Grain and Chaff from an English Manor Part 3

Among the annual trips to which I treated my men, I sent them for a long summer day to London, and one of my pupils kindly volunteered to act as conductor to the sights. They had a very successful day, and the princ.i.p.al streets and shows were visited; among the latter the Great Wheel, then very popular, was the one that seemed to interest them most.

Next morning some of the travellers were hoeing beans in one of my fields; I interviewed them on my round, and inquired what they thought of London. They had much enjoyed the day, and were greatly struck by the fact that the barmaid, at the place where they had eaten the lunch they took with them, had recognized them as "Oosters.h.i.+re men"; they had demanded their beer in three or four quart jugs, which could be handed round so that each man could take a pull in turn, instead of the usual fas.h.i.+on of separate gla.s.ses, and it appeared that this indicated the locality from whence they came. Probably she had noticed their accent, and, being a native of Worcesters.h.i.+re, remembered their intimate drinking custom as a county peculiarity. The men proceeded to describe the sights of London, and one of them added that there was one thing they could not find there, stopping suddenly in some confusion. I pressed him to explain. He still hesitated, and, turning to the others, said: "_You_ tell the master, Bill." Bill was not so diffident. "Well," he said, "we couldn't see a good-looking 'ooman in Lunnon; for Jarge here, 'e was judge over 'em for a bit, and then Tom 'e took it, nor 'e couldn't see one neither!"

Jarge was somewhat of a _bon vivant_, and much appreciated my annual present of a piece of Christmas beef. When thanking me and descanting upon its tenderness and acceptability, on one occasion, he continued, "It ain't like the sort of biff we folks has to put up with, that tough you has to set in the middle of the room at dinner, for fear you might daish your brains out agen the wall a-tuggin' at it with your teeth!"

Jarge had one song and only one that I ever heard, and he was always called upon for it at harvest suppers and other jollifications; it was not a cla.s.sic, but he rendered it with characteristic drollery, and always brought down the house. I conclude my sketch of him by mentioning it because it is almost my last impression of his vivid personality, trotted out with great energy at my farewell supper, a day or two before I left Aldington.

Among the men who were bequeathed to me, so to speak, by my predecessor, Tom was one of whom I always had a high opinion. Tall, vigorous, and well made, one recognized at once his possibilities as a valuable man. He was somewhat cautious, taciturn, very sensitive and reserved, but would open out in conversation when alone with me. As quite a young man he had worked at the building of the branch line from Oxford to Wolverhampton, via Worcester, the "O.W. and W.," or "Old Wusser and Wusser," as it was called, until taken over by the Great Western Railway. The latter, extending from London to Oxford, was, I believe, one of Brunell's masterly conceptions, being without a tunnel the whole way. But the new line had to pierce the Cotswolds before reaching the Vale of Evesham, and Tom had many yarns about the construction of the long Mickleton tunnel. Among them was a tradition of the cost, so great that guineas laid edgeways throughout its length would not pay for it.

In my time there was a splendid service of express trains running from London to Worcester without a stop, and coming downhill into the Vale, through the tunnel and towards Evesham, the speed approximated to a mile a minute. I was talking to one of my men, a hedger, working near the line which bounded a portion of my land, when one of the express trains came das.h.i.+ng along and pa.s.sed us with a roar in a few seconds.

"My word," said he, "I reckon that's a co-rider." I was puzzled, but presently it came to me that he meant "corridor"; he had probably seen the word in the local paper without having heard it p.r.o.nounced.

It was a treat to watch Tom's magnificent physique when felling a big tree, stripped to his s.h.i.+rt, with sleeves rolled up, and his gleaming axe slowly raised and poised for a second above him before it fell with the gathered impetus of its own weight and his powerful stress.

Biting time after time into the exact place aimed at, and at the most effective angle possible, the clean chips would fly in all directions until the necessary notch was cut and the basal outgrowths, close to the ground around the st.u.r.dy column, were reduced, so that the cross-cut saw could complete its downfall with a mighty crash. There is always something sad about the felling of an ancient tree; one feels it is a venerable creature that has pa.s.sed long years of unchallenged dominion on the spot occupied, and one can scarcely avoid an idea of its intelligence and its silent record of pa.s.sing generations, who have welcomed its shade at blazing summer noontides, or crept close to its warm touch for shelter from the winter's chilling blast and the hissing hail.

