[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER
VOL. VIII.—NO. 364.] DECEMBER 18, 1886. [PRICE ONE PENNY.]
TINNED MEATS; THEIR VALUE TO HOUSEKEEPERS.
BY A. G. PAYNE, Author of “Common-sense Cookery,” “Choice Dishes at
Small Cost,” “The Housekeeper’s Guide,” &c.
[Illustration: LOBSTER CANNING IN CANADA.]
_All rights reserved._]
Tinned meats and provisions may be regarded from two distinct points of
view. The majority of persons, especially in this country, look upon
them simply as a convenience to housekeepers, but the subject should
be regarded from a far higher point than one of mere convenience, for
by means of tinned provisions the whole food supply of the world is
increased, and thereby the happiness and enjoyment of mankind at large.
By means of tinned meats the superfluities of one country help the
deficiencies of others. Owing to this useful invention, no longer are
sheep slaughtered for their wool and tallow only, and the carcasses
wasted, but the whole is utilised. It should be borne in mind that
economy in the use of food is a duty clearly pointed out to us by the
highest of all authority. The age of miracles has passed, but were it
in our power to multiply our food miraculously, we are taught that it
would still be a duty to gather up the fragments that remain, that
nothing be lost.
At present I will confine myself to the consideration of tinned meats
in relation to their value to housekeepers, and I will illustrate my
subject by supposing the following case, which is by no means a rare
one in England in the present day.
There are, throughout the length and breadth of the land, many hundreds
of little quiet country villages which, to a certain extent, may be
said to be isolated from civilised life. There is the village inn,
alas! generally more than one; the village shop, a few scattered houses
and outlying farms. But for all practical purposes the well-to-do
inhabitants are dependent for their supplies on the carrier’s cart,
which takes a journey into the neighbouring town, some four or five
miles distant.
The village shop generally supplies the inhabitants with bread;
probably they will kill a pig on Thursday or Friday, and supply the
usual dish of pork for Sunday’s dinner. They also will usually be found
to deal in cheap crockery, needles and cotton, sweetstuff, candles,
pickles, etc. The only means of communication with the neighbouring
town is, as I have said, the carrier’s cart, which generally takes a
few passengers. I have lately lived in a little village myself, and
have travelled by the same hooded conveyance backwards and forwards,
never without thinking of the lazy horse associated with David
Copperfield; and, indeed, at times I have felt inclined to chalk up in
the corner, “Barkis is willin’.” The carrier usually takes his orders
the night before, starts at an early hour in the morning, and returns
in time to supply the dinner-table. Let us suppose that he has brought
with him a shoulder of mutton, and that, instead of dining late, as
is our wont, we, on this particular day, dine early. Shortly before
our usual dinner hour, we are suddenly alarmed by the astounding news,
“Oh, mamma, Mr. Smith has arrived; what are we to do?” Hospitality is
a duty, and were I cynically inclined, I would imagine Mr. Smith to be
a rich old bachelor uncle, very fond of good living, from whom we had
great expectations; but I would rather put this supposititious case.
Suppose Mr. Smith to be an old friend of our father who has seen better
days, in which he showed us many little acts of kindness. Under these
circumstances he is, of all men in the world, the very last one to whom
we should like to give the “cold shoulder.” What is to be done?
We will suppose that our housekeeper, or whoever acts as such, has, in
anticipation of such contingencies, laid in a little stock of tinned
goods, which are safely put by in the store closet. Having welcomed
our guest, and whispered a few words to the cook and those willing
to assist her, we will calmly sit down to our table, take a sheet of
paper, and commence as follows:—
MENU.
Ox Tail Soup.
Salmon Mayonnaise.
Hashed Mutton and Pickled Walnuts.
Curried Rabbit.
Asparagus.
Plum Pudding. Brandy Sauce.
Jelly in glasses.
Pine Apple (whole in syrup).
