But perhaps the parade of the assize time, is the most picturesque of this class of occurrences. There is more of the old Englishceremony, custom, and costume about it. The judges who go through the land as the representatives of majesty, certainly go through iten prince. Nothing can be more unlike than their progress to, and their state in, the courts in town, and the same things in their provincial tour of justice. In town you may see the Lord Chief Justice mount his horse at his own door, and ride quietly away towards Westminster Hall. You may see Lord Abinger in the Court of Exchequer, sitting very much at his ease in his black gown and wig of modest dimensions, dispatching business in a work-a-day manner; but in the country you find these very men arrayed in their scarlet and ermine, seated in much greater state, and dispensing justice in a much fuller court than, except on extraordinary occasions, attends them in town.
The high-sheriff of every county, selected from its best families, in preparation for the arrival of the county judge, has put his equipage and train in order. His carriage, his horses, his harness, all have undergone a rigid examination, and are all put into the highest condition that paint, gilding, varnish, lining, and plate, can bestow; or if he be a young man of some spirit and ambition, he has purchased a new carriage for the occasion. His tenants and household servants, to the number of forty or fifty, have been put into a new livery in the cut of the old yeomen, and generally of some bright or peculiar colour, green, blue, white, or delicate drab, as indeed the livery of the gentlemen may be. Mounted on their horses, and with their javelins or halberds, and preceded by two trumpeters, who, old Aubrey can tell you, are a very ancient essential on such occasions, they escort the sheriff on his way to meet the judges. The sheriff who has thus showily appointed what are provincially termed his javelin-men, has not in the meantime neglected himself. He has put on at least a court dress, and in cases where he has happened to be a man of taste, and a man of figure to boot, he has put on a rich suit of the fashion of Sir Charles Grandison, or of some one of his ancestors, as he stands in full-length portraiture in his family gallery. He issues from his hall, arrayed perhaps in a rich mulberry coloured coat with huge embroidered cuffs and button-holes, huge gold buttons, and lining of primrose serge; a splendid waistcoat of gold brocaded satin, with ample pockets and flaps reaching half-wayto his knees; satin breeches, and silk stockings with immense clocks; large gold buckles at his knees and upon his shoes. Add to this his sword, his cocked hat, and his cravat and ruffles of fine point lace, and you have the high-sheriff in all his glory, just as we saw him in one of our county assize courts not many years ago, sitting on the right hand of the judge; and it must be confessed in admirable keeping with his old-world robes of scarlet and ermine. Well, he enters the county town with his troop of javelin-men, his trumpeters blowing stoutly before him. He takes up his lodgings there, and on the morning of the judge’s approach, he marches out in the same style, followed by a long train of the gentlemen and tradesmen of the place, who are anxious to testify their respect to the ancient forms of justice, and the representative of the monarch. He advances some mile or two on the way by which the judge is to arrive. There the procession halts, generally in a position which commands a view of the road by which the judge is expected. Anon, there is a stir, a looking out amongst them, your eye follows theirs, and you see a carriage, dusty and travel-soiled, come driving rapidly on. It is that of the judge. As they drive up, the javelin-men and gentlemen uncover; the sheriff descends from his carriage; his gowned and bewigged lordship descends from his; the sheriff makes his bow and his compliments; the judge enters the carriage of the sheriff with him, his own carriage falls into the rear, and the procession now moves on towards the town, with bannered trumpets blowing, and amid a continually increasing crowd of spectators. There is something very quaint and old English in the whole affair; and as I have seen the sheriff and his train thus, waiting the approach of the judge on some rising ground in the public road, the scene has brought back to my imagination a feeling of the past times—simpler in heart than the present, but more formal in manner, and perhaps fonder of solemn parade. But the bells are ringing merrily to welcome the learned judge, and thousands are thronging to see the sight of the sheriff and his men, and to catch a glimpse of the judge’s wig as the coach passes, and many of them to wonder how the sheriff can seem so much at his ease with such an awful man: while within the strong walls of the prison, the sounds of bells and the trampling feet of the crowdswithout, are causing stout hearts and miserable hearts to tremble and feel chill.
Well, the procession and the throng “go sounding through the town,” and the court being opened in due form, they arrive at the judge’s lodgings, whence, after a suitable time allowed for the judge’s refreshment, they proceed to church. Whatever may be the effect of this custom of the judge’s going to church before proceeding to discharge his awful duties of deciding upon the destinies of his fellow men, it is a beautiful one, and bespeaks in those who instituted it, a just sense of the value of human life, and of the true source whence all right judgment must proceed. It was well, and more than well, that the judge should be sent to hear from the Christian minister, that the temper in which a judge should sit to decide the fate of his fellow mortals, should be that of the Christian—the divine union of justice and mercy. It was well that he should be reminded that every act of his judgment in the court about to open, must one day be rejudged, in a court and before a judge, from which there can be no appeal.
