The devil was sick—the devil a saint would be;The devil got well—not a bit of a saint was he!
The devil was sick—the devil a saint would be;The devil got well—not a bit of a saint was he!
The devil was sick—the devil a saint would be;The devil got well—not a bit of a saint was he!
[It was necessary to soften down the language of the original!]
“Is that what you mean?†Yes! it was that. “Well I’ve been a thinking, if the old devil had laid a bit longer and been afflicted same as some on ’em, as he’d a been the better for it. Ain’t there no more o’ that there little hymn, sir?â€
The religious talk of our Arcadians is sometimes very trying—trying I mean to any man with only too keen a sense of the ludicrous, and who would not for the world betray himself if he could help it.
It is always better to let people welcome you as a friend and neighbour, rather than as a clergyman, even at the risk of being considered by the “unco guid†as an irreverent heathen. But you are often pulled up short by a reminder more or less reproachful, that if you have forgotten your vocation your host has not; asthus:—
“Ever been to Tombland fair, Mrs. Cawl?†Mrs. Cawl has a perennial flow of words, which comefrom her lips in a steady, unceasing, and deliberate monotone, a slow trickle of verbiage with never the semblance of a stop.
“Never been to no fairs sin’ I was a girl bless the Lord nor mean to ’xcept once when my Betsy went to place and father told me to take her to a show and there was a giant and a dwarf dressed in a green petticoat like a monkey on an organ an’ I ses to Betsy my dear theys the works of the Lord but they hadn’t ought to be shewed but as the works of the Lord to be had in remembrance and don’t you think sir as when they shows the works of the Lord they’d ought to begin with a little prayer?â€
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There is one salient defect in the East Anglian character which presents an almost insuperable obstacle to the country parson who is anxious to raise thetoneof his people, and to awaken a response when he appeals to their consciences and affections. The East Anglian is, of all the inhabitants of these islands, most wanting in native courtesy, in delicacy of feeling, and in anything remotely resembling romantic sentiment. The result is that it is extremely difficult, almost impossible, to deal with a genuine Norfolk man when he is out of temper. How much of this coarseness of mental fibre is to be credited totheir Danish ancestry I know not, but whenever I have noticed a gleam of enthusiasm, I think I have invariably found it among those who had French Huguenot blood in their veins. Always shrewd, the Norfolk peasant is never tender; a wrong, real or imagined, rankles within him through a lifetime. He stubbornly refuses to believe that hatred in his case is blameworthy. Refinement of feeling he is quite incapable of, and without in the least wishing to be rude, gross, or profane, he is often all three at once quite innocently during five minutes’ talk. I have had things said to me by really good and well-meaning men and women in Arcady that would make susceptible people swoon. It would have been quite idle to remonstrate. You might as well preach of duty to an antelope. If you want to make any impression or exercise any influence for good upon your neighbours, you must take them as you find them, and not expect too much of them. You must work in faith, and you must work upon the material that presents itself. “The sower soweth the word.†The mistake we commit so often is in assuming that because we sow—which is our duty—therefore we have a right to reap the crop and garner it. “It grows to guerdon after-days.â€
Meanwhile we have such home truths as thefollowing thrown at us in the most innocent manner.
“Tree score? Is that all you be? Why there’s some folk as ’ud take you for a hundred wi’ thathairo’ yourn!â€
Mr. Snape spoke with an amount of irritation which would have made an outsider believe I was his deadliest foe; yet we are really very good friends, and the old man scolds me roundly if I am long without going to look at him. But he has quite a fierce repugnance to grey hair. “You must take me as I am, Snape,†I replied; “I began to get grey at thirty. Would you have me dye my hair?†“Doy! Why that hev doyd, an’ wuss than that—thet’s right rotten thet is!â€
Or we get taken into confidence now and then, and get an insight into our Arcadians’ practical turn of mind. I was talking pleasantly to a good woman about her children. “Yes,†she said, “they’re all off my hands now, but I reckon I’ve had a expense-hive family. I don’t mean to say as it might not have been worse if they’d all lived, and we’d had to bring ’em all up, but my meaning is as they never seemed to die convenient. I had twins once, and they both died, you see, and we had the club money for both of ’em, but then one lived a fortnight after the other, and so that took two funerals, and that come expense-hive!â€
It is very shocking to a sensitive person to hear the way in which the old people speak of their dead wives or husbands exactly as if they’d been horses or dogs. They arealwaysproud of having been married more than once. “You didn’t think, Miss, as I’d had five wives, now did you? Ah! but I have though—leastways I buried five on ’em in the churchyard, that I did—andtree on ’em beewties!â€3On another occasion I playfully suggested, “Don’t you mix up your husbands now and then, Mrs. Page, when you talk about them?†“Well, to tell you the truth, sir, I really du! But my third husband, hewasa man! I don’t mix him up. He got killed, fighting—you’ve heerd tell o’ that I make no doubt. The others warn’t nothing to him. He’d ha’ mixed them up quick enough if they’d interfered wi’ him. Lawk ah! He’d ’a made nothing of ’em!â€
Instances of this obtuseness to anything in the nature of poetic sentiment among our rustics might be multiplied indefinitely. Norfolk has never produced a single poet or romancer.4We have nolocal songs or ballads, no traditions of valour or nobleness, no legends of heroism or chivalry. In their place we have a frightfully long list of ferocious murderers: Thurtell, and Tawell, and Manning, and Greenacre, and Rush, and a dozen more whose names stand out pre-eminent in the horrible annals of crime. The temperament of the sons of Arcady is strangely callous to all the softer and gentler emotions.
* * * * *
There still remains something to say. In the minor difficulties with which the country parson has to deal, there is usually much that is grotesque, and this for the most part forces itself into prominence. When this is so, a wise man will not dwell too much upon the sad and depressing view of the situation; he will try and make the best of things as they are. There are trials that are, after all, bearable with a light heart. Unhappily there are others that make a man’s heart very heavy indeed, partly because he thinks they need not be, partly because he can see no hope of remedy. It is of these I hope to speak hereafter.