THOMAS HARDY'S DORSET
_Works by the same Author_
RUDYARD KIPLING: A CHARACTER STUDY
GEORGE BORROW: LORD OF THE OPEN ROAD
WAR AND THE WEIRD
THE AMBER GIRL
KIPLING'S SUSSEX
FRIENDLY SUSSEX. (_In the Press_)
[Illustration: Birthplace of Thomas Hardy, Upper Bockhampton]
THOMAS HARDY'S DORSET
BY R. THURSTON HOPKINS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY E. HARRIES
AND FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
NEW YORK
D APPLETON AND COMPANY
1922
FIRST EDITION 1922
COPYRIGHT
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED
EDINBURGH
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. DORSET FOLK AND DORSET WAYS 13
The Dorset Rustic a Genial Fellow--Unconscious Humour--The
Jovial Blacksmith--Cider-making--The Poetic
Tippler--Anglo-Saxon Tongue--Enigmatical Sayings and
Proverbs--A Dorset Rector and his Ale--Whiplegs--Thatch
and "Cob"--A Beautiful Tract between Seaton
and West Bay--The Devil's Own Card--Thomas Hardy's
Story of Witchcraft--Conjurer Trendle--The Piskies--The
Bibulous Farmer and the Piskies--The Cider Mill--Happy
Days at Hovey's Barn--Marc Bricks--A Game
of "Hunting"--A Dorset Vicar on Miracles--Akermann's
_Wiltshire Glossary_--William Barnes--"Dorset's good
enough for me!"--Large Farm Kitchens
II. BARFORD ST MARTIN TO TISBURY AND SHAFTESBURY 33
Tisbury--John Lockwood Kipling--The Green Dragon
at Barford St Martin--The Man who laughed gloriously--Points
of Perfection in a Greyhound--The Best Dog
that ever breathed--Shaftesbury and its Traditions--A
Curious Custom--A Story of Water-carrying Days at
Shaston--Bimport and _Jude the Obscure_--Old Grove's
Place--Marnhull--Pure Drop Inn
III. THE VALE OF BLACKMOOR 45
Fortune scowls on me--The Song of the Nightingale--A
Little Round-Faced Man--The Hauntings of Woolpit
House--The Vale of Blackmoor--White-Hart Silver--King's
Stag Inn--The Length of Life in Animals--Folk-Sayings
of Blackmoor--The Maidens of Blackmoor--Barnes
the Poet
IV. BLANDFORD TO DORCHESTER 59
Blandford--Winterborne Whitchurch--Turberville the
Poet--Milborne St Andrews--"Welland House"--Hardy's
_Two on a Tower_--Puddletown--The Story
of Farmer Dribblecombe and the Christmas Ale--The
Ancient Family of Martins--The Ape of the Martins--The
Last of the Martins--The Church of Puddletown--A
Sad Love Story--"Weatherbury Upper Farm"
V. DORCHESTER 69
Daniel Defoe's Description of Dorchester--Doctor
Arbuthnot--St Peter's Church--Thomas Hardy of
Melcombe Regis--William Barnes--Judge Jeffreys--Maumbury
Rings--Mary Channing strangled and burnt--Thomas
Hardy and Relics of Roman Occupation--Maiden
Castle--Old Inns--The Grammar School--Napper's
Mite--Hangman's Cottage--The Bull Stake--"Jopp's
Cottage"--Priory Ruins--High Place Hall--Colyton
House--The Mask with a Leer--Thomas Hardy
and the Habits of Bridge Haunters--Dorchester Ale--"Groves"
Stingo--_The Trumpet Major_--Toby Fillpot--A
Dorchester Butt--_Far from the Madding Crowd_--"Yellowham
Wood"--The Brown Owl--The Hedge Pig--Fordington--Church
of St George--Hardy's
"Mellstock"--Winterborne Villages--Original Manuscript
of _Mayor of Casterbridge_--Wolverton House--Knightly
Trenchards--Cerne Abbas and "The Giant"
VI. A LITERARY NOTE: THOMAS HARDY AND WILLIAM BARNES 98
