THE "VEAST."
"And the King commandeth and forbiddeth, that from henceforth
neither fairs nor markets be kept in church-yards, for the
honor of the church."--_Statutes_: 13 Edw. I. Stat. II. Chap.
VI.
As that venerable and learned poet[1] (whose voluminous works we
all think it the correct thing to admire and talk about, but don't
read often) most truly says, "The child is father to the man;" _a
fortiori_,[2] therefore he must be father to the boy." So, as we are
going at any rate to see Tom Brown through his boyhood, supposing we
never get any farther (which, if you show a proper sense of the value
of this history, there is no knowing but what we may), let us have a
look at the life and environments[3] of the child, in the quiet
country village to which we were introduced in the last chapter.
[1] #Learned poet#: Wordsworth; the quotation, which follows,
is from "My heart leaps up."
[2] #A fortiori#: for a stronger reason.
[3] #Environments#: surroundings.
TOM BROWN'S NURSE.
Tom, as has been already said, was a robust and combative urchin, and
at the age of four began to struggle against the yoke and authority
of his nurse. That functionary[4] was a good-hearted, tearful,
scatter-brain[5] girl, lately taken by Tom's mother, Madam Brown, as
she was called, from the village school to be trained as nursery-maid.
Madam Brown was a rare trainer of servants, and spent herself freely
in the profession; for profession it was, and gave her more trouble by
half than many people take to earn a good income. Her servants were
known and sought after for miles round. Almost all the girls who
attained a certain place in the village school were taken by her, one
or two at a time, as house-maids, laundry-maids, nursery-maids, or
kitchen-maids, and, after a year or two's drilling, were started in
life amongst the neighboring families, with good principles and
wardrobes. One of the results of this system was the perpetual despair
of Mrs. Brown's cook and own maid, who no sooner had a notable[6] girl
made to their hands, than missus was sure to find a good place for her
and send her off, taking in fresh importations from the school.
Another was, that the house was always full of young girls with clean,
shining faces; who broke plates and scorched linen, but made an
atmosphere of cheerful homely life about the place, good for every one
who came within its influence. Mrs. Brown loved young people, and in
fact human creatures in general, above plates and linen. They were
more like a lot of elder children than servants, and felt to her more
as a mother or aunt than as a mistress.
[4] #Functionary#: one charged with the performance of a duty.
[5] #Scatter-brain#: thoughtless.
[6] #N[)o]table#: industrious, smart.
Tom's nurse was one who took in her instruction very slowly,--she
seemed to have two left hands and no head; and so Mrs. Brown kept her
on longer than usual that she might expend her awkwardness and
forgetfulness upon those who would not judge and punish her too
strictly for them.
Charity Lamb was her name. It had been the immemorial habit of the
village to christen children either by Bible names, or by those of the
cardinal[7] and other virtues; so that one was forever hearing in the
village street, or on the green, shrill sounds of "Prudence! Prudence!
thee cum' out o' the gutter"; or "Mercy! drat[8] the girl, what
bist[9] thee a doin' wi' little Faith?" and there were Ruths, Rachels,
Keziahs, in every corner. The same with the boys; they were Benjamins,
Jacobs, Noahs, Enochs. I suppose the custom has come down from
puritan[10] times--there it is, at any rate, very strong still in
the Vale.
[7] #Cardinal#: chief.
[8] #Drat#: plague take.
[9] #Bist#: art.
[10] #Puritan#: the Puritans were those who were dissatisfied
with the English Church and wished to _purify_ it, as they
said, from certain ceremonies. They quite generally gave their
children Bible names.
TOM BROWN'S FIRST REBELLION.
Well, from early morn till dewy eve, when she had it out of him in
the cold tub before putting him to bed, Charity and Tom were pitted
against one another. Physical power was as yet on the side of Charity,
but she hadn't a chance with him wherever head-work was wanted. This
war of independence began every morning before breakfast, when Charity
escorted her charge to a neighboring farm-house which supplied the
Browns, and where by his mother's wish, Master Tom went to drink
whey,[11] before breakfast. Tom had no sort of objection to whey,
but he had a decided liking for curds, which were forbidden as
unwholesome, and there was seldom a morning that he did not manage
to secure a handful of hard curds, in defiance of Charity and the
farmer's wife. The latter good soul was a gaunt angular woman, who,
with an old black bonnet on the top of her head, the strings dangling
about her shoulders, and her gown tucked through her pocket holes,
went clattering about the dairy, cheese-room, and yard, in high
pattens.[12] Charity was some sort of niece of the old lady's, and was
consequently free of the farm-house and garden, into which she could
not resist going for the purposes of gossip and flirtation with the
heir-apparent,[13] who was a dawdling fellow, never out at work as he
ought to have been. The moment Charity had found her cousin, or any
other occupation, Tom would slip away; and in a minute shrill cries
would be heard from the dairy: "Charity, Charity, thee lazy huzzy,
where bist?" and Tom would break cover,[14] hands and mouth full of
curds, and take refuge on the shaky surface of the great muck
reservoir in the middle of the yard, disturbing the repose of the
great pigs. Here he was in safety, as no grown person could follow
without getting over his knees; and the luckless Charity, while her
aunt scolded her from the dairy-door, for being "allus hankering about
arter our Willum, instead of minding Master Tom," would descend from
threats to coaxing, to lure Tom out of the muck, which was rising over
his shoes and would soon tell a tale on his stockings for which she
would be sure to catch it from missus's maid.
