the village folk. By becoming wage-earners solely, the villagers have
fallen into the disfavour of an influential section of the
middle-classes, most of whom have no other desire than to keep them in a
sufficient state of servility to be useful. How else is one to interpret
that frequent middle-class outcry against education: "What are we going
to do for servants?" or how else the grudging attitude taken up towards
the few comforts that cottage people are able to enjoy? I listened
lately to two men talking of "Tariff Reform"--one of them a commercial
traveller, lofty in his patriotism. When mention was made of some old
man's tale, that in his boyhood be rarely tasted meat, "unless a sheep
died," the commercial traveller commented scornfully, "And now every
working man in the kingdom thinks he must have meat twice a day"--as
though such things ought not to be in the British Empire. The falsehood
of the remark enhanced its significance. It was the sort of thing to say
in hotel-bars, or in the offices of commerce--the sort of thing that
goes down well with employers. It indicated that the animus of which I
am speaking is almost a commonplace. In truth, I have heard it expressed
dozens of times, in dozens of ways, yet always with the same implied
suggestion, that the English labouring classes are a lower order of
beings, who must be treated accordingly.
And yet employers of this type, representing the wealth, perhaps, but by
no means the culture, of modern civilization, are, in fact, nearer to
the unlettered labourers in their outlook, and are therefore by far less
embarrassing to them, than those of another and kindlier type which
figures largely in this parish to-day. Those people for whom the
enclosure of the common, as it has turned out, made room in the
valley--I mean the well-to-do residents--employ local labour, not for
profit at all, but to minister to their own pleasure, in their gardens
and stables, and the majority of them would be genuinely glad to be
helpful to their poorer neighbours. The presence of poverty reproaches
them; their consciences are uneasy; or, better still, some kind of
regard, some kind of respect, goes out from them towards the toilsome
men and the over-burdened women whom, in fact, they have displaced. Yet
compassion is not the same thing as understanding, and the cottagers
know very well that even their best friends of this kind have neither
the knowledge nor the taste to appreciate them in their own way.
Sympathy for their troubles--yes, there is that; but sympathy with
their enjoyments hardly any property-owner dreams of cultivating; and
this is the more true the more the property-owner has been polished by
his own civilization. A lady long resident here was quite surprised to
hear from me, some months ago, that the cottagers are ardent gardeners.
"Dear me!" she said; "I had no idea of it." And yet one of the ablest
men of the parish had tended her own garden for years.
Hence it is in their intercourse with these--the well-meaning and
cultivated--that the villagers are most at a loss. In those embittered
employers who merely seek to make money out of him the labourer does at
least meet with some keen recognition of his usefulness; but with these
others he is all at sea. Non-introspective, a connoisseur of garden
crops and of pig-sties, and of saved-up seeds; cunning to understand the
"set" of spade or hoe, and the temper of scythe and fag-hook; jealous of
the encroachment of gravelled walk or evergreen hedge upon the useful
soil; an expert in digging and dunging--he is very well aware that the
praises of the villa-people employing him are ignorant praises. His best
skill is, after all, overlooked. The cunning of his craft excites in
them none of the sympathy of a fellow-expert, and is but poorly rewarded
by their undiscriminating approval. At the same time, the things which
these people require of him--the wanton things they ask him to do with
the soil, levelling it to make lawns, wasting it upon shrubberies and
drives, while they fence-in the heath patches and fence-out the
public--prove to him more fully than any language can do that they put a
different sort of value upon the countryside from its old value, and
that they care not a straw for the mode of life that was his before they
came here. All their ways are eloquent of condemnation of his tastes.
And yet again, while his old skill fails to be understood, and his old
outlook to be appreciated, he finds that the behaviour preferred in him
is oftener than not a behaviour which his forefathers would have thought
silly, to say the least--a finikin, fastidious behaviour, such as he
would scorn to practise at home. Thus in all ways the employers most
conscientiously humane are those who can least avoid, in their tastes
and their whole manner of living, snubbing him and setting him down in
an inferior place. They cannot help it, now that they have thrust
themselves upon him as neighbours. The more they interest themselves in
him, the more glaringly is the difference which separates themselves
from him brought out.
