THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES a In Russet Mantle Clad In Russet Mantle Clad Scenes ot IRural Xife BY GEORGE MORLEY AUTHOR OF 'LEAFV WARWICKSHIRE,' ' IN RUSTIC LIVERV,' ' SWEET AUDREY,' ETC. DEDICATED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION TO The Right Honourahle ^bc Countess of TlClarwich With Illustrations taken specially for this Work LONDON SKEFFINGTON & SON, 163 Piccadilly publisbevs to Ib.flR. tlbe Queen an^ to Ib.lR.lft. Ube prince of XClales 1897 ' Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat. Come hither, come hither, come hither ; Here shall we see No enemy, But winter and rough weather.' ^s Yoti Like It (Act ii., Scene v.) DEDICATION TO jfrances iBwlm OveviUe, COUNTESS OF WARWICK, IN TOKEN OF HER KINDLY FRIENDSHIP, THESE SCENES OF IDYLLIC LIFE IN WARWICKSHIRE — THE WORK OF MY HAND WITH MY HEART IN IT — ARE, BY HER SPECIAL PERMISSION, VERY GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED. GEORGE MORLEV ' Howe'er it be it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good ; Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.' Tennyson. 870786 PREFACE So beautiful a pastoral county as Warwick- shire, the very heart of rural England, affords charming pictures for the pen of the descrip- tive writer and the pencil of the artist, and the wonder is that more writers and painters have not gone to the sweet and peaceful nooks of nature to be found there in such abund- ance. The scenes of rural life comprised in this volume are written by a native who knows every mead, stream, hill, cottage, farmhouse, manor, lane and hedgerow of the ground traversed, and the writing of them has been to him a labour of love. The sketch entitled 'Under the Chestnut Tree' describes the unique and hitherto unrecorded initial meeting of War- wickshire peasants under the historical chestnut IX {preface tree at Wellesbourne, when the famous Joseph Arch called the Arcadians to revolt ; but the author has idealised the scene as more in harmony with the beauty of the setting, and has caused the preacher to preach a gospel or content rather than of discontent. If the perusal of these scenes, ' In Russet Mantle Clad,' attracts more attention to the charms of a country life, where true happiness is in- variably to be found, his task will have been to him more than ever delightful. GEORGE MORLEY. Leamington, 1897. CONTENTS lRoun& tbe IReD Ibouse jfarm— PAGE The Red House, ..... 3 The Canine Critic, .... 5 The Good, Easy Farmer, .... 6 The Saucy Cob, ..... 7 The Starlings as Doorkeepers, . . 9 The Birds' Fear of Man, ... 13 The Sheep Meadow, . . . .17 The Sleepless Ovines, . . . .19 The Three Lambs : a Pastoral Tragedy, . 21 The Sheep and the Foxhounds, . . 24 The Ovine's Eye for Colour . . . 26 The Swallow's Energy, . . , -27 The Swallow's Hardihood, ... 29 xi Xll Contents The Swallow's Industry, The Hawk and the Swallows, The Red House Cuckoo, . The Comyn Rookery, The Fallen Rookling, The Rooks at School, The Hedgerows and Ditches, PAGE 29 31 32 34 35 38 39 XHnDer tbe Cbestnut Zvcc— The Chestnut Tree, A Chill February Morning, A Group of Rustics, Rustic Colloquialisms, The Halting Rustic, More Rural Colloquialisms, The Gathering of Arcadians, A Bucolic Felix Holt, The Preaching, 43 45 46 47 50 52 54 59 60 ©ut witb tbe ipoacbers— The Coombe, The Rooks' Ground, 67 68 Contents Xlll The Man in the Ditch, . The Black Lane, . The Poacher's Dog, The Lurcher's Scent, The Poacher's Naturalism, Peasant and Poacher, The Sheep at Night, Nature's Strange Moods, The Easy-going Farmer, . Spreading the Net, The Lurcher's Saturnalia, The Poachers' Orgie, The Homeward Jaunt, I'AGE 68 72 74 76 78 79 81 82 85 87 88 91 93 Ube ipoacber's 3fncn&— The Poacher's Faithful Lurcher, The History of Brookington, . The Saline Springs, The Upper Town, . The King's ' Diggings,' King and Friend, . 97 100 102 103 105 107 A >^ >A I^^^PlTH regard to the cuckoo, I ^ouBe 1^^^ hRve seen many remarks m Cuc&oo print, and heard them made, which do not in the least coincide with my experience of this well-known bird. For instance, I have heard it said and seen it IRoun^ tbe TReC) IfDOuse ifann 33 stated that a cuckoo only utters its cheery notes when flying. A dear old friend of mine, the widow of a country vicar, whom I should not like to contradict, once emphatically asserted that a cuckoo never spoke when seated in a tree. That lady was the wife of a former vicar of Chilvers Coten, ' The Shepperton ' of George Eliot ; and, living in such a quaint little village, she had doubtless ample opportunities for studying the peculiar habits of this peculiar member of the feathered race. I can only say that my experience of the cuckoo in the neigh- bourhood of the Red House Farm, which is several good miles from Chilvers Coten, are not the same as those of the vicar's widow. 1 have seen a cuckoo in a tree of Warwick- shire elm and heard it utter its note time after time. It has then flown a short distance — for the cuckoo is a restless bird, neither flying nor settling for long together — without uttering a single note. Then, as soon as it had settled again, it began with its cheerful notes as loudly and saucily as ever. I have •experienced this many times, and it may be 3n IRusset /in>aiitlc ClaD accounted for by the supposition that the habits of the cuckoo may vary according to the condition of the neighbourhood in which it resides. ^3e ^^^OOKS are very plentiful round (Rooft- p!,i^y^i?a ^^^ '^^^ House r arm. i his ^^^ may be explained by the fact that the whole district is well-timbered, and in some places there are thick clusters of elms, firs and beeches. These clusters are very attractive to such gregarious and sociable birds as rooks. They are still more attractive when the fields there- abouts are likely to furnish them with provender. And where there are rooks there are jackdaws ; and where there are jackdaws there are sure to be starlings. In this neigh- bourhood there are huge flocks of all these birds ; and on the south-west of the Red House there is the remnant of a fir avenue — centuries old — attached to The Comyn, in the top of which these congenerous creatures most do congregate. If you walk past this rookery about six IRount) tbe IRct) Ibouse if arm 35 o'clock on a summer morning, there is not a rook to be seen in any of the trees. Only their nests can be descried in the knotty clumps of the dark firs. The rooks, in fact, are out on their feeding grounds, and if you go farther into the landscape you will see scores of them in the lower meadows or on ploughed lands. After breakfast — that is, about nine or ten o'clock — you will find all the rooks returned to the rookery again, and making so great a chattering that you can hardly hear the sound of your own voice. Having frequently passed the rookery when the birds have been con- tending in heated debates, I have wondered how the lady of The Comyn, who lives there — a widow with her young children — could stand the noise. It begins during prayers, and continues all through the music lesson. '^ 'k '>i? tU I^CT YOUNG rook fallen out of its (Kooft- .Kw>Vi | nest, if it is not much hurt, will ft»S stand stock still and let you approach quite near to it. 36 5n IRusset /iDantle Clab On one of my circles of the Red House, I was surprised, upon looking ahead, to see a black-bird upon the pathway. Those who know the habits of rooks are aware that upon the first sight of a human creature Mr Rook will not budge. He does not in the least care for Mr Human Creature. He will go on digging with his long, spear-like beak for the food which he cannot always find. To see a man or woman, or even a boy, merely walking in the ordinary way has no fear for him at all. But if you lift your walking-stick ever so slowly in the air, Mr Rook is off. Away he flies with his wife and children — his sisters, his cousins and his aunts. I raised my stick towards the young rook- ling on the pathway, but he never stirred ; only stood looking at me with his big, black eyes in a very confused manner. There was a terrible cawing and flapping in the trees overhead, which told me plainly that the rook on the ground was a young one, and his parents were alarmed at the danger he was in, having fallen from the parental nest. 1Roun^ tbc 1Re^ IFDOuse jfarm Z7 Before he has properly learnt the use of his wings, the young rook is a foolish and clumsy creature. This young one nearly broke his neck through his own clumsiness. Just as I was about to pick him up and see what was the matter, the stupid biped jumped in the air, wallowed along for a few yards, and toppled headlong over into a patch of long grass. When I found him, he lay as still as if he had taken his last fly round the Red House Farm. Only his eyes were alive, and they looked at me so piteously that I knew he must have hurt himself. I picked him up carefully and carried him farther down the meadow, where he would run no danger of being stoned to death by inhuman schoolboys. There I laid him in the grass, and soon had the satisfac- tion of seeing the parent birds come fluttering lower down the fir and beech trees in search of their venturesome offspring. In Warwickshire there is a little folk-lore concerning rooks. It is considered a sign of impending illness or death for a rook to settle on a town house. To see one solitary rook flying is regarded as a prognostication of ill- 38 3n TRusset /iDantle Cla& luck. In the rural parts, and among town children, there is an implicit belief in the old tradition that rooks go to school. My own observations round the Red House Farm have almost made me a convert to that belief. r^^ ^ f t (RooftB of ^c6oof BOUT the elevations, for you cannot call them hills, that lie on the north-east of the farm, are several basins or ' coombs ' of good size. These are generally on pasture land, because they would be somewhat difficult to cultivate. I have stood at a convenient place, hidden from the birds' view, and watched them fly by the score into these grassy basins. Their time for conducting this performance is gener- ally in the hottest part of a summer's after- noon, when, owing to the heat, the sheep, cows and grazing horses are lying out in the shade, sleeping. More than once I have crept silently and close to the basins into which I saw the rooks fly, and there a sight has appeared which fully realises the idea that rooks go to school. 1Roun^ tbe 1Re^ Ibouse jfarm 39 All the birds were sitting in a circle round the basin, and in the middle of the ring were two or three rooks strutting about, with more than a rook's usual importance. Just like children at school, all the rooks were chatter- ing to one another, in short, sharp, jerky notes. Nothing more like a school have I ever seen than those sunny afternoon con- fabulations of Warwickshire rooks. Whenever they are disturbed, they rise in a body and wheel off to another basin to re- sume their interrupted lesson in the art of conversation. It may be that the one, two or three rooks in the middle of the ring were entertaining the company with an account of their adventures. At any rate, these summer afternoon bird performances give colour to, and strengthen belief in, the rural tradition that rooks, among other curious things, go to school. £eb c- |H^HE hedgerows round the Red rows [^.@y House Farm, in spring, sum- ©ifc^es ^^^ ^"^ autumn, are things of beauty to the lover of Nature. They 40 5n IRuesct /IDantlc Gla^ are generally composed of English hawthorn, which in June bears a white flower, and are cut low after the new fashion of hedge trim- ming — a fashion which I do not in the least admire. In many places, however, the crab- tree, the elder and the wild rose have a charm which the green hawthorn does not possess. The ditches are garlanded with flowers — the cowslip, the primrose, the lady smock, the wild hyacinth (called in Warwickshire ' the bluebell ') and the periwinkle. In the bottom of the ditches, cuckoo points, familiarly known as ' lords and ladies,' are found in abundance. 'Tis here that the gatherer of wild flowers will find a good harvest. 