yard-lengths, holding out his ‘topper.’ The pound of treacle was
accordingly poured into the Lincoln and Bennett, and the next instant it
was on the shopkeeper’s head.
This was the manner in which Lord Huntingtower endeared himself to the
people--those, that is to say, who were not the victims of his
pleasantries.
That kind of person is quite extinct now. They should have (but
unfortunately they have not) a stuffed specimen in the Natural History
Museum at South Kensington; because he is numbered with the Dodo, the
Plesiosaurus, and the Mastodon. The Marquis of Winchester who flourished
at the same period as my Lords Huntingtower and Waterford was of the
same stamp. He had the fiery Port Countenance which was the sign of the
three-bottle man, and his life and the deeds that he did are still
fondly remembered at Andover, for his country-house was at Amport, in
the immediate neighbourhood. He was the Premier Marquis of England, and
although up to his neck in mortgages and writs, an extremely Great
Personage. Let us, therefore, take our hats off as humbly as we know how
to do.
When he was at his country-place he worshipped at the little village
church of Amport. Sometimes he did not worship, but slept, lulled off to
the Land of Nod by the roaring fire he kept in his room-like pew. On one
occasion it chanced that he was wide awake, and, like the illustrious
Sir Roger de Coverley, leant upon the door of that pew, and gazed around
to satisfy himself that all his tenantry were present. Then an awful
thing happened, the hinges of the door broke, and it fell with a great
clatter to the ground, and the Marquis with it. He said ‘Damn!’ with
great fervour and unction, and everybody laughed. No one thought it--as
they should have done--shocking, which shows the depravity of the age.
[Sidenote: _THE MARQUIS AND THE SQUIRE_]
There is no doubt whatever about that depravity, which, like the worm in
the bud, has wrought ruin among our manners since then. How sad it is
that we are not now content to call upon Providence to
Bless the squire and his relations
And keep us in our proper stations;
but are all too intent upon ‘getting on,’ to defer to rank, or take a
spell at the delightful occupations of tuft-hunting and boot-licking!
Even in those days this horrid decadence had begun to manifest itself,
as you will see by the story of this same Marquis and Mr. Assheton Smith
of Tedworth Park. Mr. Smith could (as the saying goes) have ‘bought up’
the impoverished Marquis of Winchester several times over, and not have
felt any strain upon his resources. Moreover, he was a Squire of great
consideration in these parts, and as Master of the Tedworth Hunt,
something of a rival in importance. For which things, and more, the
Marquis hated him, and on one occasion took an opportunity of reproving
him publicly before the whole field, in the fine florid language of
which he had so ready a command. Possibly Mr. Smith had committed the
unpardonable indignity of showing my lord the way over a particularly
stiff fence he was hesitating at. At any rate the language of the
Premier Marquis was violent, and contained some reference to the
disparity between their respective ranks. But the Squire was ready with
his retort. He said, ‘Anyhow, I’d sooner be a rich Squire than a poor
Marquis!’ The field smiled, because the reduced circumstances of the
Marquis of Winchester had been notorious ever since his father had been
secretly buried at midnight in the family vault at Amport, for fear the
bailiffs should seize the body for debt.
There are, for good or ill, no such sportsmen nowadays as there were in
the times before railways came and brought more competition into
existence, making life a business and a struggle, instead of the
light-hearted and irresponsible game that the sporting squires at least
found it. Noble sportsmen do not nowadays, when detained by stress of
weather in a country inn, while away the tedium of the afternoon by
backing the raindrops racing down the window-panes and betting fortunes
on the result. No, that very real bogey, ‘agricultural depression,’ has
stopped that kind of full-blooded prank, and the titled in these
progressive times find their account on the ‘front page’ of
company-promoters’ swindles instead. They barter good names for gold,
and lick the boots of wealthy rogues, instead of kicking their bodies.
Where their fathers scorned to go the sons delight to be. Would the
fathers have done the like had ‘agricultural depression’ come earlier?
The noblemen and the sporting squires of old lived in one mad whirl of
excitement. They gambled on every incident in their lives, and sometimes
even on their death-beds; like the old gamester who, when the doctor
told him he would be dead the next morning, offered to bet him that he
would not! We are not told whether or not the medical man backed his
professional opinion.
