, might have been a most happy and entirely useful one. In my day I think I liked the old rector and his wife and the beloved doctor as much as any one, and they too had had far more happenings 85 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES in their families than one could have expected in such apparently commonplace lives. Of all the rector's enormous family not one is now alive : his girls, more fortunate than most, found kindly mates, lived slow and gentle lives, and died loved and lamented by all ; the sons — ^but every one knows how parsons' sons turn out as a rule ! I think two of the older ones lived creditably, but they were so much older than I that I never knew them; those I did are dead. Let them rest in peace. I at least do not intend to disturb their bones. How can I picture the beloved doctor, whose loving care for me took me through many a hard hour of my existence, and whose loss to the town has never been replaced ? I have not the least doubt that his science was of the smallest, and his knowledge was not great, but his patience, kindness, and sweetness are most fragrant, and are memories which I for one hope to retain as long as I breathe and live. He, too, had famous men among his people : admirals who had sailed the seas, and soldiers who had fought in the wars; and his sons took their part too in the world's work ; but tragedy came to his home twice : once his sister met and married a fascinating man, and returned home with her son. A first wife had turned up, she and her son had no right to the name they bore, 4nd they remained at home. Gradually folk thought she was a widow, and I do not think 86 TOWNSFOLK the son ever knew he had no right to his father's name. Another tragedy, too, was the later part of the second wife's hfe ; but she was tended by her step-daughter lovingly, unselfishly. They are all dead now, and I question much if nowadays one could put one's hand on such brave, silent, and most unselfish folk. Then there were other doctors, one beloved of all the young women, who wept aloud when he left, and was so impervious to their charms and their prospects that all believed he had a secret wife and family elsewhere. Then a feud arose, and some of the townsfolk brought in a new doctor, but naturally he could not live out of them. The County stuck by the older man, who, moreover, held the appointments, and so the newcomer was speedily starved out. There were one or two who were horrid, one or two who were worse than horrid, and one who came for but a short time, whose cross and disagreeable wife kept us all at arm's length. Alas ! she was neither cross nor disagreeable ; she was dying silently and sadly ^f cancer, while her husband " gallivanted " about, and finally brought great scandal on one honoured name. That the scandal was more imaginary than real mattered little ; the wife died, and he went away, and was replaced by a wild and passionate man, of whom people talk with bated breath even unto this very day. One of the houses, now turned into a shop, was built before the reign of Charles II., and has 87 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES the quaint little powdering closets out of the two best bedrooms, and, moreover, used to possess in its garden the most magnificent mulberry-tree I ever saw ; better than our own, and that was beautiful enough for any one. The paths were bordered with the bones from calves' feet, used in making jelly for the poor, and when I knew the house it was lived in by the most charming old lady I have ever known. I recollect sitting in her window one afternoon when it was snowing, and she told me how, on a similar afternoon, she had sat there waiting for her bridegroom. She was to be married the following day, and the licence had not come from the surrogate. Her fiance and his brother had driven off in a gig to get it ; they got stuck in a snow-drift, and they only returned the next dayj just in time for the ceremony to be performed. She was married in her riding habit, and rode away on her honeymoon towards London, where she spent the first few years of her married life, pining always for her country home, where, fortunately, she soon re- turned, and remained until within a year or two of her death. She furthermore told me that as a child she well recollected the last funeral that took place at night, and how frightened she was as she watched it from a " porch-room " — i.e., the room built out over the porch in some of the old houses — as it cUmbed up " Martin's Pitch " and the flickering torches just showed the hearse and the long procession of mourners, for all the great 88 TOWNSFOLK people used to be buried after dark about that time. Another funeral she spoke of was that of her grandmother ; she died at the old family house, with the tan-pits behind it, on the other side of the Causeway, and the snow was so deep that a road had to be cut out for the procession to the churchyard. When the service was just over some of the male mourners looked up ; a change had come in the weather, wild-fowl were coming up the river : one and all left the church- yard in a hurry and sought their guns, leaving the bearers and the clergyman to see that the grave was covered in decently and in order. Fortunately, there were no ladies to look after : women did not attend funerals in those days ; and I cannot help thinking they are better at home on such occasions even now. But oh, the mourning the unhappy victims were compelled to wear ! In many houses too the crape used to be picked off when the mourning was lightened, and cleaned and then rolled round glass bottles and kept in a wardrobe in readiness for the next death in theJamily ; a custom that always made me creep, and one I can but think it would have been well to have dispensed with, sooner than it was. Naturally there were two or three good ghosts in the old town, one a headless horseman, whose horse I have heard, but whose rider I have never seen, and another one, a sound as of dripping water on a bedroom floor. Here had been laid .89 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES the body of a drowned youth, and the sound of the water dripping from his garments was ever afterwards heard on a particularly still and quiet night. One most excellent ghost was at my aunt's house, and that one had the sense to walk up and down the verandah when it rained, keep- ing to the drive on fine nights in a most curious manner. Unfortunately, some one learned in the science of acoustics came to see us, and illustrated how the ghost was made by the trotting of horses on the Causeway : in fine weather the sound was thrown back a certain distance only, from Redcliffe; in wet weather it reached the verandah; and so our valuable ghost was laid, I wonder if the bats still inhabit an old stump of a tree that used to stand by the verandah. I was not afraid of the ghost, but I must confess the bats then and always sent me nearly mad with the most abject fright ! 90 CHAPTER IV MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS In my time there were four or five old maids still living who were even more " waste " than those who were qualifying to fill their places when they had departed this life. For while the second generation had gone away to school, and had even penetrated to London more than once, their immediate predecessors had done neither, and I have yet to discover how they obtained their education. I think; though the idea of Roman Catholicism was even worse than that of Dissent; that more than one fugitive French- woman had found a meagre home in the neigh- bourhood, and, concealing the fact of their adherence to the Scarlet Woman and the Pope of Rome, had given instruction to some of the families, whose latest members were quite old ladies when I was a girl. For the four or five I knew spoke French with a charming accent, and had delicate ways of embroidering that they could never have learned save from an inhabi- tant of France, while their knowledge of the finer 91 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES parts of cookery had never been obtained at their mothers' knees. Their cookery was plain, sohd, and wholesome, but nothing else. Soup took pounds of meat to make, and was looked on as fearful waste save and except when a dinner-party was in the air ; and it was from a servant trained under one of these French-taught women that I learned the component parts of the many vegetable soups I always use, and which are as economical as they are undoubtedly pleasant to consume. It is sad to remember these starved lives, for before they withered entirely the brains they originally possessed softened or wore out, and I can still recollect the gaunt, black-robed figures slipping about the streets, generally at dusk, with strained eyes and worn features, never doing anything particular, anything singular, but ap- parently looking for the good times they might have had and which had never come their way- One small lady, so precise and tidy she resembled nothing so much as an extremely neat doll, had quarrelled with every separate rehgious denomi- nation in the place, and had started a private creed of her own, and I was much interested in her, as I always was, and indeed am, in any one who is in the least degree out of the common. She endeavoured to explain it all to me, but I never could understand it, but as one of the principles of her belief consisted in worshipping in an " upper chamber " I think she must have assimi- 92 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS lated unconsciously some of the tenets of the Plymouth Brethren. She lived in a house with a bow- window, which had a square of gravel and some railings between it and the street, and woe betide the youth or maiden who dared to swing on those railings. She was out of the window in an instant armed with a stick, which was capable of giving quite a hard rap should the delinquent be caught. But the children soon got to know her, and kept away. In later years the house fell from its high estate and became a shop, as, indeed did the house where the old lady was born — ^why I cannot think. It had been the doctor's house for generations, but never in my time, though it has in a measure kept to its traditions, as it is sacred to medicine still as a chemist's shop. Yet more waste was to be found in one of the oldest and most charming houses in the town, which had been the old Priory before the Refor- mation, and a passage from which led straight into the church and up into the " priest's room," which, however, was not discovered at the time of which I am writing. For the church, having been " restored " in the early Victorian days, was in a delightful state of gloom and muddle, albeit I honestly prefer it to the present condition of hideous varnished pitch-pine and cleanliness, which may be more hygienic, but has not one ounce of interest left, at all events in the body of the church. And though the passage was known about and had its entrance duly blocked up, the 93 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES priest's room was only found later on, and is now, I think, used as a storage house for old decorations and sexton's tools and general untidy odds and ends. But when I first knew the Priory I loved all who lived there. There was a delightful brother engaged to one of my pretty aunts, who had the bluest eyes and the greyest hair I ever saw ; with him I first visited the Fair, and while I clung to him tightly in mingled fear and wonder at the sights and sounds, I loved him so abjectly that when he died abroad of rapid consumption my aunts never dare tell me for years that he was gone. I had cried myself ill when he left England : what should I do when I heard I should never see him again ? The last time I saw him I was not a day more than nine, and it was just after the Fair, but I have only to close my eyes to see his beautiful blue ones look into my childish orbs, and his kind hand that gave me a funny little white china and gilt coach, the top of which opened and held pins, and which I kept for over forty years, and only lost in one of our numerous moves. But I still possess the Words- worth he gave me to remember him by, for he said the coach might break. 1 wanted no remem- brance save the one I shall always keep ; all the same I am glad I have my Wordsworth, and that that poet and dear WiUiam together first gave me my real love of poetry and the countryside- Fairs have so long ceased to be worthy of the name that I will here describe the one I and 94 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS William went to fifty years ago. The town was built in the shape of a cross, and had four wide streets called after the different points of the compass. On each side of North and South Streets were erected booths, and here were sold the most fascinating toys : wooden balls painted to resemble striped red and yellow tulips, which unscrewed and disclosed the fact that they en- closed, one after the other, more tulip-balls, until the last one was the size of a pea and did not unscrew. Other similarly painted toys did not , enclose balls, but held minute tea-sets and wooden soldiers, which were even more fascinating than the tulip-balls. The whips were a great feature, as were the wide leather aprons sold at the same booth; and vast stores of china were heaped about ; while a special make of ginger-bread called " jumbles " was to be had then and at no other time, and woe betide that husband and father who did not bear home to his family a vast paper bag full to the brim of the delicious things. I think the noise was something almost unbeliev- able ; every man and woman was shouting out the merits of his or her wares ; there were enormous piles of cabbages and great heaps of salt cod ; while even the staid tradesfolk of the town had stalls and displayed the " latest fashions " from the county town before the ad- miring eyes of the women and girls, whose one holiday for the year it was, and who purchased at the Fair in September the raiment for the 95 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES coming season. It was interesting, too, to hear the denizens of the different heath-set farms or villages greet each other and ask for the year's news, while sweethearts met, pushed each other, giggled and guffawed, and otherwise proved their attachment before the eyes of their friends. But awful as the noise in the streets was, it was nothing to that on the space sacred to the shows and merry-go-rounds, known as St. John's Hill by those who lived there and wanted to be genteel, and as the Saw-pits by the oldest inhabitants, for no sawing had been done there for years, or as the pig-market by the farmers, who sold their animals there when there was no fair on hand. When there was they had to go farther afield, out by the walls and near the workhouse. Traffic was impossible while the fair raged ; horses could be led through in the day-time despite the shouts and the cracks of the " penny- a-shot " booths, but no horse would face the Fair after dark. Great flares of paraffin and tow lighted up the booths ; I fear all the men were not sober ; anyhow, it was an imprudent driver who attempted to get out of the town save by a circuitous manner round the narrow back lanes. I wonder what has become of all the fearsome shows which were a matter of course fifty years ago. The fat lady whose fat was so real that folk were invited to pinch her and to see that her legs corresponded to her arms, for " she would now raise her dress as high as decency 96 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS would permit " — about an inch above a very, very stout ankle, clad in a dirty white stocking, very much rucked and disappearing into a side- springed cloth boot; the awful Kaffir who ate live rats ; the wondrous beasts, mostly stuffed and manufactured at home out of two or more skins ; and the "blood and thunder" actors and actresses, who shouted and strutted about a very narrow and rickety stage, and begged every one to come in and see the play, which was always just about to begin. Join to this the yells and screams of the girls and boys, who were either riding round and round on the wooden horses or tossing in the swing-boats to the sound of a wheezing organ, and you can imagine how much sleep the residents on St. John's Hill were likely to obtain until the fair closed. The horses were worked by hand in those days, and the swings were managed in the same way ; now a dreadful puffing engine is added to the racket; but so few fairs are left that one is in- clined to put up with these relics simply for the sake of the dear and noisy days that are no more. Our fair was nothing like as important as one held a few days later in the year, and which was really stupendous. It took place on the top of a hill, and horses and sheep were its main products, though in early days housewives used to buy and exchange great rolls of cloth and linen, all home-made, for the spinning-wheel was still in evidence fifty years ago. Gloves and buttons were G 97 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES also staple industries, and I am glad to see that there is an attempt to revive this latter manu- facture. All the same, no village industry can be anything save a " culte " ; machinery has cut out all the home industries ; and if the machine- made goods do not wear, they are so cheap that one can easily replace them when they are shabby. At the horse-fair it was an astute man who could buy an animal that was worth taking home, and I well recollect the dismay of one of the local " gentry " who, distrusting his coachman and believing very much in his own knowledge of horseflesh, went to the fair and brought back, at a vast increase in price, one of his own old horses which had been cast from his stable for incurable crib-biting. True, the creature had been carefully painted and given a couple of white stockings; but the coachman recognised his old enemy even before he was washed ; and the master, for the future, left the management of the stables in the coachman's hands. The September fairs were always the most serious fairs ; the ones that came in April, which put out our fires and brought the cuckoo, were entirely pleasure fairs, though at one time they were hiring fairs, and even now on the 6th of April there is a vast migration all over the country of farm-labourers and their wives, families and goods. They are still hired for a year, and in early spring the local papers are vocal with cries of " Wanted, a labourer ; wife to milk and look 98 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS after ' chicken ' ; with growing family preferred." But the cry often goes up in vain ; the growing family don't want to walk miles to school ; neither will they put up with the cottages, which would have been palaces to their grandparents, nor with the dulness and the never-ending work on a farm. But thinking of the fairs and my dear, kind old friend has taken me away from the townsfolk and from the rest of his family. He had then three sisters and a brother ; one sister was married, and his brother lived in London, and was much looked up to in consequence. The sisters' lives represented the " waste," especially one of them, who was clever, charming, nice to look at, and above all very highly educated, though how she managed to obtain her learning I for one never could find out. I only knew her when she was old, but even then she had the walk and figure of a girl, and as her hair never turned grey, and to the day of her death she wore it in curls, she used to be followed home by the giddy seaside tourists (for she ended her days by the sea), who were much surprised when she turned and faced them, and showed a face that bore all the lines of her more than seventy years. The two old sisters outlived every one of their relatives ; the London brother, not having made such a success of his life after all, came home to die ; and my dear old friend died quite suddenly and painlessly in her sleep, taking away with her 99 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES all her unfulfilled hopes and wishes and her yearnings for a wider life. I cannot help thinking that had these women lived in the present time they would all have been heard of. Elizabeth would, I am sure ; her talk sparkled with wit. She was original and delightful, and it was a real pleasure to me to sit in her quaint upstairs drawing-room in the window overlooking the sea, and hear her talk on and on in a stream about her girlhood, her hopes, her thwarted ambitions, and her great love-trouble, which apparently brought her young days to a sudden close, but which never soured her at all. She was loyal to her lover to the last, and even loved the girl he preferred to her. " I had a sharp tongue and was foolish, I know," she said, " and, of course, Mary was sweet and good." She might have added that Mary had money, but she never did, and simply blamed herself for the disgraceful way in which she had been openly and coolly jilted in those bygone years. I do not think her sister ever could have had a love-story, for she at any rate was the plainest woman I ever saw. She outhved Elizabeth ; and now the dear little eyrie of a cottage perched high in a nook in the cUff is " improved " and " enlarged," and no one recollects the family, though at one time they were notable members of a society that has now entirely ceased to exist. There was also waste to be found among the men, but then in those days free living was 100 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS generally at the bottom of that. I recollect my aunt telling me that when she was first married : now, I suppose, more than fifty-six years ago: not one of the gentlemen was ever either willing or able to join the ladies after dinner. The women saw each other home ; if fine, with pinned-up skirts, goloshes on their feet, knitted shawls and clouds tied over their curls, and immense cloaks over all. If wet, they departed in relays in the " brougham from the Bear.'* The wretched brougham that always smelt of damp straw, and that once came to grief with us three miles from home, on a wet, wild night, when the south-west wind was raging over the hills, and we had to walk back in thin shoes and without umbrellas, wet to the skin, and vowing we would never trust ourselves to the treacherous vehicle again. It is long since gone on the scrap-heap, poor old carriage, but it was, even at its worst, a valuable thing. The rector was the only man who possessed anything like a closed carriage, and his was known as the " pill- box," as it would barely hold him and his wife, both thin and spare folk ; and there was in consequence great competition for the carriage ; while it was a mercy weddings were so rare in the town, and that funerals were always " walk- ing," else I do not know how either revellers or mourners would have ever reached the church. True, the town did once possess a hearse, and a gruesome story was told in reference to this. A lOI FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES very stout old gentleman had died and was to be buried, and, new to the ways of a hearse, the undertaker's men were puzzled how to get the coffin in. At last one of them climbed into the hearse itself, and, pulling at the coffin, placed it in position ; but as he found he could not get out, elected to remain where he was until the short drive was over. The funeral started, and presently the man gave a long, loud sneeze. The driver had no idea that anything save the coffin was in the hearse ; he gave one stupendous yell, started off his horses at a hand-gallop, and could scarcely be stopped before he had gone some way out of the town. The man who was being buried was one of the victims of the prevailing habit of tippling, and he left his old daughters quite unprovided for ; they were just not ladies, but too " genteel " to go out to service or do any real hard work. So they were started in one of those pathetic shops which were once common enough, but that now have quited ceased to exist, where Berlin wool, beads, fancy-work, and children's books and toys were to be purchased, and where, behind the counter, were rows of shelves filled with dusty dead books, which ought to have been buried long ago, which no one read, or even wanted to read, and which were dignified by the name of the Circulating Library. We all subscribed a guinea a year for years, but I never had a single book, and I never heard of any one either who 102 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS ever did. The sisters managed a newspaper and magazine club, and we used to pay a penny a week to see the Illustrated News and the Queen, and another penny to see Cornhill, Macmillan, and Temple Bar, and I think the Argosy. Some people paid more and had the Sunday at Home and Good Words, but I did not feel equal to this, and, pleading poverty, declined subscribing to the more godly maga- zines. "If only she were a Christian I could love her," said one old lady when she heard that I did not take in the Sunday magazines, and she shook her head despairingly ; but I existed comfortably without her love, though she little knew how much she added to the gaiety of my existence. For she at any rate was not " waste." She was absolutely pleased with herself in every relation in life, and if her severe attitude towards Sunday drove her far more jovial spouse to secret pipes and drinks in the barn, she never knew. Those who did pitied him and kept their counsel, for they were quite aware that no one can lead a man a harder life than your real old-fashioned good woman, who is so intent on saving her own soul and living up to the letter of the law that she forgets religion need not be dismal and that one can be good and amusing at one and the same time. It was her habit to go through the house the last thing on Saturday evening, in the same manner that orthodox Jews search for crumbs of leavened 103 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES bread before the Passover, to collect and clear away every book, paper, or magazine that savoured of the world. Then her needlework was as carefully folded and put away; and I have known her unfortunate husband proceed to church with a pin at the back of his collar, because the button came off just as they were starting, and nothing on earth would allow her to sew it on, or even permit her handmaiden to do so either. A crack shot, a jovial, good- looking man was the husband, excellent company and most entertaining when one had him by himself ; but he was literally dragooned by his wife. He was as old as my father, but when he showed a distinct fondness for me, and used to let me ride with him round his farm, a thing I always loved to do with any one, she disinterred her habit, laid by for at least twenty years, and came out to chaperon us, her habit gently sweeping the ground and much bewildering the old horse, which had not been ridden for years, and was generally humbly engaged at the plough. That habit would have comfortably made four nowadays, but she only donned it once, for on reflection she thought that we might both be trusted ; and in after years she confessed to me that only once had she had real cause for suffering in her married Ufe, and when she went farther and " named names " I was able to assure her that even then her fears were groundless. The damsel was a bold and flirtatious imp who had 104 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS openly boasted that before she went home she would kiss every man in the place. It was not her fault that she did not succeed, and that the husband fell an easy prey to her wiles was more the fault of his pious wife than that he had any intention of forgetting his duty. " But when a pretty girl asks one to kiss her, what is one to do ? " he said pathetically. " Do it and tell," said I ; and my advice turned out rightly, though the free and open confession appeared to be merely a blind, and caused the anguish at which she and I laughed, when I was able to inform her I had egged him on to do the deed. Religion never took on a worse guise to me than when it was donned by this individual. A parson was a saint, a creed a fetish to which one and all were sacrificed. She had a vein of hardness that bore her unhurt through many a fiery trial. Her only child died ; he was nearer to her dead, she wrote, than he had ever been when living ; she would have adopted his fiancee, but she elected to marry some one else on the anni- versary of his death. " So sweet of her," said the mother ; and she would have had the child of the marriage call her grandmother, but the husband had a sense of fitness or humour and declined the honour, much to her amazement, for she had really looked on the girl as her daughter, and could not believe that she was nothing of the kind. My idea of Sunday-keeping is always to ensure 105 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES a day's rest of some sort or other to all with whom I have to do ; but the literal interpretation was the only one this worthy couple could bear of the Second Commandment, and when I per- sisted in going for a drive on a Sunday afternoon, the time when, as a rule, the good Sabbatarian used to retire to his barn, pipes, and whisky, he made a solemn call on me and begged me to cease to offend. Fortunately his exposition of my duty was interrupted by an earthquake — a real, bona-fide earthquake — and we were both so astonished that we fled different ways to investigate what appeared to me to be some one walking with very heavy footsteps in the room overhead, where no one could at that moment possibly be. It was a very curious experience ; no one was in the house, yet first of all these very heavy feet sounded over our heads, and as I made for the kitchen all the plates on the dresser were shaking, the doors burst open, and all down the remarkably dirty lane that led to our house the cottage doors had come open too, though they were one and all safely locked up, as the owners were all out on their usual Sunday stroll . Naturally we had none of us the least idea of what it was ; first we imagined something must have blown up, albeit we knew there was nothing to blow up within miles, and it was only when the newspaper arrived next day and described our earthquake, though not in the least as it had happened, that we realised what had actually occurred. io6 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS There were three men in the town at the time when I was very young who were most extra- ordinary studies, and who certainly could not exist at the present day. They were sons of one of those remarkable lawyers who in the latter part of the eighteenth and very early years of the nineteenth centuries appeared to be more like spiders than anything else, and only lived to spin webs in which one after the other their victims became entangled, until their property was absorbed and the victims, sucked dry, were sent adrift to manage as best they could for themselves. The father of these three men, dead long years before I was born, had so managed his affairs that he owned no less than three, and it may have been four, small manors, which had all been in the hands of different members of the County. I have not the least doubt that he obtained all he had by absolutely righteous means ; he never spent one shilling where a penny would do ; he never spent anything on himself or his family, and he never went away or took the least holiday, while the jovial, hard-riding, hard-drinking small squires had never denied themselves a thing and borrowed until every acre they possessed was mortgaged to the hilt, and then were bitterly enraged when the day of reckoning came, as come it must, and the manors which had been in their families since the Conquest passed for ever away from them into alien hands. 107 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES On one of these small manors this lawyer lived, a small, meagre creature, with a smaller, more meagre wife, who, report says, kept herself in clothes and food on the rabbits that swarmed all over the place. A couple of rabbits fetched a shilling, so it took a good many to provide her with a gown ! I often wish I could have known these people ; they sounded so truly interesting ; but their children were old when I was young, and I have only tradition to repeat. They had an enormous family, reduced to the three sons and some daughters in my time, two of whom were the gaunt women in black who used to glide about the streets after dark. Of the three sons only one was reputable; the other two were the reverse. One died of drink ; the other drank most frightfully ; the stage at which he had arrived being marked by the number of pairs of spectacles mounted on his nose ; but he read every book that he could get hold of, and knew everything on every possible subject one could name. He must have had a store of strength, too, behind his love of drink, for, some one having presumed to taunt him with his failing, he cast down his glass in the bar of the inn and with a round oath swore he would never take another drop. He lived for some years after- wards, and was never anything but a strict teetotaler all that time. I remember him too, a fearsome figure, mopping and mowing in his cups about the streets, which he walked up io8 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS in a curious curtseying manner, as if he were acknowledging salutations. He would follow his respectable relations and mutter in their ears, claiming cousinship with those who would fain have forgotten his existence; but all the same once he became sober he it was who turned his back on his cousins, and he died as he had lived, very much alone. The old house that provided the rabbits was the proud possessor of a real ghost, and past it the coach of the De Turbervilles, immortalised by Thomas Hardy, used to be driven. It entered at one gate, hurried along the rough road that led to the house, then went helter-skelter round the circular drive and out at another gate, on a road that led straight to the family burial- place at " Kingsbere." One day I and one of my sisters-in-law were driving along this road ; presently she said, " Draw the ponies aside ; there's something coming." I drew the ponies to the hedge and looked round. A whirl of dust, accompanied by the clanking of chains and the tramping of horses, seemed to rush by us, but we could see nothing. " The De Turberville coach ! " gasped Alice. I, more prosaic, looked over the hedge ; there was a plough at work in a very dusty field on the other side. I fancy that accounted for the ghost, though naturally we both preferred to think we had literally been passed by the uncanny thing. There seemed no special luck about that place, 109 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES for the next people who came there were most extraordinary, and to this day a pleasing mystery hangs about them. The husband was goodness and kindness itself, but in his youth he must have gone far afield to look for his wife. When I first knew her she was quite beautiful ; she had the most exquisite complexion and hair I ever saw, the latter deep, dense black, and coiled round and round her small and shapely head; and until she spoke you would have thought her an old-fashioned duchess — not an American one — at least. But directly she began to sp^ak malapropisms fell broadcast from her lips. " I hear you are a very littery woman," she remarked to a friend ; and at a party given in our honour she came in a handsome velvet dress, but with no less than three separate rows of frilling rising one above the other where the ordinary tucker should have been. Moreover, at that same party, when the man offered her wine she com- manded him to leave the bottle ; when she further put the whole of a partridge on her plate and ate it ; while I looked on amazed and wondered what on this earth she would do next ! At her own house I have seen her demolish a whole pheasant and keep us waiting while she cracked and ate the contents of a dish full of nuts ; but as, on the last occasion I dined there, she rose and re-dressed her hair in the middle of the feast, we thought something must be the matter ; and soon she departed, and with her passed away no MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS one of the few Joys of my existence. For one never quite knew what she would do next. She used to clatter into the town on horseback, her hair flying in the breeze, she herself clad in a habit made of Rob Roy plaid, and followed by the coachman puffing and grunting on one of the big carriage horses ; while on Sundays her conduct was quite extraordinary. She would suddenly throw her handkerchief into the corner of her pew and chase it ; her audible comments on the sermon must have somewhat embarrassed the good old rector ; but after she came in white muslin on a Christmas Day, with flowers in her hair, she never came again, and the fond hope I entertained that she would seize and bear off the enormous chignon worn by the lady in front of her was never fulfilled. Though she still continued more or less on view, she never again entered the "sacred edifice." At one picnic she distinguished herself by bringing a large quantity of food and consuming it by herself alone, never speaking to a soul ; and after she had concluded the feast she solemnly walked into the sea, dipped her handkerchief into it, and washed herself all over in salt water ; and when she emerged, dripping, she made a hole in her handkerchief, attached it to her parasol, and walked up and down in the sunshine until she and the handkerchief alike were dry. I cannot imagine why she was left to do these things, or why, save as an amusement, we did not recognise III FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES that she must be out of her mind ; but I for one did not. I put all she did down to her country entourage and her evident lack of birth or breeding ; and I was much surprised to hear what was really the matter, and that soon after my last " call " she had gone away. On that call I found her surrounded by a mass of the billowy petticoats of the day, which she was converting into window curtains, and she took me upstairs to see her morning's work. She had cut up her velvet dress and nailed it dovm in strips as a carpet for her bedroom ; her husband did not think a new one was wanted, and this was her revenge on him ! She was holding forth volubly to me on the subject when the husband appeared, showed me gently, but plainly, that he wanted me to go, and when he put me into the carriage he told me in a very few words what was the matter, and that for the future calls were neither to be made nor returned. I fancy the silence and deadly dulness of the place, the lack of resources in her- self, and her inability to become one with her hus- band's family or friends had a good deal to do with her sudden collapse. She was most impatient of control, and I have often wondered if she did not begin her eccentricities as a protest against her stodgy neighbours, finally continuing them under the influence of drink or drugs until they over- mastered her in a way that could never have happened had she been in a more civilised and amusing part of the world. Anyhow, she 112 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS was an engaging if painful study, and I have never forgotten her, for that would be quite impossible. How many curious people have passed through that corner of the world in the long years that I have known it ! — people whose life-histories would make novels in themselves ; people who took biggish houses and posed as " County " and were more or less swindlers of a blatant type. Some turned out to be wanted by the pohce, and might still be wanted had they remained there ; but, becoming bold after a sojourn among the heather and the hills, and most likely bored as well, they came out of hiding and were caught just as they hoped every one had forgotten all about their crimes and their existences. Just after the end of the American war a man who had made a large fortune in running the blockade with cotton ships came to one of the big houses which even then were " to let furnished," and he too was extraordinary, and I think petered out in a very peculiar way. I once stayed for a couple of days with him and his wife in the lovely place, where there was a hedge of camellia trees more than six feet high, which blossomed freely in the open air. I was much too young — only about sixteen or so — ^to understand all about them ; but they soon left the place and dis- appeared, to be followed by still more remarkable people, who also in due time vanished, leaving H H3 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES piles of bills behind them, some of which have never been paid until this day. There are two very curious sides to life in a country place that have never yet been spoken of. One is the manner in which, by a judicious boycott, succeeded by still more judicious hints and winks of the kind of " I would an I could " style, a woman's social life may be entirely wrecked and she herself turned from a harmless if somewhat unpleasant or foolish nonentity into a disgrace to her whole sex. I often recollect a remark Miss Broughton once made : "I think if the big house knew how much misery it could inflict on the small house by either snubs or patronage, the big house would recognise how horrible such conduct is, and discriminate more thkn it does at present " ; and I am perfectly sure a truer remark was never made. In much later days and in a different county I once came across such a bright and delightful little creature, pretty, charming, clever; yet no one knew who she was, who her forebears had been. Her husband was rich, but not a good man ; he would have been accepted quickly enough, for one knew who he was, and he had money. But whispers ran round about the wife ; suggestions were made ; she was ignored, cut, left out of everything. The husband turned and rent her for what was as much his fault as any- thing; and finally she ran away and left him to his own devices. Of course, said rumour, 114 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS there was a man. There certainly was not, until her husband filled her place, and behaved so abominably that she, broken in health and spirits and pocket, looked round for help and found it, just where she should have done nothing of the kind. Another case, in which — alas ! that I should have to confess it — I joined in heartily, for I loathed the unfortunate creature, resulted equally disastrously; and if she, in the shipwreck that ensued, drew down others into the whirlpool who can blame her ? Certainly not I, who, had I my time to go over again, would most decidedly behave far differently in every possible way. Another feature that can only be noted by those who live to a respectable age is the manner in which an obscure and often enough unpleasant family slowly but surely climbs to an eminence that finally entitles them to be considered in the light of county folk. It is only those who are well on in years and have excellent memories who remember what was and contrast it with what is, and are much entertained and amused at the development ! It was after a long absence that I last revisited the town, or rather the neigh- bourhood, to find one family, scouted by all when it arrived in the place, turned into the hub of the wheel ! Round them all that was left of society revolved ; snubbed, scarcely spoken to years and years ago by the townsfolk, they now took small notice of those who had snubbed them. "5 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES Money, a thick hide, a demonstrative attachment to the Church — albeit they had been Baptists until they started their carriage — and a strong conservative policy had brought them well to the front, and at the time I speak of they were " in " with every one, and had even been bold enough to divide their entertainments into two sorts or kinds : one for the townsfolk and similar humble creatures, and one for the " County," or rather for those who appear to be what the County once was. Well ! all their old friends were dead and gone away. Perhaps they were right to buy what they could never have earned ; all the same it is amusing to look on and recollect how the letter H used to fiy and the grammar fly too, while we of the town condescended to speak to them, and even liked to go to the large and startling gatherings at their house. This only amuses when one does not care ; it hurts when those who were once one's well-loved playmates pass on one side, inflated by riches, living in a higher atmosphere, forgetting the good old days when all were young, happy, and gay together : the good old days of one's youth, which even in the country had their bright spots, and certainly had very amusing moments at any rate. One more of the townsfolk may be mentioned before passing on to another subject, as she most certainly was of a type that is now entirely extinct. She had been the housekeeper to an old man, one of three brothers, who had all owned ii6 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS small manor-farms about eight or nine miles away from the town. These old men were all hardened bachelors, until their housekeepers persuaded two of them to marry them. One of these housekeepers became a widow ; everything was left to her. She sold the manof, which had been in the family since 14 — , and came to live in the town with her old servant, who was popularly supposed to be her sister, although I do not really think she was anything of the kind. Old Mrs. S. was the most sought-after woman in the whole place. Relations of the husband lived there, and all, with one exception, paid humble court to her whenever they could. I recollect her perfectly well : tall, thin, scornful, hard, shrewd : what adjective of a similar nature cannot be appUed to her, I wonder ? As a child my aunt took me to have luncheon with her; amongst other things we had apple tart. Will it be believed when I say that we were bidden to carefully put aside the cloves used to flavour it by the side of our plates, as she told us quite calmly that she always used them again ? She was pained and surprised when I left my share of the pie and never went there again on any pretext whatever. When I was married I had heard her story, and utterly declined to join her court; she might keep her ill-earned gains for me ; and she used to scowl over her wire blinds at me whenever I went by. But her will had been made the moment she 117 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES had anything to leave, and all went to her own relations, most of whom lived in shops in the town. Her husband's never benefited at all; and as the date of the will proved it was made long before she had any acquaintance among them, I was rather rejoiced to recollect the homage that had been paid her, and that never brought them one sixpence for all their trouble. It is annoying to think of those three delightful little estates and old houses ; one of them at least might have come our way, but none ever did ; all are in alien hands ; and I even think the houses are pulled down or turned into farm- houses, or even cottages. Many of the beautiful old manor-houses in " the island " are fallen from their old estate, and serve as houses for humble folk, and any one in search of a residence with a history could not do better than buy one of these ; they could be easily made liveable in, and how glad the houses themselves would be to have gentlefolks within their walls once more ! For I verily believe that a house is a sentient thing and absorbs some of the personality of its tenant. If that be so, how these old manors must suffer ! Dirty, unwashed, unkempt folk sleep in the stately old bedrooms; some of the parlours see no company save rats and mice, and are often enough used as storehouses for apples, odds and ends of cart harness, and other trifles ; while the gardens where fair ladies once walked are one mass of rubbish, where the paths ii8 MORE TOWNSFOLK, AND OTHERS can hardly be traced, and where roughly tended fruit-bushes replace the lilies and roses of old. The front entrances are nailed up, and should one wish to penetrate into the place one struggles through a dairy or a wash-house, or even a kitchen, and has small idea of the really lovely rooms that are going to ruin as fast as they can. But the fate of the ancient manor-houses is too sad and their history too long to dwell on here. Yet the past still lingers around them, and no doubt sad ghosts wander in their deserted and desecrated rooms ! 