As they move on towards the great mother-church, thousands on thousands throng to gaze. Every window presents its quota of protruded heads; every flight of steps before the doors of houses, and every other elevated spot, is occupied. Boys are hanging by lamp-posts, and on iron palisades, like bats. The procession used to be much enlivened by the presence of the mayor and corporation in their robes, and with the mace borne before them; but the New Corporation Act has led to a woful stripping of this pageant. The sheriff selects the clergyman to preach on the occasion, who is generally some young friend or relative whom he wishes to bring into notice. This ceremony being over, the judge returns to the court; the grand jury, selected from the gentlemen of the county, present their bills, and the trials proceed. In the sheriff’s gallery may be seen some of his friends, perhaps the ladies of his family and other acquaintances, with others, all introduced by ticket; on the bench by the judge, may often be seen seated with the sheriff, some great man or lady of the neighbourhood, especially if some trial in which one of their own body, some disputed will which involves a large property, or similar cause of interest, draws them from their homes, and fills the court to suffocation. While thecourt continues, day by day you see the train of javelin-men come marching on foot with the state carriage of the sheriff, to conduct him from his lodgings to those of the judge, and back again at the close of the court in the evening, till the trials are ended; and judge, sheriff, gay carriage, with its splendid hammer-cloth, jolly coachman, and slim footmen, in their cocked hats and flaxen wigs, javelin-men, and crowd, all meet and vanish away, and the excitement of the assize is over for another half-year.
Such are the principal country excitements; and to these may be added those of another class, which have sprung up of late years, and have done much good—the floral and horticultural shews. These have been warmly patronized by the aristocracy; and it forms a striking feature in modern country life, to see carriages and pedestrians hastening, on certain days to certain places, where different flowers and fruits, in their respective seasons, are displayed with great taste, and with brilliant effect. The place of meeting is sometimes at a country inn, where, on the bowling-green, tents are pitched, in which the flowers or fruits are exhibited, and the whole scene is extremely gay. Such a one I saw at Kingston Hill, near Richmond Park—a Dahlia shew: on the end of the house an invitation to all England being gorgeously emblazoned in dahlia-flowers, surmounted by the crown royal, and the good English initials Q. V.; looking as though the worthy horticulturists meant to set the rational example of using the English language to the English people.
There are few things which give one such a feeling of the prosperity of the country, as seeing the country people pour into a large town on market-day. There they come, streaming along all the roads that lead to it from the wide country round. The footpaths are filled with a hardy and homely succession of pedestrians, men and women, with their baskets on their arms, containing their butter, eggs, apples, mushrooms, walnuts, nuts, elderberries, blackberries, bundles of herbs, young pigeons, fowls, or whatever happens to be in season. There are boys and girls too, similarly loaded, and also with baskets of birds’ nests in spring, cages of young birds, and old birds, baskets of tame rabbits, and bunches of cowslips, primroses, and all kinds of flowers and country productions imaginable. The carriage-road is equally alive, with people riding and driving along; farmers and country gentlemen, country clergymen, parish overseers, and various other personages, drawn to the market-town by some real or imagined business, are rattling forward on horseback, or in carriages of various kinds, gigs, and spring-carts, and carts without springs. There are carriers’ wagons, and covered carts without end, many of them shewing from their open fronts, whole troops of women snugly seated; while their dogs chained beneath, go struggling andbarking along, pushing their heads forward in their collars every minute as if they would hang themselves. This is in the morning; and in the afternoon you see them pouring out again, and directing their course to many a far-off hamlet and old-fashioned abode. But there is a wide difference between coming in and going out. The wagons and carts go heavily and soberly, for they are laden with good solid commodities, groceries and draperies, mops, brushes, hardware and crockery, newspapers for the politicians, and sundry parcels of teas, sugars, and soaps, and such et ceteras, for the village shops; but the farmers go riding and driving out three times as fast as they came in, for they are primed with good dinners and strong beer. They have chaffered, and smoked, and talked with the great grazier and the great corn-factor, and their horses are full of corn too, and away they go, in fours and fives, filling the whole width of the road, and raising a dust, if there be the least dust to be raised, or making the mud fly in all directions; away they go, talking all together, while their horses are trotting at such a pace as one would think would shake the very teeth out of their heads. The sober foot-people who are trudging homeward more soberly than they came, say, as they fly past, “One wouldn’t think times very bad neither.” And the carriers hold their horses’ heads as they rush past, and smiling significantly, say, just as they are gone past,—“Well done my lads! that’s it; go it my lads, go it! Yo riden, though your horses go a-foot!”