'Tis here that we may go hand in hand with Christopher Marlowe, and say, — ' And I will make thee beds of roses. And a thousand fragrant posies.' Under tbe Chestnut Cree (Unber t?e C^tBinnt txu A Gathering of Arcadians Give me again my hollow tree, A crust of bread, and liberty. Pope. tmi%ru W.feP.N chestnut tree pays no heed to the time, and the time pays no heed to it. Unlike the poor race of men who congregate under it, who change and pass away, that tree is immutable. It changes only with the seasons. In February when the golden plover and the curlew fly by night from the seashore to inland haunts, that tree is naked. A little later it buds, then bursts into bright green leaves ; then is glorified all over with white blossoms ; then sheds its fruit ; lastly its leaves, and becomes once more the naked tree it was in those early February days, many centuries ago — a work superior to man in many respects. 43 44 5n IRussct /IDantlc Cla^ It is not exercising the imagination too much to suppose that under this very chestnut tree, where on this particular morning in February of the year 1872 the labourer in his smock frock is gathering in quite unusual crowds, our own Shakespeare halted to take a rest, when on that long tramp of his to Babylon, more than three hundred years ago. He would have to pass this tree on his road from Stratford-on- Avon to Rugby, as it lies in a direct line between those towns; and when he passed that way he was doubtless attracted to its welcome shade; for when in leaf this chestnut tree is a beautiful retreat for the traveller. Whether this was really so or not cannot be determined, but it is pleasant even to think that it was ; for those of us who are Warwickshire born derive fascinating pleasure from walking, or fancying we are walking, in the footsteps of him who was born near, though not within hailing distance of this chestnut tree. 6¥>^ XHn^er tbe Cbestuut Uree 45 . . irft?»wJ^ ^^^ ^^^^ month of February, ScBru- l^«^ when the little ponds of the ^ village are covered with silver (jwojrn- ° ing ice, and unadorned with the merry flotilla of ducks; when the winds are sometimes very cutting, so much so that even the sturdy peasant woman has to cover up her fat, red arms and tie her cotton bonnet closer round her throat; when the cowman is never so warm as when he is carrying a truss of hay from the rickyard into the stable, or at such times as he is in the barn milking the cows — for alas ! for the romance of village life, the milkmaid is now almost only a pretty vision of the past; when the clouds look burdened with snow, and the rooms of the great, lumbering, though picturesque, farmhouses are glowing with rosy light and warmth from immense wood fires; when inside the house is better than the outside, and when even the wayward fowls, creatures often as hard as winter, and as indifferent to all weathers as the unhoused beggar, think it best to tuck themselves up close together in their own hen-roost ; on the morning of such a month as this, something unusual 46 5n IRusset /iDantle Cla& must be in the wind to bring out so many sons of the soil — men who earned their bread by the sweat of their brows, and lived in pretty little thatched huts on the waste or by the side of a wood; there must also be some peculiar attrac- tion to be found under the aforesaid chestnut tree, for the labourers, their buxom wives and squat children, are all going in that direction. of (Rub- here is a small group here just crossing over from the ^^^^ Ham Meadow which will re- pay the onlooker for giving it a little atten- tion. It consists of five people — three men, one woman and a shock-headed girl of about ten years, who, despite the keenness of the wind, has no hat upon her head; the back of her frock, too, owing to the absence of hooks and eyes, is flying open, thus serving as a door by which to let in the air upon the child's sharp blade bones. The woman of the group, one of those well- fed, red-cheeked, comely-looking women, who •ClnCter tbe Cbestnut XIree 47 would win a prize in an exhibition of healthful specimens of humanity; a woman who, though ' no schoiard,' has always a well-oiled tongue by her, ready for use, is evidently the mother of the child. [he looks down at the small ragamuffin out of a cotton bonnet that extends several inches over her face, and says, in that loud voice peculiar to peasants, — ' Mercy on us ! Look at our 'Anner. No hat on her yed, an' her frock all open at the back — an' a morning like this, too. As if you hanna big enough to fast' your own frock up.' ' There inna no hooks nor eyes on, mither,' said little Hannah, looking up at her mother boldly, 'so I couldna do it,' 'Couldna you ope your chops then, an' let me know as you'd lugged the 'ooks an' eyes off.?' said the mother, with an angry look at ' 'Anner,' as she dragged the child to her, took a large pin out of her shawl, and pinned up the back ventilation in the child's frock. 48 3n IRusset /IDantle (Ila^ ' Now, you'd better goo an' fetch summat to put on yer yed, or 'appen you'll catch a fine coldt,' ' Mither, I donna want ought on my yed. I hanna coldt a bit,' answered the young hoyden, with a vigorous shirk of her loose shoulders, as she ran bounding on in front of the group, her hair flying disorderly in the wind. She was one of those hardy daughters of the country that are always used to roam in the open in all weathers ; and no doubt what she said was perfectly true, for village children, when in good health, rarely stand or saunter long enough to allow the blood to congeal in their veins, ' Your 'Anner aint no nesh 'un, Mrs Abel,' said the youngest of the three men who accom- panied the woman and her child. ' She'll mak' a sturdy 'ooman, she 'ull.' 'Jest the right sort. Josh, for to emmegrate to Caneder wi',' joined in another of the group — a man who, by his looks and the foul con- dition of his boots, followed the occupation of farm waggoner. The man addressed as ' Josh ' was evidently XIlnt)er tbe Cbestnut Urec 49 the father of the child, and the husband of Mrs Abel. He was very sturdily built, with a face and neck almost the colour of Farmer Norman's roan bull. At the allusion to his daughter and Canada, he turned his slow gaze upon the speaker, and then upon the fat face of his wife, and grunted out rather than spoke, — ' Well, Yethard, boy, if the gaffer donna put my wages up a bob or two, I reckon as me an' the misses an' the gel 'ull 'ave to goo to Canedar, or some place as is different to this. We're harty folks, we are, all three on us, an' we canna do so well on eighteenpence a day. 'Owever you can do it, Aaron,' he said to the youngest of his companions, ' wi' your five nip- pers, is more nor I can mek out.' * 'Tis a close shave for us. Josh, I can tell thee,' responded the young man. ' But you see the master sends us down some bits from the house, an' meks up me wages i' that way. If he dinna, by Gosh ! I donna know how we should goo on. Should soon 'ave to goo to Poor House, I reckon,' he added with a broad grimace. D 50 3\\ IRusset /iDantle Clat) ^^^ Bafe^HOSE who have any acquaint- (Kufiftc ire.ly ance with rustics have no doubt noticed how halting and intermittent their talk is, even when it is encouraged and aided by the contents of the third quart pot. The peasant is a being whose mind moves as slowly as his own agri- cultural waggon, and it is some time before he can grasp the meaning of a sentence. Whether it is that the countryman's organ of sense is permanently dull from need of exercise, or that he is preparing himself with wisdom before he speaks, it is certain that he is a long time between his periods of conver- sation. He will halt suddenly, take his pipe from his mouth, stare blankly at the speaker, look down upon the ground, hobble a io-w steps along, and then once more come into contact with words. It was in this way that Joshua Abel behaved immediately upon the conclusion of his friend Aaron's remarks. This same young rustic, the odd man about the farm, rejoicing in the scriptural name of xan^er tbe CF^estnut Uree 5^ ' Aaron,' was notorious in the village as the person who had the least wages and the most children. His wife was a winsome country lass, gamesomely inclined, and as fat as the flitches of bacon that hung in the kitchen of Farmer Joyce ; but, as the profane farmer, the man of crops and cattle, often said, 'her were too fast a breeder to do any mon any good.' Certainly Mrs Martin, for such was the name of Aaron's ' missis,' was frequently in need of Dame Win- cote, the village nurse. Aaron had five children 'in no time,' as all the neighbours said, and the actual wages he received in money were but nine shillings a week. To some of the villagers, therefore, and notably to Joshua Abel — who, besides being an agricultural labourer, was by turns an earth- stopper, a mole catcher, and, when occasion offered, a poacher — it was a mystery ' how Aaron Martin, with them five blessed nippers, could mek a do on it at all.' This morning, in going to the chestnut tree to hear ' the preaching,' Aaron, as we know, had slipped out a word or two about having ' bits from the master ' at the great house, and 52 3n IRusset /IDantle Clab it was those few words that had the effect of stopping the speech of Joshua Abel, and at the same time of starting it again, for the word ' bits ' angered him more than if anyone had called him a fool. Those were the days when the farmer paid his men partly in money and partly in kind, and by that method imagined that he was doing the peasant good and himself no harm ; but during the winter months some stir had been made in the villages thereabout with reference to this perquisite system, which some persons had the hardihood to say ' oughter be put down.' 4? "iji? «$» OSHUA ABEL had imbibed deeply of the new doctrine, and it was this that checked (JHorc fRuraf €offo- quiaf- isms and then started again his speech when in conversation with Aaron Martin. ' Bits,' he sniffed out, with an air of the greatest contempt, lifting his sleepy eyes to the face of Aaron. ' It's this " bits " system, my butties, as is a-making our case such a hard 'un. Why donna the farmers give us ourn JUn^cv tbe Cbestnut XTree 53 right wage, an' lave us to buy what us likes ournselves i' the way o' vittles ? ' And he ground his ashplant in the earth by way of emphasising the dislike he had for that form of labour payment. ' Eh ! Joshua,' chimed in Mrs Abel, from the depths of her cotton bonnet, ' if we was to 'ave to buy our own vittle allaways, we shouldna be able to 'ave a bit o' partridge, or pheesant, or hare, or rabbit, as we does now an' agen from the gaffer's house, I couldna buy such things, laddie, boy, if your wage was as much agen as it am. Besides, I shouldna be able to walk to Arwick or Brookington for every little thing as us wanted. I'm fond on a bit o' pheesant, or partridge, or hare, or rabbit, I am, an' I know it does me good.' ' Now, Bess,' said her husband, with a rather angry glance down the tunnel of her bonnet into her face, ' I never axed you for your 'pinion on the matter o' perquisites, 'cause wommen know nothing about 'em. As for a bit o' partridge and such like, canna ye,' he added, lowering his voice somewhat, and speak- ing as if confidentially to his wife, ' canna ye 54 5n IRusset /Dantle ClaD 'ave a bit o' that wi'out 'aving it from the gaffer's table ? I hanna so fond on 'aving other folkses leavings, I hanna. Let 'em eat they're own orts. But look, butties, yon's the old chestnut, an' hang me if Joey inna up in't,. praching a'ready. Come, let's push on ! Yander's our 'Anner, right bang up agen Tim Jordan's cart. Trust that gel for gettin' her nose in front of things.' f ^ ^ cBaffier- {^^ ^-^ ^^^^^ quartette thus put ingof llg^gy on a spurt, if indeed the slow @rcabi- u i , • , • •.