119 CHAPTER V THE OLDEST INHABITANT Before I was married the oldest inhabitant lived in a large square red-brick house in the centre of the town. The family then consisted of the father and mother and one daughter ; but I knew very little indeed of the father, who died some time in the 'sixties, and the mother and daughter were always my great friends, in a measure at any rate. I can just recollect the old gentleman, very trim, precise, and sharp- spoken, a typical country lawyer of the old school, very fond of a glass, and of excursions outside the narrow path of virtue ; for though his immediate relations knew nothing of it, there are yet elderly folk who could, if they would, claim relationship to one of the naost exclusive of the narrow-minded denizens of a small country town of fifty years ago. It was from one of their windows that I watched, with delight and fear, an election ; but when I went to live in the place the old gentleman was dead ; his affairs were found in a fine state of confusion, and the mother 120 THE OLDEST INHABITANT and daughter and their old maid had migrated to a much smaller house, where they lived without ever moving away, even for a few days, until they both died. No one could comprehend why matters were in such a muddle ; he had held all the appointments in the town and had had the confidence of all the County families round. But I think the family, small as it was, had one and all helped to spend the income ; a carriage and pair, a large staff of servants, much expensive wine and good dinners, were all costly. Moreover, election-times brought in crowds ; rent audits and other large gatherings were held in the big red house ; and food was more expensive then than it is now, when most people eat sparingly and drink even less. I can just recollect the sale at the red house, and I only wish I had a catalogue of it. I was staying in the town at the time, but did not then take any interest in the splendid old china and furniture. But the debts were paid, and enough of both china and furniture was bought in for the widow and daughter; and when the tiny house- hold was dispersed early in 1908 the furniture alone sold for over a thousand pounds, while the small stock of rare ancient silver was dispersed at Christie's, and added perceptibly to the money brought in by the furniture sale. Unfortunately, the old china was much mended, or else it would have fetched a great deal more ; it looked all right on the shelves, but when it was taken down 121 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES it was discovered that it was patched and glued together. All the same, it sold well. One small vase I personally always thought hideous brought in ten guineas ; it was resold the same day in one of the inns of the town for twenty pounds ; but the man who bought it sat down upon it in the station 'bus, and so in less time than it takes to tell it the poor vase was reduced to powder, and in such a way ended its long life ! I have often asked both mother and daughter for a history of some of their many possessions, but they both appeared singularly ignorant about them all. " They have been in the family for years " sufficed ; but I am sure they could have told more about them if they would, and I cannot think even now why they were so silent. The last time I saw the daughter her conversa- tion turned much on the past and on her will, and as she began the subject I inquired who was to have a particularly beautiful two-handled Charles II. cup which she always used as a sugar-bowl ; and she replied, " I neither know nor care. All my things will go to very distant cousins ; let them fight it all out after my death." A permission of which I believe the remaining relations fully availed themselves in due course. No one passing by the small, insignificant, low-browed cottage would ever have believed what a storehouse it was of all things old and good, for a more ordinary dwelUng was surely 122 THE OLDEST INHABITANT never seen. It stood just back from the street, with a gravel-sweep in front, and a fiower-bed or two on the grass, all being reached by opening a green gate. If the visitor were well liked he or she was accompanied to the green gate ; if Uked a little, only to the front door ; but if an unwelcome guest appeared the bell was rung and the maid went to the door. I never heard of any one who was shown out by the maid ever being strong-minded enough to intrude within the green gate a second time ; I am sure no one would have dared to do so when the mother was alive. In later days life behind it was not quite as select, and people were allowed in who most certainly would never have been tolerated in the good old times. I wish intensely that I had understood life as I understand it now, when I was first married, for certainly if I had done so I should have had a much better time. But I was, as are all young people, an ardent reformer. I could see nothing good in old ways, which appeared merely out- of-date nuisances to me ; and above all I was appalled by the manner in which every single thing I did, and, indeed, things which I did not do, were discussed, gossiped over, and talked about, until I felt as if I lived under a microscope with the eye of a fiend directed above on the lens ! Among the most eager wielders of the instrument of torture were this especial mother and daughter, and had it not been that I was niece to one of 123 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES the most respected members of the town I should have had even a worse time at their hands than I did. They were, moreover, pro- vided with another souffre-douleur who really did behave atrociously, though now I understand that she did so because she was not given a fair chance, for the moment she appeared in the town she was at once treated to a liberal diet of cold-shoulder. This she repaid by spilling assa- foetida down the letter-box of the immaculate cottage, and by inciting her brothers to lay dead cats about the garden and on the window-sills, until violent hysterics ensued and a male cousin was sent for who spoke of police and a lawyer, and in consequence peace was in a measure proclaimed and kept. I think the apocryphal " smart set " would have had a really riotous time in our town, only fortunately it did not then exist, for no place was ever so easily shocked, and it most certainly was a regular stronghold of Mrs. Grundy. Hysterics were almost caused because this same young woman went up to the farm shooting with her husband, where she shot an old hen and put up a labourer's hat as a mark ; her last and worst crime in their eyes being to dress up all the dogs in red flannel knickerbockers, the dogs running along after the horses she and her hus- band rode, and hating their unbecoming garments in the manner a well-brought-up animal always loathes anything that makes him the mock of 124 THE OLDEST INHABITANT many. I too was righteously shocked at the time ; now I recognise that this was just what the couple wanted. The town did not mean to be friendly. All right ; then the town should be shocked ; and shocked it was, by what was most undoubtedly a series of idiotic practical jokes, many of which, however, fell distinctly flat. I was always called " Royalty " by these par- ticular persons, for they imagined I " gave myself airs " over them, simply because I would not know them. They thought it a " great lark " to insert the birth of my eldest son in the local journal as that of a " son and heir " ! As I took not the smallest notice of it, and the people who knew me were not likely to think me guilty of being such an idiot, the lark was born without wings, and in consequence fell as fiat as anything possibly could. I do not know if they ever were aware that I fathomed their stupid joke. Any- how, it was not as serious in its consequences as another some one else perpetrated in announcing the birth of a son to a young couple only recently married. There vengeance did overtake them, and they were cut by the entire place for the rest of their stay among us. The " son and heir " and " assafoetida " jokes brought the oldest inhabitant and me closer together ; we began by raging, then ended by laughing at the vulgarity of the thing, and ever after that I came and went as I would, and had many a delightful talk and excellent cup of tea. 125 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES This latter out of a beautiful tea-set I often longed for. Its fellow was made at Sevres for Marie Antoinette. I wonder where that one is ! The one I knew is still in the family, and I only wish I could have owned the beautiful and delicate thing. It had been brought back from Sevres at the time of the Terror, and there is no doubt that the history I was given of the tea-set was real enough. I think the most pleasant afternoons I spent were when I went to keep the old mother com- pany while the daughter procured a little rest and change. She always sat on one particular chair, her " good eye " next the window, her work- table, which sold at the sale for over five pounds, in front of her, and her hands busy with needle- work. Her pet occupation was running the flat edging torn off flannel on calico, and so making petticoats and bodices for the poor children in the town, and I well recollect her being quite cross with me when I bought the fine Saxony flannel that has a narrow pink edge instead of the Welsh, which has, or had, a two-inch border of " list," and so gave her ample material for her favourite work . The wire blind which guarded the room from the profane gaze of the vulgar while meals went on was removed after dinner, and there was no need to ring the bell. I looked in at the window and was beckoned in ; then the daughter started off, and I remained on guard until she returned to her duty once more. 126 THE OLDEST INHABITANT There are no daughters now who would live their whole lives as this daughter did, not from any strained sense of duty, but simply because nothing else had ever entered her head. She had not the smallest amount of education, as one means education nowadays ; she could play a little, work a little, read, write, and do sums correctly, but with art or literature she had not the smallest acquaintance. But she read the newspaper from the first page to the last, and had very strong opinions — ^real old high Tory opinions — on Church and State ; and, moreover, both she and her mother were perfect storehouses of information about all the families in the county. I do not think one marriage missed their vigilant eyes, or that there was one scandal of the last hundred years that they did not know the most intimate details of. I used to get the old lady to talk the moment I could, and from her I gained an excellent idea of what must have been the state of the country during the years when Bonaparte's name was used to quiet naughty children, and when he was a real and ever- present terror. She was a young girl in 1815, and remembered seeing the coaches drive through Salisbury, where she then lived, decorated with laurels after Waterloo. She furthermore recol- lected staying before that year with her future husband's people in the big red house, when the coach was kept in the coach-house with two hundred guineas sewn into the lining, and the 127 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES horses ready harnessed, so that no time should be lost in setting out to Salisbury Plain. Why this spot was selected I cannot think ; anyhow, all were to drive there the moment the beacons were lighted that showed Napoleon had landed, and in consequence a place so near the coast could not possibly be safe. She kept a most interesting list of the men, horses, and waggons that were available for transport, and had letters respecting the defence of the town which I more than once begged her to give me to copy. But she would not, and now I suppose they are destroyed ; another link with the past ruthlessly snapped in the usual most unnecessary manner. The letters were kept in a series of silk bags, each of which had a separate history. The purple silk bag was made to carry with her wedding pelisse, which was apparently bottle- green. These bags took the place of pockets, and are revived to-day in the absurd bags most women carry and lose, and the taste of the owner was supposed to be shown by the colour of the bag, which must not match the costume, but must be a " sweet contrast." I was not shown a bit of the bottle-green, but the purple bag was a magnificent shade, and apparently had not faded at all, and this held her love-letters, if the short, dry epistles she occasionally showed me could be called by that name. Another pink bag, made to be carried with a pale blue silk dinner dress, contained quaint invitations to 128 THE OLDEST INHABITANT dinner, in which the guest was bidden to partake of a " fine haunch of venison sent by our good friend the Squire," and apologising for the late- ness of the hour, 4.30, as the venison had to be cooked by the landlady of the inn, next door to which they lived, and this was the only hour that she could manage to undertake the stupen- dous joint. When I turned over these old invitations she used to go back in her memory to the events themselves ; old jealousies would be revived, old scandals raked up, old dresses described; and I wondered how any one ever lived to be old when I heard of muslins damped to cling round young forms in the early style of the Empire, and when I heard low dresses and short sleeves were always worn. True, three-cornered handkerchiefs were folded over the neck when the house was left for one of the rare short walks, and sleeyes with elastic round the top were drawn on in winter. In summer long mittens sufficed, and no one ever wore boots ; that would have been considered vulgar. Thin shoes tied with sandals were the only wear. What wonder that consumption was rife and that whole families faded away and sank into an early grave ? Certainly for winter very large fur capes and muffs were worn, as were enormous beaver bonnets ; these had a wide ribbon passed over the crown and crossed ; this formed the strings, Which were tied under the chin, and great skill I 129 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES was needed to make a " fetching bow." How to tie a bow, how to enter and leave a coach, were some of the lessons given at a " ladies' academy." Even in my mother's days, at least thirty years after old Mrs. B.'s, a broken-down carriage was kept in the stable-yard of her school at Thorp Arch, in Yorkshire, and she and her sisters were one and all instructed in the art mentioned above. But Kttle else was taught to either lady, save delicate needlework, a little French, a Uttle twanging of the harp, a few Italian songs sung with an excruciating accent, and a great deal of deportment. I never saw my old friend in an easy chair ; to her last days she sat bolt upright on an ordinary dining-room chair covered with horse-hair ; and I do not recollect her daughter either lounging about or lying on a sofa in the manner that the youngest amongst us does at the present day. " I was one of one and twenty, my dear," she always said once during any one's visit, and I beUeve her remark was strictly true. She had taken the last of this enormous brood from her mother, who died after this final effort at populating her parish, and she had been a model daughter. I do not know what became of the twenty, but I should think they one and all died young. I heard of hundreds, literally, of cousins, but never of any nearer relation ; and she must have married comparatively late in hfe, for the daughter was her only child, and I am sure she would, if she could, have emulated her 130 THE OLDEST INHABITANT mother. Or at least provided a son to carry on the name and the business, which had been in the family in a straight line for over two hujidred years. I lament now over the decadence of the town, but my lamentations are songs of joy when compared with those of my old friend. It had been bitter enough for her to leave her square red-brick house and see it merged into the inn, but her sorrow sank into nothing before her rage at the manner in which some of the other houses were filled. My North Street friends were good enough for me; indeed, their children would be much surprised in that I do not say they were a great deal too good ; but they succeeded a real old County family possessed of a ghost. I never could make out quite what happened in the house, but some child was mysteriously murdered, and ever after in one particular room a hand always came through the wall and beckoned in a shadowy and ghostly manner. The disappearance of the family did not exorcise the ghost ; my old friend used to be so tortured by its appearance that she persuaded her husband to brick up the special place. Both she and he were the least super- stitious, most hard-headed people I ever met, but both declared they saw the hand. The wall was bricked up and the hand disappeared, though why a second thickness of wall stopped the ghost I cannot think; if it could get through one 13 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES surely a second brick should not have daunted it at all ! I wonder what the oldest inhabitant would have said if she could know that that house is now a boys' school ? I do not believe she would have survived the idea of such dese- cration. I was always glad when I could get her away from the window in the dining-room, either into the little box of a drawing-room or out on the lawn, but I could not always succeed. When I did we usually had a long stay in the square small hall, out of which the staircase led in the manner a ladder goes up into a loft. I always dreaded that staircase, somehow ; it was to be a death-trap for the daughter, for she fell on it in a fit or a faint and was killed on the very spot. Somehow it looked so dangerous I never could pass it without a shudder even in my earliest days. It had a short step and dangerous curve, and suggested an accident, which, however, did not occur until very many years after I had left the town for evermore. I once went up the stairs to have a long and important consultation with the daughter on the soul-stirring subject of clothes, as a local wedding was imminent and she could not make up her mind what to put on. We turned to the right at the top of the first flight of stairs and entered the spare room. A gaunt four-post bedstead nearly filled it up, and the only other article of furniture was an equally enormous wardrobe. She opened the doors and displayed shelves full, 132 THE OLDEST INHABITANT literally full, of rolls upon rolls of silks and stuffs, one after the other, and all more hideous and old- fashioned than I can say. There were also some yards of heavy brocades and velvets, and boxes held odds and ends of most valuable lace. From what I gathered at different times from her and from her mother, I think smuggUng was to be held responsible for most of these treasures. Alas ! when we unrolled some of the silks we found them split in all the folds ; all the same we discovered enough of a brown and white check for a dress. This was made up by the local modiste; and as she was rather dubious about the style and utterly careless as to whether the checks met or not, I suffered a good deal from that garment on Sundays, for I had to sit behind it for more years than I should have believed it would have held together. Beside these stores of material, every scrap of crape they had ever possessed was there waiting for the next death ; even the widow's heavy bonnet and veil were preserved intact. Why, I do not know ; though as in those days the daughter still had hopes of a husband, I expect she kept it in store with an eye to a possible future of her own. In the hall was a most beautiful grandfather's clock, beside several cases of strange birds shot " down to sea " by her male relations at different times, and one or two very large oil pictures and portraits. These latter sold for a few pounds ; perhaps because they had some great holes 133 FRESH EEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES knocked in them. All the same I know enough about art to say whoever bought them had a bargain. One I am certain was by a master-hand, and a good restorer would soon have made it all right. Another one was a pathetic memorial of a small artist named George, who in the early days of the 'forties used to travel round and paint portraits for his board and lodging and a few shillings pocket-money. Indeed, I think he ended his days in a species of pawn in the place, always painting the most ghastly pictures, yet never earning enough to free himself from the incubus of his many small debts. A hideous little portrait represented him in the hall, but my uncle and my father-in-law had patronised him more largely ; they both had enormous pictures of a shooting-party, in which they appeared in tall hats and long coats and gaiters, with powder and shot flasks hung about them and the dearest of dogs at their feet. Dogs at least do not go out of fashion ! — ^if I except pointers, which in these days of battue shooting bid fair to become extinct, if they are not so already. Beside this fearsome work of art there were one or two portraits, which return to me as do bad nightmares ; the boys in low frocks and long white trousers, the girls much the same, but their trousers were finished off with scal- loped-out frills, and so in a measure denoted the sex 134 THE OLDEST INHABITANT Another artist's efforts that went the round of the town were those of some one who cut out silhouettes in black paper. There was a series in the hall at the cottage, and my father-in-law had one, which I only wish I could find, for I would reproduce it here. He very stout and tall stood in front : the head of the family and no mistake ! his meek crinolined and curled wife .just behind; then my husband in low frock and long trousers, holding a whip, his sister in curls and crinoline, then more brothers and sisters, until it came to the last, who died a baby. Poisoned, so says the entry in the family Bible, by a drunken dispenser, who gave her a double dose of mercury. The dispenser's name is for- gotten, and as this occurred over fifty years ago he is no doubt long since dead, but there the record stands. Poor little maid ! Her fate, though pathetic, is better than her sisters', for neither had the happiest of lives, though both might have been much more happy had they only so willed it, it seems to me. I do not recollect for whom the silhouettes in the cottage were meant ; one had a pigtail tied in gold thread, and a curl of hair at the top under the glass proved that the pigtail was real. I have been told, but I forget. All I know is that he was the original owner of an awful memorial ring we always looked at with awe. It repre- sented a skeleton in hair under glass, and was never parted with day or night. I wonder who 135 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES has that hideous ring now, or if it were buried with its owner, as it most undoubtedly ought to have been ! When we once reached the drawing-room I could have stayed there: and indeed often did stay there : for hours. It would have sent a modern connoisseur mad with rage and envy to have seen the beautiful things in the twelve- foot square space. I used to long to possess an exquisite Dresden bowl and some old Chelsea china ; while will it be believed that there were three Chippendale mirrors in the room ? They averaged fifteen pounds at the sale, and there had been days, I know, when the ladies had scrimped the coal and gone cold to bed because they could not afford to waste a penny. In the early years of my married life they were almost poverty- stricken. I do not think they could have known the value of their goods. They could have fur- nished the cottage simply for a hundred pounds, yet here were things worth a thousand pounds and more all about them every day. One of the most curious relics in the house was a helmet worn by one of the yeomanry in the eariiest days of the century; and long after the father's death a rug was made out of the uniform coat, a neat border to it being made out of a red coat he wore , I do not know when ; certainly it was not a hunting coat. If he hunted at all, which I doubt, it would have been in black. SoUcitors knew their place in those days, and 136 THE OLDEST INHABITANT would not have presumed to ruffle it in scarlet with the members of the hunt. I never saw the piano shut, and on weekdays an old-fashioned " piece " was on the stand, ready at any moment to be performed. On Sundays this was replaced by " Hymns Ancient and Modern," but I never heard the piano played ; doubtless a hymn was now and then picked out, but anything more elaborate was never attempted, by the owners of the piano at least. It gave one a glimpse straight back into the very early years of the last century, or even into the century before that, to look into the kitchen and glass-cupboard. The dresser held one entire service of Crown Derby china, the glass-cupboard another one of Worcester, and these were in daily use ; and I have heard both mother and daughter scoff at a friend who, when blue and white willow- patterned china began to be considered valuable, arranged her collection safely in a cabinet. " Her grandmother used those dishes for legs of mutton and the dishes for vegetables," they said. " How she would have laughed to see them stuck up as ornaments about the room ! " I often trembled to see the way in which the old china and glass at the cottage was used every day, but no harm appeared to come of it. Good things had always been in use in this family, yet it did seem a little careless to use wine-glasses that sold for over a pound each at the sale, and dishes that were almost as costly in everyday use. I am not intending 137 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES to discuss the vexed question of Tariff Reform, for I do not consider I know enough on the subject to hold forth upon it, but all the same I am more thankful than I can say that the Germans do use us as a dumping-ground and that things are as inexpensive as they are nowa- days, for if they were not every woman who owns a house must most undoubtedly keep it in order herself. The maids of the present day have been brought up to respect nothing. Glass is something to smash, a dish something to chip, and a carpet to spot. Gas or electric Ught is turned on and burned recklessly. These ladies remembered the sparse hght given by the colza oil lamps ; even the days of candles were known to them, and they possessed Sheffield plate snuffers with which to snuff the candles, tray and all complete. Furthermore, they were pro- vided with little china ends with a spike which were called save-alls. On these the last scrap of a wax candle was impaled, thus ensuring it should be burned to the very end. The security, the light, the easy pleasures, the rapid communication of the present day have caused people to forget how very, very different was the life of the people of England only about a hundred years ago. Even in my time the town was never lighted after dark if there ought to be a moon, no matter if one of our celebrated fogs came up. No matter if the south-west wind was howling over the Causeway and the sky 138 THE OLDEST INHABITANT was absolutely obscured with heavy black clouds ; a moon was somewhere in the sky, and therefore no gas was allowed. In yet earlier days there were no lamps at all ; lanterns were carried as a matter of course ; and a watchman went round during the night and called the hours. I re- collect qmte well, too, that even when there was no moon the gas went out at ten. Any decent person ought to be in bed then ; if they were not, so much the worse for them ; they must find their way home in the best manner they could. The good old times indeed ! They were nothing of the kind save for a very favoured few, and even they were not as well off as the villagers are nowadays. No ! personally I have no hanker- ing after the past, and have learned to be thankful for light, air, and space, and to forget the days of stage-coaches, oil-lamps, and the window-tax that closed windows to save the impost, even our own house having at least four bricked-up windows, though naturally the window-tax was repealed long before I can remember. No account of the oldest inhabitant would be complete without some few words about the garden ; nor must I omit the story of one of the clocks in the house, for I cannot help thinking it must have been the product of some successful theft. A man appeared in the town one day with four of these clocks ; they were early Empire clocks, and very choice specimens of the period, and all were exactly alike. A local trades- 139 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES man bought them, sold one to my father-in-law, one to the ladies of the cottage, one to one of the " County," and kept the other himself. The man was French, and sold the clocks for a mere trifle, and then disappeared. The clock sold for eight guineas at the sale, and I am assured that ours is worth a great deal more, if I want to dispose of it, which at present at any rate I do not ! It is certainly the best time-keeper I ever knew, and it has been in the family for over sixty years. The garden was quite the most charming place in the town, and sitting there one could scarcely believe there was any dwelling-place near. On one side ran the burial-ground of the chapel, but so well screened that one never thought about it at all, and in front rose in all their splendour of form and colour the long, lovely range of the wonderful hills. I do not think any special gardening was ever done ; all the same I never saw such rows of white iris, or such crowds of violets, which from October onwards seemed to perfume the air. The strawberries, too, were marvellous ; if they failed in other gardens they never failed there, and the meagre income was often supplemented by their sale and the sale of the asparagus. There must be something in the soil of the place that is especially good for a garden. I know neither money nor skilled help added to that garden, yet it was always a picture, come when one might into the delightful spot. ,140 THE OLDEST INHABITANT The great pride of the garden in my eyes was the magnificent wistaria, which had a trunk quite as large as a lady's waist, and which was one vast cascade of lilac flowers all April and May ; but the ladies themselves loved dearly a quite horrible araucaria, or " monkey-puzzle," which stood in the centre of the lawn, the age of which they computed from the rings on the trunk. It began to die soon after the mother died, dropping its branches in the most unkind manner, until finally it had nothing left save a top-knot ; then the tree blew down, and that was the end of that ! Quite a glorious arbour was formed from the trunk of another tree, which was one mass of the climbing rose known as the Seven Sisters, and here we would have our tea out of the " Marie Antoinette " service, the tea in a Chippendale caddy enclosing two silver caddies, one for green, one for black tea, and the sugar in the Charles II. tankard, which I never saw without breaking the Tenth Commandment, and I only wish now I had somehow managed to buy it at the sale. No one can have as many memories as I have connected with it, and I am sure the poor thing will never be happy shut away in a cabinet. It has heard all the scandal of the county for at least a hundred and fifty years, and must be quite out of its element in a strange and alien land ! I recollect with a sad smile the many love- affairs that the daughter had, and which never 141 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES came to anything as definite as a proposal. Her heart must have been shattered into a hundred bits, and many and various were her disappoint- ments. A fresh curate roused fresh hopes, a widowed rector caused her to lose twenty years at one fell swoop and to blossom out once more into a most unbecoming girlhood. Her first love played her false about ten years before I knew her, when she was a blooming, bouncing lass of twenty or so ; and I have often wondered if he did play her false or said no more than her last lover, whose tender tones when he bid her take care of herself until he returned were con- strued into an offer; and his request that she would allow him to enter by the garden door was equivalent to a prayer for her to name the happy day. I laughed at her then, as I laughed at her weird evening dress and the red opera- cloak which used to come out when we had our theatricals or held some of the subscription dances, but I should not smile now. Her love- affairs were very real to her, and I fancy they lightened considerably what must have been a very dull and decorous existence. All the same she took the most profound interest in the very smallest details of the life: if life it could be called: in and round the town. For years she had a class in the Sunday-school ; and I cannot help wondering what she taught her scholars; but then I expect the Church Catechism took up all the time. For still more years she managed 142 THE OliDEST INHABITANT the Clothing Club. I can see her as I write at the receipt of custom, in front of her a large bowl of water into which, at my suggestion, she cast the pennies to cleanse them, and her brow knitted over the accounts, while she lectured defaulters and praised punctual subscribers in a manner that never would be tolerated for five moments in these very independent days of ours. Then the Clothing Club was a remarkable institution. Two days were set apart in December, when the women of the town and immediate neighbourhood were ordered to repair to the Town Hall and allow us to inspect their purchases. Woe to that woman who expended her savings on artificial flowers or finery of any sort or kind ! I have seen elderly women sharply reprimanded and sent back to the shops to exchange what they had bought for something more suitable. If they rebelled they were expelled from the club, as, indeed, they were for immorality or drunkenness and other similar sins ! Each lady was respon- sible for her particular clubbites ; and I recollect one of my women gave me a considerable amount of joy from her bundle, for it contained first a new crinoline, then material to " maike me a tayle " — ^that is to say, a skirt — and finished up with stuff " to maike me a shroud " a thing I do not believe she has yet reqtiired, though if ■she is still alive she must be considerably over eighty years of age. A Mayor of the new school suggested one year 143 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES that this custom should be stopped and that the women of the club should be allowed to spend their money as they liked. I think he forgot that it was the subscribers' money as well, and that the two days' inspection, while it was hard work for the ladies, brought the women into close touch with them and made them friends. The young ones were taught to spend their money carefully, and the older ones were none the worse for a reminder that the whole family was to benefit by the club, and not the woman herself. In my time it was rare indeed to find a mother of a family who required this reminder. The bundles all held house-linen or shirts for the men ; any finery was for the little girls ; the mother never bought a rag for herself, and her purchases were made in the most self-forgetful manner possible. It was only the widows and elderly spinsters who transgressed, and they were very speedily reduced to order. The tradesfolk too benefited very much from the club, and their shops were given over to the women for at least a week before these inspections. Favoured customers from the country had a glass of wine and a piece of cake ; the whole place reeked of unbleached calico and woollen stuffs ; and the advice of the shopkeeper always coincided with that of the ladies. Finery was not in evidence in my day. J daresay now cheap blouses and smart skirts are to the fore, and even tiie club itself may not exist. The class it benefited is far better off 144 THE OLDEST INHABITANT now than it was then, and I think many who used to be subscribers are dead ; while still more are in the position of needing help themselves rather than being able to give it. Pace the Mayor, the club days were very amusing and cheerful, and I am sorry indeed that they are considered " degrading," at any rate by him. For no doubt as his Worship has condemned them they have now been entirely given up. K 145 CHAPTER VI CHURCH AND CHAPEli There were three subjects which were never discussed in my early days, and I cannot but think this silence was a wise thing. They were the state of one's purse, the state of one's body, and the state of one's soul. Now every one talks openly about one and all, and sometimes the conversation is the reverse of edifying. Doubtless it was owing to this fact that I knew nothing whatever about the difference in social status between those who belonged to the Church of England, and those who followed any particular form of Dissent. Neither did I know that there were any differences in the manner in which one could dissent if one were so minded. Personally I had never troubled about the matter at all. One went to church on Sundays just as one rose in the morning and went to bed at night ; and in London, naturally, I had nothing whatever to do with what one may term " behind the scenes " of the religious life. When I married I was considerably astonished at what I found was Z46 CHURCH AND CHAPEL awaiting me: as astonished as most of the present-day brides would be were they plunged back again into the 'seventies of the last century and forced to wear their best clothes and bonnets on Sunday, a costume which we one and all donned to proceed to the morning service in the parish church. In the first place, we not only went to church twice on a Sunday, but our modest estabhshment was expected to go too, and a pew, or rather a section of one, was set apart for the maids. Bonnets were de rigueur, as were best garments ; and it was the duty of the housewife to see that the " maidens " went; to comment on their clothes and to hold converse with them after church on the subj ect of the sermon ; and to see they had absorbed their due amount of so-called religious teaching. Family prayers began and ended the day, and the Rector of the parish, as a rule, presented a copy of his favourite formula as a marriage gift, which, with an enormous family Bible, lived on a table close to the fireplace in the dining-room, to be ready for use at the orthodox hours. We began in the good old-fashioned way, but alack ! that my sense of humour did not allow me to continue the ceremony, for something untoward invariably occurred. Either the parrot swore, the dogs barked, or the cat jumped on the table and began a feast " on her own," while, owing to the fact that we lived close to the brewery, the head of the family was scarcely ever found at his 147 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES post in the house. In the morning he was giving orders until the breakfast was spoiled ; in the evening he was answering the last letters, which in our time did not leave the town much before ten. Now they go out and the office is closed at eight. Such long hours cannot be endured by the modern post-office; although in justice to it let me state, that the correspondence has increased a thousandfold; and it would no longer be possible, as it was in my earliest days ; for each letter to be scrutinised and remarked on; and later on, when post-cards came in ; for the clerk in charge to read every single one. As I once found him doing ; the cards all laid out on the small and primitive counter. Now the post-office is a post-office ; then it was the much smaller portion of a shop, where one could buy delightful games and toys, and to linger in which was a joy to every child in the place. Though the severe post-mistress, with her gigantic cap tied under her chin, was rather a terror, and caused the joy to be a somewhat fearful one to any small person who possessed nerves, and was afraid of her. She was, however, in her way, an extraordinary personality ; she managed everything herself, and while her hus- band was not much use, and finally ended his days by falling into the river on a dark night when he was coming out of a public-house on the quay ; no one ever heard a word against her, and she managed the shop and post-oflfice until she died. 148 CHURCH AND CHAPEL Then her son took up the duties, and he in his turn carried them on until the work outgrew him. He had the most beautiful collection of Crown Derby china, and I have often wondered what became of that and the many local curiosities he must have collected during his long life ! But to return to the church. I believe that when the church was restored in the early part of the last century it was a very hideous structure, but at any rate it was extremely old, and the work of restoration was begun by blowing up the walls with gunpowder, because they were too strong to be otherwise dealt with. The chancel and the small side chapel were let alone, but the rest of the fabric was razed to the ground, and rebuilt about 1842. When I knew the church first the school children all sat in the chancel, the Rector and his curate and the clerk inhabited a three-decker, and the galleries and the body of the church were filled with pews with straight backs. We entered these by doors which were fastened with bolts. And woe betide that stranger who had sufficient temerity to enter a pew unin- vited ! He was soon beckoned out by the clerk and put in the side aisle, and so at once learned his real position in the place. The sight of a stranger then caused an absolute flutter ; the inhabitants cast looks first at each other and then at the object of their wonderment, who usually turned out to be some one known to one of the tradesmen, and so all our excitement was speedily calmed down. 149 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES Once there was nearly a scandal about a similar appearance. One of my pretty aunts was always up to fun and frolic, and even in those prehistoric days she was open to what may be called " a lark." She had seen an advertise- ment for a wife in one of the local papers, and had replied to it, begging the man, if he really meant business, to appear in the church on the next Sunday, when he would see the writer sitting clad in a pink dress and with roses in her bonnet in the first pew hung with green curtains in the centre aisle. As there was not such a pew in the church she felt quite safe. She noticed the stranger, of course, the moment he appeared, and was highly entertained at the success of her joke. But her amusement was not so great when the man walked down the avenue and demanded to see her, or, failing her, her brother-in-law ! It turned out that he had taken her letter to the post-ofl&ce, the post-mistress told him whose handwriting it was, and he was most furiously indignant at being told to march. He really did want a wife, poor man ! but he had to return to Weymouth, where he was, I believe, in some shop, minus a wife, but plus his railway fare and a good dinner, though he did not cease to have hopes for some time. He wrote several letters and spent several Sunday mornings in the church, until my uncle became very angry, packed my aunt off to her old relations in Bath, and gave the man a piece of his mind, which resulted in his 150 CHURCH AND CHAPEL retiring from the chase, and I only trust he speedily found a suitable helpmate in his own rank of life. Rank and degree were marked by the position of one's pew in church, the left-hand side pews being considered the more aristocratic, albeit the pew sacred to the Rectory was on the right hand. At the top on the left hand was the Corporation Pew, with a socket into which the " Queen Anne " silver mace was placed when the Mayor and his followers had taken their seats therein. It was the only square pew in the place, and when not required by the authorities was put at the service of a schoolmaster who, with fine impartiality, took his boys alternately to church and chapel. Behind this was the ^' Church- ing Pew," set aside for women who desired to return thanks after the birth of their infants. This pleasing service used to take place in the middle of either morning or evening prayer, as it suited our Rector, but that soon had to be altered. One of my small cousins was having a birthday party, and remarked in a most senten- tious manner that his brothers ought to be very much obliged to him, as if he had not taken the trouble to be born they never would have had such a lovely cake. To which his older brother replied : " Nonsense ; we are only obhged to Mama, who " and then proceeded to quote from the service at length. Thi§ charming anecdote was retailed to the Rector, and for ever 151 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES after that special service was taken when there were no little pitchers with long ears about ! Finally the Churching Pew was forgotten and inhabited by the family, the mother of whom used to give me such delight in the way she behaved during the last few months of her stay amongst us. I recollect quite well how I scoffed at the dirty chancel, the uncomfortable pews, and the some- what slovenly services, and I pined to reorganise the whole place. London churches had not blos- somed out as they have done of late years, and in my day one knew without asking whether one had stumbled on a Protestant or Roman Catholic place of worship. All the same they were clean and orderly ; we had flowers on the altar and decent altar-cloths ; but there was nothing of the kind in our country church. The altar had a stuffy red cloth on it, and stood against a wall reeking with damp ; above it was an enormous window full of plain glass, the glare from which was dreadful ; the cushions at the altar-rails were in rags, and the children made the chancel into a rubbish-place with their old books and mats and other debris. All the same the vener- able Rector did his duty nobly, and was a gentle- man in the truest sense of the word, and I would rather see his like than the present-day specimens, of whom I think the less said the better in more cases than one. His sermons were always scholarly and excel- lent, though his ways were quaint; for I recollect 152 CHURCH AND CHAPEL on more than one occasion he gathered his sparse evening congregation into the chancel because it was warmer than the body of the church: a fact he announced from the reading desk. Furthermore, another time he came into the church in his usual stumbling, uncertain manner, looking from right to left as he went up the aisle to his place, and as he perceived I was the only " worshipper " he stopped and said, " I think we may as well go home." I agreed, and he and I plunged out into the stormy night and walked back to our respective houses, both equally glad that we had not to remain in the damp, deserted place. When I was first in the town a weird collection of rubbish used to go the round of the place, called the " Jews' basket," and the unfortunate lady who had the wretched thing, was expected not only to worry her friends to buy the articles contained in it, but to contribute two articles of her own handiwork, to be disposed of in their turn by some one equally unfortunate. As we one and all knew the things in the " Jews' basket " by heart, our only excitement was to see what the last victim had contributed and what she had disposed of. My first attempts were hilarious if nothing else. In those days matches were extremely dear, for the small Swedish matches one buys now had never been heard of, and whenever we could we used spills made out of old letters, and great skill was displayed in the making thereof. Some were 153 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES merely folded flat ; others were twisted round and finished by an elegant curl at the top ; while, again, others were made out of gilt and coloured paper and pinched in here and there in a cunning pattern. To hold these spills I made tubes out of cardboard and stuck them with glue on a round cardboard bottom ; these I transformed into elegant ladies with frills upon frills of tissue- paper petticoats, finishing them off with heads and bodies cut out of our only fashion paper, the Queen. But they did not find favour among the friends of the Jews, and returned to me so often and so soiled that I finally burned them, made a calculation of what the whole contents of the basket would come to : about fifteen shillings : and with one vast effort I paid over this sum, burned all the dirty old relics, and returned the basket empty, begging I might never set eyes on the wretched thing again. I never did, and I believe that very soon the Jews were left to themselves, as far, at least, as any basket was concerned. Indeed, the Jews used to trouble the Rectory people a good deal, and I was invited to a species of grown-up Bible class at which the manners and customs of the Jews were to be discussed, with an eye to some gigantic effort for their ultimate conversion. Now Mrs. Rector was a real scholar ; she knew all the dead languages ; but she did not know the very least thing a,bout the Jew of that date; and &,s it happened I did know a very great I54» CHURCH AND CHAPEL deal. Not only had my eldest sister married into a Jewish family, but one of my greatest friends was a Jewess with very strict parents, and with her I went many and many a time to the synagogue, and had also been present at a great many of their religious observances; and here I may honestly state that I believe there are few better people in the world than a real ortho- dox Jew and Jewess. So when the dear old lady began to describe the Jews as they never were or never could be ; and to almost weep, so anxious was she to make bad Protestants of them, that I told her a little more about the Jews than she knew. I was never asked to try and convert the Jews again, though I was constantly asked for other help, and we were always the very greatest of friends to the end. Looking back, I do think I must have been a regular " dispensation " to the place, and it would have been far better for me if I had gone somewhere where I could have associated with my equals, and above all with my superiors in mental attainments. But I never had a chance of doing anything of the kind in a way that could have done me any good ; and I think the church might even have been the better without my interference, albeit the Rector allowed me to do very much as I Uked. I was too young to know the perfect passion old people have for any association ; to me a hideous thing was a hideous thing ; now I understand that any alteration 155 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES means anguish for some one, and I should never place a reforming finger on any single thing if I had my way/ All the same I am quite sure our first Christmas decorations were a revelation, and I laugh to myself as I think how we laboured and how wonderful the church appeared under our unpractised hands. I set all the school- children to weave wreaths for the pillars in the church schoolroom, while I, my husband, and the curate grovelled on the dining-room floor sticking black and red letters on cardboard edged with green leaves, thus forming texts which went all round the hideous galleries of the great church. One or two of the elder ladies helped, advised, and criticised, but the real work was done by us three and the school-children ; and late on Christmas Eve the Rector came and saw, and allowed that the place had never looked so well. I thought the old clerk was not as pleased as we were, for formerly he had done the decora- tions single-handed, but he stayed behind to clear up, and we had no idea of what he meant to do. The next day we discovered he had added his decorations to ours ; the inside walls were all covered with trailing ivy, and in each pew was stuck a much-berried branch of holly. I own I gasped at first, but I had presence of mind to tell him I much admired his part of the work. Next year I gave him five shillings after we had finished, and he never again assisted, except by clearing up the verv trifling mess we left behind. 