There is no class of men, if times are but tolerably good, that enjoy themselves so highly as farmers. They are little kings. Their concerns are not huddled into a corner, as those of the town tradesman are. In town, many a man who turns thousands of pounds per week, is hemmed in close by buildings, and cuts no figure at all. A narrow shop, a contracted warehouse, without an inch of room besides to turn him, on any hand; without a yard, a stable, or outhouse of any description; perhaps hoisted aloft, up three or four pair of dirty stairs, is all the room that the wealthy tradesman often can bless himself with; and there, day after day, month after month, year after year, he is to be found, like a bat in a hole of a wall, or a toad in the heart of a stone, or of an oak tree. Spring, and summer, and autumn, go round; sunshine and flowers spread over the world; the sweetest breezes blow, thesweetest waters murmur along the vales, but they are all lost upon him; he is the doleful prisoner of Mammon, and so he lives and dies. The farmer would not take the wealth of the world on such terms. His concerns, however small, spread themselves out in a pleasant amplitude both to his eye and heart. His house stands in its own stately solitude; his offices and outhouses stand round extensively, without any stubborn and limiting contraction; his acres stretch over hill and dale; there his flocks and herds are feeding; there his labourers are toiling,—he is king and sole commander there. He lives amongst the purest air and the most delicious quiet. Often when I see those healthy, hardy, full-grown sons of the soil going out of town, I envy them the freshness and the repose of the spots to which they are going. Ample old-fashioned kitchens, with their chimney-corners of the true, projecting, beamed and seated construction, still remaining; blazing fires in winter, shining on suspended hams and flitches, guns supported on hooks above, dogs basking on the hearth below; cool, shady parlours in summer, with open windows, and odours from garden and shrubbery blowing in; gardens wet with purest dews, and humming at noon-tide with bees; and green fields and verdurous trees, or deep woodlands lying all round, where a hundred rejoicing voices of birds or other creatures are heard, and winds blow to and fro, full of health and life-enjoyment. How enviable do such places seem to the fretted spirits of towns, who are compelled not only to bear their burthen of cares, but to enter daily into the public strife against selfish evil and ever-spreading corruption. When one calls to mind the simple abundance of farm-houses, their rich cream and milk, and unadulterated butter, and bread grown upon their own lands, sweet as that which Christ broke, and blessed as he gave to his disciples; their fruits ripe and fresh plucked from the sunny wall, or the garden bed, or the pleasant old orchard; when one casts one’s eyes upon, or calls to one’s memory the aspect of these houses, many of them so antiquely picturesque, or so bright-looking and comfortable, in deep retired valleys, by beautiful streams, or amongst fragrant woodlands, one cannot help saying with King James of Scotland, when he met JohnnyArmstrong:—
What want these knaves that a king should have?
What want these knaves that a king should have?
But they are not outward and surrounding advantages merely, which give zest to the life of the farmer. He is more proud of it, and more attached to it, than any other class of men, be they whom they may, are of theirs. The whole heart, soul, and being of the farmer are in his profession. The members of other professions and trades, however full they may be of their concerns, have their mouths tied up by the etiquette of society. A man is not allowed to talk of his trade concerns except at the risk of being laughed at, and being set down as an egotistic ignoramus. But who shall laugh at or scout the farmer for talking of his concerns? Of nothing else does he, in nine cases out of ten, think, talk, or care. And though he may be called a bore by all other classes, what concerns it him? for other classes are just as great bores to him, and he seeks not their company. The farmers are a large class, and they associate and converse principally with each other. “Their talk is of bullocks,” it is true, but to them it is the most interesting talk of all. What is so delightful to them as to meet at each other’s houses, and with bright glasses of nectarous ale, or more potent spirit sparkling before them, and pipe in mouth, to talk of markets, rents, tithes, new improvements, and the promise of crops? To walk over their lands of a Sunday afternoon together, and pronounce on the condition of growing corn, turnips, and grass; on this drainage, or that neighbour’s odd management; on the appearance of sheep, cattle, and horses. And this is to be excused, and in a great degree to be admired. For those are no artificial objects on which they expend their lives and souls; they are the delightful things of nature on which they operate; and nature operates with them in all their labours, and sweetens them to their spirits. This is the grand secret of their everlasting attachment to, and enjoyment of agricultural life. They work with nature, and only modulate and benefit by her functions, as she takes up, quickens, and completes the work of their hands. There is a living principle in all their labours, which distinguishes them from most other trades. The earth gives its strength to the seed they throw into it—to the cattle that walk upon it. The winds blow, the waters run for them; the very frosts and snows of winter give salutary checks to the rankness of vegetation, and lighten the soil, and destroy what is noxious for them; and every principle ofanimal and vegetable existence and organization co-operates to support and enrich them. There is a charm in this which must last while the spirit of man feels the stirrings of the spirit and power of God around him. It may be said that rude farmers do not reason on these things in this manner. No, in many, too many, instances I grant it; but they feel. There is scarcely any bosom so cloddish but feels more or less of this, and by no other cause can an explanation be given of the enthusiasm of farmers for their profession. It is not because they can sooner enrich themselves by it—that they are more independent in it—that they have greater social advantages in it. In all these particulars the balance is in favour of the active and enterprising tradesman; but it is this charm which has infused its sweetness into the bosoms of all rural people in all ages of the world. From the days of the patriarchs to the present, what expressions of delight the greatest minds have uttered on behalf of such a life. Think of Homer, Theocritus, Virgil, and Horace; of Cicero, whom I have elsewhere quoted; and of the many great men of this country, some of whom too I have noticed, who have devoted themselves with such eagerness to it.
That farmers are as intelligent as a parallel grade of society in large towns I do not mean to assert; that they are as truly aware of, and as united to defend, their real interests I will assert as little. Their solitary and isolated mode of existence weighs against them in these points; but that they have generally a sounder morality than a similar class of townsmen is indisputable. They have a simplicity of mind as well as manners that is more than an equivalent for the polish and conventional customs of society, and with this a cordiality that is very delightful, and very rarely now to be found—the good, homely heartiness of Old English days.