[11] #Whey#: in making cheese the milk separates, the thick
part forming curd, and the watery portion whey.
[12] #Pattens#: wooden-soled shoes.
[13] #Heir-apparent#: the legal heir.
[14] #Break cover#: come out from his hiding-place.
TOM BROWN'S ABETTORS--NOAH.
Tom had two abettors in the shape of a couple of old boys, Noah and
Benjamin by name, who defended him from Charity, and expended much
time upon his education. They were both of them retired servants of
former generations of the Browns. Noah Crooke was a keen, dry
old man of almost ninety, but still able to totter about. He talked to
Tom quite as if he were one of his own family, and indeed had long
completely identified the Browns with himself. In some remote age he
had been the attendant of a Miss Brown, and had conveyed her about the
country on a pillion.[15] He had a little round picture of the
identical gray horse caparisoned with the identical pillion, before
which he used to do a sort of fetish[16] worship and abuse turnpike
roads and carriages. He wore an old full-bottomed wig,[17] the gift of
some dandy old Brown whom he had valeted[18] in the middle of last
century, which habiliment Master Tom looked upon with considerable
respect, not to say fear; and indeed his whole feeling toward Noah was
strongly tainted with awe; and when the old gentleman was gathered to
his fathers, Tom's lamentation over him was not unaccompanied by a
certain joy at having seen the last of the wig: "Poor old Noah, dead
and gone," said he, "Tom Brown so sorry! Put him in the coffin, wig
and all!"
[15] #Pillion#: a seat, for a woman, attached to the hinder
part of a saddle.
[16] #Fetish#: an idol.
[17] #Full-bottomed wig#: this was a large wig worn by all men
of fashion in the last century.
[18] #Valeted#: served; (from _valet_, a gentleman's private
servant).
TOM BROWN'S ABETTORS--BENJY.
But old Benjy was young master's real delight and refuge. He was a
youth by the side of Noah, scarce seventy years old. A cheery,
humorous, kind-hearted old man, full of sixty years of Vale gossip,
and of all sorts of helpful ways for young and old, but above all for
children. It was he who bent the first pin with which Tom extricated
his first stickleback[19] out of "Pebbly Brook," the little stream
which ran through the village. The first stickleback was a splendid
fellow, with fabulous red and blue gills. Tom kept him in a small
basin till the day of his death, and became a fisherman from that day.
Within a month from the taking of the first stickleback, Benjy had
carried off our hero to the canal, in defiance of Charity; and between
them, after a whole afternoon's pop-joying,[20] they had caught three
or four coarse fish and a perch, averaging perhaps two and a half
ounces each, which Tom bore home in rapture to his mother as a
precious gift, and which she received like a true mother with equal
rapture, instructing the cook nevertheless, in a private interview,
not to prepare the same for the squire's dinner. Charity had appealed
against old Benjy in the meantime, representing the dangers of the
canal banks; but Mrs. Brown, seeing the boy's inaptitude for female
guidance, had decided in Benjy's favor, and from thenceforth the old
man was Tom's dry nurse. And as they sat by the canal watching their
little green and white float,[21] Benjy would instruct him in the
doings of deceased Browns. How his grandfather, in the early days of
the great war, when there was much distress and crime in the Vale, and
the magistrates had been threatened by the mob, had ridden in with a
big stick in his hand, and held the Petty Sessions[22] by himself. How
his great uncle, the rector, had encountered and laid the last ghost,
who had frightened the old women, male and female, of the parish, out
of their senses, and who turned out to be the blacksmith's apprentice,
disguised in drink and a white sheet. It was Benjy too who saddled
Tom's first pony, and instructed him in the mysteries of horsemanship,
teaching him to throw his weight back and keep his hand low; and who
stood chuckling outside the door of the girls' school when Tom rode
his little Shetland into the cottage and round the table, where the
old dame and her pupils were seated at their work.
[19] #Stickleback#: a small fish.
[20] #Pop-joying#: nibbling by fish.
[21] #Float#: a cork or bit of wood attached to a fish-line.
[22] #Petty sessions#: a criminal court held by a justice of
the peace.