156 CHURCH AND CHAPEL He even admired our Easter decorations when, after some years, we had travelled as near Rome as to place these about the dear old church ; and furthermore he contributed to the harvest decora- tions. But the less said about these the better ; by the time they were allowed every one helped ; potatoes, onions, cabbages, and turnips made the church ridiculous ; while my dear friend the butcher grew an enormous pumpkin on purpose to please me . The pumpkin had a place of honour. But I gradually gave up my post of director ; a new rdgime had begun, and I imitated the Snark that was a Boojum, and silently and sadly vanished away from that particular place of worship. Before that happened I had the care of the altar, and in my time the top was a real old pre- Ref ormation stone slab, with the five crosses on it that represent the five wounds of the Lord. This stone used to " sweat " in damp weather, and to preserve the cloth I always kept a piece of American leather on the stone. I mention these details as I have been repeatedly told that there never was a stone altar, but only the usual wooden table. But I know there was, and I believe I could lead an " earnest inquirer " very near the place where it remains in a dishonoured retire- ment. But now my old stone altar is replaced by an abomination that seems as if it had been cut out of pitch-pine by a fretwork saw ; an unworthy substitute for the stone slab, but 157 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES perhaps more suitable for the atmosphere in which it remains. I had yet another find that was even better. One day I was turning out an old oak chest in the then vestry, and I came upon a venerable black and battered dish. A man who was a connoisseur in the matter happened to come in ; he took up the dish and examined it carefully. It was a very old pewter dish, representing the spies returning from Eshcol and carrying the grapes ; on each side of the centre were initials, and above was inscribed a date, 15 — . I cannot at this lapse of time recollect the rest of the date. He offered to have the dish restored and regilt, and, having the Rector's permission, he took it up to town for the purpose. He then found that his brother : also an ardent collector of old silver and church plate : had in his possession the ancient Communion service of St. Mary's Church. Finally that was restored to the church, and I think is very probably still there, but the dish I found is not. There is a " colourable imitation " in brass ; it has the same design, but no letters and no date, and the gilt pewter valuable alms-dish has once more sadly and secretly vanished away. We had at the time a perfect rush of Irish curates in and about the town, and they were one and all dehghtful: always ready to help, always amusing. Above all we were one and all young, andasthe Rector was old and his daughters 158 CHURCH AND CHAPEL were married and away, we did pretty much as We liked. Driven to despair over the singing, we did one outrageous thing ; and even now I cannot understand how it was managed without a most tremendous stir. After long and ardent con- sultation we brought down the organ bodily from its home in the west gallery, and set it in the chancel, where the choir then replaced the school-children, who were relegated to the gallery. There were one or two very angry people who, walked out of the church with their noses high in the air when they saw what had occurred; but there was so little noise, so little opposition, that I imagine we must have had a great many helpers or we should never have dared to do such a deed. One or two people did threaten to have the organ replaced, but I informed them that, once in the chancel, the organ became the Rector's property, and that a faculty would be required to get it back. I have not the least idea if this be true ; anyhow, it sounded as if it might be, and we never heard any more threats on the subject. Fortunately the one very rich man in the neighbourhood was most genuinely musical, and to him we were indebted for much help about the organ. He was singularly illiterate ; I don't think he ever read a book ; and he never thought of picking up one single H ; but the instant his fingers touched either organ or piano the "Bander- snatch," as he was always called from his long and weird appearance, became transformed. A 159 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES beatific smile appeared on his countenance ; his very spidery fingers brought out the soul of the instrument, and he became, as he most undoubtedly was, a real and most inspired musician. The good Bandersnatch told every one that the proper place for the organ was the chancel. I think, too, he must have found the funds, for I am sure no one else could have done so. Anyhow, we soon had our choir sifted out ; the females were placed at the back of the choir, the males were put into surplices purchased by our one rich curate, who, moreover, paid for the washing of the same as long as he remained in the place. The then organist was completely self-taught, and we suffered a good bit from his vagaries, but from them was evolved by degrees, the most excellent music I have ever heard in so small a town; and the old organ is replaced by a splendid instrument, given, if I mistake not, most appropriately, to the memory of the Bandersnatch himself. Before the Act of 1870 came into operation the Church of England school - children were taught in a disused church, which, with a yet older one, was a survivor of the sixteen that were supposed to have once dominated the town. We all took turns to manage and inspect the school, and I believe we each had a fortnight during the year, when we were supposed to be present some time each day and to see for ourselves what was going on. I should i6o CHURCH AND CHAPEL like very much to take a member of the present County Coimcil into that school and show him just how things were managed. In the body of the church were the older girls and boys, arranged in different classes, while the vestry was sacred to the infants, who as soon as they could walk were sent off to school. They were placed on benches, in rows one above the other. Very often the smaller infants went to sleep and fell off, but the young teachers appeared most kind and sweet. Only children themselves, they played with and amused the babies, and so became apprenticed early to what was undoubtedly their r6le in life, that of being in due time most excellent wives and mothers. I do not think a girl ever remained at school after she was thirteen, and she often enough left it at twelve. She would then be placed by one of the ladies as an under- servant in some good house. We did not require societies, prizes, or bribes of any sort or kind ; our favour and countenance were quite enough ; and as we were loyally backed up by the parents we turned out a race of girls which would be hard to beat in these over-educated days of ours. Gratefully do I recollect the good servants I had out of these same schools ; and I am very sorry for the generation that will never have such charming memories as I possess of the maidens who helped to make my life easy for me, and who one and all are my good friends to the present day. FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES There was another side to the picture, of course, but that mainly touched the boys, and I am sure the ladies had nothing to do with them. The master in my time was not a very desirable man, and I do not think his influence was good, but he was not the cause of the particular hard- ships that aflBicted the boys. Work was scarce and badly paid, but not as scarce as it is now, for then there were two breweries in full working order, beside tan-pits and other small industries, particularly harness-making and saddlery, both of which manufactures were of the very best. Also, the farms absorbed any amount of boys. Still, with large families and poor pay, every child who could work had to; and I recollect one dear little lad called Wilhe Northover, who used to go off to work at early dawn, trotting after his father down the lane to the farm two miles away. There, with frozen fingers and toes covered with chilblains, he either led the plough- horses, picked up stones, or scared the birds, returning home to creep to bed and sleep imtil it was time to start once more on his toilsome round. I persuaded his mother later on to let him stay with his grandfather on the farm, so as to be saved the long walk. Alas ! that I did so. The grandfather was taken ill one foggy, wild winter night; Wilhe went for help, and found a long rest in one of the many heath-set ponds near the cottage. And yet why alas ? His work was over. At the best the life of a farm-labourer is 162 CHURCH AND CHAPEL a thing that it is scarcely worth while growing up to have to endure ! Still, hard as it sounds, these little lads early turned out into the fields made most excellent men, and were true lovers of the countryside. They knew the haunts and names of every bird and beast ; and a great many sufferings were forgotten when the first nest was found, the cuckoo was first heard, and they could race back to the master to tell him about the partridges' and pheasants' nests, which were discovered sooner by them than by the keenest keeper in the world ! I always much dislike speaking against the times one lives in; but I am sure, terrible as it undoubtedly was, the life in the middle of the last century made men out of the country lads, who loved their country and were far and away better specimens than the present-day youth ; on whom it is not necessary to dilate, for he can be seen by any one who takes the trouble to look out for him ! The chapel came in, as regards myself more especially, in connection with what was then termed the British School. It was taught at that time by a most disreputable individual, whose " goings-on " had at last to be spoken about. Fortunately, for me, the Master was one of the trustees, and to his wife I took the details. Some of our men were Dissenters, and their girls went to the British School, and the mothers came to me full of complaints and most unsavoury details. I went to North Street and stated my 163 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES facts. At first my friend was furious ; it was a case of Church versus Dissent; she would have none of it. But, after a long consultation with the Master, he managed so diplomatically that there was no scandal ; the man disappeared in the night ; and a most remarkable man took up the reins of the school, and still, I believe, remains at the head of affairs. Here I may boldly state that I would sooner entrust a lad's education to that man than to any other schoolmaster I know. His scheme of teaching is wonderful, his discipline remarkable, especially in these undisciplined days, and if he cared he could inscribe the walls of the old disused chapel that is still the schoolroom with names that would indeed make a roll of honour of which any man may be proud. I am a strong upholder of the belief that what was given to the Church for the use of the Church should remain Church property ; but there are isolated cases where the State should step in, and the case in point is an example of what I mean. Things were pretty equal when our school was held in the old church, and the Dissenters' school in the disused chapel, but now it is quite a different matter. After a while great new schools were built for the Church, and paid for entirely by Church people, who, moreover, sub- scribe to the schools and pay a rate for the Council school at one and the same time. But there is no Dissenter rich enough to replace the old 164 CHURCH AND CHAPEL chapel with modern buildings. The old chapel- rooms have been crowded and overcrowded, while the class-rooms in the Church schools are almost empty. The parents know where the teaching and discipline are the best, but the staunch Dissenters will not be cajoled into the Church buildings, the Churchman owner will not give up the schools to the Council, so the town will have to be heavily rated to pay for new Council schools, though who is going to pay the rate no one seems able to say. It is curious to read the history of the first Dissenters in the old town, which, notwithstanding the fact that there were once sixteen churches, was a regular stronghold of Nonconformity in those very early days when so many Churchmen left the old faith and started a religion of their own. At first they gathered in one building, where down almost to the end of the eighteenth century they were content to go on in the same jog-trot way. Then members of the congregation began to doubt ; from doubt they came to blows, and a second chapel was opened, which, indeed, is the only one now used as a place of worship, the " old meeting," as it is still called, being the school. Soon after that yet another schism brought to birth a Unitarian chapel; but that is rarely used now. All the influential Unitarians are dead or gone away or become members of the Church, while the easy-going present-day folk no longer trouble themselves at all about points 165 FRESH BEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES of doctrine or differences of creed ; they belong to the particular ism into which they were born, and take things far more easily than their fore- bears ever did ; of that there is no doubt what- ever. The study of the history of the Non- conformists is a very interesting one, and I only wish I had known personally some of those sturdy, earnest men who in the early days ruled as with a rod of iron their respective followers and congregations. ' Later on the Dissenters formed a smug and satisfied congregation, and there are yet those living who can tell us of the string band that sat up in a species of west gallery and led the singing in the most satisfactory style. There was one extra- ordinary minister, too, who was so poor he could not afford a fire in his study, so, obtaining a large barrel from a friendly brewer, he stuffed it with straw, into which he got and covered himself well up. Then he began on his sermon, and both he and it were soon more than sufficiently warm. He was evidently a very cold subject, for he in- variably walked about the garden in the summer while composing his discourses well wrapped up, and with his head enveloped in a red handkerchief to keep off any possible draught. As far as I can discover, the men one and all yearned after knowledge which nowadays would be served out to them in the small primers that examinations have made us all famiUar with. But then they had lectures during the week in the chapel on all i66 CHURCH AND CHAPEL kinds of abstruse subjects, and enormous teas where all the ladies of the congregation furnished trays; and great heart-burnings were caused if some one gave better cake and attracted in consequence many more people to her tray than the others did. The two " independent " meeting-houses con- tinued their separate ways until about 1849, when Dissent began to languish and funds fail. It was impossible to maintain two ministers, and the " old meeting " was closed and the congregation gathered together once more under one roof, and the ancient barn was closed until 1858, when the British School was transferred there ; and there it remains as a " Council school," as I remarked before, unto the present day. As far as I can make out, small changes were made in the structure, though the tombstones in the graveyard were removed and set in the walls, and present-day children play above the remains of their great-grandparents, and neither they nor the children are one penny the worse. Some of the more intimate details of chapel life are most entertaining, and the deacons appear to have been a militant set. Two of them were particularly quarrelsome, and not only kept the congregation in order, but endeavoured to dis- cipline each other as well. One great quarrel took place over the chandelier which hung in the centre of the roof, and, being garnished with tallow candles, required to be lowered now and again 167 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES so that the candles might be attended to. The chandelier was kept in place by a heavy weight, which had to be released to lower the candles. One Sunday the candles had been snuffed by one deacon rather more often than the other deacon thought necessary, so he held on to the rope and would not allow the chandelier to descend. When he thought Deacon No. 1 was tired he left the rope, when down the chandelier came with a rush, scattering the candles, and the affrighted congregation fled in dismay. On another occasion the deacon rebuked some rich member for having placed a penny in the soup-plate at the door, which was the ordinary manner of making a collection. The next Sunday the rich man came with a double handful of coppers ; he smashed them into the plate with such energy that the plate was shattered, and the collection took some time to collect. Indeed, I think that sundry small boys had coppers to spend the next day that they could not have satisfactorily accounted for if they had been questioned about them 1 The ordinary Low-Church Sunday was dull enough for us, but it was a frivolous and gay day compared with the one enforced on the unhappy child of a Dissenter. We went to church, wore our best frocks, and read good books, and walked out ; and if one of my aunts flatly refused to use her drawing-room on Saturday because it would have to be dusted on Sunday if she did, and another i68 CHURCH AND CHAPEL only allowed us one plate at supper for meat, pudding, and cheese alike, there was method in their madness. The servants were to be spared every possible bit of work. But a Sunday in a Dissenter's family must have been one long day of agony. The moment breakfast was over there was school at the chapel, then a long service and an appalling sermon, then cold dinner, then more Sunday-school. Then came tea, to which the minister often arrived, when he would cross- question the children and the parents to see how much they retained of his instruction. More chapel followed, and after that came a hideous meal of cold beef and cheese and beer, the day concluding with bed ; where the more imaginative children suffered tortures caused by dwelling on the pictures of hell and the devil that the minister had given them, while they wondered if the day of judgment were as imminent as their instructors made out. The revivals of that day were on a par, I think, with the hysteria of the Salvation Army. I even have heard yells and cries emanating from a chapel in Yorkshire as I passed by, when the minister declared he saw the devil coming through the roof, and the whole congregation fled out screaming aloud. I have also often heard my father-in-law, a staunch Dissenter, declare he dreaded revivals more than he could say ; they might save souls, but they certainly had a very bad effect on the morals of the place. I think i6g FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES nowadays the chapels give a Uttle religion and a very great deal of amusement, for certainly even among Dissenters Sunday is a very different affair from what I have described. A walk would have been considered a mortal sin ; now bicycles and other means of progression are used, and apparently no one is any the worse, and all are better for getting about. Then musical services bring the young folks together, concerts are got up, excursions made, and under the cegis of the minister much " pious entertainment " is sought and found. I had always nourished the idea that a Dissent- ing minister was absolutely uneducated. After- wards I knew three ; all men far above the ordinary curate in knowledge and love of literature. They were not what one would call polished gentlemen, but I was always very sorry for them ; they were absolutely in the power of their deacons and their congregations. Educated or not, the Church people would not know them socially, and they had no one to associate with outside their congregations, which did not contain one single lady or gentle- man, if one uses, as one must, the ordinary sense of the word. All the same some of my best friends were Dissenters ; we fought shoulder to shoulder at elections, of which more presently, we held the same opinion on the right every man and woman has to make the most of his or her Ufe, and we always were on good terms as long as I lived in 170 CHURCH AND CHAPEt or near the town. Then came one or two pro- posed Bills in Parliament I could not away with ; the political and most undoubtedly large influence of the Nonconformists was and is unscrupulously used to get what they want, without the smallest consideration of other people's rights and other people's feelings. So I had to stand aloof, sad at heart to lose my good old friends, but obliged to do so because they arrogated to themselves rights and powers that could not possibly be theirs by any manner of means. It is curious to recollect, too, how, before the days of universal newspapers and railway trains, religion used to be the one prevailing topic of conversation among the poorer classes. I have been told that wherever they gathered their talk was on the interpretation of different parts of the Bible, and that at cobbler's bench, blacksmith's forge, even at the pubhc-house bar, the burning subject was always some particular form of ism, or more especially some interpretation of a passage in Scripture. And the men, who nowa- days would be talking over the latest race or football match, and eagerly scanning the columns of the Sportsman and the Star for the latest odds, thought of little else save what their particular pastor had said or what conclusion he had wished them to draw from any particular theory he had placed before them to contemplate. Free will and election, baptism or no baptism, all were discussed; and my father-in-law heard one black- 171 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES smith shout at the top of his voice : " You may as well try to blow the sun out of heaven with these 'ere bellows as to take the doctrine of predestination out of the Bible." Autres temps, autres mceurs ; anyhow, people take their religion less miserably nowadays than they did then, and little children are not sent to bed to cry in the night over their fearful sins and the devil and hell. Whether the change is for the better or the worse time will show. Personally I do not like hell-fire doctrine, but it had a most excellent effect on many who were brought up under its fear. They were not happy infants, but they made most splendid men and women; and I have no doubt that in due time that special doctrine will turn up again, and do a certain amount of most satisfactory work. 172 CHAPTER VII FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS The first election I recollect was the one I saw from the window of the red house belonging to the oldest inhabitant, and intensely amused and interested I was by the sight, more especially as, though I had heard a good deal about it before- hand, I was not personally anxious for either candidate to win. In all after elections I took a vigorous part ; at any rate behind the scenes ; and my enjoyment of the day was always considerably marred by anxiety lest after all our strenuous labour, the man for whom we worked should be found, as he all too often was, at the bottom of the poll. It would, I think, afford considerable copy for the papers of the present day were elections carried on in the manner in which they were then. My uncle, whose real and secret principles were decidedly Tory of the good old- fashioned kind, was occasionally agent for the Liberal candidate; and as I often accompanied him on his canvassing expeditions I sat and marvelled at the dexterous manner in which he 173 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES worked for his employer without committing himself to any particular form of political faith. In those days bribery was far more open and above-board than it is now, and also took place only while an immediate election was impending. Now that bribery during election-time is well nigh impossible, it is all done long before there is any idea that an election is imminent. And that candidate is wise, if he really means to succeed, who begins by taking as large a place as he can find in the neighbourhood ; and at once turns on a stream of gold that gently percolates through every strata of society, until each member thereof is in some way or other benefited by it. All this bribery must be done long before there is apparently the smallest idea that the generous creature means to stand for the especial part of the county where he has pitched his tent. If he manages his tactics well, he is sure to get in. An astute agent ploughs the ground, the candidate sows the golden seed ; and in the country at any rate he reaps his harvest. There are only two things that may prevent this same harvest : one is a by- election caused by some unexpected event before the seed has had time to ripen ; another, such a volte- face as was the extraordinary wave that swept the country in the election of 1906. Then England would have turned out a demi-god had he been on the unpopular side, and in consequence in our special corner the harvest was reaped by the man who had neither ploughed nor sown the seed. 174 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS The early elections were conducted without diplomacy, and were far more rough-and-ready affairs, and, indeed, were very much more enter- taining in every way. The canvassing also was most hilarious. I went with my uncle on several of his rounds among the electors, and we rarely returned home without some additions to our " portable property." Once I listened to his diplomatic recommendation of his candidate as a man worthy of support in every way, though he invariably passed loyally over the matter of his political creed. The old lady to whom he was holding forth looked at him fixedly and listened for some time without speaking. " I don't know nothing about either of 'em. This is my husband's own place, and all I do know is that the man who has that canary bird has the vote." The canary bird went home with us, along with an ancient gun and sundry other articles, worth at the most a few shillings each, but one and all valued at a five-pound note by the owners. These particular voters were dwellers in the heath-land round the town, of which they held a certain amount on " lives," most of which have now, I am sorry to say, fallen in. These " heath- croppers," as they were called, were a sturdy, independent race. No landlord could interfere with them; there were no by-laws, no building laws, no health inspectors to see what they were up to, and in consequence their houses were built in the most unconventional manner possible. 175 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES The walls were generally of mud, and the cottages were always thatched, while their fuel was peat, stacks of which stood against the dwellings, and the scent and blue smoke from the fires climbed up into the fresh moor air and could be seen and smelt for many a mile round. There were no roads to these places ; a rough cart-track led to them; and I have often wondered how the doctor reached them on the dark, wild, tempes- tuous nights when he was so often sent for ; either to usher in a new life or to help an old one to release itself from the bent and tired body that held the soul captive against its will. A few hens, occasionally some ducks and geese, were about the doorstep, but I think the owners lived very much on what they poached, on the produce of their beehives, and the small amount of corn and vegetables they coaxed out of the somewhat arid soil. Before the days of the ballot canvassing was a much easier matter than it is now. At the time of the first election I recollect the interests of both parties were so equally divided that the votes of the " heath-croppers " and a few independent men in the town were enough to turn the election. The " heath-croppers " were generally favourable to the man who came first and invested in what- ever they may have made up their minds to sell. The others could neither be moved nor bribed ; though they could be and were made most un- comfortable for some few months after the 17$ FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS election by the man for whom they did not vote, and for whom they never had the smallest idea of voting, were they canvassed and cultivated never so wisely. The Liberal side was naturally the unpopular side, though one of the Squires, being of the old Whig persuasion, called himself Liberal, and endeavoured to act up to the name. He, of course, could not be ostracised by his peers, but his followers were ; and I always admired the men who stuck up for the cause they believed to be right. Not only did they sometimes drop out of the shooting parties that made the autumn and winter months a joy to them, but their women-folk were not wanted at the big houses. A man who had his own shooting and a certain number of staunch friends of his own class did not care ; but the women did. I think it speaks well for both sexes that the men never wavered in their allegiance to the Liberal party. They did suffer for conscience' sake in a way that sounds puerile enough, but that made an enor- mous amount of difference to the social life of the ladies of their families at any rate ! The race then was to have the heath-croppers' vote, and many wiles were resorted to, to get these men to commit themselves to one of the two parties, in some way that would ensure a victory. I recollect quite well at the first election my uncle adding up the votes night after night, the dubious votes even at the end of the can- vassing being enough to turn the election ; and M 177 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES he was somewhat comforted by hearing that the other side had marked as doubtful the very same votes that he had marked too. When we reached the red house the market square was simply packed and crammed with folks of all sorts and sizes. We were just opposite the hustings, which in those days were put up outside the old Town Hall, and were in front of the place where criminals were detained until they could be dealt with by the magistrates. As this was immediately under the clock- tower, being " put under the clock " was a delicate way of breaking the news of his fate to the family of the offender against the laws. Here the stocks were always kept, but I do not remember their ever being used in my day to punish the unhappy prisoners, though I am inclined to believe that there are worse ways of dealing with orchard thieves, wife-beaters, and other disagreeable criminals than this mild detention before the mocking eyes of their friends and relations! In those bygone days the nomination day was generally the most exciting, if the most useless one, of the two days set apart to determine the winner of the fray. As a poll was invariably demanded by the candidate who was not satisfied with the show of hands (which said show was always a farce), the nomination day was a mere waste of time, although it was an entertaining spectacle for those who looked on behind the safe shelter of a good plate-glass window. As I 178 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS remarked before, we always arrived early on the scene, but even then the market square was a seething mass of riotous humanity, while promi- nent amongst the crowd were two enormous men, one armed with a great stake, the other clad in a venerable Militia uniform, which I suppose he imagined gave him a certain amount of authority and importance. Presently the candidates themselves hove in sight. The Squire from the north rode in at the head of his vassals. The labourers were accommo- dated in waggons decked with blue ribands, and the great horses were wreathed also in the Tory colours. The farmers as a rule rode splendid animals, for they were one and all ardent hunts- men, while yet more horses were bestridden by the Squire's neighbours and even the clergy did not disdain a place in his train. The Squire from the south had a vast following in his turn, but it as a rule consisted of a large and dangerous crowd of pitmen from the neighbouring clay- works, who were one and all spoiling for a fight. The appearance of the candidates and their supporters on the hustings was the sign for the most appalling noise to be' started. In vain the candidates, their proposers and seconders, en- deavoured to make themselves heard; if there were a moment's cessation of the groans and cheers the two men mentioned before howled out a continuous chant of " Our Squire for iver ; throw 'tother in the river." But as a rule it 179 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES was utterly impossible to hear a word of either speech. Finally some of the clay-pit rout thrust dolls on long sticks into the face of the northern Squire, meaning to draw attention by these means to his well-known amatory adven- tures ; while a couple of other dissentients cast loaves of bread in his face. His sayings about dear food and his dealings with his farmers were well known ; and as one of his favourite remedies for the supposed lack of prosperity among the landowners and farmers was a tax on wheat; and a return to Protection was his panacea for all ills, these sentiments had naturally made him more than usually unpopular, with the lower classes at any rate. In those bygone days the poor recollected too well what Protection meant to be deluded into voting for a man who advocated returning to the bad old times once more. Not that the very poor had a vote ; all the same they could and did make a most tremendous noise, which increased every moment. Presently the crusty half of a loaf flew straight against the window of the Town Hall, which it smashed, and a most fearful row ensued. The farmers, armed with their heavy hunting-crops, rushed from the hustings and struck out right and left. The clay- pit men retahated; but they were not in full force, and they were soon rapidly getting the Worst of it. Indeed, the two big men were being thrust out of the town, when a batch of about thirty of their friends was seen rushing in over 180 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS the bridge, waving huge palings which they had seized as they came along, and breathipg fire and slaughter ; and all bid fair to murder each other, when fortunately the gigantic police inspector and his constables turned out. The clay-pit men were rather more than " half-seas over " ; the stout inspector and his men went behind them ; and while the inspector clasped their arms behind their backs one by one, the constables disarmed them ; and prominent men on the pink and blue sides respectively intervened and persuaded the belligerents to cease warfare until the day of the poll at all events. It was entirely due to the fact that the clay- pit men had announced that if the pinks wished it, the blues should never enter the town that blood was not really shed in quarts. Early in the morning they had refused to work as usual and were arming for the fray, when news came into the town of what they intended to do. One of the pinks went off on his pony and met them coming in ; by judicious cajolement and promises of free beer he distributed the men over an area of about four or five miles on the southern side, and kept them well occupied. They had become almost quiet, when women tore out from the town screaming that the blues were murdering their comrades. Then nothing would hold them, and if the blues had not departed at once there is no doubt that most serious riots would have taken place. As it was the pinks i8i FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES contented themselves by smashing every pane of glass in the blue hotel : which, by the irony of fate, belonged to the most prominent Liberal in the town : and by smacking the heads of any blues left in the place who had sufficient hardihood to show themselves in the public streets. When the day of the poll came the excitement grew every moment. In those days the state of the poll was shown from hour to hour by numbers on boards hung on the hustings, and the agents flew about from place to place counting up votes, and looking up absentees and bring- ing them in, to write their names down, or put their marks under the eagle eye of the returning officer. Our colour being pink, my aunt had decked us all out in oleanders that she had grown and carefully cultivated for the occasion. But her efforts at decoration were eclipsed by one frantic adherent to the cause, who promenaded the town clad in a full costume of pink ! Pink shiny cotton stuff formed the many-flounced crinoletted dress ; pink feathers waved in the pink hat ; and the waving of a pink parasol led the cheers when the pink Squire headed the poll, and retired meekly into temporary obscurity when the blue man went ahead and our hopes fell to freezing- point. The poll closed then at four o'clock, and at three we reluctantly discovered that every 182 FREE AND INDEPENDENT EtECTORS known vote was recorded save and except the doubtful seven, who had not been seen or heard of. Messengers both blue and pink were despatched hot-foot, and the blue man was beginning to look most disagreeably triumphant. The clay -pit men went for the farmers, and the farmers and even the gentry joined in the fray ; even my beloved " Idstone " of the Field flew to the rescue of a small blue farmer, and used his fists to such excellent effect that he rescued the man at once, and left the clay-pit man amazed at such a display of " muscular Christianity." Still the time went on, and the seven voters were still absent. The moments crept by. If they turned up and voted pink the Liberal was in by a bare majority of five; if blue, the state of the poll would still be in the northern Squire's favour. But just before the time a carriage came gallop- ing into the market square, and out the seven tumbled; and as all to a man voted pink our candidate was in; and the fearful noise that ensued will never be forgotten by any one who ever heard it. It turned out that the blue agent, having been driven to despair by the vacillation of the seven, had inveigled them out to an island in the estuary known as Horse Island, where horses were taken to be out at grass. He knew that, deprived of this unknown quantity, the election was safe as far as his side was concerned ; and after inspecting a horse or two that these men had for sale, he had made for the boat and left them on the 183 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES island cursing. They were safe there until the tide turned at least, and by then the election would be over and won ! Unfortunately the noise the prisoners made was heard by some fishermen in the harbour ; they came to their rescue, and the men were brought off in time to punish the agent by voting as they never intended to do, until he played them this dastardly trick. The declaration of the poll was followed by another free fight, until some one persuaded the Squire and his escort to depart. And lucky for them they went ! The last man had scarcely vanished before the whole of ^the clay-pit men rushed into the town, breathing fire and slaughter. At last nightfall brought peace ; the last of the belligerents were interned " under the clock," and all were frankly delighted that the day was over. The next election was somewhat remarkable by reason of the fact that some of the more particular members of the County had revolted against the yoke of the northern Squire, and had provided themselves with a candidate of their own. One or two of the landowners put up weird structures in the meadows to give their servants votes who were outside the borough ; but the northern Squire put up two to their one on the other side of the town, and still hoped to win. That he did not was owing to the fact that the Tory vote was split. But I do not recollect much about that election, and I do not think I 184 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS was there on the day, though I saw a good many of the election squibs, and was mightily amused by most of them. The first experience I personally had of what I call " cultivating the constituency," and which has now become a fine art; was when a certain man appeared on the scene, no one exactly knew from where; and began to spend money hand over fist. He was the head of an extraordinary insurance office, run on most astute lines in connection with some building society, and was intended sooner or later to make the fortune of every one who trusted their money in his hands. He had enlisted the sympathy of the Rector, the doctor, and the lawyer; and the Church school- master was his factotum. He was to represent all the highest possible Tory traditions, and was to be bluer than the bluest blue that had ever come our way. He gave a stupendous challenge cup to be shot for by the local Volunteer corps ; he sent game and most expensive fruit to the Volunteer dinner; and, in fact, no one asked him for or hinted at anything that was wanted but it arrived immediately upon the scene. This streara of benevolence, as far as I recollect, went on for about a year before the election came off. Every one was to be made rich in due course by his system of insurance ; in the meantime no one was to lack food, fuel, or blankets if he knew they were in want of either commodity. There were one or two people who were not taken in 185 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES by him, and my husband happened to be of the few. I am sure we had no money to invest in his scheme ; we never had to invest in anything outside our immediate occupation, and httle enough even for that ; but somehow or other the man inspired distrust. The challenge cup and the frtiit and game were sufficient annoyances ; and I think that though this latter was accepted it was merely put out on a side-table and not used, but I am not sure. Anyhow, the election came on ; the man was at the bottom of the poU, and never came near the town again. I cannot understand now why he hoped to represent us in the House, for he had not been gone from our ken for more than a few days, or weeks at most: it is nearly forty years ago, and at this distance of time it is difficult to recollect the exact space: when the town woke up to hear that the insurance company had gone smash ! Every one lost all he or she had invested, and the distress was fearful. For in a smaller way he anticipated the fiasco of the Liberator com- pany, and for many a year gentle and simple alike suffered from the cruel, heartless conduct of the man. While he was amongst us he was full of ideas and plans for making money, but perhaps the most ludicrous one he held forth on was that of extracting gold out of sea-water. Many, many years after he had left us to oiu* own devices, some one of the same name promoted, or I should say tried to promote, a company of i86 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS a somewhat similar nature. Truth, invaluable militant Truth, took that company in hand; and I think that no one nowadays believes in such an idiotic idea. The next election was after the ballot came in, and it was impossible to make the less educated electors believe in the fact that this made their votes their own at last. It was then not to the advantage of the Tories that this belief should grow, and the canvassers on that side sedulously informed the voters that though the ballot was apparently secret a scrutiny was always possible ; and that, moreover, they had ways and means of discovering how any of their tenants voted, were they disposed to use them. Even a well- educated man, as education went in those days, could not be convinced that his vote was his own and he could do what he liked with it. Dissent was very strong in the town, and Dissenters are always Radical to the core ; and this special man was a Dissenter, and though not a Radical as things are nowadays, was a distinct Liberal. We had often discussed public matters, and when I went to talk with him about the election, instead of j&nding him, as I had hoped he would be, a jubilant and open supporter of the cause we both had so much at heart, I discovered him sad, morose, and almost tearful, while he declared that he dared not vote as he desired ; ballot or no ballot, every one would be sure to know which side he had taken. He made the liveries 187 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES of all the " carriage folk " round for miles ; few indeed among our ranks required liveries ; he had been told by the Tories they would stop their work if the Liberal got in, and that they knew in every case what votes they could count on and whose were dubious, and would act accord- ingly when the time came. His bread depended on pleasing the gentry ; he could not starve ; and though I told him what I steadfastly believed to be true, that no one on earth could tell how he voted, his confidence was shaken by seeing one of the County standing at the door by which one entered the polling booth, who promptly asked him for whom he intended to vote ; while the Tory candidate button-holed him as he came out and thanked him profusely for " doing his duty," as he put it, when he heard the vote had gone to him. That during the next few weeks most of the people round required new liveries or clothes of sorts, confirmed him in his melan- choly belief that his vote was not his own. At the same time before he died he had more than one chance of voting as he wished. The borough had ceased to be, and a wider range to work over hadgiven him freedom, fromthe pressing attentions of a local and powerful candidate for the seat. The last borough election at which we had really very much to do was one of the most entertaining of the lot; but I really do wonder we survived the fearsome amount of work it entailed, to say nothing of the manner in which i88 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS we were ostracised for the time by all our more superior acquaintances. We had not imbibed old-fashioned Liberal principles for nothing, and neither then nor at any other election had we ever told our men how we wished them to vote. They knew for whom we were working ; they had talks on legislation ; they were given papers of both sides to read ; but we never had or never would suggest that a man should vote for any one to please us, or even vote at all unless he understood what he was doing. But several of the Liberals wanted us to get our men to promise ; otherwise they would not know how they stood. All the same we did not interfere ; we talked "ballot" for all it was worth; and after endless struggles we reached the day of the poll no wiser about our fate than we were before the strenuous j&ght began. I shall never forget that day as long as I live. The red house was now part of the inn, which, owned as it was by a staimch Tory, was yet the Liberal stronghold, in the same way that the other inn, though owned by a Liberal, was the Tory headquarters ; and we were early on the scene. Large pink rosettes adorned all our adherents ; but the blue ribands of the opponents outnumbered the pink by hundreds, and our hopes sank slowly into our boots. Though there were several free fights, the elections of that day, and, indeed, of the present time, are nothing like as entertaining as they were before the ballot; .189 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES neither were there any hustings or anything special to see. Carriages dashed up full to overflowing with " free and independent " electors, all bearing the fatal blue ; but presently one cart drove up with a most unpopular couple of farmers in. The crowd muttered, cursed, finally yelled, until some one whose wiU was law then to the town, plunged down boldly into the fray, parted the crowd, and dragged the couple into our inn. The younger had struck out at the men in the street with his whip ; it had been wrested from him and broken across his shoulders; and I am sure father and son would both have been slain had they not been dragged out of sight of the infuriated mob. Finally they had to be smuggled out of the town by the back entrance to the inn, which opened into the little-fi;equented lanes ; but even then they went out ignominiously in a pig cart, covered with sacks and accompanied by three or four full-sized pigs to completely hide them from the furious people. We had had two or three of the hardest workers among the townspeople on our side, and before the final day we had been besieged by them and their emissaries morning, noon, and night. One of them was particularly fond of discussing the most awful " conspiracies," " briberies," and " corruptions," and would act in a most mysterious manner when he came to unmask the villain to us. He would usually ring very softly at the front door and then retire ; the servant replied zgo FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS to the bell, but there was apparently no one there ; she would go out into the road to see if she could see the delinquent, who had apparently rung and run away, when he would slip into the haU and glide into whatever room we were in. Then he would put his finger on his lips, say " Hush ! " very loud, and would finally sink into a chair exhausted. Then in a few minutes he would edge himself quite close to us, getting closer and closer until our faces nearly touched, when he would proclaim suddenly the matter about which he had called, which was generally something of the most idiotic and trivial nature. His conscience deUvered, he would rise, tiptoe to the door, which he would open very slowly ; then with another " Hush ! " he would disappear, until he had discovered another mare's nest, which he would once more display to us in the same bewildering style. A second supporter was the hardest worker for what he termed the Cause I have ever met. The Liberals were badly treated; about that there is no manner of doubt. All the same a long course of snubbing, misrepresentation, and unkindness had used us to what we had to endure at election times, and we had long ceased to care. Not so had our helper ; he used literally to burn with rage and foam at the mouth when he un- earthed any specially dubious Tory tactics, and I never went through an election with him without expecting him to expire at my feet. 191 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES Perhaps the most entertaining supporter had been recommended to us by Kegan Paul, the publisher, who in my time was vicar of a country parish, and who was on the verge of giving up his orders and starting in London on more congenial work and in a more congenial atmo- sphere. I have indeed rarely, if ever, met a harder worker or a more consistent man than Kegan Paul's protegd. He began life with us in a small ordinary country shop, with nothing particularly interesting about him ; now he is the John Burns of the place, an " absolutely honest merchant," as Ruskin spoke of his father ; and those who live will see his grandsons men of mark and members of the County, if there be any County left when their time to exercise the franchise comes. These three men were extremely low-spirited over our prospects as the day went on, and we were nearly all weeping in concert when the poll closed and I wended my weary way home to look after my dinner, to which the candidate, his sister and brother-in-law and other folks were coming. Now our candidate, though a Liberal, was the grandson of a duke, and his relations were likewise gorgeous folk, and I had that dinner very much on my mind. I went upstairs, and, meeting the governess, I remarked, " I believe we have failed after all our trouble." " I always thought you would," she replied with a sniff, and passed on with her charges into the schoolroom. 192 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS My table looked beautiful, and my good little cook assured me my dinner was quite all right, and I proceeded into the drawing-room in fair spirits. We were half-way through a most success- ful feast, and only half-way, when suddenly the most appalling turmoil that was ever heard burst on our astonished ears. The ballot-boxes had been brought in from the outlying stations with unexampled speed ; the votes had been counted ; we were ahead by, I think, twenty- four votes; and all the town, Conservative as well as Liberal, appeared to have emptied itself into our house and garden. One man stood on a chair waving a napkin round his head ; another helped himself to a glass of wine, of which he stood sorely in need ; while yet a third fell prone into an armchair, and had to be fanned and given brandy before he recovered his normal state of health. To this day I do not know how we raced from our house to the inn, but we all got there somehow, to find both legal gentlemen (long since dead) very nauch the worse for liquor under a large table ; while the lady who wore the pink costume when I was a child made for our member ; hugged him round the neck and kissed him ; while he looked first at me, then at the other ladies, evidently wondering if he would have to salute the lot. We spared him any embarrass- ment by discreetly effacing ourselves, and fled, while the pink lady made a speech from one window while the member made another from N 193 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES another, and all went as merry as several marriage bells. Poor man ! I think that embrace had given him a somewhat unfortunate idea of the ladies' committee, for very soon after he sent us each a large parcel andaletter of thanks andpraise. I returned my parcel without opening it, merely writing a civil note to say I did not want any remembrance of the day, for I should certainly never forget it. He was foolish enough to call and offer me other " articles," but at last I impressed on him it was not what he sent, but the idea of a present, I objected to; and he had to content himself with the thanks of the other members of the committee. They, unfortunately, had not returned the parcels, though they were one and all annoyed at the gifts. However, they never decorated their drawing-rooms with the things, as the member suggested, and I think he learned that we all did our work for the Cause, and neither for him individually nor for the hope of a reward. By the way, that election saw the last appear- ance of the Tory Squire in the place. He came out on the porch of the inn to make his farewell speech after the declaration of the poll, but when he was received with derisive yells and screams by the victorious party he turned green with rage ; paused for a minute to obtain silence, and then solemnly and completely cursed the town and the inhabitants thereof in the most appalling manner possible. Then he called for his coach- 194 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS man and told him to put in his horses and drive him straight to the warmest locaUty known. The man looked amazed, and faltered out that he did not know the way ; but the Squire, with another loud oath, swore he would soon show him, and banged into the carriage, and the last thing seen of him was the fist he was indignantly shaking at every house and person he passed. He never stood again for the borough ; education, the ballot, the advance of knowledge, all were against him; and the Conservatives knew that they must bring forward some one quite different, or the borough would remain a Liberal stronghold for the rest of its days. So the moment that that election was done with the other side met and began a system that has never ceased from that day to this. The wretched member for any country place is invariably looked upon as a species of milch cow, or universal provider, who can be called upon at any moment to supply money for any- thing that may be required. Coal funds, blanket funds, boot clubs, men's clubs, football and cricket clubs, all ask for and obtain subscriptions ; the Church makes certain demands, and every chapel has, or tries to have, a look in. These subscriptions are a mere matter of course. Besides these, it is considered the duty of the member to provide all sorts and conditions of odds and ends. If Jane Smith loses her husband, or, indeed, her donkey, the member is written to ; 195 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES if the town pump requires a new handle the member has to provide it ; and I am always astonished to find that any man will enter Parliament, so many are the calls upon his purse, and, indeed, upon his freedom as well. Of course, one knows that a man is returned to represent the larger part ; at the time ; of his special con- stituency, but at all events he might be left a free hand. As it is, the least deviation from what some one in the constituency thinks the straight path causes him to lay himself open to. a bombardment of letters that is positively cruel. After all a man must possess a conscience and must be trusted. If he has no conscience and cannot be trusted, he is not fit, and he never was fit to be a member of any Parliament that ever was made. It is extraordinary how even now in remote country districts the unpopular Liberal party is treated by those in authority. I do not blame them ; the Radicals are dangerous, unscrupulous robbers, and are not sufficiently disciplined themselves to be able to discipline others ; all the same I do think a little more fairness would bring about a better position of affairs all round, for sometimes those who should know better do the most extraordinary things. I recollect asking a parson of more than Liberal tendencies why he had voted for a certain man. He said, " Oh, because of my duty to the Church." I said, " The man is a Jew, and cares no more for the 196 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS Church than you do for the Synagogue." But he was pledged to vote with the Church party, and that was enough. The man's tenets, even his character, mattered nothing ; he was to vote for the Church, and that was deemed sufficient to ensure support. Another time I found the poll for a particular district was to be taken in a farm- house, the farmer being under the thumb of his landlord, and both he and his landlord most militant, and I may say ignorant, Tories. No harm in that, perhaps, but the other side was refused the shelter of any spot they could use for a committee room; they were four miles from a town, food or shelter, and that I could find them in all was a mere chance. Anyhow, they were not compelled to camp out under a hedge in the snow or rain for at least the next two elections, as they had always had to do before, and will most certainly have to do again. Now I personally would have sheltered either party and given either side a fair chance. And it may be that after all the Conservatives will become equally fair-minded, for already one of the few old Tories left has said to me more than once that " the party " must cultivate the working man's vote ! But electioneering in the country gives one a very low idea of human nature, and to see a gentleman hobnobbing in the market-place and being smacked on the back by people he cannot endure makes one very sorry for him after all. I used to have great joy 197 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES in. watching one particular candidate ; who years ago, really did think himself far too much above the ordinary herd, to even speak to them except to give an order ; and who had no more idea of the thousand and one grades in the tiny society of the place than I had when I went to live there ; or than the King has, if he ever thinks about such a subject. He literally used to squirm when the farmers accosted him ; the shopkeepers terrified him lest he should have to shake h9,nds with them ; and as for us ! — he fled before us one and all, for he really did not know how to behave to us in the very least. Yet if you would permit him to be condescending there was not a nicer or kinder or more accommodating man. He would sing at any concert for anything in a sweet tenor voice, and he once was good enough to lecture on some subject connected with the town. But most egregious fun was made of his lecture, and he retired from the fray to look after his shooting and the poachers, all of whom he invariably treated to the utmost rigour of the law. I