IN WHICH SUSSEX VOICES ARE RAISED IN MELODY, UNCLE JONAH GIVES HIS
MEMORY PLAY, AND WE MEET A NAPOLEONIC QUAKER
We have just been down into Sussex to get some songs of which word
had reached the Director, whose passion is the search for these
ancient melodies. Where others hunt hares or foxes, he pursues the
elusive ditty. Village after village he draws blank, without ever
losing heart, and then is rewarded by hearing at last of some old
gaffer to be met with at the Red Lion or Blue Boar or King's Head, no
matter how far away, who once sang a rare good song and can still
quaver out the ghost of it. Then the Director rises to his greatest
heights, for although deep potations and himself are at enmity, yet
in the interests of England and music he has had (to allay suspicion)
to consume much ale and stand ever so much more before the melodist
was ready to begin.
Of course, not all his singers are in inns; he has found many in
cottages, too; but the village public-house naturally remains the
happiest hunting-ground.
On this occasion we were bound for a private house to which the
singer had been bidden. The party consisted of the Director of
course with his little musical notebook, Naomi, and I. My duty was
to take down the words, a far more difficult task, as I have pointed
out again and again, than to get the music, because all the words are
different, whereas, the tune is the same all through. An added
difficulty for the word-transcriber is the fact that old Sussex
labourers have few or no teeth, and Heaven alone knows what sometimes
they sing: certainly they themselves do not.
We were driven from the station in the dark to a rambling house under
the hills, and having dined were led to another room in which three
elderly brothers were seated and one brother's wife. Two were
shepherds, one of whom--Uncle Jonah--still retained the round, or
smock, frock. This one, I am pleased to record, could not read, nor
could his younger brother, the married one, but the elder brother and
the younger brother's wife were "scholards." The elder brother was
the chief singer, and while the others played a little at
backwardness, he was always ready with whatever song he could
remember: a tall man about sixty-seven, with a ruddy, rather
mischievous face fringed with whiskers, and a gentle sly humour. He
and the shepherd were the pick; the younger brother was slower and
more stolid.
It was a successful evening in that it yielded six or seven songs
that the Director had not heard before, although the quality, he
said, was not equal to that of the West Country. Why, when we all
equally have the gift of speech, there is this capriciousness in the
bestowal of the gift of song, is a problem and anomaly that have
always perplexed and irritated me. Why should one human throat be
melodious, and another--my own, for example--emit nothing but
dissonance? Again, why should one human creature with a voice be
willing to use it, and another hide the gift under a bushel of
self-consciousness? But the Director has a way with the shy that
sooner or later prevails. He too begins to sing, and by-and-bye the
shy enter in, and then gradually the Director drops out and the shy
sing on alone and never falter again.
If the Director's methods were bewildering to me, what must they have
been to these simple folk? For he takes out pencil and his little
notebook ruled with staves, and the instant the singer has done he
can go to the piano and play the song word for word, with all its
peculiarities of movement, its hurryings and pauses, its unexpected
cadences, its curious melancholy. Magic, surely! I can just begin
to understand shorthand, but not this mystery. During the first
verse he sits intent, with his pencil poised over the paper, waiting
to strike. During the second verse he is recording all the time.
During the third he makes little refining touches, and the tune is
complete.
The words, taken separately, were my department. The words of
folk-songs without music are always far enough removed from melody,
but the ditty which I copy here, which we may call "Winter's Signs,"
is, I think, the farthest removed of all, although as a piece of
bleak impressionism it is good: indeed, rather like an etching; and
yet, as sung by this old man, with his soft musical quavers, it was
not only beautiful but hauntingly so. The words are exactly as he
had them, all unconscious that they made contradictions and have
neither scansion nor rhyme. Here they are:
The trees they're all bare, not one leaf to be seen,
The meadows their beauty's all gone.
And as for the leaves, they're falling from the trees
And the streams they were--and the streams they were--fast
bound by the frost.
In the yards where the oxen all foddered with straw
Send forth their breath like a stream,
The sweet-looking milkmaid she finds she must go;
Flakes of ice finds she--flakes of ice finds she--on her cream.
The poor little small birds to the barn doors fly for food,
Silent they rest on the spray,
The poor innocent sheep from the Downs until the fold
With their fleeces all--with their fleeces all--covered with snow.
The poor little pigeon all shivering with cold,
So loud the north winds do blow;
The poor tiny hares search the woods all for their food
Unless their footsteps their--unless their footsteps
their--innocence betray.
