FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS.
Jefferies made his way to the fields through the farmers first and the
labourers next.
He wrote a paper for _Fraser's Magazine_ (December, 1873) on the "Future
of Farming," which attracted a considerable amount of attention. The
_Spectator_ had an article upon it. The paper is full of bold
speculations and prophecies; as, for instance:
"We may, then, look to a time when farming will become a commercial
speculation, and will be carried on by large joint-stock concerns,
issuing shares of ten, fifteen, or fifty pounds each, and occupying
from three to ten thousand acres. Such companies would, perhaps,
purchase the entire sewage of an adjacent town. Their buildings,
their streets of cattle-stalls, would be placed on a slope
sheltered from the north-east, but near the highest spot on the
estate, so as to distribute manure and water from their reservoirs
by the power of gravitation. A stationary steam-engine would crush
their cake, and pulp their roots, pump their water, perhaps even
shear their sheep. They would employ butchers and others, a whole
staff, to kill and cut up bullocks in pieces suitable for the
London market, transmitting their meat straight to the salesman,
without the intervention of the dealer. That salesman would himself
be entirely in the employ of the company, and sell no other meat
but what they supplied him with. This would at once give a larger
profit to the producer, and a lower price (in comparison) to the
public. In summer, meat might be cooled by the ice-house, or
refrigerator, which must necessarily be attached to the company's
bacon factory. Except in particular districts, it is hardly
probable that the dairy would be united with the stock-farm; but if
so, the ice-house would again come into requisition, and there
would be a condensed-milk factory on the premises."
This was going back to the right line. He seems, however, to have done
no more in this line until August of the next year (the month after his
marriage), when he returned in earnest to the rural life, and never
afterwards left it. His earliest and fastest friend was _Fraser's
Magazine_, now, alas! defunct. But he was speedily engaged to write for
other papers and magazines. His real literary life, in fact, may be said
to begin at this period. The "Farmer at Home" was the title of this
paper singled out by the _Spectator_ as the best of all the papers for
the month. Here there occurs a really striking passage on the "Farmer's
Creed." They live, says the writer, amid conditions so unchanging that
they have acquired a creed of their own, which they rarely express,
never discuss, and never fail to act upon.
"... In no other profession do the sons and the daughters remain so
long, and so naturally, under the parental roof. The growth of half
a dozen strong sons was a matter of self-congratulation, for each
as he came to man's estate took the place of a labourer, and so
reduced the money expenditure. The daughters worked in the dairy,
and did not hesitate to milk occasionally, or, at least, to labour
in the hay-field. They spun, too, the home-made stuffs in which all
the family were clothed. A man's children were his servants. They
could not stir a step without his permission. Obedience and
reverence to the parent was the first and greatest of all virtues.
Its influence was to extend through life, and through the whole
social system. They were to choose the wife or the husband approved
of at home. At thirty, perhaps, the more fortunate of the sons were
placed on farms of their own nominally, but still really under the
father's control. They dared not plough or sow except in the way
that he approved. Their expenditure was strictly regulated by his
orders. This lasted till his death, which might not take place for
another twenty years. At the present moment I could point out ten
or twelve such cases, where men of thirty or forty are in farms,
and to all appearance perfectly free and independent, and yet as
completely under the parental thumb as they were at ten years
old.... These men, if they think thus of their own offspring,
cannot be expected to be more tender towards the lower class around
them. They did at one time, and some still wish to, extend the same
system to the labouring population.... They did not want only to
indulge in tyranny; what they did was to rule the labouring poor in
the same way as they did their own children--nothing more nor less.
