cunning and adroit, that there is no detecting him. Old Christy and
the game-keeper have watched many a night, in hopes of entrapping him;
and Christy often patrols the park with his dogs, for the purpose, but
all in vain. It is said that the Squire winks hard at his misdeeds,
having an indulgent feeling towards the vagabond, because of his being
very expert at all kinds of games, a great shot with the cross-bow,
and the best morris-dancer in the country.
The Squire also suffers the gang to lurk unmolested about the skirts
of his estate, on condition that they do not come about the house. The
approaching wedding, however, has made a kind of Saturnalia at the
Hall, and has caused a suspension of all sober rule. It has produced a
great sensation throughout the female part of the household; not a
housemaid but dreams of wedding favours, and has a husband running in
her head. Such a time is a harvest for the gipsies: there is a public
footpath leading across one part of the park, by which they have free
ingress, and they are continually hovering about the grounds, telling
the servant-girls' fortunes, or getting smuggled in to the young
ladies.
I believe the Oxonian amuses himself very much by furnishing them with
hints in private, and bewildering all the weak brains in the house
with their wonderful revelations. The general certainly was very much
astonished by the communications made to him the other evening by the
gipsy girl: he kept a wary silence towards us on the subject, and
affected to treat it lightly; but I have noticed that he has since
redoubled his attentions to Lady Lillycraft and her dogs.
I have seen also Phoebe Wilkins, the housekeeper's pretty and
love-sick niece, holding a long conference with one of these old
sibyls behind a large tree in the avenue, and often looking round to
see that she was not observed. I make no doubt that she was
endeavouring to get some favourable augury about the result of her
love-quarrel with young Ready-Money, as oracles have always been more
consulted on love affairs than upon any thing else. I fear, however,
that in this instance the response was not so favourable as usual; for
I perceived poor Phoebe returning pensively towards the house, her
head hanging down, her hat in her hand, and the riband trailing along
the ground.
At another time, as I turned a corner of a terrace, at the bottom of
the garden, just by a clump of trees, and a large stone urn, I came
upon a bevy of the young girls of the family, attended by this same
Phoebe Wilkins. I was at a loss to comprehend the meaning of their
blushing and giggling, and their apparent agitation, until I saw the
red cloak of a gipsy vanishing among the shrubbery. A few moments
after, I caught sight of Master Simon and the Oxonion stealing along
one of the walks of the garden, chuckling and laughing at their
successful waggery; having evidently put the gipsy up to the thing,
and instructed her what to say.
After all, there is something strangely pleasing in these tamperings
with the future, even where we are convinced of the fallacy of the
prediction. It is singular how willingly the mind will half deceive
itself, and with what a degree of awe we will listen to these babblers
about futurity. For my part, I cannot feel angry with these poor
vagabonds, that seek to deceive us into bright hopes and expectations.
I have always been something of a castle-builder, and have found my
liveliest pleasures to arise from the illusions which fancy has cast
over commonplace realities. As I get on in life, I find it more
difficult to deceive myself in this delightful manner; and I should be
thankful to any prophet, however false, that would conjure the clouds
which hang over futurity into palaces, and all its doubtful regions
into fairy-land.
The Squire, who, as I have observed, has a private good-will towards
gipsies, has suffered considerable annoyance on their account. Not
that they requite his indulgence with ingratitude, for they do not
depredate very flagrantly on his estate; but because their pilferings
and misdeeds occasion loud murmurs in the village. I can readily
understand the old gentleman's humour on this point; I have a great
toleration for all kinds of vagrant sunshiny existence, and must
confess I take a pleasure in observing the ways of gipsies. The
English, who are accustomed to them from childhood, and often suffer
from their petty depredations, consider them as mere nuisances; but I
have been very much struck with their peculiarities. I like to behold
their clear olive complexions, their romantic black eyes, their raven
locks, their lithe, slender figures; and hear them in low silver tones
dealing forth magnificent promises of honours and estates, of world's
wealth, and ladies' love.