Hardy's Grandfather--Hardy as a Poet--Primitive
Nature Worship--Prose Poem of the Cider-Maker--William
Barnes--Troublous Days--"Woak Hill"--Pathetic
Touch
VII. BERE REGIS AND THE ANCIENT FAMILY OF TURBERVILLE 122
Yellowham Hill--"The Royal Oak" at Bere Regis--My
Friend the Thatcher--The Complete Guide to Thatching--Bere
Regis Church--Humorous Norman Carvings--Sepulchre
of the Turbervilles--Outline of Hardy's _Tess_--A
Turberville Tradition--The First of the Turbervilles--Bryant's
Puddle--The Old Turberville Manor House--Descendants
of the Illegitimate Turbervilles--A Flagrant
Poacher--The Tyrant of the Tudor Inn--Hodge the
eternally efficient--Hardy's Tess and Wellbridge Manor
House--Tess's Ancestors--Smoke Pence--Superstition
and Shrewdness mingled in the Rustic--"Old Gover"--The
Story of the Turberville Coach--Bindon Abbey--Tess--A
Sinister Old Wood
VIII. ROUND AND ABOUT WEYMOUTH 147
Weymouth and Melcombe Regis--Rivalry of the Old
Boroughs--George III.--The Sands--Uncle Benjy and
Inflated Prices--Sandsfoot Castle--Weymouth Localities
in _The Trumpet Major_--_The Dynasts_--The Dorset
Rustic and Boney--The Girls of Budmouth--The "Naples
of England"--Mr Harper on the Hardy Country--Georgian
Houses--The Realest Things--Interesting
Relics--Preston--Sutton Poyntz--_The Trumpet
Major_--Overcombe Mill--To keep Dorset fair--A
Soldier Poet--Bincombe--Racy Saxon Speech--Hardy
on Wessex Words--Poxwell--Owermoigne--Lulworth
Cove--Portisham--Admiral Hardy--Abbotsbury
IX. POOLE 163
Poole Harbour--The Quay--An English Buccaneer--Brownsea--
Lytchett--"To please his Wife"--An Enjoyable Coast Ramble
X. SWANAGE AND CORFE CASTLE 168
Kingsley's Description of Swanage--Tilly Whim--Thomas
Hardy's "Knollsea"--The Quarry Folk--A
Mediæval Trades Guild--Old Dorset Family Names--Marrying
the Land--High Street at Swanage--Quaint
Houses and a Mill-Pond--St Mary's Church--Newton
Manor--Studland--The Agglestone--Langton Matravers--
Kingston--Enckworth Court--Corfe--The Greyhound
Hotel--An Elizabethan Manor-House--Corfe Church--A
Brave Good Chest--Curfew--Churchwardens and the
Degrees of Inebriation--Reward for killing a Fox--Lonely
Kingdom of an Inn--Wareham--Wild Life on the
Frome--Wareham once a Port--The "Bloody Bank"--Peter
of Pomfret--Meaning of the Name Wareham--Bishop
Cating--St Mary's Church--"Black Bear" and
"Red Lion"--Chapel of St Martin
XI. MY ADVENTURE WITH A MERRY ROGUE 191
My Sentimentalism over old Inns, old Ale and old
Drinking Vessels--Morcombe Lake--"Dorset Knobs"--The
Lonely Singer--The Leather Black Jack--Sleeping
with Miss Green--Lyme Regis--The Curiosity Shop--"The
Spirit of the Artist and the Soul of a Rogue"--We
are all Rogues!
XII. THE DEVON AND DORSET BORDERLAND 207
Stirring Events--Duke of Monmouth--New Inn--Youth
beckons with Magic Poignancy--Smuggling Days--Buddle
River Manners--The Cobb--Granny's Teeth--Buddle
Bridge--Town Hall--Henry Fielding--Church of
St Michael--Broad Street--The Master Smith of Lyme--M'Neill
Whistler--Old Songs--Beware of Late Shooting--Axminster--George
Inn--Musbury--Colyton--Knightly
Poles--"Little Choke-Bone"--The Courtenays--A
Rare British Flower--Lambert's Castle--Charmouth--Charles
II.