If the cook is smart, the whole dinner could be served easily within
an hour, and should one or two of the girls in the house be willing to
assist (and who would not, under such circumstances?), the dinner might
be sent to table in considerably less time. I can imagine some of my
readers glancing over the bill of fare I have just written, and saying
to themselves, “What a lot of saucepans we shall want on the fire at
the same time!” This, however, is not the case; for I would remind you
that one of the first points to learn in connection with the serving
of tinned meats is that they should be warmed up in the tin before it
is opened. We can, therefore, perform the astonishing trick of making
hot our ox-tail soup, our curried rabbit, our asparagus, and our plum
pudding in the same saucepan at the same time.
I must, however, commence at the beginning. Our store cupboard is
supposed to contain the following provisions in tins:—Ox-tail soup,
preserved salmon, mayonnaise sauce, curried rabbit, asparagus, plum
pudding, pine apple in syrup, as well as a bottle of jelly. I may,
however, mention, with regard to the mayonnaise sauce, that should
you have a bottle of oil in the house and a couple of eggs, it would
be better to make some fresh sauce from the egg and oil direct. Our
cupboard will also contain a bottle of pickled walnuts, a bottle of
capers, a bottle of olives, and a bottle of anchovies.
Of course we commence dinner with the soup, unless we happen to have
in the house a Brunswick sausage, in which case a few thin slices of
Brunswick sausage may be placed in a plate with a few of the anchovies,
capers, olives, and a little pat of butter, as there are many persons
who like to commence dinner with what is known as a _hors d’œuvre_, and
I do not know a better mixture than the one I have named.
But to return to the soup. In my opinion, of all provisions sold in
tins at present, the soups are the greatest failures.
This is very much to be regretted; but there is a good old saying,
that we must always make the best of a bad job. As a rule, the thick
soups are better than the clear, and although I have mentioned ox-tail
soup, I will later on give a list of the soups from which you may
take your choice. Fortunately, all thick soups in tins can be very
greatly improved by a very simple method. Make the thick soup hot in
the tin, take the tin out of the hot water, open it, and pour the
contents into a saucepan. Of course, if there are many persons to
dinner, it would be necessary to warm up two tins, or even more. I will
now describe the contents of the tin. The soup itself is not exactly
thick, nor is it exactly clear. The bones of the tail, instead of being
surrounded by the meat, are quite bare, and it looks as if the bone
and the meat had had a quarrel, and they had mutually agreed never
to speak to one another again, while the bone itself recalls a game
known as “knuckle-bones.” To every pint of soup in the saucepan add as
follows: a brimming dessertspoonful of brown thickening, or what French
cooks know as brown roux. This brown roux looks like light-coloured
chocolate. It keeps good for months, is very cheap, very useful,
and I will describe how to make it by-and-by. Add, also, a brimming
teaspoonful of extract of meat and half a glass of sherry. The effect
of adding the brown roux is that when the roux is crumbled into the
soup and gently stirred over the fire till it boils, it makes the soup
thicker than it was before. It also makes it darker in colour, richer
in flavour, and makes the divorce between the meat and the bone less
conspicuous.
The extract of meat also greatly adds to its nutritious properties,
and gives additional colour. The sherry gives it flavour. Were I going
to take the soup myself, I should also add a little cayenne pepper and
lemon-juice, but we must be very cautious how we use cayenne, unless we
know the taste of our guests.
We will next consider the salmon mayonnaise. As this is all cold, we
should naturally see to the hot things first, and we will, therefore,
suppose that the ox-tail soup, the curried rabbit, the asparagus, and
the plum pudding are all getting hot in the saucepan. First open the
tin of salmon. Turn the contents entirely out. If there is any liquid,
throw it away, and, as far as possible, absorb all the moisture of the
salmon in a dry cloth before placing it in a dish. Make the surface,
as far as possible, oval, and raised in the middle, and then pour the
sauce with a spoon gently over the top, so that it looks like a custard
pudding. If the season of the year is suitable, and we have some
lettuces in our garden, of course we should cut one or two lettuces,
and surround the salmon with the best part of the lettuce. Next to
ornament the salad. Take a bottle of capers, and with a spoon take out
about a couple of dozen, throw these into a cloth and dry them, and
place them at intervals on the sauce. Then take three or four anchovies
out of the bottle, cut them into strips, remove the bone, and place
these little strips of anchovy round the base of the light pyramid
of sauce like trellis work. A dozen olives may be placed also round
the base of the salad, the stone being removed with a knife. This is
done by taking not too sharp a knife and cutting the olive sideways,
keeping the blade of the knife always in contact with the stone of
the olive. When the stone is removed the olive assumes its original
shape, of course with a hole in the middle where the stone has been.