They, indeed, so vividly enjoy the common blessings of life, from their vigorous health, and unvitiated appetites, as well as from the cravings of their inner being, finding their food in the daily communion with nature, instead of that book-knowledge which is so extensively diffused through all classes of the city, and which, too commonly, while it quickens the intellect, and widens the sphere of observation, I am sorry to say, deadens the human sympathies and distorts the heart—that they make so much of their kindness appear in heaping upon you bodily comforts and refreshmentsas is often truly ludicrous. They would have you eat and drink for ever. One meal succeeds to another with a profusion and an importunity of hospitality that are overwhelming. They eat their bread with a sweetness and a capacity, generated by their active and laborious habits, that we, who lead more sedentary lives, and with minds and energies dissipated by a hundred objects unknown to them, have no idea of. People of all other classes place a great portion of their happiness in giving and eating great feasts; but a farmer seems to think all the good things of life are involved in feasting, and would feast you not once a year, but every day, and all day long, if he could.
Let us just glance at the routine of one day of good fellowship, such as is seen in farm-houses where there is plenty, and yet no great pretence to gentility. We have seen many such scenes.
The farmer invites his friends to dine with him. He will have a party. Suppose it at some period of the year when he is least busy; for his engagements depending on the progress of the seasons, and his whole wealth being at the mercy of the elements, he cannot postpone his duties, but must take them as they fall out. Suppose it then just before the commencement of hay-harvest, for then he has a short pause, between the putting in of his last crop of potatoes or corn, shutting up his fields, and clearing his green-corn lands, and that moment when the first scythe enters his hay-fields, when a course of arduous and anxious labours begins, that will not cease till all his crops are safely housed,—hay, corn, beans, pease, and potatoes. Suppose at this pause in the growing time of summer, or after harvest, or amid the festive days of Christmas, he feels himself comparatively at leisure, in good spirits, and disposed to enjoy himself. He and his wife arrange their plans. Invitations are sent. On market-day he lays in all necessaries,—tea, coffee, prime cuts of beef and other meat; wine and spirits; sugar and spices. At home there is busy preparation. His garden is cleaned up; an operation of rare occurrence with a busy farmer, who thinks so much of his fields that he thinks but little of his garden. His stables and his rick-yard are put in order. The very manes and tails of his horses are trimmed, for all will have to pass under the critical notice of his friends, and he feels his professional character at stake. In the house there is equal activity. There isa world of cleaning and setting in order. Floors are scoured. The best carpets are put down. This room is found to want fresh staining; painting wants doing here and there, both within and without. Trees also want nailing and trimming on the walls; and it is probable there may want some spout repairing, or tiles renewing, that have often been talked of, but never could have time found for their doing. The house and all about it look fifty per cent. the better. The neatly cleaned walks and closely mown grass-plots; the brightly cleaned windows, and the scarlet curtains, and the purely white blinds seen within, give an air of completeness that is very satisfactory.
And then within begin the mighty preparations for the feast. Geese, turkeys, ducks and fowls are killed and pulled, and part are cooked, and part are made ready for cooking. If the farmer shoots, and it be the season, there are hares and rabbits, pheasants and partridges, brought to the larder; if he do not, he makes friends with the keeper, who occasionally takes a social pipe and glass with him; or he makes a direct request to his landlord for this indulgence. Hams are boiled, pies are made, puddings of the richest composition are put together. If it be Christmas, loud is the chopping of meat for minced-pies, busy the mixing of spices; and the washing and picking of currants and raisins; and pork-pies and sausages of most savoury and approved manipulation are raised into material existence. If the sucking-pig escapes whipping—and we hope no honest farmer is now cruel enough for this operation—creams and syllabubs do not; they are whipped, not to death, but into life. There are blanc-mange and jellies, crystalline and fragrant; clouted creams, and cream of strawberries, raspberries, and I know not what melting and delicious things. And O! such cheesecakes, and such patties, and such little cakes of various names and natures, for tea, andentremets, and dessert. I see the oven-door open and shut, as the iron tray of nicely laden patty-pans goes into the oven, or comes out with a rich perfection, and with odours most delicious, most mouth-melting, most inexpressible! The good and skilful dame, and the no less skilful and comely daughters, if she have them, and they are grown up to years of discretion in these delicate and culinary arts—what is not their depth of occupation! What glowing looks are theirs; whatspeculations; what contrivances and anticipations! I would fain take an easy chair in some cool corner of this milk-and-honey-flowing kitchen, and watch all their sweet employment, and hear all their sweet words in a grateful silence. But they are far from the end of their labours. Nuts, walnuts, apples and pears, and other fruit, according as the season may be, are produced from their stores, or from the sunny walls and trees, wiped from every trace of mould or dust from the store-room, and placed in their proper receivers of glass, or china, or possibly of plate. Wine and spirit decanters are to be washed and carefully dried, and to be charged with their bright contents. The discovery of the richest cheese in the whole cheese-room is to be made by tasting; butter is to be moulded in small cakes, and imprinted with patterns of the deepest and most elegant figure, and a thousand other things made, or done, of which the tasting were to be desired rather than the catalogue to be particularized, for, wonderful and manifold are all thy works, O thou accomplished spouse of a wealthy farmer!
