THE COOMBE-BOTTOM. CONCLUSION.
'There is "two-o'clock bush,"' said Cicely, pointing to a large
hawthorn; 'the shepherds look from the corner of the entrenchment, and
if the sun is over that bush they know it is two o'clock.' She was
driving me in the pony-trap over the Downs, and we were going to call
on Mrs. Luckett's brother, who had a farm among the hills. He had not
been down to Lucketts' Place for more than twelve months, and Cicely
was resolved to make him promise to come. Though they may be in
reality much attached and affectionate, country folk are apt to
neglect even their nearest and dearest. The visit is put off from
month to month; then comes the harvest, and nothing else can be
thought of; and the longer the lapse the more difficult is the remedy.
The footpath of friendship, says the ancient British triad, if not
frequently travelled becomes overgrown with briars.
Those who live by the land forget the passage of the years. A year is
but a harvest. After the ploughing and sowing and cleaning, the
reaping and thatching and threshing, what is there left of the
twelvemonth? It has gone like a day. Thus it is that a farmer talks of
twenty years since as if it was only last week, and seems unable to
grasp the flight of time till it is marked and emphasised by some
exceptional occurrence. Cicely meant to wake her uncle from this
slumber.
We started early on a beautiful July morning--partly to avoid the
heat, and partly because Cicely wished to be away when young Aaron
shortened the tails of the puppies in the rickyard. (This he did in
the old-fashioned way, with his teeth.) Besides we thought that, if we
waited till later, Uncle Bennet might be gone to market at Overboro'.
We passed several farmers leaning or sitting on the stiles by the
road, watching for a friend to come along and give them a lift into
town. Some of them had waited like this every market morning for
years. There were fewer on the road than usual, it being near harvest,
when many do not so much care to leave home.
Upon reaching the foot of the Downs, Cicely left the highway and
entered a narrow lane without hedges, but worn low between banks of
chalk or white rubble. The track was cut up with ruts so deep that the
bed of the pony-trap seemed almost to touch the ground. As we went
rather slowly along this awkward place we could see the wild thyme
growing on the bank at the side. Presently we got on the slope of the
hill, and at the summit passed the entrenchment and the shepherds'
timepiece. Thence our track ran along the ridge, on the short sweet
turf, where there were few or no ruts, and these easily avoided on
that broad open ground. The quick pony now put out his speed, and we
raced along as smoothly as if the wheels were running on a carpet. Far
below, to the right, stretched wheatfield after wheatfield in a plain
between two ranges of the hills. Over the opposite slope, a mile away,
came the shadows of the clouds--then down along the corn towards us.
Stonechats started from the flints and low bushes as we went by; an
old crow--it is always an old crow--rose hastily from behind a fence
of withered thorn; and a magpie fluttered down the hill to the fields
beneath, where was a flock of sheep. The breeze at this height made
the sunshine pleasant.
Cicely said that once some snow lingered in the fosse of the
entrenchment we had left behind till the haymaking. There was a
snowstorm late in the spring, and a drift was formed in a hollow at
the bottom of the fosse. The weather continued chilly (sometimes even
in June it is chilly, and the flowers seem out of harmony with the
temperature), and this drift, though of course it was reduced, did not
melt but became consolidated like ice: a part still remained when the
haymaking commenced. The pony now slackened his pace at a sharp
ascent, and as he walked up we could hear the short song of the
grasshoppers. There was a fir copse at the summit through which the
track went; by the gateway as we entered there was a convolvulus out.
Cicely regretted to see this sign that the sun had reached his
greatest height: the tide of summer was full. Beyond the copse we
descended by a deep-worn track into a 'coombe-bottom,' or valley,
where were some cottages.
Cicely, who knew some of the old people, thought she would call,
though most probably they would be away. We stopped at a garden-gate:
it was open, but there was no one about. Cicely lifted the latch of
the door to step in, country fashion, but it was locked; and, hearing
the noise, a cat came mewing round the corner. As if they had started
out of the ground, a brown-faced boy and a thin girl suddenly
appeared, having come through the hedge.
'Thaay be up to barken' (rickyard), said the boy: so we went on to the
next door. It was locked too, but the key was in the lock outside.
Cicely said that was a signal to callers that the wife had only gone
out for a few minutes and would return soon. The children had followed
us.