Benjy himself was come of a family distinguished in the Vale for their
prowess in all athletic games. Some half-dozen of his brothers and
kinsmen had gone to the wars, of whom only one had survived to come
home, with a small pension, and three bullets in different parts of
his body; he had shared Benjy's cottage till his death, and had left
him his old dragoon's[23] sword and pistol, which hung over the
mantle-piece, flanked by a pair of heavy single-sticks, with which
Benjy himself had won renown long ago as an old gamester,[24] against
the picked men of Wiltshire, and Somersetshire,[25] in many a good
bout at the revels and pastimes of the country-side. For he had been a
famous back-sword man in his young days, and a good wrestler at elbow
and collar.
OUR VEAST.
Back-swording and wrestling were the most serious holiday pursuits of
the Vale,--those by which men attained fame,--and each village had its
champion. I suppose that, on the whole, people were less worked then,
than they are now; at any rate, they seemed to have more time and
energy for the old pastimes. The great times for back-swording came
round once a year, in each village at the feast. The Vale "veasts"
were not the common statute feasts[26], but much more ancient
business. They are literally, so far as one can ascertain, feasts of
the dedication, _i.e._, they were first established in the church-yard
on the day on which the village church was opened for public worship,
which was on the wake or festival of the patron saint, and have been
held on the same day in every year since that time.
[23] #Dragoons#: soldiers who serve on foot or on horseback,
as occasion requires.
[24] #Old gamester#: a person skilled in the game of
single-stick or back sword.
[25] #Wiltshire and Somersetshire#: counties west of
Berkshire.
[26] #Statute feasts#: festivals established by law.
There was no longer any remembrance of why the "veast" had been
instituted, but nevertheless it had a pleasant and almost sacred
character of its own. For it was then that all the children of the
village, wherever they were scattered, tried to get home for a holiday
to visit their fathers and mothers and friends, bringing with them
their wages or some little gift from up the country for the old folk.
Perhaps for a day or two before, but at any rate on "veast-day" and
the day after, in our village, you might see strapping, healthy young
men and women from all parts of the country going round from house to
house in their best clothes, and finishing up with a call on Madam
Brown, whom they would consult as to putting out their earnings to the
best advantage, or how best to expend the same for the benefit of the
old folk. Every household, however poor, managed to raise a
"feast-cake" and bottle of ginger or raisin wine, which stood on the
cottage table ready for all comers, and not unlikely to make them
remember feast-time,--for feast-cake is very solid and full of huge
raisins. Moreover feast-time was the day of reconciliation for the
parish. If Job Higgins and Noah Freeman hadn't spoken for the last six
months, their "old women" would be sure to get it patched up by that
day. And though there was a good deal of drinking and low vice in the
booths[27] of an evening, it was pretty well confined to those who
would have been doing the like "veast or no veast"; and, on the whole,
the effect was humanizing and Christian. In fact, the only reason why
this is not the case still, is that gentlefolk and farmers have taken
to other amusements, and have, as usual, forgotten the poor. They
don't attend the feasts themselves, and call them disreputable,
whereupon the steadiest of the poor leave them also, and they become
what they are called. Class amusements, be they for dukes or
plow-boys, always become nuisances and curses to a country. The true
charm of cricket[28] and hunting is, that they are still, more or less
sociable and universal; there's a place for every man who will come
and take his part.
[27] #Booths#: temporary sheds, etc., for the sale of
refreshments, pedlers' goods, and the like.
[28] #Cricket#: the English national game of ball.
APPROACH OF VEAST-DAY.
No one in the village enjoyed the approach of "veast-day" more than
Tom, in the year in which he was taken under old Benjy's tutelage.[29]
The feast was held in a large green field at the lower end of the
village. The road to Farringdon ran along one side of it, and the
brook by the side of the road; and above the brook was another large
gentle-sloping pasture-land, with a foot-path running down it from the
church-yard; and the old church, the originator of all the mirth,
towered up with its gray walls and lancet windows[30] overlooking
and sanctioning the whole, though its own share therein had been
forgotten. At the point where the foot-path crossed the brook and
road, and entered on the field where the feast was held, was a long,
low, roadside inn, and on the opposite side of the field was a large,
white, thatched farm-house, where dwelt an old sporting farmer, a
great promoter of the revels.
[29] #Tutelage#: guardianship.
[30] #Lancet windows#: high, narrow windows of the earliest
Gothic architecture.