XIII. RAMBLES AROUND BRIDPORT 230
Toller of the Pigs--Noble Windows--Whyford Eagle--A
Curious Tympanum--A Remarkable Oven--Rampisham--"The
Tiger's Head"--Cross-in-Hand--Alec D'Urberville--Batcombe--
Conjuring Minterne--The Conjurer of
Bygone Days--Hardy's Story, "The Withered Arm"--Minterne's
Tomb--Kipling and a Sussex "Conjurer"--Bridport--Charles
II.--Hardy's _Fellow Townsmen_--"Greyhound
Hotel"--A Lover of Horses--"Bucky
Doo"--"The Bull" and Thomas Hardy--Footpath to
West Bay--The Chesil Beach--The "Anchor Inn" at Seatown
XIV. ROUND ABOUT BEAMINSTER 244
Beaminster--Lewson Hill and Pil'son Pen--Blue Vinny
Cheese--"Trinkrums" on a Church--An Eerie Story--
Netherbury--Robert Morgan and his "Feeble Hedde"
A GLOSSARY OF WEST-COUNTRY PROVINCIALISMS 249
Chosen in part from _Notes and Queries_; Akermann's
_Wiltshire Glossary_; _The Peasant Speech of Devon_, by
Sarah Hewett; Crossing's _Folk Rhymes of Devon_; _The
Saxon-English_, by W. Barnes; The Works of Thomas
Hardy; and many Sources not generally known
ILLUSTRATIONS
Birthplace of Thomas Hardy _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Stocks at Tollard Royal 34
The Green Dragon at Barford St Martin 38
The Giant, Cerne Abbas 92
Bingham's Melcombe 100
Hurdle-making at Bere Regis 126
Woolbridge House 136
Corfe Castle, 1865 160
The Famous Tillywhim Caves, 1860 170
Corfe Castle, 1860 176
The Lonely Singer 194
The River Buddle, Lyme Regis 202
The Master Smith of Lyme Regis 218
Drake Memorial at Musbury 222
THOMAS HARDY'S DORSET
CHAPTER I
DORSET FOLK AND DORSET WAYS
So to the land our hearts we give
Till the sure magic strike,
And Memory, Use, and Love make live
Us and our fields alike--
That deeper than our speech and thought
Beyond our reason's sway,
Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
Yearns to its fellow-clay.
RUDYARD KIPLING.
To the traveller who takes an interest in the place he visits, Dorset
will prove one of the most highly attractive counties in the kingdom. To
the book-lover it is a land of grand adventure, for here is the centre
of the Hardy Country, the home of the Wessex Novels. It is in Dorset
that ancient superstitions and curious old customs yet linger, and
strange beliefs from ages long ago still survive. It is good to find
that the kindly hospitality, the shrewd wisdom and dry wit, for which
the peasantry in Thomas Hardy's novels are famous, have not been
weakened by foolish folk who seek to be "up to date." Old drinks and
dishes that represent those of our forefathers, and the mellow sound of
the speech that was so dear to Raleigh and Drake, are things that are
now giving way to the new order of life, alas! but they are dying hard,
as behoves things which are immemorial and sacramental. The rustics are
perhaps not quite so witty as they are in Hardy's _The Return of the
Native_ and other novels, but they possess the robust forms and simple
manners of a fine old agricultural people, while they show their spirit
by the proverb, "I will not want when I have, nor, by Gor, when I
ha'n't, too!"
Heavy of gait, stolid of mien, and of indomitable courage, the true
Wessex man is a staunch friend and a very mild enemy. He is a genial
fellow and, like Danton, seems to find no use for hate. He knows that
all things done in _hate_ have to be done over again. Imperturbable to
the last ditch, he is rarely shaken into any exclamation of surprise or
wrath. When he is, "Dang-my-ole-wig!" "Dallee!" with a strong accent on
the "ee," or "Aw! dallybuttons!" are the kind of mild swear-words one
hears. But when he gets into the towns he forgets these strange phrases
and his dialect becomes less broad.