Tom was always the leader of my team of mowers when the gra.s.s was cut, for, with the large staff I employed on purpose for the all-important hop-gardens, I never wanted, till towards the end of my time, to make use of a machine. The steady swing of his scythe, with scarcely an apparent effort, the swish, as the swathe fell beneath its keen edge, and the final lift of the severed gra.s.ses at the end of the stroke, all in regular rhythmic action, were very fascinating to watch. At intervals came a halt for "whetting" the blade, and the musical sound of rubber (sharpening stone) against steel, equally adroitly accomplished, proved the artist at his work, with a delicacy of touch which, perhaps in different circ.u.mstances, might have produced the thrills with which Pachmann's velvet caress or Paderewski's refined expression enchant a vast and rapturous audience.

As a land-drainer, too, I loved to watch him standing in the slippery trench, with not an inch more soil moved than was necessary, lifting out the decreasing "draws," and leaving a bottom nicely rounded exactly to fit the pipes, and finally the methodical adjustment of each pipe, with the concluding tap to bring it close to the last one laid. Draining is an art which taxes the ability of the best of men, for it must be remembered that, like the links of a chain, its efficiency is no greater than that of its weakest part.

When I had to arrange for the harvesting of my first hop crop, it was necessary to find a man who could be entrusted with the critical work of drying the hops, and Tom was the man I chose. I had my kiln ready, constructed in an old malthouse, on the latest principles, and in time for the first crop. The kiln consisted of a s.p.a.ce about 20 feet square, walled off at one end of the old building, but with entrances on the ground and first floors. Beneath, in the lower compartment, was the fireplace, a yard square, and 16 feet above was the floor on which the hops were dried. Anthracite coal was used for fuel, the fire being maintained day and night throughout the picking--the morning's picking drying between 1 p.m. and 12 midnight, and the afternoon's picking between 1 a.m. and 12 o'clock noon. Tom was therefore on duty for the whole twenty-four hours, with what s.n.a.t.c.hes of sleep he could catch in the initial stage of each drying and at odd moments.

The process requires great skill and attention; at first he and I, with what little knowledge I had, puzzled it out together, he having had no previous experience, and night after night I sat up with him till the load came off the kiln at midnight. A slight excess of heat, or an irregular application of it, will spoil the hops, the principle being to raise the temperature, very gradually at first, to 30 or 40 degrees higher at the finish. Hops should be _blown_ dry by a blast of hot air, not baked by heat alone. The drier, of course, has to keep a watchful eye on the thermometer on the upper floor among the hops--Tom always called it the "theometer"--regulating his fire accordingly and the admission of cold air through adjustable ventilators on the outside walls. This regulation varies according to the weather, the moisture of the air, and the condition of the hops, and calls for critical judgment and accuracy. Often, tired out with the previous ordinary day's work, we had much ado to keep awake at night, and it was fatal to arrange a too comfortable position with the warmth of the glowing fire and the soporific scent of the hops. Then Tom would announce that it was "time to get them little props out," which, in imagination, were to support our wearied eyelids.

When we decided that the hops were ready to be cooled down, to prevent breaking when being taken off the drying floor, all doors, windows, and ventilators were thrown open and the fire banked up, and, while they were cooling, he went to neighbouring cottages to rouse the men who came nightly to unload and reload the kiln, and then I could retire to bed.

Tom was devoted to duty, and was so successful as a hop-drier that he soon became capable of managing two more kilns in the same building, which I enlarged as I gradually increased my acreage. In a good season he would often have 100 worth of hops through his hands in the twenty-four hours, sometimes more. He was the only man I ever employed at this particular work, and throughout those years he turned out hops to the value of nearly 30,000 without a single mishap or spoiled kiln-load--a better proof of his devotion to duty than anything else I could say.

He was a very picturesque figure when, "crowned with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf, Autumn comes jovial on," and he was cutting wheat, his head covered with a coloured handkerchief, knotted at the corners, to protect the back of his neck from the sun, which must have been much cooler than the felt hat--a kind of "billyc.o.c.k" with a flat top--which he habitually wore. I have noticed that the labourer's style of hat is a matter of great conservatism, probably due to the fancy that he would "look odd" in any other, and would be liable to chaff from his fellow-workers.

Tom had a tremendous reach, and got through a big day's work in the harvest-field, but nearly always knocked himself up after two or three days in the broiling sun, developing what he called, "Tantiddy's fire " in one forearm; this is the local equivalent of St. Anthony's fire, an ailment termed professionally erysipelas, but I have never heard how it is connected with the saint.

Harvesters often work in pairs, and they are then "b.u.t.ties"

(partners), but not infrequently a harvester will be accompanied by his wife or daughter to tie up the sheaves; and their active figures among the golden corn, backed by a horizon of blue sky, make a charming picture. The mind goes back to the old Scripture references to the time of harvest, and the idea impresses itself that one is looking at almost exactly the same scene as it appeared to the old writers, and which they described in all the dignity of their stately language.