Past the old church, and down the foot-path, pottered[31] the old man
and the child, hand in hand, early on the afternoon of the day before
the feast, and wandered all around the ground which was already being
occupied by the "cheap Jacks,"[32] with their green-covered carts and
marvellous assortment of wares, and the booths of more legitimate[33]
small traders with their tempting arrays of fairings[34] and eatables;
and penny peep-shows and other shows, containing pink-eyed ladies, and
dwarfs, and boa-constrictors, and wily Indians. But the object of most
interest to Benjy, and of course to his pupil, also, was the stage of
rough planks, some four feet high, which was being put up by the
village carpenter for the back-swording and wrestling; and after
surveying the whole tenderly, old Benjy led his charge away to the
roadside inn, where he ordered a glass of ale and a long pipe for
himself, and discussed these unwonted luxuries on the bench outside in
the soft autumn evening with mine host, another old servant of the
Browns, and speculated with him on the likelihood of a good show of
old gamesters to contend for the morrow's prizes, and told tales of
the gallant bouts forty years back, to which Tom listened with all his
ears and eyes.
[31] #Pottered#: walked slowly, sauntered.
[32] #"Cheap Jacks"#: pedlers.
[33] #Legitimate#: lawful.
[34] #Fairings#: ribbons, toys, and other small articles sold
for presents.
MORNING OF THE VEAST.
But who shall tell the joy of the next morning, when the church bells
were ringing a merry peal and old Benjy appeared in the servants'
hall, resplendent in a long blue coat and brass buttons, and a pair of
old yellow buckskins[35] and top-boots,[36] which he had cleaned for
and inherited from Tom's grandfather; a stout thorn-stick in his hand,
and a nosegay of pinks and lavender in his button-hole, and led away
Tom in his best clothes, and two new shillings in his breeches
pockets? Those two, at any rate, look like enjoying the day's revel.
[35] #Buckskins#: buckskin breeches.
[36] #Top-boots#: high boots.
They quicken their pace when they get into the church-yard, for
already they see the field thronged with country folk, the men in
clean white smocks or velveteen or fustian[37] coats, with rough plush
waistcoats of many colors, and the women in the beautiful scarlet
cloak, the usual outdoor dress of West-country women in those days,
and which often descended in families from mother to daughter, or in
new-fashioned stuff[38] shawls, which, if they would but believe it,
don't become them half so well. The air resounds with the pipe and
tabor,[39] and the drums and trumpets of the showmen shouting at the
doors of their caravans,[40] over which tremendous pictures of the
wonders to be seen within hang temptingly; while through all rises the
shrill "root-too-too-too" of Mr. Punch, and the unceasing pan-pipe[41]
of his satellite.
[37] #Fustian#: coarse cloth.
[38] #Stuff#: woollen.
[39] #Pipe and tabor#: fife and drum.
[40] #Caravans#: show wagons.
[41] #Pan-pipe#: several pipes or fifes fastened together in
a row, and blown by an attendant or "satellite," in the Punch
and Judy show.
"Lawk a' massey, Mr. Benjamin," cries a stout motherly woman in a red
cloak as they enter the field, "be that you? Well, I never! you do
look purely.[42] And how's the squire, and madam, and the family?"
[42] #Purely#: nicely.
Benjy graciously shakes hands with the speaker, who has left our
village for some years, but has come over for "veast-day" on a visit
to an old gossip--and gently indicates the heir apparent of the
Browns.
"Bless his little heart! I must gi' un a kiss. Here, Susannah,
Susannah!" cries she, raising herself from the embrace, "come and
see Mr. Benjamin and young Master Tom. You minds[43] our Sukey, Mr.
Benjamin? she be growed a rare slip of a wench[44] since you seen her,
tho' her'll be sixteen come Martinmas[45]. I do aim[46] to take her to
see madam to get her a place."
[43] #Minds#: remember.
[44] #Wench#: a young peasant girl.
[45] #Martinmas#: the feast of St. Martin, Nov. 11.
[46] #Aim#: intend.
And Sukey comes bouncing away from a knot of old school-fellows, and
drops a courtesy to Mr. Benjamin. And elders come up from all parts to
salute Benjy, and girls who have been madam's pupils to kiss Master
Tom. And they carry him off to load him with fairings; and he returns
to Benjy, his hat and coat covered with ribbons, and his pockets
crammed with wonderful boxes, which open upon ever new boxes and
boxes, and popguns and trumpets, and apples, and gilt gingerbread from
the stall of Angel Heavens, sole vender thereof, whose booth groans
with kings and queens, and elephants, and prancing steeds, all
gleaming with gold. There was more gold on Angel's cakes than there is
ginger in those of this degenerate age. Skilled diggers might yet make
a fortune in the church-yards of the Vale by carefully washing the
dust of the consumers of Angel's gingerbread. Alas! he is with his
namesakes, and his receipts have, I fear, died with him.
THE JINGLING MATCH.