Whether, if the common had remained open, the villagers could still have
held aloof, at this time of day, from the movements of the outer world
is a question not worth discussion. The enclosure was brought to pass;
the keystone was knocked out of the arch; and here are some of the
indirect consequences. From a position in which the world's
distinctions of class and caste were hardly noticed--a position which
was, so to speak, an island of refuge, where self-respect could be
preserved in preserving the old rough peasant ways--the valley folk have
been forced into such relations with the world outside the valley as we
have seen. They are no longer a separate set, unclassified, but a grade
has been assigned to them in the classification of society at large, and
it is wellnigh the lowest grade of all, for only the pauper and criminal
classes are below them. In this sense, therefore, they are a "degraded"
people, though by no fault of their own. Amongst "the masses" is where
they are counted. Moreover, since they are now, as we have seen,
competing against one another for the right to live, none of the
concessions are made to them now that were of old made to the group of
them, but they count, and are judged, individually, amongst the millions
of the English proletariat. "Inferiority" has come into their lives; it
is expected of them to treat almost everybody else as a superior person.
But the cruellest indignity of all is that, although we regard them as
inferiors, we still look to them to admire and live up to our standards;
and they are to conform to our civilization, yet without the income it
requires or the social recognition it should secure. And if they will
not do this willingly, then shall they be coerced, or at least kept in
order, by "temperance" and other "reforming" legislation, and by the
police.
XII
THE HUMILIATED
The effects of this "inferiority" which has been thrust upon the
villagers are not exactly conspicuous in any particular direction. As it
has been shown already, the people themselves seem almost unaware of any
grievance in the matter, the change having come upon them too gradually
for it to be sharply felt. They bear no malice against their employers.
You would hardly learn, from anything that they consciously say or do,
that in becoming so humiliated they have been hurt in their feelings, or
have found it necessary to change their habits.
Indeed, the positive alteration in their manners, by which I mean the
adoption of new ways in place of old ones, has probably not amounted to
a great deal. I admit that I have no means of estimating how much it
does amount to. During fifty years, in which every cottager must now and
then have become aware of constraint put upon him or her by the superior
attitude of the employing class, it is quite possible that there have
been innumerable small concessions and adaptations of manner, and that
these have accumulated into a general change which would surprise us if
it could be measured. But I incline to think that the effects of
class-pressure have been chiefly negative; that, while employers have
been adopting new modes of life, all that has happened to the labouring
folk here in the valley is that this or that habit, found inexpedient at
last, has been quietly dropped. A sort of reserve in the village temper,
a want of gaiety, a subdued air--this, which one cannot help observing,
is probably the shadow cast upon the people from the upraised
middle-class. It looks suggestive, too. Yet, upon examining it, one
fails to find in it any definite token that would show exactly how and
where the village temper has been touched, or in what light "superior"
persons are regarded in the cottages. The people appear enigmatic. They
keep their own counsel. Whether they are bewildered or amused at the
behaviour of employers, or alarmed or embittered by it, or actually
indifferent to it, no sign escapes them when members of the employing
class are by.
In these circumstances, it is instructive to turn aside for a while from
the grown-up people of the village, and to consider their children;
because the children do not learn about the employing class by direct
intercourse, but derive from their parents such ideas as they have of
what is safe to do, and what is proper, where employing people are
concerned. As soon as this truth is realized, a curious significance
appears in some characteristic habits of the village school boys and
girls. The boys, especially, deserve remark. That they are in general
"rough," "uncivilized," I suppose might go without saying. It might also
go without saying, were it not that the comparison turns out to be
useful, that in animal spirits, physical courage, love of mischief and
noise, they are at least a match for middle-class boys who go to the
town grammar-school. I wish I could say that they have an equally good
sense of "playing the game," an equally strong _esprit de corps_, and so
on. Unfortunately, these traditions have hardly reached the village
school as yet, and perhaps will not easily make their way there, amongst
the children of parents whom the struggle for life compels to be so
suspicious and jealous. The question is, however, beside the point now.