What dainties has that greater oven received into its more capacious cavern. Bread of the most exquisite fineness; and pies of varied character—fruit, pork, beef-steak, and giblet—if in Devon or Cornwall,sweetgiblet, a pie that all England besides knows not of,—figgy-bread, and saffron-cake of transcendant brilliance and taste.
And then comes the great day! The guests are invited to dinner; but they have been enjoined tocome early, and they come early with a vengeance. They will not come as the guests of night-loving citizens and aristocrats come, at from six to nine in the evening;—no, at ten and eleven in the morning you shall see their faces, that never yet were ashamed of day-light, and that tell of fresh air and early hours. Then come rattling in sundry vehicles with their cargoes of men and women; lively salutations are exchanged; the horses are led away to the stables, and the guests into the house to doff great coats and cloaks, hats and bonnets, and sit down to luncheon. And there it is ready set out. “They’ll want something after their drive,” says the host. “To be sure,” says the hostess; and there is plenty in truth. A boiled ham, a neat’s tongue; a piece of cold beef; fowls and beef-steak-pie; tarts, and bread, cheese and butter; coffee for the ladies, and fine old ale for the gentlemen.
“Now do help yourselves,” exclaims the host from one end of the table, “I am sure you must be very hungry after such a ride.” “I am sure you must indeed,” echoes the hostess from the other, while a dozen voices cry all at once, “O, really I don’t think I can touch a bit. We got breakfast the moment before we set off;” and all the time deep are the incisions made into the various viands: and plentifully heaped are plates; and bright liquor is poured into glasses, and a great deal of talk of this and that, and inquiries after this and that person go on; a hearty luncheon is made, and the gentlemen are ready to set out and look about them. They are warned by the hostess to remember that dinner will be on table at one o’clock—“exactly at one!” and assuming hats and sticks, away they go.
While they perambulate the farm, and pass learned judgments on land, cattle, and crops; and make besides excursions into neighbouring lands, to some particular experiment in management, or extraordinary production of combined art and nature, our hostess shews her female friends her dairy, her cheese-room, her poultry-yard, and discussions as scientific are going on, on the best modes of fattening calves, rearing turkey broods, and on all the most approved manipulations of cheese and butter. The quantities produced from a certain number of cows are compared, and many wonders expressed that lands of apparent equality of richness should some yield little butter and much cheese, and others little cheese and much butter; facts well known to all such ladies, but not easy of explanation by heads that pretend to see further into the heart of a difficulty than they do. A walk is probably proposed and undertaken through the garden and orchard, and flowers and fruits are descanted on; and all this time in the house roasting, and boiling, and baking, are going on gloriously. Savoury steams are rolling about under the ceilings; busy damsels with faces rosier than ever, are running to and fro on the floors; stable-boys are turned into knife-cleaners, and plough-lads into peelers of potatoes and watchers of boiling pots, and turnspits.
The hour arrives; and a sound of loud voices somewhere at hand announces that our agricultural friends are returned punctually to their time, with many a joke on their fears of the ladies’ tongues. Not that they seemed to want any dinner—no, theymade such a luncheon; but they had such a natural fear of being scolded. Well, here they all are;—and here are the ladies all in full dress. Hands that have been handling prime stock, or rooting in the earth, or thrust into hay-ricks and corn-heaps, are washed, and down they sit to such a dinner as might satisfy a crew of shipwrecked men. There are seldom any of your “wishy-washy soups,” except it be very cold weather, and seldom more than two courses; but then theyarecourses! All of the meat kind seems set on the table at once. Off go the covers, and what a perplexing but unconsumable variety! Such pieces of roast beef, veal, and lamb; such hams, and turkeys, and geese; such game, and pies of pigeons or other things equally good, with vegetables of all kinds in season—peas, potatoes, cauliflowers, kidney-beans, lettuces, and whatever the season can produce. The most potent of ale and porter, the most crystalline and cool water, are freely supplied, and wine for those that will. When these things have had ample respect paid to them, they vanish, and the table is covered with plum-puddings and fruit tarts, cheesecakes, syllabubs, and all the nicknackery of whipped creams and jellies that female invention can produce. And then, a dessert of equal profusion. Why should we tantalize ourselves with the vision of all those nuts, walnuts, almonds, raisins, fruits, and confections? Enough that they are there; that the wine circulates—foreign and English—port and sherry—gooseberry and damson—malt and birch—elderflower and cowslip,—and loud is the clamour of voices male and female. If there be not quite so much refinement of tone and manner, quite so much fastidiousness of phrase and action, as in some other places, there is at least more hearty laughter, more natural jocularity, and many a
Random shot of country wit,
Random shot of country wit,
as Burns calls it. A vast of talk there is of all the country round; every strange circumstance; every incident and change of condition, and new alliance amongst their mutual friends and acquaintances, pass under review. The ladies withdraw; and the gentlemen draw together; spirits take place of wine, and pipes are lighted. We know what subjects will interest them—farming improvements and politics—and so it goes till tea-time.