And then they inspect the penny peep-show, at least Tom does, while
old Benjy stands outside and gossips, and walks up the steps, and
enters the mysterious doors of the pink-eyed lady and the Irish Giant,
who do not by any means come up to their pictures; and the boa will
not swallow his rabbit, but there the rabbit is waiting to be
swallowed,--and what can you expect for tuppence?[47] We are easily
pleased in the Vale. Now there is a rush of the crowd, and a tinkling
bell is heard, and shouts of laughter; and Master Tom mounts on
Benjy's shoulders, and beholds a jingling match in all its glory. The
games are begun, and this is the opening of them. It is a quaint[48]
game, immensely amusing to look at; and as I don't know whether it is
used in your counties, I had better describe it. A large roped ring is
made, into which are introduced a dozen or so of big boys and young
men who mean to play; these are carefully blinded and turned loose
into the ring, and then a man is introduced not blind-folded, with a
bell hung round his neck, and his two hands tied behind him. Of
course, every time he moves, the bell must ring, as he has no hand to
hold it, and so the dozen blind-folded men have to catch him. This
they cannot always manage if he is a lively fellow, but half of them
always rush into the arms of the other half, or drive their heads
together, or tumble over; and then the crowd laughs vehemently, and
invents nicknames for them on the spur of the moment, and they, if
they be choleric, tear off the handkerchiefs which blind them, and not
unfrequently pitch into one another, each thinking that the other must
have run against him on purpose. It is great fun to look at a jingling
match certainly, and Tom shouts and jumps on old Benjy's shoulders at
the sight, until the old man feels weary, and shifts him to the strong
young shoulders of the groom, who has just got down to the fun.
[47] #Tuppence#: two pence or four cents; the English penny,
being equal to two cents.
[48] #Quaint#: odd, old-fashioned.
And now, while they are climbing the pole in another part of the
field, and muzzling in a flour-tub[49] in another, the old farmer
whose house, as has been said, overlooks the field, and who is master
of the revels, gets up the steps on to the stage, and announces to all
whom it may concern that a half-sovereign[50] in money will be
forthcoming for the old gamester who breaks most heads; to which the
squire and he have added a new hat.
[49] #Muzzling in a flour-tub#: running their heads into a tub
of flour to fish out prizes.
[50] #Half-sovereign#: ten shillings ($2.50).
The amount of the prize is sufficient to stimulate the men of the
immediate neighborhood, but not enough to bring any very high talent
from a distance; so, after a glance or two round, a tall fellow, who
is a down shepherd,[51] chucks his hat on to the stage and climbs up
the steps, looking rather sheepish. The crowd, of course, first cheer,
then chaff[52] as usual, as he picks up his hat and begins handling
the sticks to see which will suit him.
[51] #Down shepherd#: a shepherd on the downs or chalk hills.
[52] #Chaff#: make fun, ridicule.
THE BACK-SWORDING.
"Wooy,[53] Willum Smith, thee canst plaay wi' he[54] arra[55] daay,"
says his companion to the blacksmith's apprentice, a stout young
fellow of nineteen or twenty. Willum's sweetheart is in the "veast"
somewhere, and has strictly enjoined him not to get his head broke at
back-swording, on pain of her highest displeasure; but as she is not
to be seen (the women pretend not to like to see the back-sword play,
and keep away from the stage), and as his hat is decidedly getting
old, he chucks it on to the stage, and follows himself, hoping that he
will only have to break other people's heads, or that after all Rachel
won't really mind.
[53] #Wooy#: why.
[54] #He#: here, him.
[55] #Arra#: any.
Then follows the greasy cap, lined with fur, of a half-gipsy,
poaching,[56] loafing fellow who travels the Vale not for much
good, I fancy:
"Full twenty times was Peter feared
For once that Peter was respected,"[B]
[B] Wordsworth's "Peter Bell."
in fact. And then three or four other hats, including the glossy
castor[57] of Joe Willis, the self-elected and would-be champion of
the neighborhood, a well-to-do young butcher of twenty-eight or
thereabouts, and a great strapping fellow, with his full allowance of
bluster. This is a capital show of gamesters, considering the amount
of the prize; so, while they are picking their sticks and drawing
their lots, I think I must tell you, as shortly as I can, how the
noble old game of back-sword is played; for it has sadly gone out of
late, even in the Vale, and maybe you have never seen it.
[56] #Poaching#: game-stealing.
[57] #Castor#: a tall silk hat.