'Where is she?' asked Cicely.
'Hur be gone to dipping-place,' replied the boy. We went to a third
door, and immediately he cried out, 'Thuck's our feyther's: the kay's
in the thatch.' We looked and could see the handle of the key sticking
out of the eave over the door.
'Where are they all?' I said.
'Aw, Bill's in the clauver; and Joe--he's in th' turmuts; and Jack be
at public, a' spose; and Bob's wi' the osses; and----'
'They will be home to luncheon?' said Cicely.
'Aw, no um wunt; they wunt be whoam afore night; thaay got thur
nuncheon wi' um.'
'Is there no one at home in all the place?' I inquired.
'Mebbe Farmer Bennet. Thur beant nobody in these yer housen.'
So we went on to Uncle Bennet's, whose house was hidden by a clump of
elms farther down the coombe. There were cottagers in this lonely hill
hamlet, not only old folk but young persons, who had never seen a
train. They had not had the enterprise or curiosity to walk into
Overboro' for the purpose. Some of the folk ate snails, the common
brown shell-snail found in the hedges. It has been observed that
children who eat snails are often remarkably plump. The method of
cooking is to place the snail in its shell on the bar of a grate, like
a chestnut. And well-educated people have been known, even in these
days, to use the snail as an external medicine for weakly children:
rubbed into the back or limb, the substance of the snail is believed
to possess strengthening virtues.[4]
[4] See Notes.
We found Uncle Bennet just taking his lunch in the stone-flagged
sitting-room, which, however, had a square of cocoa-nut matting. He
was getting on in years, but very active. He welcomed us warmly: still
I thought I detected some uneasiness in his manner. His conscience
warned him that Cicely was going to attack him for his remissness; and
how was he to defend himself?
Without any preliminary, she at once demanded why he had not come down
to see them.
'Mary,' said he, calling the servant, as if he did not hear her, 'Some
ale, and the ginger wine, and the grey-beard--mebbe you'd like a drop
a' shart'--to me; but I declined. She repeated her question, but Uncle
Bennet was looking towards me.
'The wuts be very forrard,' said he, 'I got some a-most ready to cut.'
'Do you hear?' cried Cicely, angrily.
'Niece,' replied the farmer, turning to her, 'there's them summer
apples as you used to like, there be some ready; will 'ee have one?'
'I don't want your apples; why didn't you come down?'
'Aw; that's what you be a-talking about.'
'Yes, that's it.'
'The turmots wants some rain terrable bad' (to me)--'you med see the
fly a-hopping about 'em.'
'I hope they will spoil your turnips,' said Cicely; 'you are a very
rude man not to answer a lady when she speaks to you.'
'You be a-coming on nicely, Cissy,' said he. 'Have 'ee got are a
gage-ring yet?'
'How dare you!' (blushing). 'Tell me instantly why have you not been
to see us? You know how angry it makes me.'
'Well, I was a-coming,' deliberately.
'When were you coming?'
'Well, I got to see a man down your way, Cissy; a' owes me for a load
a' straw.'
'Then why don't you come down and get the money?'
'I telled 'ee I was a-coming. He wants some of our sheep to feed off a
meadow; s'pose I must see about it'--with a sigh, as if the idea of a
decision was insupportable.
'Why didn't you come before?'
'Aw, I don't seem to have no time'--farmers having more time than
anybody else.
'You could have come in June.'
'Bless 'ee, your feyther's got the hay about; a' don't want no
strangers bothering.'
'As if you were a stranger! Well, why didn't you come in May?'
'Lor bless 'ee, my dear.'
'In April?'
'Us was main busy a-hoeing.'
'In March?'
'I had the rheumatism bad in March.'
'Well, then,' concluded Cicely, 'now just change your coat and come
to-day. Jump up in the pony-trap--we will make room.'
'To-day!' in hopeless bewilderment, his breath quite taken away at the
idea of such sudden action. 'Couldn't do't--couldn't do't. Got to go
down to Thirty Acre Corner: got to get out the reaping machine--a'
wants oiling, a' reckon; got some new hurdles coming; 'spects a chap
to call about them lambs;' a farmer can always find a score of reasons
for doing nothing.
'All rubbish!' cried Cicely, smiling.