Their mode of life, too, has something in it very fanciful and
picturesque. They are the free denizens of nature, and maintain a
primitive independence, in spite of law and gospel; of county gaols
and country magistrates. It is curious to see this obstinate adherence
to the wild, unsettled habits of savage life transmitted from
generation to generation, and preserved in the midst of one of the
most cultivated, populous, and systematic countries in the world. They
are totally distinct from the busy, thrifty people about them. They
seem to be, like the Indians of America, either above or below the
ordinary cares and anxieties of mankind. Heedless of power, of
honours, of wealth; and indifferent to the fluctuations of times; the
rise or fall of grain, or stock, or empires, they seem to laugh at the
tolling, fretting world around them, and to live according to the
philosophy of the old song:
"Who would ambition shun,
And loves to lie i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither;
Here shall he see
No enemy,
But winter and rough weather."
In this way, they wander from county to county; keeping about the
purlieus of villages, or in plenteous neighbourhoods, where there are
fat farms and rich country-seats. Their encampments are generally made
in some beautiful spot--either a green shady nook of a road; or on the
border of a common, under a sheltering hedge; or on the skirts of a
fine spreading wood. They are always to be found lurking about fairs,
and races, and rustic gatherings, wherever there is pleasure, and
throng, and idleness. They are the oracles of milk-maids and simple
serving-girls; and sometimes have even the honour of perusing the
white hands of gentlemen's daughters, when rambling about their
fathers' grounds. They are the bane of good housewives and thrifty
farmers, and odious in the eyes of country justices; but, like all
other vagabond beings, they have something to commend them to the
fancy. They are among the last traces, in these matter-of-fact days,
of the motley population of former times; and are whimsically
associated in my mind with fairies and witches, Robin Goodfellow,
Robin Hood, and the other fantastical personages of poetry.
MAY-DAY CUSTOMS.
Happy the age, and harmless were the dayes,
(For then true love and amity was found,)
When every village did a May-pole raise,
And Whitsun ales and May-games did abound:
And all the lusty yonkers in a rout,
With merry lasses daunc'd the rod about,
Then friendship to their banquets bid the guests,
And poore men far'd the better for their feasts.
--PASQUIL'S _Palinodia_.
The month of April has nearly passed away, and we are fast approaching
that poetical day, which was considered, in old times, as the boundary
that parted the frontiers of winter and summer. With all its caprices,
however, I like the month of April. I like these laughing and crying
days, when sun and shade seem to run in billows over the landscape. I
like to see the sudden shower coursing over the meadow, and giving all
nature a greener smile; and the bright sunbeams chasing the flying
cloud, and turning all its drops into diamonds.
I was enjoying a morning of the kind, in company with the Squire, in
one of the finest parts of the park. We were skirting a beautiful
grove, and he was giving me a kind of biographical account of several
of his favourite forest trees, when he heard the strokes of an axe
from the midst of a thick copse. The Squire paused and listened, with
manifest signs of uneasiness. He turned his steps in the direction of
the sound. The strokes grew louder and louder as we advanced; there
was evidently a vigorous arm wielding the axe. The Squire quickened
his pace, but in vain; a loud crack, and a succeeding crash, told that
the mischief had been done, and some child of the forest laid low.
When we came to the place, we found Master Simon and several others
standing about a tall and beautifully straight young tree, which had
just been felled.
The Squire, though a man of most harmonious dispositions, was
completely put out of tune by this circumstance. He felt like a
monarch witnessing the murder of one of his liege subjects, and
demanded, with some asperity, the meaning of the outrage. It turned
out to be an affair of Master Simon's, who had selected the tree, from
its height and straightness, for a May-pole, the old one which stood
on the village green being unfit for farther service. If any thing
could have soothed the ire of my worthy host, it would have been the
reflection that his tree had fallen for so good a cause; and I saw
that there was a great struggle between his fondness for his groves,
and his devotion to May-day. He could not contemplate the prostrate
tree, however, without indulging in lamentation, and making a kind of
funeral eulogy, like Mark Antony over the body of Caesar; and he
forbade that any tree should thenceforward be cut down on his estate,
without a warrant from himself; being determined, he said, to hold the
sovereign power of life and death in his own hands.