The weapon is a good stout ash-stick with a large basket-handle,[58]
heavier and some what shorter than a common single-stick. The players
are called "old gamesters"--why, I can't tell you--and their object is
simply to break one another's head: for the moment that blood runs an
inch anywhere above the eyebrow, the old gamester to whom it belongs
is beaten, and has to stop. A very slight blow with the sticks will
fetch blood, so that it is by no means a punishing pastime, if the men
don't play on purpose, and savagely, at the bodies and arms of their
adversaries. The old gamester going into action only takes off his hat
and coat, and arms himself with a stick; he then loops the fingers of
his left hand in a handkerchief or strap, which he fastens round his
left leg, measuring the length, so that when he draws it tight with
his left elbow in the air, that elbow shall just reach as high as his
crown. Thus you see, so long as he chooses to keep his left elbow up,
regardless of cuts, he has a perfect guard for the left side of his
head. Then he advances his right hand above and in front of his head,
holding his stick across, so that its point projects an inch or two
over his left elbow; and thus his whole head is completely guarded,
and he faces his man armed in like manner; and they stand some three
feet apart, often nearer, and feint,[59] and strike, and return at one
another's head, until one cries "hold," or blood flows. In the first
case they are allowed a minute's time, and go on again; in the latter,
another pair of gamesters are called on. If good men are playing, the
quickness of the return is marvellous; you hear the rattle like that a
boy makes drawing his stick along palings, only heavier; and the
closeness of the men in action to one another gives it a strange
interest, and makes a spell at back-swording a very noble sight.
[58] #Basket-handle#: a handle protected by wicker-work.
[59] #Feint#: to pretend to make a thrust or to give a blow.
JOE AND THE GIPSY.
They are all suited now with sticks, and Joe Willis and the gipsy man
have drawn the first lot. So the rest lean against the rails of the
stage, and Joe and the dark man meet in the middle, the boards having
been strewed with sawdust; Joe's white shirt and spotless drab
breeches and boots contrasting with the gipsy's coarse blue shirt and
dirty green velveteen breeches and leather gaiters. Joe is evidently
turning up his nose at the other, and half insulted at having to break
his head.
The gipsy is a tough, active fellow, but not very skilful with his
weapon, so that Joe's weight and strength tell in a minute; he is too
heavy metal for him; whack, whack, whack, come his blows, breaking
down the gipsy's guard, and threatening to reach his head every
moment. There it is at last--"Blood, blood!" shouted the spectators,
as a thin stream oozes out slowly from the roots of his hair, and the
umpire[60] calls to them to stop. The gipsy scowls at Joe under his
brows in no pleasant manner, while Master Joe swaggers about, and
makes attitudes, and thinks himself, and shows that he thinks himself,
the greatest man in the field.
[60] #Umpire#: judge or referee.
Then follow several stout sets-to between the other candidates for the
new hat, and at last come to the shepherd and Willum Smith. This is
the crack set-to of the day. They are both in famous wind, and there
is no crying "hold"; the shepherd is an old hand, and up to all the
dodges; he tries them one after another, and very nearly gets at
Willum's head by coming in near, and playing over his guard at the
half-stick, but somehow Willum blunders through, catching the stick on
his shoulders, neck, sides, every now and then, anywhere but on his
head, and his returns are heavy and straight, and he is the youngest
gamester and a favorite in the parish, and his gallant stand brings
down shouts and cheers, and the knowing ones think he'll win if he
keeps steady, and Tom, on the groom's shoulder, holds his hands
together, and can hardly breathe for excitement.
Alas for Willum! his sweetheart, getting tired of female
companionship, has been hunting the booths to see where he can have
got to, and now catches sight of him on the stage in full combat. She
flushes and turns pale; her old aunt catches hold of her saying:
"Bless 'ee,[61] child, doan't 'ee go a'nigst[62] it;" but she breaks
away and runs toward the stage calling his name. Willum keeps up his
guard stoutly, but glances for a moment toward the voice. No guard
will do it, Willum, without the eye. The shepherd steps round and
strikes, and the point of his stick just grazes Willum's forehead,
fetching off the skin, and the blood flows, and the umpire cries
"Hold," and poor Willum's chance is up for the day. But he takes it
very well, and puts on his old hat and coat, and goes down to be
scolded by his sweetheart, and led away out of mischief. Tom hears him
say coaxingly as he walks off:--
"Now doan't ee, Rachel! I wouldn't ha' done it, only I wanted
summut[63] to buy ee a fairing wi', and I be as vlush[64] o' money as
a twod[65] o' veathers."[66]
[61] #'ee#: thee, you.
[62] #A'nigst#: near.
[63] #Summut#: something or somewhat.
[64] #Vlush#: flush.
[65] #Twod#: a toad.
[66] #Veathers#: feathers.
"Thee minds what I tells ee," rejoins Rachel, saucily, "and doan't ee
keep blethering[67] about fairings." Tom resolves in his heart to give
Willum the remainder of his two shillings after the back-swording.
[67] #Blethering#: talking nonsense.
Joe Willis had all the luck to-day. His next bout ends in an easy
victory, while the shepherd has a tough job to break his second head;
and when Joe and the shepherd meet, and the whole circle expect and
hope to see him get a broken crown, the shepherd slips in the first
round, and falls against the rails, hurting himself so that the old
farmer will not let him go on, much as he wishes to try; and that
imposter, Joe (for he is certainly not the best man) struts and
swaggers about the stage the conquering gamester, though he hasn't had
five minutes' really trying play.
