"Gee, Diamond! Now, Captain!" cried Margaret, imitating the gruff voice
of the carter. Crack! The long-knotted lash of the waggon-whip, bound
about the handle with brazen rings, whistled in the air and curled up
with a vicious snap. She was in one of her wild impulsive moods. Away
trotted the two huge carthorses, the harness merrily jingling and the
waggon jolting. Jabez the shepherd could hardly keep pace with it,
running beside the leader, Diamond. Margaret and May were riding.
Crack! Crack!
"Aw, doan't 'ee now--doan't 'ee, miss!" panted the shepherd. "Us ull go
right drough th' winder! Whoa!"
For they were steering straight for the great window at Greene Ferne
that opened on the lawn. It was wide open that beautiful midsummer
morning.
"What are those children doing?" said Mrs Estcourt, in some alarm.
"Why, they have harnessed the horses!"
Valentine, Geoffrey, and Felix, who were there, crowded to the window.
"Whoa, Diamond! Captain, whoa!" cried Margaret, bringing up her convoy
on the lawn in fine style. "Now, mamma dear, jump up! We're all going
haymaking, as the men won't."
"She has solved the problem," said Valentine. "Here's one volunteer!"
And he sprang up.
That very morning they had been holding a council to see if anything
could be suggested to put an end to the strike. It had now lasted
nearly a fortnight Felix in vain argued with the men; they listened
respectfully, and even admitted that he was right; but all they would
say was that "they meaned to have th' crownd."
Slow to take action, there is no one so stubborn, when once he has
resolved, as the agricultural labourer. They had timed the strike with
some cunning. They had let the mowers cut some sixty acres of grass,
and then suddenly stopped work. They knew very well that if cut grass
is allowed to remain exposed to the sun longer than just sufficient to
make it into hay, it dries up so much as to be of little value. Now the
burning brilliant summer sunshine had been pouring down upon the
withered grass for days and days, expelling every particle of the
succulent sap, and turning it to a brittle straw. The shepherd, Jabez,
remained at his work, and he and Augustus Basset, the "bailie," did a
little, throwing up a mead or two into "wakes" for carting; but their
exertions were of small avail. While they talked and deliberated,
Margaret, beckoning May, slipped out and went down to the stables.
Diamond and Captain were led out into the sunshine, and stood like
statuary, waiting to be bidden. For the beauty of simple strength
nothing equals a fine cart-horse: the vast frame, the ponderous limb,
the massive neck, speak of power in repose. Their large dark lustrous
eyes followed the girls with calm astonishment; but, docile and gentle,
they gave implicit obedience to orders. The heavy harness,
brass-mounted, was as much as ever the two girls could manage to lift;
and when it came to hoisting up the shafts of the waggon they were at a
loss. But Jabez, hearing a noise at the stables, came up; and after him
slouched Augustus, muttering to himself, as usual. So just when the
council indoors was beginning to wonder what had become of Margaret and
May, crack, crack, and the jingling of harness put an end to their
deliberations.
Geoffrey quickly followed Valentine; Felix, more thoughtful, brought a
chair for Mrs Estcourt, who, half laughing, half protesting, against
Margaret's wilful fancy, got up. Augustus sat on the shafts, Jabez
stood by the leader, and, seeing them all in, started for the field.
"If you were to bring out a thirty-six-gallon cask," said Augustus,
whose red nose peered over the front part of the waggon, "and set it up
on a haycock, I'll warn them chaps would come back fast enough." This
was one word for the haymakers and two for himself.
"I'm sure I don't grudge them some ale," said Mrs Estcourt. "But they
are really very unreasonable. One of the servants took a mower a quart
of beer. He said he did not like it, and didn't want so much, and
poured it out on the grass. Next day only a pint was sent to him: `Why
y'ent you brought me a quart?' said he. `Because you flung it away,'
was the reply. `Aw, that don't matter. You bring I a quart. I'll have
my mishure,' [measure]; nor should I mind paying the extra five
shillings; but you see, Felix, if I pay it, all the farmers round--for
they have only struck work on my place, thinking, no doubt, that, being
a woman, I must give way--will be obliged to do so, and some of them are
not able. Many have called and begged me not; and Mr Thorpe says the
same. Yet I don't like it. We have always been on good terms with the
men."
"O yes, you pets 'em up," said Augustus, "just like so many children;
and, of course, they ain't going to work for you."
"The struggle of capital and labour," began Felix learnedly, when a
sudden jolt of the springless waggon threw him off his balance, and he
had to cling to the sides.