believe his favourite occupation in the house was Berlin wool-work, but as I never saw any of his handiwork I cannot vouch for the truth of this statement. I only wonder that these men were as good as they were, so ridiculously were they truckled to ; and I always feel sorry for the few of them who survive those golden days, for now at any rate obsequiousness, and even politeness, have 198 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS died completely out. Men who used to discuss religion and their duty to their masters now discuss, and, moreover, understand. Socialism; and though the Socialism they long to see can never come — and if it did would end England altogether — they are most independent folk, and have no idea of being civil, if in any way they can avoid being so. It remains now for the masters to wake up and educate their people. Even if the Squire of the north were alive he could no longer ride in at the head of his angry but obsequious farmers ; they might accompany him, for they have some idea that Tariff Reform will come from the Tories and that the golden days before the repeal of the corn-laws will be brought about by Protection once more. But they have forgotten that the labourers are not what they were, half-starved, badly housed, working for a sodden crust, and their children working too, to put a morsel in their half- famished mouths. The labourer of that time has ceased to exist ; he is a man, often enough an unpleasant man, open to beer, most certainly open to a bribe still, but he will not slave silently as his forebears did ; he knows what he wants, and he means to get it either by fair means or foul. Lowering of the franchise and the ballot have made the elector free to vote as he likes and have put an enormous power into most unfitting hands. It is a pity there seems no one strong enough to guide the masses and to save them from the evils of the 199 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES paid agitator, who thinks first of his pocket and his position and not at all about his unhappy country. As some one very justly says, the cry nowadays is not " What can I do for my country ? " but " What can my country give me that I have neither earned nor deserved ? " Our elections were hard fights fairly won and fought by the old-time Liberals, who had neither money nor position, and only principles to fight with. Now every one is " on the make," and until a man is obliged to put his name himself on the register or lose his vote, or until personal canvassing and conveying to the poll are made illegal, no elector can be considered independent. But I fear the millennium is too far off for these desirable ideas to become facts yet awhile. The most disagreeable feature about our elections was the fact that for months after one of them, there was great coolness between families even, if the members thereof had taken opposite sides. Friends crossed over the road to avoid speaking, heated arguments melted the bonds of affection, and a most disagreeable period always followed on the time of storm and stress that we had just gone through. Why politics should mean fighting I do not know ; anyhow they used to, and in our day we most certainly had our share. The Tories had one more advantage over us, and that is they could always ask their constituents in posse or esse to shoot; and this in a thoroughly sporting neighbourhood was a 200 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS great advantage. It would have been still greater had the owners of the shooting had the smallest idea of discriminating between Jones and Brown when they sent out their invitations. But as, happily for the other side, they neither did nor could discriminate, they made far more enemies than adherents by asking the doctors and lawyers to shoot with the farmers, or even the innkeepers. Moreover, the fact that, as a rule, the shoot took place nearer the rabbit warrens than the pheasant coverts made the sportsmen furious, and more than once resulted in their taking the matter into their own hands and shooting hen and cock pheasants alike ; although the first of February was most perilously near, when the hens are supposed to be sacred from any attempt to take their lives. Very often, too, unbroken dogs were brought out by the lower orders, dogs which appeared to answer to the name of " Hi, you ! ' ' And while these gave endless trouble, other dogs were yet more disliked. These were of the lurcher tribe, and more than once suddenly sprang forward and caught a pheasant, which they brought to their masters with the knowing smile a poacher's dog always gives when he has proved his prowess among the game. Nowadays all this is altered ; the Squires have all disappeared ; shooting tenants come and go much as meteors do ; there is little of the old indirect bribery by the resident gentry, for there are none left to bribe, and the seat goes as a rule 201 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES to the man who promises most legislation for the working classes, who expect an immediate wave of prosperity, and who have not the least idea how it is going to be obtained. I, however, state boldly that there is far more general prosperity in and round the town than there was in our time, though how it is obtained I do not know. The tradespeople live in the old houses, the bailiff's son in my uncle's old house, the breweries are closed and used as mere store- houses for the beer of one gigantic firm that dominates the neighbourhood, and the tan-pits have long since ceased to be. But the river has a fleet of boats where once six made the full complement ; the lanes are covered by swift bicycle parties, every boy and girl in the place apparently being able to buy and own a bicycle of a kind ; and no one is afraid of his superiors, if, indeed, there are any superiors to be found. This surely is a better state of things than in the " good old times " of Parliamentary elections, when votes were the property of the landlord and not of the tenant ; and it makes for freedom and independence in a way that would have been impossible forty years ago. I was amused to see after the last election that a bold attempt at coercion was met by most emphatic measures. A lady wrote a furious letter denouncing a local tradesman for daring to vote and encourage others to vote for the Liberal candidate, and forbidding him ever to come to her house to attempt to 202 FREE AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS dispose of his wares there. Every paper in London on the Radical side fell upon the writer, who, despite her position, was threatened with penalties for " intimidation," and she had to withdraw her epistle. In my time the tradesman would have been ruined ; now boycotting cannot take place, the ubiquitous newspaper is to the fore, and the attempted tyranny is nipped in the bud. My personal feelings are with the old Squires and landed gentry, and I honestly do not like the onward march of the masses ; all the same I must confess that they have a much better time now than they ever had, and are far more as " free and independent electors " should be than they ever were forty or even thirty years ago. 203 CHAPTER VIII , DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY It remains to be seen how the new Territorial Army scheme will work out, but it will have to be indeed most excellent if it is to replace in any way the much- scorned, much- derided old Volunteer brigades. I was a much- interested spectator at the birth of the Volunteer movement of 1859-60, and though I was but a small girl I was truly enthusiastic, and followed its develop- ment with mingled awe and delight. That it came into being as far as I personally was con- cerned in a part of England that had not forgotten the terror of the first Napoleon made it doubly interesting. For there were, of course, those still surviving who had enrolled themselves as defenders of their country in the very early days of the century; and had had many a wakeful night looking out for the lighting of the beacons, which should tell them that the dreaded tyrant had landed, and they must at once prepare manfully to defend their hearths and homes. Indeed, these same people were quite angry that the 204 DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY idea of reviving the beacons was scouted. Of course the telegraph had superseded such primi- tive means of communication ; all the same wires could be cut; and, moreover, storms had been known to rise suddenly out of the sea and make communication, especially in and from the island, quite impossible. Now a good beacon would always be in evidence : for the light flashed from headland to headland would carry its message swiftly on the darkest night. It was madness not to avail themselves of such a simple and sufficient safeguard, and it was only stubbornness and extreme youth which never would listen to the advice of its elders, that would refrain from taking a hint from the past while it was yet time ! Napoleon III. was invariably a true and loyal friend to England, but the vapouring of some of his officers after their successes in Italy had reached English ears. It is always easy to raise a scare. The Crimea was forgotten ; the fact that we had fought shoulder to shoulder there with the French might never have existed. No ! France meditated a raid ; we must be ready at once to repel the ruthless invader at any cost ! All the ancient tales about Bonaparte were revived, and the older people along the coast became most curiously mixed in their ideas of the two men. Indeed, some expected to find the tomb in Les Invalides had given up its dead, and that the fateful figure of " Le Petit Caporal " would be seen standing with folded arms on the 205 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES coast of our particular part of the island, coming at last to add us to his erstwhile numerous con- quests. There are many scaremongers of the present day who awake each morning expecting to see the wearers of the German " Pickelhaube " peering over their front gates. I myself have felt uncomfortably aware, when I lived in an isolated place close to the sea-coast; that there was nothing whatever to prevent him should he choose to come, though how he was to be fed and then get away home again I for one do not know. But this scare is nothing to the dread that Napoleon, any Napoleon, should arise and come in his thousands to seize on our countrv and make it his own; which existed for years, and, indeed, until the last Napoleon died fighting on our side in Zululand. Now it is only transferred in a manner to the German, who, I believe, wants us about as little as we desire to wipe him and his navy off the surface of the seven seas. The French scare had been indeed a real and most definite one. I have spoken to an old lady who saw Napoleon land in Lulworth Cove, and the account she gave me of the event is one I never forgot, and which I may as well reproduce here ; as it will illustrate how real was the reason for the terror that the mere name of Bonaparte inspired, in the early days of the nineteenth century. French was a language scarcely ever learned in those days ; everything French was loathed with a deadly hatred ; but my old friend's 206 DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY father was a china merchant, who had deaUngs with the Sevres pottery works, and she had had to learn French to help him with his correspon- dence and conversations, with the travellers who came over from that hated country to obtain china-clay; and show patterns and designs for china to the English warehouses. My friend was born in the year 1784, and therefore was a young girl at the time of the Terror, of which she had one most dramatic recollection. One of the Sevres men came into the office, and she was sent for to act as interpreter. He gave a gruesome description of the streets of Paris, and had, moreover, seen the head of the Princesse de Lamballe carried past his windows on a pike. Any sign of pity for the unfortunate creature would have been dangerous indeed, but he could hardly refrain from tears when describing the tragedy, and he added : " Horrible ! most horrible ! But she looked so pretty I could have kissed her ! " Naturally this did not add to her affection for the French nation, and when she came south as " travelling bridesmaid " with her sister, who had married the clay-merchant, who furnished her father with the fine white china-clay, which is only found in one part of England ; she hated it still more. All England was seething with rage over the aggressions of Bonaparte, and Uving as she did close to the coast she was never allowed to forget that at any moment he might appear and sweep the English into his net. When she 207 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES married she went to live close to her sister, and among the hills that overlooked the sea, her husband being one of the old yeoman farmers, a valuable type of man that is fast ceasing to exist. He was too close to the sea to refrain from smuggling: indeed, no one did refrain in those days, and gentle and simple alike all joined gladly in defrauding his Majesty's revenue. The press-gang also was a terror, and when the hus- band did not return at his usual hour the wife suffered agonies of torment from imagination lest he should have fallen into the hands of the preventive officers, or been pressed into the service of the king's navy. One special night he was so late that she could no longer stay indoors, and she set out over the hills to look for her missing spouse. She knew that a special cargo was expected, and that the preventive officers were drawn away to a great dinner, given by one of the gentry, whose position put hitn above the suspicion that was yet most un- doubtedly his due. Still he did not return, and she went on and on until she found herself running down the hill that leads into the Cove. She had seen a suspicious-looking ship standing in near the land. Could this be the Revenue cutter after all ? and were the men on the look-out for the cargo that must at the moment be in the act of being run in ? As she reached the Cove a long-boat came rowing swiftly and silently into the moonlit space, and she had just 208 DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY time to lie flat down behind some rocks when the boat's keel grated on the shore, and two men got out of the boat, while the sailors kept her afloat so as to b6 ready to push off once more in a moment should they be disturbed. Descrip- tion had made her familiar with the appearance of Napoleon ; to her horror she recognised him ; and by listening to his conversation she discovered that he was discussing with one of his officers whether it were possible to land his soldiers on that particular portion of the coast. They had a map, over which they pored for a few minutes, which naturally enough appeared to her hours ; finally Napoleon shrugged his shoulders, folded the map, and, ejaculating " Impossible ! " went back to the boat, and he and his officer were rowed quickly out of the Cove into the open sea. The instant they were away she rose to her feet and ran for all she was worth up the coastguard path to the look-out. There was the frigate; and she remained watching until the boat reached her ; the men ascended the side, and the frigate slipped away in the broad moonlight out towards France. Hardy tells the tale of Napoleon's landing as heard from an old shepherd, but his story, he confesses, is a romance, a mere echo from the gossip of the countryside. I have my story from the lips of the woman who saw it, who lived to be about a hundred and four, and who had many an interesting story to tell of those hard- hitting, fighting, and suffering times. When she o 209 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES had been married fifty years she rode on horse- back all round the farm with her old husband, to whom she was devoted, and with whom she became acquainted when she came south as " travelling bridesmaid " with the sister I have spoken of before. Her husband died very many years before she did, and one day she was talking about her early married days, and I asked her in what form she thought she would see him when she met him again after death, as she most emphatically believed she would do. She thought for a moment, and then she said : " I shall see him as I saw him first, climbing up the hills to meet me with the sunset in his face. It was the sunset then ; now it will be the sunrise, and the hills will be Heaven's hills. Yes, I shall see him first again, climbing the hills to meet me with the sunshine in his face ! " And I am quite certain that she had not the least doubt that that would indeed be their meeting. Yet another woman told me that in her young days, the dread of the press-gang was so great that when two of her sons were taken, the third, whenever the gang was about, used to hide in a great drain-pipe that lay out on the heather. Here she would take her seat, apparently minding the few geese that were her sole means of support ; if any one hove in sight she was hard at work on the button-making ; if no one was about she read the newspaper to her son, or any book she could lay her hands on, to make his imprisonment 210 DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY in the drain-pipe as little irksome as she possibly could. Then were there not old Waterloo and Penin- sular fighters still in the town primed with stories of Bonaparte and of all they had endured ? One man had been at the siege of Badajos, and he it was who told of how the scaling-ladders were sent for for the final assault, but that before they came the dead bodies of his comrades were piled so high that they did not need the ladders ; they climbed over their dead friends, and, inflamed by rage and hatred, took the town by assault and put the defenders to slaughter as soon as ever they could. At the mere idea of inva- sion the old heroes crept out of the almshouse and cottages into the market-place, fought their battles over once more, and inflamed their hearers by their stories, until it was impossible to prevent any single man from volunteering on the spot, even if any one had been so unpatriotic as to suggest such a thing. The women were most eager to arm their husbands, sons, and lovers ; the children, of whom I was one, were taught to play " The Rifleman's Polka " ; my aunts sang " Form, form, riflemen, form " ; and all who could work embroidered a species of fancy coat- of- arms, consisting of the borough seal supported on each side by riflemen in full uniform ; the crest was a rifleman's shako, and the motto below the whole fearsome arrangement was " Defence, not defiance." I think some of the more learned 211 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES ladies burst into the Latin for " For hearth and home," but I never saw this, my aunt being contented with a sentiment in which she most thoroughly agreed. There was great disappoint- ment when it became known that a rifle brigade is not allowed to possess colours. A vast scheme for working the flag was already on foot, but had to be dropped, and the work was confined to what were called banner screens; which in some cases were mounted on poles, and in others on a species of frame which screwed on the mantelpiece, and which arrangement was sup- posed to protect the eyes from the glare of the fire, and has long since fallen into utter disuse. The difficulty was not to find men in those days, but to pick out from those who volunteered in the widest sense of the word those who would be most useful if the worst came to the worst. The country gentlemen came in with their stalwart gamekeepers; the farmers crowded in with their labourers ; and the principal townsmen came forward at once, and brought in their train their servants, who were to a man literally spoiling for a fight. The danger of invasion was really believed to be so imminent that the men began to drill the moment their belts and bayonets were served out to them ; and many of the pictures in Punch of that day were not in the least exag- gerated. Stout fathers of families, their coats dragged in round their middles by the belts, resolutely practised the goose-step, and we used 212 DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY to repair to the Town Hall to watch the drill, and smile at the way in which imperious masters were lectured by the drill-sergeant, and put through their facings without the smallest difference made between them and their men. The sterner sex are always credited with the idea that dress is nothing whatever to them, but no girls pre- paring for their first ball were ever more excited than the new-made citizen-soldiers over the shape, colour, and style of their uniform. Great discussions ensued, particularly over the colour; and I think if the founders of the force could see what is now worn they would have a fit. Green, invisible green, was surely the best tint, they said, for men who would probably fight among the green hills and lanes of England ; what would they have remarked could they have beheld the present khaki, useful enough, no doubt, on the arid veldt or on a dry hillside, but looking as if it ought to be prominent indeed in the place where alone presumably it is to be used? Fortunately our choice was soon made, though grey was contemplated and some of the younger and more ambitious souls longed for scarlet; but the colonel was an old colonel of the Rifle Brigade ; his choice fell naturally on his own uniform, with a few small alterations ; the sealed patterns came down, and the local tailors fell to work, and were never so busy before, and I should say have certainly never been so over- worked since. 213 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES After the uniform question was settled the officers were at once intent on the rifles. The Crimean War had demonstrated the power of the new rifle ; and not one man doubted that, once armed with this formidable weapon, Eng- lishmen would be able to keep the foe at bay. If bowmen had protected their homes in the bygone days, surely the rifle was more than powerful enough to do the same, for when the hedgerows were lined with skilled marksmen, no enemy could possibly expect to escape with his Ufe. Once the question of the uniform was settled no one spoke of any other subject but rifles and rifle-shooting. The men were armed with the Snyder or Snyder-Enfield, a muzzle-loading rifle, as used in the Crimea, of which there were two patterns, one for the infantry, the long Enfield, the other for the artillery, the short Enfield. The short ramrod was also used as a cleaning rod, and was often missing at the end of a field-day, the zealous riflemen having forgotten to remove them before firing ; and, moreover, I can state as a fact that the desperate insult of the question, " Who shot the dog ? " levelled then at our men by the ever-rude street urchin, was deserved on more than one occasion, and could never be satisfactorily replied to, if truth were adhered to, at any rate. All the same these said rifles made Volunteering anything but play- work. The locks were most elaborate, and the parts thereof had to be accurately known by any one who was 214 DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY ambitious of qualifying as a musketry instructor, or of bearing the marksman's badge of crossed rifles on the sleeve. The manual exercise was a severe task, with its position drill, its loading and aiming drill ; and the work was made heavier by the men being taught in batches by a drill instructor; who often enough lost his patience and had a hard struggle not to talk to the gentle- men he was teaching, as he would have done to the ordinary " Tommy," with whom he was decidedly more at home and at his ease ! The bullets used at the butts were huge leaden missiles, and copper caps were still in demand. Moreover, the cartridges were the same kind of greased cartridges that were one of the causes of the Indian Mutiny, and were enclosed in tough blue paper which required the use of a set of stout teeth before the powder could be poured from the paper case down the barrel of the gun. Sometimes grains of the gunpowder were left in the paper, which was rammed into the gun on the top of the powder, and as this said paper was then a hard pellet, dangerous accidents happened now and then. Indeed, the much-loved martinet of a colonel lost one of his eyes when riding down the line at a rcAdew in front of a company, volley- firing with blank cartridges ! All was not exactly play in the old days of the Volunteers ! Small boys used to hang about the butts at that time, for after a practice they could glean quite a harvest of lead and of the small copper 215 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES caps, expanded into the shape of a tiny hat, after the rifles were fired off ! I should weary any one who was not a Volunteer by relating the different changes the rifle under- went before it came to its present perfection, but I have often wondered if any of the present- day crack shots could have done better than otir men did in those bygone times. One of our best marksmen would not have been enrolled by the recruiting sergeant of to-day. True he had a splendid set of teeth and could snatch off the end of the cartridge with any one. But he was a tin- smith, and for some reason or other connected with his trade had worked at a lathe for most of his life. The consequence was that one leg was so much stronger than the other that he never could keep in step ; the lathe leg was always in front of the other, and he was in consequence a great trial to the whole company on a march. All the same he could shoot, and distinguished himself one day by killing a rook with a rifle on the wild heath that surrounded the butts; and he was, moreover, one of the largest, if not the largest, prize-winners among a set of men who might be No. 2 Company, but were second to none when it came to carrying off the prizes. I often used to go into Brett's shop and have a long talk to him about the Volunteers. And I cannot help thinking that nothing will ever come up to that splendid force. It brought masters and men together as nothing '^else will ; 2l6 DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY the prizes then were a secondary consideration ; the men paid for their own uniform ; the County helped with prizes and their own presence ; and there was not a single public occasion where the Volunteers were not well to the fore and one of the most prominent features of the day. The only drawback was the fact that it was distinctly expensive to be an officer, and that unless a man was well off he could not do all he would to keep his company together. At first, under the real dread of a Napoleonic invasion, men who could well afford the expense were eager to be officers, but as the years went on they fell away, and the officering of the company was left to those who really wanted their money for other things. Open confession being good for the soul, let me at once state that I never rested until my particular officer gave up his commission and retired into private life, and now I am extremely sorry that I was so very stupid. He was as a youth, only just of the proper age, one of the first men to join ; he was an excellent shot, had passed at Hythe, had figured at the review in Hyde Park by the Queen in 1861, and had, more- over, gone over to Brussels and been feted at the Belgian Court with a few more fellow officers, and beside that had shot more than once for the Queen's Prize at Wimbledon, though he did not succeed in getting into the first hundred. Now in London one heard nothing but sneers at the Volunteers ; our beloved Punch took 217 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES hilarious views of the movement ; the sight of a Volunteer in uniform going off to drill in his hardly-earned spare time meant jeers and gibes from cab and omnibus drivers and from small boys alike. Volunteers to me meant mockery. I could not see what they really were, but for several years I said nothing, albeit I thought much, until the captain of our company gave up ; there was no one except my special volunteer to take his place, and he then resigned. It was too expensive unless we spent less on ourselves. Now I should do so most willingly ; then I was rejoiced to think there would be no more calls on our purse, and no more smoking concerts and suppers, for appearing at which a special coat had to be kept. No after airing could remove the scent of the tobacco used, and as it was of a strong and appalling nature the coat itself had to live in a separate room until it was required for another similar occasion. I should much like to know why we one and all of us learn everything in life just too late to be of the smallest use, and, moreover, why what we have learned we can never pass on to any other person? It appears a waste that should not be allowed in a world where they tell us nothing whatever ever is or can be wasted. I know this : there is not one single action of my life of any moment that, had I the chance, I should not do in an entirely different way to what I did, and this very Volunteer matter is 218 DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY one of those I really do deplore. For had I had the common sense to see what it meant I should have forgotten the jeers of Punch, and should have helped in every way I could to keep the company going and up to its very utmost strength. The only thing that I personally did enjoy was the yearly camp, the first one of which was greeted by an almost universal wail of despair from the wives and mothers of the men concerned. Open-air treatment was unknown in those days. Open windows were rare, and regarded with very great suspicion, and a person who dared to sleep with an open window would have been considered a lunatic, without the least doubt at all. What, what would happen, then, to those who, even in the height of summer, could be so rash as to contemplate spending a whole week under canvas, a mere tent being the only shelter provided between the men and the weather ? But it was a glorious experience, and a most perfect success. As if to encourage the men, that special week was one of splendid weather, and I do not remember hearing of one single contretemps. The camp itself was situated close to the sea, in a green valley between two hills, on one of the most ex- quisite parts of the southern coast, and we drove over more than once to see how the men were all getting on. My aunt was anxious about her somewhat elderly spouse, and we were all im- mensely excited at seeing the youths and men we knew so well in civil life gorgeous in their 319 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES new uniform and trying hard to look as if they never under any circumstances could be anything save the soldiers they very well resembled in every single particular. It was curious, too, how the new life developed traits in individuals that otherwise would never have come to light. The stout little tailor who had made many of the uniforms, and whose taste and style in civi- lian garments was quite enough to make Beau Brummel arise from his dishonoured grave and curse aloud; suddenly became a most admirable quartermaster ; no one knows to this day how he managed it, but never was a mess better supplied and never were men better catered for than by this special man. Musicians, too, sprang to birth when a band was required. Buglers were found practising the calls at most unseemly hours and in most untoward places; and some months before the camp our malt-houses were requisitioned ; and there the band met and prac- tised until all within hearing devoutly wished either, that they were temporarily deaf, or that the band would disappear into space. I have often heard Thomas Hardy say that a great deal of the decadence of village life is due to the fact that the old instrumental choirs have been abolished in favour of an organ and a surpliced choir ; and that the pleasure given to the men of the smallest villages by being allowed to play in these orchestras was enormous. Judging by the way our band used to practise, I can quite 220 DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY corroborate this statement, for not only were the bi-weekly practices carried out in the fullest manner, but individual members of the band practised at home, and one often heard weird wailing sounds proceeding after dark from the cottages in the town; while one rhan even practised the bugle calls on a concertina, so that he should not be at a loss when he heard them in the field and had to obey them. The greatest day at the camp was a species of field-day, when the colonel brought some grand real soldier to the review, and proudly displayed to him his useful lot of men. No one nowadays would comprehend the excitement this day caused. The County folk came in their great carriages ; the townsfolk came in pony chariots, and the nondescript vehicles always known as " four-wheels " and " dog-traps " brought others ; while the farmers harnessed their best horses to their largest waggons, and brought in the wives and children of the men, whom they scarcely expected to find had survived the hardships of the terrible week spent out in the open and not under the thatch in the unventilated, crowded bedrooms that were their usual share. The officers vied with each other in the arrangement and decoration of their tents, and those who had been at Wimbledon made small gardens in front of theirs, emulating those they had seen in that far-distant spot, while every place was tidied up and made to look spick and span indeed ! 221 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES The officers, too, asked their friends to lunch in the mess-tent, and proud indeed were those among the townsfolk whose sons or husbands were in a position to invite them to share the meal with the most exclusive set in the most exclusive county in England, And though we did not go as far as did a neighbouring battalion and make all officers free to attend the County ball as long as they remained officers, the privilege of the yearly luncheon in the great mess-tent was considered very great ; and I could smile were it not such a pathetic thing to recollect how much more the remains of the " County " desire to lunch nowadays with the despised outsider, than do the outsiders of that day ; now the very core and centre of the social life, such as it is, aspire to bid them share the over- filled tables at which they one and all sit down ! I wish I could describe the exquisite beauty of the splendid camp-fire which used to round up the eventful week, for it was a sight, once seen, that could never be forgotten. I was spending the whole day at the camp on the first occasion when I saw the fire, and had had many and varied experiences. First was the review, with its volley-firing and its to me incomprehensible manoeuvres ; then came the gorgeous lunch, and then a rest in the tent, where I and my sister- in-law sat on the bed, and though very tired were far too hilarious to rest. I should have thought we were making noise enough to be heard, but 222 DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY unfortunately we were not, as presently we heard the splashing of water, and, looking up, perceived that a couple of the officers were indulging in a bath just in front of the tent in the most unconcerned manner possible. As we could not move without their seeing us, we crouched down on the bed and hoped that we might escape without their being aware of our presence, and we managed, I am glad to say, to "lie low," like Brer Rabbit; but whenever I was asked if I knew the gallant captain and his son I always replied, " No, I can't say I know them, although I may remark that at one time I saw a very great deal of them." If any one lives who re- collects this somewhat cryptic remark of mine they will now comprehend precisely what I meant by it. When we had had our tea and the dinner was over in the mess-tent, we were fetched to climb the hill from whence we should obtain the best view of the fire which the men were arranging and were about to set alight. We slipped and slid up and down the grass heavy with dew, and at last we reached the top. On the right hand lay the sea, already lighted by an August moon, and down in the hollow stood the serried rows of white tents, while round the great heap of faggots soon to burst into blaze ; scurried and ran the men, arranging seats, bringing up drinks, and all trying their best to arrange for the com' fort of their crowding visitors. Presently a bugle sounded ; four men thrust lighted torches into 223 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES the brushwood, a round of cheers went up, and all settled down to the business of the night. The flames leaped higher and higher, the smoke blew away from the sea ; tiny atoms of lighted brushwood flew about and simulated firefUes. And then presently another bugle sounded ; all was quiet ; a tall, picturesque figure, clad in the dark grey uniform great- coat, came forward out of the mass, and a splendid tenor voice rose and sang until our eyes filled with tears, and I at least felt that thrill through me which one cannot describe, but that means an emotion so great that it is almost pain, but that I would not be without for anything in the wide world. That singer is long since dead. He was stone-deaf; he was one who was ever in the foremost movements of the time, an advanced Liberal, a wise, far-seeing man ; but I remember him, when all else have forgotten him, for his exquisite voice; and only once since have I ever heard any one sing as he did. That was at the Winchester Pageant. Doubtless that singer was well known to fame : I cannot say ; his name did not appear ; for me he will always remain a voice, as will the man who sang at the Lulworth camp in the 'sixties, when life and love were young and the world and all about us seemed to be indeed very good. A perceptible pause followed the song ; then an imperative encore. He sang again; the fire burned fiercely ; and presently my aunt remarked that it was late and extremely damp : oh, the 224 DEFENDERS OF THEIR COUNTRY horrid interruption ! She was bearing off my uncle; we were to go too. We clambered down into the valley ; the horses trotted slowly up the vast hill; and the last things we saw were the brushwood fireflies drifting up the valley ; the last things we heard a somewhat riotous comic song with a rousing chorus that followed us up the hill and almost reconciled us to the abrupt termination to our most delightful day. Nowadays camps are stern duty, severe discipline ; there are no camp-fires, no visitors, no splendid luncheons in vast and magnificent tents ; there is no playing at soldiers, and Volunteering has ceased to be. I have not the least doubt that the Territorial Army will be an army ; but I am also perfectly sure that it will never take the place of our Volunteers, when each camp was an epoch, the prize-shooting and prize-giving events of the greatest importance ; and when masters and men all rallied round the drum, determined to with- stand any invader, and to keep their own country at any rate inviolate. The motto is now " Pro Patria " — that may mean anything ; my country — aright or wrong — ^is an excellent sentiment ; all the same I like the old idea better, " Defence, not defiance," one's hearth and home. Citizen soldiers defend their city ; they need not go abroad and fight, justly or unjustly ; but should be reserved for home work, and that only. At least that is my opinion, and I give it for what it is worth, and that is most probably nothing at all. r 225 CHAPTER IX FINDING THE GENERAL Some one has said that any one person's life holds material for a first-class novel. I hope there may be some truth in the remark, for it is impossible to make my life after I was married as generally entertaining as it undoubtedly was before that auspicious occasion. But forty years ago is as fresh in my mind as yesterday's doings, and I can recollect every single thing that happened as if it had only just occurred ; and I wish devoutly that some of the things at least could be forgotten. All the same I set out to tell the story, and having now reached the time when I joined the noble army of matrons let me continue it truthfully, and then, if neces- sary, for ever after hold my peace : at least about myself. I do not think any one was ever so miserable in the whole world as I was when I had been married about a couple of years and understood what I had let myself in for. As long as I could get about with my husband and we were left alone things were right enough, 226 FINDING THE GENERAL but when I had become a mother my life was one long nightmare ; and I honestly confess I never left the house without expecting to find one of the children had died in my absence, or met with some fearful accident that would be almost as bad as death itself. In those days, too, a brewer in the country had to work as few men work in these degenerate days ; and though my husband was supposed only to attend to one half the work, the whole fell on his shoulders. His brother was not fond of work at any time, and left all to the one, who from those days to these has done more hard, real work than any one else in his position ever did; of that I am quite sure. I have known him rise at six, and be in and about the brewery Until a quarter to ten at night, of course coming in for a short time at meals ; and we have often had our Sunday- night supper interrupted by the engineer, waiting for orders at the dining-room door while supper went on, and the orders for his night work were accurately laid down for him during the meal. There were no half-holidays then on a Saturday for either masters or men, and no early closing ; we have often had our dinner at ten instead of the then orthodox hour of seven. Luncheon might come off, or it might not ; while breakfast, nominally at eight-thirty, might be then or at any hour : all depended on the letters of the day : what "orders " there were, and where the carters had to be sent. Sometimes in a hurry 227 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES to some out-of-the-way public-house on a most detestable road. At first I used to watch for the departure of our foreman down the lane, which was the signal that the men had all departed, and that only my husband was left in the office to finish the day's work, while sometimes his brother and the engineer were up in the brewing house watching the development of some pet mash. I can see Gould now, a tall, slouching figure of a man, as he slunk down past my window, the keys of the great gates in his hand, and being met by some of his very numerous boys and girls. Then I used to go into the office and " post the ledgers " ; and if those old books are still in existence they contain columns and columns of figures which would speak for themselves of the share I had in the day's work. I knew nothing of book-keeping and business, but I soon learned, and I am convinced that if I had been allowed to continue the work : as most Frenchwomen are whose husbands are in business : I should have developed really fine business capacities, and, moreover, an understanding of what money means and what it can do that would have been more invaluable than I can say. But unfortunately my brother-in-law had a wife, and between her and myself a regular feud raged ; or rather on my side the feud took the foolish form of ignoring a personality that was inimical to me ; on her side it was raging always, and I cannot blame her in that it did. Had I had the 228 FINDING THE GENERAL wisdom of my present years there would have been no feud at all ; we should have been respectful acquaintances instead of foolish, quar- relling, female idiots ! When she found I was helping my husband, she of course must help her own ; there was not room for the two of us, and I gave up the books and retired from the work, which I had learned by that time to love. I am no advocate for women's rights, but I do think that a woman has a right to help her husband. Our oflfice was reached through our garden, and a sentimental fancy makes me still keep the office key, although the lock is long since changed. My evenings were never dull when I could slip in there and take my part in the work; they became appalling simply, when I could no longer do it. Then I began to look round for something to do. I could not sew or draw ; I had not then taken to writing ; and though I scribbled extremely long letters to my sisters, which I devoutly wish they had kept, for they used to assure me they were quite as amusing as novels; I could not write all the evening. Books and papers were scarce, no one ever " came in " in the good old Pembridge Villas way, and I have often and often gone down to what we called the " lower garden," and, watching the river from my pet seat under the privet-hedge ; wondered if I should not be wise to slip in "by accident," and so put an end to an existence that began to bore me more frightfully than I can say. I used to think 329 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES of our hilarious parties ; of the roll of the trafl&c, like the sound of the sea on the distant shore away across the hills ; of the theatres and parties I once despised; and I thought of how my life was slipping away, age approaching: I was twenty-four: and nothing to do, nothing to hear or see, save the eternal gossip of the towns- folk and the countryside, which I had not then learned how to appreciate as I now do, when it is once more out of my reach. Life was teaching me lessons then that I recognise now, but that then I would not learn, and I was almost deter- mined to cast off every tie of love and duty that I had, when rescue came to me in the somewhat foolish form of private theatricals. But such theatricals ! I had, of course, done the usual Id on parle Franpais and The Area Belle and other trifles at home, and our " dumb crambo " and " charades " were features at our Christmas parties, but I had never taken part in a real play, and here was I offered the leading lady's rdle in New Men and Old Acres by my dearest North Street friend, and really was considered good enough to take on one of Ellen Terry's familiar parts. Life sparkled once more and became full of life ; my aunt and other married ladies in the town were constrained to " deal with me faithfully," but he who in a long, hard life has never once failed me, spoke out and told me to go on : it was just what I ought to do. So without the slightest quake then I made 230 FINDING THE GENERAL my dSbut on the boards ; and after nearly forty years I think I may say I did so with the most unquaUfied success, and began an amusement that never failed me until I left the town alto- gether, and went where such means of passing the time were no longer necessary. The staging of New Men and Old Acres was made memorable inasmuch that we had Kegan Paul as our prompter, and among the audience of the first night was Dr. AUman, then of Parkstone, the great botanist, and Sir Joseph Hooker, of Kew. Moreover, the whole of the scenery and the stage were made and arranged in the North Street house, and looked like fairyland, while our success was so great that we were asked to repeat it for a charity, and we filled the new Corn Ex- change to repletion and sent a substantial sum of money to the county hospital. Moreover, one of our actors was the present Sir William AUchin, and he made one of the hilarious band who, the next day, went out into the heath beyond the town and was present at the solemn and most delightful ceremony of finding the General. Unfortunately, on the night of the last rehearsal we could not light the stage in a satisfactory manner, and we suspended all the carriage lamps we could find, on the back of the proscenium or else on one of the wings. I was leaning forward looking at the stage with my hand on Mr. Kegan Paul's shoulder, when bang, crash came down one of the lamps on his head. 331 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES I caught the lamp fortunately before it could set fire to anything, but seeing gore begin to flow I fled and sent Dr. AUchin to bind up the wound, that deprived us of our prompter for the time, and prevented him from being one of the party that went to look for the General. Not that we set out to find any one so illustrious, but we were about to open a barrow which had never been touched since the time when Romans and Britons fought across the heath; and the con- quering Romans built their villas there ; later on leaving them to fall to pieces ; with only huge mounds to show v/here the slain were laid. I am not at all sure that I like being present when these secret places are laid bare, but most certainly that occasion was a very thrilling one. When we arrived at the barrow we found that the top had been removed under the instructions of the Master and Sir Joseph Hooker, and that they were waiting for us to dig deeper. Already we found tiny glass beads and some queerly shaped pieces of bone, and we began to feel eerie. The men advanced, and under directions began to dig, or rather scratch away, the soil. They were stopped by a signal from the Master, and presently Sir Joseph, Dr. AUman, and the Master went down on their knees, and literally dug with their hands, gradually getting out a perfect urn; quite an enormous one, of baked earth or clay, with an indented pattern all round the edge and covering the sides, which they inspected with the greatest 232 FINDING THE GENERAL awe and reverence, and proclaimed with one voice that there was no such specimen of urn- burial even in the British Museum itself ! The urn was pronounced to hold the calcined bones of some great general, and one of the authorities declared that this fact would be proved by the finding of other smaller urns, north, south, east, and west of the General. So the digging began once more, and north of the bigger urn was discovered a very much smaller and equally perfect urn ; but this was put back : there were similar urns already in the Museum; and I honestly was glad when the funeral rites were over, and, minus " the General," the barrow was restored as much as possible to its pristine state. There were no papers then to send down corre- spondents, and none save ourselves knew about the opening of the barrow, but I often look towards it and recollect the hilarious day we spent once the digging was over and we could settle down to what was then the most amusing part, namely, the open-air picnic, and the riotous dance to our own sweet voices, undeterred by the fact that every time we crossed and recrossed in the lancers and quadrilles we had to leap a ditch. The spectacle of the Master, Sir Joseph, and Dr. AUman leaping this ditch was a sight for gods and men, and added considerably to the joy of the successful and delightful day. I am not sure if it were on that occasion or if it were later on that we showed the scientists the moonwort 233 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES fern, the great Cornish heath, the blue gentian, and above all the cruel fly-eating sundew, that appears so innocent and yet is such a murderous creature, but I do know that the Osmunda regalis was one of the prizes of that special day ; and that Dr. Allman took up some vast roots to plant in his garden, where he had a perfect collection of all sorts and kinds of water plants and ferns. Now comes the tragedy of the General, made even more tragic by the fact that the Master had taken us over the site of the Roman villa which might have seen the battle in which the General fell ; and had told of the elaborate pavement and pillars he had found, only to allow them to be covered in again. All except one pillar which stood in his conservatory and which is reproduced opposite, and on which later on the General himself was placed to be photographed in the very unsatisfactory manner of those days. When we had conveyed the precious urn back to the house and the photograph was safely accomplished, the Master looked about for the least dangerous place in which to keep the General until the next day, when the scientists were to take it up to the British Museum, and to obtain the exact date and age of the urn. We had had just one glimpse at the contents, which appeared to me to consist of calcined bones, enwrapped in a species of cere- cloth, for I think the top of the urn had been removed by unsealing it, by Sir Joseph Hooker's careful hands. Anyhow, I know we all gazed 234 ■ *H !WI » iii » .i VH l y , H '*" PILLAR FROM ROMAN VILLA. FINDING THE GENERAL with awe as he unrolled the cloth and let the bits of bone appear, and I was glad when he closed it down and fastened it securely ; and we one and all most flatly refused to spend the night with the urn in our rooms. Even the Master could not prevail on his wife to have it on her dressing-table, and we were at our wits' end. To the best of my recollection the scientific men were staying at the local inn, and as they were dining in North Street would have to leave it alone for some hours at least. In North Street there were eight or nine remarkably curious infants, ranging from eight or nine upwards. What was to be done ? Finally the Master recollected an ancient clock that had stood on a bracket in the hall for more years than he could recollect. It was only reached by the green- house ladder, used once a week to wind the clock. With many groans the clock was removed, the bracket carefully tested and dusted, and then with great ceremony Sir Joseph ascended the ladder and, placing the General there, came down, and we all sighed with relief, ate a large and excellent dinner, kissed our hands to the General and went on our respective ways rejoicing. In the middle of the night the Master and his wife were aroused from sleep ; she said by a series of awful groans, he said by one tremendous crash : They both jumped out of bed. Still neither thought of the General. But after ascertaining that the house had not fallen, and that all the 235 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES children were in bed and asleep, the Master proceeded downstairs. There in the hall lay the General, smashed to pieces, while the bracket remained in its place, and apparently was looking with scorn at the burden it had cast off. How the General fell from his perch was never ascer- tained ; we of course liked to believe that his haughty spirit had returned to earth and resented the fact that his remains were exposed to view, but I fear that neither of the baulked scientists took this side of the question. They were heard to suggest boys and long poles, though as the boys were found fast asleep in their beds I really don't think they had anything whatever to do with the matter. The remains of the General were gathered together, the urn was patched together as well as it could be, and I think Sir Joseph took that away, but we solemnly conveyed the horrid bones and the cere-cloths back to the barrow and buried them there, where they had lain so long undisturbed. I cannot say I like these human remains dug up and dealt with ; after all they once were human, and were most undoubtedly of like fashion with ourselves ! I once saw the skeletons of four Roman soldiers discovered ; they were at Max Gate, where Thomas Hardy now lives, and where he was then building his house ; and a very uncanny sight it was. They lay out gaunt and straight in a white chalk grave. For two thousand years they had slept there out of sight, with urns at their feet, and golden rings and fibulae, now in the 236 FINDING THE GENERAL Dorchester Museum, and some in Mr. Hardy's own house. But I should not care to have these things myself. They must have become sentient in the two thousand years they lay hid among the bones of the soldiers, and I should expect them to talk together o' nights, even if the spirits of the original owners did not stalk out of the darkness and come and claim them for their own. From the date of the finding of the General life for me at any rate took on a far more hilarious guise. Kegan Paul was then living within access of us, and he often came over to luncheon and had long talks with us all. He then had pupils in his quiet rectory. One of these held the title of a Spanish duke, and he endeavoured to live up to it. He looked undoubtedly as a Spaniard should, and as he wore a large slouch hat and a cloak, the end of which he cast over one shoulder when he strolled about investigating the town, he created quite a sensation, and I was very sorry when, his education being finished, he went away to join his mother in France. She was an English countess, and I suppose our romantic youthful friend was the son of an earlier marriage ; yet they were a weird couple. She believed she was the reincarnation of Mary Queen of Scots, and mother and son were both strong spiritualists. She is long since dead, and as I have not heard of him for many years I expect he is dead too. However, I have never forgotten our strolls across the windy Causeway, he trying in vain to keep his hat and cloak in order, and I trying 237 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES equally vigorously to talk to him and ignore the presence of sundry small boys and girls at our heels, who were following him and trying to make out what his most extraordinary costume meant. While I took the Due de P for a walk Kegan Paul was planning further diversions for us ; he it was who suggested we should have regular readings of Shakespeare's plays or evenings from the different poets, and though he most certainly never came over for these occasions, we had most hilarious gatherings. Whether we any of us knew more about Shakespeare than we did before they began I cannot say ; anyhow these readings brought us all together and gave us something to look forward to from week to week. Any one who knows the town now would never credit for one instant that such gatherings were possible, but then there were at least ten separate houses where they could be held, and we went from house to house until the winter was over and we could turn our minds to out- door sports. The food was restricted to sand- wiches, cake, and mulled claret, so that there should be no rivalry in the entertainment, and only one of us broke the rule ; but as the offender was a bachelor and gave us the most excellent sparkUng Moselle and tongue sandwiches he was forgiven. His entertainment was the best of all ; for it is a curious fact that when a bachelor does entertain " on his own " he does it better than any one else in the wide world. 