This mention of the May-pole struck my attention, and I inquired
whether the old customs connected with it were really kept up in this
part of the country. The Squire shook his head mournfully; and I found
I had touched on one of his tender points, for he grew quite
melancholy in bewailing the total decline of old May-day. Though it is
regularly celebrated in the neighbouring village, yet it has been
merely resuscitated by the worthy Squire, and is kept up in a forced
state of existence at his expense. He meets with continual
discouragements; and finds great difficulty in getting the country
bumpkins to play their parts tolerably. He manages to have every year
a "Queen of the May;" but as to Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, the Dragon,
the Hobby-Horse, and all the other motley crew that used to enliven
the day with their mummery, he has not ventured to introduce them.
Still I looked forward with some interest to the promised shadow of
old May-day, even though it be but a shadow; and I feel more and more
pleased with the whimsical yet harmless hobby of my host, which is
surrounding him with agreeable associations, and making a little world
of poetry about him. Brought up, as I have been, in a new country, I
may appreciate too highly the faint vestiges of ancient customs which
I now and then meet with, and the interest I express in them may
provoke a smile from those who are negligently suffering them to pass
away. But with whatever indifference they may be regarded by those "to
the manner born," yet in my mind the lingering flavour of them imparts
a charm to rustic life, which nothing else could readily supply.
I shall never forget the delight I felt on first seeing a May-pole. It
was on the banks of the Dee, close by the picturesque old bridge that
stretches across the river from the quaint little city of Chester. I
had already been carried back into former days, by the antiquities of
that venerable place; the examination of which is equal to turning
over the pages of a black-letter volume, or gazing on the pictures
in Froissart. The May-pole on the margin of that poetic stream
completed the illusion. My fancy adorned it with wreaths of flowers,
and peopled the green bank with all the dancing revelry of May-day.
The mere sight of this May-pole gave a glow to my feelings, and spread
a charm over the country for the rest of the day; and as I traversed a
part of the fair plain of Cheshire, and the beautiful borders of
Wales, and looked from among swelling hills down a long green valley,
through which "the Deva wound its wizard stream," my imagination
turned all into a perfect Arcadia.
Whether it be owing to such poetical associations early instilled into
my mind, or whether there is, as it were, a sympathetic revival and
budding forth of the feelings at this season, certain it is, that I
always experience, wherever I may be placed, a delightful expansion of
the heart at the return of May. It is said that birds about this time
will become restless in their cages, as if instinct with the season,
conscious of the revelry that is going on in the groves, and impatient
to break from their bondage, and join in the jubilee of the year. In
like manner I have felt myself excited, even in the midst of the
metropolis, when the windows, which had been churlishly closed all
winter, were again thrown open to receive the balmy breath of May;
when the sweets of the country were breathed into the town, and
flowers were cried about the streets. I have considered the treasures
of flowers thus poured in, as so many missives from nature, inviting
us forth to enjoy the virgin beauty of the year, before its freshness
is exhaled by the heats of sunny summer.
One can readily imagine what a gay scene it must have been in jolly
old London, when the doors were decorated with flowering branches,
when every hat was decked with hawthorn, and Robin Hood, Friar Tuck,
Maid Marian, the morris-dancers, and all the other fantastic masks and
revellers, were performing their antics about the May-pole in every
part of the city.
I am not a bigoted admirer of old times and old customs, merely
because of their antiquity: but while I rejoice in the decline of many
of the rude usages and coarse amusements of former days, I cannot but
regret that this innocent and fanciful festival has fallen into
disuse. It seemed appropriate to this verdant and pastoral country,
and calculated to light up the too pervading gravity of the nation. I
value every custom that tends to infuse poetical feeling into the
common people, and to sweeten and soften the rudeness of rustic
manners, without destroying their simplicity. Indeed, it is to the
decline of this happy simplicity, that the decline of this custom may
be traced; and the rural dance on the green, and the homely May-day
pageant, have gradually disappeared, in proportion as the peasantry
have become expensive and artificial in their pleasures, and too
knowing for simple enjoyment.