Viewed without prejudice, the village boys must be thought quite as good
material as any other English boys; you can see that there is the making
of strong and brave men in them. With similar chances they would not be
inferior in any respect to the sons of the middle classes.
But under existing conditions the two sorts of boys develop some curious
differences of habit. Where those from middle-class homes are
self-possessed, those from the labourers' cottages are not merely shy,
not merely uncouth and lubberly; they grow furtive, suspicious, timid as
wild animals, on the watch for a chance to run. Audacious enough at
bird's-nesting, sliding, tree-climbing, fighting, and impertinent enough
towards people of their own kind, they quail before the first challenge
of "superiority." All aplomb goes from them then. It is distressing to
see how they look: with an expression of whimpering rebellion, as though
the superior person had unhuman qualities, not to be reckoned on--as
though there were danger in his presence. An incident of a few years
ago, very trumpery in itself, displayed to me in the sharpest
distinctness the contrast between the two orders of boys in this
respect. In the hedge which parts my garden from the lane there is a
nut-tree, too tempting to all boys when the nuts are ripe. At that
season one hears whispered and exclamatory confabulations going on in
the lane, and then large stones go crashing up into the tree, falling
back sometimes within the hedge, where there is a bit of grass and a
garden seat. Occasionally, playing the absurd part of irate
property-owner, I have gone to the gate near by to drive off the
offenders, but have opened it only in time to see a troop of urchins,
alarmed by the click of the gate-latch, scurrying away like rabbits
round the bend of the lane. One Sunday afternoon, however, when I looked
out after a stone had fallen nearly on my head, it was to find two boys
calmly waiting for me to approach them. Their school caps showed them to
be two boys of the grammar-school. The interview went comically. Upon
being told crossly that they were a nuisance, the boys apologized--an
act which seemed to put me in the wrong. In my annoyance at that, I
hinted ironically that, in fact, I was a benevolent person, quite
willing to admit boys inside the hedge to pick up nuts, if nuts they
really must have. Then I turned away. To my astonishment, they took me
at my word, followed me into the garden, and calmly began to pick up
nuts; while I withdrew, discomfited. I have since smiled to think of the
affair; but I recall it now with more interest, for the sake of the
contrast it affords between middle-class boys and labouring-class boys
in exactly similar circumstances. Where the former behave confidently,
because they feel safe, the latter are overtaken by panic, and run to
cover.
In this light another curious fact about the village boys gains in
significance, supposing it to be indeed a fact. From the nature of the
case, proof is not possible, but I have a strong impression that,
excepting to go to the town, the boys of the village rarely, if ever,
stray into neighbouring parishes, or more than a few hundred yards away
from their parents' homes. One exception must be noted. In the lonely
and silent fir-woods, which begin in the next valley and stretch away
over ridge and dell for some miles from south-east to south-west, one
sometimes comes upon a group of village children--little boys and girls
together--filling sacks with fir-cones, and pushing an old perambulator
to carry the load. But these are hardly voluntary expeditions; and the
boys are always very small ones, while the girls are in charge. The
bigger boys, of from ten to thirteen years old, do not go into the
woods. They play in the roads and pathways, or on the corners of unused
land, and as a rule within sight or call of home. I have never seen any
of them, as I have occasionally seen middle-class boys from the town,
rambling far afield in the outlying country, and my belief is that they
would be considerably scared to find themselves in such unfamiliar
scenes.