'Nieces be main peart now-a-days,' said he, shutting one eye and
keeping it closed, as much as to say--I won't be driven. Then to me,
'There won't be many at market to-day.'
'I am hungry,' said Cicely softly; 'I should like some bread and
honey.'
'Aw; should 'ee?' in gentler tones; 'I'll get 'ee some: will'ee have
it in th' comb? I got a bit left.'
She knew his pride in his bees and his honey; hill farmers still keep
large stocks. He brought her a slice of home-baked bread and a piece
of comb. She took the comb in her white fingers, and pressed the
liquid gold from the cells; the luscious sweetness gathered from a
thousand flowers making her lips still sweeter. Uncle Bennet offered
me a jar full to the brim: 'Dip your vinger in,' said he.
'Why is the honey of the hills so much nicer?' asked Cicely, well
knowing, but drawing him on.
'It be th' clover and th' thyme, and summat in the air. There bean't
no hedges for um to fly up against, and so um carries home a bigger
load.'
'How many hives have you?' I inquired.
'Let's see'--he counted them up, touching a finger for each
twenty--'There be three score and sixteen; I have a' had six score
years ago, but folk don't care for honey now sugar be so cheap.'
'Let us go and see them,' said Cicely. We went out and looked at the
hives; they were all in a row, each protected by large 'pan-sherds'
from heavy rain, and placed along beneath the wall of the garden,
which sheltered them on one side. Uncle Bennet chatted pleasantly
about his bees for an hour, and would, I believe, have gossiped all
day, notwithstanding that he had so little time for anything. Nothing
more was said about the delayed visit, but just as we were on the
point of departure, and Cicely had already taken the reins, he said to
her, as if it were an afterthought, 'Tell your mother, I s'pose I must
look down that way next week.'
We passed swiftly through the little hamlet; the children had gathered
by a gateway to watch us. Though so far from the world, they were not
altogether without a spice of the impudence of the city arab. A tall
and portly gentleman from town once chanced to visit this 'coombe-bottom'
on business, and strolled down the 'street' in all the glory of
shining boots, large gold watch-chain, black coat and high hat, all
the pomp of Regent-street; doubtless imagining that his grandeur
astonished the rustics. A brown young rascal, however, looking him
up--he was a tall man--with an air of intelligent criticism, audibly
remarked, 'Hum! He be very well up to his ankles--and then a' falls
off!'
That evening was one of the most beautiful I remember. We all sat in
the garden at Lucketts' Place till ten o'clock; it was still light and
it seemed impossible to go indoors. There was a seat under a sycamore
tree with honeysuckle climbing over the bars of the back; the spot was
near the orchard, but on slightly higher ground. From our feet the
meadow sloped down to the distant brook, the murmur of whose stream as
it fell over a bay could be just heard. Northwards the stars were
pale, the sun seems so little below the horizon there that the glow of
the sunset and the glow of the dawn nearly meet. But southwards shone
the dull red star of summer--Antares, seen while the wheat ripens and
the ruddy and golden tints come upon the fruits. Then nightly
describing a low curve he looks down upon the white shimmering corn,
and carries the mind away to the burning sands and palms of the far
south. In the light and colour and brilliance of an English summer we
sometimes seem very near those tropical lands.
So still was it that we heard an apple fall in the orchard, thud on
the sward, blighted perhaps and ripe before its time. Under the trees
as the months went on there would rise heaps of the windfalls
collected there to wait for the cider-mill. The mill was the property
of two or three of the village folk, a small band of adventurers now
grown old, who every autumn went round from farm to farm grinding the
produce of the various orchards. They sometimes poured a quantity of
the acid juice into the mill to sharpen it, as cutting a lemon will
sharpen a knife. The great press, with its unwieldy screw and levers,
squeezed the liquor from the cut-up apples in the horse-hair bags: a
cumbersome apparatus, but not without interest; for surely so rude an
engine must date back far in the past. The old fellows who brought it
and put it up with slow deliberative motions were far, far past the
joy with which all the children about the farm hailed its arrival.
With grave faces and indifferent manner they ground the apples, and
departed as slowly and deliberately as they came; verily men of the
autumn, harbingers of the fall of the year.