Some attempts, the Squire informs me, have been made of late years, by
men of both taste and learning, to rally back the popular feeling to
these standards of primitive simplicity; but the time has gone by, the
feeling has become chilled by habits of gain and traffic, the country
apes the manners and amusements of the town, and little is heard of
May-day at present, except from the lamentations of authors, who sigh
after it from among the brick walls of the city:
"For O, for O, the Hobby-Horse is forgot."
VILLAGE WORTHIES.
Nay, I tell you, I am so well beloved in our town, that not
the worst dog in the street will hurt my little finger.
--_Collier of Croydon_.
As the neighbouring village is one of those out-of-the-way, but
gossiping, little places where a small matter makes a great stir, it
is not to be supposed that the approach of a festival like that of
May-day can be regarded with indifference, especially since it is made
a matter of such moment by the great folks at the Hall. Master Simon,
who is the faithful factotum of the worthy Squire, and jumps with his
humour in every thing, is frequent just now in his visits to the
village, to give directions for the impending fête; and as I have
taken the liberty occasionally of accompanying him, I have been
enabled to get some insight into the characters and internal politics
of this very sagacious little community.
Master Simon is in fact the Caesar of the village. It is true the
Squire is the protecting power, but his factotum is the active and
busy agent. He intermeddles in all its concerns, is acquainted with
all the inhabitants and their domestic history, gives counsel to the
old folks in their business matters, and the young folks in their love
affairs, and enjoys the proud satisfaction of being a great man in a
little world.
He is the dispenser, too, of the Squire's charity, which is bounteous;
and, to do Master Simon justice, he performs this part of his
functions with great alacrity. Indeed, I have been entertained with
the mixture of bustle, importance, and kind-heartedness which he
displays. He is of too vivacious a temperament to comfort the
afflicted by sitting down, moping and whining, and blowing noses in
concert: but goes whisking about like a sparrow, chirping consolation
into every hole and corner of the village. I have seen an old woman,
in a red cloak, hold him for half an hour together with some long
phthisical tale of distress, which Master Simon listened to with many
a bob of the head, smack of his dog-whip, and other symptoms of
impatience, though he afterwards made a most faithful and
circumstantial report of the case to the Squire. I have watched him,
too, during one of his pop visits into the cottage of a superannuated
villager, who is a pensioner of the Squire, where he fidgeted about
the room without sitting down, made many excellent off-hand
reflections with the old invalid, who was propped up in his chair,
about the shortness of life, the certainty of death, and the necessity
of preparing for "that awful change;" quoted several texts of
scripture very incorrectly, but much to the edification of the
cottager's wife; and on coming out, pinched the daughter's rosy cheek,
and wondered what was in the young men that such a pretty face did not
get a husband.
He has also his cabinet counsellors in the village, with whom he is
very busy just now, preparing for the May-day ceremonies. Among these
is the village tailor, a pale-faced fellow, that plays the clarionet
in the church choir; and; being a great musical genius, has frequent
meetings of the band at his house, where they "make night hideous" by
their concerts. He is, in consequence, high in favour with Master
Simon; and, through his influence, has the making, or rather marring,
of all the liveries of the Hall; which generally look as though they
had been cut out by one of those scientific tailors of the Flying
Island of Laputa, who took measure of their customers with a quadrant.
The tailor, in fact, might rise to be one of the moneyed men of the
village, were he not rather too prone to gossip, and keep holidays,
and give concerts, and blow all his substance, real and personal,
through his clarionet; which literally keeps him poor, both in body
and estate. He has for the present thrown by all his regular work,
and suffered the breeches of the village to go unmade and unmended,
while he is occupied in making garlands of party-coloured rags, in
imitation of flowers, for the decoration of the May-pole.
Another of Master Simon's counsellors is the apothecary, a short and
rather fat man, with a pair of prominent eyes, that diverge like those
of a lobster. He is the village wise man; very sententious, and full
of profound remarks on shallow subjects. Master Simon often quotes his
sayings, and mentions him as rather an extraordinary man; and even
consults him occasionally, in desperate cases of the dogs and horses.