When summoned to tea, there are additional faces. The pastor and his wife, perhaps a son and daughter, or daughters, are there; and there is the clerk too,—the very model of respect and reverence towards his clerical superior. Whatever that learned authority asserts, this zealous and “dearly-beloved Moses” testifies. He calls attention to what the vicar says; he repeats with great satisfaction his sayings. There too, is the surgeon, and often the veterinary surgeon, especially as he also is often a farmer, and in intercourse with all the farmers far and near. This may seem an odd jumble of ranks, but it is no more odd than true. Who that has seen anything of rural life has not seen odder medleys? Besides, money in all grades of society can do miracles. There are clergymen in many parishes, who maintain their own ideas of dignity, and seldom move out of the circle of squires and dames; but there are others, and in perfectly rural districts there are abundance of others, that know how to mix more freely with the yeomanry of their flocks, and lose nothing neither. If they respect themselves, they insure the respect, and what is better, the attachment of their hearers.
But the vicar’s presence on such a day is felt. There is a more palpable approximation towards silence;—a drawing tighter of the reins of conversational freedom. The great talkers of after-dinner are now become great listeners, and often on such occasions I have seen a scene worthy of the sound sense of English yeomen; for the pastor addresses his observations and inquiries now to this individual, and now to that; and now converses in a tone of pleasant humour with the ladies; so that you may often hear as sober discussions on the passing topics of the day, and on the prospects of the country, and especially of that part of it to which they belong, delivered in a homely manner perhaps, but with a discrimination and practical knowledge that are very gratifying. And on the part of the females you shall see so many symptoms of good-heartedness and real matronly mind as make you feel that sense, soul, and true sympathies, are of no particular grade, or particular style of life.
But there must be a dance for the young, and there are cards for the more sedate; and then again, to a supper as profuse, with its hot game, and fowls, and fresh pastry, as if it had been thesole meal cooked in the house that day. The pastor and his company depart; the wine and spirits circulate; all begin to talk of parting, and are loth to part, till it grows late; and they have some of them six or seven miles to go, perhaps, on a pitch-dark night, through by-ways, and with roads not to be boasted of. All at once, however, up rise the men to go, for their wives, who asked and looked with imploring eyes in vain, now shew themselves cloaked and bonneted, and the carriages are heard with grinding wheels at the door. There is a boisterous shaking of hands, a score of invitations to come and do likewise, given to their entertainers, and they mount and away! When you see the blackness of the night, and consider that they have not eschewed good liquor, and perceive at what a rate they drive away, you expect nothing less than to hear the next day, that they have dashed their vehicles to atoms against some post, or precipitated themselves into some quarry; but all is right. They best know their own capabilities, and are at home, safe and sound.
Such is a specimen of the festivities of what may be called the middle and substantial class of farmers; and the same thing holds, in degree, to the very lowest grade of them. The smallest farmer will bring you out the very best he has; he will spare nothing, on a holiday occasion; and his wife will present you with her simple slice of cake, and a glass of currant or cowslip wine, with anempressement, and a welcome that you feel to the heart is real, and a bestowal of a real pleasure to the offerer.
Cobbett complains that the farmer has been spoiled by the growth of luxurious habits and effeminacy in the nation. That the simple old furniture is cast out of their houses; that carpets are laid on their floors; that there are sofas and pianos to be found where there used to be wooden benches and the spinning-wheel; that the daughters are sent to boarding-school, instead of to market; and the sons, instead of growing up sturdy husbandmen, like their fathers, are made clerks, shopkeepers, or some such “skimmy-dish things.”
It is true enough that the general style of living and furnishing has progressed amongst the farmers as amongst all other classes of the community. And perhaps there has been too much of this. But it should be recollected that Cobbett was opposed to popular education altogether. He would have the rural population physically well off, but it should be physically only. He would have them feed and work and sleep like their sturdy horses or oxen: but is such a state desirable? Is it not far more noble, far more truly human, to have all classes partaking, as far as their circumstances will allow them, of the pleasures of mind? I would have real knowledge go hand in hand with real religious principle and moral feeling, and where they go, a certain and inseparable degree of refinement of manner and embellishment of abode willgo with them. Would I have the follies and affectations of the modern boarding-school go into the farm-house? By no means. It is by the circulation of healthful knowledge that all this is to be rooted out, and the race of finical and half-genteel, and wholly ridiculous boarding-school misses to be changed into usefully taught and really valuable and amiable women. We should avoid one extreme as the other.
It should be recollected, too, that amongst farmers are to be found men of all ranks and grades. Farming has been, and is, a fashionable pursuit. We have ducal farmers, and from them all degrees downwards. Gentlemen’s stewards, educated men, are farmers; and many farmers are persons whose capital employed in their extensive concerns would purchase the estates of nobles. All these, of course, live and partake of the habits, general character, and refinements of the classes to which they, by their wealth, really belong: and amongst the medium class of farmers we find as little aspiring of gentility, as amongst the same grade of tradesmen. Nay, go into the really rural and retired parts of the country, and they are simple and rustic enough. Let those who doubt it go into the dales of Yorkshire; into the Peak, and retirements of Derbyshire; into the vales of Nottinghamshire, and midland counties; let them traverse Buckinghamshire and Shropshire; let them go into the wild valleys of Cornwall; ay, into the genuine country of almost any part of England, and they will find stone floors and naked tables, and pewter plates, and straw beds, and homely living enough in all conscience. They may see oxen ploughing in the fields with simple, heavy, wooden yokes, such as were used five hundred years ago; and horses harnessed with collars of straw, and an old rope or two, not altogether worth half-a-crown, doing the tillage of large farms. They may eat a turnip-pie in one place, and oatmeal cake, or an oatmeal pudding in another, and bless their stars if they see a bit of butcher’s meat once a week. Yes, there are primitive living and primitive habits left over vast districts of England yet, which, we trust, under a better view of things, will receive no change, except such as springs from the gradual and sound growth of true knowledge.