238 FINDING THE GENERAL If our dear friend at the bank gave the best entertainment, my aunt succeeded in giving the most hilarious one, albeit she did not mean it to be so by any means. The play was Hamlet, and my eldest cousin; one of the very best amateur actors who ever existed ; was cast for the title r6le ; and while all the rest of us were begged to leave out as much of our parts as we could, while my aunt kept an eye on the clock, Hamlet was unabridged, and I question if we should ever have finished, had not the ghost had a shght quarrel with Polonius, who had btu-st into shrieks of laughter at the deep ghostly tone of voice in which Hamlet's father read his part. Then a further interruption was caused by the arrival of the bedroom candlesticks on a tray as the clock struck ten, when my uncle woke from his slumber in his deep armchair, rubbed the back of his head, and gazed around. Then he said: " Here still ! Why, I thought it was to-morrow morning," on which remarkably broad hint the party broke up. None of us had read much of our parts, and though we were invited to com- plete Hamlet the following week, we preferred to continue the regular round, and from that day to this we never finished the melancholy Dane's story. In the year 1873 we had several most amusing excursions, and one in particular was to see the Devastation, one of the first big armoured ships, which was then in Portland, and which we looked 239 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES all over with great joy and pride. I have not the least doubt that it would appear quite an infant beside the Devastations of the present day, but the size appeared to us enormous, and we were to see it again under very terrifying cir- cumstances a little later on in the year. The Shah of Persia had arrived in England, and a great review was to be held in his honour at Spithead, and our adventurous friend the Master determined that we should one and all be present and see the review for ourselves. The Master never had the least idea of danger, and fear was a feeling he could not comprehend at all, and as we knew him thoroughly we had no arriere yensde when we consented to make one of his party. It was the 23rd of June, and we arranged to meet on the quay at 4.30 a.m. and start out on our perilous adventure. The Master possessed a small swift steamer which he used to tug his clay- vessels down to the bigger town, whence the clay they contained could be put into larger vessels and so be taken on to its destination in Stafford- shire, and it was this steamer, cleaned, swept, and garnished, in which we were to adventure forth ! It was a most exquisite day, a perfect June morning, and we were one and all only half awake, yet still we were true to time, and only waited for the Master. Presently he came sauntering along towards us in his slippers and without his coat, and just as the town clock struck five the housemaid was seen flying over 240 FINDING THE GENERAL the bridge ; in one hand she bore his coat, in the other his boots ; and as we ghded away from the quay he finished his toilet, while we looked and laughed at him and wondered what he would do next. There are now only three survivors of that happy company; all the rest are dead; and I much wonder if the one living beside ourselves recollects the agonised sufferings we endured during the day ! All went well as long as we were not in the open sea ; the Master, and indeed most of us, knew the intricate channel that leads to the wide harbour and then out to sea as well as we knew the town ; but the open sea meant something quite different. To me at least until that fearsome day, the sea was the sea and nothing else ; and it was only when I saw Sturmey steering by a chart, and heard him and the Master conduct an animated dispute as to the whereabouts of sundry shoals and pitfalls, that I realised that sailing is not always plain sailing, and that it requires knowledge to steer a toy steamer, even in the Solent. Anyhow, we arrived at Spithead, and here more troubles awaited us ; gigantic excursion steamers appeared ready to crush the life out of us, and presently we came to a stop close under the great Devasta- tion herself, meaning to see the Royal yacht from under her stern. But the instant the Royal ya,cht was in sight the great guns above us belched out smoke and flame. The boards under our feet appeared to start apart ; we could Q 241 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES not see each other, let alone the coming Shah, we could not hear a sound, and I for one sat in the most abject terror of what must come next when suddenly the Master gave an order ; we crept out from o\ir shelter, and just as the Royal yacht came gliding by he dashed after her, and we went up and down between the hnes of the ships as if we were the Royal yacht, pursued presently by a smaller steam pinnace bearing Prince Edward of Saxe- Weimar, whose language was so emphatic that we heard it despite the guns. But the Master took no notice, steamed on, passed the Royal yacht, where we saw the Shah well, and then he turned, bolted under the bows of another enormous ship, and made straight for the shelter of the neighbouring Isle of Wight. I never in all my life experienced such a fearftd day of fright, and when we were landed, I think at Yarmouth, to obtain some provisions for the return journey I swore that nothing would get me on the steamer again. However, the worst of the danger was over ; it began to blow a little; the Master wanted to return quickly, as the Channel up the river at night was rather difficult to negotiate. We left three or four sea-sick victims who had, I think, to sleep on the pier, so crowded was the island for the review, and off we set, getting home about 2.30 a.m., for the night turned out a " nasty " one. One of our celebrated south-westerly winds and mists was about; we had literally to feel our way up 24a FINDING THE GENERAL the river, every one on board advising the Master as he steered to take a different course ; but he smiled and said nothing. All the same I think he was as glad as we were when he landed his cold and dripping crew at the quay, when we rushed home to find our old nurse almost in hysterics. She expected us home long before we arrived, and had, of course, come to the con- clusion that we had one and all found a watery grave. One more excursion we had on the steamer, and that was round to Swanage to see the launch of the first lifeboat that was ever placed there, and then I really did expect to be swamped. When we came out of the harbour into the sea we found half a gale blowing, and we suggested that we should be quite happy to return home. But the Master laughed our fears to scorn, told the males of the party to see we were not washed overboard, and after tying the stout and faithful cook to the funnel he proceeded on his way. I personally loved that voyage. Coward as I am, I am not afraid of the open sea, and I shall never forget how we raced up and down the waves, while the cook, reduced to the last stage of misery by sea-sickness and fright, allowed herself to be washed to and fro on the deck without putting out a hand to save herself, while her ample form in its crinoletted petticoats swayed hither and thither until I began to think the poor creature must be dead. Indeed, the life- 243 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES boat crew thought we were to be the first people they should have the honour of rescuing, and got ready to come out to us, when we managed to get into the bay and up to the little wooden pier, where we disembarked. The steamer re- turned by itself as far as the guests were concerned ; we hired a carriage of a primitive kind and drove home, and I for one never attempted another steamer trip as long as I remained in the neigh- bourhood. I cannot quite recollect when the ultra- detestable institution of Bank Holidays began, but judging from my diaries I should think it was about 1874. There were holidays at the bank before theti, but they were only four, and our principal holidays were Whit-Monday and the Queen's Accession, called Ascension Day by the townsfolk, who never recognised any other time as worthy of that name, and on both these occasions the different clubs used to walk. I recollect the Foresters principally because they wore such weird and remarkable clothes and because they always carried the most enormous banners and emblems into church, and because some of them were mounted on quite old cart- horses, and wore green tunics and hats with feathers in them. Those who walked did so in couples, each man's little finger entwined with the little finger of his companion, while the whole town looked on and made holiday. The church bells rang frantically and brass bands 244 FINDING THE GENERAL played loudly, and a vast feast was held in a tent, where speeches were made, to which ladies were not admitted. They came in to tea and joined in a wild dance in the field, and all went as merry as a marriage bell. I find in my diary for 1874 the remark on the August Bank Holiday, "Disgusting day; general holiday; most people drunk " ; a remark not to be found either before or since. Certainly I never saw any drunkenness after the club walking, any more than one sees it now ! I know we were very sorry when the " club walking " ceased, and for some years I wondered what had become of the enormous " open hand " and the weird banners that were carried. I saw the banners or their fellows at more than one demonstration during the present year, but the great gold hand on a pole that used to be the most prominent feature in church while the service was going on has disappeared, at least as far as I am concerned. When our club walking and our summer excursions were over we began to seriously look forward to the winter. We had had enough of Shakespeare, and we each settled to choose a poet, and I, with a trifle more swagger than was prudent, selected Browning. Will it be believed that my copy, given me by Shirley Brooks on my wedding day, in four neat blue volumes, was the only one in the town, and that more than one of our most enlightened friends had never heard of the poet ? They had heard of 245 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES his wife, so selections from her poems being accessible we decided on her, and had no doubt a far more entertaining evening than we other- wise should. Then came the still more important subject of choosing our Christmas play, and will it be believed that our manageress selected The Rivals ? In vain I begged for Caste ; our mana- geress was a great believer in costume plays ; and I was given " Lydia Languish," and immediately was plunged into the utmost gloom and despair. In October 1873 I went to London, and had the good fortune to meet my dearly loved god- father, Mr. E. M. Ward, the Academician, and he somewhat raised my drooping spirits. Mr. Ward was without exception the dearest and kindest of men, although he once deeply hurt me by telling me that as I was born in October the only flowers I could have for my birthday wreath and crown were dahlias, and that in consequence earwigs would walk all over my cake. All the same he gave me my first wax doll. Alas ! her career was a short one ; my sister sat down on her waxen countenance and reduced her to pieces, a crime I have never forgotten, though it happened much more than fifty years ago. And once more my godfather came to my aid ; cheered me up much about " Lydia," and sent me the sketch for her dress reproduced here, which speaks for itself. Unfortunately I was not able to wear it ; my father-in-law died ; the theatricals came off without me ; and we put 246 '/«-«, 0^*<»*<,-»'*-^^ (55^^ «-^-»' y^^^ ~^^V^uP^ltA^ ^ i/*^ *^ ^*0 LYDIA LANGUISH. FINDING THE GENERAL the first flowers ever seen at a local funeral on his coflBn, emblems in moss and violets to betoken that he was a freemason, and a cross to show the faith he had held strenuously through a somewhat extraordinary career. But he was of an age that took its rehgion on a Sunday only, when he made himself and others very uncomfortable for the day; and quite forgot the obligations of his special form during the week, as was the custom in those long since dead days of one's youth. The visit to the Wards should have a few more words, I think, for they were then living at Windsor, and we had revisited all our old haunts of 1863 and 1864, when we lived there for some months when my father was painting the marriage of the then Prince of Wales — " Uncle Wales' wedding," as that enfant terrible the German Emperor called the picture. But all was the same in the Castle; the same hideous carpets, and green and crimson damask-hung walls in the awful corridors ; and the dreadful gloom still hung about Queen Victoria's private rooms, aijd we were glad to get away from it down the beau- tiful Long Walk to the Wards' house. It was the last time I saw my godfather, his handsome wife and splendid family. Many of the beautiful girls and boys are dead and gone ; but I do not think I ever saw such a good-looking family, and I wish some day that we might all meet again ! We were naturally quiet for a few weeks after 247 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES my father-in-law was buried, but the town was soon plunged into warfare over the formation of its first Local Board. How amusing it is to recollect how we raged and fumed over its personality, how we fought for reform and did not get it, and how we burned with passion when the reactionary party came in in full force, and we were one and all beaten on the subject of proper drainage, a good water-supply, baths and wash-houses, and the hundred and one things we deemed necessary to social salvation ! To obtain money for some of these schemes we got up a bazaar. Papa sent me down the sketch of " Pamela," which sold for £12 12s., and took him, I expect, about as many minutes to do. But all was in vain: we were beaten, and the party of "no progress " came in in triumph, as I remarked before, and things remained in the bad old state until long after we had left the town. But 1874 was a bad year for me. My dearest friend died of typhoid fever in October and when my second son was born in December, my dear old nurse died after a few hours' illness, and life seemed so. black that it really never became quite as joyous again ! She was in my room at twelve, and I told her I had seen in the looking- glass the temporary nurse drinking brandy out of the bottle. She said she would take care it did not happen again. At six she was dead, her last act being to put out her hand to prevent 248 PAMELA. FINDING THE GENERAL the cot in which one of the children slept to be moved. Her first and last idea was duty, and she died : oh, gallant soul ! as she had lived, in harness. Just a few words about her before I close this chapter and go on to more of our country life. She had been married, but as she always said " Men were a pore lot," I fancy her venture had been a bad one. She had never had a husband in all the years I had known her ; and she could not have had any calls on her purse, for when our lawyer came at my request to take over her belongings, and separate them from mine : he found nearly one hundred pounds in bank-notes in her cupboard. The first one bearing a date that denoted she was given it at my eldest brother's birth : so long ago that had it been put out to interest, it would have doubled itself before it was found among her dresses, sixteen of which, of all sorts and patterns, were in her cupboards among an accumulation of odds and ends that was simply astonishing. To complete the story of dear Nan. She was to appear to me once again in my dreams on the night of the 10th of June, 1875, when I certainly had a most extraordinary dream, or I should say series of dreams. I dreamed that all that night Nan was stretching her skeleton hands out of the grave and was trying to drag one of us in. The whole ten of us were standing round her grave, and I could see her as well as if it were daylight. Three times I awoke in 249 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES horror and told my husband ; manlike, he re- marked, " Go to sleep and don't talk nonsense." But my dream obsessed me. I told it to my nursery governess at breakfast, and to some friends I had to dinner. Next morning I had a letter to say Willie was dead, had been dying all that night, and they had not wired, as they should have done, to let me know. Of course the town believed I had concealed the fact of his death so that my dinner-party need not be given up. No one save the dear old nurse from her grave had warned me, and my brother had been dead twenty-four hours before I knew that he was even ill. Peace to his memory. He was only twenty-six, and was just beginning to do well. Perhaps the finding of the General meant more than appeared at first sight, for truly since the day we violated his tomb ill-luck has dogged our footsteps, which, considering it was the Master who dug him up and we only looked on, seems a trifle unfair. All the same I think he has had something to do with the many unhappy things which have now and again somewhat spoiled our lives. 250 CHAPTER X " COME OUT : 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER ! " When we were first married, and, indeed, for some years after, September was our season, our month of months. It is curious to look back through the volumes of diaries I still keep by me, and notice that for one solid fortnight we dined out or had people to dinner every single night; and I recollect with a shudder all I endured when it was my turn to be hostess, and my special dinner-party was on my mind: really from one year to the other. It is easy enough now to entertain in the country, and besides that I bought my experience reriarkably dearly, and am in consequence much more able to cope with the housekeeping than I was then. Indeed, I remember with pride that when some Uttle time ago I was living for a while at least eight miles from a shop Mr. Barry Pain, who was staying with me, remarked that he could not understand where the food came from. Nothing was ever forgotten, and we had always a sufi&ciently varied menu to please even his 251 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES fastidious taste ! But early in the 'seventies housekeeping was a real toil in a country town, where fish was quite unobtainable unless we caught an occasional salmon, or a, to me, horrible jack; when one's cook was not sufficiently skilled to manage a " party " soup, and where nothing out of the way could either be made or bought. Bought ! The housekeepers of that day would have had fits had they known what I did buy. But when I married I was absolutely ignorant of housekeeping in every shape or form, and though I knew what we used to have at home for a dinner-party I had not the smallest idea how it was made. So I invariably sent to Southampton for my soup and fish and for any extra-superior sweet with which I hoped to cut out the giver of the last extensive party. Papa was accustomed to come down then to us for ten days for the shooting, and he was the hero and guest of the occasion. My aunt was extremely proud of her distinguished brother-in-law, but though he was received at Court and was known all over theworld at that time as a most celebrated and popular artist, I cannot recollect his existence was ever recognised by the " County." At least he was never asked to shoot by those whose very names now are well-nigh forgotten, and their places filled by a succession of tenants who are here to-day, as is the saying, and gone on their way to-morrow. But despite that fact, he had sport enough all round, and we used to have the 253 "COME OUT: 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER!" greatest possible fun; and if my special share was rather spoiled by the preparations for divers luncheon and dinner-parties, once I was sure that my food was sent off and that all was in train I was quite as excited about the sport to be obtained as any one of the men-folk were. I have, I must confess, suffered real agonies about the supplies. The trains were few, and if my fish and soup did not come by one train, the next one was so late that failure loomed before us ; and I have spent moments of anguish hang- ing out of the schoolroom window, gazing out for the omnibus which was to bring my basket. It sounds absurd, does it not ? But what would my dinner-party have been minus fish, soup, oysters, ices, dessert, and often enough an elaborate arrangement of cream and jelly as well ? If present-day housekeepers have nothing else to be thankful for they can be most deeply grateful for the manner in which they have been made independent of bad cooks, and, indeed, of cooks at all, by the divers prepared dishes that only require reheating to make a decent meal. But in my time it was reallly hard work to housekeep even quietly, and in many a house a dinner- party meant at least three days of preparation, one day of agonised performance, and yet a fourth of putting away and cleaning and dusting and fussing that was truly terrible for all concerned in the affair. What I mean can be best explained by 253 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES describing one of the shooting parties that I think Papa enjoyed almost the best of all, simply because it was so unlike anjrthing he ever met with in his London life, but which carried him back in a measure to some of the bygone days of his early youth. Before he became a popular and well-known artist he used to go from house to house in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire painting portraits, and as most of his clientile were large yeoman farmers or small squires, he had oppor- tunities of learning to shoot of which he availed himself when he possibly could. He used to tell us when we were children about these visits and describe with great gusto the enormous breakfasts he ate, and how, if it were a particularly fine day, the subject of the portrait would fidget and finally perceive that it was much too good a day to waste over paint, and how they would make off with the dogs, great hunks of bread and cheese in their pockets, and struggle through turnips and over ploughed fields until it was dark, returning to a vast meal of roast meat and pudding, the pudding often enough preceding the meat. Then a glass of port wine, a smoke and grog would go round, and finally the shooters would fall asleep over the fire, being roused at the awful hour of ten by the lady of the house, anxious for the " maiden " to clear the table and retire to rest ; and doubly anxious lest the candles should fall unsnuffed on the table and set the whole of the house on fire. Indeed, 254 "COME OUT: 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER!" often enough the picture was forgotten, for all shooting then was a very serious matter as regards the preparation of the ammunition, &c., and a return visit would have to take place when the shooting was over, for neither Papa nor his country hosts could ever refuse a day's sport. I believe from what he has told us and from what I know of him too that Papa was considered a most dangerous visitor by the females of the house. The daughters were almost always solemnly warned against his attractions and were told how low and fearsome was the status of an artist; and, moreover, London was drawn in such lurid colours that no girl who was not utterly defiant of the tender sensibilities of the times wotdd ever contemplate without a shudder the idea of living in such an atmosphere of crime and sin and dirt. Oh, dear, good old times ! — now getting on for seventy years ago — how glad am I that I did not live then ! How still gladder should I be were I to be born now and be able to look forward to all that the new century must bring in its train ! But to return to what I recollect myself about September and sport. One of the most amusing days that Papa had was with some relations of my husband's, who were then most prosperous farmers and lived in a really beautiful old farm- house, properly the manor-house, within a few miles of the county town. It took us about an hour and a half to drive there, and in consequence we had to leave early, and as I was always bidden 255 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES in order that I might grace the dinner-party at six which concluded the day; I must say that in as far as I was concerned the expedition was a real penance. The exquisite old house was only half lived in, but the garden was a dream ; the hostess was a splendid practical gardener, and if only she would have left me alone I should have been all right ; but leaving a guest, even a related guest, to her own devices was a thing that no self-respecting hostess could contemplate with equanimity, and she was always much annoyed with me because I neither could nor would sew. " Have you not brought your work ? " was always the first question. Papa used to wink at me desperately, but I firmly replied, " You know I don't work," and she could only sigh and shake her head and groan. Then the " girl," in her best apron and be-ribboned cap tied neatly under her chin, would bring in a heavy silver tray with three or four black bottles, old-fashioned cut decanters, and some small and large cut wine-glasses, and all would be pressed to take either a " taste " of sloe gin, black-currant gin, ginger wine, or some other home-made cordial. No one refused; these home-made wines were famous the country through ; and it seems a pity that such valuable recipes are lost, or that no one has the patience to concoct them at the present day. This ceremony over, we would watch the sports- men out of sight, and the aunt would return to 256 "COME OUT: 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER!" the kitchen, from whence savoury smells very soon beggii to issue. But every quarter of an hour or so she would emerge, look at me, groan and shake her head. If only she had allowed me to help her in the kitchen I should have learned many most excellent receipts. Un- fortunately these were profound secrets, and I think she was as much oppressed by the idea that I should acquire these : though she had to the last day the meanest possible opinion of me and my acquirements : as she was by the fact that I could be quite happy looking at her flowers or reading the book I generally came provided with. Reading a book was in itself a crime, and a waste of time when there were small frocks to make, socks and shirts to manipulate, and about which I ought, had I been properly con- stituted, to have been busy every moment of the day. I wish I could recollect the many exquisite flowers the old aunt grew, but I only remember the vast beds of pinks, a particularly glistening bed of portulacca, and crowds and crowds of sweet-scented geraniums, the leaves of which were dried with the lavender and placed among the linen. Indeed, the whole house, once one escaped from the odour of the feast and got upstairs, was scented from the garden; and if apples ripening in a disused chamber came also into the scents, the whole made something very delightful, and that I always associate with those R 257 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES long dead days. I wish I could tell the story of that strong race of yeomen into which my husband's aunt had married, but it would take too long ; suffice it to say that I have never seen handsomer men than were her husband and his tall and splendid brothers ; and yet they none of them could speak ordinary English, but con- versed: if one could call their limited stock of remarks one to the other conversation: in the broadest possible dialect, that took me at any rate some years to understand. I particularly recollect one of these shooting parties on a very fine September day, for when we arrived our hosts were evidently rather un- happy. As a rule the best sport was kept for Papa ; there was something to be explained : what was it ? Alas ! that morning had brought a letter from the absentee landlord, who scarcely or ever came down to the farm, saying that he hoped to arrive in a day or two with some friend, to whom he trusted he should be able to show some sport. Now the uncle had always the right to shoot when and where he pleased, the landlord only reserving to himself a couple of days some time during the season. That one of these days should be so selected as to interfere with Papa's sport had upset the worthy couple dreadfully, and it took some time to reassure them before the sportsmen went off intent upon rabbits at any rate, even if they must let the partridges and hares severely alone. The walk 258 "COME OUT: 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER!" over the beautiful countryside with the delightful dogs, the simple open-air luncheon, meant more then than the battue shooting of the present day ; and as we had already more game than we could ever hope to eat in the larder at home, no one cared, save and except the uncle, who yearned to show Papa the best day's sport 6f his hardly earned holiday. So they started at last, while the aunt, with one despairing glance at my idle fingers, made off to the kitchen, while I watched the party out of sight and only wished I dare lose the last shred of good character I still possessed by insisting on walking with the guns ! But hardened sinner as I was I had not sufficient courage for that. After luncheon the aunt proceeded to make the round of the bedrooms, to lay out herself all the dress clothes, to see baths were ready and fires alight. She then made a last foray into the kitchen, attired herself in great state, and then she and I went into the dining-room to see that the table was duly in order and properly laid. Her dress consisted of a very thick brown silk with three or four flounces, each flounce edged with rows of black velvet ; the sleeves were wide and had full net sleeves beneath the silk, while a white fichu, a weird concoction of lace and net and velvet, was fastened beneath her chin by a large cameo brooch. She had, moreover, a long gold chain round her neck, to which her watch was attached, 259 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES and she had the orthodox cap of the time on her head. This had wide lapels of lace which fell on each shoulder in front, and these in the heat of action, when carving went on, were brought over to the back by the maid and pinned there, lest they should fall in the gravy or impede her in her really wonderful manipulation of the poultry or joint. We found the dining-room in possession of the crowning glory — and terror — of the day, the waiter, who was an inhabitant of the village and kept that day free in the year for this special party. As a rule he only conr descended to wait on the County, or in the county town on the military and other more distinguished folk, and had even been known to refuse a lucrative " engagement " because the would-be master pro tern, was in trade. So my hostess and her maid were in a state of mingled awe and terror of the great man. To tell the truth, " Mr. Young " as he was always addressed, knew his work extremely well, and I think must have suffered a great deal when he had to carry out the aunt's own ideas of what a state dinner really meant. Her first agitated inquiry was always " Did you steel the knives, Mr. Young ? " and being assured that they were steeled — i.e., sharp- ened to the very utmost of his power — the aunt then held forth about the wine ; then we gazed at the table, and found all in order, from the tall glass centre-piece, which held grapes, to the dishes of pears and apples, all named, which 260 "COME OUT: 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER!" were to replace the sweets, which were already on the table, and consisted of the celebrated punch jelly, and, moreover, many so-called " shapes." These said " shapes," jellies and custards, being provided to fill up any corner, for the real sweets were a monster apple-tart and a vast plum- pudding, the latter served with a brandy sauce made from beaten-up butter, sugar, and brandy that always caused old George Cruikshank to forget he was a teetotaler, and that was of world- wide renown. For though the receipt for the " punch " jelly was never given, the brandy sauce was, to Papa. I fancy the other would have been too had he asked for it, for as a rule he could get anything he liked out of the worthy couple, who were simply devoted to him. I have never forgotten this dinner, and I never shall. When we entered the dining-room an enormous bowl of mock-turtle soup was at one end of the table, and a very large covered dish at the other, and Mr. Young, having received his instructions, kept his eye on Papa and saw he had all he wanted, no matter who went without. When the soup was consumed and had been duly praised and commented on, the dish-cover was whipped off, and disclosed an enormous turbot, covered with a very fine damask napkin and beautifully trimmed with the coral from the lobster, parsley, and pieces of lemon, artistically arranged by the aunt herself. Exactly what the fish weighed, what the fishmonger said about 261 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES it, and how the lobster had been procured, was then the subject of the conversation, and by the time we had progressed through the four side^ dishes, which were placed on the table and served by the unhappy person who sat opposite them, to the enormous sirloin of beef or saddle of mutton at one end and boiled chickens with a tongue between them at the other, I for one wondered what would happen to those who, undeterred by what they had already consumed, fell upon the plum-pudding and did not disdain jellies and creams. These in their turn being recommended by the hostess, each by its separate name, and welcomed by the other members of the party as old friends and as something that they never one of them got anywhere else save at the Manor Farm. I honestly confess one of these feasts was quite enough for me, and as a rule I stayed away when I could, and I would generally make the children or the ponies my excuse. Papa preferred the dog-cart to my pony-carriage, and as this took him, my husband, the evening clothes, and the guns much better than did the carriage, it was an excellent excuse for me to stay at home. I had one night the most awful fright I think I ever received when they were at the Manor Farm, for instead of eleven o'clock seeing them home, twelve came and they were still absent. At one, or rather later, they returned, and by that time I was almost speechless with terror. Nothing had happened to either Papa or my 262 "COME OUT: 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER!" husband, but at the top of a long hill they were passed by a riderless steed making its way home as hard as it could, stirrups and reins flying in every direction. It was a bright moonlit night, and one could see a great way along the straight road that led from Hardy's " Kingsbere " towards our special town, and presently they saw lying out in the very middle of the road a black figure with arms and legs outstretched. They urged on their tired steed, and, coming up to the man, my husband dismounted, expecting to find a corpse duly bathed in gore. But apparently the man was only fast asleep ; a certain amount of judicious poking and prodding proved that this was the case ; he had slipped off his horse asleep, and rather the worse for liquor, and was placidly snoozing in the very centre of the high-road! It took some little time to persuade him that he was not in his bed, but at last he roused sufficiently to say, "It was the sherry"; after that he would have subsided again, but he was hauled into the dog-cart and taken back home to his farm. Fortunately he was known by sight, for he was quite unable to give his name and address; and as the horse had not roused any one and was quietly browsing along the road close to the farm, the youth would have spent the night in the road had he not been picked up and returned by most unwilling bearers, who returned home nearly two hours late, and so tired they both fell into their respective beds 263 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES and slumbered sweetly until time to get up and start off again for another day's sport. Once or twice, so stirred up was Papa by his September experiences, that he came down in the winter and did a little late partridge and wild- fowl shooting, the latter not from the gunning punt, but in the milder form of "flight"; and during one of these occasions of winter sport he shot an entirely white partridge, which stood stuffed for many years under a glass shade on the mantelpiece. On one other he plunged into a stream, and as the weather suddenly changed he froze to a solid mass of ice as he walked home ; his whiskers were hung with icicles, and his clothes were rather stiffer than an orthodox board. But no ill-effects happened ; he had a hot bath, dined in the usual way, played his usual games of whist, and went to bed. Every one said he would have rheumatic fever ; he did not even have a cold, and went out the next day intent on more wildfowl, and was most triumphant when he returned with two or three snipe, a widgeon, a wild duck, and — alas ! that I should have to write it — sufficient larks to make a very respect- able lark pudding ! Personally I flatly refuse to allow larks to be either shot, or even cooked in my kitchen, but my aunt did not share my prejudice, and lark pudding was a much- appreciated dish when Papa could shoot the poor little things. The best days' shooting were, I think, with the " Bandersnatch " and a friend of his whose 264 "COME OUT: 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER!" property adjoined. The " Bandersnatch's " un- failing hospitality and good temper made up for what he lacked as a sportsman ; for I do not think he had really ever handled a gun until he had made money and retired on a very handsome fortune, earned entirely off his own very well wielded bat. When he first contemplated setting up as a country gentleman he planted a forest of rhododendrons for covert for the pheasants he meant to rear, but when he found they objected to the sticky flower-buds which fell on their feathers, and in consequence preferred anything they could get to the rhododendrons; he took counsel of others, and soon had an excellent supply of birds. The next step he took was to engage an expert poacher as his gamekeeper ; and though this is occasionally not a bad thing to do, this particular man was not a success, especially as he tried his best to urge on any dogs that might be out with their masters in the way a poacher always does when he is out on his own. He nearly drove " Idstone " mad one afternoon when he had out a young setter by his lunatic way of urging the dog forward and his " Loo ! there. Loo ! Have 'em out boy ! Fetch 'em out ! " until at last " Idstone " extracted half a crown from his waistcoat pocket and threw it at him. " If you want half a crown," he cried, " take it, but for Heaven's sake don't spoil my dog." Joe picked up the half-crown with a thin smile and stopped urging on the dog ; albeit I do not think 265 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES he had the least idea of what crime he had been guilty. All the same he always had a vast respect for " Idstone,"andwas not above learn- ing from him by degrees what to do, and above all what not to, do when he had young dogs out with a shooting party. Our September was a good deal spoiled when Papa ceased to shoot, which he did after an awful day when some one shot one of the keepers in the eye and wounded him so severely that his sight was entirely lost. A good deal of anxiety was often caused by " other people " at shooting parties. The " Bander snatch " had friends who were no better sportsmen than himself, and one or two other newcomers in our district also developed homicidal tendencies ; so Papa, whose living depended on his sight, ceased to shoot, and our Septembers became much the same : considered socially at least : as any other month in the year. But as far as we personally were concerned September was always the month of months, and, indeed, in a very meagre measure is so still. I can always recall those earliest days when our faithful dogs : long since gone to the Heaven that will not be Heaven without them : were lying out on the garden path waiting for the master to come out with his gun and whistle them up to the cart. The mornings were always fine then, a soft mist was always drifting along the hills, meaning heat later on, the black- birds and thrushes were quarrelling over the 266 "COME OUT: 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER!" mulberries in the great tree on the lawn, an early robin seemed to be always singing on the roses on the front of the house, and a holiday air hung about the whole place. Still later we had the very nicest little bit of shooting in the whole place, away from the world and close to the sea. Here we had the invaluable services of a well-known poacher, who, however, poached for us and for us only, and was in consequence the delight of our hearts. Personally I once hated him fiercely, for I am very much attached to birds of all sorts and sizes, and I had marked with joy the fact that in some trees in a ravine bordering our special fields a couple of magpies had erected their large untidy nest and were bringing up a family. I looked forward to seeing that family strutting about in their delightful black and white feathers ; but to my horror the man waited until they were about ready to fly, when he shinned up the tree in the night and caught and slew the entire nursery, and the mother as well. He laid out the bodies in a row next day, and was quite surprised that I was extremely angry at his wholesale murder. But gamekeepers and poachers alike hate anything they think will destroy the " birds," and nothing is a " bird " in their eyes unless it is game, and as such to be preserved until such time as it please the masters to go forth and shoot, and take them with them on the only jaunt worth having in their eyes. 267 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES Our poacher-keeper was such a character that no account of our Septembers would be com- plete without further description of him. In our time he was a shepherd as well, and lived in a pretty little cottage close to our shooting and to his master's farm, and nearly the whole of his furniture was made by himself and covered with the skins of defunct foxes. This sounds dreadful, naturally, but really it was nothing of the kind. Foxes and rabbits bred one against the other in the cliffs ; no hounds could have existed within miles; and though a pack had hunted there once or twice ; when some of the best hounds fell over the cliffs into the sea, the master turned his back on the place, and those foxes which could not be "bagged" and sent inland were shot or trapped ; and our keeper took care that their coats should be of use, and he had quite a quantity all about his cottage. The man who rented the shooting before we did was not a very judicious person, and instead of making a friend of our poacher, impounded his illicit traps and made an enemy of him for life. He was quite right in his action ; all the same if you want sport and a poacher lives on your doorstep, as it were; you are wise if you and that poacher are friends, and you wink at any little peccadillos you may perceive, and see nothing save just what he wants you to. For mark what follows ; for the three seasons we were in possession, at a rent so ridiculous I shall a68 " COME OUT : 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER ! " not put it down, we had rather more game than we could not only eat ourselves, but distribute among sundry friends. The useful rabbit was a drug in the market, and I had always to drive into the town the day after a shoot of one or at the most two guns, and distribute them among those who would condescend to take them off our hands. We never preserved, never hatched out one single pheasant or partridge, but there were always enough and to spare ; and I think our keeper took care they were awaiting us, somehow, and was not particular whose birds they were so long as they were on our place and ready to be shot when required. I once got a peep into his methods that was most entertaining. We had a very delightful wood close to the little house we then rented, and here very often pheasants came in to roost. At one time I had thirteen beauties there, which came slowly and majestically down to the front door and condescended to eat Indian corn almost from my hands, quite from about my feet; and I, moreover, encouraged them to come by the old poaching trick of placing raisins about flavoured with aniseed, a thing no pheasant can ever refuse. Unfortunately my tame pheasants were shot by their own owner, and I was bewailing their loss when one night there arose a most unholy noise in our poultry yard. Some one said foxes ; another one said thieves ; my maid rang the dinner-bell out of the window, and I looked on, 269 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES while my husband got his gun and a dressing- gown and prepared to go on the war-path. I then saw our keeper run out of the yard and up across the adjoining field. Poor man ! he was far more frightened than we were. He had seen our guinea-fowls roosting in the trees ; he had heard of my tame pheasants ; he thought the guinea-fowls were the pheasants, and went to draw them down by the old poaching trick of a pole and a wire, when, instead of coming down quietly, as a sleepy pheasant generally will, the guinea-fowls set up their own awful and pecuUar scream, than which nothing is more alarming in the world. Indeed, if one is within ,reach of help, guinea-fowls are better than watch-dogs; they call out in a moment if a stranger is about, and do not make a noise if the step they hear is one that is familiar to them. " You will not get a feather off the place," said the last tenant with a sniff when he heard we had taken it. The last two months we were there we had twenty pheasants, ten brace of partridges, and half a dozen hares, and I cannot recollect the number of rabbits ; and we could have had as many more if we had liked ! The pheasants, by the way, all coming out of a little spinney of less than an acre. Long before those days I used to like a Sep- tember day at the small farm we rented better than anything else, for we could go up alone and either have some ferreting or a stroll with the 270 "COME OUT: 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER!" dogs through the turnips. One of my aunts used to say, " No gentleman ever walks with his gun loaded," such a terror did she have of the weapon itself ; but I used to love the walks, and the way the dogs turned out the partridges or an occa- sional pheasant. Though I used to wish I could dispense with my skirt when the great turnip leaves turned over and wet me through with the accumulated heavy dew or the rain of the night before. I did not love the ferrets, but I did love their work, the way they bustled into the holes, where I could hear the rabbits in the run stamping to warn each other that an enemy was at hand. Then the rabbit- would bolt out, to be neatly bowled over by my husband, when the ferret would emerge with an astonished air, looking round as much as to say, " Where on this earth has the creature got to ? " Once we lost the dearest of little dogs down the rabbit-holes ; I was not out that day, and he had no business to have been either, but he took himself up to the farm, and for three horrible days and nights he was wandering about the passages unable to get out, and apparently unable to make himself heard. At last he emerged, spent and starved ; we did our best for him, but the precious little pet died, and took, as do all one's dogs, a large piece of my heart with him. Next to the bit of rough shooting we had in our later days, the water-fowl shooting in the harbour was the most enjoyable thing; for the men at 271 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES any rate. For me, except when I assisted at " flight " it was anything but a time of joy. In quite early days the shooters used to be out all night long, and an old muzzle-loader punt-gun was used with deadly effect ; but that meant for me two or three days and nights of absolute solitude in the depths of the winter, and I was not sorry when exigencies of business made this almost impossible. Besides, the sport very soon became not worth the candle . The men ' ' down to sea " obtained big punt-guns too ; every one who could shoot shot, and it became dangerous to be out at night when no one quite knew who would be out at the same time. We declined from shooting on to the much pleasanter sport of looking up the birds and their habits ; and we were