These labouring men, like his own children, must do as the farmer
thought best. They must live here or there, marry so and so, or
forfeit favour--in short, obey the parental head. Each farmer was
king in his own domain; the united farmers of a parish were kings
of the whole place. They did not use the power circumstances gave
them harshly, but they paid very little regard to the liberty of
the subject.... In religion it is, or lately was, the same. It was
not a matter with the farmer of the Athanasian Creed, or the
doctrine of salvation by faith, or any other theological dogma. To
him the parish church was the centre of the social system of the
parish. It was the keystone of that parental plan of government
that he believed in. The very first doctrine preached from the
pulpit was that of obedience. 'Honour thy father and thy mother'
was inculcated there every seventh day. His father went to church,
he went to church himself, and everybody else ought to go. It was
as much a social gathering as the dinner at the market ordinary, or
the annual audit dinner of their common landlord. The Dissenter,
who declined to pay Church-rates, was an unsocial person. He had
left the circle. It was not the theology that they cared about, it
was the social nonconformity. In a spiritual sense, too, the
clergyman was the father of the parish, the shepherd of the
flock--it was a part of the great system. To go a step farther, in
political affairs the one leading idea still threaded itself
through all. The proper Parliamentary representative--the natural
law-giver--was the landlord of the district. He was born amongst
them, walked about amongst them, had been in their houses many a
time. He knew their wants, their ideas, their views. His own
interest was identical with theirs. Therefore he was the man."
A third paper, called "John Smith's Shanty," gave a picture of the
agricultural labourer's life. He here began, timidly at first, to leave
the regions of hard actual fact, and to venture upon the higher flights
of poetic and ideal work, but poetry based upon the actual facts. Yet
not to leave altogether the journalistic methods. Thus, he wrote for
_Fraser_ a paper on "The Works at Swindon," which was simply a newspaper
descriptive article, and one on "Allotment Gardens" for the _New
Quarterly Review_. This was like his "Future of Farming"--a wholly
practical paper. One of the new principles, he says, that is now
gradually entering the minds of the masses, is a belief that each
individual has a right to a certain share in the land of his birth. That
was written twelve years ago. Since that time this belief has extended
far and wide. There are now books and papers which openly advocate the
doctrine that the land is the property of the people. It is no longer a
question which is asked, an answer which has to be whispered on account
of its great temerity: it is a doctrine openly held and openly taught.
But Jefferies was the first to find it out. He heard the whisper in the
cottage and in the village ale-house; the reeds beside the brook
whispered it to him. If, he thinks, every labouring man had his
allotment, he would cease to desire the general division of the land.
"If it is possible to find ground near enough to the residence of
the population to be practically useful as cemeteries, there can be
no valid reason why spaces should not be available for a system of
gardens. Numerous companies have been formed for the purpose of
supplying the workmen with houses; the building societies and their
estates are situated outside the city, but within easy reach by
rail. Why should not societies exist and flourish for the equally
useful object of providing the workman with a garden? If the plan
of universal division of land were thoroughly carried out, it
follows that the cities would disappear, since, to obtain a bare
living out of the four acres, a man must live on or very near to
it, and spend his whole time in attending to it. But the extent of
allotment-ground which such a society as this would provide for the
workman must not be so large as to require any more attention than
he could pay to it in the evening, or the Saturday afternoon, or at
most in a day or so of absence from his work. He would have, of
course, to go to his allotment by rail, and rail costs money. But
how many thousands of workmen at this very hour go to their work
day by day by rail, and return home at night; and the sum of money
they thus expend must collectively be something enormous in the
course of a year! To work his allotment he would have no necessity
to visit it every day, or hardly every week. Such an
allotment-ground must be under the direction of a proper staff of
officers, for the distribution of lots, the collection of rent, the
prevention of theft, and generally to maintain the necessary order.
Looked at in this light, the extension of the allotment system to
large towns does not hold out any very great difficulties. The
political advantage which would accrue would be considerable, as a
large section of the population would feel that one at least of
their not altogether frivolous complaints was removed. As a
pecuniary speculation, it is possible that such a society would pay
as well as a building society; for the preliminary expenses would
be so small in comparison. A building society has to erect blocks
of houses before it can obtain any return; but merely to plough,
and lay out a few fields in regular plots, and number them on a
plan, is a light task. If the rent was not paid, the society could
always seize the crops; and if the plot was not cultivated in a
given time, they might have a rule by which the title to it should
be vacated. To carry the idea further, a small additional payment
per annum might make the plot the tenant's own property. This would
probably act as a very powerful inducement."