[Sidenote: _OLD SPORTSMEN_]
One of the most illuminating side-lights on these truly Corinthian folk
is the story which tells how Lord Albert Conyngham and that classic
sportsman, Mr. George Payne, were travelling from London to Poole by
post-chaise in the last decade of the coaching days--that is to say,
between 1830 and 1840. They found the journey tedious, and so played
écarté, in which they grew so interested that they continued playing all
day and into the night, the chaise being lit with the aid of a patent
lamp which Mr. Payne always took with him on a long journey. The play
was high; £100 a game, with bets on knaves and sequences, and had been
continued with varying success, until when they were passing in the
darkness of night through the New Forest, Mr. Payne, who had been a
heavy loser for some time, had a run of luck. In midst of this exciting
play the post-boy, who, in the secluded glades of the Forest, had
managed to lose the road, stopped the chaise and, dismounting, tapped at
the window. But so engrossed were the two travellers in the cards that
they had not noticed that the conveyance was standing still, and the
post-boy stood tapping there for a long while before he was heard.
‘What on earth do you want?’ angrily asked the winning gambler,
indignant at this interruption.
‘Please, sir,’ replied the post-boy, ‘I’ve lost my way.’
‘Then,’ rejoined Mr. Payne, pulling up the window with a bang, ‘come and
tell us when you’ve found it, and be damned to you!’
XX
Cobbett, that sturdy Radical and consistent grumbler, had an adventure
at Andover, at the ‘George Inn.’ It was in October 1826, on returning
from Weyhill Fair, that he took occasion to dine here. Of course he had
no business or pleasure at the ‘George,’ for he had secured a lodging
elsewhere; but with that obsession of his for agitation he must needs
repair to the inn and dine at the ordinary; less we may be sure for the
sake of the meal than to embrace the opportunity of addressing the
farmers, the cattle-dealers, cheese and hop factors, and bankers whom he
knew would be dining there at Fair-time. It was an opportunity not to be
missed.
He must have been sadly disappointed at first, for there were only about
ten people dining; but when it was seen that this was the well-known
Cobbett, the diners increased, and, after the meal was over, the room
became inconveniently crowded; guests coming from other inns until at
length the room door was left open so that the crowd in the passage and
on the stairs, which were crammed from top to bottom, might listen to
the inevitable harangue on the sins of kings, and governments, and of
landowners, and the criminal stupidity of every one else.
[Sidenote: _COBBETT_]
At this stage of the proceedings, just as the dinner was done, one of
the two friends by whom he was accompanied gave Cobbett’s health. This,
naïvely adds the arch-agitator, ‘was of course followed by a _speech_;
and, as the reader will readily suppose, to have an opportunity of
making a speech was the main motive for my going to dine at _an inn_, at
any hour, and especially at _seven o’clock_ at night.’ That, at any
rate, is frank enough.
After he had been thus holding forth on ruin, past, present, and to
come, for half an hour or so, it seems to have occurred to the landlord
that the company upstairs were drinking very little for so large a
concourse, and he accordingly forced his way through the crowd, up the
staircase, and along the passage into the dining-room. Cobbett had
already cast an unfavourable eye upon that licensed victualler, and
describes him as ‘one Sutton, a rich old fellow, who wore a
round-skirted sleeved fustian waistcoat, with a dirty white apron tied
round his middle, and with no coat on; having a look the _eagerest_ and
the _sharpest_ that I ever saw in any set of features in my whole
lifetime; having an air of authority and of mastership, which, to a
stranger, as I was, seemed quite incompatible with the meanness of his
dress and the vulgarity of his manners: and there being, visible to
every beholder, constantly going on in him a pretty even contest between
the servility of avarice and the insolence of wealth.’
The person who called forth this severe description having forced his
way into the room, some one called out that he was causing an
interruption, to which he replied that that was, in fact, what he had
come to do, because all this speechifying injured the sale of his
liquor! Can it be doubted that this roused all the lion in Cobbett’s
breast? He first of all tells us that ‘the disgust and abhorrence which
such conduct could not fail to excite produced, at first, a desire to
quit the room and the house, and even a proposition to that effect. But,
after a minute or so, to reflect, the company resolved not to quit the
room, but to turn him out of it who had caused the interruption; and the
old fellow, finding himself _tackled_, saved the labour of shoving, or
kicking, him out of the room, by retreating out of the doorway, with all
the activity of which he was master.’