"O, mind the gatepost!" cried Mrs Estcourt, in some alarm.
While they were near the house Jabez went slow; but the moment he
reached the open field away he started, and what with the jingling of
the harness, the creaking of the wheels, and the necessity for holding
on tight, conversation became impossible. The waggon rose up and sloped
down over the furrows of the meadow as a boat pitches in a sea.
"Woaght! whoa!" shouted Jabez, drawing up among the hay. "This be it;
the prongs be in the ditch."
When they had descended, he went to the hawthorn bush, pulled out some
prongs, and then scrambled up into the waggon himself. "Now then, you
lards and gennelmen, one on 'ee get each side, and pitch up thaay wakes
[ridges of hay put ready for the purpose of loading], and mind as you
doan't stick your farks into I. The wimmen--I means the ladies--wull
rake behind, and paason can help um--th' rakes be hung on th' hedge.
Now, bailie, look arter them 'osses."
Though hay looks light and easy to lift, yet when the fork has gathered
a goodly bundle, to hoist it high overhead, and continue the operation,
is really heavy labour. Valentine was physically a smaller made man
than Geoffrey, whose broad shoulders had also been developed both by
athletic exercise at home and by work in Australia--work done from
choice, not necessity. But though smaller, Valentine was extremely
tough, wiry, and nimble, as is often the case with gentlemen who "fancy"
horses. Quick in his movements, he caught the knack of "pitching"
almost immediately. He hastily flung up his "wake" as far as the horse
in the shafts, and then walked to the rear of the waggon where Margaret
was raking, leaving Geoffrey still engaged.
Margaret and May were looking at a nest of harvest-trows, as the tiny
mice are called that breed in the grass. Valentine began to talk about
his horses, knowing Margaret was fond of animals, and said that a
"string" of his would pass Greene Ferne in the evening _en route_ to his
stables. Now Geoffrey, glancing back, saw the group apparently in
earnest conversation from which he was excluded; and noting Margaret's
attention to Valentine, grew jealous and angry. Just as he finished
"pitching," and was about to join them--
"Tchek!" from Augustus, and on the horses moved, and he had to
recommence work. Valentine ran with his prong, and again, by dint of
great exertions, finished his side first, and returned to Margaret.
"Tchek! woaght!"
The third time Valentine essayed the same task, delighted to leave
Geoffrey in the cold, and to exhibit his superior prowess. But Geoffrey
by now had learned how to handle his fork. His muscles were strung, his
blood was up, he warmed to his work, and pitched vast bundles that all
but buried and half choked Jabez, who was loading on the waggon.
"The dust be all down my droat! Aw, doan't 'ee, measter!" he cried, in
smothered tones.
"Tchek!" and this time Valentine was far behind, and Geoffrey had gone
back to talk to Margaret. At the next move Geoffrey not only cleared
his side up to the horse in the shafts, but by using his great strength
to the utmost, went ahead up the wake eight or ten yards, and thus
secured himself twice as long with her, while Valentine had to remain
"pitching." To Jabez the shepherd, on the waggon, it was fine sport to
watch the rivalry of the "gennelmen." A labouring man thoroughly enjoys
seeing the perspiration pouring from the faces of the well-to-do. He
bustled about as fast as he could, and kept the horses moving. By
superior muscular force Geoffrey remained ahead. To Valentine it was
gall and wormwood.
"We be getting on famous, zur," said Jabez. "Tchek!"
Mrs Estcourt had meantime left the field, after beckoning to Augustus,
who followed her. While she was present there was some check on their
rivalry; but no sooner did they perceive that she was gone than it rose
to a still greater height. Valentine, pulling himself together, and
taking advantage of a thinner wake than usual, ran ahead, and went back
to the rear. Seeing this, Geoffrey hurled the hay up with such force
and vigour that he literally covered the shepherd, who could barely
struggle out of it.
"Lord, I be as dry as a gicks!" said Jabez, when he did get free, and
meaning by his simile the stem of a dead hedge-plant.
"And here's bailie wi' th' bottle. Bide a bit, my lards."
By this time "my lards" thoroughly understood why haymakers like their
ale, and plenty of it. Working under the hot sun, with the dust or dry
pollen flying from the hay, causes intense thirst. So the waggon stood
still, and Valentine, hot and angry, took the bottle--being the
nearest--from Augustus, and essayed to drink. This "bottle" was a
miniature cask of oaken staves, with iron hoops, and a leathern strap to
carry it by. It held about a gallon. To drink, the method is to put
the lips to the bung-hole, situate at the largest part of the
circumference, toss the barrel up, and hold the head back. Valentine
could not get more than the merest sip, though the bottle was quite
full. This, scientifically speaking, was caused by the pressure of the
atmosphere. There is the same difficulty in drinking from a flask.