In the year 1874 he meditates a great work, which he began but never
finished, using up his notes in after-years for what is really the same
subject treated with more literary finish and style than he had as yet
acquired. He proposes (May 20th) to Messrs. Longmans to write a great
book in two volumes on the whole Land Question. The first volume he
proposes to call "Tenant and Labourer;" the second, "Land and Landlord."
He will deal, he says, with the subject in an "impartial and trenchant"
manner, but still "with a slightly conservative tone, so as to counsel
moderation." On June 8th he sends an instalment of two hundred
manuscript folios, proposing that the first volume shall be called "The
Agricultural Life." The chapters are to be as follows:
I. The Creed of the Agriculturist.
II. The Agriculturist at Home.
III. Agriculture as a Business.
IV. Summary of the Farmer's Case.
V. The Labourer's Daily Life.
VI. The Labourer's Case.
VII. The Gist of the Whole Matter.
This proposal never came to anything; but the subject-matter was
abundantly treated by Jefferies later on. Most of the chapters will be
found in "Hodge and his Masters." So far, he is still, it will be
observed, the practical man. Whatever feeling he has for the poetry of
Nature, he has as yet found little expression of it. He next wrote a
paper on "Field-faring Women" for _Fraser_. He also wrote a most
delightful article for the _Graphic_ on the same subject, in which the
truth is told about these women. This was the very first paper written
in his later and better style:
"Those who labour in the fields require no calendar, no
carefully-compiled book of reference to tell them when to sow and
when to reap, to warn them of the flight of time. The flowers,
blooming and fading, mark the months with unfailing regularity.
When the sweet violet may be found in warm sheltered nooks, and the
sleepy snake first crawls out from under the brown leaves, then it
is time to gather the couch or roots after the plough, and to hoe
the young turnips and swedes. This is the first work of the year
for the agricultural women. It is not a pleasant work. Everyone who
has walked over a ploughed field remembers how the boots were
clogged with the adhesive clay, and how the continuous ridges and
furrows impeded progress. These women have to stoop and gather up
the white couch-roots, and the other weeds, and place them in heaps
to be burnt. The spring is not always soft and balmy. There comes
one lovely day, when the bright sunlight encourages the buds and
peeping leaves to push out, and then follows a week or more of the
harsh biting east wind. The arable field is generally devoid of
hedges or trees to break the force of the weather, and the
couch-pickers have to withstand its cutting rush in the open....
"The cold clods of earth numb the fingers as they search for the
roots and weeds. The damp clay chills the feet through thick-nailed
boots, and the back grows stiff with stooping. If the poor woman
suffers from the rheumatism so common among the labouring class,
such a day as this will make every bone in her body ache. When at
last four o'clock comes, she has to walk a mile or two miles to her
cottage and prepare her husband's supper. In hilly districts,
where sheep are the staple production, it follows, of course, that
turnips and swedes, as their food, are the most important crop.
Upon the unenclosed open downs the cold of early spring is intense,
and the women who are engaged in hoeing feel it bitterly. Down in
the rich fertile valleys, in the meadows, women are at work picking
up the stones out of the way of the scythe, or beating clots about
with a short prong. All these are wretched tasks, especially the
last, and the remuneration for exposure and handling dirt very
small. But now 'green grow the rushes,' and the cuckoo-flower
thrusts its pale petals up among the rising grass. Till that grass
reaches maturity, the women in meadow districts can find no field
employment. The woods are now carpeted with acres upon acres of the
wild hyacinth, or blue-bell, and far surpass in loveliness the most
cultivated garden. The sheen of the rich deep blue shows like a
lake of colour, in which the tall ash poles stand, and in the
sunset each bell is tinged with purple. The nightingale sings in
the hazel-copse, or on the hawthorn bough, both day and night, and
higher up, upon the downs, the skies are full of larks carolling at
'Heaven's gate.' But the poor woman hears them not. She has no
memories of poetry; her mind can call up no beautiful thoughts to
associate with the flower or the bird. She can sign her name in a
scrawling hand, and she can spell through simple print, but to all
intents and purposes she is completely ignorant. Therefore, she
cannot see, that is, appreciate or feel, the beauty with which she
is surrounded. Yet, despite the harsh, rude life she leads, there
works up to the surface some little instinctive yearning after a
higher condition. The yellow flowers in the cottage-garden--why is
it that cottagers are so fond of yellow?--the gilly-flower, the
single stock, marigolds, and such old-fashioned favourites, show a
desire for ornament; still more so the occasional geranium in the
window, specially tended by the wife."