Now take a little piece of parsley and chop up enough, say, to cover a
shilling or a little more. Place this on the tip of a knife and shake
it gently over the mayonnaise sauce, so that the little green specks
of parsley fall naturally. Now take a bottle of cochineal, supposing
you have one—cochineal can be bought at sixpence a bottle, and keeps
good for months, or even years—and drop a few drops in a plate or
saucer; take a little piece of dry bread and make about a saltspoonful
of fine breadcrumbs. Throw these dry breadcrumbs into the saucer with
the cochineal, and shake them. This will cause the breadcrumbs to turn
red. These can be shaken over the mayonnaise like the chopped parsley,
and we shall have a very bright-looking dish. The green lettuce round
the edge, the raised surface of the salmon covered with the yellow
mayonnaise sauce in the middle, which is decorated round the base with
the anchovies and olives, and on the top the capers and the little
green and red specks, which contrast nicely with the yellow. If you
have no lettuce or salad of any kind to put round the base, you can
ornament the edge with hard-boiled eggs cut in quarters, and a sprig of
parsley between each piece.
Our next dish is the hashed mutton and pickled walnuts. This scarcely
comes in the category of tinned meats. The mutton we had for dinner was
probably in a semi-cold and flabby state when our guest arrived. Were
I going to make the hashed mutton, I should commence by slicing up a
couple of onions, browning them in a frying-pan with a little butter,
then pouring in the remains of all the gravy that had been left from
the joint, cutting the mutton into slices, and warming them up in this
gravy, taking care it does not boil; and as the gravy would be rather
poor, as soon as the soup was got ready I should add two or three
tablespoonfuls of the soup to the hashed mutton. And let me remind you
of another very great improvement. Add, as well, a dessertspoonful
of Harvey sauce, after shaking the bottle. You can toast a piece of
bread a nice brown, as you would not have time to fry any bread, which
is better. Cut the toast into round pieces, and place them round the
hash alternately with the pickled walnuts cut in half. Do not send
the hashed mutton to table in a great, big dish, large enough to hold
a round of beef, but serve it in a deep dish—a vegetable dish, for
instance. By this means it keeps hot longer, and looks more appetising.
Our next dish is the curried rabbit. First class curry can be obtained
in tins. Remember that tinned meats are like everything else in the
world—some are good, and some are bad. If you wish for a bottle of
really good wine, you must go to a first class wine merchant; and if
you wish your tinned provisions good, you must get them from first
class people, or see that some well-known name is on the label.
Unfortunately, this country has been flooded, from time to time, with
worthless imitations, introduced by unknown men who have no name to
lose.
The curry, having been made hot in the tin, should be turned out in a
deep dish; and here again I would recommend a vegetable dish. Boiled
rice should be served with it in a separate dish, and the rice should
be handed before the curry. If you have any chutney in the house, the
chutney should be served with the curry, like they do on board the
P. & O. boats, which are so famed for their oriental curry cooks.
When the curry has been turned out into the dish, you might add a few
fresh bayleaves and serve them up in the curry whole, and if you feel
anxious to have the dish ornamental you can proceed as follows, and,
should your guest be an “old Indian,” he will probably appreciate the
addition:—Take some red chilis and bend each chili in the middle, so
as to make it look like one of the small claws of a lobster, and place
these red chilies round the edge of the dish in a triangular shape,
exactly as if you were placing the small claws of a lobster around a
lobster salad mayonnaise.
