MR. GRASPACRE upholds the national customs, and Welsh custom receives his
support. A “tiff” with Lady Graspacre. The squire defends bed
courtships. Newcastle Emlyn Ale. Thirsty rats.
At this time a warm altercation one day took place between the squire and
his lady, which terminated in consequences little expected by either.
Notwithstanding the prejudice to which Squire Graspacre’s harsh conduct
had given birth, on his first settlement in Cardiganshire, he had about
him certain saving points, that not only reconciled them to his rule, but
really gained their esteem. He was a plain, bold, sensible man, and
although entertaining a most exalted opinion of English superiority,
generally, in particular instances he had the liberality to confess that
he found things in this nation of mountaineers highly worthy of imitation
among his more civilized brethren.
There are many exceptions like the squire, but we are sorry to add that
in Wales we have more illiberal Englishmen, who sneer at all Welsh
customs, because they are Welsh, than people would dream of. They forget
that our usages are as dear to us, as theirs to them, and that however
peculiar they may be in the eyes of an Englishman, the Welshman considers
them a _sine qua non_ of his own nationality. But these instances are
fast dying out. Railroads, free and continued intercourse, and a liberal
spirit of toleration, enable the Englishman to see our custom and our
usages in a different light.
He had formerly expressed his disapprobation of a custom prevalent among
Welsh farmers of leaving their corn a long time on the ground after being
cut, instead of housing it as soon as possible; but experience taught him
that they were right and himself in error; among the corn was a large
quantity of weeds, which required to be dried, before it could with
safety be brought to the barn or the rick, otherwise the grain was
sweated, and literally poisoned with the rank juice. He found the
Cardiganshire mode of cropping the young mountain furze, and giving it as
food for horses and cattle, worthy of his attention, and after various
trials, decided on its efficacy so far as to adopt it for the future; and
actually set Carmarthen Jack to gather the seed of that mountain plant,
which he forwarded to England to be sown and reared on his Devonshire
farms.
The planting of flowers on the graves of deceased friends, he eulogized
as a beautiful and endearing custom, forming an agreeable contrast to the
clumsy English tombstones with barbarous lines, often setting truth,
rhyme and reason at defiance. The Welsh harp he declared the prince of
all musical instruments, and Welsh weddings the best contrived, and
conducted in the best manner in the world, and proved his sincerity by
always giving something at the _Biddings_ of the peasantry, and
patronizing all those who entered that happy state. Above all things he
admired the female costume in Wales, and protested with much truth, that
the poor people in England were not half so well or so neatly clothed.
His lofty lady, although a Welshwoman bred and born, entertained a very
different set of ideas on these subjects. Whenever her husband related
the anecdote of Polydore Virgil’s ecstacy on his first landing in
Britain, when he beheld the yellow-blossomed furze, which gave a golden
glow to the swelling bosom of the hills—how he knelt on the ground beside
a bush of it, fervently worshipping the God of Nature, that beautified
the world with the production of such a plant; she would instantly reply,
“The man was a fool! for _my part_ I see nothing in the nasty prickly
thing to admire, but wish the fire would burn them all from one end of
the mountains to the other.”
“And yet, my dear,” he would answer, “Polydore Virgil was a native of no
rude soil, but came from the land of the laurel, the cypress, and the
vine, the orange, the lemon, and the citron, and many other splendid
plants, the very names of which you perhaps never heard of; yet he had
the liberality to admire what he justly deemed beautiful, even in a
northern clime, and a comparatively harsh mountainous district.”
As to the harp, whenever he praised its melody, she declared it odious
and unbearable, and gave preference to the fiddle, the bagpipes, or even
the hurdy-gurdy; and the Welsh female costume she protested still more
loudly against, and asked him with a sneer if he did not conceive it
capable of improvement.
“Oh, certainly, my dear,” would he reply; “for instance, I would have the
Glamorganshire girls wear shoes, and feet to their stockings, and convert
their awkward wrappers into neat gowns; the Cardiganshire fair ones
should doff their clogs, and wear leathern shoes; and the Breconshire
lass, with all others who follow the abominable habit, should be hindered
from wearing a handkerchief around the head; but I know of no improvement
that can be suggested for the Pembrokeshire damsel, except _one_ which
would be equally applicable to all Welsh girls,—namely, to throw off
their flannel shifts and wear linen ones.”
Now this good gentlewoman, whose leading weakness it was to suspect her
husband’s fidelity when from home, kindled with rage at this remark.
“Shifts, Mr. Graspacre,” exclaimed the angered lady, “what business have
you to concern yourself about such matters? You ought, at least, to know
nothing about such matters, but I dare say you know too much. There’s
but one woman’s shifts in the world of which you ought to know anything,
but no, you seem to know the cut of every girl’s shifts, and you couldn’t
get that experience without other of a different kind.”
Anxious as a seaman to turn his bark from the direction of a dangerous
rock, he mildly replied, “Surely, my dear, I may exercise my eyes, when
the washed clothes are bleaching on the hedge,” and then adding in the
same breath, “indeed, if I were you, my dear, I would make some
improvements, _such as your good taste will suggest_, among our own
maids; taking care however, not to destroy the stamp of nationality on
their garbs at any rate.” This was a well-judged hit on his part, and
had the effect of averting the impending storm.