Later on he returns to the subject, and relates the story of Dolly most
mournful, most tragic, full of tears and pity.
He now began to alternate his practical and his poetical papers. For
the _Mark Lane Express_ he wrote on "Village Organization"; for the
_Standard_ on "The Cost of Agricultural Labour"; for the _Fortnightly_
on the "Power of the Farmer." Between these papers he wrote on
"Marlborough Forest," on "Village Churches," and on the "Average of
Beauty."
The first of these three articles already reached almost the highest
level of his better style. Even for those who have never wandered in
this great and wonderful forest, the paper is wholly charming, while to
those who know the place, it is full of memories and regrets that one
has seen so little of all that this man saw.
"The great painter Autumn has just touched with the tip of his
brush a branch of the beech-tree, here and there leaving an orange
spot, and the green acorns are tinged with a faint yellow. The
hedges, perfect mines of beauty, look almost red from a distance,
so innumerable are the peggles. Let not the modern Goths destroy
our hedges, so typical of an English landscape, so full of all that
can delight the eye and please the mind. Spare them if only for
the sake of the 'days when we went gipsying--a long time
ago'--spare them for the children to gather the flowers of May and
the blackberries of September. When the orange spot glows upon the
beech, then the nuts are ripe, and the hawthorn-bushes are hung
with festoons of the buff-coloured, heart-shaped leaves of a
once-green creeper. That 'deepe and enclosed country of Northe
Wiltes,' which old Clarendon, in his famous 'Civill Warre,' says
the troops of King Charles had so much difficulty to hurry through,
is pleasant to those who can linger by the wayside and the copse,
and do not fear to hear the ordnance make the 'woods ring again,'
though to this day a rusty old cannon-ball may sometimes be found
under the dead brown leaves of Aldbourne Chase where the skirmish
took place before 'Newbury Battle.' Perhaps it is because no such
deadly outbursts of human passions have swept along beneath its
trees that the 'Forest' is unsung by the poet, and unvisited by the
artist. Yet its very name is poetical, Savernake, _i.e._,
savernesacre--like the God's acre of Longfellow. Saverne--a
peculiar species of sweet fern; acre--land. So we may call it
Fern-land Forest, and with truth, for but one step beneath those
beeches away from the path plunges us to our shoulders in an ocean
of bracken. The yellow stalks, stout and strong as wood, make
walking through the brake difficult, and the route pursued devious,
till from the constant turning and twisting the way is lost. For
this is no narrow copse, but a veritable forest in which it is easy
to lose one's self; and the stranger who attempts to pass it away
from the beaten track must possess some of the Indian instinct
which sees signs and directions in the sun and wind, in the trees
and humble plants of the ground. And this is its great charm. The
heart has a yearning for the unknown, a longing to penetrate the
deep shadow and the winding glade, where, as it seems, no human
foot has been. High over head in the beech-tree the squirrel peeps
down from behind a bough--his long bushy tail curled up over his
back, and his bright eyes full of mischievous cunning. Listen, and
you will hear the tap, tap of the woodpecker, and see, away he
goes in undulating flight with a wild, unearthly chuckle, his green
and gold plumage glancing in the sun, like the parrots of
far-distant lands. He will alight in some open space upon an
ant-hill, and lick up the red insects with his tongue. In the
fir-tree, there, what a chattering and fluttering of gaily-painted
wings--three or four jays are quarrelling noisily. These beautiful
birds are slain by scores because of their hawk-like capacities for
destruction of game, and because of the delicate colours of their
feathers, which are used in fly-fishing. There darts across the
glade a scared rabbit, straining each little limb for speed, almost
rushing against us, a greater terror overcoming the less. In a
moment there darts forth from the dried grass a fierce red-furred
hunter, a very tiger to the rabbit tribe, with back slightly
arched, bounding along, and sniffing the scent. Another, and
another, still a fourth--a whole pack of stoats (elder brothers of