Heavy and stolid the Dorset rustic may be, though there is no reason to
suppose that he is slower than any other rustic, but one is inclined to
think that the "stupidity" of the countryman covers a deep, if only
half-realised, philosophy. Nevertheless we must admit that Hodge often
wins through in his slow way. There is a good deal of humour in the
Dorset rustic, but perhaps most of his wit is unconscious. That reminds
me of the story of a Dorset crier who kept the officials of the Town
Hall waiting for two hours on a certain morning. They were about to open
the proceedings without him when a boy rushed in and handed the Mayor a
message. He read the message and seemed deeply affected. Then he
announced:
"I have just received a message from our crier, saying, 'Wife's mother
passed away last night. Will not be able to cry to-day.'"
That story may be a very ancient "chestnut," but here is a true instance
of Hodge's unconscious humour. The wife of a blacksmith at an isolated
forge in Dorset had died rather suddenly, and it happened that during
one of my rambles I applied to the forge for food and lodging for the
night. The old fellow opened the door to me, and I guessed that he was
in trouble by the fresh crape band round his soft felt hat, which is
weekday mourning of the rustic. However, the old fellow was quite
pleased to have me for company, and I stayed at his forge for some days.
"Her was a clever woman; her kept my things straight," he said to me
one night at supper, as he looked wistfully at his old jacket full of
simple rents from hedgerow briars. "But it's no manner of use
grumbling--I never was a _bull-sowerlugs_ [a morose fellow]. And thank
the Lord she was took quick. I went off for the doctor four miles away,
and when I gets there he was gone off somewhere else; so I turned, and
in tramping back along remembered I had a bottle of medicine which he
did give me last year, so says I, 'That will do for the ol' woman'; so I
gave it to her and she died."
The old blacksmith drank his beer and dealt with his ham and bread for
ten minutes in silence. Then he looked into the amber depths of his ale
and said: "_Say, mister--wasn't it a good job I didn't take that bottle
of physic myself?_"
Dorset is only one of the several cider-making counties in Wessex. The
good round cider is a warming and invigorating drink that is in every
way equal to a good ale, and sometimes--especially if it has been
doctored with a little spirit and kept in a spirit cask--is considerably
stronger, and is by no means to be consumed regardless of quantity. And
one must be cautious in mixing drinks when taking cider. But the cider
which is consumed by the Dorset rustic is, to use a local word, rather
"ramy" or "ropy" to the palate of a person unaccustomed to it. That is
to say that it is sour and often rather thick. Of course the rustic
knows nothing, and would care nothing, for the so-called cider sold in
London which resembles champagne in the way it sparkles. Such stuff is
only manufactured for folk out of Wessex.
A Dorset rustic, on being reproved by a magistrate for being drunk and
disorderly, explained that his sad plight was the result of taking his
liquor the wrong way up; for, said he,
"Cyder upon beer is very good cheer,
Beer 'pon cyder is a dalled bad rider!"
The worthy magistrate, not to be vanquished by the poetic tippler, told
him to remember--
"When the cyder's in the can
The sense is in the man!
When the cyder's in the man
The sense is in the can."
"I wish," said an old shepherd to me, with regret in his voice, "that
you might taste such beer as my mother brewed when I was a boy. Bread,
cheese and ingyens [onions] with a drop of beer was parfuse [ample] for
a meal in those days, 'ess fay! But this beer they sell now is drefful
wishee-washee stuff. I'll be dalled if I'll drink it; 'tez water
bewitched and malt begridged [begrudged]." In Hodge's uncouth speech are
found many words and usages of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, though it is not
now relished by fastidious palates. William Barnes, the Dorset poet,
enumerates the chief peculiarities of the Dorset dialect in his books on
speech lore. He loved the odd phrases of children, and it is easy to see
why. For a child, not knowing the correct method of describing a thing
and seeking to express its meaning, will often go back to the strong old
Anglo-Saxon definitions. The child can often coin very apt phrases. As,
for instance, the Dorset child who spoke of honey as "bee-jam." Barnes
was delighted, too, with the boy "who scrope out the 'p' in 'psalm'
'cose it didn't spell nothen."