The asparagus should be served as a course by itself. When the tin is
sufficiently hot, which it will be a few minutes after the water has
boiled, take it out and open it, pour off the liquid, and serve the
asparagus on a piece of toast. A little butter sauce should be handed
round with it.
Butter sauce is best made by simply thickening, say, half a pint of
water (not milk) with a little butter and flour mixed together. When
the water is sufficiently thick, add some more butter to the hot,
thickened water till it becomes rich and oily.
As soon as you have handed round the butter sauce with the asparagus,
take the tureen down-stairs, and let the cook put back the butter sauce
in the saucepan for a minute, and add a tablespoonful of moist sugar, a
tablespoonful of rum, and two tablespoonfuls of brandy. By this means
we avoid waste, and make the same sauce do twice. If you don’t approve
of spirits being used in the kitchen (I don’t approve of it myself),
add a little sherry, and rub a few lumps of sugar on the outside of
a lemon, and also two drops of essence of almonds. (You can, indeed,
leave out the sherry, and still have a good sauce.)
The plum pudding will be hot through after the water has boiled for
over half an hour. Open the tin, take out the pudding, and serve with a
little sauce poured over it, and the rest in a tureen.
The jelly should be served in glasses, for the simple reason that there
is no time to melt the jelly. Open the bottle, and rake out sufficient
jelly with a bent skewer to fill the glasses.
The pineapple, whole, in addition to the usual stock of almonds and
raisins, figs, biscuits, &c., makes a first-class dessert.
It is perhaps needless to add that as a rule all these dishes are not
necessary for one dinner; but I wish to show what can be done in order
to avoid giving your friends the “cold shoulder.”
(_To be continued._)
THE SHEPHERD’S FAIRY.
A PASTORALE.
BY DARLEY DALE, Author of “Fair Katherine,” etc.
CHAPTER XI.
THE WHITE RAM.
The secret of Fairy’s parentage died with Dame Hursey, and for the next
two or three years she lived quietly on with the Shelleys, nothing
more remarkable than the finding of some rare bird, or an occasional
tiff with Jack, the Lewes carnival on the fifth of November, and the
sheep washing and shearing every June, occurring to vary the monotony
of her happy life. She was naturally a bright, happy little creature,
not much given to thinking, and if she sometimes wondered who she was
and where she came from, she never allowed the matter to distress her;
she had the Shelleys, and they all worshipped her, and if she wanted
other friends she was always welcome at the Rectory, where she still
continued to go every day for her lessons. As to the future, it is
doubtful if she ever gave it a thought; she lived as all children do,
for the present, at least, as far as this world is concerned, though
neither she nor any one else could have been brought up by good John
Shelley without learning that life here is but a preparation for the
life to come. Ignorant as the shepherd was in many things, he was
by no means ignorant in things spiritual, and his knowledge of the
Bible, large portions of which he knew by heart, would have put many
an educated man and woman to shame. It was a favourite amusement of
Fairy’s and the boys on long Sunday winter evenings, when there was
no service at church, and after John had read the evening service to
them, as he invariably did, to start him off in some chapter and see
how long he would go on without stopping, saying it by rote. He always
carried a small Bible in his pocket, and during his long days with the
sheep, he had plenty of opportunities of studying it; and he studied it
to some purpose, for he was a fine character. Faults he may have had,
but you might have known him a long time before you discovered them.
Mrs. Shelley, who had better opportunities of judging than anyone else,
would have said he liked his own way too much; and that, for such a
wise man as he was, it was surprising how easily he allowed a little
thing like Fairy, whom he always had spoilt, to get over him; but it is
doubtful whether in her heart of hearts she considered either of these
faults.
If he had any pride in his composition it was entirely professional,
and when one May evening, sixteen years after Fairy first was brought
to Lewes, he announced to his family that he had been elected captain
of the Lewes shearing company, his face certainly glowed with an honest
pride, for he had then obtained the highest honour which could be
conferred on a shepherd, and realised his fondest dreams of earthly
happiness.