the smaller weasels). In vain will the rabbit trust to his speed,
these untiring wolves will overtake him. In vain will he turn and
double, their unerring noses will find him out. In vain the
tunnels of the 'bury,' they will come as surely under ground as
above. At last, wearied, panting, frightened almost to death, the
timid creature will hide in a _cul-de-sac_, a hole that has no
outlet, burying its head in the sand. Then the tiny bloodhounds
will steal with swift, noiseless rush, and fasten upon the veins of
the neck. What a rattling the wings of the pigeons make as they
rise out of the trees in hot haste and alarm! As we pass a
fir-copse, we stoop down and look along the ground under the
foliage. The sharp 'needles,' or leaves, which fall will not decay,
and they kill all vegetation, so that there is no underwood or
herbage to obstruct the view. It is like looking into a vast cellar
supported upon innumerable slender columns. The pheasants run
swiftly away underneath. High up the cones are ripening--those
mysterious emblems sculptured in the hands of the gods at Nineveh,
perhaps typifying the secret of life. More bracken. What a strong,
tall fern! it is like a miniature tree. So thick is the cover, a
thousand archers might lie hid in it easily. In this wild
solitude, utterly separated from civilization, the whistle of an
arrow would not surprise us--the shout of a savage before he hurled
his spear would seem natural, and in keeping. What are those
strange clattering noises, like the sound of men fighting with
wooden 'back-swords'? Now it is near--now far off--a spreading
battle seems to be raging all round, but the combatants are out of
sight. But, gently--step lightly, and avoid placing the foot on
dead sticks, which break with a loud crack--softly peep round the
trunk of this noble oak, whose hard furrowed bark defends it like
armour. The red deer! Two splendid stags are fighting, fighting for
their lady-love, the timid doe. They rush at each other with head
down and horns extended--the horns meet and rattle--they fence with
them skilfully. This was the cause of the noise. It is the tilting
season--these tournaments between the knights of the forest are
going on all around. There is just a trifle of danger in
approaching these combatants, but not much, just enough to make the
forest still more enticing; none whatever to those who use common
caution. At the noise of our footsteps away go the stags, their
'branching antlers' seen high above the tall fern, bounding over
the ground in a series of jumps, all four feet leaving the earth at
once. There are immense oaks that we come to now, each with an open
space beneath it where Titania and the fairies may dance their
rings at night. These enormous trunks--what _time_ they represent!
To us each hour is of consequence, especially in this modern day
which has invented the detestable creed that time is money. But
time is not money to Nature. She never hastens. Slowly from the
tiny acorn grew up this gigantic trunk, and spread abroad those
limbs which in themselves are trees. And from the trunk itself, to
the smallest leaf, every infinitesimal atom of which it is composed
was perfected slowly, gradually--there was no hurry, no attempt to
discount effect. A little farther, and the ground declines; through
the tall fern we come upon a valley. But the soft warm sunshine,
the stillness, the solitude have induced an irresistible idleness.
Let us lie down upon the fern, on the edge of the green vale, and
gaze up at the slow clouds as they drift across the blue vault. The
subtle influence of nature penetrates every limb and every vein,
fills the soul with a perfect contentment, an absence of all wish
except to lie there half in sunshine, half in shade for ever, in a
Nirvana of indifference to all but the exquisite delight of simply
_living_. The wind in the tree-tops overhead sighs in soft music,
and ever and anon a leaf falls with a slight rustle to mark the
time. The clouds go by in rhythmic motion, the ferns whisper verses
in the ear, the beams of the wondrous sun pour in endless song, for
he also
"'In his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim,
Such harmony is in immortal souls!'
Time is to us now no more than it was to the oak; we have no
consciousness of it. Only we feel the broad earth beneath us, and
as to the ancient giant, so there passes through us a sense of
strength renewing itself, of vital energy flowing into the frame.