Many of the humours of Arcady have been moulded into enigmatical sayings
and metaphors which may still be heard on the lips of the Dorset rustic:
Tea with a dash of rum is called "milk from the brown cow"; the dead are
"put to bed with a shovel"; a noisy old man is a "blaze wig"; a fat and
pompous fellow is a "blow-poke"; the thoughts of the flighty girl go
a-"bell-wavering"; the gallows is the "black horse foaled by an acorn."
The Dorset rustic has devised many names for the dullard:
"billy-buttons," "billy-whiffler," "lablolly," "ninnyhammer," and
"bluffle-head" are some of them. The very sound of such names suggests
folly.
"Leer" is a curious word still heard in Dorset and Devon. It is used to
express the sense of craving produced by weakness and long fasting.
Perhaps Shakespeare used _Lear_ in a metaphorical sense. I remember once
hearing a Sussex labourer speak of taking his "coager" (cold cheer?), a
meal of cold victuals taken at noon, but I am told the mouthful of bread
and cheese taken at starting in the morning by the Dorset rustic
rejoices in the still more delightful name of "dew-bit."
"Crowder" (a fiddler) is a genuine British word, used up to a few years
ago, but I was unable to trace anyone using it in Dorset this year. In
Cornwall the proverb, "If I can't crowdy, they won't dance" (meaning,
"They will pass me by when I have no money to feast and entertain my
friends"), was commonly quoted fifty years ago.
Another tale regarding unconscious humour is told of by a Dorset rector
who was holding a Confirmation class. He was one of the old-fashioned
parsons and made it his solemn duty to call at the village inn and drink
a pint of ale with his flock every evening. One of the candidates for
Confirmation was the buxom daughter of the innkeeper, and when he came
to ask her the usual fixed question, "What is your name?" the girl,
holding her head on one side, glanced at him roguishly, and said:
"Now dawntee tell me you don't know. As if you diddent come into our
place every night and say, 'Now, Rubina, my dear, give me a half-pint of
your best ale in a pint pewter!'"
The story of village sports and the way in which the rustic was wont to
enjoy himself is always interesting. One of the most singular forms of
contest once in common practice in the west of England was _whiplegs_.
The procedure of this pastime consisted of the men standing a yard or so
apart and lashing each other's legs with long cart whips till one cried
"Holt!" The one who begged for quarter of course paid for the ale. The
rude leather gaiters worn by tranters or carters fifty years ago would,
of course, take much of the sting out of the whip cuts.
Thatch survives in nearly every village, and one of the favoured
building materials is stone from the Dorset quarries. At Corfe the
houses are built of stone from foundation to roof, and stone slabs of
immense size are made to take the place of tiles and slates. We find
"cob" cottages here and there, and this perhaps is the most ancient of
all materials, being a mixture of clay or mud and chopped straw. It is
piled into walls of immense thickness and strength, and then plastered
and white-washed. The natives in Egypt and Palestine construct their
village homes with the same materials, and the result is not only
wonderfully picturesque, but satisfactory in the more important respect
of utility. But now the Dorset people seldom build their walls of "cob"
as of yore, and yet such work is very enduring. As an old Devonshire
proverb has it: "Good cob, a good hat, and a good heart last for ever."
* * * * *
The beautiful tract of coast-line between Seaton on the west and West
Bay on the east is a region of great charm; for here will be found all
the most pleasing features of the sister counties, Dorset and Devon. The
gracious greenery and combes of Devon trespass over the border at Lyme
Regis and so bestow on this nook the wooded charm of the true West
Country, which is lacking on the chalky grass hills of other parts of
Dorset. If the coast is followed from Lyme Regis we soon thread our way
into the wild tangles of Devon. Things have changed somewhat in these
days, but still the true son of Devon carries his country with him
wherever he goes; he does not forget that every little boy and girl born
in the West is breathed over by the "piskies." But modern education has
just about killed the "piskies," and there are no more ghosts in the old
churchyards. There is a reason for the non-appearance of spirits at the
present day. They have ceased to come out of their graves, said an old
rustic, "ever since there was some alteration made in the burial
service." A firm belief in "_the very old 'un_" is still, however, a
most distinctive article of the rustic creed. "There was never a good
hand at cards if the four of clubs was in it," said a rooted son of the
soil to me. "Why?" I asked. "Because it's an unlucky card; it's the
devil's own card." "In what way?" I urged. "It's the _old 'un's_
four-post bedstead," was the reply.