[Sidenote: _WEYHILL FAIR_]
The speech at last finished, the company began to settle down to what
Cobbett calls the ‘real business of the evening, namely, drinking,
smoking, and singing.’ It was a Saturday night, and as there was all the
Sunday morning to sleep in, and as the wives of the company were at a
convenient distance, the circumstances were favourable to an extensive
consumption of ‘neat’ and ‘genuine’ liquors. At this juncture the
landlord announced, through the waiter, that he declined to serve
anything so long as Mr. Cobbett remained in the room! This uncorked all
the vials of wrath of which Cobbett had so large and bitter a supply.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘born and bred, as you know I was, on the borders
of this county, and fond as I am of bacon, Hampshire hogs have with me
always been objects of admiration rather than of contempt; but that
which has just happened here induces me to observe that this feeling of
mine has been confined to hogs of four legs. For my part, I like your
company too well to quit it. I have paid this fellow six shillings for
the wing of a fowl, a bit of bread, and a pint of small beer. I have a
right to sit here; I want no drink, and those who do, being refused it
here, have a right to send to other houses for it, and to drink it
here.’
Mine host, alarmed at this declaration of independence, withdrew the
prohibition, and indeed brought up pipes, tobacco, and the desired
drinks himself; and soon after this entered the room with two gentlemen
who had inquired for Mr. Cobbett, and laying his hand on Cobbett’s knee,
smiled and said the gentlemen wished to be introduced. ‘Take away your
paw,’ thundered the agitator, shaking the strangers by the hand; ‘I am
happy to see you, even though introduced by this fellow.’ After which
they all indulged in the English equivalent of the Scotch ‘willie
waucht’ until half-past two in the morning.
‘But,’ remarks Cobbett, as a parting shot, ‘the next time this old
sharp-looking fellow gets _six shillings_ from me for a dinner, he
shall, if he choose, _cook me_, in any manner that he likes, and season
me with hand so unsparing as to produce in the feeders thirst
unquenchable.’
XXI
Weyhill Fair, which brought Cobbett and the people he harangued into
Andover, is a thoroughly old English institution, and although the old
custom of fairs is gradually dying out, and this, the Largest Fair in
England, is not so important as it was a hundred years ago, it is still
a place where much money changes hands once a year. Weyhill is supposed
to be one of the places mentioned in _Piers Plowman’s Vision_, in the
line:--
At Wy and at Wynchestre I went to ye fair,
and it is the ‘Weydon Priors’ of the _Mayor of Casterbridge_, where
Henchard sells his wife.
Weyhill Fair was once--in the fine fat days of agricultural prosperity,
when England was always at war with France, and corn was dear--a
six-days fair. As the ‘oldest inhabitant’ to be discovered nowadays at
Weyhill will complain, shaking his head sadly the while, ‘There warn’t
none o’ them ’ere ’sheenery fal-lals about in them days to do the wark
o’ men and harses so’s no-one can’t get no decent living like, d’ye
see?’ If by ‘’sheenery,’ you understand mechanical
appliances--‘machinery,’ in fact--to be meant, you will see how
distrustfully the agricultural mind still marches to the modern
quick-step of progress. There is always plenty of machinery on view at
Weyhill Fair: ploughs and harrows, and such like inanimate things, and
machinery in motion; steam threshers, winnowers, binders, and the like,
threshing, and winnowing, and binding the empty air.
[Sidenote: ‘_JOHNNY’S SO LONG AT THE FAIR_’]
There are special days set apart--and more or less rigorously
observed--for Hiring, for Pleasure, for the Hop Fair, and for the sale
of sheep. This great annual fixture begins on Old Michaelmas Eve, 10th
October, and lasts four days, as against the six days, that were all too
short in which to do the business, up to fifty years ago. Railways have
dealt the old English institution of fairs a deadly blow all over the
country, and before many more years have gone the majority of them will
be things of the past. Their reason for existing will then be quite
gone, even as it is now going. Before railways came into being the
farmer travelled little, and his men not at all. From one year’s end to
the other they probably never saw a town beyond their nearest marketing
centre, and they certainly never made the acquaintance of London. So,
since the farmer and his men, the mistress and her maids, could not get
about to buy, it follows that those who had goods to sell had need to
take all the advantage possible of that great and glorious institution,
the Fair.