Indeed, he seems to have been overwhelmed by the apothecary's
philosophy, which is exactly one observation deep, consisting of
indisputable maxims, such as may be gathered from the mottoes of
tobacco-boxes. I had a specimen of his philosophy, in my very first
conversation with him; in the course of which he observed, with great
solemnity and emphasis, that "man is a compound of wisdom and folly;"
upon which Master Simon, who had hold of my arm, pressed very hard
upon it, and whispered in my ear "That's a devilish shrewd remark!"
THE SCHOOLMASTER.
There will be no mosse stick to the stone of Sisiphus, no
grasse hang on the heeles of Mercury, no butter cleave on the
bread of a traveller. For as the eagle at every flight loseth
a feather, which maketh her bauld in her age, so the traveller
in every country loseth some fleece, which maketh him a beggar
in his youth, by buying that for a pound which he cannot sell
again for a penny--repentance.
--LILLY'S _Euphues_.
Among the worthies of the village that enjoy the peculiar confidence
of Master Simon, is one who has struck my fancy so much that I have
thought him worthy of a separate notice. It is Slingsby, the
schoolmaster, a thin, elderly man, rather threadbare and slovenly,
somewhat indolent in manner, and with an easy, good-humoured look, not
often met with in his craft. I have been interested in his favour by a
few anecdotes which I have picked up concerning him.
He is a native of the village, and was a contemporary and playmate of
Ready-Money Jack in the days of their boyhood. Indeed, they carried on
a kind of league of mutual good offices. Slingsby was rather puny, and
withal somewhat of a coward, but very apt at his learning; Jack, on
the contrary, was a bully-boy out of doors, but a sad laggard at his
books. Slingsby helped Jack, therefore, to all his lessons; Jack
fought all Slingsby's battles; and they were inseparable friends. This
mutual kindness continued even after they left the school,
notwithstanding the dissimilarity of their characters. Jack took to
ploughing and reaping, and prepared himself to till his paternal
acres; while the other loitered negligently on in the path of
learning, until he penetrated even into the confines of Latin and
mathematics.
In an unlucky hour, however, he took to reading voyages and travels,
and was smitten with a desire to see the world. This desire increased
upon him as he grew up; so, early one bright, sunny morning, he put
all his effects in a knapsack, slung it on his back, took staff in
hand, and called in his way to take leave of his early schoolmate.
Jack was just going out with the plough: the friends shook hands over
the farm-house gate; Jack drove his team a-field, and Slingsby
whistled, "Over the hills and far away," and sallied forth gayly to
"seek his fortune."
Years and years passed by, and young Tom Slingsby was forgotten; when,
one mellow Sunday afternoon in autumn, a thin man, somewhat advanced
in life, with a coat out at elbows, a pair of old nankeen gaiters, and
a few things tied in a handkerchief and slung on the end of a stick,
was seen loitering through the village. He appeared to regard several
houses attentively, to peer into the windows that were open, to eye
the villagers wistfully as they returned from church, and then to pass
some time in the church-yard reading the tombstones.
At length he found his way to the farm-house of Ready-Money Jack, but
paused ere he attempted the wicket; contemplating the picture of
substantial independence before him. In the porch of the house sat
Ready-Money Jack, in his Sunday dress; with his hat upon his head, his
pipe in his mouth, and his tankard before him, the monarch of all he
surveyed. Beside him lay his fat house-dog. The varied sounds of
poultry were heard from the well-stocked farm-yard; the bees hummed
from their hives in the garden; the cattle lowed in the rich meadow;
while the crammed barns and ample stacks bore proof of an abundant
harvest.
The stranger opened the gate and advanced dubiously toward the house.
The mastiff growled at the sight of the suspicious-looking intruder;
but was immediately silenced by his master, who, taking his pipe from
his mouth, awaited with inquiring aspect the address of this equivocal
personage. The stranger eyed old Jack for a moment, so portly in his
dimensions, and decked out in gorgeous apparel; then cast a glance
upon his own thread-bare and starveling condition, and the scanty
bundle which he held in his hand; then giving his shrunk waistcoat a
twitch to make it meet its receding waistband, and casting another
look, half sad, half humorous, at the sturdy yeoman, "I suppose," said
he, "Mr. Tibbets, you have forgot old times and old playmates."
The latter gazed at him with scrutinizing look, but acknowledged that
he had no recollection of him.