Pan is dead! So, at least, those who claim to be teachers of us English
on such subjects have told us; and if our poets cannot be trusted about
them, who can? The present writer, at any rate, does not pretend to an
opinion whether Pan is dead, or, indeed, whether he was ever alive. But
if so, he ought to have kept alive, for never surely was his special
business so flourishing in our country as in these last days. All
round the Welsh border on both sides there is not a hamlet which is not
indulging in its “Lupercalia” in these summer days, in spite of the cold
and wet which have inopportunely come upon us. For the most part, these
“feasts of Pan” are almost monotonously like one another; but I have
just returned from one which had characteristics of its own--a pleasing
variety, and creditable, I think, to gallant little Wales, for the scene
of it was over the border. My attention was called to it by a large
red bill at our station, announcing that, on the 9th inst. the annual
festival of the Gresford Ladies’ Club would be held, for which
return tickets might be had at tempting rates; and further, that “no
rifle-galleries, or stalls used for the sale of nuts and oranges, will
be allowed to be put up in the village or highways on the day.” Why
should a ladies’ club invite me, and all men, by large red bill, to be
present at their festival, and at the same time deprive me of the chance
of indulging in the favourite feast pastime of these parts? I resolved
to satisfy myself; and reaching the pretty station, in due course found
myself on the platform with perhaps a dozen women of all ranks and
ages--evidently members of the club, for each of them wore a white scarf
over the right shoulder, and carried a blue wand with a nosegay at the
top. Following admiringly up the steep hill with other spectators, I saw
them enter a wicket-gate under an arch of flowers, and remained outside,
where the brass band of the county yeomanry were making most energetic
music. Presently the gate opened, and a procession of the members
emerged two-and-two, and, headed by the band in full blast, marched, a
dainty procession, each one white-scarfed and carrying a nosegay-topped
wand, to the parish church hard by on the hill-top. It was a unique
procession, so far as my experience goes. First came the squire’s wife,
the club President, with the senior member, followed by another lady, I
believe from the rectory, with the member next in seniority. These two,
both past eighty, I remarked, instead of the white scarf crossing
the shoulder and looped at the waist with blue, wore large white
handkerchiefs, trimmed with blue, over both shoulders, shawl-wise. This
I found was the old custom, the regular members formerly wearing the
shawl, the honorary members the scarf, for distinction’s sake. Now, all
members, regular and honorary alike, wear the scarf. We are levelling up
fast, and I own I regret it, in this matter of dress. As a boy, I was
in this part of Wales, and almost every woman on holidays wore the red
cloak and high black hat, and looked far better, I think, than their
descendants at this Gresford Club fête, though several of these were
as well dressed as the squire’s wife and daughters. I followed the
procession into church, as did most of the crowd through which they
passed, one man only refusing to join in my hearing, on the ground that
he had been already to one service too many. He had got married there,
his neighbour explained, and his wife was in the procession. The service
was short and well chosen, with a good, sound ten-minutes sermon at
the end, and then the procession re-formed, the band still leading,
and marched to tea in the big schoolroom facing the churchyard. “Scholæ
elymosynæ Dominæ Margarettæ Strode, fundatæ 1725, ad pauperes ejus
sumptibus erudiendos,” I read over the door. I notice that the Welsh
are rather given to Latin inscriptions can it be in token of defiance to
vernacular English?
During the tea-hour I had the pleasure of exploring church and
churchyard, the former a large and fine specimen of the later
perpendicular, but containing relics of painted glass of a much
earlier date, probably thirteenth century. Portions of this, of a fine
straw-colour, the Rector says, are invaluable, the art being lost. I
wonder what Mr. Powell would say to that? The churchyard is glorious
with its yews, more than twenty grand trees, and the grandfather of them
the largest but one, if not the largest, in the Kingdom. He measures 29
feet 6 inches round 6 feet from the ground, and is confidently affirmed
by Welsh experts (who have duly noted it in the parish register) to be
1400 years old. Without supposing that Merlin reposed in his shade, one
cannot look at him in his glorious old age and doubt that he must have
been a stout tree in Plantagenet times, and furnished bow-staves for
Welshmen who marched behind Fluellen to the French wars.
Presently the band struck up again, and the procession returned to the
wicket-gate, through which I now gained an entrance on payment of 1s.
towards the club funds, one of the best investments of the kind I have
ever made, for inside is the most perfect miniature village green I
should think in the world, take it all in all. It is a natural terrace
about one hundred yards long, by (perhaps) forty broad, on the side
of the steep, finely wooded hill, with the station down below, and the
church and village above. The valley, which runs up into the Welsh hills
to the west, is here narrow, with a bright trout-stream dancing along
between emerald meadows out into the great Cheshire plain, over which,
in the distance, rise the cathedral towers and the castle and spires of
Chester. One can fancy the hungry eyes with which many a Welshman has
looked over that splendid countryside from this perch on the hillside
when Hugh Lupus and his successors were keeping the border, with short
shrift for cattle-lifters. It is well worth the while of any of your
readers who may be passing Gresford Station this autumn, to stop over
a train, and go up and spend an hour there. But I must get back to the
ladies’ club, who now, at 6 P.M., opened the three hours’ dance on
the green, the great feature of the gathering. It began with a
country-dance, at which we males could only gaze and admire. As before,
the squire’s wife and the senior member led off, and went down the
thirty or forty couples. What wonderful women are these Welsh! I was
fascinated by the next senior, a dear old soul, who had only missed this
dance twice in more than sixty years, and was in such a hurry to get
under way, that she started before the leading couple had got properly
ahead, rather thereby confusing the subsequent saltations. When the
music at last stopped, she sat herself on a bench, a picture of joyous
old age, and declared that if she had been a rich woman, she should have
spent all her substance in keeping a band. After the country-dance
came polkas, in which I noted that for some time the men, by way of
reprisals, I suppose, danced together; but this did not last long, and
presently the couples were sorted in the usual manner, and when the
station-bell warned me to speed down the hill, I left them all as busy
on the green as the elves (perhaps) may be in the moonlight, or Pan’s
troop in the days before his lamented decease. On my way home I mused
on the cheering evidence the day had afforded of the healthy progress
of the great task which has been laid on this generation, and’ which it
seems to be taking hold of so strenuously and hopefully. I do not know
that I ever saw so entirely satisfactory a blending of all classes in
common enjoyment, which to some extent I attribute to the custom of
the procession, and the sorting of honorary and regular members above
noticed. During the whole afternoon I never heard a word which might
not have been spoken in a drawing-room, and in spite of the rigorous
exclusion of tobacco, there was no lack of young men. I question whether
it would be possible to see the like in any exclusive gathering, either
of the classes or the masses. The club is as prosperous financially, I
am glad to hear, as it is socially, having a reserve fund of some £600,
while the subscriptions are very moderate. No doubt the political
and industrial atmosphere is dark with heavy clouds both’ at home and
abroad; but I do begin to think that this white lining of a truer
and fuller blending of our people than has ever been known before in
England, or anywhere else, is going to do more than compensate for
whatever troubles may be in store for us from wars or other convulsions,
and that we shall be in time to meet them as a united people.