Another rustic remarked in all seriousness that he did think wizards
"ought to be encouraged, for they could tell a man many things he didn't
know as would be useful to 'un." The belief in witchcraft is almost
dead, but it is not so many years ago that it was firmly held. Thomas
Hardy's tale, _The Withered Arm_, it will be recalled, is a story of
witchcraft. Farmer Lodge brought home a young wife, Gertrude. A woman
who worked on Lodge's farm, Rhoda Brook by name, had a son of which the
farmer was the father. Rhoda naturally resented the marriage, and had a
remarkable dream in which Gertrude, wrinkled and old, had sat on her
chest and mocked her. She seized the apparition by the left arm and
hurled it away from her. So life-like was the phantom of her brain that
it was difficult for her to believe that she had not actually struggled
with Gertrude Lodge in the flesh. Some time afterwards the farmer's wife
complained that her left arm pained her, and the doctors were unable to
give her any relief. In the end someone suggested that she had been
"overlooked," and that it was the result of a witch's evil influence.
She was told to ask the advice of a wise man named Conjurer Trendle who
lived on Egdon Heath. In the days of our forefathers the conjurer was an
important character in the village. He was resorted to by despairing
lovers; he helped those who were under the evil eye to throw off the
curse, and disclosed the whereabouts of stolen goods. His answers, too,
were given with a somewhat mystic ambiguity. "Own horn eat own corn"
would be the kind of reply a person would receive on consulting him
about the disappearance of, say, a few little household articles. Well,
to continue the story, Rhoda Brook accompanied Gertrude to the hut of
Conjurer Trendle, who informed the farmer's wife that Rhoda had
"overlooked" her. Trendle told her that the evil spell might be
dissolved and a cure effected by laying the diseased arm on the neck of
a newly hanged man. During the absence of her husband she arranged with
the Casterbridge hangman to try this remedy. On the appointed day she
arrived at the gaol, and the hangman placed her hand upon the neck of
the body after the execution, and she drew away half fainting with the
shock. As she turned she saw her husband and Rhoda Brook. The dead man
was their son, who had been hanged for stealing sheep, and they harshly
accused her of coming to gloat over their misfortune. At this the
farmer's wife entirely collapsed, and only lived for a week or so after.
Thomas Q. Couch, writing in _Notes and Queries_, 26th May 1855, gives a
pleasant and light-hearted article on the prevailing belief in the
existence of the piskies in the West Country:
"Our piskies are little beings standing midway between the purely
spiritual, and the material, suffering a few at least of the ills
incident to humanity. They have the power of making themselves seen,
heard, and felt. They interest themselves in man's affairs, now doing
him a good turn, and anon taking offence at a trifle, and leading him
into all manner of mischief. The rude gratitude of the husbandman is
construed into an insult, and the capricious sprites mislead him on the
first opportunity, and laugh heartily at his misadventures. They are
great enemies of sluttery, and great encouragers of good husbandry. When
not singing and dancing, their chief nightly amusement is in riding the
colts, and plaiting their manes, or tangling them with the seed-vessels
of the burdock. Of a particular field in this neighbourhood it is
reported that the farmer never puts his horses in it but he finds them
in the morning in a state of great terror, panting, and covered with
foam. Their form of government is monarchical, as frequent mention is
made of the 'king of the piskies.' We have a few stories of pisky
changelings, the only proof of whose parentage was that 'they didn't
goody' [thrive]. It would seem that fairy children of some growth are
occasionally entrusted to human care for a time, and recalled; and that
mortals are now and then kidnapped, and carried off to fairyland; such,
according to the nursery rhyme, was the end of Margery Daw:
"'See-saw, Margery Daw
Sold her bed, and lay upon straw;
She sold her straw, and lay upon hay,
Piskies came and carri'd her away.'