•»♦ 'f 'f V HAT man in the ditch, how- ever, with clay-smirched smock, battered hat, short cutty pipe, and with halting gait — caused some ®ut wltb tbe ipoacbers 69 years since by the shots from a gamekeeper's gun ; not on the Red House Farm, for there are no keepers there — thinks that the rook is not fair to him. He is not foolish enough — not by any means such a fool as he looks. His rookship is crafty, and he has a keen eye, even when as high again in the sky as the elm tree under which the poacher is crouching, and from which the nozzle of his firearm pokes out in threatening attitude, ready to belch forth smoke, fire and shot. No, the rook has far too much intelligence for the patience of this winged member of the poaching tribe. It is, in fact, remarkable how the rooks in those parts seem to know the hiding-places of their enemies. If it is not their knowledge of the poacher's whereabouts, it is their hawklike eyesight which often enables them to clear out of harm's way. ' See that, sir, see that .'' ' said the poacher to me as I stood watching him by the side of a stunted elm tree, which had been split clean open by the lightning. ' Did take note on that ? Lor, sir, talk about sense ; I should 70 5n IRusset /IDantle Clab think as the rooks hereabouts 'ave got more on that than some on these kids and teachers at the Board Schools. Here's another, sir, flying lowish — look, just over the hedge yon. You twig him now ^ ' A big, heavy-bodied rook, with a beak as yellow as a corn-stalk, and wattles as white as the flower of broccoli, was steering his way through the air, with flapping wings and stretched-out neck, right over the spot in which his enemy was crouching, ready to make ' dead game ' of him (preparatory to rook pie) as soon as he came within range of his firearm. The grubbing poacher, dithering with sup- pressed excitement as he watched the rumbling approach of the ungainly bird, and trying as much as possible to screen himself from the rook's view, was so unfortunate as to show the peak of his snuffs-coloured, clay-stained, soft felt hat, together with the nose of his gun, which, in the emotion of the moment, he inadvertently permitted to emerge from beneath the drooping boughs of the elm tree about the length of two inches. * See him ? ' the poacher ejaculated, letting ®ut witb tbe poacbers 7i his weapon fall out of position for firing, and making his face as ribbed and wrinkled as the ploughed field opposite, * See him now ? He's a knowing critter, wonderful knowing. He wunt let you get a shy at him no-how. Not if you were to sit in top on the tree. Not if he sees half an inch on the muzzle poking out from the leaves. He's an unaccountable cute 'un.' And so he was. The bird came towards the tree, flapping his heavy wings with as much leisure as the arms of a windmill take their revolving course, when suddenly he swerved aside and shot out eastward, with astonishing briskness — clean out of reach of the unlicensed poacher's gun. In less than ten minutes old Mr Rook was towering high in his native element, joyous at having espied the nozzle of that fowling-piece and the peak of that battered hat, flying gaily to his native rookery ; where, when he had reached it, he would unfold to his sisters, his cousins and his aunts, and also to the members of his own family, the tale of how the quickness of his eye had saved him from 72 3n IRusset /IDantle (Tla^ death and a pie. There would be much chattering in the rookery that afternoon. ^ ^ ^ HIS lane where the poacher lurked, called ' the Black Lane ' by the little children of Brookington's suburban courts and alleys, was the favourite meeting-place of the noc- turnal tribe. It was not a black lane. It was green and wide, and shady each side with the tall elms for which Warwickshire is noted. There was nothing black about it but the pathway, and that was periodically strewn with ashes — alternately by the farmer and the county authority. On this slender ground it was christened ' the Black Lane ' by the roving youngsters, and I have no doubt it will remain * the Black Lane ' until the end of the chapter. There was a grass waste on the south side, about two yards in width. Here the Bohemian, or his son, brought the donkey. Often, in passing through that lane towards the lowland in which the Red House is placed, you can see ©ut vvitb tbe poacbers 7Z the docile creature browsing at his ease ; while, at a distance, is the Bohemian's son, lazily stretched out along the turf, playing at pitch and toss with himself and two pennies. Every evening, as regularly as the evening comes, the tribe of men who make a pro- fession of poaching can be seen shambling along that lane. It is a motley crew, varied in age as in colour and physiognomy. The unlicensed rook-shooter is one of them, and it is perhaps on his account that they shamble. The place where the ' danged keeper ' winged him is sometimes painful, according as the weather is, and he cannot keep up with the rest. So they slouch for him, and shamble for him, and move as if next week would do for anything. At the east end of ' the Black Lane,' the slouching brotherhood made a halt. The spot, at that hour and in that uncertain light, looked like the entrance to a wood. The lane was well timbered, and at this end, where the poachers stood looking out over their hunting ground, two trees met in overhanging embrace, casting a dense shadow along the lane. 74 3n IRusset /iDantle Cla& A long, narrow wood with a sweeping curve westward — that is how the lane looked ; and the knot of men, halting in the shadowy alcove, would, to the stranger's eye, have the appearance of woodmen going home from their work — axeless and timberless. 6^)^ foac6er*B 00 UT a dog was with them. Not the black and white, half sheep-dog creature, the companion of the woodman, curling himself up on the woodman's coat, and sleeping there all day ; with only an occasional bark to the infrequent stranger, to show that he is alive. No, not that kind of dog. He is a respectable, honest, well-behaved, frank sort of fellow, not at all ashamed to look anyone in the face, even if it were a king. No, the poacher's companion is quite a different creature, although it is of the canine breed, and walks on four legs. So far as the dusky light will permit you to see, there is the lurcher, by that stump which, when this lane was a bridle path, was ®ut witb tbe poacbers 75 the gate-post. It is as dark as the stump itself, and quite as motionless. It never barks, and scarcely ever moves. You almost wonder whether it can be alive ; whether it is not a bronze dog, like some of those on the door- steps of Brookington mansions. It is only when the poachers move that you can recognise it as a living thing. Then it slides along between their legs, silently, stealthily, the most melancholy creature that crawls under the light of the moon. To me, who have often seen that lurcher, there always seems something unearthly about it ; some nameless something which makes you creep when you look at it. The dog itself appears to be ashamed to have its face scanned by any human creature other than a poacher. A curse seems upon it. It writhes under a ban which cannot be lifted. It is a doomed dog. Full of elfish craft ; more human than canine ; more devilish than all. Poor creature, it drops its head and slides off, goblin-like, when you look at it. Once only it lifts its face, and that is enough. 7 6 3n IRusset /lOantlc ClaD « ^ 3*@13 UT that dog's scent is wonder- ^cenf i3«^-33| I'ul. In this respect it has the instinct of the blood- hound. Only it does not scent blood. It is the poachers it scents, and they may be street lengths from it, but it is sure to find them. Its track is as deadly certain as the redskin's. One dark October night, darker than usual for that time of the year, the crew of poachers shambled on their nightly prowl about ten o'clock. There were no stars in the welkin, not a single light with which to enable them to kill their rabbits or to pluck a partridge on the spinney stile. Orders had been left with the wife of the poacher, gentle lily of a woman to be mated with so rough a master, who owned the animal, not to loose it from the house until they had been gone twenty minutes, the time it took them to shamble to the east end of ' the Black Lane.' The poacher was desirous of testing his lurcher in the science of nocturnal geography, which he had paid great pains to teach him, and also regarding his scent. ©ut wltb tbe poacbers n The wife of the poacher obeyed her orders to the letter and the minute. Poor thing, she had painful memories of what disobedience meant. There were marks on her cheeks and brow, which even time would never erase — the caresses of her loving husband. She there- fore released the lurcher in twenty minutes, and with the words, ' Find him,' sent the animal on his weirdsome errand. Like a thing of evil, with nose to the ground, and thin body writhing as if dis- turbed by some hidden emotion, the dog made his way down the passage leading from the poacher's dwelling. Down one street, along another, and up a third it went, just in the same position, never raising an eye to the traveller who might be passing at the time. Sniffing along the ground, with something of the serpent about it, it pursued its silent course over the red hills, up the green ones, and onward to the clap gate leading to ' the Black Lane.' There the poachers, waiting under the green alcove, for they could not proceed without the dog, strained their eyes, and saw the 7S 3n IRusset /iDantlc Clat) creeping, crawling thing wriggling itself to- wards them at a rapid rate through the dusk, until it grovelled in the black dust at its own master's feet, and licked his hand. Cpoac3er*s (hafuraf- ism HIS invaluable member of the poacher's brood having ar- rived upon the scene, and received a pat on its narrow belly from the big, hard fist of every man there, the tribe moved off, slowly and silently, to their hunting ground in the Red House coombe. It is not given to poachers to admire Nature's aspects at night-time. In the day- light, when time hangs heavy on their hands, they may show, or appear to show, a half- hearted interest in the beauties of the landscape around them. Sitting on a stile, or lounging against one, in the manner affected by these sons of Ishmael, they will profess to admire the graceful shape of the hills, the varied colouring of the foliage, and the square stone tower of a village church ©ut witb tbe ipoacbers 79 peeping from the verdure of a lovely coombe. Whether this is pretence or not, it is difficult to say, for the poacher has a way of making you think he is in earnest. At night-time the case is different. He is then on business, and not pleasure bent. Then he has no time or patience to look upon the landscape in its cloudy mantle. The rabbits are out in their hundreds in the coombe close, and he is anxious to peg the nets and begin killing. Qpeaeanf^j^ N single file, with the indispens- (poacRer BSIJr able dog walking solemnly behind, thev stalk across the field of vetches like a column of shadows from spirit land. The waggoner of the Red House Farm has long been sleeping the sleep of con- tentment in that little cot on the golf hill, in the little windows of which the white curtains appear like faces in the gloom looking out into the dark world. Through that gate and by that cot the poachers pass silently, but without a tremor. The waggoner never calls upon them to halt. 8o 5n IRusset /llbantle (IIa& He knows that they pass by his abode as regularly as he goes to bed, or the moon rises, every night. He never demands their pass- port. Though, apparently, such mild-looking fellows, he knows right well what murderous rascals they can be when their plans are crossed and their business interfered with. Moreover, he has a fair respect for his own skin, and no consuming desire to be beaten, or stoned, or, if needs be — shot. In the daytime he is even upon nodding terms with the poachers, and not averse to an occasional rabbit himself, when it is left upon his doorstep, as the price paid for his lethargy and silence. This corruption of the peasant by the town poacher is a true and lamentable fact. It must necessarily be so, to a certain extent, in