Assuming that I am right, yet another contrast presents itself. It was
in this very neighbourhood that William Cobbett, as a little boy, played
off upon the huntsman that trick of revenge which he bragged about in
after-life. For five or six miles across country, over various streams,
through woods and heaths and ploughed upland fields, he made his way all
alone, dragging his red herring, perfectly confident in himself, never
at a loss to know where he was, but thoroughly familiar with the lie of
the land most suitable for his game. Of course, not many boys are
Cobbetts. Yet many of the village boys, even now, would be his match at
other games. For here, on the shelving sand-banks beside the stream, I
have seen them enjoying rough-and-tumble romps like those which the
little Cobbett lived to think the best part of his education; and they
do it with a recklessness which even he can scarce have surpassed. But
in getting about the country they do not so much as begin to emulate
him. Of course, it is true that now they have to spend their days in
school; true, too, that the enclosures of land throughout the
neighbourhood have made wandering less easy in our times; nevertheless,
within a few miles there are woods and heath-lands in plenty for
adventurous boys, as those of the middle-class are aware; yet those of
the village never risk the adventure. I can but infer that they are
afraid of something, and a moment's thought discloses what they fear.
Just as in meddling with my nut-tree, so everywhere they are in danger
of trouble with people of the propertied or employing kind; and behind
these people stands the policeman, and behind the policeman that dim
object of dread called "a summons." This it is that keeps the village
children within the bounds familiar to them, where they know who is who,
and what property belongs to which owner, and how far they may risk
doing mischief, and round what corners they may scamper into safety.
The caution they display is not unnecessary. Somehow, middle-class boys
do not get into trouble with the law; but it happens not infrequently
that a few little villagers are "pulled up" before a magistrate for
trivial acts of mischief, and if the worst punishment inflicted upon
them is a shilling fine and costs, which their parents pay, that is
enough to make "a summons" a very dreadful thing to a little boy. Out of
eighteen shillings a week, his father cannot afford "a shilling and
costs" for a piece of mischief, as the little boy is but too likely to
be shown.
Children's memories are short, however, and it takes more than an
occasional punishment of two or three to inspire in them all a
timorousness so instinctive in character as that of these village boys.
At the back of it there must be a more constant and pervasive influence.
And, to come to the point at last, I think that the boys are swayed,
unwittingly, by an attitude in the grown-up people with whom they
live--an attitude of habitual wariness, not to say fear, in regard to
everything connected with property and employers. This is what makes the
timidity of the village urchins interesting. We may discern in it the
expression of a feeling prevalent throughout the cottages--an unreasoned
but convinced distrust of propertied folk, and a sense of being
unprotected and helpless against their privileges and power. Here,
accordingly, is one direction in which class distinction has seriously
affected the villagers. It would be an exaggeration to say that they
feel like outlaws; but they are vaguely aware of constraint imposed upon
them by laws and prejudices which are none too friendly to people of
their kind. One divines it in their treatment of the village policeman.
There is probably no lonelier man in the parish than the constable. Of
course he meets with civility, but his company is avoided. One hears
him mentioned in those same accents of grudging caution which the
villagers use in speaking of unfriendly property-owners, as though he
belonged to that alien caste. The cottagers feel that they themselves
are the people whom he is stationed in the valley to watch.
They feel it; nor can it be denied that there is some excuse for the
feeling. It is true that they far outnumber the employers, so that,
other things being equal, from their more numerous ranks there would
naturally come a larger number of offenders against the law. But other
things are not equal. The proportion is not kept. Anyone who studies the
police-court reports in the local papers will see that, apart from cases
of technical offence, like riding a bicycle on the footpath, or keeping
a dog without a licence, practically all the proceedings are taken in
defence of the privileges and prejudices of the employing classes
against the employed classes. Clearly the village idea is not wholly
wrong. In theory, the policeman represents the general public; in
practice, he stands for middle-class decorum and the rights of property;
and what the people say is roughly true--there is one law for the rich,
and another for the poor.