Now Christmas is gone my song is almost sung,
Soon will come the springtime of the year,
Come unto me the glass and let your health go round
And we wish you a--and we wish you a--happy New Year.
That, as I have said, is poor stuff, although it successfully carries
its wintry feeling; but now try it with the music.
[Illustration: Music fragment]
The trees they're all bare, not one leaf to be seen; The
mea - dows their beau - ty's all gone; And
as for the leaves they're fall - ing from the trees,
And the streams they were, . . And the streams they
were fast bound by the frost.
I assure you that the old man's gentle caressing voice when singing
about the poor little pigeon, the poor innocent sheep, and the poor
tiny hares, made the situation absolutely poignant.
One other of the songs I am tempted to reproduce: this also with an
innocent hare in it; a hunting song. There is something rather
pretty about the willingness of the poor to sing hunting-songs--to
praise a sport which exists wholly for their masters and in which
they cannot participate. At the most they see the horsemen and
hounds go by and hear the horn and the shouts; even the hare falls to
the pack. But the English peasant is not envious. He accepts his
lot quite simply and naturally, and after a long day's work in the
fields and the rain, for insufficient shillings to add meat to the
family table, is quite cheerfully ready to lift up his voice in
praise of the sport which his roystering master has been enjoying.
So let it be: I am merely recording the fact.
Here is the merriest and most tuneful of the hunting-songs.
[Illustration: Music fragment]
Ye sports-men, rouse the morn - ing fair, The
larks are sing - ing in . . the air; Go
tell your sweet lover the hounds are out, Go
tell your sweet lover the hounds are out; Saddle your hor-ses, your
sad-dles pre-pare, A - way to the covers to look for a hare.
We searched the fields that grows around,
Our trail is lost, our game is found,
Then out she springs, through brake she flies,
Then out she springs, through brake she flies.
Follow, follow the musical horn,
Sing follow, hark follow, the innocent hare.
Our horses go galloping over the ground,
Go breathing all after the torturing hound.
Such a game she has led us four hours or more,
Such a game she has led us four hours or more,
Follow, follow the musical horn,
Sing follow, hark follow, the innocent hare.
Our huntsman blows the joyful sound,
See how he scours over the ground.
Our hare's a sinking, see how she creeps,
Our hare's a sinking, see how she creeps,
Follow, follow, the musical horn,
Sing follow, hark follow, the innocent hare.
All on the green turf she pants for breath,
Our huntsman shouts out for death.
Hullo, hullo, we've tired our hare,
Hullo, hullo, we've tired our hare.
Wine and beer we'll drink without fear,
We'll drink success to the innocent hare.
The last line has an irony which no one seemed to see.
I must confess that a whole evening of song is to me full measure,
and I took all the opportunities I could of getting Uncle Jonah, the
voiceless shepherd in the smock, to talk of old times; but always
with the fear of the Director very lively in me. For anecdotage is
nothing to him. His purpose in life is to fill blank bars with
little magical dots; for this and this only does he scour the
coloured counties. All conversation is therefore an interruption, if
not a misdemeanour. But when the singers, having sung all that the
Director did not know, began to respond with songs that he did, I
openly drew Uncle Jonah aside and filled again his glass and made
certain masonic signs to indicate that though no doubt the Director
was a worthy and even gifted man, here was one who sympathized with
those who had no music in them, but preferred character and comedy in
the blessed spoken word.
Old shepherds are peculiarly the treasuries of reminiscences of
eccentric and historic figures of the country-side: such as Charley
Dean, over at Coombe Place, who would ride his horse down the
steepest slopes of the hills when hunting, so that you could see
slide-marks several yards long afterwards--a "terrible daring rider
he was"; and old David Wade, over at Madingdean, who did his own
farriery work and mended his grey mare's broken leg so out an' out
cleverly that he won a Point to Point steeple-chase on her the next
year; and Tom Woolley, over at West Green, whose lifelong feud with
the Gipos (or gipsies), who stole his chickens and cut his gorse for
umbrella handles, drove him, with the assistance of strong drink, off
his head, so that he attacked every stranger with his stick and had
to be kept in one room, the barred window of which is still to be
seen, while Mrs. Woolley made the farm pay as it had never paid
before.