It may be an hour, it may be two hours; when without the aid of
sound or sight we become aware by an indescribable supersensuous
perception that living creatures are approaching. Sit up without
noise and look--there is a herd of deer feeding down the narrow
valley close at hand within a stone's-throw. And these are deer
indeed, no puny creatures, but the 'tall deer' that William the
Conqueror loved 'as if he were their father.' Fawns are darting
here and there, frisking round the does. How many may there be in
this herd?--fifty, perhaps more; nor is this a single isolated
instance, but dozens more of such herds may be found in this true
old English forest, all running free and unconstrained. But the sun
gets low. Following this broad green drive, it leads us past vistas
of endless glades going no man knows where into shadow and gloom,
past grand old oaks, past places where the edge of a veritable
wilderness comes up to the trees--a wilderness of gnarled hawthorn
trunks of unknown ages, of holly with shining metallic-green
leaves, and hazel-bushes. Past tall trees bearing the edible
chestnut in prickly clusters, past maples which in a little while
will be painted in crimson and gold, with the deer peeping out of
the fern everywhere, and once perhaps catching a glimpse of a shy,
beautiful milk-white doe.... Still onward, into a gravel
carriage-road now, returning by degrees to civilization, and here
with happy judgment the hand of man has aided nature. Far as the
eye can see extends an avenue of beech, passing right through the
forest. The tall smooth trunks rise up to a great height, and then
branch overhead, looking like the roof of a Gothic cathedral. The
growth is so regular and so perfect that the comparison springs
unbidden to the lip, and here, if anywhere, that order of
architecture might have taken its inspiration. There is a
continuous Gothic arch of green for miles, beneath which one may
drive or walk as in the aisles of a forest-abbey. But it is
impossible to even mention all the beauties of this place within so
short a space. It must suffice to say that the visitor may walk for
whole days in this great wood, and never pass the same spot twice.
No gates or jealous walls will bar his progress. As the fancy
seizes him so he may wander. If he has a taste for archaeological
studies, especially the prehistoric, the edge of the forest melts
away upon downs that bear grander specimens than can be seen
elsewhere--Stonehenge and Avebury are near. The trout-fisher can
approach very close to it. The rail gives easy communication, but
has not spoilt the seclusion. Monsieur Lesseps, of Suez Canal fame,
is reported to have said that Marlborough Forest was the finest he
had seen in Europe. Certainly no one who had not seen it would
believe that a forest still existed in the very heart of Southern
England, so completely recalling those woods and 'chases' upon
which the ancient feudal monarchs set such store."
In the paper called "Village Churches," Jefferies has wholly found
himself at last. Everybody has felt the charm of the village church. The
most careless pedestrian turns by instinct into the old churchyard, and
hopes to find the church-door open. It is not the architecture that he
cares to study, but the feeling of holy peace which lingers in the
place, like the glory between the Cherubim. Let Jefferies interpret for
us:
"The black rooks are busy in the old oak-trees carrying away the
brown acorns one by one in their strong beaks to some open place
where, undisturbed, they can feast upon the fruit. The nuts have
fallen from the boughs, and the mice garner them out of the
ditches; but the blue-black sloes cling tight to the thorn-branch
still. The first frost has withered up the weak sap left in the
leaves, and they whirl away in yellow clouds before the gusts of
wind. It is the season, the hour of half-sorrowful, half-mystic
thought, when the Past becomes a reality, and the Present a dream,
and unbidden memories of sunny days and sunny faces, seen when life
was all spring, float around:
"'Dim dream-like forms! your shadowy train
Around me gathers once again;
The same as in life's morning hour,
Before my troubled gaze you passed.
* * * * *
Forms known in happy days you bring,
And much-loved shades amid you spring,
Like a tradition, half-expired,
Worn out with many a passing year.'