It should have been mentioned before, that the squire, soon after his
marriage, had made a tour of South Wales, and, as his lady expressed it,
taken a whim in his head of engaging a maid servant in every county
through which he passed; so that in Graspacre Hall there were to be found
maiden representatives in their native costumes, of all the different
shires in South Wales, except Radnor, in which, the squire said, the
barbarous jargon of Herefordshire, and the English cottons, had
supplanted the native tongue and dress of Wales. There might you see the
neat maiden of Pembrokeshire in her dark cloth dress of one hue, either a
dark brown approximating to black, or a claret colour, made by the skill
of a tailor, and very closely resembling the ladies’ modern
riding-habit,—a perfect picture of comfort and neatness, in alliance with
good taste.
There would you see the extreme contrast, the Glamorganshire lass in
stockings cut off at the ankle, and without shoes; and, although a
handsome brunette with fine black eyes, dressed in a slammatkin check
wrapper of cotton and wool, utterly shapeless, and tied about the middle
like a wheat-sheaf, or a faggot of wood; possessing, however, the
peculiar convenience that it could be put on in an instant, without the
loss of time in dressing tastefully, and that it would fit every body
alike, as it is neither a gown nor a bedgown, but between both, and
without a waist.
There would you see the young woman of Breconshire, with her pretty
blushing face, half hidden in a handkerchief which envelops her head that
at first you would fancy the figure before you to be a grandmother at
least. Her long linsey gown is pinned up behind, each extreme corner
being joined together in the centre, and confined a few inches below her
waist; she has her wooden-soled shoes for every day, and leathern ones
for Sunday, or for a dance, which, with her stockings, she very
economically takes off should a shower of rain overtake her on a journey;
and when it ceases, washes her feet in the first brook she meets, and
puts them on again. Some might term this a curious method of
appreciating the protective excellence of the shoemaker’s art, but a
Welsh girl, or rather, a Breconshire girl studies economy quite as much
as comfort, and considers her shoes to be made as much for ornament as
for use, and rather more.
This fair one takes especial care that her drapery shall be short enough
to discover her pretty ankle, and her apron sufficiently scanty to
disclose her gay red petticoat with black or white stripes, beneath, and
at the sides. Then comes the stout Carmarthenshire lass, with her thick
bedgown and petticoat of a flaring brick-dust red, knitting stockings as
she walks, and singing a loud song as she cards or spins.
Lastly, though not least in importance, behold the clogged and cloaked
short-statured woman of Cardiganshire. She scorns the sluttish garb and
bare feet of the Glamorganshire maiden, and hates the abominable pride of
the Pembrokeshire lass who is vain enough to wear leathern shoes instead
of honest clogs; proving at the same time that her own vanity is of a
more pardonable stamp. “Thank God too, that she is not vain like the
others are. Yet in her thanks shows vanity,” while she boasts with
truth, that her dress costs twice as much as either of the others. The
Cardiganshire woman’s dresses, in fact—generally blue, with red stripes
and bound at the bottom with red or blue worsted caddis, are entirely of
wool, solidly woven and heavy, consequently more expensive than those
made of linsey or minco, or of the common intermixture of wool and
cotton, and presenting an appearance of weighty warmth, equally
independent of a comely cut and tasty neatness.
It was one of the squire’s fancies never to call these girls by their
proper names, but by that of their shires, as thus, “Come here little
Pembroke, and buckle my shoe: and you Carmarthen, bring me a bason of
broth; Cardigan, call Glamorgan and Brecon, and tell them they must drive
a harrow a piece through the ploughed part of Rockfield.”
On his return to dinner, a few days after the suggestion about the
dresses of the maids, he was astonished to find that Mrs. Graspacre had
used her privilege with a vengeance; having with decided bad taste, put
them all, _at their own expense_, to be deducted from their wages, into
glaring cotton prints.
The girls were unhappy enough at this change, as well as at the expense
thus incurred, and they could not enter the town without experiencing the
ridicule of their friends and neighbours; the Cardiganshire maid, who
considered such a change in the light of disowning her country, and like
a renegade putting on the livery of the Saxon, in something of a
termagant spirit, tendered her resignation to her master rather than
comply with such an innovation.
This ungenerous invasion of his harmless rules, roused his indignation;
and after venting a few “damns,” _a la John Bull_, against draggle-tail
cotton rags, without a word of expostulation with his rib, he desired the
girls to bring all their trumpery to him, which they gladly did, and he
made them instantly into a bonfire in the farm-yard. Then in a firm
undertone of subdued resentment, gave strict injunctions that no further
liberties should be taken with their national costume; to which his lady
made the polite and submissive reply, that the girls might all walk
abroad without any dress at all if he chose, and go to the devil his own
way.