some neighbourhoods. Many peasants are poachers at heart. Advanced political teaching has made them so. If it were not for the fear of being caught in the act, or otherwise found out, they would poach every night on their master's land and leave less game for the town prowlers. As it is, I have known farm workers run ®ut witb tbe jpoacbers 8i the risk of detection ; the allurement to poach being so powerful, and their strength to resist it so weak. It is not surprising, therefore, that some Strephons are willing to accept presents from poachers, rather than run the risk of detection themselves, as the reward of their silence in regard to the nightly goings-on of the town poachers. of HE crew passed the waggoner's cottage with merely a side- ^*3^^ long glance at it. The lambs — long since weaned from the ewes, and now well-grown in meat, bone and fleece — were lying about on the hill in knots and heaps. A few of them rose, looking much bewildered at the intrusion of the poachers. All of them shuffled their woolly sides together — frightened at the mysterious movements of the intruders. But they had no need to fear. Sheep-steal- ing is no longer a fashionable branch of poach- ing science. The bulky ovine is not so easy to dispose of as the small rodent, and the chance of detection is ten times greater. A F ^2 3n IRusset /IDantlc ClaD poacher with his wits about him would sooner ' neck ' five hundred rabbits than cut the throat of one sheep or lamb. The fleecy flocks were therefore perfectly secure, and need not have opened a single eye. Still, the effect of them, as seen from the declining pathway on the south of the hill, was eerie in the extreme. In the darkness they had the appearance of a shivering hill — a hill of living warts or molecaps. Every one of them shivered, for the night was not a particularly balmy one. A few of them rose, and those which did not made a sort of rolling move- ment towards their fellows. This motion seemed to endue the entire hill with life, and as it heaved and gave forth no sound (as a mountain in labour), the effect was of the weirdest kind, though not sufficiently so to startle the poachers. (Jtofure^B 1^^^ HE poachers see Nature in her (UloobB WM^^A strangest moods, and although mostly inhabitants of towns, they are less alarmed than the woodcutter at ©ut witb tbe ipoacbers 83 the manifestations which night draws from Nature. The rustic, pure and simple, has a firm faith in the tradition of the wych-elm. He believes that an old witch, or ' 'ooman' as he calls her, inhabits the trunk of that tree. Nay, more, he believes that the tree itself is a woman, with the baneful power of changing her shape as often as she pleases — from a woman to a tree, and back again. The superstitions of the low- lands are still deeply implanted in the mind of the average rustic, whether he lives in a village, in a lonely cot on the waste, or close by a wood. Ordinary poachers have no such leaning towards belief in the supernatural. Their lives have never been tinctured with aught but the severely practical. Not one of those poachers now in the grass lane leading to the close on the north side of the Red House Farm, and passing not far from a wych-elm, would, I believe, be afraid if the trunk of that tree were to open and ' the old 'ooman ' herself were to come walking out towards them. ^4 3n IRusset /IDantle Clat> Fear is practically unknown to these night birds. The mysterious lapping and moaning of the river near the Rungells — a small, productive spinney for game to the poacher's net — does not in the least disturb them. Yet it splashes and laps and moans with a cry- ing sort of noise, as though an infant were drowning among the roots and tangle of the river's bed. Again, the sighing of the saplings in the spinney — a sighing which at night-time seems like the agonised outburst of long-pent-up misery — has no power to blanch the poacher's cheek. Even the squeal of the murdered hare, snatched from its litter of young, has not the power to do it. And if anything could, surely it ought to be that heartrending, despairing scream. It is only the glimmer of the keeper's or the farmer's gun-barrel, when seen close at hand, pointed at the poacher's breast, that causes the springs of fear to well up within him. The thought of Death to the poacher is a sterner Justice than the ' beak ' who sits on the county bench. ©ut witb tbe poacbers 85 (Base going HEN the poachers are, how- ever, in the spinney close — Savmct that slopes off down to the little, gurgling river, where the marsh-mallow and the wild hyacinth border the banks — there is no fear of keepers. The farmer of the land there is one of those easy-going individuals who will do anything for peace. He is perfectly con- versant with the fact that hundreds of rabbits and hares, and an occasional partridge or pheasant, are poached from the land in his occupation ; for he has not infrequently found a forgotten piece of netting in the field, or a wire snare upon a twig in the spinney, as evidence thereof. He has also found the feathers of a partridge, freshly plucked from the body of a bird, lying in a heap by the first stile leading from his farmyard — the poacher's legacy to him for the stuffing of a chair cushion. But he only looks at the evidence of the nocturnal visit and wrinkles his face into a smile. Peace above all things is his desire. S6 5n 1Ru0SCt /iDantle Cla& When he wants a rabbit for himself he knows where to find one. So what is the use of making a bother about the poachers? No use, he thinks. And so the poachers have a free run round the rabbit warrens on his farm. His fishing, however, he is much more careful about. There are no fish ponds on his land, as there are on his neighbours', where, if the followers of Isaac Walton would leave them alone, there would soon be carp fat enough even for a country parson of the old school. The Red House has pits, but no ponds ; and the fishing rights of the farmer lie in the lazy little river which gurgles over a pebbly bed through his fields and meadov/s on to Brookington — 'the gay Brookington ' of the rustic. Sixpence a day is his fee for fishing, and this price he will enforce with much rigour. If he observes a piscator he thinks has not paid, he will turn his cob's head to the river, ride down there with a vigour fast enough for a win in the Farmer's Plate of the annual Brookington Steeplechases, run over a portion of his farm, and demand ' the nimble tanner ' - /t? ^^ * 19*68^ ^ ^^w minutes the net shook [^^ ^ with a vigorous shaking. Not with the effect of a mass of rabbits or hares leaping into it — an effect so well known to the habitual poacher — but with a bold, tight tug, as though some heavy weight had fallen into the snare. Jack Compton and his mates knew there must be something wrong. They therefore laid their bodies flat upon the dewy grass, and looked towards the western sky, where the hedges were low, and from which part of the net they knew the tugging had come. There, on the background of the sky, they could see a tall figure loom up from the turf, upon which it had evidently been thrown by its feet having been caught in the net. It was the figure of a man, gaunt and dark ; a shadow as dark as the poachers' crime, and it stalked lengthening into the field — like a nocturnal Nemesis upon the track of the law- breakers. ' 'Tis the keeper ! ' the men instinctively muttered as they rose up from their crouching Xlbe ipoacber's jFrlen^ 121 positions, vowing, by dumb signs, that they would not yield. And the dog, the lurcher, that had been beaten and bruised, and sworn at and kicked in the stews, also came up, crawling upon its belly, with its long ears cocked and its eyes glittering like molten fire. Even this grovel- ling creature — looking in the gloom like the offspring of a cross between a dog and a snake — had a love for the hand that smote it. It scented danger, and it was ready to risk its life for the life of its unworthy and brutal master. Saffen EEDLESS of sticks and stones, careless of kick or curse, the dark - brindled, tiger - striped lurcher leaped straight at the breast of the coming man, and that brought things to a crisis. A shot — an oath — a thud ; and one of the poachers went down ! Then all was silence, save for the whining and sniffing of the lurcher, licking the face of a figure lying prostrate upon the grass. '22 3u iRusset /llbantle ClaD The mysterious visitant with the gun, who had fallen into the net over the pegs, and had — doubtless, in his dread of being in the midst of a gang of desperate men — discharged his gun, was nowhere to be seen. He had dis- appeared as strangely as he had come. Meantime fright had seized upon the poachers, most of whom are arrant cowards at heart. The disabled man lay upon the ground, moaning piteously, while the pair of able ruffians ripped up the pegs and nets, and cut out of the close as fast as their legs and the darkness would allow them, leaving their comrade on the field weltering in his blood. And that comrade was Jack Compton, ' the King of the Poachers.' The shots from the gun had pierced his side, gone clean through him, taken his breath. He was caught in the snarer's net, and Jack Compton, the renegade from a life of honesty, decency and sobriety, was cast for death. Zbc poacber's friend 123 * ^^ 3*^19 UT Jack was not left alone to (King's* SRffNN ,. , 1 1 • 1 • 11 5rtenb 9*^* ^^^^ though his butties had cut and run, fearful for the safety of their own hides. The hungry dog was there, the lurcher whom Jack, in his moments of brutality, had taken a malicious joy in kicking and cursing. He would not leave the dying ' King ' if the ' King's ' human friends would. So he stayed there, like a sentinel, watching his master ebbing his breath away. It was a strange and piteous sight as the night drew on and the moon rose, casting a sickly glimmer through the trees upon the face of the fallen man. To any eye but the filming eye of the poacher, and the all-seeing eye of God, that sight was at once strange, weird and wonder- ful. The man lying there, slowly and surely dying ; the dog, raven-like, and yet Christian- like, sitting by him, whining and moaning, and ever and anon licking the blood-spots from his master's lips — lips that would never call him again on this earth. 