"In so busy a land as ours, there is no place where the mind can,
as it were, turn in upon itself so fully as in the silence and
solitude of a village church. There is no ponderous vastness, no
oppressive weight of gloomy roof, no weird cavernous crypts, as in
the cathedral; only a _visible_ silence, which at once isolates the
soul, separates it from external present influences, and compels
it, in falling back upon itself, to recognise its own depth and
powers. In daily life we sit as in a vast library filled with
tomes, hurriedly writing frivolous letters upon 'vexatious
nothings,' snatching our food and slumber, for ever rushing forward
with beating pulse, never able to turn our gaze away from the goal
to examine the great storehouse--the library around us. Upon the
infinitely delicate organization of the brain innumerable pictures
are hourly painted; these, too, we hurry by, ignoring them, pushing
them back into oblivion. But here, in silence, they pass again
before the gaze. Let no man know for what real purpose we come
here; tell the aged clerk our business is with brasses and
inscriptions, press half-a-crown into his hand, and let him pass to
his potato-digging. There is one advantage, at least, in the
closing of the church on week-days, so much complained of--to those
who do visit it there is a certainty that their thoughts will not
be disturbed. And the sense of man's presence has departed from the
walls and oaken seats; the dust here is not the dust of the
highway, of the quick footstep; it is the dust of the past. The
ancient heavy key creaks in the cumbrous lock, and the iron
latch-ring has worn a deep groove in the solid stone. The narrow
nail-studded door of black oak yields slowly to the push--it is not
easy to enter, not easy to quit the Present--but once close it, and
the living world is gone. The very style of ornament upon the
door--the broad-headed nails--has come down from the remotest
antiquity. After the battle, says the rude bard in the Saxon
chronicle,
"'The Northmen departed
In their nailed barks,'
and earlier still the treacherous troop that seized the sleeping
magician in iron, Wayland the Smith, were clad in 'nailed armour,'
in both instances meaning ornamented with nails. Incidentally it
may be noted that until very recently at least one village church
in England had part of the skin of a Dane nailed to the door--a
stern reminder of the days when 'the Pagans' harried the land. This
narrow window, deep in the thick wall, has no painted magnificence
to boast of, but as you sit beside it in the square high-sided pew,
it possesses a human interest which even art cannot supply. The
tall grass growing rank on the graves without rustles as it waves
to and fro in the wind against the small diamond panes, yellow and
green with age--rustles with a melancholy sound, for we know that
this window was once far above the ground, but the earth has risen
till nearly on a level; risen from the accumulation of human
remains. Yet but a day or two before, on the Sunday morning, in
this pew, bright restless children smiled at each other, exchanged
guilty pushes, while the sunbeams from the arrow-slit above shone
upon their golden hair. Let us not think of this further. But dimly
through the window, 'as through a glass darkly,' see the green yew
with its red berries, and afar the elms and beeches, brown and
yellow. The steep down rises over them, and the moving gray patch
upon it is a flock of sheep. The white wall is cold and damp, and
the beams of the roof overhead, though the varnish is gone from
them, are dank with slow decay. In the recess lies the figure of a
knight in armour, rudely carved, beside his lady, still more rudely
rendered in her stiff robes, and of him an ill-spelt inscription
proudly records that he 'builded ye greate howse at'--no matter
where--but history records that cruel war wrapped it in flames
before half a generation was gone. So that the boast of his
building great houses reads as a bitter mockery. There stands
opposite a grander monument to a mighty earl, and over it hangs a
breastplate, and gauntlets of steel. The villagers will tell that
in yonder deep shady 'combe' or valley, in the thick hazel-bushes,
when the 'beetle with his drowsy hum' rises through the night air,
there comes the wicked old earl wearing this very breastplate,
these iron gloves, to expiate one evil deed of yore. And if we sit
in this pew long enough, till the mind is magnetized with the
spirit of the past, till the early evening sends its shadowy troops
to fill the distant corners of the silent church, then perhaps
there may come to us forms gliding noiselessly over the stone
pavement of the aisles--forms not repelling or ghastly, but filling
us with an eager curiosity. Then through the slit made for that
very purpose centuries since, when the pew was in a family chapel,
through the slit in the pillar, we may see cowled monks assemble at
the altar, muttering as magicians might over vessels of gold. The
clank of scabbards upon the stones is stilled, the rustle of gowns
is silent; if there is a sound it is of subdued sobs, as the aged
monk blesses the troop on the eve of their march. Not even yet has
the stern idol of war ceased to demand its victims; even yet brave
hearts and noble minds must perish, and leave sterile the hopes of
the elders and the love of woman. There is still light enough left
to read the few simple lines on the plain marble slab, telling how
'Lieutenant ----,' at Inkerman, at Lucknow, or later still, at
Coomassie, fell doing his duty. And these plain slabs are dearer
to us far than all the sculptured grandeur, all the titles and pomp
of belted earl and knight; their simple words go straighter to our
hearts than all the quaint curt Latin of the olden time. The
belfry-door is ajar--these winding-stairs are not easy of access.