In those days it was the custom for shearers to form themselves into
companies, called after the district in which they lived, and to go
round to the various farms in the district in the shearing season,
which begins in the middle of June, shearing the different flocks. The
shearers in those days were generally shepherds, and each band had a
lieutenant and a captain, the former distinguished by a silver band
round his cap and a badge, the latter by a gold band and badge to
match. They were chosen according to their proficiency in shearing, and
for the good character they bore. John Shelley had been a lieutenant
for some years, but he was now elected captain, owing to the death
of the captain of the Lewes band, an old man over seventy; and with
this honour some new duties devolved upon him, for at the captain’s
house was held the shearing feast, called the White Ram. This feast
lasted throughout the shearing week, and consisted of a supper after
the day’s work was over; first, a good, substantial meal, in which
the Sussex dish of beefsteak pudding, the crust made of flour and
water, played an important part, and then ending with cakes and ale,
during the consumption of which shearing songs were sung and many
pipes were smoked till late in the long summer evening, when the men
dispersed—sometimes not before midnight—to their various homes.
These bands are now a thing of the past, though the shearing is still
done by men who go round for the purpose, but no lambs are shorn
nowadays, so the work is very much lessened.
“There is plenty of work for you, Polly; you’ll have to get someone in
to help you; we shall have to have the White Ram here for the future,”
said John.
“Oh, what fun!” exclaimed Fairy; “now I shall see it all, and hear the
shearing songs. Mother, you must let me help; John says no one can make
plum heavies, not even you, mother, like me: can they, John?”
“No, but I am thinking those little white fingers of yours are not fit
for that sort of work, my pretty one,” said John.
“Stuff! white fingers can work as well as red ones—better, I daresay,
if the truth were known. And may I help to wait on you?” asked Fairy.
“No, certainly not,” growled Jack; “you listen outside to the shearing
songs with me, but you are not going inside to wait on a lot of rough
men, who will, perhaps, take more beer than they ought.”
“No, Jack; I’ll have none of that; it shall never be said that John
Shelley’s White Ram is disgraced by drunkenness. But you must come to
the feast, even if Fairy does not, for you must go round shearing this
year; it is time you began, if, as I hope, one of these days you are to
take my place of captain.”
“There’s an honour for you, Captain Jack. Don’t you wish you may ever
get it?” laughed Fairy.
But Jack neither laughed nor wished for the honour; hitherto he had
always managed to escape going round with the shearers, but this year
he saw he must go, since he had not the heart to throw a shadow over
his father’s innocent joy by refusing; so he said with the best grace
he could, “Very well, father, I’ll go shearing, but Fairy can’t be left
out in the cold, I shall have to stay with her during the supper.”
“No, you need not, we will take it by turns; I can stop with Fairy
sometimes,” said Charlie, a remark by no means calculated to soothe
Jack, whose love and jealousy had grown greatly in the last few years;
but Mrs. Shelley wisely stopped the discussion by remarking that there
was plenty of time to settle the details, as the sheep-washing was not
begun yet.
“It begins to-morrow though; Jack and I are off with half our flock at
daybreak to-morrow. Charlie, you must follow the rest for a day or two;
I must have Jack with me to-morrow,” said the shepherd.
“And I shall come too. If mother can’t take me, I shall get the Leslies
to come. I always go to see our sheep washed every year,” said Fairy.
Accordingly, early next morning the shepherd and his son were up at
dawn, driving their sheep to the brook in which the sheep-washing took
place. For some days previously, preparations had been made for this
washing, which lasts two or three weeks, as all the sheep for miles
round are brought to this spot. These preparations consisted of pens
made of hurdles by the side of the river for the sheep; in the stream
itself, opposite to each other, were erected two rough pulpits or deal
boxes, in which stand the sheep-washers. When Jack and his father
arrived, it was so early that no one was there, not even the washers;
but at ten o’clock, when Mrs. Shelley and Fairy went, the scene was a
most lively one.