"A disposition to laughter is a striking trait in their character. I
have been able to gather little about the personalities of these
creatures. My old friend before mentioned used to describe them as about
the height of a span, clad in green, and having straw hats or little red
caps on their heads. Two only are known by name, and I have heard them
addressed in the following rhyme:--
"'Jack o' the lantern! Joan the wad!
Who tickled the maid and made her mad,
Light me home, the weather's bad.'
"But times have greatly changed. The old-world stories in which our
forefathers implicitly believed will not stand the light of modern
education. The pixies have been banished from the West, and since their
departure the wayward farmer can no longer plead being 'pisky-led' on
market nights.
"'Pisky-led!' exclaimed an old Devon lady to her bibulous husband, who
had returned home very late, pleading he had been led astray by the
piskies. 'Now, dawntee say nort more about it'--and with a solemn voice
and a shake of her bony finger she added: 'Pisky-led is whisky-led.
That's how it is with you!'"
* * * * *
May with its wealth of resurrecting life, its birds' songs, its flowers
uplifting glad heads, is a beautiful month in Dorset; but cider-making
time, when the trees put on a blaze of yellow and red and the spirit of
serenity and peace broods over everything, is the period that the true
son of Dorset loves best. Cider-makin' time--what a phrase! What
memories! Why, then, time does indeed blot and blur the golden days of
youth! I had almost forgotten the sweet smell of pomace and the cider
mill--things which loomed large in the days when I was a boy down Devon
way. It is middle age, which Stevenson likened to the "bear's hug of
custom squeezing the life out of a man's soul," that has robbed me of
the power to conjure up those happy days from the depths of my
consciousness. Certainly some virtue within me has departed--what? Well,
I do not know, but I cannot recapture the delirious joy of the apple
harvest in the West. It is only a memory. Perhaps it is one of those
things which will return unexpectedly, and by which I shall remember the
world at the last.
Well, then, when I was a boy, cider brewing in Hovey's barn was one of
the joys of life. A steam-engine on four wheels arrived from Exeter, and
pulleys and beltings were fixed up to work the old-fashioned press.
Within the barn a rumbling machine crushed the apples (which had been
growing mellow in the loft for a fortnight), and the press noisily
descended on the racks of pulp and sent the liquid into the tubs with a
swish like the fall of tropical rain. Outside the still October air was
broken only by the chug--chug--chug of the stationary engine and the
mellow voices and laughter of the farmers who delivered their apples and
received in exchange barrels of cider. The marc from the cider-press was
sometimes fed to cattle combined with bran, hay and chaff. But I suppose
that was an old-fashioned idea, and farmers to-day would ridicule such
a thing. But Farmer Hovey was a keen-eyed man of business--a man who
could farm his acres successfully in the face of any disaster. How I
wish that, now grown up, I could re-open those records, the book of his
memory! But it has long been closed, laid away in the tree-shaded
churchyard in Fore Street, near a flat stone commemorating John Starre:
JOHN STARRE.
Starre on Hie
Where should a Starre be
But on Hie?
Tho underneath
He now doth lie
Sleeping in Dust
Yet shall he rise
More glorious than
The Starres in skies.
1633.