Tom was not much given to the epigrammatic expression of his thoughts, like some of the other men, but he had a vein of humour. A relative of his used to come over from Evesham to sing in our church choir, and I remember a special occasion when the choir was somewhat _piano_ until this singer's part came in; he had a strong and not very melodious voice, and the effort and the effect alike were startling. Tom was in church at the time, and had evidently been watching expectantly for the _fortissimo_ climax; he told me afterwards that "when S. opened his mouth I knew it was sure to come." It did!

I have mentioned Tom's cautiousness; he had a way of a.s.senting to a statement without committing himself to definite agreement. I once asked him who the leaders had been in a disorderly incident, being aware that he knew; I suggested the names, but the nearest approach to a.s.sent which I could extract was, "If you spakes again you'll be wrong."

CHAPTER IV.

THE HEAD CARTER--THE CARPENTER.

"There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and folks most in general chooses the wrong un."

--TOM G.

Jim was my first head carter, and he dearly loved a horse. He had, as the saying is, forgotten more about horses than most men ever knew, and what he didn't know wasn't worth knowing.

He was a cheery man, and when I went to Aldington was about to be married. Not being much of a "scholard," his first request was that I would write out his name and that of his intended, for the publication of the banns. A group of men was standing round at the time, and I asked him how his somewhat unusual name was spelt. Seeing that he was puzzled, I hazarded a guess myself, repeating the six letters in order slowly. He was greatly surprised and pleased to recognize that my attempt was correct, and, turning to the bystanders, remarked with the utmost sincerity, "There ain't many as could have done that, mind you!" I felt that my reputation for scholars.h.i.+p was established.

Jim was a fisherman, and was no representative of "a worm at one end and a fool at the other." I gave him leave to fish in my brooks; he was wily, patient, and successful, and one day brought me a nice salmon-trout, by no means common in these streams. In thanking him, I made him a standing offer of a s.h.i.+lling a pound for any more he could catch, but he never got another. Writing of fis.h.i.+ng, I cannot forbear quoting Thomson's lines on the subject, under "Spring," the most vivid description of the sport I have ever read:

"When with his lively ray the potent sun Has pierced the streams, and roused the finny race, Then, issuing cheerful, to thy sport repair; Chief should the western breezes curling play, And light o'er ether bear the shadowy clouds.

High to their fount, this day, amid the hills, And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks; The next, pursue their rocky-channel'd maze, Down to the river, in whose ample wave Their little naiads love to sport at large.

Just in the dubious point, where with the pool Is mix'd the trembling stream, or where it boils Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank Reverted plays in undulating flow, There throw, nice-judging, the delusive fly; And as you lead it round in artful curve, With eye attentive mark the springing games Straight as above the surface of the flood They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap, Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook: Some lightly tossing to the gra.s.sy bank, And to the shelving sh.o.r.e slow-dragging some, With various hand proportion'd to their force.

If yet too young, and easily deceived, A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod, Him, piteous of his youth and the short s.p.a.ce He has enjoy'd the vital light of heaven, Soft disengage, and back into the stream The speckled captive throw. But should you lure From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots Of pendant trees, the monarch of the brook, Behoves you then to ply your finest art.

Long time he following cautious, scans the fly; And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear.

At last, while haply yet the shaded sun Pa.s.ses a cloud, he desperate takes the death, With sullen plunge. At once he darts along, Deep-struck, and runs out all the lengthen'd line; Then seeks the furthest ooze, the sheltering weed, The cavern'd bank, his old secure abode; And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool, Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand, That feels him still, yet to his furious course Gives way, you, now retiring, following now Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage: Till floating broad upon his breathless side, And to his fate abandon'd, to the sh.o.r.e You gaily drag your unresisting prize."

Horses were scarce and dear when I went to Aldington, and many French animals were being imported. I got an old acquaintance in the South of England to send me four or five; they were all greys, useful workers, but wanting the spirit and stamina of the English horse; and they would always wait for the Englishman to start a heavy standing load before throwing their weight into the collar. Jim told me that they were "desperate ongain" (very awkward), and, as foreigners, well they might be, for I myself had some difficulty in understanding the local words of command, more especially in ploughing, when, with a team of four, he shouted his orders, addressing the new horses by names with which they were quite unfamiliar.