Hundreds of sheep were in the pens, some white and clean, their
agonies over; others still dirty, with their tortures to come. On
the neighbouring bridge stood or leant every child in the village,
thoroughly enjoying the sight. On the roadside were some stragglers of
all grades, watching the performance, one or two farmers on horseback
who had a lively interest in the washing of their flocks, and on the
banks several shepherds, among them Jack and his father, all armed with
large, toothless wooden rakes, with which they push the sheep about,
holding them under water when necessary, and steering them from pulpit
to pulpit.
What with the laughter and screams of delight from the children, the
shouts of the shepherds, and the coughing of the sheep and jingling
of their bells, the scene is a very noisy one; but, noisy as it is,
Fairy thoroughly enjoys it, and declares she must stay till the last
of John’s red-ringed flock are finished. It is such fun to see the
poor sheep tumbled into the water and then rolled over on its back and
rubbed from head to foot in the bright, clear stream, first by one
washer in his pulpit, and then, after sundry pushes and thumps from
the toothless rakes, to be seized by the other washer and subjected to
another vigorous rubbing and scrubbing, and splashing and dashing, and
finally to be pushed off to scramble or swim as best it might out of
the river.
Poor, patient sheep! They take their sufferings in very good part, and
submit meekly enough to the inevitable ordeal, basing a protest as
feeble as it is useless, the older and wiser ones knowing that this
washing is but a preliminary to the still more disagreeable ceremony
of shearing to be performed a fortnight hence, as soon as the wool
is dry. And Fairy, fascinated by the picturesque scene, could not be
persuaded to move when Mrs. Shelley was forced to go home to prepare
some dinner—a useless labour, Fairy declared, since there would be no
one to eat it, for Charlie had taken his with him, and John and Jack
were too busy to stop for dinner, and she herself was not hungry, and
had no intention of going home till all John’s sheep were washed. But
Mrs. Shelley had no idea of leaving a pretty young girl like Fairy
alone among a crowd of people, so she proposed they should both go home
and fetch some dinner and share it out in the field with John and Jack,
a proposal Fairy jumped at; and an hour later the four were sitting on
a bank under a hedge of blackthorn, with a carpet of buttercups and
daisies at their feet, eating their simple meal as happy as it was
possible for four people to be.
And then, while the shepherd smoked his pipe, Jack gave Fairy a lesson
in the notes of the different birds which were singing around them, and
Mrs. Shelley listened with pride to her eldest and darling son, and
wondered whether Fairy would ever care for him in the way he evidently
cared for her, and thought what a handsome couple they would make.
“Oh, Jack, how clever you are; you know everything; but there, I do
know one thing—I am right this time at least—there is a skylark singing
up over our heads. Look,” cried Fairy, who had been making various
wrong guesses at the names of the different songsters around them.
“Poor little Fairy! you are wrong again; it is a woodlark; the skylark
mounts up straight in a succession of springs, and then hovers,
singing; the woodlark flies round and round in circles, singing all the
while, as this bird is doing,” said Jack.
“Oh, I give it up; I know nothing; but as long as I have you to tell
me, what does it matter? I shall go and look for a wheatear’s nest in
that fence,” said Fairy, rising and shaking back her long golden hair,
which she still wore down her back, and which added greatly to her
childish appearance.
“My pretty one, wheatears don’t build in fences,” cried John Shelley,
as she ran lightly past him.
“She is doing it on purpose; she knows as well as you and I wheatears
build in rabbit-holes or chalk-pits; she only wants me to scold her,”
said Jack.
“It is time we were at work again, Jack, or we shan’t get our eight
hundred washed to-day,” said John, who saw Jack showed signs of going
after Fairy, and wisely thought he would not see him back in a hurry if
he once let him go.
So the sheep-washing began again, and Mrs. Shelley, who had brought
some work with her, promised Fairy to remain till tea-time, on
condition that she then accompanied her home.
“I do enjoy it so, mother,” said Fairy; “it would be wicked to spend
such a bright warm sunny day as this shut up in a house; it is so
delicious out in this field. I wonder how much they pay those washers;
it must be dreadfully hard work; they ought to pay them well.”