A NEW "OLD GAMESTER."
Joe takes the new hat in his hand, and puts the money in it, and then,
as if a thought strikes him, and he doesn't think his victory quite
acknowledged down below, walks to each face of the stage, and looks
down, shaking the money, and chaffing, as how he'll stake hat and
money and another half sovereign, "agin any gamester as hasn't played
already." Cunning Joe! he thus gets rid of Willum and the shepherd who
is quite fresh again.
No one seems to like the offer, and the umpire is just coming down,
when a queer old hat, something like a doctor of divinity's
shovel,[68] is chucked on the stage, and an elderly quiet man steps
out, who has been watching the play, saying he should like to cross a
stick "wi' the prodigalish young chap."
[68] #Shovel#: a broad-brimmed hat turned up at the sides. It
was formerly much worn by clergymen of the Church of England.
The crowd cheer and begin to chaff Joe, who turns up his nose and
swaggers across to the sticks. "Imp'dent old wos-bird!"[69] says he,
"I'll break the bald head on un to the truth."
[69] #Wos-bird#: a bird that steals corn.
The old boy is very bald, certainly, and the blood will show fast
enough if you touch him, Joe.
JOE OUT OF LUCK.
He takes off his long-flapped coat, and stands up in a long-flapped
waistcoat, which Sir Roger de Coverley[70] might have worn when it was
new, picks out a stick, and is ready for Master Joe, who loses no
time, but begins his old game, whack, whack, whack, trying to break
down the old man's guard by sheer strength. But it won't do--he
catches every blow close by the basket: and though he is rather stiff
in his returns, after a minute walks Joe about the stage, and is
clearly a staunch old gamester. Joe now comes in, and making the most
of his height, tries to get over the old man's guard at half stick, by
which he takes a smart blow in the ribs and another on the elbow, and
nothing more. And now he loses wind and begins to puff, and the crowd
laugh: "Cry, 'hold,' Joe--thee's met thy match!" Instead of taking
good advice and getting his wind, Joe loses his temper and strikes at
the old man's body.
[70] #Sir Roger de Coverley#: a typical old country gentleman
of delightful simplicity of character. See Addison's
"Spectator."
"Blood, blood!" shout the crowd, "Joe's head's broke!"
Who'd have thought it? How did it come? That body-blow left Joe's
head unguarded for a moment, and with one turn of the wrist the
old gentleman has picked a neat bit of skin off the middle of his
forehead; and though he won't believe it, and hammers on for three
more blows despite of the shouts, is then convinced by the blood
trickling into his eyes. Poor Joe is sadly crestfallen, and fumbles in
his pocket for the other half-sovereign, but the old gamester won't
have it. "Keep thy money, man, and gi's[71] thy hand," says he, and
they shake hands; but the old gamester gives the hat to the shepherd,
and, soon after, the half-sovereign to Willum, who thereout decorates
his sweetheart with ribbons to his heart's content.
[71] #Gi's#: give us.
"Who can a[72] be! Wur[73] do a cum from?" ask the crowd. And it soon
flies about that the west-country champion, who played a tie[74] with
Shaw, the life-guardsman[75] at "Vizes"[76] twenty years before, has
broken Joe Willis's crown for him.
[72] #A#: he.
[73] #Wur#: where.
[74] #Tie#: a contest in which neither side gains the victory.
[75] #Life-guardsman#: one of the Queen's body-guard.
[76] #"Vizes"#: a contraction of Devizes, a town in Wiltshire.
THE REVELS ARE OVER.
How my country fair is spinning out! I see I must skip the wrestling,
and the boys jumping in sacks, and rolling wheelbarrows blindfolded;
and the donkey-race, and the fight which arose thereout, marring the
otherwise peaceful "veast," and the frightened scurrying away of the
female feast-goers, and descent of Squire Brown, summoned by the wife
of one of the combatants to stop it, which he wouldn't start to do
till he had got on his top-boots. Tom is carried away by old Benjy,
dog-tired and surfeited with pleasure, as the evening comes on and the
dancing begins in the booths; and though Willum and Rachel in her new
ribbons, and many another good lad and lass, don't come away just yet,
but have a good step out and enjoy it, and get no harm thereby, yet
we, being sober folk, will just stroll away up through the
church-yard, and by the old yew-tree; and get a quiet dish of tea and
bit of talk with our gossips, as the steady ones of our village do,
and so to bed.
THE OLD BOY MORALIZETH ON VEASTS.