"Let th' aair in--let th' aair in!" said the shepherd, himself an adept.
"Open th' carner of yer mouth."
But attempting to do that Val let too much "aair" in, and spilt the ale,
to his intense disgust.
"Put th' cark in, zur, and chuck un up to I." Jabez caught the "bottle"
as tenderly as a mother would her infant and quitted not his hold till
half the contents had disappeared, nor would he have left it then, had
not Augustus grumbled and claimed his turn. Mrs Estcourt now returned,
attended by a servant carrying a basket of refreshments for which she
had gone, not forgetting the more civilised bottles issued by the divine
Bass. Throwing down forks and rakes, they assembled in the shade of the
tall hawthorn hedge and sat down on the hay. When the delicate flavour
of his cigar floated away on the soft summer air, even Valentine's
acerbity of temper relaxed. Opposite, at some distance, stood the
waggon now fully loaded; Diamond and Captain eating the hay put for
them, and the shepherd lying at full length on the grass. Augustus, the
"bottle" by his side, and his hand laid lovingly on it, fell asleep in
the shade of the waggon.
The wild-roses on the briars that stretched out from the hedge towards
the meadow opened their petals full to the warmth. The breeze rustled
the leaves of the elm overhead. Rich flute-like notes of music came
from the copse hard by--it was the blackbird.
"Ah, this is merry England," said Felix, who loved his cigar, watching
the tiny cloud float away from its tip. "The blackbird sings in the
scorching sun at noonday, when the other songbirds are silent. You did
not know Geof was a writer, did you?" He drew forth a piece of paper,
when Newton began to protest, and would have taken it from him by main
force, had not the ladies insisted on hearing the contents. So Felix
read the verses.
Noontide in the Meadow.
Idly silent were the finches--
Finches fickle, fleeting, blithe;
And the mower, man of inches,
Ceased to swing the sturdy scythe.
All the leafy oaks were slumb'rous;
Slumb'rous e'en the honey-bee;
And his larger brother, cumbrous,
Humming home with golden knee.
But the blackbird, king of hedgerows--
Hedgerows to my memory dear--
By the brook, where rush and sedge grows,
Sang his liquid love-notes clear.
Margaret, toying with a June rose--the white petal delicately tinted
with pink between her soft rosy fingers--dreamily repeated half to
herself,--
"All the leafy oaks were slumb'rous."
Valentine glanced at her swiftly, and inwardly resolved to remove the
impression on her mind. He took out his pocket-book.
"My verses," said he, "are only copied, but they seemed to me a gem in
their way. It is a piece of Bacchic meditation from the Vaux de Vire,
exquisitely translated by some clever author whose name I have
forgotten. You are gazing at our friend Augustus' bibulous nose," he
nodded towards the recumbent figure with the hand on the bottle, "and
see it through your own glass:
"Fair nose! whose beauties many pipes have cost
Of white and rosy wine;
Whose colours are so gorgeously embossed
In red and purple fine;
Great nose, who views thee, gazing through great glass,
Thee still more lovely thinks.
Thou dost the nose of creature far surpass
Who only water drinks."
It was so appropriate to poor Augustus that they could not choose but
smile. Valentine begged Margaret to sing: they all joined in the
request, and she sang with a faint blush, looking down--for she knew,
though the rest did not, that it was Geoffrey's favourite--the beautiful
old ballad of the "Bailiff's Daughter of Islington." With the wild-rose
in her hand, the delicate bloom on her cheek, the green hedge behind,
the green elm above, and the sweet scent of the hay, she looked the
ballad as well as sang it.
"Ah," said Felix, "no sign of study in those old ballads, no
premeditation, no word-twisting and jerking; rugged metre so involved
that none can understand it without pondering an hour or two. This is
the way we criticise poetry now-a-days, in our mechanical age--just
listen: somebody has been measuring Tennyson with a foot-rule. I read
from a professor's analysis--`The line is varied by dactylic or iambic
substitution, as well as by truncation and anacrusis;' `the line is
varied by anapaestic and trochaic (rarely dactylic) substitutions, and
by initial truncation.' As Faust says, not all these word-twisters have
ever made a Maker yet."
Crash!--splintering of wood and breaking of boughs.
"Here gwoes! Come on, you! Hoorah! Us ull put it up, missus; doan't
'ee be afeared! you bin a good missus to we. So into't, you vellers!"