proud indeed when wetookProfessor Newton down the river and showed him that the curlew nested in a southern county, a fact that he was not aware of until we showed him the nest and eggs all complete. The fishermen of the harbour then were great naturalists, and our especial friend, Charley, took me about and gave me the material for many of the natural history papers I began to write. Charley was not beautiful to look at, but he could call any bird — " tolling " he called it — so that it would stop, listen, circle round and round in the air, and finally, if we were in the boat, would settle on some part of it. With him I visited the heronry, which is to this day a splendid sight in spring ; he disclosed to me where the peregrine 272 "COME OUT: 'TIS NOW SEPTEMBER!" falcon nested and still nests, protected by land- owners, gamekeepers {mirahile dictu!), and all alike ; and he used to fish the river for us for the salmon, a sport I abhorred, for the poor creatures were netted and were hammered on the head to death, while we had to sit and look on. Frank Buckland was the origin of the revival of the salmon in our river, and he came down some time late in the 'fifties or early in the 'sixties, and told my father-in-law how to set to work. But if I were to tell all the history of the river it would want a book to itself. Dear river ! always musical, always delightful, even in winter, when we skated; while in summer it was perfect, with its densely sedged banks, where one found the hanging nest of the reed-warbler, where daisies, forget-me-nots, and ragged robin were one mass; where on the river itself were water-lilies, and later on in the " lakes " {i.e., ditches cut in the water-meadows for drain- age) we found the pink flowering rush, an ex- quisite flower that I fear will disappear, as have the osmunda and many another plant and flower, now our old silent pli3,yground has become the over- crowded haunt of the iconoclastic tourist. Sep- tember is nothing to them save the month that ends their holidays ; it is the one month in the year that holds nothing but happy memories for me. Heaven knows I was dull enough in my first year in the country, but never in September — that was ajewelled month; and I hope it will remain so, until I have no further use on earth for any months at all! s 273 CHAPTER XI SOME OF THE FARMS No account of my life would be in the least complete without some few words about the farms I knew the best of all. Some families are happy in possessing a relation who may be depended on at any moment of the night or day to come to the rescue and the help of any sufferer in mindj body, or estate, and I am proud to remember that in one of my husband's aunts we had such an invaluable stand-by. Indeed, my first real intro- duction to what a farm-life meant was when I went to stay as a " grand young lady from London " at the ever- to-be-beloved North Fai'm. Please notice the italics ! They mark a quotation^ for it was " Little Auntie " herself Who told me how she had looked forward with dread to my visit and solemnly lectured her delightful husband on his temerity in inviting me to their house. We had made the acquaintance of the husbaild through our unfailing friend " Idstone," and to his care my eldest brother was committed when he announced that he wished to learn fafmifig 274 SOME O^ THE FARMS and end his days as a farmer in some country place. I think the poor man must have had an awful time on the first occasion he came to Pembridge Villas. He knew nothing about London ; we were all entirely strange to him; and he was quite an hour late for dinner ! Papa had not waited; he did not give more than ten minutes' law, once it was dinner-time, to the most dis- tinguished guest that ever entered our doors ; he was not in the least likely to give an hour to any one coming to talk business, and we were nearly through dinner when the good farmer appeared. He was hot, flustered, tired, evidently famished, and quite as evidently alarmed at having dinner brought back for him ; but I took him under my youthful wing, saw he was fed and calmed down, and we ended our evening with a game of whist, which he and Papa alike loved ; and he finished up by inviting me to join my brother when he returned to the North Farm, after the Christmas holidays were over. It was pitch-dark and a pouringly wet night when we arrived at the extremely primitive station perched on the top of a hill ; and I think — in fact, I am sure — that there was only one oil lamp to show us where we were, while the station- master looked for our luggage with a small bull's- eye lantern. He officiated as porter as well, and having told us just what box we could manage to take on the 'bus, he informed us that a farm- cart was coming for the rest ; and he escorted us FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES out of the station, my hat and skirts flying in the breeze, and finally pushed us into a vehicle more unlike my idea of an omnibus than anything I have ever beheld. From the interior a familiar voice denoted that our host had come to meet us, and we were immensely amused to hear all he had to say to the station-master. Albeit my amusement was tempered with extreme alarm ; we had the " young horse " between the shafts ; the beast was already in fits over the recently departed train, the rain and the wind penetrated even his long and shaggy coat, and presently he dashed off, helter-skelter, down the road and through the village and up the roughest, longest, and darkest lane I have ever seen. Finally we pulled up sharply ; we were to get out into the pitch-dark and find the house. Our hostess had given strict injunctions that we were to come in at the front door, and how to find that door I for one could not tell. The wind was simply scream- ing, the rain coming down in torrents, the " young horse " determined to get to his stable without more ado, and there was I alone in the dark, getting blown to shreds and almost wet through. At last I saw a red light, and made for that. It was my first and last appearance at the company entrance. After that I always went into the great, dehghtful old kitchen, where, after I was found not to be " company " in any sense of the word, we always had breakfast, and spent the evening over a vast log fire that apparently never 276 SOME OF THE FARMS went out — I am sure the back log never did — and was always a joy to me as long as the days of the North Farm lasted. When I stayed there bad times for farmers were just beginning to be very serious things. The power the landlords possessed was enormous. Every improvement the farmer made was for the benefit of the landlord ; rabbits and hares cleared up his crops, he might neither shoot nor trap ; and, indeed, all he might do was to sink his capital in the land, hoping vainly to retrieve it before his lease ran out or he was bidden to go. I used to ride all over the land with the farmer and hear what he had spent and what he had done with his fields ; how he had drained such a piece of down land and put it down to corn, and how much it had cost him. Then the agent came along, noted the improvement, and had suggested that the place would be worth more rent at the end of the year, as all was looking so remarkably well. It was pathetic, too, to learn how entirely the farmer was in the hands, first of the landlord, and then of the weather, how anxiously the glass was tapped, how the markets were watched, and how sometimes a very simple thing apparently, meant either success or ruin. If a field of turnips wanted rain, the next field to that cried out impatiently for hot sunshine ; and long before I ceased to visit at the Farm I could not help wondering how any one could become a farmer. Everything appeared to war against him; even 277 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES a particularly obnoxious weed called locally " charlick," which is, I think, wild mustard, started up and defied him at every unexpected place ; while he was too good a sportsman himself to demand from the hunt the compensation that was his due, even if such a demand would have brought him a tithe of what he had lost. There was no barbed wire then in the hedges ; favourite meets were often just above the house; and I have not unseldom seen the hunt in full cry across the fields, and even across the garden, while still more disastrous events occurred in the poultry yard. I recollect at least twenty turkeys, and I should be afraid to say how many ducks and chickens, disappearing in one night ; in conse- quence no best winter dress was forthcoming; that year, though I am quite sure the hunt would have depleted the " poultry fund " for " little Auntie," so great a favourite was she with them all. Tea was always ready when the huntsmen jogged by on their way home ; strong beer was always in the cellar ; other mysterious home-made cordials were universally forthcoming ; and cherry brandy was never refused to any one who " looked in " after a long day and over the great wood fire described the run of the season to our enraptured ears. On the surface at least the life at the farm was a delightful and most prosperous one ; one had to look below the surface to know what it really meant. The food was more than ample ; there 278 SOME OF THE FARMS were always great hams and flitches of bacon suspended from the kitchen ceiling from enormous hooks ; mutton and beef, chickens and ducks were grown on the place ; great bowls of cream and baskets of eggs and pounds of butter filled the shelves in the delightful inner dairy, and the bread was made from the wheat threshed out on the barn-floor by hand, with the good old flails. The bread was made and baked at home in a brick oven, and I recollect it being put to rise in front of the fire over-night in a vast earthenware crock, covered by a linen cloth. It was left there all night, or at least until very early in the morning, when it was put in square tins into the oven, which had been heated with enormous bundles of furze cut from the uplands. I always much disliked the furzc^called " fuzz " locally — being cut or burned, as it was sometimes for the grass to grow for the sheep. I love the golden furze, never out of blossom, or only out of flower, says the local proverb, when kissing is out of fashion ; and it required vast stores to heat the yawning brick oven, in which not only was the bread baked, but a good deal of other cooking done at the same time. London housekeepers smile at the old-fashioned receipts which begin " Take a dozen eggs and a quart of cream," but at the North Farm these directions were carried out without a qualm. Money was apparently never required there except to pay the tolls, or on a Saturday night to pay the men, for all other 279 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES purchases were conducted on a species of sale and barter line. Pounds of butter and dozens of eggs went into the draper's, and returned in the shape of dress-lengths and household linen, and the local doctor was paid in hay and straw. No farmer in those days was allowed to sell his hay and straw off the land ; yet I know it was ex- changed; while yet again stacks of both have simply stood and perished because no one could buy them, lest the ever-vigilant agent should come round and see just what had happened to the stacks in the Barton. Mr. R. had come from a small farm, where he had been immensely prosperous, owing to the high prices he obtained for his wheat in the time of the Crimean War, to the much larger North Farm ; and very soon after he had made the move corn that sold at East Holme at from £15 to £20 a load went down to £9 and £12. But really bad times did not arrive until the New Zealand meat began to cut out our English lambs and cows ; then things were " shocking," and the £12,000 sunk in the land and stock began to appear as if they were quite gone. Yet here please read and mark a sentence spoken by an old Free-Trader: "When the landowner and farmer are prosperous, then the middle classes and the labourers starve." The labourers are far better off now than they used to be ; and if the landowners are not very happy, let them remember the days of old, when they were httle 280 SOME OF THE FARMS gods, when they held the farmers in the hollow of their hands, and when they used their powers tyrannously and made themselves hated in a manner they all too often deserved. I shall never forget one day when the tenant of the North Farm received the usual lordly intimation that his particular " owner " was coming to shoot and would require what he called luncheon prepared for him after the day's sport was over : that is to say, about half-past four. We knew of the proposed invasion only the afternoon of the day before, as if too much notice were given, the farmer might hide anything he did not wish the Squire to see. He might also in some mysterious manner import birds if he had surreptitiously killed those on his own land. In consequence, when the imperative command to be ready for the Squire arrived we were one and all pressed into the service. Plate was got out ; old cut glass rubbed and polished until it shone again ; the kitchen and dining-room were cleaned and furbished up ; and I was allowed to bring in berries and whatever I could find to deck the table and make it look as pretty as I could in January with only a tiny glass-house at my service, where last summer's geraniums were encouraged to live by the aid of sundry oil lamps, and from whence I could gather just a few very sparse blooms of scarlet, pink, and white. I verily believe that " Little Auntie " and her two maids sat up all night to concoct that luncheon, 281 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES for savoury smells pervaded the house all through the hours of darkness ; and early as the household always was in the morning, the members thereof were up and about before 4 a.m. I could hear the stir and bustle, and solemnly cursed the Squire for causing my slumbers to be broken in on by the noise of clinking pails and stamping horses, while the labourers who were to act as beaters had to get through their day's work in the dark before the shooting began. In those days I had never seen the Squire, and I was very anxious to do so, but I was told I was on no account to be visible, and that I must watch for him out of my window if I wished to look at him. The pretty farm-servant was also sent home for the day and only the elderly cook and the aunt were hovering about when the party was due. It was one of the extraordinary habits of this special Squire that he turned night into day and day into night, and he only rose during the hours of light when sport was on hand. He had already given up the hounds, but he still shot occasionally; and I was greatly surprised to find that he started to shoot between one and two, thus giving himself barely two hours' sport, on that farm at any rate. Mr. R. waited about from 11 to 1.30, getting more angry as every hour went by ; finally we snatched a meal standing round the kitchen table, and while doing so a mounted messenger came up. " The Squire and his friends were in the upper fields ; please come at 28a SOME OF THE FARMS once and see that all was correct." If the farmer had been the Squire's bond-slave he could not have been treated in a less courteous manner ; but he could only clap on his hat, grasp his stick — he was not allowed to shoot, not he ! — and, calling the men together, went off at once, when we proceeded to look to the so-called luncheon, which was more like an elaborate dinner than anything else. It was quite dark when the sportsmen came to the house. I rushed up to my room, and, leaving the door open, heard all that was going on. The Squire fell over the door-mat, and uttered his usual volley of curses. One of his boon companions, already " half seas over," swaggered into the dining-room with his hat on, which presently he removed and gave to the farmer's wife, with strict injunctions to put it down by the fire and keep it warm, so that he should not take cold when he replaced it on his head. Yet a third was singing at the top of his voice ; and all pushed and struggled into the dining-room, demanding to have their boots removed, without the smallest regard to their hostess's very good carpet and most immaculate chairs. Not one word of this shooting party is exaggerated. It took place late in January 1868, quite forty years ago ; and one can but be thankful that " bad times " have reduced such landlords to order and that most farmers can shoot their own hares and rabbits, and can make their own terms in a measure with the owners of ?83 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES the soil. I, moreover, heard the Squire remark that Mr. R. must be making a d d good thing out of farming to be able to give him such a spread and such wine ; and he departed with his charming following, whooping and shouting down the lane, leaving a couple of rabbits and a hare behind him, and doing that in a manner that made me long to throw them after him as he turned out of the Barton into the long dark lane. Yet Mr. R. had no lease of his farm — only a yearly tenancy : farms were then much sought after. Anything like independence of manner would have meant " the sack," and Mr. R., who was by birth a Dissenter and a very strong Radical, formed one of the Squire's train at election time and voted blue, though his conscience was as pink as his cheeks when he had to go into the polling booth and record his vote for a man he not only hated, but despised. I recollect a sort of " party " we had at the farm when the shooting was over and I was found not to be as formidable as I was expected to be ; and I must say that I have never seen a weirder assemblage than those good folks made. To impress me the ladies had come in their best clothes. There were about six of them ; they one and all wore most enormous crinolines, with wide flounced skirts over them ; their heads were distended with pads and any amount of false hair ; indeed, one of their brothers unbent sufficiently as the evening went on to suggest 284 SOME OP THE FARMS they had annexed the farm-horses' tails to produce the effect ; while they one and all wore the largest beads round their necks I ever saw, rows upon rows, which clanked a,s they moved and nearly drove me, at any rate, frantic with the noise. We played round games ; some of the young women obliged by playing and singing; and finally at supper healths were drunk. One of the young men, bowing profoundly, said to me : " Will you sip with me ? " and I nearly disgraced myself by refusing. I thought he asked me to share his glass ; he merely meant me to " take wine " with him, a fashion exploded long before my time in London, but which still lingered on in the wilds of the country. Not very long ago I saw the grandchildren of these weird and appalling men and women, simply clad in country clothes ; the girls in blouses and short skirts and the lads in riding clothes, with gently modulated voices and with only an accent instead of a violent dialect ; they were ladies and gentlemen. How they have managed this I do not know, but such is the case. If the squires have disappeared a very respectable substitute for them is growing up ; and no doubt in another generation the accent as well as the dialect will have disappeared too. It was very difficult in the 'sixties to educate this special class, for unless the lads were near enough to a town to go to one of the several excellent grammar schools, they had to depend entirely on anything they could pick up ; while 285 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES the girls in several farms shared a governess, and she naturally enough was not of a very high class* We had, indeed, a fearsome specimen or two to deal with, or rather I should say the farmers' wives had, for I had literally nothing to do with them, except to pick one up on the stairs one night when she was stupefied with laudanum. But that was not a pleasant adventure, especially as I, being a stranger, was detailed to find out how she got the stuff, and had a tremendous quarrel with the chemist on the subject. He had had no right to supply it without a prescription ; he had done so believing the governess's story that it was required for hot fomentations for "Little Auntie," who once had rheumatic fever frightfully, and had to have quantities used for this purpose by the governess, who had been her devoted nurse ! I think both minds and bodies in the country are better now than they were in those days, for in another farm close by the only son used to have the most awful epileptic fits, in one of which he died in the hunting field. The mother became melancholy, the daughter married and died, and I do not know what has become of the farm. The last time I saw the North Farm it was derelict ; all the good gates and fencing were down, the latter replaced by the abominable barbed wire ; the " charhck " flourished un- checked; the down, broken up at great cost for corn, had becotne down-land once more; 286 SOME OF THE FARMS only the peewits called where the ploughman once whistled gaily, and the meadows, now undrained, were half under water, and no one save a labourer lived in a corner of the dear old house. In a village the other side of that special town there used to be quite a large colony of farmers and their families, and in the days of prosperity they must one and all have had a splendid time. Unfortunately they intermarried to such an extent that the race is almost extinct, and only about three elderly folk are alive of what once formed a settlement of their own. But before I leave the North Farm quite I must tell one or two more things about it, for here the snow- drops grow wild to such an extent that in spring the churchyard and some of the fields look as if a white cloth were laid down. The parson in my time had one of the most beautiful women in the world as his wife, and it was a delight to me to see her come into church with her enormous brood of children, all charmingly pretty, and one and all destined later on to serve in the Queen's forces in all parts of the world. Even the girls were soldiers' wives, soldiers' nurses; and all were as happy and charming as they were sweet to look on. The father had money of his own ; he could not have kept up the big rectory or even fed the children, if he had not ; and I used to love to be sent on some message to the rectory, to walk on the terrace above the exquisite garden FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES and to rush about the wide hall and stairs in a wild game of romps with the rectory children. I was sorry indeed when the rector died young and the children and mother left; but the next rector was extremely nice, very unlike the present-day parson, who all too often in the country is afraid to unbend, and while he is often enough, too, scarcely a gentleman : as one used to use the word : dares not mix with his parishioners lest they should be impelled to take liberties with him. I do not fancy the last rector I knew there was as well off as his predecessor, as he took " Indian children " and his daughter taught them. I wish I could write the history of that country rectory as it was then. Many of those children had been through the horrors of the Indian Mutiny; many are now famous soldiers, while one of the grandsons of the house is a still more famous K.C., and will be a judge before many years pass away. His mother had married young a clever young doctor in London, who was on the high road to fame and wealth, when he was called in to a case of diphtheria. The disease had not long been known, but he understood how to deal with it. Tracheotomy was necessary; the tube became clogged ; the doctor sucked the tube, and saved the lad's life at the cost of his own. The doctor died, leaving his wife and three children to battle with the world ; the boy he saved lived to become a criminal and to end, I believe, his useless life on the gallows as a 288 SOME OF THE FARMS murderer of a particularly brutal kind. Yet perhaps the struggle for existence that the mother had was the best thing for her children ; all did well, and one, as I said before, is a famous lawyer. Yet it seems hard that such a life should have been ended so early, and I can but hope that the sacrifice of the one meant the making of the many. All the " Indian children " got on in hf e ; and even now many excellent men and women must remember as lovingly as I do the sweet rectory and the wide garden where they worked and played. The last time I was in that house the rector was regarding with a perplexed frown a peacock and a pea-hen which had been sent him in a couple of rush baskets, " to grace the terrace," said the donor. The peacock was called Moses, because of the rush basket, and the pea-hen, Pharaohina, for Pharaoh's daughter; but the rector looked at them with dread. He knew the harm peacocks could do in a garden. I, always superstitious, told him how they invariably brought bad luck. He, contemplating his neat rows of peas and cabbages, and his tidy bedded- out geraniums, said he could quite well believe in the bad luck. Was it merely a coincidence that the Sunday after Moses and his consort took pos- session of the rectory terrace the rector had a " seizure " in the pulpit ? Anyhow he had, was helped home and put to bed, whence he never emerged until he was brought out in his coffin to be laid to rest in the beautiful little churchyard ! T 289 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES Close to the church were the weirdest remains of an old manor-house, of which no one knows the history or has any record. There are traces of a garden, where strange flowers come up now and again, and extensive cellarage points to the fact that whoever the owners used to be, they were fond of good cheer. But all about that county are similar traces of vanished homes and extinct families. I could take you to a great field where two vast gates stand derelict and forgotten ; I could show you a house shattered and falling in ruins, once the home of the great Russell family, and where Motley, the historian of the Dutch Republic, fell asleep for the last time ; I could show you ruins of old manor-houses, and yet more manor-houses turned into farmsteads and labourers' cottages, where there are still hiding- places where jewels and money used to be kept ; or where smuggled brandies and laces were placed, until such time as they could be profitably dealt with. Then there are most excellent ghosts always to be heard of in these buildings ; ghosts who flit up and down the stairs with lamps in their hands ; while a quite superior ghost was laid by a Christ- mas adventure that may be worth telling, because it is true and because it shows how easily those things start into life and grow, if no one is strong- minded enough to tackle the thing on the spot. One Christmas a large party of nephews and nieces was assembled in the Manor Farm, and had of course spent part of the evening in telling each 290 SOME OF THE FARMS other ghost-stories. At last all went to bed ; two cousins sharing the ghost-room, and pretending to be far braver than they were, shut the door, undressed with great rapidity, and then plunged into the vast four-poster, taking care, however, that both matches and candle were well within reach. Now the original of the Manor ghost was supposed to have returned home unexpectedly, found his wife with her lover, and then to have shot her, the lover, and finally himself ; after which the blood was heard to drop slowly down and then was seen to run along the floor. The girls were not asleep when to their horror they heard the pistol shots; they clutched each other and sat up in bed. Oh ! horrible ! by the light of the fire they saw blood on the floor, and, not waiting for anything else, they leaped out of bed and flung themselves into the room of their host and hostess, who in night-caps and night-garments were sleeping the sleep of the just after the fatigues of the day. The worthy couple arose, and, clad in long dressing-gowns, went into the next-door room. There, sure enough, was the blood. The old lady flung open the cupboard door under which it was percolating, while her husband lighted the candles ! Alas ! for the ghost. A row of bottled black-currants had burst their bonds, owing to the heat of the fire, no doubt ; the pistols were the corks flying out, and the gore was the excellent juice, which was intended for many a winter pie. The girls never heard the last of the ghost, and were never particularly «9i FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES pleased to be asked to have bottled black-eurrant tart. All the same, had they flown in alarm from the house and refused to enter it again what excel- lent ghosts would have always held sway at the Manor Farm ! I have not the smallest doubt that, treated similarly : that is to say, investigated at once : all ghosts would disappear in an equally satisfactory manner ; but they are all too often either not looked into at all, or much too late to be of the very smallest use. The old-time farmhouse, with its flocks of sons and daughters ; its stores of jams and jellies, wines and preserves of all sorts and kinds, has quite disappeared in the district I knew best. When the farmers have money they educate their chil- dren ; they themselves are educated ; and they send to the stores in London for any provisions they may want. They ought to be prosperous, and, indeed, some are, for prices have gone up in the most astonishing way, while of course others have equally gone down ; but these, if I except corn, are all in the farmer's favour. When I married, butter and honey were always priced the same, and were generally sevenpence a pound ; eggs were sevenpence a score from February until October, tenpence a dozen from then on to February. Now the cheapest eggs one can get in the country are about tenpence a dozen in the most fertile part of the year. True, sugar was sixpence a pound ; now it is twopence-halfpenny ; but meat was cheaper than it is now, and my 293 SOME OF THE FARMS dear old friend the butcher never charged me more than ninepence for mutton and eightpence for beef, and about the same for veal. Compare these prices with the best English meat of to-day ; and yet I am told farmers are getting only threepence a pound for their fat sheep ! All I want to know is, who gets them at this price, for some one must be making money hand over fist. The careful housekeeper has to pay more for New Zealand meat ; and I for one have not seen any English meat now for many a year. There is a class of so-called farmer nowadays that is really nothing save a labourer, and that class is doing a good deal of harm both to the occupation and to the land itself. A small trades- man or even a " dairy chap " saves or inherits a couple of hundred pounds ; he is let into a farm, and proceeds first to rob it of every shilling he can, and then to let the hedges and gates get into the most disgraceful state possible. " Cursed be he who removeth his neighbour's landmark," says the cheerful Commination Service; but I say, Cursed be he who mounteth barbed wire, and its second cousin the hideous and abominable corru- gated iron roofing ! The untidy farmer mends his fences with the one, and daps the other on his stacks, and on the labourers' cottages; until a place in the hands of one of these men becomes the veriest plague-spot on the face of the country- side. There are enough bylaws to keep every dairy and farmstead in perfect order, but who, 293 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES I should like to know, is to put them in force ? I know farms where the yard is over shoes in manure all the winter, where the cows are filthy and never washed, where the milk only does not turn sour because it is " separated " at once, the cream made into butter and the milk cast to the pigs ; and where cow after cow has died of milk- fever. And the farmer has cursed his luck, but never blamed himself for his own stupidity. The old-time farmer had his book of prescriptions handed down from father to son, and never sent for a vet. except for something very extraordinary. Now no one knows how to treat a sick beast ; the vet. is sent for, and the profits go before ever they are made. I know one farmer of this class who was a mere " dairy chap " ; he married the mistress's daughter, and he became a farmer. His daughters will not touch the dairy work or the hay. He and his wife are growing old now, but the children are married and gone into small shops. The farm is a disgrace to see, but who cares ? Somehow the landlord gets his rent. Fancy what the profit would be if the place were decently looked after and stocked and cropped as it should be ! Once there were a dozen cottages round the farm ; there are now two, and one of these is lived in by a " derelict." One labourer does all the work on the land. Some day perhaps England will wake up and see how well she could feed herself if she were properly managed. I know I would gladly take on a similar place if I 294 SOME OF THE FARMS were young ; the farming should be well done, and I would sit under a big red umbrella in the market- place in the nearest town and sell the produce myself! People might say what they Uked. Neither the parson, squire, nor lawyer need call ; I do not want either; but I should make a com- fortable little weekly income, which would prevent me from having to apply, as I am sure I shall have to do before long, for an old age pension. If the mistress of the North Farm had done this I am sure she would have made a fortune, for she could have added to her beautiful butter and eggs, fat chickens and ducks and a store of honey. A long row of beehives stood in " the loo " under a south wall, and I have never forgotten the wonderful sound of the bees among the lime-trees in the summer. ' ' They are in a regular ' charm, ' ' ' said the labourers when I noticed the noise : a sound, by the way, noticed long, long ago by Virgil.* Alas ! that those hives were decorated with crape when the farmer died. Of course the bees had to be told and the hives put into mourn- ing, else would they one and all have deserted the place. Even now crape is always put on the hives when a death takes place in the family. In the 'sixties the bees were solemnly told who * Hino tibi, quae semper vioino ab limite sepes Hyblseis apibus florem depasta salicti, SsBpe levi Bomnum suadebit inire susurro, ViEGiL, "Buoolioa," Eel. i. 64^56. "On ye one side [or hand] a hedge planted along ye adjoining boundary, whereof ye sallow blossoms are ever eaten by Hybleean bees, shall often woo you with its gentle humming to seek and find repose," FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES Was dead, the oldest workman upon the place taking the task upon himself as a matter of course. There were in my time one or two cottages in the lane leading to the North Farm, which I am glad to say have disappeared), for in winter the water used to flow over the steps and into the one sitting-room itself. The old shepherd was doubled up with rheumatism, but flatly refused to move. He was near his " ship," as he called his sheep, and, moreover, had not only been born in the cottage, but his father and grandfather had been born there too. He was crippled with rheumatism, which he treated in a singular fashion by pouring " an egg-cup full of benzine into his hip- joints " when he went to bed. These are his own words, and I do not know how he managed to get the stuff to stay there. But he and his wife did not long survive the master ; their children, grown up and gone away, flatly refused to have anything whatever to do with farm work. No one would live in the cottage, with its one bedroom and a half-landing where the children had slept, and its one sitting-room, through which the water ran whenever the springs rose, and finally it fell into ruins ; and I do not think even a trace remains of the house, which for at least four generations held the humble toilers of the fields. I can see that lane as it appeared to me on a fine spring Sunday forty years ago as if it were yester- day ; we walking to church behind the " maidens," whose elaborately starched, worked, and distended 296 SOME OF THE FARMS petticoats caused " Little Auntie " many qualms, and ensured the wearers a lecture on the following day. Then the lane ran musical with the little stream, full of what we called sago pudding, and which was the embryo of many a frog. The primroses were thick in the hedges, the birds were singing rapturously, and presently past us lumbered the 'bus, which the farmer always had out on Sundays. If wet it took us early to church and went back for the old folk ; if fine we walked and the old and crippled people drove, and we were generally passed by it half-way down the lane. "You'll be late," growled the farmer fiercely, his position as churchwarden making him very stern with us ; but we never were, though we met and talked with many a straggler; and many a bit of gossip did we exchange ere we obeyed the last rather snappish church bell and seated ourselves decorously in the appointed pew. " All, all are gone, the old familiar faces," not one of all those who worshipped with us being alive ! Well, they exist for me at any rate, a part of a life that has long since ceased to be ; and if they have only gone back into the earth from which they sprang, what matter ? The snowdrops still shine in the sun in the churchyard, other people sparsely fill the once overcrowded pews. " The old order changeth." If the new one be better time alone can say. Personally, part of my heart is buried with the dear old times we once had in the farms I once knew so very, very well. 297 CHAPTER XII ROUND THE COAST In all the years I had known our town before I was married I never realised how near we were to the sea until I had come to live in the place. No railway existed between us and the coast; and I most devoutly wish that none had ever been brought there to desecrate the silence and old- world peace of the delightful district. Even before I knew it, Mrs. Craik, better known to the reading world as the author of " John Halifax, Gentleman " had penetrated into the island and written more than one of her stories about it. " The Little Lychetts," a story long since for- gotten, I am afraid, told all about the quarries and the stone- workers, while he of whom I speak as the Master, figured in that and also in " Agatha's Husband," a book which even in these days of ours is still, I believe, occasionally read. I first made the acquaintance of Mrs. Craik in the country, but truly I never personally could get on with her. She was a " sweet " woman, with all the early Victorian virtues strongly developed. Nothing beyond the sanctity of the hearth appealed to her in the least, and she was a perfect survival of the 298 ROUND THE COAST days when a woman stayed at home and found in that home the one end and aim of her existence. I am not saying that she was wrong ; I am only saying that she did not appeal to me ; neither, at the same time, did I appeal to her. She was sentimental to her finger-tips, and I never could understand how she had forced herself to come out into the light of publicity and publish her many stories at all. I believe she did so from the noblest of motives ; her mother and she were penniless, and her father's debts had to be paid ; but she must have suffered tortures from the lionising she had to endure. Though naturally she lived in the days when a celebrity's steps were not dogged by the ubiquitous photographer, and when personal paragraphs did not make the life of any one in the least known to the public unendurable — or delightful, according to the manner in which one looks upon the matter ! Even when I knew her she was very nice-looking, and I should think she had been a very pretty, round-faced, English-looking girl. She always dressed very quietly and soberly, and wore on her head a square of beautiful lace, brought together under the chin, where it was fastened by a pearl brooch. I never can understand even now why I did not like her, for so many people were her absolute slaves. She came to our town to visit the children of one of her old schoolfellows. The children had early been left orphans, and were under the care of the same governess who had 299 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES taught their mother and Mrs. Craik, and the chil- dren and the authoress were mutually attached. " Aunt Mary," as the governess was termed, shared my feeling towards Mrs. Craik, but at the same time very much admired her, and helped her in every way she could to bring up the small foundling who took the place of the children she never had in the authoress's most capacious heart. Indeed, I never knew any one so capable of loving as was Mrs. Craik; and though she certainly did not like me ; she put up with me because she liked those belonging to me, and because she had made long expeditions among the cliffs with my father-in-law, to learn all about the quarries and to pick up some of the many superstitions indulged in by the women-folk in those parts. I have no doubt that the education insisted on by the Government nowadays has eradicated those superstitions, just as it has eradicated the beloved dialect wept over by Thomas Hardy and other denizens of the land. But forty years ago most people believed in charms of one kind or the other. If toothache were dreaded, the thing to do was to wear a small piece of paper in a silk bag round one's neck, the paper inscribed with the following elegant verse : The apostle Peter sat upon a Stwon; GUI' Blessfed Lord and Saviour He come along, And said, "Rise, Peter, and wear this for My seake, And you shall never more have the toothieache." 300 ROUND THE COAST One day Mrs. Craik came upon a small boy, seated out in the air on a stone repeating the doggerel ; while the tears ran down his cheeks, and he vainly endeavoured to believe his pain was cured. It had some effect, inasmuch as the lad was conveyed to the nearest doctor : country doctors extracted teeth in those days : and very soon was all right. Another infallible charm to be applied to any child suffering from whooping-cough, was a locket containing some hair out of the centre of the cross on a donkey's back. Indeed, the child need never have the cough at all if one took it as early as possible on a donkey to four cross- roads ; there one had to remove it froni the animal's back, and pass it under the body of the beast four times, facing the four points of the compass consecutively. Indeed, one of our old tenants was quite cross with me because I declined to borrow her donkey for the purpose, and so make the children safe against one of the most tiresome and odious of all childish com- plaints. Mrs. Craik accepted the donkey's hair quite seriously. Of course she had no more faith in these charms than I had, but she was too good to laugh at the vain superstition, and so won the heart of the old woman at the inn. All the same Patty Bower became a great friend of mine, and gave me quite a beautiful old blue and white china pint mug, which I still possess. When she married all the beer mugs were alike in that public- house ; before that date pewter 301 FRESH EEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES cups were the fashion ; and, indeed, the Master told me that when he was a lad no one possessed any china at all in the houses of the lower classes. Pewter was universally used. Now china is so cheap every one uses and smashes it gaily, and pewter adorns the shelves of the connoisseur, whose ancestors would have speedily relegated it to the kitchen without more ado. I do not know who has that inn now, but it had been in our time, in the hands of the same family for four generations. The old husband was extremely fond of birds, and, moreover, could paint them, and the inn kitchen possessed a settle decorated with his handiwork, of which he was very proud. I think Mrs. Craik fancied she had found a genius in him, but he declined to be exploited ; and she had to fall back on an unhappy little cripple, of whom she wrote as "the post- man's little daughter," and specimens of whose crude verses she had published on more than one occasion. Poor little creature ! this quite turned her head. She had always had yearnings above her station, and finally married a man who thought he had a mine of wealth in her brain. He really did believe in and worship her ; but she died in an endeavour to continue her race, and now she is quite forgotten. I think she was quite happy in the almshouse where she lived with her mother, teaching a few little children and weaving her trite little poems when they had gone home. She was not happy when ambition entered her 302 ROUND THE COAST brain, and it was as well that she died when she did. Village genius, especially crippled genius, can seldom bear the fierce light of day, and when it is not genius, but merely pleasant fancy, the materials for a tragedy are easily at hand. The coast when I knew it first was about as desolate and delightful a spot as can be found in England ; now, alas ! it is nothing of the kind, except in winter, when it is decidedly desolate, but the very reverse of delightful in any shape or form. I can see the little farmhouses nestling alone and solitarily in the hollows of the hills as I write ; here and there the blue smoke climbs up into the air ; here and there a desolate church- tower shows where once was a village teeming with life, where delightful country clerics lived and brought up and educated equally delightful large families of sons and daughters. Three — nay, four — of these churches are now under one man, the reverse of delightful, and the congre- gations are sparse and discontented. The rec- tories and vicarages are let to " casuals," who make summer residences of them, and where once the villagers could go for soup or beef all through the long wild winter no one lives ; and in conse- quence from October to May, and often longer, the whole place is silent and deserted indeed. Mud obstructs the roads, sea fogs climb along the valley, and the grim stones in the churchyard glisten in the damp ; glisten, that is to say, when they are not green with moss, which creeps all 303 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES over, obliterates the lettering, and covers the names of those who once lived happily in the place that now knows them, and, indeed, no one else ; save in summer-time ; any more. , The last blow has been given to the coast by the apparently imbecile removal of the delightful coastguard, who used always to be a feature. Their trim black Cottages, roOf ed with stone, and with brilliantly white cobble-stoned yards, are to let, and in some cases, are let to enterprising firms in London, who, having sent down loads of furni- ture, let the houses as "semi-detached seaside villas " to small clerks with lai^ge families, who desecrate the place during August, which, take it altogether, is one of the most unspeakable months by the sea, in the whole year. In one of the bays is the remembrance of a wicked attempt to make money that not more than a couple or three years ago was revived once more ; and only frustrated because there were yet those alive who recollected the failure of the first attempt, in which they and their parents had been reduced in some cases almost to beggary. In the cliffs and round about is to be found a most evil^smelling stuff called shale, which burns readily enough, but which emits while burning the most appalling odour that ever poisoned the countryside. The Romans found and used the stuff, bygone antiquarians suggested that they used it as money ; but nowadays the so-called money is believed to be fragments from the vases turned out of the shale, or else may be 304 ROUND THE COAST primitive buttons. It has most certainly nothing to do with money; save that the shape of the pieces found about the chffs suggests a coin. It certainly did cause money to flow like water many years ago; and, as I remarked before, lost the hard-earned savings of many a worthy soul. The great debdcle was before my time, and the factory that was to procure oil from the shale was opened in great state by Marshal Pelissier just after the Crimean War ; it was in ruins when I went to live in the town. After that date the idea was that shale should be burned instead of coal. A great building sprang up on the beautiful heath, and, indeed, is still there. The chimney is a landmark for miles round, sharing that honour with another tower with which Hardy's " Two on a Tower " is associated for all time, and which can be seen on a clear day from a great distance. When the factory was built, and a long row of cottages added, which were to contain the potters and their wives, who were to be brought down from Staffordshire ; it was found that the shale would not heat the kilns. It was cheaper to take the fine china clay to the pottery districts than to bring the coal down to the clay. So the shale was responsible for another failure, and the pottery declined on bad times. It was shut for years, to the secret joy of many of the old inhabitants, who were not anxious to have the beautiful moorland desecrated by factories, and the town's morals corrupted by factory hands. Then some u 305 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES one said bricks and drain-pipes, and I believe an excellent business is done in these useful but most prosaic articles of commerce ! The last attempt to exploit the shale which I recollect personally was some time in the early 'seventies, when coal was abnormally dear and when fires were things one did not have any oftener than one could. Then shale was tried once more ; the whole town reeked of it ; and my dear old doctor, who had, I think, some interest in pushing the sale, arrived in with a great lump in his pocket. " You must try it," he said, and despite my remonstrances he put it into my fire. At once the appalling odour filled the room, and next day the horrible steel grate from which I then suffered a good deal even on ordinary occasions was covered with a shining coating of oil which it took hours of really hard work to remove. This oil I believe some people still imagine can be used either for lighting or as a motive power ; all I can say is that I hope motor maniacs may be induced to try it. First they would be poisoned, and secondly their engines would become so clogged that they would either have to stop short, or else go at a pace that would give other people a chance to use the roads ! It is curious to note the difference now in the coast from what it used to be when sundry caves gave most excellent shelter for smugglers; and when only about a dozen people at the most were to be found there even on the hottest summer 306 ROUND THE COAST day. It is far enough from the world at present to do pretty much as it Ukes, but" I often wonder when the Medical Officer of Health will cease to be a local man, and, being appointed from London, can do his duty fearlessly and put a stop to matters that in the holiday months are getting above a joke. The houses put up for the shale workers consist of a kitchen and a couple of bed- rooms at most ; these are let to families. No water is laid on ; there are no sanitary conveniences ; and now the farmers let their fields to any one who likes to put up tents and indulge in the simple life, things may be seen, and have to be endured by the residents, which are far from pleasant. There are five miles of very bad road between this part of the coast and the nearest station. People often bring down tents, and come to the cottages without realising all it must mean ; they cannot get away without forfeiting their hard-earned holiday. Then the unspeakable, indescribable fascination of the place seizes them ; they see the exquisite hills and vales, they are close to the beautiful sea, they gallop in and out of the waves unchecked ; they return, in fact, to nature as they had never hoped to do, and they forget the discomforts and only recollect the pleasures. Then they confide in their friends ; each year brings more tents, more people. They had a mild epidemic during the summer of 1908 ; doubtless they will soon have a big one. Then the authorities will interfere, and the coast will 307 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES be left alone in its quiet, restful beauty once more ! I knew the other side of the coast-line at first much better than the one sacred to the shale then, and desecrated now by the ubiquitous tripper ; for every Friday for more than twelve years, we used to drive either through the valley, or up across the hills on our way to the little seaport where we had then a small and most picturesque brewery. It had, moreover, an old house and garden attached, and in the latter most delicious asparagus used to grow, while on the house grapes used to ripen : the small sweet- water grapes that one never sees nowadays. Another thing I do not think one sees nowadays either, is the door that opened straight from the master's room into his office ; our own garden door did that. The seaside brewery opened out of the dining-room, and here the master was always at his post. Occasionally he would be washed out of it, or roused in the middle of the night because the little brook outside had risen suddenly ; the office was afloat, the dining-room furniture making out to sea ; while, worst of all, the maltings were ii\ danger, and all hands had to be summoned to save the most important harvest of the year. I was very fond of that Friday drive, for we used to stop en route at all our public-houses, and while my husband went in and collected rents and money : some of the old folk would come out and talk to me and hold the ponies, with which I could never 308 ROUND THE COAST bear to be left. I would sometimes go into the old out-of-the-way churches, now more or less restored, then all in a state of picturesque decay : and I am not at all sure that I did not prefer them in that state to their present far more correct and proper appearance ! I recollect, too, that behind some of the public-houses we used to grow great quantities of peaches ; that is to say, we gave the trees and superintended the culture, while a certain amount of the produce was kept for us. Our garden would not grow peaches, though it produced apricots and quan- tities of the most beautiful great golden plums that I have ever seen. The sea-port in our day was most primitive, and appeared literally to go to sleep from about the 1st of October to the 1st of July. Some bold souls might come down about Easter, but there was no regular Easter exodus from the big cities then, and visitors were rare enough to be objects of interest to me when I came over on the usual Friday drive. The town I knew and loved has so entirely disappeared that it may be worth describing as it was when I knew it ; and I do not think any place in the world ever grew such wild-flowers as did that special district. We drove through groves of golden gorse, crowding primroses, violets, and cowslips. Later on in the year the hedges were festooned with wild roses ; foxgloves stood up proudly among the many ferns ; several orchids could be found ; and in the wide ditches 309 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES now desecrated by the presence of hideous red villas, the Osmunda regalis grew in profusion. Not here and there as it did about the heath where we found the General, but in great clumps that were indeed most beautiful to behold. When we reached the shore I generally sat either in one of our houses, where I had luncheon ; or else at the end of the rough wooden structure that was called the pier, and where the occasional steamer called, and where coal and similar articles of commerce were unloaded. But the chief in- dustry of the place was stone. In those days it was roughed into shape at the quarries, and worked or dressed on " bankers " along the shore, and the eternal chip, chip, chip of the chisel mingled with the sound of the sea in a most weird manner. When the chipping process was over the stone was packed into carts, and the horses used to go out into the sea as far as they could with their loads. Then the stone was put into flat barges, which were piloted out to small coasting- vessels in the bay, and taken up either to Portsmouth or else to London itself : a cumbrous method of proceeding; but a most picturesque one. The quarriers are even to this day a most old-world and picturesque race of men. Governed by their own laws and incorporated under their own charter, the quarriers can only work in the quarries if they are freemen, the sons of freemen, or have married the daughters of freemen ; and I recollect an absurd bloodthirsty quarrel between 310 ROUND THE COAST the quarriers on one hand and a newcomer in the island on the other. He had bought some land, and proceeded to close the quarries because he wished to have the place to himself and to be able to breed game and shoot exactly where he pleased. He had to give way about the quarries, and they are worked to this day by the descen- dants of the men who waged that successful fight. At one time the quarriers had the privilege of coming down from the quarries straight to the sea; I think on Easter Monday ; and kissing every woman they met. Civilisation and the advent of the policeman have put an end to that custom, but still they meet on Easter Monday at the town where the old charter used to be kept. Here the new freemen " take up their freedom " and keep open their right of way to the water by kicking a football from the top of the Castle Hill to the quay, where nowadays the clay is shipped on its outward journey towards Staffordshire. A pound of pepper had to be paid as quit-rent to the lord of the manor, who safeguarded yet other rights he had, by receiving a pepper-corn as rent from one of his tenants, who had to bring it himself to the manor accompanied by a one- eyed dog ! When this unfortunate beast could not be found, a compromise was effected by tying a handkerchief over the eye of an ordinary dog ; he could then only see out of one eye, and therefore answered enough to the description of a one-eyed dog for the purpose ; at any rate in these very 311 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES prosaic days of ours ; which, by the way, are so prosaic that I daresay the one-eyed dog tradition has been given up, and the lord of the manor contents himself with the pepper-corn. I wonder why he had that pound of pepper as well as the pepper-corn ? It seems a curious article to present to any one even as a quit-rent. I believe at one time the whole of London was paved from that district, just as many of the finest cathedrals have specimens of the local marble; but the trade is " not what it was " ; and at any rate one can sit on the shore nowadays, and know nothing at all about what was once the raison d'etre of the little place. On one exquisite winter day I saw a great ship go ashore under the cliffs, and watched it beat in agony, as it were, against the rocks ; but fortu- nately there was no wind, the sea was calm, tugs came out from Poole, and in time the ship was hauled out into the open sea, and went on its way. More fortunate than many another ship on the coast ; while during one awful " night of weather " one of our men who lived : and, indeed, yet lives : in one of the small white houses close to the beach was roused by a terrific noise, and saw the bow- sprit of a ship coming right in at his window. As the skipper and crew were Norwegian, and, more- over, were armed with knives, David* thought he * Sinoe this was in type, David died quite suddenly. His grandfather, father and himself were faithful servants for three generations to our family: and with him expires a type of man, that the present generation wiU never know. 312 ROUND THE COAST had an appalling nightmare ; but he and his wife rose to the occasion, admitted the drenched and starving creatures to his house-place, and put the skipper's wife to sleep in the warm bed he and his wife had just vacated. Fortunately a back- wave had caused the ship to retreat into the bay once more, and the window could be barred up. The skipper's wife's life was saved, and in return she gave David's wife some beautiful old Nor- wegian jewellery; which I trust is still in the family ; as a reminder of that awful night. The greatest enemy of the place is the east wind that blows straight into the bay and comes laden with fog and mist. I have known weeks of fog there in the winter, as indeed I have at other places, but it is high treason to say so. The inhabitants care nothing, naturally, for the picturesque side of the place ; their cry is for visitors, more visitors, and the cliffs are crowned with hideous houses, and the dear, tiny little old-world spot has died a horrid death. I wish I could sketch it as it used to be, with its grey beach and its grey bankers, its tiny, winding, narrow High Street, down which we drove with dread lest we should meet one of the great stone waggons before we reached the wide place where we could pass safely. If we did, either we or the waggon had to be backed, for we certainly could not pass, and if this occurred in a regular winter storm, with the rain pouring and a high south-westerly wind raging, it was anything but a happy adventure. 