1 24 5n IRusset /iDantle (Ila& There were the feet that had kicked the dog ; there were the fists that smote him, powerless now to do the creature any hurt. I5ut the lurcher remembered no pains, only the poacher's pale forehead kissed. And all through the darkling hours the dog sat there. No craven poacher came, or roused gamekeeper. Only the man and the dog, ' the King ' dying ; the dog acting as friend to the erring soul, and comforting him with his dumb love and sorrow. What a picture of unselfish devotion ! Where could be found such a counterpart, even among the human family, who are ex- horted to ' love one another ? ' When the dim light of morning appeared, two labourers, going out to field work, crossed the close, and found the man and dog still there. The man was dead, stiff and stark ; the lurcher was glued to the ghastly place, and would not leave till the body of ' the King ' was carried to the nearest inn. Even then he followed with downcast head and drooping tail as chief mourner. Cbe two Sbepberds t^t 2^W0 §^tp^CXt)Q And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale. Miltcn. Comgn Scitm HERE are two farms and two shepherds. The farms both lie in the east, snugly planted down in the greenwood between Brookington and Overchurch. The former is a town — ' a gay town.' Some dignify it with the name of ' fashion resort,' though what that means only those know who utter it. The latter is a village. Walking eastward from the promenades of ' gay Brookington,' where the fashion that resorts there idles away its time in looking at the furs and feathers, and the waxen women and boys in the shop windows, until it has no time to even peep at the much more lovely aspect of Nature's face, you come to the end of the town. 127 ^28 5n iRugsct /iDaittle (Xla& It is a veritable town's end. There the village begins. But strange to say, the Comyn Farm and the Red House Farm, which is the other farm where the other shepherd is, purely rural as they are, are within the parish of the town. As you stand at the clapgate, one of those new, modern, creaking engines of iron, more common amid Warwickshire greenery now than in the days when Urbane Holt first became shepherd of the Comyn Farm, you can see the peaked ricks, five or six of them, showing here and there in the openings between the trunks of the trees that mark the limit of the field next to that in which the farm is planted. You can also see the red gables of the farmhouse, and the west end of the buildings, adding colour and variety to the scene. ^ '^ f (UrBane ^^OMETIMES if you pass through 3^ca- p-^tg^ the clapgate, and walk along ^^^^ a gravel path to the second clapgate — made in barbarous iron like the first Ubc Uwo Sbepber&s 129 — sometimes, I say, if you lean thereon, admir- ing the purely rural aspect of the scene, you may see a figure clothed in dirty white come out of the gate of the rickyard, with a dog behind him — sometimes with two dogs, parent and child, both of the collie breed. That is Urbane Holt, the shepherd. If I said that, in the distance, when the morning is misty, as the mornings often are in the autumn of the year. Urbane looked more like the large goose of the Comyn Farm flock than like a man, it would not be an unapt description of this head servant of the farm. At a long range — because Urbane was short in stature and wore a coat of a colour between drab and white, and because, moreover, he had a waddling gait, owing to the bulk of flesh with which he was clothed — he really looked remarkably goose-like. Should a person unacquainted with the natural history of the landscape in this neigh- bourhood ever make the mistake of likening Urbane Holt to a goose when seeing him trundhng his body through the long grass from the rickyard, there would be ample I30 5n IRusset /Ilbantlc Clat) excuse for the error. That was the foraging ground for the flock of geese. Urbane Holt was, to use his own words, ' not a perticklar man.' That is to say, he was not a rigid stickler for work in his own department. He was a thoroughly good shepherd, and trustworthy withal ; in fact, he is so now, for at the date of this sketch he is still the head-servant of the Comyn Farm. He loved the cows, the sheep, the lambs and the little he-goat with almost a woman's affection ; but albeit shepherd- ing was his real profession, he was ' not a perticklar man ' when a hand was wanted to do a share of farm work in any other branch. There never was a day when he did not do something apart from shepherding. His wide, happy-looking face, with a sort of sancti- fied glow spreading all over it — for Urbane was deeply impregnated with religious feeling, being, while he was a villager and lived at Overchurch, a good and fervent ' Methody,' and, now that he had come to live at Brook- ington, attached to the Salvation Army — was XTbe Uvvo Sbepber&s 131 to be seen everywhere, thrusting its sunshine into every scene. ' Should ye be able to give us a lift with the oats to-day, Urbane ? ' his master, Mr Falcon, would say, in that soft and kindly way which always commanded an answer in the affirmative. ' George is gone to Brookington with the lambs.' ' Yea, maister,' Urbane would reply. ' I be not a perticklar man, an' I perceives as the wuts do want cuttin'. I'll raggle on a bit in the One Acre, an' then come up. A good blade, maister, pleese, an' a good whetstun.' These were always the demands of Urbane when asked to help in the cornfield, and they were always complied with with a smile ; for the shepherd was a man generally liked, and he had a strong will and a strong arm, and knew how to use both when necessary, without a word of complaint. ^^^ Omong NE bright morning in early August, when the golden oats were nodding over the thick- set hedge at each passer-by, I took the path 132 5n IRusset /IDantlc Clat) northward from the Comyn Farm to the Red House. That is my favourite way. There you can see Nature's face and hear Nature's voice, mingled with no harsh or discordant noises, such as are sometimes heard in the streets of gay Brookington. Few people ever go that way, for I alone seem to have discovered its beauty out of all the Brookington idlers who loiter on the Parade every afternoon, and admire that waxen woman in the fashionable perruquier's — the one with the blonde hair done up in the latest Parisian design. As I neared the crown of the land and could begin to look down into the coombe-like hollow in which the Red House Farm is seated, I heard a swish, swish, swishing sort of noise, something like the sound emitted from a labourer in corduroys when his knees knock together. There was the same symmetry of sound and the same sweeping motion. On coming to a gap in the hedge of the western fence, there I saw Urbane Holt, the shepherd of the Comyn Farm, stripped to his shirt (for the day was an extraordinarily hot Ube XTwo Sbepbcr^s ^33 one) with his brown, sinewy arms bared to the shoulder, and a straw hat, with a very large brim to keep the sun out of his eyes, upon his head ; there I saw him, bowing with graceful sweeps, and making the ranks of oats fall before him like soldiers before a deadly discharge of Maxim guns. ' So you are harvesting. Urbane ? ' I said, when I came to the gap. I had known the shepherd for some time. He ' looked arter ' the fishing as well as the cattle, and had introduced me to the holes where the big fish lay, along the banks of the willow- fringed river. ' Yea,' he replied. ' Maister axed me to lend a 'and, an' I be not a perticklar man, you know, when there's summat to be done. The wuts were ripe for the blade, d'yer see, an' when things be ripe 'tis time to begin on 'em.' (R«6- ftC B (^BBur- ance .?*!. .jfe .?fc O Ci O HEREAT he set the handle of his scythe upon the ground, and drew out a whetstone from a pouch at his side and gave his blade a good 134 5n IRusset /llbantlc Cla^ whetting. They had a corn-cutting machine at the Farm, and Urbane preceded it by mowing a groove all round the field near the hedge, the better for the machine to do its work ; and in cutting the way he always used a scythe instead of a sickle, as one sweep of the former blade cut the groove the exact width required for the passage of the two horses yoked to the machine. Then he laid his scythe down gently on the fallen grain, wiped the sweat from his brow with a red and white cotton handkerchief, and walked to where his smock lay in a huddled heap by the hedge. From the crown of the heap he took a flag-basket, and a quart tin bottle with a narrow neck, topped with a cork. At first when I saw Urbane Holt lay down his scythe and put his whetstone in the sheath at his side, I rather marvelled as to what he was about to do. When I beheld him produce the flag-basket and the tin bottle I no longer wondered. Urbane was about to partake of his luncheon. Warwickshire peasants are not gifted with Ubc Uwo Sbepber&s 135 many forms of shyness. In their uncultured and simple way they stand upon no ceremony. Without a particle of book-learning, and with but an imperfect knowledge of the ethics of what are known as ' good manners,' the rustics are the possessors of as much assurance as the most accomplished Richard Dazzle of Mayfair. Urbane Holt, the shepherd of the Comyn Farm, was troubled with no refined misgivings as to the good manners of feeding before a com- parative stranger. He would not mind stretch- his mouth to the fullest limit even before a king, when it was to receive a miniature brick of home-made bread, and another brick, equal in size, of his home-fed bacon — these to be followed by a long draught of his wife's home-made herb beer, with a foamy head upon it. No ; no superfine thoughts of this description interfered with the shepherd's enjoyment of his homely luncheon. He sat upon his smock with a stout buckthorn bush to lean against, and, spreading his kerchief over his knees, did ample justice to the contents of the flag-basket and the tin bottle. 13^ 5n IRusset /IDantle Clat) ^ WrfiHlT was a repast to envy. The (Ttl an ffe iB»^" rustic partook of it with such ^^*^ zest, and was surrounded with accessories so much more beautiful than are to be found in the most sumptuous dining-rooms — the glories of Nature, lavishly arranged by her own hand. Before him was the waving grain, shimmer- ing under the glossy morning sun like a sea of molten gold. Beyond, crowning the golden field, rose the green hill which formed a spur of the semi-circular range, which extended from there as far as the Red House Farm — making the red-peaked building appear as though embedded in a deep coombe. The hedge that bounded the hill was still richly decorated with red and white dog-roses and creamy woodbine blossom. On the south of the lunching shepherd, the land ran in a gentle slope down to the river ; and when he turned his eyes that way, he could see his lambs and sheep and young bullocks browsing in the meadow, and could also espy the tops of the bordering willows, whose leaves XTbe Zvoo Sbepbcrt)s '37 shone silvery white as the sun's rays fell upon them ; while at his very feet the red poppy and the white moon daisy lent a gaudy variation to the other hues by which he was encircled. The scene was one of perfect rural happiness, and the shepherd was in harmony with the scene. He was part of it ; he grew with it ; he was inseparable from it. As I gazed upon his bright, unclouded face, always wearing a smile, and looking as if nothing in the world could ever make it change, I could not help contrasting it with the face of the other shepherd, Amos Oats of the Red House Farm, whose face was harrowed with wrinkles and had not a gleam of sunshine upon it. I COULD not forbear to note, too, how the heart of Urbane seemed to be taken up with his work and the immediate things he was doing, whereas, as I called to mind, the heart of Amos seemed to be in another sphere than that in which he lived and moved and had his being. Nothing more widely different, I thought. than the faces of those two shepherds — one all sunshine, the other overcast with gloom and despair. ' You appear to be a man who enjoys life, Urbane?' I said, after I had noted, with great interest, the rustic's scorn of ceremony. ' Why shunna I ? ' he replied, with his mouth full of home-made bread and home-fed bacon. ' I works hard, 'cause I be not a perticklar man as regards what I does, though shepherding o' course is my proper work, an' I enjoys myself accordingly. 'Tain't no child's play, I can tell thee, to be shepherd on this farm. It's different to that yon ' (pointing with his open pocket- knife to the Red House Farm). 'There's no stock theer, while I've got above two hundred sheep and lambs, fifty milking cows, and about twenty-five bullocks to see arter. ' You see that medder yon ^ ' he said, filling his mouth again, and pointing with his knife to a meadow in the east corner of the landscape, right away in the direction of Redford village. ' We call that One Acre Medder 'cause its just one acre big. Well, I tek my fifty milkers down theer every morning, an' fetches 'em trbe Uwo Sbepber^s ^39 back every evenin'. A tidy jaunt 'tis, too, I reckon, from the farm. But I donna mind. I be not a perticklar man, and, thank God ! I be sound in wind an' limb, as saying is.' 'And you never feel down in the dumps, Urbane ? ' I suggested, knowing full well that the shepherd never did, but anxious to lead up to the melancholy Amos. ' In the dumps ? ' he repeated, with a merry laugh. ' Not me. Not for my mother's son. Why, mister, my mother's nigh on eighty year old, an' her's as merry as may be now. I hanna ever seed her in the dumps, an' I hanna ever seed myself in 'em neyther. It's un- accountable how folks can get i' that way, wi' such a gladsome sky overhead and such a fruit- ful earth beneath 'em. But I suppose 'em canna 'elp it. 