Eight or ten men came crashing through a gap in the hedge, and seizing
the prongs and rakes that were lying about with no more explanation than
these brief ejaculations, dashed out to work. Heartily tired of
rambling idly about, hands in pockets, seeing no prospect of the men on
the other farms joining them, they had been hanging round the place in a
sheepish way, till, finally observing the ladies working, the sense of
shame got the better, and they made a rush for the hay, and gave up the
strike. For there is sterling worth and some rude chivalry in these
men, though simple enough, and easily led astray; the more the pity that
no one has yet taken the lead among them with a view to their own real
and solid advancement.
"I will go home and send them some refreshment," said Mrs Estcourt.
All the party rose and accompanied her. In the next field they passed
the mowers preparing to begin mowing again. Geoffrey and Valentine both
tried to mow, but utterly failed; the point of the scythe persistently
stuck into the ground.
"A' be a' akkerd tool for a body as bean't used to un," said the eldest
of the men, taking out his stone rubber from the sling at his back,
preparatory to giving the scythe a touch up after such rough handling;
"and um bean't what um used to be when I wur a bwoy."
"How do you mean?" said Felix.
"Aw," said the mower, tilting his hat back, "th' blades be as good as
ever um wur--thaay folk at Mells be th' vellers to make scythes. Thur
bean't none as good as thaim. But it be th' handle, look'ee, as I
means. I minds when thaay wur made of dree sarts of wood, a main bit
more crooked than this yer stick, and sart o' carved a bit; doant 'ee
see? It took a chap a week zumtimes to find a bit a' wood as ud do.
But, bless ee, a'moast anything does now."
Swish went the keen blade through the tall grass. They watched him a
few minutes.
"Thur be some blight about," said the man; "scythe do scum up terrable,"
and he showed them the blade all covered with a greenish-white froth,
supposed to be caused by insects. "Thur be blight up thur, look."
He pointed to a dark heavy cloud that seemed to float at a great height
in the east.
"It will thunder," said May.
"Aw, no it wunt, miss," said the mower. "A' reckon as it'll be nation
hot; thuck cloud be nothing but blight. Spile the fruit, bless'ee."
"So even the scythe handles used to be artistic," said Felix, as they
walked away. "There used to be art and taste and workmanship even in so
common a thing. It was made of three distinct pieces of wood, carefully
finished off; men took days to find a piece. Now it is nothing but a
stick smoothed by machinery. I _hate_ machinery. I like to see the
artist in his work; to see the mark of the knife where the chip has been
taken out. But the spirit of art flies when things are sent forth by
machinery--hundreds exactly alike."
To May it was a great pleasure to hear him dilate in this way. Near the
house they met Augustus, radiant with smiles, and perfectly loaded with
the wooden bottles for the men.
"I knows I'm a fool," said he; "at least I ought to, since I'm told so
forty times a day. But a fool must be sometimes right. 'Pend upon it,
there's nothing like ale!"
At Greene Ferne, May found a letter for her which spoilt the day. It
was from her grandfather, Andrew Fisher, of the Warren, written in great
anger, and commanding her immediate return home, and to mind and bring
that rug with her that had been at Greene Ferne ever since Christmas.
The old grasping miser, in his rage, remembered such a trifle as a
travelling-rug. Fisher had sent a verbal message for his granddaughter
before, which she had ventured to put off; now he wrote in a furious
temper, and added at the foot that if that parson ever came a-nigh the
Warren again he'd have him ducked in the mill-pool. So bitter had the
mere thought made him that Felix wanted his money. There was nothing
for it but for May to return, and she asked for her horse to be saddled.
Felix could hardly suppress his annoyance. May was much downcast, but
Margaret cheered her.
"I will go with you," she said. "He was always nice to me. He is a
regular old flatterer,"--(she peeped in the glass)--"only think,
flattering at ninety! But a man must flatter, if he's a hundred! I
shall get over him! I'll ride my chestnut, and I can stay with you,
dear, can't I? and come back next evening."
So they left together. Geoffrey, in shaking hands with Margaret, tried
to whisper, "May I come and meet you to-morrow evening?" but could not
well manage it, Valentine being near.
"Be sure and return by the road, dear," said Mrs Estcourt--"the Downs
are very lonely if you come by yourself, and you may lose your way."
"Oh, no," laughed Margaret. "I love the hills, and I know them all. I
must come over the turf, mamma dear."
Now, Geoffrey heard this, and mentally noted it. He had his horse at
Thorpe Hall, and he determined to ride and meet Margaret on the morrow.