“They give them half-a-crown for every hundred sheep, and they can wash
a thousand sheep a day, but these men won’t do more than finish John’s
eight hundred to-day.”
“That leaves nearly eight hundred more for to-morrow. Oh! do let us
come and have another day like this. Will you, mother?” pleaded Fairy.
Mrs. Shelley looked at the fair little face, with its great brown eyes,
its dainty pink and white complexion, and the long wavy hair which
veiled the slight girlish figure, and smiled and sighed—the smile
was for Fairy, and the sigh for Jack—as she promised to do so if the
weather were fine.
[Illustration: THE SHEEP-WASHING.]
And so it came to pass that that sheep-washing was long remembered by
Jack as two of the happiest days in his life, though, alas! they came
to an end, as all days, however happy, must only too soon; and then
came a fortnight of preparation for the great event of the shepherds’
year—the sheep-shearing and the Feast of the White Ram. Jack had not
much to do with the preparations, for he was upon the downs with his
washed flock, but little else was talked of when he came home in the
evening, and it was a very busy time for Mrs. Shelley, who had to
provide supper for twelve men for five nights, the shearing beginning
on the Tuesday, and ending on the Saturday, when the money earned was
divided among the company. It had been a source of much anxiety to
Mrs. Shelley to know where the supper was to be held. To have these
twelve men in the kitchen in which she had to cook it all would be
very inconvenient, and she was by no means inclined to lend the little
sitting-room, which Fairy had made so pretty, for the purpose; but
at last Jack suggested borrowing a tent and pitching it in the field
near the house, a plan which was at once adopted. The shearing itself
took place outside a barn belonging to the farmer who owned the sheep
about to be shorn, and the company went round to the principal farmers
in the neighbourhood, taking one each day of the shearing week. How
Jack hated this business of shearing! He would have given anything to
have got out of it, if he could only have done so without vexing his
father; but as this was impossible, he was obliged to go on with it
with the best grace he could, but he was in an irritable mood all the
week. The work brought him into contact with other shepherds, with
none of whom had he anything in common, and made him realise his lowly
position, which in his lonely life on the downs, lost in his studies,
he was apt to forget. He would long ago have given up his shepherd’s
calling and gone to London to seek more congenial work, if it had not
been for Fairy; she was the magnet which held him in her vicinity,
but he was daily becoming aware that if any of his dreams were to be
realised, he must go away at once, though the time he spent on the
downs was by no means wasted, since he was educating himself to the
best of his ability. His idea was to try and get an appointment as
usher in a school, for which in those days he was fully qualified.
In teaching others he would learn himself; he would have access to
books of all kinds, and he would be able in his leisure hours to pursue
his favourite study of natural history. He had confided this plan to
Mr. Leslie, who had promised to look out for him, and when an opening
occurred to give him a testimonial. Another reason which had kept Jack
at home hitherto was that Charlie was barely old enough to take his
place, but during this last sheep-washing Charlie had had the care of
half the flock, and had shown himself quite up to his work, which, in
the summer, at any rate, was just the lazy, dreamy kind of life to suit
an indolent nature like his, and Jack saw he need no longer delay his
departure because there was no one to take his place. On the contrary,
it would solve a difficulty, for it had hitherto been rather a puzzle
to know what to do with Charlie since John Shelley only required one
under-shepherd, and he did not seem to have any inclination for any
other kind of work. Accordingly, all through the White Ram Jack was
making up his mind to tear himself away from Fairy, in the hope of
eventually winning for himself a position he could ask her to share,
and the thought of the coming separation did not tend to make him
happier.
Every morning he started with the rest of the Lewes company of
shearers, with his father at their head, for some farm, where they
spent their day in shearing the sheep, pausing about twelve and again
about two o’clock to “light up,” that is to sharpen their shears, eat
cakes, and drink beer, the meal of the day being supper when they got
back after their labours were over.
(_To be continued._)
EVERY GIRL A BUSINESS WOMAN.
A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO THE WORLD OF INDUSTRY AND THRIFT.
BY JAMES MASON.