'Tis as was to be, I guess. 'Tis sad, 'owever, for folks to be born so, so 'tis, an' 1 donna care who the man is as says it inna.' .» ' Your neighbour " Amos " wants some of your cheerfulness,' I said. Urbane looked at me hard with a meaning twinkle in his quick eyes, as much as to say, HO 3n IRusset /iDantle Cla^ * Theer's summat wrong theer,' and throwing up his chin at the risk of biting his tongue, for his mouth was crammed full of food, and he might easily have mistaken his tongue for the bacon, he gave vent to a kind of ' cluck, cluck,' depreciative rather than appreciative of the condition of Amos. He also shook his head in a peculiar manner ; the language of it being, ' Ah ! I know summat, if I'd a mind to tell.' It was like the voluntary to the church service, the prelude to the performance, the prologue to the play ; or, more to the point still, it was like his scythe to the corn- cutter. ' I be sorry for Shepherd Armos,' he said. ' There's no call to say naught about the farm, though that 'ud give me the blues any day o' the week ; such an unked place as it be, wi' scarcely a cow's head on't, and the vittles, as I hear, no better nor 'em should be. But I baint sorry for Shepherd Armos only for that. 'Twere that gel o' hisen as did it, you know, an' 'appen I should 'ave been the same as Ame be if that there misfortin 'ad come to me.' Ubc Uwo Sbepber^6 Hi (^ (pas foraf ©rama RBANE'S face had now put on a serious look, a kind of melan- choly in its babyhood, and as he ate his luncheon more deliberately, pausing between each munch, I could see that something out of the ordinary way was working in his thoughts. ' What misfortune was that. Urbane ? ' I hazarded. He took a good long pull at the tin bottle of herb beer, rose from his sitting posture, having finished his bread and bacon, took up his scythe again and gave the golden oats one graceful sweep round, laying a heap of slender stalks prostrate at his feet. Then he set the scythe down again and leant upon the handle. ' His gel drunded hersel' in the pool below the hill yon. Ah ! my stars and constellations, Rose were the prettiest gel as ever I clapt eyes on. She were flighty, though , like all un- common pretty gels be, an' seems to 'ave gone out on the right way wi' some dandified feller from Brookington. ' Anyway, one night when it were pitch dark 142 Sn IRuBset /ICiantle Cla& and her conscience were plaguing her terrible, she drund hersel' in that pool as I tells thee on ; an' Armos fund her theer, an' pulled her outen, but 'twere too late, poor lass ! Hey, she wheer uncommon preety, though — uncommon.' ' And that has made him melancholy ! No wonder,' I said. ' Well, you see, she were his only gel — his only child, in fact, an' he took it very sadly. That were ten year agoo come Martimas Day — I mind the time 'cause it were the loveliest weather I ever seed in November — an' Shepherd Armos 'ave never bin the same mon sin then. He were as merry as a cock pigeon afore that come on him. Poor Armos ! I be sorry for him, cause /le 'ave got summat to mek him down in the dumps.' Swish, swish, swish, went the blade of Urbane's scythe again. The shepherd-harvester was once more in full swing with his work ; and to make up for lost time — and no doubt refreshed with the good meal which he had consumed — he made some tremendous sweeps with his blade, and brought down the straws as if they had been silken threads. Xlbe TLwo Sbepberbs 143 Truly Urbane was ' not a pertlcklar man ' ; neither was he an awkward man. He was, in fact, the handiest man on the Comyn Farm. Nothing ever came amiss to him. He could even idle for a few minutes and yet look comfortable. ' I ought to be sadly mysel' to-day,' he said, looking round with a smile. ' All my lambs 'ave just gone to the saleyard. They were as bonnie a lot as I've ever lambed. But I inna sad above much. It dunna suit my constitution, an', o' course, losing a flock o' lambs inna like losing your very own darlin' ewe, as Shepherd Armos did.' With this he bent to the scythe again — a feature of the landscape; in harmony i with it, a part of it ; and I left him singing a snatch of an old harvest ballad. ^ ^ ^^ |^3e ^^HE range of hills in the north- CoomBe iS«Syl ward walled in the Red House Farm, cooming it up as though it were a tender offspring, and must be sheltered from the wind. 44 Sn IRusset /IDantle Clat) The red-peaked building was already shaded from the sun. At a distance the peaks only were visible — red cones peeping out from a mass of varied greens. It was as though the house, like a sensitive maid, was not altogether pleased with its appearance, and therefore hid what beauty it had in the depth of green- wood. It was entirely enveloped in leaves. Trees grew right over its roof. It was in vain, from the outside, to try and see the form of archi- tecture in which the house was built. Only from the farmyard itself could this be seen. Looking at the fabric from the outside was like looking through a trellis work ; here and there only could be seen a picturesque bit of the building. All human life seemed dead there, as I viewed the farm from the stile which marked the boundary and separated the Comyn Farm from the Red House. Not a living thing in the shape of man, woman or child could be seen in all the wide northward expanse, and yet the oats in the adjoining home close were ripe for cutting. Zbc TLwo Sbepber^s ^45 Quietude is the characteristic of the Red House Farm. At no hour of the day and at no season of the year can it be said to be lively. Occasionally the voice of the farmer can be heard in the land, complaining, in loud tones, of the ' contrary seasons,' and of the ruination they are bringing him to. But these are only like far-off echoes, spoken from the belt of high land into which they die, and all is silence again. •fi' W TV" ^3e I^KBHAT farm is like the poor farm of ^ gSfl , . r ^u /- t? (Ttafure >^>MI relation or the Comyn rarm Only the smallest portion of it is cultivated. Nowhere are seen the evi- dences of wealth, enterprise and activity that are observable in the farm over which Urbane Holt is shepherd. For upwards of a decade it has worn the garments of indigence, and now, as the years go forward, it seems to grow more and more poverty-stricken. The hedges are broken, the trees are untrimmed, the claps of the gates are, in some instances, pulled off. The few cattle there are on the pastures move slowly about, K h6 5n IRusset /IDantle Cla^ as melancholy as the farm itself, as the farmer and the shepherd. But poverty is picturesque ; so there are more signs of natural attraction on the Red House than on the Comyn Farm. The latter is too spick and span. Nature is put to school there. She is not permitted to have her own way, to grow as she pleases, to do just as she likes. There she is in the position of the modern young maid, who is chaperoned daily and nightly, and writhes under the infliction. At the Red House Farm she is never schooled. She is allowed, like a rosy, health- ful child, to run where she listeth. Her hedges are as she grows them. Her trees are her own trees — they are not trimmed to re- semble as much as possible the trees of a Noah's Ark. True, she sometimes runs a little wild, as even Nature will, when left entirely to her- self, but her very wildness has a fascination far more attractive than the tameness of a schooled being. And the lethargy of the Red House is all in her favour. She loves its silence, and its manless fields and meadows. Ube Uwo SbepberC)s i47 HEN I left the boundary stile and walked down the ash- strewn pathway I could hear no sound but the proud cooing of the pert fantails upon the peaks. Neither could I see a man. There was the rickyard on the south of the building, paled ofF from the home close with iron hurdles, looking bright and warm and comfortable as the sun gleamed down upon it and the two yet unthatched ricks ; but there was no human soul there. The only occupants of the floor of the rickyard just then were nine grey geese and a gander being fattened for the Michaelmas feast. Sometimes I had found Amos upon the top rung of a ladder thatching a rick, for he was a ' clever hand at thatching, and had won prizes for it at the agricultural shows. But he was not there now. As I turned the corner of the black pathway and looked over the privet hedge for a sight of the pyramidal cap of the shepherd, the absence of his familiar figure was a disappointment to me, for in lonely and sequestered regions it is 148 3n iRussct /IDantle ClaC> always pleasant to see a well-known face smiling at you, and to hear a well-known voice wishing you ' good-morrow.' Just as I was wondering whether Amos Oats was sheep-washing in the shallows of the river in the Rungells Meadow, or completing his shearing in the fold behind the farmhouse, a strange, hovering, half-musical sort of noise came to my ears, like the buzzing of a beetle in the gloaming, I listened, and to me the sound seemed to come from the home close, just by the place where I stood — a thick hedge only dividing us — and appeared to rise from the ground. There were curious stories in circulation among the farm hands relating to that neigh- bourhood. One was that every now and then the wych-elm on that farm — somewhat further towards the northern hills than where 1 now was — opened its trunk in the day-time, and that a young maid, instead of an old woman, sat in the hollow and sang songs to the sweetest tunes ' as ever was.' Ube Uwo Sbepbcr^s 149 ^ „ f^^'C OW the voice that I heard Q^ftffab 81^.1 issuing from the hedge bottom, but a short way from where I stood, could not be the voice of the fairy of the wych-elm, simply because there was no wych-elm at that spot, and the sound was bass instead of soprano. I was therefore more in- terested than fearful, and more delighted than either, when, as I drew softly nearer, the sound shaped itself into words which I well knew as composing a Warwickshire rural ballad of much popularity. It was Shepherd Oats sing- ing ' Lobb's Courtship.' As Lobb among his cows one day Was filling of their cribs with hay ; As he the hay to the cribs did carry. It came into his head to marry. The singer stopped for a moment just then, and I peeped through a gap in the hedge. There was Amos Oats, the shepherd of the Red House Farm, the melancholy man as he was considered, bending down close to the ground, with a fleecy ewe between his legs, clipping its coat off! 150 5n IRusset /IDantle Clab He had just taken the forelock off the ewe, and was half singing and half murmuring the ballad, in his deep, rugged voice, as he pro- ceeded with his work, halting now and again when the shears did not act so well as they should have done. Says he, 'There's little, merry Nell, I think I like her very well. Though perhaps at me she'll scofF, Besides — she lives a long way ofF. ' When roads are good and weather fine I'll go and see her — when I've time.' He mused awhile and judged it better The courtship to begin by letter. ' Hold still, my lass ! ' he said to the ewe. It was her first shearing, and though, on the whole, she bore it pretty patiently — lying like a dead thing more than a live one — she at times kicked out vigorously when the point of the shears happened to prick her. With these slight pauses Amos continued his singing. Then he a bit of paper found, 'Twas neither long, nor square, nor round ; It was the best that he could find. So on it thus he wrote his mind : Xlbe Zvoo Sbepbcr&s ^5^ ' Cum, cum ! ' his voice sounded out again between the singing, ' thee knowest I wunna hurt thee. Thou wert my favourite eanling out on all the lambs, an' I wunna hurt a hair on thy pretty head. Be easy, lass ! ' 'Dear Nellie, I make bold to send To thee my love, and am your friend, If you can like a country man I'll come and see you when I can.' Then he in haste this letter sent. Also two apples did present, Which Nell received and read the letter. But she liked the apples better. He paused awhile to take breath and to straighten his back somewhat, for he was by no means a young