As I dreamed with the honeysuckle over my shoulder, and Antares
southwards, Hilary talked at intervals about his wheat as usual and
the weather, but I only caught fragments of it. All the signs were
propitious, and as it had been a fine harvest under similar conditions
before, people said it would be fine this time. But, unlike the law,
the weather acknowledged no precedent, and nobody could tell, though
folk now thought they knew everything. How all things had changed
since the Queen ascended the throne! Not long since Hilary was talking
with a labourer, an elderly man, who went to the feast in Overboro'
town on the day of the coronation. The feast was held in the
market-place, and the puddings, said the old fellow regretfully, were
so big they were brought in on hand-barrows.
It was difficult since he himself remembered even to learn the state
of the markets. So few newspapers came into country places that before
service on Sundays the farmers gathered round anybody in the
churchyard who was known to take in a paper, to get particulars from
this fortunate individual. Letters rarely came to the farmhouse door
then. The old postman made a very good thing of his office--people
were so eager for news, and it was easy to take a magpie glance at a
newspaper. So he called at the butcher's before he started out, and in
exchange for a peep at the paper got a little bit of griskin, or a
chop, and at the farmhouses as he passed they gave him a few eggs, and
at the inns a drop of gin. Thus a dozen at least read scraps before it
reached the rightful owner.
If anything very extraordinary had happened he would shout it out as
he went through the hamlet. Hilary said he well remembered being up on
the roof of the house one morning, mending the thatch, when suddenly a
voice--it was the postman's--cried from the road, 'Royal Exchange
burned down!' In this way news got about before the present facilities
were afforded. But some of the old folk still regretted the change and
believed that we should some day be punished for our worship of steam.
Steam had brought us to rely on foreign countries for our corn, and a
day would come when through a war, or a failure of the crops there,
the vast population of this country would be in danger of famine. But
'old folk' are prone to prophesy disaster and failure of all kinds.
Mrs. Luckett chimed in here, and said that modern ways were not all
improvements, the girls now were so fond of gadding about. This was a
hint for Cicely, who loved a change, and yet was deeply attached to
the old home. She rose at this, doubtless pouting, but it was too
dusky to see, and went indoors, and presently from the open window
came the notes of her piano. As she played I dreamed again, till
presently Mrs. Luckett began to argue with Hilary that the shrubs
about the garden ought to be cut and trimmed. Hilary said he liked to
see the shrubs and the trees growing freely; he objected to cut and
trim them. 'For,' said he, 'God made nothing tidy.' Just then Cicely
called us to supper.
NOTES.
The following interesting correspondence has been received.
MAGPIE OMENS. _Page 153._--In reference to the superstition that one
magpie is good luck, but two sorrow, 'R. F.' writes from Wiesbaden:--'In
the north of England the contrary belief holds good, witness the
following saw which I heard many years ago in the county of Durham:--
"One for sorrow, two for mirth;
Three a marriage, four a birth;
Five for heaven, six for hell,
Seven--the devil's own sel!"
As to seventeen, which number I once saw together, Mrs. Luckett's
exclamation "Goodness! something awful might happen" might have been
appropriate; only nothing dreadful did occur.'
CART-HORSE ORNAMENTS. _Page 159._--As to the history of the
crescent-shaped ornaments on carthorses, 'J. D.' writes from Dover:
'Anyone who has lived in Spanish countries must be struck on going to
East Kent by the gay trappings of the farmers' horses on gala days, in
which the national colours of Spain, scarlet and orange yellow, and
the "glittering brazen" ornament of the crescent and the cross, so
generally prevail. Their history must date from the introduction of
the Flemish breed of horses to this country, showing that as the Moors
carried the crescent to Spain, so the Spaniards took it to Flanders,
and the Flemings here, whence it has been adopted pretty generally by
the farmers of England.'
NAMES OF FIELDS. _Page 176._--'The Conigers is evidently the same as
Coningar, a word sometimes occurring in Scottish local nomenclature,
and which meant a rabbit-warren--Coniger, Coney-garth. I know two
Coningars in Aberdeenshire, but the meaning of the word is as much
forgotten there also.--H. W. L.'
MEDICINAL USE OF SNAILS. _Page 189._--In Dorset, writes 'S. C. S. S.,'
an extract of snails for external use is still sometimes prepared,
and, mixed with rum, is rubbed into weak backs, or legs, especially of
children.
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
End of Project Gutenberg's Round About a Great Estate, by Richard Jefferies