But they bring up their sons to be clerks and such “skimmy-dish things” in towns. Ay, there is the rub; and this we owe tothe rage for large rentals inspired by the war prices; by false notions of improvement generated during the heyday of farming prosperity; by gentlemen making stewards of lawyers, who have no real knowledge of farming interests, and can, therefore, have no sympathies with the small farmer, or patience with him in the day of his difficulty, and whose only object is to get the greatest rent at the easiest rate. But above all, this we owe to the detestable doctrine of political economy, by which a dozen of moderate farms are swallowed up in one overgrown one,—a desert, from which both small farmers and labourers were compelled to depart, to make way for machinery, and Irish labourers at fourpence a day. Where were the farmers to put their sons when they were brought up? The small farms, the natural resource for divided capitals and commencements in agricultural life, were, in a great measure, annihilated; and a most useful race of men as far as possible rooted out. Thank God! this abomination and worse than Egyptian plague, is now seen through, and what is better, isfelt. We shall yet have farms from fifty to a hundred acres, where men of small capital may try their fortunes, and have a chance of mounting up, instead of being thrust down into the hopeless condition of serfs. We may have humble homesteads, where a father and his sons may work together; where labour may await their days, and an independent fireside their hours of rest. Where a lowly, but a happy people may congregate at Christmas and other festivals, and the old games of blindman’s-buff, turn-trencher, and forfeits, may long be pursued in the evening firelight of rustic rooms.
The farmer has had his ups and downs. During the war he was too prosperous; since then he has been at times ground to the dust by low prices and high rents. Heaven send him a better day! We would see him as he is, in a healthy state of the country,—a rural king, sowing his corn and reaping his harvest with a glad heart, and amid the rejoicings of a numerous peasantry.
Of the great advance in the science of farming; of the various improved modes of management, and ingenious machines invented for facilitating the farmer’s labours, I havespokenunder the head of the country gentleman’s pursuits and recreations. One or two other observations on the farmer and his life, may as well be given here.
One of the greatest drawbacks to the pleasantness of their abodes, is to be found in their miry roads and yards, and the stagnant pools and drainages that, in the greater number of instances, stand somewhere about them. One would think that the latter nuisances were intended by them to neutralize the effects of so much good fresh air as they have; to act as a check, lest they should, surrounded as they are, by every conducive to health and longevity, really live too long. There is scarcely a farm-house but has one of those drain pools, into which all the liquid refuse of their yards runs, and into which dead dogs and cats find their way as a matter of course. In summer, these places are green over, and often stand thick with the bubbles of a pestiferous fermentation; to all which they appear totally insensible, and must be really so, or they would contrive to locate them at a greater distance, or have them carried in a water-cart, and dispersed over their grass lands, where they would be of infinite service.
It is in winter that they are beset by miry roads; and have often yards so deep in dirt, that you cannot reach them on foot without getting over the shoes. They and their men stalk to and fro through a six-inch depth of mire as if they trod on a Turkey carpet; but I have often amused myself with imagining what would be the consternation of a cockney, or indeed of any townsman only accustomed to clean roads and good pavements, to find himself set down in the middle of one of those lanes that lead up to farm-houses, or away into their fields, or even in one of their fold-yards. But to find himself in one of these, as I have done many a time on a dark night, and with a necessity of proceeding,—oh patience! patience! then it is really felt to be a virtue. To slip, and plunge, and flounder on in such a darksome, deep-rutted, slipping and stick-fast road—sometimes the puddle soaking into your shoes, and sometimes sent by the pressure of your tread as from a squirt into your face:—“hic labor, hoc opus est.”
A few hours’ work now and then with an iron scraper in the yard, and a spade to let off the water in the lanes into the ditches, and the nuisance were prevented. One would have thought that the universal excellence of all the highways now would have made them sensible of the luxury of a good, dry footing; but they seem really quite unaware of it, except you point it out, and then theywill tell you in good humour that they have road-menders at work regularly twice a-year—dry weather and frost!