The edges are worn away, and the steps strewn with small sticks of
wood; sticks once used by the jackdaws in building their nests in
the tower. It is needful to take much care, lest the foot should
stumble in the semi-darkness. Listen! there is now a slight sound;
it is the dull ticking of the old, old clock above. It is the only
thing with motion here; all else is still, and even its motion is
not life. A strange old clock; a study in itself; all the works
open and visible, simple, but ingenious. For a hundred years it has
carried round the one hour-hand upon the square-faced dial without,
marking every second of time for a century with its pendulum. Here,
too, are the bells, and one, the chief bell, is a noble tenor, a
mighty maker of sound. Its curves are full and beautiful, its
colour clear, its tone, if you do but tap it, sonorous, yet not
harsh. It is an artistic bell. Round the rim runs a rhyme in the
monkish tongue, which has a chime in the words, recording the
donor, and breathing a prayer for his soul. In the days when this
bell was made men put their souls into their works; their one great
object was not to turn out a hundred thousand all alike: it was
rarely they made two alike. Their one great object was to construct
a work which should carry their very spirit in it, which should
excel all similar works, and cause men in after-times to inquire
with wonder for the maker's name, whether it was such a common
thing as a knife-handle, or a bell, or a ship. Longfellow has
caught the spirit well in the Saga of the 'Long Serpent,' where the
builder of the vessel listens to axe and hammer--
"'All this tumult heard the master,
It was music to his ear;
Fancy whispered all the faster,
"Men shall hear of Thorberg Skafting
For a hundred year!"'
Would that there were more of this spirit in the workshops of our
day! They did not, when such a work was finished, hasten to blaze
it abroad with trumpet and shouting; it was not carried to the
topmost pinnacle of the mountain, in sight of all the kingdoms of
the earth. They were contented with the result of their labour, and
cared little where it was placed, or who saw it; and so it is that
some of the finest-toned bells in the world are at this moment to
be found in village churches, and for so local a fame the maker
worked as truly, and in as careful a manner, as if he had known his
bell was to be hung in St. Peter's at Rome. This was the true
spirit of art. Yet it is not altogether pleasant to contemplate
this bell; the mind cannot but reflect upon the length of time it
has survived those to whose joys or sorrows it has lent a passing
utterance, and who are now dust in the yard beneath.
"'For full five hundred years I've swung
In my old gray turret high,
And many a changing theme I've sung
As the time went stealing by.'
Even the 'old gray turret' shows more signs of age and of decay
than the bell, for it is strengthened with iron clamps and rods to
bind its feeble walls together. Of the pavements, whose flag-stones
are monuments, the dates and names worn by footsteps; of the vaults
beneath, with their grim and ghastly traditions of coffins moved
out of place, as was supposed, by supernatural agency, but, as
explained, by water; of the thick walls in which, in at least one
village church, the trembling victim of priestly cruelty was
immured alive--of these, and a thousand other matters that suggest
themselves, there is no time to speak. But just a word must be
spared to notice one lovely spot where two village churches stand
not a hundred yards apart, separated by a stream, both in the hands
of one vicar, whose 'cure' is, nevertheless, so scant of souls,
that service in the morning in one, and in the evening in the other
church, is amply sufficient. And where is there a place where
spring-time possesses such a tender yet melancholy interest to the
heart, as in a village churchyard, where the budding leaves, and
flowers in the grass, may naturally be taken as symbolical of a
still more beautiful spring-time yet in store for the soul?"