Bitterly disappointed in the old days were those who, from some reason
or another, were prevented from coming to this Promised Land of gay and
glittering stalls and booths. Jolly and convivial, on the other hand,
were those who had the luck to be able to come. ‘Oh, dear! what can the
matter be? Johnny’s so long at the Fair,’ commences an old country song.
We can guess pretty well what the matter was, just as certainly as if we
had been there ourselves. Johnny, of course, had got too much cider, or
strong, home-brewed October ‘humming ale’ into him, and, as the rustics
would put it, ‘couldn’t stir a peg, were’t ever so.’ And so the girl he
left behind him at the farmhouse had need of all the patience at her
command while she waited for his return. She probably didn’t much
care--for Johnny’s sake; rather for another reason. As thus:--
He promised he’d buy me a fairing to please me;
A bunch of blue ribbons to tie up my bonny brown hair.
It was the blue ribbons she wanted, you see. Let us, dear friends, hope
she got them.
Many dangers threatened the Johnnies--the Colin Clouts of that time. The
fair was the happy hunting-ground of Sergeant Kite, who used to treat
the dull-witted fellows until they were stupid as owls, when, _hey
presto!_ the Queen’s Shilling was clapped into their nerveless palms,
and they woke the next morning to find themselves duly enlisted, with a
bunch of parti-coloured ribbons fixed in their hats as a token and badge
of their military servitude. Then ‘what price’ those blue ribbons lying
forgotten in the pocket for the disconsolate fair one? Nothing under a
fine of twenty pounds sterling sufficed to release a recruit in those
days, and as few families could then afford that ransom, the fair was a
turning-point in the career of many a lusty fellow.
The recruiting sergeant still does a little business at Weyhill, but his
claws are nowadays cut very close.
Weyhill, as you approach it, is situated, much to your surprise, not on
a hill at all, but rather on the flat. It is a mere nothing of a
village, and beyond the parish church, the inevitable inn, and the
equally inevitable farmhouse, houses are very much to seek.
[Sidenote: _THE HORSE FAIR_]
The stranger who happens upon the place at any other than fair time is
astonished by the large numbers of open sheds and the numerous clusters
of long, low, thatched, and white-washed cottages, situated on a wide,
open, grassy common beside the road, all empty, and every one bearing
boldly-painted announcements, in black paint, of ‘Hot Dinners,’
‘Refreshments,’ and the like. The stranger might be excused if he
thought this some bankrupt settlement whose vanished inhabitants, like
the people of that mythical place who ‘eked out a precarious existence
by taking in one another’s washing,’ had lived on selling refreshments
to each other until they had finally all died of indigestion. He would
be very much mistaken, however, in his surmise, for this is Weyhill
Fair-ground in undress. If you wish to see it in full swing, you must
visit the spot between 10th and 13th October, when it is lively enough.
The first day is the Sheep Fair. As many as 150,000 sheep have been sold
here on this day. The Horse Fair is held every day; and an astonishing
number and variety of horses there are too. Irish horses, brought all
the way from Cork, Scotch horses, Welsh horses; every kind of horse,
from the Suffolk Punch to the New Forest Pony. Great lumbering young
cart-horses stand behind their pens with manes and tails plaited to
wonderment with straw, for all the world like beauties dressed for the
County Ball, and just as proud and self-conscious. Do you want to buy a
horse of any kind at the Fair? Then don’t!--unless, indeed, you know all
that is to be known about horses, and a bit over; otherwise the dealer
will ‘have’ you, for a dead certainty. To see them showing off a horse’s
good qualities and hiding his bad ones is a liberal education, but see
that you acquire your knowledge at some one else’s expense. With this
determination you can afford to be well amused with the waving of
coloured flags on long sticks, by which the horses are made to
pirouette before the eyes of likely purchasers, and can safely smile at
the wily dealer’s exclamations of ‘There’s blood!’ ‘Get up, my beauty!’
and ‘Here’s the quality!’
The very pick of the horseflesh, however, does not reach Weyhill. The
dealers bring their stock with them by road from Milford, Holyhead,
Scotland, at the rate of ten miles a day, and as they thus have to come
a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles, the journey takes from ten days
to a fortnight. This would be a serious expense and loss of time were it
not for the fact that dealers always look to make sales along the road.