I admired Jim's loyalty to his late master, if not his veracity, at the valuation of the stock, which I took over as it stood. Being aware that there was a lame one or two among the horses, I warned my valuer beforehand. We entered the stable, and my valuer, thinking to catch Jim off his guard, asked casually which they were. Jim was quite ready for him, and answered without a moment's hesitation, "Nerrun, sir"

(never a one). They were, however, easily detected when trotted out on the road.

Jim was a capital hand at "getting up" a horse for sale; an extra sack or two of corn, constant grooming, and rest in the stable, with the aid of some mysterious powders, which, I think, contained a.r.s.enic, soon brought out the "dapples," which he called "crown-pieces," on their coats, and in a couple of months' time one scarcely recognized the somewhat angular beast upon which his labours had wrought a miracle, and put a ten-pound note at least on the value. We had an ancient and otherwise doubtful mare, "Bonny," ready for Persh.o.r.e Fair, and the previous day Jim wanted to know if I intended to be present. I told him, "No! I should have to tell too many lies." "Oh!" said he, "I'll do all that, sir!" He sold the mare to a big dealer for all she was worth, I think, though not a large figure. Soon afterwards I had to expostulate with him about some fault. He explained the circ.u.mstances from his point of view, adding, "And that's the truth, sir, and the truth _is_ the truth, and"--triumphantly--"that's what'll carry a man through the world!" I could say no more, but could not help remembering his willingness to testify to Sonny's doubtful merits at Persh.o.r.e Fair.

Jim became a widower, but eventually married again; a good woman, who made a capital wife. Shortly before the wedding, when he came to see me on some business, my wife happened to be present; she was very anxious to find out the date in order that we might attend. Jim was shy, not wis.h.i.+ng it to be generally known, and nothing could be got out of him. On leaving, however, he repented and, looking back over his shoulder, made the announcement, "Our job comes off next Thursday," then closing the door quickly, he was gone.

He got my permission to visit his mother and son, both ailing in Birmingham, and on his return I made inquiries. The boy was better, but about his mother he said, "I don't take so much notice of she, for her be regular weared out"--not unkindly or undutifully intended, but just a plain statement of fact, simply put; for she was a very old woman, and could not in the course of nature be expected to live much longer.

That Jim had a tender heart I know, for when we lost a very favourite horse, one which "you could not put at the wrong job," I found him weeping and much distressed. Later he said, "When you lose a horse I reckon it's a double loss, for you haven't got the horse or the money." My mind being dominated by the unanswerable accuracy of the latter part of the statement, I did not, for a moment, see that the first part was fallacious, because, of course, one could not have both at one and the same time.

He was an excellent ploughman, and considerable skill is demanded to manage the long wood plough, locally made, and still the best implement of the sort on the adhesive land of the Vale of Evesham. It has no wheels, like the ordinary iron plough has, to regulate the depth and width of the furrow-slice, because in wet weather, if tried on this almost stoneless land, the wheels become so clogged with mud and refuse, such as stubble from the previous crop, that they will not revolve, sliding helplessly involved along the ground. Even the mould-board is wood, generally pear-tree, to which the mud does not adhere, as happens with iron. As an old neighbour explained to me, "You can cut the newest bread with a wooden knife, whereas the doughy crumb of the bread would stick to a steel one." Pear-tree wood is used because it wears "slick" (smooth), and does not splinter like wood which is longer in the grain.

With these long wood ploughs the ploughman himself regulates the depth and width of the furrow-slice--_i.e.,_ each strip that is severed and turned over--by holding the handles firmly in the correct position as the plough travels along, for it cannot be left for a moment to its own inclination. This entails strict attention and much muscular effort, and, of course, the latter comes into play also in turning at each end of the field. The result is very effective; the flat mould-board offers the least possible resistance to the inversion of the soil, whereas the iron plough, with a curling mould-board, presses the crest of the furrow-slice into regularity of form, and gives a more finished appearance at the expense of much extra friction and labour for the horses.

A carter-boy accompanies each team, as driver, to keep the horses up to their work and turn them at the ends. A farmer I knew in Hamps.h.i.+re would not, if possible, employ a boy unless he could whistle--of course the ability and degree of excellence is a guide to character, and indicates to some extent a harmonious disposition; he always said, "Now whistle," when engaging a new boy.

There are few more pleasant agricultural operations to watch and to follow than a l.u.s.ty team, a skilful ploughman, and a whistling boy at work, on a glowing autumn day, when the stubble is covered with gossamers gleaming with iridescent colours in the suns.h.i.+ne. The upturned earth is fragrant, the fresh soil looks rich and full of promise, there is the feeling that old mistakes and disappointments are being buried out of sight, and the hope and antic.i.p.ation of the future.