I must here, too, say a word on the subject of small farms. Political economists, carrying out their theories of the power of capital, and the division of employments, have written many very plausible things in recommendation of large farms. They tell you that the men of capital, who alone can hold large farms, can alone afford to avail themselves of the aid of machinery for accelerating their operations; of expensive manures, such as bones, the ashes of bog-earth, such as are burnt in Berks and Wiltshire; and of new and improved breeds of sheep and cattle; all of which require long purses, that can pay, and wait for distant returns. These are all excellent reasons for having such men and such farms in the country, by which the march and spirit of improvement may be kept up, and from which, as from reservoirs, may, in due course, overflow the advantages they introduce to their less wealthy neighbours at a cheaper rate; but they are no arguments at all against the retention of less farms. It is, in fact, a well-known circumstance, that the speculative and amateur farmers generally farm at a greater expense than their neighbours, an expense, in most cases, never fully made up by the returns, and often really ruinous. That enlightened, systematic views, the division of employments, and a judicious outlay of capital, not always in every man’s power, enable large farmers to sell at a lower rate than smaller and poorer farmers, is to a certain degree true, but by no means to the extent supposed. No farm which exceeds the ready and daily survey of the cultivator will be found to produce these advantages. Beyond that extent, there must be overlookers employed, and these must be maintained at a great, and probably greater cost than a small farmer lives at on his rented farm; nor can such a system be expected to carry the intentions of the principal into effect with a success like that of his personal surveillance. The small farmer has motives to exertion which do not exist in a troop of hired labourers. Slave labour is notoriously inferior to the labour of freemen, because the freeman has internal motives that the slave never can have; and in the same manner a small farmer who labours on his own rented farm has motives to exertion that the common labourer, who labours for a daily sum, cannot have. Ifthe small farmer employ any of these, he employs them under the influence of his own eye and example, and thereby communicates a stimulus that is absent on a larger scale of cultivation. The small farmer lives economically; frequently, there is no question, more economically, and yet better than the labourer, because he has all his faculties and energies at work to improve his farm and better his condition; circumstances that do not operate on the labourer, who receives just a bare sufficiency in his wage, and sees no possibility, and therefore entertains no hope, of accumulation. The small farmer works hard himself; his children, if he have them, assist him, and his wife too, who also is a manager and a worker. He looks round him, for his eyes are sharpened by his interests, and observes the plans, and measures, and improvements of his wealthier neighbour, adopts what he can of them, and often makes cheap and ingenious substitutes for others. Even if it were a fact, that the large farmer could drive the small farmer out of the country, it would be a circumstance most deeply to be deplored. It would extinguish a class of men of hardy, homely, and independent habits—a serious loss to the nation. It would break those steps out of the ladder of human aspiration, and the improvement of condition, that would have a most fatal influence on all society. An impassable gulf would be placed between the aristocracy of capital and the freedom of labour; which would produce, as its natural results, insolence, effeminacy, and corruption of manners, on the one side, and perpetual poverty, hopeless poverty, abjectness of spirit, or sullen and dangerous discontent, on the other. Even if, as Miss Martineau, in her interesting stories, has asserted, it were true that the labourer would be better clothed and fed than the small farmer, would the mere comfort of food and clothes make up, to men living in a free and Christian country, and within the daily reach of its influences, for the destruction of that ascending path which hope alone can travel? There would soon, on such a system, either in agriculture or manufactures, be but two classes in the country,—the great capitalist and the slave. The great capitalist would stand, like Aaron armed with his serpent rod, to eat up all the lesser serpents that attempted to lift their heads above that level which he had condemned them to. The mass would be doomed to a perpetual despair of even advancing one step out of the thraldom oflabour and command, and their spirits would die within them, or live only to snatch and destroy what they could not legitimately reach.
But such, happily, is not the case. Circumstances place a limit to such things. The small farmer can and does exist, and has existed, and in many cases, flourished too, in the face of all changes, and surrounded by large farms cultivated with all the skill of modern art, and all the power of capital. I have seen and known such, and happier and more comfortable people do not exist. I do not mean by a small farm, what Miss Martineau has called such,—some dozen acres—mere cottage allotments—but farms of from fifty to a hundred acres. There must be full employment for a pair of horses, or there is created by their keep an undue charge for labour, which is a serious preventive of success. But where there is that full employment, a small farmer may live and prosper. The political economist generally reasons in straight lines. He will not turn aside to calculate the force of incidental circumstances; and yet, these incidental circumstances frequently alter a question entirely. For instance, a small farm may lie near a large town, and thereby furnish the tenant with a very lucrative trade in milk; and such incidental circumstances, owing to a location favourable for market, and other causes, frequently exist. Small farmers often pay attention to sources of profit, nearly, if not altogether, overlooked by larger ones. Who does not know what sums are made by cottagers and small occupiers, of the produce of their gardens and orchards, by carefully looking after it, and some one of the family bringing it to market, and standing with it themselves; while the great farmer seldom looks very narrowly to the growth or preservation of either, and therefore incurs both badness of crop and waste; and if he sends it to market, he sends it to the huckster at a wholesale price, to save the annoyance of standing with it. Small concerns, having small establishments, andno dignity to support, nor other cares to divert the attention, find in these resources alone frequently an income itself nearly equal to their expenditure.
To determine questions of this kind there requires a close examination into all their bearings, and into the habits and feelings of those concerned. The truth of the matter, as regards themost profitable size of farms, and their general benefit to the public, seems to be, that there should be some of various sizes, that various degrees of capital and capacity of management may be accommodated; that there may be a chance for those beginning who have little to begin with, and a chance of the active and enterprising rising, as activity and enterprise should. This seems the only system by which the healthful temperament of a community can be kept up; and that just equilibrium of interests, and that ascending scale of advantages maintained, by which not merely the wealth, but the real happiness of a state is promoted.