Making "marc bricks" at Farmer Hovey's was the highest pinnacle of my
desire. It was one of those peculiarly "plashy" jobs in which any child
would delight. One could get thoroughly coated from head to foot with
the apple pulp in about half-an-hour. The "marc" was made into bricks
(about a pound in weight) to preserve it. It was first pressed as dry as
possible, made into cubes with wooden moulds, and stacked in an airy
place to dry. Hovey liked these bricks for fuel in the winter months,
and I remember they made a wonderfully clear fire. It was while making
up the apple pulp into bricks that my brothers and their friends caught
the idea of the game of "hunting." The apple pulp was first made up into
a score of heavy, wet balls. Having drawn lots as to who should be the
hunter, the winner would take charge of the ammunition and retire to the
barn, which was known as the "hunters' shack," while the other boys
would shin up the orchard trees, or conceal themselves behind walls,
ricks and bushes. A short start was allowed, and then the hunter sallied
forth with unrestricted powers to bombard with shot and shell anyone
within sight. The first one who made his way home to the "shack" became
the next hunter. Many a satisfying flap on the back of the neck have I
"got home" with those balls of apple pulp. It was a very primitive game,
sometimes a very painful one, and not infrequently it ended in a general
hand-to-hand fight. The game was certainly an excellent exercise in the
art of encountering the hard knocks of life with a sunny fortitude. In
1916 it was my fortune to suffer rather a sharp period of shell-fire in
Palestine with one of the players of this game. My old playmate turned
to me and yelled: "Hi, there, Bob! Look out! These coming over are _not_
made of apple pulp!"
Then the smell of the cider-press came full and strong on the night air
of the desert, and England and the West Country came back to me in the
foolishness of dreams, as the Garden of Hesperides or any other Valley
of Bliss my erring feet had trodden in heedless mood.
There is a story of a Dorset vicar who was explaining to his flock the
meaning of miracles. He saw that his hearers were dull and inattentive,
and did not seem to grasp what he was saying, so he pointed to an old
rascal of a villager who always lived riotously yet never toiled, and
said in a loud voice: "I will tell you what a miracle is. Look at old
Jan Domeny, he hasn't an apple-tree in his garden, and yet he made a
barrelful of cider this October. There's a miracle for you."
While cycling out of Swanage to Corfe--a backbreaking and tortuous
succession of hills--I had the misfortune to meet a wasp at full speed
and receive a nasty sting. I asked a little girl if her mother lived
near, as I wished to get some ammonia for it, and was delighted to hear
the child call to her mother through an open window: "Lukee, mother, a
wapsy 'ath a stinged this maister 'pon 'is feace." Which reminded me of
a story in Akerman's _Wiltshire Glossary_ of a woman who wished to show
off her lubberly boy to some old dames, and accordingly called him to
say his alphabet. She pointed to the letter "A" and asked Tommy to name
it. "Dang-my-ole-hat, I dwon't know 'un," said the child, scratching his
head. His mother passed this letter by and moved the point of her
scissors to the next letter. "What be thuck one, Tommy?" "I knows 'un by
_zite_, but I can't call 'un by's neame," replied the boy. "What is that
thing as goes buzzing about the gearden, Tommy?" The boy put his head on
one side and considered a moment, then replied, with a sly grin:
"Wapsy!"
William Barnes told a good tale of a West Country parson who preached in
the rudest vernacular. A rich and selfish dairyman of his flock died,
and in place of the customary eulogy at the graveside, he said: "Here
lies old ----. He never did no good to nobody, and nobody spake no good
o' he; put him to bed and let's prache to the living."
And here is a good story related to me by a West Country vicar. A lively
old lady in his parish was very ill, and likely, as it seemed, to die.
The vicar called on her and talked with professional eloquence of the
splendours and joys of heaven. But the bright old creature had no fears
for the future, and indeed was not so ill as they supposed. "Yes, sir,"
she said, "what you say may be very true, and heaven may be a
bobby-dazzling place; but I never was one to go a-bell-wavering--old
Dorset's good enough for me!"
Inside the old Dorset farm-houses there is much that belongs to other
days than these. Many old homes have deep porches, with stone seats on
each side, which lead to the large kitchen. It is large because it was
built in the days when the farmer had labourers to help in the fields,
and the mistress of the house had women servants to help with the
spinning and the poultry, and all who lived under the same roof had
their meals together in this room.
Many of the doors are as large and solid as church doors, and one that I
saw was studded with nails and secured by a great rough wooden bar drawn
right across it into an iron loop on the opposite side at night, and in
the day-time thrust back into a hole in the thickness of the wall. But
the majority are more homely than this and have only a latch inside
raised from outside by a leather thong, or by "tirling at the pin," as
in the old ballad.