On a Lincolns.h.i.+re farm where I was a pupil, an incident occurred ill.u.s.trating the anxiety of a carter for the welfare of his horses, in combination with no small cunning. The owner, in the stable one Sunday morning, noticed an open Bible in the manger; having doubts as to the reliability of the carter, he regarded the Bible, so prominently displayed, with some suspicion. Looking carefully all round he could see nothing to find fault with, until he glanced upward at the floor over the manger, where he discovered a protruding cork. He remembered that a heap of oats was stored in the loft, from which the bailiff gave out the rations for their teams to each man weekly. Getting the key of the loft, he found that the cork was nicely adjusted to a hole beneath the oats, so that the carter in question could exceed the recognized ration whenever inclined. The fault was, of course, more one of disobedience than of robbery, as the corn was consumed by his master's horses, and the prominence of the Bible was perhaps the worst feature, evidently a deceptive device to arrest suspicion, though it proved to have exactly the opposite effect.

Very few of my men suffered from rheumatism, but Jim was an exception.

I think he applied horse embrocation to himself; he would extol its efficacy, and would tell how, when the pain attacked his shoulder, the remedy "druv it" to his back; applied to the latter, "it druv it" to his legs; and so on indefinitely.

I kept about a dozen working horses besides colts; the latter are broken at two years old, but only very lightly worked, and, when quiet and handy, they are turned out again till a year older. Our method of maintaining the full capacity of horse-power on the farm was to breed, or buy at six months old, two colts, and sell off two of the oldest horses every year. As two colts could be bought for forty or fifty pounds at that age, and the two old horses sold for a hundred and twenty pounds or thereabouts, a good balance was left on the transaction, while the full strength of the teams was maintained.

Jim had sufficient foresight to view with alarm the gradual dispersion of most of the oldest and best farmers in the neighbourhood, and the conversion to gra.s.s of the arable land, owing to the unfair and dangerous compet.i.tion of American wheat. When we discussed the subject and foretold the straits to which the country would be reduced in the event of war with a great European Power, he concluded these forebodings with the habitual remark, "Well, what I says is, them as lives longest will see the most." A truism, no doubt, but, as time has proved, by no means an incorrect view.

There was always plenty of employment for an estate carpenter on my farms, as I had a vast number of buildings, including four separate sets of barn, stable, sheds, and yard, away from the village, as well as those near the Manor House, and many repairs were necessary. There were, too, very many gates, repairs to fences, hurdle-making, and odd jobs, to keep a man employed for months at a time. The building of three hop-kilns, with the necessary storerooms for green and dried hops, as the hop acreage increased, the preparation of hop-poles, and the erection of wire-work on larger poles, which gradually superseded the ordinary pole system, all demanded a great deal of regular work.

I was most fortunate in obtaining the services of a man living in a neighbouring village, not only as estate carpenter, but as a skilled joiner, and possessing all the knowledge and efficiency of an experienced builder. When I first met him, or very soon afterwards, Tom G. was a teetotaller, and I have always had immense admiration for the strength of will which enabled him to conquer completely the drink habit, for he freely admitted that he was entirely mastered by it in his younger days. He told me, and it proves what a kindly word will sometimes do, that the Squire of his village, who also employed him largely, said to him, after praising some of his work, "There's only one thing the matter with you, Tom, and that's the drink." "I went home," said Tom, "and I thought to myself, if the drink is all that's wrong with me, what a fool I must be to continue it. Next day I went to Evesham and signed the pledge, and I've never touched a drop since, though the smell and the sight of a public-house have been so sore a temptation that many a time after a long day's work, and with money in my pocket, I've gone a mile or two out of my way in order not to pa.s.s a place of the sort."

His training as a carpenter had induced habits of great accuracy, exact method, and lucid thought, and a chat with him, and watching his quick and clever workmans.h.i.+p, was an educational opportunity. I have always been fascinated by such work, and one of my earliest recollections is of being taken by my father to interview a carpenter about some small household job. His name was Snewin--I am not sure of the spelling, for I was only about eight years old at the time--and we found him in his workshop vigorously using a long plane on some red deal boards, his feet buried in beautifully curled shavings, and the whole place redolent of the delicious scent of turpentine. Every time his plane travelled along the edge, to my childish fancy, the board said in plaintive tones of remonstrance, _in crescendo_, his name, "Snewin, _Snewin_," and again, "SNEWIN," and even now the scent and action of planing a deal board always brings back the scene clearly to my mind.