The second day of the Fair is known as Mop Fair, or Molls’ and Johns’
Day. Its official title is the Hiring, or Statute Fair. At twelve
o’clock, mid-day, farm-servants, men or women, ‘Molls’ or ‘Johns,’ leave
their employ, and, drawing their wages, offer themselves to be hired for
the coming twelvemonth. They stand in long lines, the carters with a
length of plaited whipcord in their hats, the shepherds with a lock of
wool, and wait while the farmers come and bargain with them. When they
have struck up an agreement, the men proceed to fix coloured ribbons in
their hats, and do their best to have a merry time with the wages they
have just received.
[Sidenote: _MINOR TRADES_]
There is certainly every opportunity of spending money on the spot.
Steam merry-go-rounds keep up a continual screeching and bellowing;
stalls with all manner of toys and nick-nacks of the most grotesque
shapes and hideous colouring; cake and sweetmeat stalls, loaded, as
Weyhill stalls have been from time immemorial, with Salisbury
gingerbread; Aunt Sallies; try-your-strength machines, and a hundred
others compete for the rustic’s coin. Then, if he wants a new suit of
clothes, here is the clothier’s stall, where Hodge can bespeak a suit,
wear it during the next twelve months, and pay for it next Fair, just as
his father and grandfather used to do before him. All the booths
visited, the horse medicines stall inspected, the latest improvements in
agricultural machinery gaped at, Hodge repairs to the refreshment
hovels, wherein certain crafty men who have come down for the occasion
from London are awaiting him, to treat the unsuspecting yokel to drinks,
to lure him on to play cards, and finally to cheat him and pick his
pockets in the most finished and approved fashion. For these gentry, and
for the disorderly in general, there is a police-station on the ground,
with cells all complete, and with local magistrates every morning to
hear cases, and to consign prisoners, if necessary, to Winchester Gaol,
sixteen miles away.
The third and fourth days are now given up to the Pleasure and Hop
Fairs. One of the smaller trades connected with the malting and general
agricultural industries is that of malt-shovel and barn-shovel making.
These are wooden shovels of a peculiar shape, and are sold only at one
stall. Another of the minor businesses is that of umbrella selling. The
umbrellas are very fine and large, and of a kind that would make a
marked man of any Londoner who should use one in town.
The Cheese Fair is now a small one, dealings generally being confined to
local folks, who delight in the Blackmore and ‘Blue Vinney’ cheeses of
this and the adjoining counties. London dealers still attend the Hop
Fair, in which many thousands of pounds’ worth of hops change hands to
the drinking of much champagne, brought on to the ground by the
cart-load, as in the brave days of yore. There are two distinct hop
markets, the Farnham Row and the Country Side. Hops from Farnham,
Bentley, Petersfield, Liphook, and other neighbouring places find a
ready market. They are sold more exclusively by sample than formerly,
and so only a few ‘pockets,’ as the tightly packed sacks are named, are
visible. Round them dealers may be seen, rubbing the hops in their hands
and smelling them with a knowing look, while the vendor cuts another
sample out of the pocket for the next likely customer. He does this with
a singular steel instrument called a ‘sample drawer.’ First a sharp and
long-bladed knife is thrust into the hard mass, and two sides cut, and
then the broad-bladed ‘drawer’ driven in and screwed tight, bringing out
a compact square of hops to be tested.
By nine o’clock every night all the booths and stalls have to be closed,
and stillness reigns over the scene, save for the cough of the sheep,
the occasional lowing of the cattle, or the fretful whinnying of a
wakeful horse. And when the last day of the Fair is done, the booths are
all shut up and deserted, and desolation reigns again for a year.
XXII
[Sidenote: _ABBOT’S ANN_]
The trail of the Romans is over all the surroundings of Andover, and
they must have loved this fishful and fertile valley well, for ample
relics of extensive settlements and gorgeous villas have been unearthed
by the plough. Some of the fine mosaic pavements discovered here are now
in the British Museum, and every now and again the shepherd or the
ploughman picks up a worn and battered coin of the Cæsars in the
neighbouring fields. One of the finest Roman pavements came from the
village of Abbot’s Ann, a short distance away, under the shadow of the
great bulk of Bury Hill, which, crowned with prehistoric earthworks of
cyclopean size, frowns down upon the valley. The whimsical name of this
village and that of Little Ann derive from the stream, the Ann, or
Anton, on whose banks they are situated.