313 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES Neither did we care to meet the coach which was then the only means of reaching the nearest rail- way. Ten miles of very rough road had to be traversed in a vehicle that I for one always expected to find in pieces by the side of the road ; and it was, moreover, drawn by four most horrible screws of horses, all with broken knees, while the harness was principally rope, and always required repairs during the hazardous j ourney . The driver was a regular character, and though in later years he was fined over and over again for cruelty to animals, he never meant to be cruel : I am sure of that. He had to buy old horses ; he had to catch trains, for he was her Majesty's mail-coach 4river ; and he never held maUce against those that fined him ; his chaff was repeated from mouth to mouth ; and when he died his funeral was attended by every one who could go for miles round. We always met him twice, once going out, once returning, on our drive ; and he invari- ably greeted us in the most jovial manner, albeit I believe I got him his first fine ; I could not stand the look of his old screws, and the inspector pounced down, and there was distinctly a rumpus in the place. It could not have been a pleasant adventure to drive the coach twice a day all weathers, but only the great snow of January 1881 ever detained the mails; then for ten days no one could reach that seaport. The howling winter wind made approach by sea impossible, and both the roads were so deep 314 ROUND THE COAST in snow that they were absolutely impassable. I shall never forget that January storm the longest day I live, for amongst other things it gave me my first impulse to write of what I saw. We had shut up the house rather earlier than usual the evening of the storm, because the wind had become terrible, and I am always glad to shut out bad weather. When my husband came in from the brewery he said it was snowing; indeed it was ! Before we went to bed the wind drove it under the doors and windows in so extra- ordinary a manner that a miniature snowstorm was happening in the house; and all through the wide hall snow was drifting to such an extent that we got all the bags and rough cloths we could, and stuffed them under the doors and round the windows, and wondered what we should find the next morning. It was most creepy to wake to complete silence and almost complete darkness. As a rule, sounds from the brewery or the feet of the brewery horses awoke me early enough ; but it was eight before I roused, and then I could not see without a light. Later on I went to the win- dow ; it was snowing hard, hard ; and though the wind had ceased all I could gather was that an even plain of snow, apparently about four feet high, lay in front of us. The garden paths were level with the top of the hedges, the snow obscured the sitting-room windows, and the maids 315 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES told me they had to be dug out before the back door could be opened. The result in the town for days was most abnormal, for we were as much in prison as if we had been besieged. The two platforms at our very small station were level; one could walk from one to the other on the snow ; the hedges were level; and where the snow had drifted it was such a height that I should be afraid to chronicle it. We were fortunately situated as regards food, as we were the centre of a large distributing area, and had the benefit of the provisions that should have gone out to the villages ; but in some of the scattered farms and smaller places the people came very near star- vation. Easy transit had made them forget the days when the lack of proper roads made store- cupboards imperative, and I believe the farmers' wives were much " put to " to feed their house- holds of children and labourers ; while the stock perished and the shepherds had a simply awful time with the lambs. We had only a couple of days without letters or newspapers, but those were quite enough for us. At the same time it was most amusing to see grave masters, and heads of families disporting themselves in the snow. They called it clearing the streets, but they made splendid snowmen, not only in the centre of the town, but wherever they thought a statue might improve the appearance of the place ; whilst some of them did not despise games of snow- balling. Business was absolutely at a standstill, 316 ROUND THE COAST and never before nor since have I experienced such a curious time. At last accounts from the coast and the valley began to straggle in. It was necessary for our enemy the lawyer to communicate with one of his friends. He offered large bribes to two men to carry a letter. For- tunately for us, they could not get through, but they recounted such a tale of misery, that every able-bodied man for miles round was turned out on the roads ; and under the generalship of one of our county folk, the roads were cleared to some extent, and communication between us and the coast was once more made possible. Shall I ever forget the truly awful drive we had the first day we were able to reach the seaport ? At first it was all right. A good strong horse took the dog-cart along fast enough over the hard roads ; then we discovered we could only take the higher road, the valley being still blocked ; and the horse climbed the awful hills and slipped hither and thither until we were well-nigh shaken to death. The only things that enjoyed that drive were our three beloved dogs ; they played about in the snow as if they were mad. They rolled in it, bit at it, and threw it at each other, just as if they too desired to play at snow-balling. Sometimes they disappeared altogether, and, re- membering the old quarries, and how in the snow one man had fallen in one of them and been only able to crawl out to die, I trembled for the dogs. But after driving for miles between hills of snow 317 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES we got down to the sea, and found the town almost in a state of coma. When we turned our faces to go home we felt that a change was coming, and we made haste. Fortunately we got back before the wind really changed, for presently I heard drip, drip, drip from the roof, then a heavy slide along it ; the snow began to melt, and it went even quicker than it had come. Next day meadows, road, garden, were all a swamp; all were overrun by the river; and we saw weird objects being dashed along that made us shudder. I do not think anything worse than a stray pig or a bundle of hay came down; but if any one wants to have a horrible sensation, let him stand on a bridge and watch a flood pass quickly under it. There is nothing one cannot see if one is gifted with the smallest amount of imagination ! But before the snow went I saw that the London newspapers had not the least account of what the storm had meant in the country, and it struck me that perhaps one of them would care to have an idea. I sat down to my desk and wrote just as if I had been writing to " the girls." We then took in and loved the Daily News. I knew Sir John Robinson and Mr. Parkinson, and they knew me, and I felt that at any rate I should have my account returned if it were stupid. Judge of my joy when in the next day's paper but one my article appeared ! Not only was it in print, but I received a kind, very kind letter from Mr. 318 ROUND THE COAST Robinson, as he was then, and an intimation that I might send him other similar articles when the spirit moved me. Sir John Robinson is dead, and I cannot tell him now what his letter did for me, but I set to work and sent him other articles and then, growing bolder, despatched others fur- ther afield to the Pall Mall Gazette, from whence I used to get very peppery letters from the present Lord Morley of Blackburn, who abused me roundly for my handwriting, called me " Dear Sir," and always ended up with a certain amount of grudging praise. The greatest joy I had was from a letter sent through the paper from Professor Newton asking me to communi- cate with him. I did so, and recalled our visits down the harbour together. He then gave me the names of other places to write about, and never ceased to be a kind friend. Somehow I never told any one in the neighbour- hood about my writing; it left me a much freer hand, and caused much speculation as to the writer, which gave me much amusement, espe- cially as a man was always looked for, and my dear friend " Idstone " was more than once suspected of one or two of the political skits I wrote. But the fact that I could write came to me as a real blessing. We were then in the thick of a most troublous time, and as it is almost a unique experience I will describe what happened anon. But it is astonishing how the mere fact of having to look out for subjects opened my eyes. 319 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES We had a beautiful garden, now spoiled for ever ; for our field, where once the old Castle used to stand, is to be built over, and the exquisite rhododendrons and Ghent azalea hedge that once sheltered us from the south-west wind have long since disappeared, " to open out the view," but to let in the weather. The apple-trees where the mistletoe grew are gone ; so are the arbutus trees ; and, in fact, it is no longer " the garden that I loved." Even the mulberry tree the last time I saw it was hung like a malefactor in chains because the branches interfered with some lawn game that was then the vogue. Only my lovely magnolia tree was the same ; it held fifty large white cups of perfume the last year I was living there ; and the fly-catcher used to put his nest there year by year, on a ledge close by my window. The yew is gone in which the chaffinch always built its neatly made apple-blossom-trimmed nest, and I do not think many birds come now as they used to year after year to be fed. Our cat-tree has also gone; there at one time thirteen cats used to lie out on the broad branches of a cedar, the top branch was sacred to the oldest cat, who boxed the ears of any cat who dared to encroach on his territory. But our cats were so often killed in the machinery of the brewery that it was heart-breaking to have them. They went to hunt for rats and mice, and fell into the engine; but as we naturally expected to hear they were all drowned in the beer, we gave up the cats ; and 320 ROUND THE COAST only kept one or two to keep down the mice, that were dreadful, owing to our proximity to one of the malt-houses. From that delightful garden I first drew inspiration; afterwards I wrote about the brewery and the malt-houses, where we used to bake our potatoes on Sunday evenings, because the fire there had always to be kept alight, and in our time late Sunday cooking was never allowed in the house. Outside the malt-house we had a splendid bed of lilies of the valley. I can never smell lilies without smelling the malt-house too. But that was spoiled by our gardener. He thought they grew too closely, and he divided the plants. Nothing does a lily of the valley resent so much as being disturbed, and as long as I was there no flowers came up; and I believe in all the twenty-four years that have gone since I left there have been no more lilies in that bed ! From writing about the country, birds and beasts and animals generally, I began to love and understand it. Gardening, that I had not touched since Aunt Lizzie used to allow me to hold the verbena pegs, appealed to me greatly, and my roots were well in and had begun to spread, when heigh, presto ! up they had to come ; and they have never been firmly attached to any place ; except London, where I was born ; from that day to this ! 321 CHAPTER XIII ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS In the year 1778 a yoiing Scottish minister came south, and in the town of Wimborne Minster was put in charge of a small Dissenting chapel, where to this day a tablet hangs on the wall and commemorates his brief and valiant career in that charming place. He was only twenty-seven when he died, and he left a widow, the daughter of a local brewer, and two small sons. We do not really know her history or where she lived, what she was like, or what she said or did ; but having friends in the place, which was, indeed, her native one, she remained on there, visiting at the Manse, where she had been mistress ; and being a friend to the new minister and his delicate wife. One of the boys followed his father quickly to the grave ; the other grew up, and in the year 1802 founded the tiny brewery which was the first in the family, as the one at present is, I devoutly hope, the very last. The minister lost his wife, and in due time he married the widow of his predecessor, left Wimborne, and went to 323 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS reside at what was called the St. Peter Street Chapel House, in the Savoy, London. His name was Duncan, and Pitt the Minister gave him a degree ; that of D.D., because when in straits for money Mr. Duncan suggested to him the tax on horses, and the suggestion was of vast service to the Government. Dr. and Mrs. Duncan had sons : I wish I could trace them or their de- scendants ; they were sailors, and we always held the belief that Dr. Duncan was related to the admiral whose hideous monument is in St, Paul's, and whose life is told in all the stories of the British Navy. When Mrs. Duncan became a widow for the second time she returned to the home of her eldest son, and lived at the brewery- house, where she died in 1821. But no one knows where she is buried, and no one has any record of her last resting-place. It is always very eerie to me to think of those once-living men and women whose lives are responsible for the lives around us, but of whose personality there is not the smallest remaining trace. The tablet on the wall in the Wimborne Chapel; gravestones inserted into the wall of a chapel playground; a vast and hideous tomb in another burying- ground, represent the first three well-known generations of the family, who for about a hundred and fifty years lived in the one coimty, and now are known there no more. There must be some- thing in the blood that makes for change, for though it is a small family and there are few of 333 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES the name; it is difficult to trace it from the Scottish days, until the young minister came south ; and, bearing the name of a well-known rake and gambler of the days of King Charles II., showed no signs of his ancestor, and lived his quiet, short life in the odour of sanctity; doing his very, very best for those committed to his charge. The little brewery was at first a most primitive place ; the house was tiny, and the malt-house and brewery were almost under the same roof. An old horse went round and round and ground the malt and did the work a machine is supposed to do now ; and all was very well managed, and all under the master's eye. He died before he was fifty, and left two sons and two daughters ; one of the sons was to manage the brewery, and did so so well that before he married he had portioned his sisters and educated his half-brother, who was a doctor. And when he himself married he still kept his step-mother, a dour, narrow- minded, hard woman, who terrified his gentle, pretty wife, and terrorised the children with her awful stories of hell and the devil. But when the children began to come the brewery was found to be too small. A larger brewery was on the market in the town, and, my father-in-law took that over, and the tiny house of his father was handed on to the head clerk, who in my earliest days still lived there. And as his daughter taught my small cousins I used to go to the house with her, 324 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS and little dreamed that I was in the place where my future husband first saw the light. Little Miss Tullidge was quite the most senti- mental person I have ever met, and to me, aged about twelve, she used to confide her love-affairs. I principally remember she adored sundry " sea- captains " : she never called them anything else : and that I was generally asked to walk home with her after school hours to see some of their numerous gifts. I remember one was an ostrich egg, for which she had made a net, and in which it hung in the window. Others were clumps of red and white coral under glass shades. Sundry weird shells also adorned her mantelpiece ; and in the narrow passage she called the hall she used to hang a long strip of sea- weed. The " sea- captain " who was in favour at the moment always brought her a fresh piece every voyage, and she had an idea, not only that it foretold the weather: which, of course, seaweed does in a measure : but that, according to whether it was fresh or dry, so was the " sea-captain's " health. " Dry " meaning that he was ill, " fresh " that he was blooming, and on the point of returning to claim her as his own. I never saw Mr. Tullidge, who was, I believe, an excellent clerk ; neither do I know what became of Miss Tullidge, but later on in life I found out that the " sea-captains " were myths as far as she was concerned. The gifts came from Southampton, and were made to her father when he went there on brewery business, 325 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES for many of the publicans were either old sailors or had many sailor customers, and many a curious offering has been made me. The last one was a marmoset monkey, but it had to live in the brewery, I am not fond of monkeys, and if I recollect rightly the poor little creature soon pined and died. Miss TuUidge's gifts included a parrot, but as his language was terrible, so she said, he was always kept covered during my visits, and I only knew he was there by hearing him move uneasily on his perch and groan softly to himself ; while I sat and listened to her open-mouthed, and wondered if I too should live to be worshipped by such wonderful creatures as " sea-captains " must surely be ! I recollect quite well the look both of Miss TuUidge and the room in which we sat, and the tea-table at which she presided with much grace. She always poured out the tea very high up, and when she took her cup, her little finger was curled outwards in a manner that denoted how extremely genteel she was. There was a work- table in the window with a green knitted mat on it, and here stood one of the clumps of coral ; while in another corner was a stupendous set of chessmen in carved ivory. These also lived under a glass shade, and took her, as she explained, an hour every Saturday afternoon to dust and replace. The house was very low, but had a good many rooms in it, and afterwards it was turned into two cottages, in which state it remains until this very day. 326 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS The bigger brewery came into the family by the misfortune of the first owner : he was getting on very well when he suddenly thought he would build himself a big house to replace one which was burned down. He did so, much as the Irishman did who spent all his money to get a purse to keep it in ; and found when it was built that he could not afford to live in it. He came to grief, helped on by the lawyer who afterwards got his claws into us ; and my father-in-law, having a most opportune legacy, took over the brewery and the house, planted my dearly-loved mulberry tree, and proceeded to found a family there as fast as he possibly could. I wish it were possible to draw him as he really was, for had he been given a fair chance in the world he would have been a remarkable man. He could quell a riot with a word, and could speak to his men in a way that I for one envied him, for the most rebellious one was reduced to order in a moment ; and as he was absolutely just, they overlooked his other faults and loved him really until the end. But he lived in the wrong century. In his days free living and hard drinking were the fashion : he ought to have married a strong-willed woman, who kept him, as well as his house, in order. But the pretty, fragile creature who was his wife was no match for him. She cried over his delinquencies ; prayed for him when she most certainly ought to have boxed his ears ; and, while she gathered her children close to her like 327 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES a frightened hen, only brooded over them in a vain attempt to shield them from harm, instead of making common cause with them, and getting them to help her against the man who, had he been properly handled, would have made a name in the world. It used to be one of my pet, rather fearsome day- dreams, when I was first married, to ponder over and over those terrible times. The boy, who always bore on his shoulders the troubles of the family, used to dread his father's return from his long, cold journeys round the tenants, and did his best to keep his parents apart ; and the whole life in the house was so tragic that I could hardly endure to hear of it ; though now I understand it better and see how it could have been avoided in a different place and age. Then difficulties, of course, began : the legacy which seemed so enormous, and it was not a small one : did not serve for all that was required. Great tuns were put in the brewery to hold the strong beer, brewed one October and broached the next, which was then the fashion ; and engines replaced the horse and manual power. Money had to be borrowed, bills met, and the thousand and one worries inseparable from any commercial career commenced; and at the age of fourteen my husband was taken from school, and put into a collar that has never yet been taken off his shoulders, and which every year we live bids fair to be a heavier weight. 328 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS I want to write very calmly, if I can, all about the brewery. I hear how we are reviled by the teetotal party, how rich we are, how we drug our beer, how we oppress our tenants, and how we live on the sins and sorrows of one-half : nay, three-quarters: of the world. I think if the revilers of our trade really understood it, they would not talk the nonsense they undoubtedly do. Some brewers, say four or five at most, are very rich men ; but they earned their money by making a first-class article, and they kept it by finally retiring before the evil days came that are now enveloping "the trade" as with some dark cloud. The tenants oppress the brewers, not the brewers the tenants ; the justices always lean towards them, and not towards the owners of the house ; and if, as I believe, great harm has been done to the trade by the foolish manner in which public- houses were bought at an inflated price. Heaven knows the trade has paid for the mistake. For it will be a wonder if men who have worked all their lives in the best way they can, do not end either in the workhouse, or on the Embankment. Personally I prefer the Embankment, for the end would come quicker then than in any other place ! But to return to our own story. When my father-in-law found that he could no longer manage his own business he agreed to hand it over to his two sons, and he retired on an annuity to a charming house and garden in another part of the town, and we inhabited the brewery house. 329 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES At first it seemed so large that we shut off one wing with a green baize door, but that had soon to come down. The house, though large, was the most inconvenient one I ever saw, and all the twelve years I lived there I never made it either pretty or nice. When I married, furniture had not evolved itself out of the mid- Victorian terrors. In the drawing-room was a white paper with a gold star, and the paint was grained to resemble bird's-eye maple; the furniture was a "suite" of green rep striped with red; and the dining-room was worse : it was painted sea-green, and grained as regards the woodwork dark brown ; while we were left the old heavy furniture. Two awful bookcases, one each side the fireplace, were filled with Chambers' books in mottled covers, and many volumes of Dissenting sermons ; the sideboard, table, and chairs were monumental, the curtains red woollen damask, and the carpet : which had once cost more than a hundred pounds and was occasionally shaved, so thick had it been : had had its last shaving for us, though I know where a piece still lies in front of a hearth, and that carpet was first bought in the year 1842 ! Only think of what that means as regards its wearing powers. There were many nice bits of Chippendale and Sheraton about the house ; alas ! I thought them all lumber. Some very good chairs were in the kitchen, while there was more than one "tall- boy " and great escritoire that^ nowadays would 330 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS be priceless, but which I was very glad to get rid of for something more modern and less cumber- some to move. The bride of to-day would scorn the bedroom I had ; yet I have never had such a comfortable one since. We had beautiful cupboards in the house, and one vast, enormous mahogany ward- robe lined with cedar. When we left and could not fit it into any future house, we could only get about eight pounds for it; yet it cost quite a hundred and twenty, and held all my trousseau, which was anything but a small one. My first dressing-table was made out of a child's cot, a heavy wooden crib which closed over and held all surplus blankets ; this was put into a pink lining skirt with white muslin over ; and besides this I had a vast oak chest of drawers, a sofa, the bed trimmed with hideous grey and red woollen damask, a couple of chairs, and that is all. Yet if these things are extant anywhere and could speak they could tell the whole story of my life as far as that house was concerned ; as they cannot, and, indeed, may all be firewood, let me get on with it while I may. It is not pleasant to " write oneself down an ass," as Shakespeare says, but it must be done. No one had a better chance than we had ; no one has spent and enjoyed more money ; no one has ever made more foolish mistakes or taken so many wrong turnings as we have, and as the recital may help others I will set them forth as 331 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES shortly as I can. I came to my new life without the smallest conception of what business meant, what country life was, or what one should and should not do. I was quite certain that no one was as clever as my father, no one as good, no one as great. We had never considered for one instant that we were not the equals of any educated person in the world, and, indeed, to this day I still hold the same opinion about educated folk. I must have been detestable to many of those with whom I had to deal, and to none could I have made myself more detested than to my brother-in-law's wife. If she be alive and reads these words, let her know how sorry I am ! All the same she was a trial to me. I had hated the engagement and loathed the marriage ; her people were not in the least as were mine ; and though now I recognise how much there was in her, and how soon she advanced with the times, I could not see anything then save her parade of riches, her ridiculous dress and furniture, and her tiresome ways. Now I know my furniture was quite as ridiculous; and if my dress was quieter I had my mother to thank. I had had advantages she had not had, and I ought to have waited and " behaved " and not done every single thing I could to make her life unendur- able and myself unkind and hateful. If I sinned : which I honestly confess I did : I have suffered, for she first set the machinery in motion that almost ruined us, and so she got back more, much 332 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS more, than I ever gave ! When we were married the deed of partnership was drawn up by the same lawyer for both brothers, who, moreover, made the wills, that were both identical and both part and parcel of the partnership deed. Of course wiser folk than we were would have had separate advice. My father never was a business man ; he never gave me a shilling from the day of my marriage to the present day : and as he nothing to settle, all he did in the matter was to see a small insurance was settled on me ; he being a trustee, which said trusteeship he got out of as soon as ever he could. It would be wearisome and useless to tell of the many silly quarrels that occurred ; but the upshot of all was that when the brother died, suddenly almost, he was found to have altered his will, despite the written undertaking not to do so ; and this gave his wife powers that made life from day to day nothing save the most hideous nightmare. We never could tell what mine would be sprung upon us ; our tenants were upset and interfered with; and finally, after winning an action that almost ruined us : for though we were given costs and damages the man had not a red cent to pay us with : we gave her the choice of three courses. Either we should buy the brewery; sell it as a going concern; or else she should buy it and do with it as she would. She chose the latter, and in time she too had to sell it and go away. If we suffered, so did she, and I really cannot say 333 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES which deserved it most of the two, she or I. The worst feature in the whole thing was that, owing to wrong advice, we gave up possession of the place before the valuation was over and before we had our money, and for four solid years we were kept out of it and moreover never received one penny of interest. He who gave us the advice is long since dead. He was a good, kind and generous friend, and without his help we must have starved. All the same he was at the bottom of that great loss, and I only hope he does not know all that came from following his advice in the matter. It is a thousand pities that country breweries such as ours was are ceasing to exist, for they can never be replaced by the large companies that are the death and destruction to all real good feeling between master and man in the present day. Just before my father-in-law closed his small brewery and took over " Townsend's " there were three breweries and one public-house which brewed its own ale in the town, and now there is not one. Our old brewery is turned into a store, as are the others ; and one large firm of brewers alone, sends whatever it likes to the public-houses for miles and miles around. There is no healthy competition between the brewers as to who shall brew the best beer ; no men live out of the breweries; our staff is replaced by a clerk or two, the engines are quiet, and the whole place looks like a city of the dead. Gladly, oh, ^334 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS how gladly would I return to the old place, start the engines, and live over again the strenuous life that was much better than the harassment of a company ; where the men scarcely know their directors by sight and where the clerks are all too often mere names ! It is amusing to recollect, too, some of the old experiments of past days, though one or two of them bade fair to be rather costly. The taste of the public was changing even in the 'seventies, and a much lighter beer was urgently asked for. We had hankerings after lager beer, though the storage and the requisite ice made that impossible. Experiments were made in raw grain, one of which resulted in the manufacture of a most superior rice pudding, which very nearly stopped the machinery entirely for the rest of its hfe. Dr. Graham, our consulting chemist, had come down on one of his visits to us : visits eagerly looked forward to, for he was always ready and anxious to tell us of some new thing : and under his auspices rice was to be tried instead of barley in the usual way. I thought there was a great deal of anxiety shown in the matter, and after dinner both the Doctor and my husband dis- appeared into the brewery, and I was told on no account either to sit up myself or keep any one up. So I went to bed, and, as usual in those days, went to sleep at once. I awoke about three. I was still alone, and so I got up and looked out at the brewery, and could see no lights there. 335 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES I of course thought of all sorts of things . Surely an accident had happened. I looked out of my room ; Dr. Graham's door was wide open, so he had not come in ; at any rate there were two of them ; they could not both be killed or incapacitated; and I retired once more; and just at daybreak my husband came in for a few minutes. Instead of the wretched stuff behaving as it ought, it had refused to become beer ; it had clogged the engines, the men had had to be summoned to shovel it away, the Excise had to be notified so as to allow a rebate, and finally it was sent up to the farm. I think the intention was to put it on the land, but the zealous bailiff fed the cows with it, with the most disastrous effects. They ate it greedily, it almost blew them up, and several of the very best of our pet herd fell victims to our scientific attempts to brew. I do not believe any one ever worked, day in, day out, as my husband did as a young man, and does even now, when the times are harder than they ever were and brewers : the rich, licentious brewers of the halfpenny Press: are hard put to to keep a roof over their heads ; and of course the present-day work is neither as pleasant nor congenial, in a measure, as it used to be. In the country it meant knowing every tenant, every man, and all connected with them ; and the very drives we took together from public- house to public-house to collect money were delightful, even if the public-houses themselves 336 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS were not always abodes of bliss. All the same they were very different from London houses or the houses near London ; the tenants had been tenants sometimes for the three generations, the houses were well kept, and we rarely, if ever, had the unspeakable trouble that one has with tenants in these days of tinkering with the Licensing Act, until neither owner nor tenant knows where he is. We had one good and kind friend in a stalwart teetotaler, who often used to have temperance meetings, where the intemperance of the language used gave him as much pain as it did me amuse- ment. I have heard it stated at one of these that a sovereign's worth of beer cost a penny to make, and that the wine manufactured by our Lord at the wedding supper was not fermented, and so was not wine at all. I recollect that Mr. M — came up to me at this meeting and asked me if I did not feel like Daniel in the den of lions, and that I replied that I did, more especially as the lions were quite powerless to hurt me. I also told him how foolish his lecturer was, and he agreed with me; for surely there is quite enough truth to be told about the evils of intemperance without uttering ridiculous untruths similar to those stated above. I only wish one could get a sovereign for what costs the brewer one penny ; but alas! if one gets a penny out of a sovereign now- adays one is a singularly lucky individual indeed ! People are looking about for the causes of Y 337 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES depression first and then for the great amount of unemployment, and I am bold enough to state that both are due, the first in a measure ; the latter altogether ; to the manner in which small businesses have been amalgamated, and people have made haste to get rich by swallowing up each other. Take, for example, the case of our own dear old brewery. What has become of all the men we used to employ there ? Some three or four of the best came with us, or else followed us later on, but the others have all scattered, and I Could not put my hand at the moment on one of them. Service was inheritance in the old days ; fathers brought on their sons in the cooperage ; the cooper had his own son to be apprenticed to him ; the maltsters who came year by year were succeeded by their sons ; the carters the same. I knew them all, had personal touch with them all; now I can pass our waggons in the street; the men do not know me by sight ; there is no kindly interchange of word ; we are strangers to each other, and must always remain so. There never was a truer curse than the one called down on those who add " house to house and field to field," and with its usual far-sighted common sense the Bible can account for the present state of things. A small business can be looked after from A to Z by the master ; a large one means a certain number of understudies, who are not the masters ; but who are one and all bent on doing the utmost for themselves, doing the least amount 338 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS of work, and getting away to play the moment they decently can. Have we not too permanently lost enormously : I do not mean financially only, but sentimentally: over this amalgamation? In the old days we had to get ready for the maltsters, who slept in the malt-house by the fire, and whose blankets had to be stored indoors, washed, aired, and changed by us. If a woman became a mother we had the " maternity bag " ready for her ; we gave her a well-cooked meal for a fortnight, and saw she did not hurry up unduly, and that she in due time had her infant christened and fed it in a proper way ; we got the girls places, and the boys put out in the world ; and I even began to hope that the terrible reply '* We give 'em what we has ourselves " to my question as to how the babies were fed was extinct ; when the change came and we had to leave a place that I had hated for years and had at last learned to love as I shall love no other place again: of that I am very sure. But the last three years of our lives there were simply awful ; we never knew what might happen, who might turn against us ; what actions might be brought against us, and by whom. On one side was a great deal of money and vast accumulations of hatred ; on ours was passive re- sistance ; but the strain of it all was unendurable, and I do not know to this day how I lived through those troublous times. I must honestly confess that I envy any one who, Hke Becky Sharp's 339 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES ideal, is honest on a certain sure income; and I can feel for the hungry Socialist who sees apparent wealth roll by him in her carriage ; all the same I know we have had more chances than most, and if we are not in smoother waters in our old age it is simply because we are fools and because we none of us have the smallest idea how to save. I shall always regret the family brewery, but the worst years of all, I think, were the four when we were waiting for our money, and nothing at all was coming in. All the same it is astonishing to recollect, not only what good times we had, but what sterling friends turned up ; and I only regret I did not see my way then to live in a small and quiet way, send the children to Board schools, and so gradually live without any ambitions or any dread for the future. Yet do I regret it ? We did have the most glorious times ; the boys have been to Harrow and one to Cambridge, and no one can take that away from them ; while the girls can and do earn their living, and I would much rather they did that than married and continued the family, which on both sides has qualities which are best forgotten and not perpetuated any more. If we had only had the sense to stick to the brewery we should have been there now, and for the life of me I cannot now understand why we did not. There was a belief that the town was gone down hope- lessly, but we had never depended on the town. The neighbourhood was growing, is growing by 340 ALARUMS AND ^EXCURSIONS leaps and bounds, and, moreover, the vast amount of capital that was sunk in " old beer " in the enormous oaken tuns would not now have been required. The old strong beer is never sold now, as it used to be ; very light stuff is made and drunk ; and : pace a female novelist, who writes as if every brewer went round his houses and mash- tuns at night, draped in a cloak, and masked ; to pour arsenic and other poisons into his beer: I question whether a cleaner, better, or safer drink can be found in the world. But our " alarums and excursions " ended in our exit from the scene, so impatient was our supplanter to take the reins. I think she held them for about eight or nine years ; then clouds rolled up, retribution seized her and hers, and she vanished from the old place, where the name is now painted out over all the houses and is forgotten as if it had never been. I am not in the least ashamed of being connected with " The Trade," and I only most devoutly wish I could still personally mother our men's wives and see to them all, all round ; but it is impossible to have any share in what I may call the domestic side of a " company." The men are too numerous, the houses too scattered, and the business is nothing but a name: and a nuisance. I am certain, too, that a company is like a Board, a soulless thing without a body to be kicked or a soul to be saved, and I should gladly go back even to the smallest brewery of the lot, if I could, 341 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURE S where one knew everything that went on, and knew all the men, women, and children by name quite well. We always used to have them all to tea twice a year j and when the men came too, to supper as well; and on one of these occasions we were visited by the real old Christmas mummers, who still, I believe, make a round in that par- ticular neighbourhood. They honestly terrified me, for the leader, who acted as did the Greek chorus and growled out an explanation of what was going on, wore a horrid sheepskin over his face, and crept round the circle of onlookers in a blood-curdling manner. As was natural in those parts, Napoleon entered a good deal into the drama the lads enacted, but as St. George, the little doctor, and the Knight of Morocco, with his face blacked, also had a share, it was difficult indeed to discover what was intended to be played. The lads all wore smocks embellished with yards upon yards of coloured paper strips ; these fell over their faces also, and formed a species of mask. The fights were most resolute also; and as the dreadful man in the sheepskin crept about the combatants and encouraged them to slay each other, I was truly glad when the play was over, the mummers paid and refreshed, and they had gone on elsewhere to enact the play all over again. We had one more adventure before we left the place that may be worth recording. We had produced with infinite trouble and care a par- ticular kind of light beer that I always shall 342 ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS think ought to have been an enormous success. Truth was then clamouring for lighter beer ; a cask was sent up to the office, with the result of a splendid " notice," which brought such hundreds of orders that the beer could not be suppUed in time. It gave me at any rate an insight into business matters that I have never forgotten. In the first place, one should never speak of an article until one is more than ready to supply it ; and, in the second, it is always easy to sell a thing that really does fit a demand. Out of that advertisement, or rather notice, a certain Captain N. wrote to the brewery and volunteered a visit. His name and rank were as stated in the Army List, and he came down, and great were the things he was prepared to do. He had the ear of all the Mess Presidents in the United Kingdom; all he required was a sample of the beer and a small sum of money for initial expenses. We were fools enough to give him both, albeit in justice to myself let me say I could not bear the man, and he returned to Aldershot to make all arrange- ments. From that day to this we never heard any more frofti Captain N. ; he disappeared into thin air ; and though letters written to him neither returned nor brought replies, we were not sharp enough to write to his colonel. Is it not curious that for about thirty pounds and a cask of beer an " officer and a gentleman " could have condescended to play a " tradesman " such an unspeakably dishonest trick ? 