But it is only roughly true, and one must get it a little more exact to
appreciate the position in which the labouring-folk stand. I am not
disposed to say anything here against the administration of the law by
the justices, when offenders are brought before them; but in the choice
or detection of offenders I must point out that a great deal of respect
of persons is shown. Remember what that old man said, who would have
liked to see the fir-woods go up in flames: "'Tis all fenced in, and now
if you looks over the fence you be locked up for it." That was an
exaggeration, of course--a sort of artistic licence, a piece of oratory;
yet for him the assertion held more than a grain of truth. The case is
that of the two sorts of boys over again. Where a middle-class man may
take his Sunday walk securely, risking nothing worse than being civilly
turned back by a game-keeper, these village men dare not go, unless they
are prepared to answer a summons for "trespassing for an unlawful
purpose," or "in search of game." Let it be admitted that the unlawful
purpose is sometimes proved; at least, the trespassers are occasionally
found to have rabbit-wires concealed about their persons. The remarkable
thing, however, is that they should have been searched in order to make
this discovery. The searching may be legal, for all that I know; yet I
do not seem to see a middle-class man--a shopkeeper from the town, or
any employer of labour--submitting to the process, as the cowed
labouring man apparently does. It will be said that the middle-class man
is in no fear of such an outrage, because he is not suspect. But that is
conceding the greater part of what I wish to demonstrate. Rightly or
wrongly, the labouring man is suspect. A distinction of caste is made
against him. The law, which pretends to impartiality, sets him in a
lower and less privileged place than his employers; and he knows it. In
alleging that he might not look over a fence without being locked up for
it my old acquaintance merely overstated a palpable truth. People of his
rank--cottage people, labouring people--do, indeed, not dare to wander
in country places anywhere off the public roads.
Much more might be said on the same lines. Whether inevitably or no, at
all events it happens that the march of respectability gives, to
regulations which may be quite proper in themselves, a very strong
appearance of being directed against the poorer working people. No doubt
it is right enough that the brawling of the "drunk and disorderly" on
the highroads should be checked; the public interest demands it; yet the
impression conveyed is that the regulations are enforced more for the
pleasure of property-owners than anybody else; that, in fact,
middle-class respectability has, so to speak, made this law especially
with a view to keeping the working classes in order. I am not urging
that in this there is any substantial grievance; the offence is rarely
committed by others than labourers, and by them too often. Yet it is
well known that, while a labourer roystering along the road is pounced
upon and locked up, an employer the worse for drink is shepherded home
from his hotel by the police, and the affair hushed up. From
circumstances like these--and they are very common--a suspicion is bred
in cottage people that they are not in good odour with the authorities.
The law rather tolerates than befriends them. They are not wanted, are
not regarded as equal fellow-citizens with the well-to-do, but are
expected to be quiet, or to keep out of sight. English people though
they are, yet, if nobody will employ them so that they can pay rent for
a cottage, they have no admitted rights in England--unless it be to go
to the workhouse or to keep moving on upon the public road. In endless
ways the sense of inequality is impressed upon them. I opened the local
paper lately, and read of four of our young labourers accused of
"card-playing." The game was "Banker," the policeman told the
magistrates--as if gentlemen were likely to know what that meant!--and
he had caught the fellows red-handed, in some as yet unfenced nook of
the heath. That was how they were in fault. They should not have been
playing where they could be seen, in the open air; they should have
taken their objectionable game out of sight, into some private house, as
the middle-classes do--and as, I suppose, the policeman himself must
have done in his time, since he knew the game. Unfortunately for the
labouring men, they have no private house available: there is no room
for a card-party in their cottages; and thus they become subject to laws
which, as they do not touch the property-owner, seem designed to catch
especially them. For another example of the same insinuation of
inequality, consider the local by-laws, which now forbid the keeping of
pigs within a considerable distance of a dwelling-house. I will not say
that the villager thinks the regulation a wrong one; at any rate he
understands that it is excused in the interests of public health. But he
also knows that it has been introduced since the arrival of middle-class
people in the parish. They came, and his pigs had to go; so that in his
eyes even the general public health looks like the health of rich
residents rather than of poor ones.