That's a fair, true sketch, as far as it goes, of one of the larger
village feasts in the Vale of Berks, when I was a little boy. They
are much altered for the worse, I am told. I haven't been at one
these twenty years, but I have been at the statute fairs in some
west-country towns, where servants are hired, and greater abominations
cannot be found. What village feasts have come to, I fear, in many
cases, may be read in the pages of "Yeast,[77]" though I never saw one
so bad--thank God!
Do you want to know why? It is because, as I said before, gentlefolk
and farmers have left off joining or taking any interest in them. They
don't either subscribe to the prizes, or go down and enjoy the fun.
[77] #Yeast#: a novel by Charles Kingsley.
Is this a good or a bad sign? I hardly know. Bad, sure enough, if it
only arises from the further separation of classes consequent on
twenty years of buying cheap and selling dear, and its accompanying
overwork; or because our sons and daughters have their hearts in
London club-life, or so-called society, instead of in the old English
home duties; because farmers' sons are aping fine gentlemen, and
farmers' daughters caring more to make bad foreign music than good
English cheeses. Good, perhaps, if it be that the time for the old
"veast" has gone by, that it is no longer the healthy, sound
expression of English country holiday-making; that, in fact, we as a
nation have got beyond it, and are in a transition state, feeling for
and soon likely to find some better substitute.
Only I have just got this to say before I quit the text. Don't let
reformers of any sort think that they are going really to lay hold
of the working boys and young men of England by any educational
grapnel[78] whatever, which hasn't some _bona fide_[79] equivalent for
the games of the old country "veast" in it; something to put in the
place of the back-swording and wrestling and racing; something to
try the muscles of men's bodies, and the endurance of their hearts,
and to make them rejoice in their strength. In all the new-fangled
comprehensive plans which I see, this is all left out; and the
consequence is that your great Mechanics' Institutes end in
intellectual priggism;[80] and your Christian Young Men Societies
in religious Pharisaism.
[78] #Grapnel#: a grappling hook.
[79] #Bona fide#: real.
[80] #Priggism#: affectation, conceit.
ADVICE TO YOUNG SWELLS.
Well, well, we must bide our time. Life isn't all beer and
skittles,--but beer and skittles,[81] or something better of the same
sort, must form a good part of every Englishman's education. If I
could only drive this into the heads of you rising Parliamentary lords
and young swells who "have your ways made for you," as the saying
is,--you who frequent palaver houses[82] and West-End clubs,[83]
waiting, always ready to strap yourselves on to the back of poor dear
old John,[84] as soon as the present used-up lot (your fathers and
uncles), who sit there on the great Parliamentary-majorities'
pack-saddle, and make believe they are guiding him with their
red-tape[85] bridle, tumble, or have to be lifted off.
[81] #Skittles#: the game of ninepins.
[82] #Palaver houses#: talk houses--the Houses of Parliament.
[83] #West-End Clubs#: clubs in the fashionable quarter of
London.
[84] #Old John#: John Bull.
[85] #Red-tape#: official routine and formalism.
I don't think much of you yet--I wish I could; though you do go
talking and lecturing up and down the country to crowded audiences,
and are busy with all sorts of philanthropic intellectualism, and
circulating libraries and museums, and Heaven only knows what besides,
and try to make us think, through newspaper reports, that you are,
even as we, of the working classes. But, bless your hearts, we
"aren't so green," though lots of us of all sorts toady[86] you
enough certainly, and try to make you think so.
[86] #Toady#: flatter.
I'll tell you what to do now; instead of all this trumpeting and fuss,
which is only the old Parliamentary-majority dodge over again--just
you go each of you (you've plenty of time for it, if you'll only give,
up t'other line) and quietly make three or four friends, real friends
among us. You'll find a little trouble in getting at the right sort,
because such birds don't come lightly to your lure,--but found they
may be. Take, say, two out of the professions, lawyer, parson,
doctor--which you will; one out of trade, and three or four out of the
working-classes, tailors, engineers, carpenters, engravers--there's
plenty of choice. Let them be men of your own ages, mind, and ask them
to your homes; introduce them to your wives and sisters, and get
introduced to theirs, give them good dinners, and talk to them about
what is really at the bottom of your hearts; and box, and run, and row
with them, when you have a chance. Do all this honestly as man to man,
and by the time you come to ride old John, you'll be able to do
something more than sit on his back, and may feel his mouth with some
stronger bridle than a red-tape one.
Ah, if you only would! But you have got too far out of the right rut,
I fear. Too much over civilization, and the deceitfulness of riches.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. More's the
pity. I never came across but two of you who could value a man wholly
and solely for what was in him; who thought themselves verily and
indeed of the same flesh and blood as John Jones, the attorney's
clerk, and Bill Smith, the costermonger,[87] and could act as if they
thought so.
[87] #Costermonger#: a fruit and vegetable pedler.