or strong man, and sheep- shearing — as those know who have had experi- ence of it — is a hot and back-aching branch of pastoral work. Wiping his top lip with the back of his hand which held the shears, he went on again. When read she in the fire threw it. And never sent an answer to it. Spring drew on and cuckoo sang. The roads were good, the days were long. 152 5n IRusset /iDautle Clab The cows were all turned out to grass, And Lobb set off to sec his lass. ' Easy, easy, my darlin',' he said to the ewe. ' You be a'most over it now.' He oiled his shoes and combed his hair. Like one a-going to a fair. His stick was bended like a bow, His handkerchief it made a show. His hat stood like the pot-lid round. His coat was of the fustian browned. And so he went, and Nell he found. ' A clip or two more, my pet, and then you are finished and so is my song, which I hope 'ave pleased ye, being as this be the first time as I've trolled it sin my poor gel cum to her end- ing, worse luck for her, an' me, an' all on us.' ' Dear Nellie, how dost do r ' said he, ' Oh ! will you come along of me O'er yonder close to yonder stile r ' ' Indeed,' says Nell, ' I can't awhile.' So Nell steps in and shuts the door. And Lobb shogged off and said no more. Xlbe Uwo SbepberOs 153 (S-^o^ Rp^HE singing then ceased. It was SBei)- »§.vP the strangest thing I ever heard ^^^^ just at that point, where the only musical effects usually heard were the screaming of the geese when frightened by some chance intruder, or the bleating of the store sheep. The tune was a slow, catchy one, and as sung by the shepherd, with his head some- times elevated, at other times muffled in the wool of the shearing ewe, it had a sort of hovering, swinging and floating motion, most peculiar to the senses and quite fascinating to the ear that heard it. And could this engaging singer, this pastoral songster, who by his quaint and rugged ex- pression of a rural story would hold an ac- complished singer interested ; could this be Shepherd Oats, the wrinkled, elderly rustic, whose form was like the bent and gnarled codlin tree in the orchard of the Red House ? Could this indeed be the melancholy man of whom I had seen and heard so much ? I moved from the bush where I had been 154 5n IRusset /IDantle Cla^ standing and came to a gap in the hedge, fenced in by a wooden hurdle, and looked over. Yes, it was Amos Oats. He had just released the ewe, who ran bounding over the close, looking particularly foolish without her coat, and wondering what on earth made her feel so light. The shepherd rose from his knees and straightened out his long, lean shanks, and looked after the ewe with a smile breaking over his rugged, weather-worn features. He looked like a man just rising from his native bed. His legs were enveloped in sheep's wool almost up to his knees. He turned and saw me leaning on the elm- wood hurdle. ' Her canna mek it out,' he said, a glance of kindly recognition darting through his slit-like eyes, as he pulled his peaked cap closer over them to shade them from the sun. ' Her's bin laid up, and so her's all lag wi' the shearing. Her's the last on my lot, and not being dusty like, I warn't in a hurry to tek her coat off.' The ewe ran with a gallop round the close, TLbc XTwo Sbepber^s ^55 jumping up high in the air now and then in a state of much perplexity, bleating as she went. ' Em do cut some queer capers at times — unaccountable queer. This un seems more dubersome and illconvenient than reg'lar. But she'll raggle on. Her 'uU get used to it before blindman's-buff.' ' Perhaps the ewe wanted a continuation of your song, Amos ? ' I suggested. ' I was quite interested in it.' The shepherd's face expanded into what was meant for a smile, but the moment after- wards all the wrinkles went back into their old places, and the old tired-and-sick-of-life aspect came over the entire countenance. It was as if my allusion to his song brought Shepherd Oats back again to his daily life and to painful memories, from which, for the moment, his singing had lifted him. ' I yent much at songsterin' now,' he said sadly. ' I'm tisiky here, you know,' tapping his lungs, ' an' hanna got the wind as I wunst had. I dunno what made me trip it out this morning, for I hanna trolled it now for ten 1 56 5n IRusset /IDantle (Ila& year or thereabouts. 'Twere the unaccount- able fine weather, a-believe,' He bent down and gathered up the wool he had clipped from his favourite ewe. I believe it was to hide a tear, for as I followed his action, the sun slanted into the corner of his eye and seemed to light something which stood there, until it gleamed like a little round gem of living fire. Shepherd Oats there and then assumed his old form again — a tired, worn, wrinkled old man, with a melancholy aspect from top to toe. Even his legs seemed singularly shrunken and quite out of sorts with the world, and yet, as far as possible, willing to carry out the duty expected from them. He nodded towards the shorn lamb who was now quietly browsing on the grass. ' Her'll sune forget as her's lost her top- coat,' he said with another expansion of his visage which was meant for another smile. Then he picked up the ewe's coat, and rolled it into the form of a good-sized rug. This he placed under his arm, and in the other hand carried his shears. A moment after- XTbc XTwo Sbepber55 157 wards he sidled off like a man utterly bone weary, nodding his pyramidal cap to me by way of farewell. He was a mournful picture — the reverse side of the rural medal to the cheerful shepherd of the Comyn Farm. Poor Amos ! But he was quite in keeping with his sur- roundings He was part of the picturesque scene ; an actor in it ; inseparable from it. Dark as the hills frowned upon the coombe in winter — so was he. ^::v Rural merryntakinds Q^urdf (ttterrgmdftings How often have I blessed the coming day, When toil remitting lent its turn to play, And all the village train from labour free Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree. Goldimitk. Many a youth and many a maid Dancing in the chequer'd shade. Milton. ^3« ffiW|'fiH|N pictures of country life there tome i KSLIra! are few more interesting than ^1 ^^. those illustrative of rustic Counfrg pleasures. These sports at the vil- lage alehouse, on the village green, or in the rickyard of a farmhouse are so truly de- lightful and so eminently English that we would not willingly let one of them die. On the whole there is more Conservatism than Radicalism in an Englishman's nature. All of us in one way or in another are anti- quaries ; and none would like to see the L 1 62 jn IRusset /ll>autle ClaC) merrymakings of the village submerged by the waters of modern civilisation. The village is a town undeveloped. There are no streets, but there are places that answer to the streets in towns. Every rood of land almost has a name. In the neighbourhood of the Red House Farm, from east to west, from north to south, there is a variety of names which sound foreign or quaint to the ear of the city dweller. In the place from which I write, we have such patronymics as ' The Home Close,' ' Innidge Meadow,' ' The Gravel-Pit Farm,' 'The Ham,' 'Raven's Close,' 'The Hill Field,' ' Nabbs' Lammas Closes,' ' The Shell Leys,' and ' The Bancroft.' Even as roods and perches are baptised, so almost every class of villager has a periodic merrymaking. ^^ \fS^^\ CLASS of country folk very BioppcvB ^^ ]m little known outside its own orbit is the class called earth- stoppers. As examples of natural history "IRural /II>err^maT?inos 163 these men are interesting. They are known better to the vulpine than to the human race. Foxes consider them their bitterest enemies, for they prevent them from reaching their earths when the hounds are after them in full cry. They erect barricades in front of Mr Fox's house, so that he cannot enter when hard pressed. Yet the earthstoppers are merry fellows and make merry as well as the rest. It is the custom in Warwickshire to give these useful servants of the hunt a jolly rous- ing every year — generally in May. The chair is taken by one of the principal landowners or by a fox-hunting farmer. When the latter can be persuaded to perform the function, the merrymaking is all the more cordial, for the fox-hunting farmer of War- wickshire is a jovial soul, full of heart and merriment. 3" ^3e IE^A^It the sign of the ' Red Lion,' fewtV l iSiAill upon an evening in May or June, the earthstoppers meet 1 64 5n iRusset /iDantle ClaD one another, and it is worth all the merry- making in the world to be with them. They sidle and shamble up to the tavern, one by one, in that half-ashamed manner peculiar to rustics when asked to eat or to drink at another's expense. When they get together in the snug parlour of ' The Lion,' they are all right. Indeed they would be all right if they walked to the place of merrymaking in a body. It is the walking up in ones and twos, and the consciousness that they are being ' twigged ' by the onlookers that causes their awkward- ness. And, after all, your severe critic is the yokel who does not stand upon refine- ment, but speaks his words just as ' 'em cum.' Whether or not his shafts of bucolic wit penetrate the agricultural cranium can be decided only by the kind of smile with which the rustic receives them. If his face becomes full of puckers he is pleased, for the wit has but just touched him ; if only a frigid expansion of the lips is observable, the shaft has penetrated and it hurts. IRural /iDerri^maftiuas ^65 Like other occupants of villages, the earth- stopper ' inna fit for a tune ' until he has reached the bottom of his third quart pot. Then the difficulty is to restrain him from favouring the company overmuch. His desire to sing is equalled by his desire to speak, ' if so be as the company's agreeable.' After he has sung * When Bonnie Blue Cap left the Pack' — a very pathetic canine ballad, describing the going away of Blue Cap, the favourite bitch — he will launch out eloquently upon the merits of the pack, somewhat in this style, it may be, 'A lot o' nice dogs, sir, these ; a very 'andsume dog, sir, that black and white bitch ! A perfect picture, sir, that bay dog with a mixed chocolate-coloured 'edd ! ! I like these 'unting dogs, with long, crooked fore — and short hind — legs, with a very large web foot. 