At this juncture little Pembroke came in with rosy smiles, and told her
master that Carmarthen Jack wanted to speak to him very particularly, on
which the squire laughed, and asked on what _important_ matter. “Why,
sir,” said the rustic beauty, while arch smiles and blushes contended in
her sweet oval face, “Parson Inco has found out that he has been courting
in bed, with Catty the schoolmistress, and he has run here before the
parson to say it is all a falsehood.”
“There’s an impious rascal for you!” cried the lady of the house, “to
charge the clergyman with a falsehood; but I am sure ’tis true, for I
long suspected it.”
“Madam, your own dignity and delicacy ought to suggest to you that the
less you interfere in these matters the more creditable it will be to
your own common sense,” said the squire, in a tone which was
unmistakable. “I insist,” cried the imperious dame, “that he be put in
the stocks, and be ducked in the river.”
“Neither shall be done,” said he firmly, “and from henceforward no person
shall be annoyed or persecuted on that score, but everyone shall court as
he or she pleases.” “What!” cried the indignant lady, “would you fill
the country with bastards!”
“No, madam,” was the reply, “but with as happy a set of people as
possible.”
Encouraged by the turn which affairs had taken, the Cardiganshire maid
now asked her master for her discharge; as her mistress, she said, had
thrown a slur on her brewing abilities, which had almost broken her
heart; “for” said she, with a ludicrous whimper, “she says my brewing is
unfit for the drinking of Christian people, and hardly worthy of the
hogs!—but,” cried the sturdy little wench, raising her voice to an
accusatory pitch, and at the same time a tone of triumph, “I came from
Newcastle Emlyn, the country of good beer, the very home where the _Cwrw
da_ of _Hen Gymru_ {50a} is bred and born, and I would rather die than be
told that I can’t brew!”
“Indeed, Cardy,” said the squire, with a smile, “though your mistress may
have been too severe in her censure, I must say that your two last
brewings were unequal to the first.” “A good reason why, sir; who can
brew without malt and hops? who can make bricks without straw? I hear
some of the great London brewers do without either malt or hops, but I
wouldn’t drink their brewings, I know; their brewings won’t do for us at
Newcastle Emlyn! and your wheat, {50b} sir, which has grown by being cut
in the wet harvest, so as to be unfit for bread, is but a poor make-shift
for malt—it may do for the wish-wash paltry brewers’ ale of Haverfordwest
and Fishguard, or the Swansea folk, Merthyr blacks, and Cardiff boys, but
our ploughboys would turn up their noses at such stuff at Newcastle
Emlyn!
“Damn Newcastle Emlyn!” cried the squire, provoked by her continual
reference to her native place. “Master! master!” cried the girl, as if
rebuking him for the greatest impiety conceivable, “don’t damn Newcastle
Emlyn; I had rather you should knock me down than damn Newcastle Emlyn!
it is the country of decent people and good home-brewed ale,—the country
where”—
“You brewed good ale from the grown wheat the first time,” said the
squire, not deeming it necessary to notice her observations.
“Good! was it?” retorts the girl, struggling between respect for her
master and contempt for his taste in the matter of malt drink; “good was
it! I tell you what, master, you are a good master, and I have nothing
to say against mistress, for it would not be decent, but you never tasted
beer like ours at Newcastle Emlyn! the real hearty _cwrw da_! which I
could make you to-morrow, if you would give me good malt and hops, and
let it stand long enough untapped.”
“But Cardy, there must be a sound reason for your two last brewings being
inferior to the first. You could brew a well-flavoured, palatable beer,
but you don’t now, although you have the same ingredients given you.”
“The last was better, a good deal, than the other. The first would have
turned the devil’s stomach, had he known what was in it.”
“Explain yourself,” said the squire, surprised. “I will, sir, if I were
to be hanged for it,” cried the girl in a tone of confidence; “it seems
that rats love beer as well as any christian folks, and get drunk and die
in drink, as a warning to all sober-minded rats; but that is neither here
nor there, and I hate to tell a rigmarole story; the long and the short
of it is, that when I came to wash out the barrels after the first
brewing, I found three rats in one, and two in the other.”
“You found what?” asked the squire and his lady at the same time.
“I found three rats, sir, that had burst themselves with drinking beer,
and afterwards fell in and were drowned—they were then putrid, and it was
that, it seems, that made the ale so palatable; there were no dead
animals in the last brewing, so that of course it wasn’t so ‘palatable’
and well-flavoured as the other. But had I known your mind I might have
killed a couple of cats, or put you in a bushel of lively cockroaches.”
This explanation excited a titter among the girls, and a loud laugh from
the squire, while the lady evinced the shock which her delicacy had
sustained, by making wry faces, and snuffing violently at her
smelling-bottle to avoid fainting.
The squire good-humouredly addressed the girl,—“now, Cardy, you are
perfectly right in the praise you bestow on your own country ale, and I
promise you shall have the best of malt and hops for your next attempt,
when I expect it to be equal to the best _cwrw da_ of Newcastle
Emlyn—and, do you hear? we shall dispense with either rats or cats in it
for the future.”
This amicable settlement of differences set every one in good humour,
except the haughty mistress, who, embittered with her double defeat,
retired in gloom, while her husband went to give audience to Jack of
Sheer Gâr.