But best I liked his tales of his first master--dead now these many
years--over at Bollingdean. A good man, a just man, and kind to the
poor, but terrible hard and cautious. A Quaker. Couldn't bear to be
kept waiting. Everything must be right. He used to lend money to
smaller men now and then--he was a big maltster himself, with a small
farm just for his own amusement--and one market day one of these
debtors--Mr. Raikes, the ironmonger--was to meet him at the Black
Horse yard at three o'clock to pay him one hundred pounds and clear
off his debt. That was a Wednesday. The trap was ready; the Master
and his nephew came into the yard; the Master looked at his watch,
and precisely at three whipped up and away. Uncle Jonah--then a
small stable-boy--was sitting behind, and as the trap sped along the
High Street towards home he noticed Mr. Raikes running after it. He
ventured to tell his master, who at once stopped.
Mr. Raikes came panting up. "Here you are, Mr. Willing," he gasped,
proffering a canvas bag. "I'm sorry I missed you, but I had a
customer."
"What is it in the bag?" Mr. Willing asked.
"The money," said Mr. Raikes.
"The Master took out his watch and turned to his nephew. 'I had no
appointment, had I,' he asked, 'to see anyone about money in the High
Street at five minutes past three? No, Mr. Raikes, not here. I'll
see thee in thy shop next market day;' and off we went, leaving Mr.
Raikes with his mouth open in the middle of the street.
"When we got home, the Master said to his nephew, 'Take thy pencil
and work out the interest at five per cent. on one hundred pounds for
one week and let me know what it is.' Well, he did it and it came to
one and elevenpence, and blowed if the Master didn't make Raikes pay
the one and eleven-pence extra the next week and send it to the local
hospital. That was what he was like.
"Another time," Uncle Jonah went on, talking in broad Sussex, which I
make no effort to reproduce, "a poor tramping woman gave birth to a
baby under a hedge on his land. She was found in the morning and the
Master was told about it. He asked exactly where she was and then
gave orders for her to be carried into the Eight Acre barn and the
doctor sent for.
"'But the Low Bottom barn's a matter of a mile nearer,' said the man,
'and it's empty too.'
"'Do as I tell thee,' said the Master, 'and let me know directly she
is comfortable there and thy mistress will send her some soup from
the house and go and see her.'
"Well, we carried her there. It was too soft for a cart, so there
was nothing for it but to place her on some straw on a hurdle and
carry her every inch of the way. I helped, and my arms ache to this
minute when I think of it. And the worst of it was we had to go past
the other barn, which was all warm and snug, only a few yards away.
You may be sure that we talked about what the Master was up to. But
we weren't clever enough to guess right, not we.
"Directly she was comfortable I was sent back to tell the Master, and
he himself drove off to fetch the doctor; and by-and-bye they came
back together and the doctor did what he could for her and went off
home to fill up the birth certificate. It wasn't for some time
afterwards," said Uncle Jonah, "that we learned why we had to carry
her all that way. Can you guess why it was?" Uncle Jonah asked; but
I had no notion.
"Why," he said, "the Master's farm was in two parishes--Arringly and
Thangmer--but only a little tiny corner where the barn stood was in
Thangmer. All the rest was in Arringly, and so he had her carried to
the barn so that the child should be registered as born in Thangmer
parish and not be on the Arringly rates. 'For,' as he said, 'we
don't want more pauper children than we can help in Arringly.'
That's the sort of man he was; looked ahead and took everything into
account."
Uncle Jonah told also of his own experiences in driving large flocks
of sheep or lambs to distant markets in the country when he was a
lad; and how they had to work out the route beforehand with great
care so as to have as few turnpike gates to pass through as possible.
I asked him how much they had to pay for lambs to go through.
"Fippence a score," he said.
We did not break up till after midnight. To me the evening harvest
of song seemed to be rather notable; but the Director knew better.
Sussex is not a distinguished singing country, he explained.
Somerset is the happiest hunting-ground. There they sing sweetest
and have the best songs. By the time a good song reaches Sussex it
is debased. Sussex has no style. But Somerset is full of style.
This, surely, is very odd, and the Director offers no theories to
explain it. He would like to, but he cannot; he is not a
sociologist, he says, or an ethnologist, or a psychologist; he is
merely a collector and preserver of the best old English songs that
he has the fortune to hear. Well, I would rather be that than an
"ist" of any calibre. I consider him to have done and to be doing
one of the finest things any Englishman has ever done: a piece of the
most exquisite patriotism; and I am proud to be of assistance in the
cause.