'Elps 'em to get through the dirt, and elbows well out. Enables 'em to skip nimbly over the briars in the 'oods. I likes 'em, too, with a thin, smooth tail.' Jfc. jfe Jk. O O w 1 66 5n iRusset /IDantle Cla& larfB- I^S^^^ ^'^ ^^^''" ^''''^^^ ^^ diction, Bfo^- ^4^ dress and style, however, the Jvg^^ earthstoppers are a merry set acfcr- of fellows. You should be standing outside the ' Red Lion ' when they are having their annual merrymaking. The little panes in the quaint windows of the inn seem ready to come clattering from their frames. You see, the yokel has a big foot and a large hand. When he brings the one down on the table and the other on the floor, it is as if the man had -a talent for turning houses inside out. Perhaps, however, one of the strongest characteristics of the earthstopper, or, indeed, of any villager, is his regard for the Master of the Pack, or the person who does him a good turn. There are people who underrate the sympathies of Strephon, and think that because he is not ' eddicated,' and is a little rough in his dress, and sometimes gives olfactory proof of his occupation, he is 'an ignorant boor' without feelings. Never was opinion more erroneous ; never was the superior education of cities more at IRural /IDerr^maftiiiGs 167 fault. Your rustic may be ignorant of book learning — ' larning,' he calls it ; he may be, and very likely is, provokingly dense and amusingly thick-skinned ; but when he is attached to anyone, no Corsican can hate so well as the ' ignorant boor ' can love. From 1854 to 1862, Mr John Baker, a sportsman well known in the Midlands, was Master of the North Warwickshire Foxhounds. During his tenure he was stricken down with a severe illness for several months. His well- to-do friends were deeply concerned ; his earth- stoppers were inconsolable. ^ ^ 'f OW the average yokel is a creature without much music in his soul ; at the same time he is not necessarily fit only for ' treasons, stratagems and spoils.' With a skinful of liquor he can troll an ancient ditty, but in his sober moments he ' hanna much gift for songstering.' Devotion, however, will inspire men to the accomplishment of designs which ' they hanna 1 68 5n IRusset /IDantle Cla& bin used to,' and it did in the case under notice. When the Master, released from the jaws of Death, made his appearance in the hunting field, the earthstoppers welcomed him with a song, ' composed expressly for the occasion.' It was set to the tune of, ' Oh ! Willie, We have missed You,' and was as follows, — O, Master, is it you, sir, safe arrived at home ? They did not tell us true, sir ; they said you would not come. We heard you at the door, and it made us all rejoice, As we knew your welcome footfall, and your dear, familiar voice Like music in our ears as we through woodlands roam ; O, Master, we have missed you ! welcome to our home. We've longed to see you daily, but this day most of all. Old Saucebox looked so gaily, and Ringwood heard you call; The young hounds were in high glee as they heard your footsteps pass, Such whimpering was heard aloud, but now there's peace at last ; We patiently did wait, yet thought you would not come, O, Master, we have missed you ! welcome to our home. The days were long without you, the field seemed dull and drear, Inquiring all about you and when you would be here ; IRural /IDerrv>ma??inGS ^^9 We were days in anxious doubt when you were far away, But in the black and stormy clouds there's oft a cheering ray; So we all rejoiced again when we heard that you had come, O, Master, we have missed you ! welcome to our home. This is not bad for the ' uneddicated ' peasant. It shows that his heart is in the right place, if his head is not crammed ' wi' larning.' f ^'ieorse^^-^^^^ country folk who each *"^ ^^^^41 y^^'" ^^j^y ^ merrymaking are the game-preservers and beaters- To be at a gathering of these people is to become acquainted with some glimpses of natural history undreamt of in the philosophy of city dwellers. As an English merrymaking is synonymous with feeding, so the merrymaking of game- preservers and covert-beaters is made round the mahogany in the best room at the ' George and Dragon.' Those only who have been in the best room of ' The George ' can compre- hend the comfort conveyed in the line, — ' Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn ? ' I70 3^n iRusset /IDantle Clab Newly-polished seats, without a speck of dust upon them ; a blackened mantelshelf adorned at each end with a quart pot of spills ; a table without a beer stain, but decorated at the four corners with cigar-ash dishes ; a gas-bracket bedizened with a frill - work of coloured papers ; sparkling glasses of the best October brews ; an odour of something savoury from the kitchen ; to crown all, the inter- mittent presence of as fine and cheerful a hostess as can be found in Warwickshire — these are a few, a very few, of the delights of the best room in the ' George and Dragon.' ? ^^'^jND they are fully appreciated Q^trb'B KlBijlil by the merrymaking game- preservers and covert-beaters, who squeeze every drop of pleasure out of the meeting. As I have hinted, however, there are one or two items in the merriment which are more interesting than roystering. These are dealt with before the cups pass IRural /IDerry mailings 1 7 1 and repass, are filled and are emptied. In truth it is better so ; for if any serious business were treated of when the rustics are ' in their cups,' not a word of it would they remember when reason and sleep had sobered them. Among the preservers and beaters generally are several boys, or creatures between the boy and the youth. Theirs is a tender age and one peculiarly apt to imbibe knowledge. Now before the effects of the merrymaking cloud the brains of these village goslings, the game- keeper or bailiff, or some other worthy who happens to sit or stand in authority at the mahogany, delivers ' a bit o' speech ' for the benefit and edification of these younger hands. You should see the faces of the rustic rascals when the speechifying begins. Strephon in miniature may be as dense and ignorant as Strephon in full growth ; but he in miniature has more humour. ' Now the preaching's goin' fur to begin,' whispers one to another, and their already broad faces expand like balloons being filled with gas. By-and-by, however, their cheeks contract to their original shape, for the person 172 5n IRusset /IDantle Clat) who is on ' his stumps ' is ' preaching ' some- thing which interests them. It is really of interest (or should be) to all lovers of natural history, whether they be merrymaking or not. What the speechifier is saying may be re- duced to the following language, — ' You young 'uns are fond o' bird's nesting, now inna you ? Well, some day belike you'll come along o' a partridge's nest wi' eggs in it. If you do, all as I say to you is this, don't you be anxious to see the hen lay her eggs. You leave her to lay 'em whenever she has a mind so to do. She'll tak' pretty good care to lay 'em at the right time. ' Now what am I telling you this for? Why, so as you wunna let that other bird's nester (a worser one than any o' you are) know where that nest be. I mean the weasel, you know. That's a cunnin' chap, that is. If you once mak' a pathway through yon grass, the weasel 'ull foller it, find the nest, an' suck the eggs as soon as the partridge 'as laid 'em. Belike he'll collar the poor dame herself if he can. An' you see you canna catch a weasel asleep ; what's more, you canna prosecute him under IRural /llbcrn^maftiucis 173 Act o' Parliament for breaking the game laws.' ' The young uns,' the tail of the game- preservers and covert-beaters, listen with faces as sober as judges. His ' speechifying ' sounds very much like something they, being country boys, have heard before ; but they give their attention to it as if it were as brand new as the clean polish upon their own faces — put on expressly for the merrymaking. They could probably tell the land-agent — who is speaking — more bird and weasel-lore than he could imagine ; but they hold their peace and listen. ©ecag of Q?U6 ERRYMAKINGS like these, in the snug taprooms of village ftc ^tea- ^j^^g ^j.g characteristic of English Bures ' ° country life, which the novelist and painter will do well not to forget. They are so quaint, so cheering, and not devoid of the pictur- esque. But there are out-door rejoicings yet in existence — the remnant of a merrymaking race — which should not go unremembered. 174 5n IRusset /IDantle Cla^ In Warwickshire there used to be many pretty and quaint forms of outdoor merry- making, which, alas ! are now more honoured in the breach than in the observance. The town has crawled nearer and nearer to the village ; what is known as ' modern civilisa- tion ' has descended upon the hamlet nestling among the woodlands ; and the sweeping changes have conspired in many places to run much of the quaint and picturesque out of existence. Still, in the south part of Shakespeare's shire, the searcher after old English customs can find a remnant of them left. For one thing, rural Warwickshire is secluded, and change cannot so easily penetrate through barricades of greenwood. Besides, the rustics of the classic shire are long-lived, and customs, especially home customs, are handed down from parents to children, in the same way as the great ones of the city hand down their family heirlooms. IRural /IDerrpmahinos 175 (Roasfcbj €ra6B MYSELF have noticed with pleasure that one old Warwick- shire home custom, alluded to by Shakespeare, still survives. This is the roasting of the crab. In the time of the poet this was a jovial winter dish. Crabs were roasted and then put into a spacious bowl of spiced ale. Speaking of this, Shakespeare says, — When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl Then nightly sings the staring owl. In many cottages the crab is still roasted. Sometimes it is plunged into a bowl of hot spiced ale; at other times into a dish of stewed sago. ©ag QJlerrg- NE of the most pretty and popular merrymakings still ob- served in rural Warwickshire is the May Day festival. In the early years of the present century, indeed, 176 3n IRusset /IDantle Cla^ May Day was a high day and holiday in many of the leading towns. It was one of the principal holidays of the year, but since the consecration of St Lubbock, the May Day merrymaking has continued to be chiefly observed in villages. Perhaps it has lost none of its charms by retreating from the towns. In the latter, the festival assumed a circus-like glamour, not so innocent nor so pleasant as the smaller and less tawdry merrymaking on the village green. Therefore its decline and discontinuance in places where 'men most do congregate' is not so much to be regretted as it would be if it were to decline in those pleasant nooks ' far from the madding crowd.' In a little circle round Stratford-on-Avon the observance of the May D^ij fete is obeyed with rigid regularity. The village children of Charlecote, Bidford, Grafton, Kineton, and other adjacent places, would open their bright, round eyes and wonder if they were told there was to be no maypole and no May Day feast and pleasure. In one of his simplest and prettiest poems H o u X -2 o s ^^ ►J < fa < Q a 65 "fe. IRural ^err^malUncis i77 Lord Tennyson has immortalised the May Queen : — ' You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear, To-morrow will be the happiest time of all the glad New Year ; Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest, merriest day. For I'm to be Oueen of the May, mother, I'm to be Oueen of the May.' The late Poet Laureate would seem to have been well acquainted with Warwickshire lore. In that shire of romance, history and poetry, the election of the May Queen is decided upon overnight, just as in the Laureate's ballad. The thoughts occupying the mind of the chosen one, from the time of her election to her coronation, may be better imagined than de- scribed. No wonder Tennyson should depict his Queen enjoining her mother to wake her early. I have no doubt that many a Warwickshire lass from time immemorial has done the same. At Charlecote and the neighbouring villages and hamlets, the May Day merrymaking is a M 17S 3n IRusset /nbantle Cla& delightful one for the children. For 'children of larger growth ' — in this case meaning the vicar, his wife, his curate, his curate's wife (if he has one) and their well-to-do friends — this merrymaking has certain attractions. There are, happily, people who can always extract pleasure out of making other people happy ; and this class generally comprises the vicar of the parish and his fellow workers. All, or much, at any rate, depends upon the weather. If it is fine, the merrymaking is glorious ; if it is wet — why, the merrymaking is then con- siderably damped. In Warwickshire — strictly adhering to time- honoured usages — the people of the villages hold their May festival on ' Old May Day ' — the 1 2th of the month. On the day before, the village green is invaded by an army of small merrymakers and a few older ones. They bring whatever flowers they can, and straight- way proceed to garland, festoon and raise the maypole. On the morrow they are as gay as the may- pole — if the weather is fine — round which they dance. Indeed, there is no prettier or more IRural /iDeci-ymalunGs 179 touching scene in English pastoral life than the merrymaking of the children on May Day in that classic county which the poets have called ' Leafy Warwickshire.' FINIS Colston <&» Coy., Limited, Printers, Edinburgh. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. ir TnT^ A T?V! PR I.-orley - 5059 Ii:h3i In russet mantlfi clad UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL UWRVf AC AA 000 380 653 f PR _ 5059 Mli3i u*r.mnU'«m^ i^asaeua m ^m^mm