343 CHAPTER XIV UPROOTING When we first moved away from the old home I really did think I should have broken my heart, and I yet recollect with anguish how I used to sit out in our suburban garden and yearn for the view of the beautiful hills, for which, indeed, I yet long whenever I have any time to rest and dream. I did not live there more than thirteen years : indeed, it was just thirteen years almost to the day when we left: but I suppose I had assimilated the home atmosphere into which I had married, and the hundred and fifty years that had held my husband's family had twined round me, and I can honestly say that from that day to this we have never really taken root again in any other soil. We went for a few months to Bournemouth, which I loved, and which was then very different from the place it is now ; the pines had not been cut down, and there were no trams to desecrate the place. How well I recollect it when there was no arcade, only a stile and a sweet little brook ; when there was a 344 UPROOTING thatched public-house called the " Tregonwell Arms " opposite where the pubUc gardens are now; when there were no houses on the Poole road, and when there was no railway beyond Christchurch ! Then Boscombe merely consisted of Sir H. Drummond Wolfe's and the Shelleys' houses, and there were no yards upon yards of small villas leading straight away from Bourne- mouth into Christchurch itself. While wide and exquisite heath-land stretched where houses are now crowded on the West and Canf ord CUffs, and where there was only a ride, "the old ride," through the Branksome Woods, and not one single house was there to spoil the lovely place. I have ridden there on my pony through groves of rhododendrons and pine-trees and not met a soul, and though I have no doubt the alteration is " good for trade " it most certainly has spoiled the place in a very depressing manner. I recollect, too, when the ponds were used for skating on in winter, and when Harry Taylor, Sir Henry Taylor's son, made a gallant attempt to rescue a lad there by diving under the ice, and bringing him out, but unfortunately too late : the boy was already dead. And above all do I remember the visits we used to pay to Sir Percy and Lady Shelley at Boscombe, where there was a room set apart for the poet's relics, where we gazed at the book he held in his hand when he was drowned, and which still showed the impress of his thumb. Moreover, under a glass shade lay 345 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES the last sheet of papet on which he wrote, the pen thrown down just as he left it when he went out for the last time^ a blot of ink denoting where the pen had been cast as he carelessly put aside his work and went out to his death ; and there were locks of Shelley's and Byron's hair, and other personal belongings which I Used to look at with the greatest awe and wonder. At the end of the room was a copy of the exquisite memorial to Shelley that stands in Christchurch Cathedral, and, indeed, the whole room resembled nothing so much as a mortuary chamber* Sir Percy and Lady Shelley were most hospit- ablcj and were likewise very much addicted to private theatricals. Anything less like a poet to look at than Sir Percy I have never seen ; he was far more like what John Leech would have called a " horsey gent " ; but he was extremely clever, and not only painted the scenery, but coriiposed the music and wrote the plays in which he and his house party used to appear. Personally, I only saw Caste at the Shelley theatrCj in which one of my sisters was Esther and my daughter's great doll, " Regina," was requisitioned for the part of " Master D'Alroy," much to her rage and despair I but I thought the play excellent, albeit my joy was somewhat chastened by the remarks of the people beside me, who asked me to point out the celebrities. I did so as far as I could, when one of them exclaimed, "Oh! I knew that man must be artistic: he is so 346 UPROOTING infamously filthy," which was a pleasant remark to make to one who was herself the daughter of an artist and egregiously proud of this fact. Amongst the audience was George Macdonald, and I looked at him with great interest. He and his were certainly rather " artistic " to look at, but I should think a better, kinder, or more unworldly man never existed on this earth. He had not the least idea of money or money's worth, lived on a pittance, and shared his crust with any one who could be thought to require a portion of it at all. I think most of his large family died before he did, but he was an excellent father and a good man ; he worked from morning to night, and I should say few men did more real good or left a more fragrant memory behind them. All the same the family was queer to look at, and I have a confused recollection of Liberty stuffs, low, coUarless gowns, and beads as regards the women, and long hair and wild ties as regards the men, that produced an effect that was some- what startling among an evening-gowned, white- tied audience of the most orthodox sort. Lady Shelley herself was an enthusiastic behever in ghosts, and used to declare she had seen innumer- able ones and that she held constant communica- tion with the poet himself. I recollect that at one time she was supposed to keep the poet's heart in a silver casket in the Shelley room, but this she emphatically denied ; all the same I do not see why she should not have done so had 347 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES she chosen ; the Shelley room was a shrine, and was treated as such by all who had the privilege of entering it. I wonder if it is still kept up. It was rather a gruesome place, and had I the house I should be tempted to clear it out and hand the contents thereof over to some museum. For some years before her death Lady Shelley was a great invalid and could not walk, and I recollect one day she was placed out on her couch in the garden as usual and left there while the estabUshment was at dinner. A tremendous storm came on ; no one thought about her ; at last by some terrific effort of will she rose from the sofa and walked indoors. It is a pity a Christian Scientist was not about to claim her as a cure. All the same the cure did not last, and I think after that she very soon died. I knew another woman who acted in a similar manner during a fire ; she walked out of the house, walked about for three or four months, and then as suddenly as she had recovered her powers of locomotion she died, and so proved without doubt that she had had a mortal disease on her all the time. While we were at Bournemouth I went over to see Barnes, the Dorset poet, more than once, and he gave me a book of his verses with his autograph in it, which I possessed until the other day, when I gave it to a most ungrateful and detestable relation of mine, and now I devoutly wish I had done nothing of the sort. Barnes then lived at 348 UPROOTING the dearest little country vicarage, called Winter- borne Came, within about a mile of Dorchester, and he was certainly a most interesting per- sonality, and I could never understand how it took the years it did for his verses to become well known. I think they were published in the "Poet's Corner" of the county newspaper; and I furthermore believe that my friend Kegan Paul was the first person to introduce them into a wider atmosphere, but of that I am not sure. When I saw him first he was sufficiently well known for Edmund Yates to ask me to write a sketch of him for his " Celebrity of the Week " column in the World, and I believe he afterwards was extremely cross because his house and person were described and because I printed exactly what he told me about himself. He never said so to me : I was always very friendly with him, and with one of his daughters, and as he knew what I was going to do, and knew just how those columns were done, he need not have resented what he most certainly allowed. Moreover, as usual in those days, a proof of the " interview " was submitted to him, and as he returned it unaltered to the office one could only suppose that he was satisfied with what had been said. Personally I found him very difficult to under- stand ; he had lost his teeth and had not replaced them ; he spoke with a strong Dorset accent, and though he assured me that Dorset was the only relic of the Saxon speech left in England 349 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES and I was duly impressed, that statement did not help me to comprehend it. He was a very- picturesque figure, with his leonine head and white beard, his knee-breeches and buckled shoes, and some of his verses are unsurpassed. It is a pity he was not better known in his lifetime ; he would have immensely appreciated fame, and that never came to the thatched rectory in which he ended his days. He began life as a school- master, and I think among his pupils he numbered the present Sir Frederick Treves, who was born in Dorchester in a house in the High Street, where, when last I saw it, the paternal name was yet above the door. While we were at Bournemouth I well recollect the Sunday on which we heard of the appalling murder of Mr. Burke and Lord Frederick Cavendish, and I can see " Idstone " coming up to our door from the club on the sands and telling me the hideous news. And about that time, too, we had the most tremendous gale I ever recollect. I fancy it was the Saturday after the murder. We tried to walk down to the town, but had to cling to every lamp-post as we went to gasp for breath. The wall of the garden blew down just as a child blows down a wall of toy bricks ; hedges were stripped, or else the yoimg foliage looked as if a fire had passed over it; and when on the next day we attempted to go out for a drive, we tried five separate roads ; but great trees were down all over the place, and we had 350 UPROOTING to turn back and give up the idea of a drive for some few days at least. This was in April 1882, and from then until August we were trying to make up our minds what to do and where to live. Common sense, represented by my voice, suggested that we should remain where we were until our breweries were paid for ; other people suggested that we should go as near London as we could, London being a good place to be clos& to, and where work could be found ; and finally we set out on our first house-hunting expedition, and from that day to this it seems to me that we have done nothing else. We wished to be near some friends, and so pitched on the neighbour- hood of the Crystal Palace ; and were it possible I could write pages about the awful houses we were sent to see. Great houses in tiny gardens ; the railway having swallowed up the gardens or small parks that were once attached to them, the poor mansions were left deserted and to be had for almost nothing ; but were so large, so cracked, so out of repair that they are by now no doubt long since fallen in the dust themselves. Then we saw terrace-houses, each one more horrible than the other ; houses hanging on the side of hills, and houses looking into the eyes of opposite houses in the most nerve-shattering way ; until finally we found the delightful suburb of Shorts Ig^nds, and an equally delightful house and land^ lord, and there, despite hard times and hard work, I at any rate passed four of the happiest 351 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES years of my busy life. Shortlands is no more the dear friendly place it used to be, where we could go out to dinner walking, with shawls over our shoulders and snow-boots against the mud over our evening shoes ; where we could " run in and out" to beloved neighbours; and where, if Mrs. Craik ruled us all somewhat with a rod of iron, we all bowed beneath her sceptre and much enjoyed the evenings we spent and the people we met at her lovely home, the " Corner House." I quite well recollect meeting Mr. Lowell, the American Minister, there, and being much struck by him and his courtly and charming manners. Mary Anderson, now Madame de Navarro, was a constant visitor, and, being as beautiful off the stage as she was on, did not disappoint me, as actresses all too often do if one sees them without the glamour of the foot- lights. At one time Wilson Barrett, the actor, was constantly at the Corner House, and there was some idea of his producing one of Mrs. Craik's novels as a play, but he never did somehow ; and I do not myself recollect one that is of sufficient dramatic power to turn into a play. H.er forte was the peaceful domestic story, and she could never have been dramatic, try as hard as she would. I wish we had liked each other better than we did, for I know she would have done me a great deal of good, but her autocratic ways tried me too much then for me to tolerate what now I should receive with gratitude. But she 35a UPROOTING had a way of pressing her proteges on me that was trying ; and, moreover, when she had a wedding at her house, she appropriated our carriage and gave written orders to my coachman in a manner that caused " ructions," and after that we really never saw much of her again. She died shortly after we left Shortlands, quite suddenly, and I hope painlessly, though she did suffer pain at times, which she declared was indigestion. I told her it was heart, and gave her sundry remedies I always kept by me ; she used them now and then, under her doctor's supervision of course, but I always think if she had spared her strength, and, moreover, had taken brandy when she was at the last gasp almost, she would have lived much longer. Herkomer painted an excellent likeness of her, and I hope whoever possesses it now, will leave it some day to the National Portrait Gallery, Mrs. Craik was not a George Eliot ; all the same she is entitled to a niche in the Temple of Fame, and her portrait is a good picture, and that is more than can be said for many of the portraits that are now in the nation's possession as representative of the greatest " men and women of the time." Among the people who used to come to us at Shortlands was Mr. Anstey- Guthrie, but as he is happily still alive one can say but very little about him. He burst into fame quite suddenly in 1882 by the publication of " Vice- Versa," and I have often laughed to myself over the fact that I bought a z 353 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES copy of that delightful book because he was a friend of one of my brothers, and so I hoped to encourage the sale. The first appearance of " Vice- Versa " was in a paper called the Cambridge Taller, edited by my brother, but as he made innocent fun of the dons of, I think, Jesus, he was " sent down " and the Tatler came to an unhappy end. My brother was forgiven for what after all was an absurd and boyish trick ; and the dons were made ridiculous in their turn in the World by Edmund Yates. But the Tatler being dead, " Vice- Versa " retired into private life or at least only issued therefrom to make journeys to imbecile publishers, who one and all declined a book, that must have made a fortune more than once. The day after it was brought out, one of the newspapers had a leading article upon it, and its author woke to find himself famous in a manner that very few people have ever been fortunate enough to do ! I was lucky enough once to have a good idea for a story ; but I did not feel I could deal with it as it ought to be dealt with, so I presented the idea to Mr. Guthrie ; the result as far as the public is concerned was " The Fallen Idol," as far as I am concerned was the sketch by Du Maurier, reproduced here, which illustrates a scene out of the book. Personally I do not admire the dog; it is too much like the Idol itself to suit me, dog- lover that I am; but the sketch is a delightful link between me and the book, and therefore will always be valuable. 354 UPROOTING Other people we saw a good deal of were the Scott-Gattys, a charming couple, she lovely to look at, and with a voice, a singing voice, that I cannot forget, it was so good. Neither shall I forget the household, which was so charming and clever ; including as it did sometimes Mrs. Ewing, a sad invalid almost chained to her sofa, where she wrote her sweet and delightful books ; and her sister, who was devoted to microscopic work and to Aunt Judy's Magazine ; where I used to write a great deal until it died, and I do not think has ever been replaced. From Shortlands, too, I visited Jean Ingelow, a little shrinking woman, to whom strangers were a distress ; and, moreover, I more than once went to Mrs. Peter Taylor's at homes, where the suffrage for women was demanded by sundry so-called " shrieking sisters," I wonder what Mrs. Peter Taylor would say if she could arise and hear the suffragettes ! They were very mild indeed in her day, but even then were a good deal more than I personally could stand ; more especially as Mr. Peter Taylor and I almost came to blows on the subject both of flogging garrotters and other malefactors and on the matter of vaccination. I quite well recollected the dread we had of garrotters as children in 1862-3, and I equally well remembered how efficiently they were put a stop to by being flogged ; and no statistics any one can produce now will ever convince me to the contrary. While I knew an old gentleman who told me 355 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES when he was a lad, he recollected that it was the commonest thing in the world to see women spoiled for life by smallpox ; but that since vacci- nation came in, one hardly met any one who showed any mark of the fell disease. Our proximity to London and the cheap return fare made the Shortlands years delightful to me, and if we could have been settled there I should have never wanted to move again. The house was such a nice one, and we made the garden out of a field ; and if the flowers did not flourish as they did in our first home, they were very delightful ; though our pleasure was often marred by the hordes of " beanf casters " who passed by and broke off great branches of any flowering shrubs they could. Bicycles were becoming ubiquitous, and I should not have been sorry if Shortlands had been somewhere farther out of the riders' reach ; but we could not get our money, and all we could do was to wait near London until such time as it could be had, and another brewery bought. My husband gallantly went to school once more to the London University Chemical Laboratory, and I turned to journalistic work and wrote from early morn until dewy eve. I had then, beside Sir John Robinson, two very good, kind, and firm friends in the late Mr. John Latey and Mr. Alfred Gibbons of the Lady's Pictorial, and to the latter especially do I owe a measure of gratitude I shall never forget. One day he sent for me to the office and asked me 356 UPROOTING if I thought I could undertake the editorship, under his guidance, of the paper ; but I imme- diately said I could, I was sure, do nothing of the kind. I had not an atom of faith in my critical powers. I knew what I liked, but I could not answer for any one else. I would do any work he gave me, and thankfully; but take the helm of any ship, no matter how small, I for one never could. " Well," he said, " have you any ideas that are new ? " I had suffered a good deal when living in the country from not being able to get what I wanted from the London shops ; I had, moreover, a very quick eye ; and above all I had just been helping a dear young couple to furnish their first house on a sum of money so small that it would not be believed in in these days ; so I replied, " Yes, I think I have " ; and I explained that I thought a series of articles on the furnishing and managing of a house would take on ; as most certainly the idea had never been used before by any lady's paper. This was some time early in 1883, and the ladies' papers of that day were very, very different from what they are now. I think the Lady's Pictorial had just become sixpence from a threepenny venture, but it was a thin and elegant production, with but few illustrated advertisements. The venerable and respectable and respected Queen was also very different from what it is at the present day, and I think there were no other papers for women specially of any account, though there 357 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES were, of coxirse, fashion journals pur et simple, made up of coloured prints from Paris, and cut paper patterns ; from which the home dress- maker might evolve her own garments of a sort ; but neither furniture, decorations, nor home management appeared in any of them. Mr. Gibbons jumped at the idea. " Go home and write a specimen article," he said, " and if it goes we'll have some questions and answers ; and you'll see that will be a good thing both for you and the paper. By the way, send about half a dozen ' replies ' with your first article." " In- deed I won't," I replied. " Just see how foolish we should look, even if I would do such a thing ! How could people ask questions about things mentioned in an article that they had never seen ? " Mr. Gibbons roared with laughter. " Oh, write the article ; I'll see to the replies " ; and I went home, bursting with ideas and im- portance, and wrote the article, which formed the first chapter of " From Kitchen to Garret," which went into eleven editions; and though obsolete nowadays is still a classic on the shelves of some of my old correspondents, who married, brought up families, and set them up too in their married lives out of that excellent work ! Mr. Gibbons was always a good and firm friend to me, and we very soon laughed together over the proposed " dozen replies." I often had a hundred letters in the week from all parts of the globe; and the easy-going journalists of the day 358 UPROOTING would never credit how I sought high and low for the cheapest and best things to advise people to buy; while in my earliest days I even bought my own patterns, so that I could always have them by me for reference. My idea was soon copied, and my very words stolen ; but I survived it all, and went on my way rejoicing, until I did too much work, and my health came almost utterly to grief. All the same I loved the work ; the letters were so entertaining ; I had such delightful presents sent me, and I made such charming friends. In connection with my column we started a place where poor ladies could sell their work, but I must confess that these same poor ladies nearly were my last straw. A rich and kindly-hearted lady took rooms and put one of her protegees in charge, and she and I visited the rooms on alternate days. I recollect three old sisters coming to us for work. They hved in one room somewhere in Islington, and they were, so they said, starving. I think they were ; anyhow we had an " order " on hand for some homely night-shirts, and we gave the cahco to the sisters. I could see the parcel rather alarmed them, so we made it up into three separate ones, and they went off ; they could have earned ten shillings, and machine work was allowed. Will it be beUeved they sent back the stuff by carrier —unpaid— and asked for something lighter? Being ladies, they really could not undertake such heavy work. Another girl could embroider most 359 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES beautifully ; to her we handed a quilt, wanted by a certain time for a wedding present ; that met; with no better fate than the night-shirts. She kept it a month past the wedding-day, and brought it back so filthy that it was absolutely useless. She actually excused herself by saying she had been paying a round of visits, and now might she have the money, for she was up to her neck in debt ? She remained there as far as we were concerned ; she had ruined our silks and our beautiful material, and notwithstanding that, she expected to receive payment for what had cost us pounds, and lost us a most excellent customer. No poor ladies for me ! No doubt they are much improved since 1885 onwards, but those experiences really sickened me, espe- cially when we discovered the trusted manageress was not above snipping bits off costly brocades, and appropriating all sorts of trifles that dis- appeared in a most singular manner. I had quite an awful adventure one afternoon after leaving the dep6t, for I had bought a villainous woollen doll that the manageress had a stock of, made, as she said, by an old widow who depended on the sale for her daily bread. Her bread must have been very scanty if she did, but I bought the awful thing, refused a paper cover, and went on my way down the Euston Road. In that abominable thoroughfare I met a very dirty woman, with a much dirtier child, who looked at the doll with the most unspeakable longing in 360 UPROOTING her eyes. "Some one," I thought, "always appreciates something, no matter how hideous it is, and that child shall have the nightmare I am carrying " ; and stooping down I said, " Would you like the doll ? " The child's face was trans- figured ; she held out her grimy little shaking hands, and, putting the doll into them, I was going on my way rejoicing, when the mother said, " Oh, kiss the lady, darling ! " The lady was kissed, but I wondered for at least a week what disease I had caught, and was much relieved to find I had passed scatheless through the ordeal. As long as I was on the Lady^s Pictorial I could sell through it anything I liked ; and I most emphatically state I never recommended any- thing I did not like ; and many poor ladies and others must have benefited by that excellent paper. At last the " rooms " became too much for me, and we persuaded my sisters to take on the work. My father could or would no longer maintain them, and from that small beginning to the present time they have made their own way in the world, and, as far as I know, have done very fairly well. The most amusing and lucrative branch of my work was that which took me about to other people's houses, where I looked at their belongings and advised them what to do with them in the way of repairs or redecoration ; and if I were often tempted to say, " Burn the lot and begin all over again," I always met nice people, and 361 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES made some most delightful friends and acquaint- ances from these erstwhile strangers. It always amused me more than I can say to see how they hated having to hand me my fee ; but at last I always used to tell them I had not the least delicacy about taking money I had earned ; and I soon took it openly and without the covering paper that more than once served as a shield to show the absence of the shillings from the guineas. But I always opened the envelope boldly and asked for the shillings, and we were none the worse friends for " thinking " a mistake had been made. I had one or two rather appalling adventures, and, if I had been younger, I might perhaps have found myself in an awkward situation, but somehow or other I never did. I have to this day, or rather should have if I had not spent it twenty years ago, the sum of £20 that has never been earned, nor accounted for, and I cannot now think why it was sent. Presumably I was to go to the Isle of Wight, inspect a house, and draw up a scheme for furniture and decoration ; before I could go I got a wire from the sender : " Wait further instructions." I waited, and then wrote and wrote. No instructions came; only a post-card : " Keep the money and await instructions." It is, by the way, twenty-five years ago, and from that day to this I have never had a solution of the mystery. The Statute of Limitations protects me, and nothing after all 362 UPROOTING these years would induce me to give up the money, even if I could recollect the name of the person who sent it ! I very often wished in those days that I was an unmarried woman, and could avail myself of the many delightful opportunities that were offered me of seeing the world. I was asked to go to India to help a Maharajah decorate his palace to receive the late Duke of Clarence ; to go to Chicago to decorate a pavilion for the exhibition, and to Australia for a similar object. In regard to this I may mention that, as I could not go, I sent out a " scheme." This was used with such excellent effect that the fair " origi- nator " was awarded a prize, of which I heard quite by accident, and in which, of course, I never for one instant shared. The most curious adventure was in regard to a house in St. John's Wood, and if I had not been far more innocent than my years should have allowed me to be, I should have at once understood the class of house it most undoubtedly was, for I have never been in a more utterly filthy and degraded-looking abode. I was to look over the furniture and see what could be used for a house in a country town where the husband of my correspondent was about to live, as he had " taken over the hounds." I had found out, as I always did, all about the people. I had seen the house in the country town, and the hounds were to be taken over, and I had my 363 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES fees all right enough. But the house in London was unspeakable ; stains of wine were on every- thing ; nothing could be used as it was ; and I was given carte blanche to engage a tradesman to cart away the stuff and clear out the house. This he did, sent his estimate, which was accepted, and the work went on, until one day he received a wire to stop work both on the furniture and the house. He was paid in full, and from that day to this I never knew, though I could make a shrewd guess of what happened. More especially as I saw a divorce case which was a novel in itself — a youth bamboozled by a clever woman posing as an heiress of untold gold ; an irate and astute father who discovered the truth ; an old lover or two ; an easy divorce, and a respect- able family eased from a member who should never have belonged to it for an instant ! Unfortunately the profession I had started was taken up by people utterly unfit for the work, and, moreover, entirely in the power of their newspapers and the " advertisers " on whom, of course, all papers depend more or less ; and at last no one could be found to believe that " advice " was disinterested. I am glad to say that before this happened I had had to give the work up. I was very sorry to do so ; my news- papers had always been patience and goodness themselves to me, and I cannot speak too highly of first the dear old Lady's Pictorial and then of the Gentlewoman. But I had worked a great deal 364 UPROOTING too hard ; my health broke up in the most trying manner, and I gave up journalism with many a pang ; and for some years did nothing very much to speak of, except change my house in a vain attempt to find a place that suited me, I really think, though, that when we moved to Watford, in Hertfordshire, that move, and not my work, was at the bottom of my first breakdown. Foolishly, and against my better judgment, I took a house between the London and North- western Railway and a Board school. " You won't notice either when you have been there a week," said my friends. Not notice either ! I used to wait for the sounds, one after the other. I knew just when the Scotch express would go through, when the signals would fall, and the goods trains shunt ; moreover, I had to look forward to the children coming out to play in the middle of the lessons. And when they left school pande- monium was let loose, and I could, and very often did, weep aloud over the hideous noise they made. I was superlatively miserable and wretched in Watford, and I do not think I have one pleasant memory connected with the place. 365 CHAPTER XV GREEN PASTURES If I had to say which part of my life had been the happiest, I think I should most unhesitatingly reply, that which I had spent out of the stream of life and among green pastures. I consider myself entitled to speak on the subject too, for I have tried all sorts and conditions of existence. London life at its fullest and best ; country town life at its worst and dullest, and at its very inferior best too ; suburban life, and life in what one may term a suburban town, namely, Watford ; which, from a real country town with beautiful old red-brick houses in its streets and delightful gardens, has become a workman's dwelling-place, crowded with factories and small houses where once were quite other abodes. Indeed, I do not know anything more melancholy than to drive from London to Watford by road, and nothing gives one a clearer idea of what the suburbs once were than to do so. I recollect the time when we passed fine old houses in walled gardens ; a magnificent park with a great house with lodges, 366 GREEN PASTURES about which scandalous stories were told with gusto by the " oldest inhabitant " ; when the long steep street of Edgware was beautiful to behold, and one emerged on the top to find Stanmore Common, a paradise indeed for all alike. Then came the village of Bushey, which, alas ! soon became spoiled. Here blossomed out a row of hideous tin studios, there the tremendous residence of the archpriest of art himself ; and bit by bit field and hedgerow, tree and garden, were consumed, until the erstwhile pleasant place has become a suburb of the most blatant style. It is extraordinary how, in a spot supposed to be consecrated to art, nature has been killed, and art has expressed herself in iron shanties and little villas, while the only thing that remains to remind one of the lovely old street is the church ; but even close to that the trees have gone, and more villas are every day springing into life. I think there is nothing more dreadful to one who loves the country, than to see the manner in which London stretches out her arms and bit by bit draws all the open spaces to herself; stretching out her hmbs octopus-like, and with much the same effect as an octopus has on its victims. Within the last twenty years fine old estates within a ten-mile radius of town have been " cut up for building," the big houses pulled down after sometimes making a struggle for existence as a hotel or a boarding-house, while the exquisite old gardens are cut up and destroyed. 367 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES Nothing can ever replace these gardens ; they were, as are the Oxford lawns, the product of centuries ; and I cannot help thinking that more sense of the fitness of things would have been shown had the speculative builder saved the gardens ; even if the estates had to go ; and had replaced the enormous houses by smaller and more liveable-in abodes. I shall never forget the anguish I suffered at seeing a wood I particularly loved near Short- lands given over to the all-destructive builder, and I wish there could be some society formed for the preservation of similar places. The last owner of the estate died, and the place had to be sold : there was no help for it. I went up the day before the sale and looked once more at the familiar place. There were tokens of the destroyer's hand on all sides. Even the doors were marked Lot 21 or Lot 32, as the case might be ; the carvings in the rooms were " lots " also ; while the beautiful old lawn was trampled to pieces by the men already at work on the necessary destruction; Trees were cut down, and where I knew bluebells and snowdrops had come up year after year, as they only come up and flourish when they are undisturbed, vast holes were already sunk for scaffold-poles ; and now a red- brick house, grown to the respectable age of twenty-five, stands where my well-loved flowers never failed me once it was spring. I came across the quaint old arbour, with its hard, uncomfortable stone seats, where lovers no doubt had sat for 368 GREEN PASTURES years and years ; but the saddest corner of all was that which held the children's gardens. These had been kept up by the old head gardener from season to season, though the children had long since grown up, scattered and gone away, and all, to the very last of them, had died. That old man had once been the garden-boy, teased and ordered about and tyrannised over by the lads and lassies ; he had outlived them all, and I was looking for the last time at the gardens which he and I were never to see from that day on for evermore. Poor ghosts of the late owners ! I trust they were too far away to see what was happening. We can bear life pretty well ; we can see our dreams wither and our places filled; but we cannot bear the destruction of the world we once knew, and it would be awful to have to return and wander about on an earth which has become as nothing we can recollect ! I have not forgotten in the least what it was to be young ; I have not forgotten that I once wanted to reform everything and make everything better around me ; all the same I never, never wanted to change the face of the old familiar streets and lanes I loved. Even in my strenuous youth I abominated the changes in Westbourne Grove ; I liked the little houses and gardens better than the big shops ; and I had the greatest horror of change of any sort or kind. I recollect Papa prophesying that shops would creep up to our doors some time, 2 A 369 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES and our rage at the very idea. Well, the shops are there, and as we do not live there it does not much matter ; but I do deprecate change, and wish all might be as it used to be when we were young and thought that place of abode Uttle short of Paradise. If that were Paradise, I have twice had other places that were very like what I can imagine Paradise might be, and the last one was the best of all these. It would not, perhaps, have struck any one else in that light ; we were four miles from a tiny statioji, eight from a town ; the house was a nutshell, the water-supply a yearly torment and problem. We had not a neighbour for miles, and I have often gone a week without speaking to a soul outside the household, a month without going outside the gates ; first because there was nowhere particular to go, and secondly because the mud was above one's boots, and raging cows and occasional bulls made a walk something more than a fancied peril. I found the place absolutely filthy and the garden a mass of weeds and rubbish. The so-called lawn was a hay-field, and when we had cut the grass we discovered that the last tenant had used it as a dust-bin ; we carted off loads of broken bottles, old shoes, rags, bits, pots and pans, and finally got it into a tidy state that was very pleasing to behold. The first year I was there was a year of hard work and promise ; the second was a golden 370 GREEN PASTURES year of performance and delight : and our only drawback was the lack of water, which made us dread fine, hot weather, when all had to be fetched, and which made the problem of keeping a garden alive at all a very great one. I always laugh to myself when I hear people talking about the cheapness of country life, and how much one can have for very little expenditure of money. So one can, if one can work hard with one's hands oneself, and if one never wants to read, or buy seeds, plants, or books, or the thousand and one things that make life pleasant, and, indeed, possible. Rent is cheap, but often rates are high ; and one must have men-servants in the shape of a coachman and gardener; and then one is asked, even in the smallest country place, for endless subscriptions to all sorts and kinds of things ; and though one need not give, one must, if one wants to be on speaking terms with the people. Beside which there are facts one finds out for oneself, such as sick children and worn-out mothers, which entail putting one's hand in one's pocket if one wishes to have a quiet conscience. One does not object to any of these ways of spending money if one has it to spend, but I only mention them to show that the country is not a cheap spot to live in, for it most certainly is nothing of the kind. Then all repairs and altera- tions cost five times as much in the real country as they do in a town, and naturally so ; and to one's rent one has to add these items translated 371 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES into hard cash; while carriage and postage are hkewise important matters, unless one is content with very little and a very humdrum existence indeed. If any one would be kind enough to settle a comfortable income on me, I would at once return to my dear green pastures ; but I must have a good country town near me, a good carriage, and above all a good gardener, who can not only garden, but at the same time do what he is told to do, whether he likes the idea or not. Indeed, one of the most disagreeable changes I foimd in the country was the great and appalling difficulty I had in obtaining and keeping anything Hke male labour. I had an old man, first, with an excellent character from an employer who wanted to get rid of him at my expense. He was not at all a bad old man, but he was too old to work ; he hid seeds and roots instead of planting them ; and finally he left " on his own " ; the place was too dull for his wife and daughter, who had a splendid six-roomed cottage and a garden, in which, given an adequate water-supply: which it has not : I should be very glad to end my days. I used to hear complaints all round that the workhouses were full of able-bodied men, but none of them ever came my way, and I again engaged an elderly man with a superfine character, with a wife prepared to do every single thing I wanted her to, until she arrived and was settled in. The man had been a splendid servant in his day, but that was long since over and done with ; he had GREEN PASTURES had at some time or other a paralytic seizure, and he was nevei happy unless he was talking, or else strolling about with a gun with the farmer, who allowed him to help shoot the overwhelming rabbits. But as he could not garden, and the wife gradually found she did not like work, once more the change had to be made, and I found myself for a short time in comparatively perfect peace. By this time I and the garden were on the most excellent terms, and the flowers were a sight to be seen, while I had tamed the birds to such an extent that they were absolutely fearless, and the wild squirrels used to come at regular hours for their nuts, which they took first off the " birds' table," then off the tea-table, and finally out of my hands ; while if the nuts were not put out early the squirrels would knock against my window and awake me at dawn to attend to their wants. It was at this delightful place that I made one of the all too short friendships of my later life, and to the dear memory of Arthur Tomson that spot will always be sacred indeed. He was one of the " younger men," as we always used to speak of those who had never belonged to the Royal Academy ; and I heard of his residence near me quite by chance. It was astonishing to me to hear of an artist living in the country ; I always thought of them as existing, as in our old days, in the hub of the universe, London, always in and out of each other's painting rooms, always living 373 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES with each other and exchanging their latest ideas for pictures and on art generally, and I could not believe in any one who was willing to live in a country town. Fortunately we had a mutual friend, Barry Pain, and when he was staying with me I asked Mr. Tomson to come over to luncheon ; he did so, and we appeared to take up a friendship made in another world at once ; and for the short year or eighteen months he lived after that meeting we were friends in the truest sense of the word. I never met a more delicate or delightful soul ; his ideas were crystal-clear, his home was the happiest in the world, and when he died the world was poorer, not only for his own family and for his friends, but the world of art and letters, which he had served well and faithfully for many years. He too shared my love for animals, and he and his wife were witnesses to one of the curious coincidences that occurred in that place. When I was there first no birds or squirrels frequented the wood, and one day I saw a great many squirrels on the other side of the hill, and I openly expressed my sorrow that the dear things did not live with me. " Why don't you invite them ? " he asked whimsically ; and very solemnly we laid the case before the squirrels, and then went on our way with a laugh. The next day, by some strange fate, the squirrels came into the garden ; they were " royally entreated," and we had a quantity always running about until just before 374 GREEN PASTURES we left. I always suspected an enemy shot the little creatures, but I do not know ; all I do know is that from that day to this not one squirrel has been seen near the place ! I made great pets, too, of the nut-hatches and tits. Tits are very easily enticed, and even in London I have regular winter visitors who delight in the cocoanuts and suet put out for their entertainment ; but nut-hatches are not supposed to make friends quite as easily as do the friendlier tits. But at that house the nut-hatches used to come for their nuts to the tea-table, and one day, when I had been out of their particular form of nut for two or three days ; for owing to stress of weather, I could not get into the town; when I put out their nuts they calmly cleared off the whole lot, not using from their store as usual during the day, but carrying off all. They had been deprived of the food for a few days ; there might be another famine ; best store while they could against it ; and yet " they say " that birds cannot reason, and only act in a mechanical manner when they act at all ! We once more invited some guests to the garden when, acting on a sudden freak, the swallows which had always built unmolested in the church porch were driven away by some stupid and malevolent person. Five times did the poor little things build their nest ; five times was it knocked down ; at last we went up and once more solemnly asked the swallows down to 375 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES our porch. Next day they came, built, and brought up their family of five. I have witnesses still alive to both invitations and both accept- ances. No doubt the arrivals both of squirrels and swallows were coincidences ; anyhow they are facts, are curious, and as such worth mention, I think, to all who care for the happenings one may come across in green pastures. " Their tameness is shocking to me," says Alexander Selkirk on his island ; to me the way creatures fear men and the ubiquitous boy is far more shocking. I should like every animal in the world to live on friendly terms with me; and though I have a curious and foolishly idiotic dread of fluttering feathers, which prevents me touching a bird, or being able to be in the room if a bird is flying about; as long as they walk or hop I delight in them, and wish that the London cats could all be belled — I won't say destroyed, though I feel tempted to do so. For if there were no cats in London, the birds would be very tame indeed, they want food and water so badly ; and I have several in my apology for a garden which delight in the bath put out for them winter and siunmer ; and in the food that is always at their service. We had other visitors in that garden which were not as much appreciated, for they really were most alarming, and these were the peregrine falcons that breed in the cliffs near by. One day one struck at and killed a white pigeon, but it struck in such a manner that the pigeon was 376 GREEN PASTURES flung across the lawn dead, and the falcon lost its meal. Some one was in the garden and picked up the pigeon ; it had blood on its breast and was stone-dead, but as it was also quite stiff, we think the fright killed it as well as the blow. Another day the same falcon came rushing down on the little birds feeding on the lawn ; for- tunately they saw him in time, and scattered into the sheltering rhododendron bushes. When he struck he struck the bushes, and stayed there a few seconds, surprised, I suppose, with out- spread wings, while we watched him in terror. At last he departed, and to my great joy I never saw him again ; he looked enormous to my frightened eyes, and I was thankful indeed when he made off. That special valley would have been a paradise for a bird-lover, for situated as it is between the sea and the cornland, one used to have many strange visitors Once the small squacco heron was seen there, blown in after a gale ; it is a dainty, pretty bird, and was the only specimen known of since some time in the 'sixties. We used to have also an overwhelming plague of rats ; personally I do not mind them, but as they took to climbing up the ivy and clearing up the food on the birds' table, the table had to be moved and the rats destroyed. They are rather alarming at close quarters, and, moreover, make the most ghostly noises that I have ever heard. Rats account, I feel sure, for all the ghosts that 377 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES have ever been ! Any one who has spent a winter with rats can, I am certain, bear me out in my statement that there is no noise a rat cannot make, from ringing a bell, groaning, quavering, and pattering about, down to the most peculiar sighing that I have ever heard. We once had, too, what we called " a sending of mice," and as all the world has read, or ought to have read, " The Sending of Dana Da," by Rudyard Kipling, I think my readers will know what I mean. For one solid week we found mice everywhere ; mice upstairs where a mouse had never been seen ; mice in garments, which they tore to shi-eds in the night, apparently to make into a nursery ; mice in the kitchen and in the stables ; and mice on the hearth when we came into the sitting-room. A little poisoned bread and butter disposed of them at once, and no mouse ever came again. Could they have fancied that our love for birds and beasts extended to them ? If so they were grossly mistaken ; the poison gave them notice to quit, and we were never troubled any more as long as we were in the house. Then one hot summer we had quite a " sending " of moles. I should have let them alone myself, but I had a small, most precious " warrior " dog who would have none of them. The first he went for bit him, so all the others he killed — and he accounted for some thirty-three — ^he seized behind on the neck and shook until they were dead ; he then brought them to whichever of his 378 GREEN PASTURES human friends was nearest, and looked up for the praise he conceived was his due. How can I end my book without a word or two, written in tears, indeed, about the dear dogs I have loved and lost. For, dogless though I am now, I have had these faithful companions ever since I had a will of my own. Was there not the faithful " Jerry " whose rough coat dried my tears when I came to the end of one of my delightful visits to York ; who listened to all my sorrows and sympathised with me all the days of my later childhood ? Then came " Pearce," so named for " Idstone " of the Field, who gave him to me : he gave untimely notice during one of my ab- sences from home of a late supper-party in the kitchen. Mama descended at his bark, to look for the ever-expected burglar, and found an anything but pious orgy going on downstairs ; so the cook lost "Pearce," and my heart was sorely wounded indeed by her cruel act. Then we had " Tiny"; but personally I never loved him. He was sent down from Hull because he was always being stolen from Mr. Rousby, the colour-maker, the father of the actor ; and he thought he would be safe with us. Safe ! He was stolen three or four times. Once he returned so full of unpleasant animals that Papa treated him with turpentine, and nearly drove him mad ; and once the poor little thing was shut up into the painting-room, and, Papa having the key, no one could get at him. The gallant housemaid tried getting in 379 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES at the window to feed him, but the policeman caught her, and advised a locksmith. One was procured, and " Tiny " was released, having considerably damaged the arrangement of the draperies, to preserve which intact the painting- room door had been locked. Then he was stolen for the last time, and Papa let him go ; no further reward was offered, and we never saw him again. A long series of dogs has ended, as far as my love is concerned, with two very different characters ; one " Snuff," a brown mongrel who was meant for a pug, but only kept the tail and colour of his mother and reproduced the terrier body of some unknown ancestor beside. The other was "Scrap," the dearest, daintiest, sweetest Yorkshire terrier that ever breathed, and who will never have a successor in my heart. He it was who slew the moles ; while " Snuff " was possessed of all the talents and crimes that a dog can have and be guilty of, and made stray friends and did deeds that no dog immortalised in the Spectator has ever made or done. At one time he used to disappear regularly after dinner and reappear at 10 p.m. ; we could not understand this until one day a friend came to call and in a measure elucidated the mystery. I say in a measure, for all " Snuff " did was to appear by their fire at about nine, sit opposite their dog, " Jack," until ten, without exchanging so much as a growl ; when he would get up and return home ; and this he did for months : indeed, until "Jack " 380 GREEN PASTURES went away, when he ceased going out to call altogether. Once he was turned out of the draw- ing-room by the master of the house for some fault ; I think he had been rolling in odoriferous mud and was not dry; that dog deliberately took out the very pet slippers of his master, hid one on the railway embankment, and left the other (in the dark) carelessly on the lawn, as much as to say, " You can see them for yourself in the morning, when you won't require them." He was always a most pugnacious beast, too, and had a strange hatred for large black dogs ; small black ones did not trouble him at all, but the larger the black dog the fiercer was his rage, and he has cost us pounds for vet.'s bills, for he had to go and be mended more times than I can count. Once he went poaching with two other dogs, who led him away on that occasion, for he had never poached before, nor did he ever again. He had thirteen shots put into him by an irate and horrid old man. Fortunately the poor little fellow got home, covered with blood. The vet. extracted the shots, and he recovered; but though his assailant has long been dead, I yet hate him with a hatred that makes me hope that in another world he may be the dog and " Snuff " the man. Albeit if " Snuff " is, I am quite sure he is too much of a gentleman ; ragamuffin as he was ; to retaliate. " Snuff's " long career was ended by cancer. He had two operations, but they were no good ; he had to be put to sleep. And then came on the 381 FRESH LEAVES AND GREEN PASTURES scene my last pet darling. But of him I cannot write ; he lies under a stone in the garden, and I can but re-echo the verse I placed above him here : Thou who didst bid this gentle spirit live To him in Thy wide Heaven a comer give. After all, the best of life is what we recollect, the places we have seen, the friends we have loved ; and if it sounds absurd to place dogs amongst these latter, absurd it must be. My dogs have been my real friends, and have made green pastures green indeed for me by their kindly wiles and pleasant ways. Now that the sun sinks one remembers all that was good and sweet, and forgets the bad. One can hate no longer with the old fierce hatred, but one can love. Love is the one strand that never gives. Have love for some one, something ; one's country, one's home, even, oh ! scoffers, for one's dear dead, faithful dogs ; and let life be what it may : somewhere, somehow, we shall always find some spot that can be to us as green pastures ! December U, 1908. Printed by Ballantvne <&* Co, Limited Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London