HAYMAKING. 'THE JUKE'S COUNTRY'
A rattling, thumping, booming noise, like the beating of their war drums
by savages, comes over the hedge where the bees are busy at the bramble
flowers. The bees take no heed, they pass from flower to flower, seeking
the sweet honey to store at home in the hive, as their bee ancestors did
before the Roman legions marched to Cowey Stakes. Their habits have not
changed; their 'social' relations are the same; they have not called in
the aid of machinery to enlarge their liquid, wealth, or to increase the
facility of collecting it. There is a low murmur rather than a buzz along
the hedgerow; but over it the hot summer breeze brings the thumping,
rattling, booming sound of hollow metal striking against the ground or in
contact with other metal. These ringing noises, which so little accord
with the sweet-scented hay and green hedgerows, are caused by the careless
handling of milk tins dragged hither and thither by the men who are
getting the afternoon milk ready for transit to the railway station miles
away. Each tin bears a brazen badge engraved with the name of the milkman
who will retail its contents in distant London. It may be delivered to the
countess in Belgravia, and reach her dainty lip in the morning chocolate,
or it may be eagerly swallowed up by the half-starved children of some
back court in the purlieus of the Seven Dials.
Sturdy milkmaids may still be seen in London, sweeping the crowded
pavement clear before them as they walk with swinging tread, a yoke on
their shoulders, from door to door. Some remnant of the traditional dairy
thus survives in the stony streets that are separated so widely from the
country. But here, beside the hay, the hedgerows, the bees, the flowers
that precede the blackberries--here in the heart of the meadows the
romance has departed. Everything is mechanical or scientific. From the
refrigerator that cools the milk, the thermometer that tests its
temperature, the lactometer that proves its quality, all is mechanical
precision. The tins themselves are metal--wood, the old country material
for almost every purpose, is eschewed--and they are swung up into a waggon
specially built for the purpose. It is the very antithesis of the jolting
and cumbrous waggon used for generations in the hay-fields and among the
corn. It is light, elegantly proportioned, painted, varnished--the work
rather of a coachbuilder than a cartwright. The horse harnessed in it is
equally unlike the cart-horse. A quick, wiry horse, that may be driven in
a trap or gig, is the style--one that will rattle along and catch the
train.
The driver takes his seat and handles the reins with the air of a man
driving a tradesman's van, instead of walking, like the true old carter,
or sitting on the shaft. The vehicle rattles off to the station, where
ten, fifteen, or perhaps twenty such converge at the same hour, and then
ensues a scene of bustle, chaff, and rough language. The tins are placed
in the van specially reserved for them, the whistle sounds, the
passengers--who have been wondering why on earth there was all this noise
and delay at a little roadside station without so much as a visible
steeple--withdraw their heads from the windows; the wheels revolve, and,
gathering speed, the train disappears round the curve, hastening to the
metropolis. Then the empty tins returned from town have to be conveyed
home with more rattling, thumping and booming of hollow tin--there to be
carefully cleansed, for which purpose vast quantities of hot water must be
ready, and coal, of course, must be consumed in proportion.
This beautiful afternoon the booming seems to sound more than usual; it
may perhaps be the wind that carries the noise along. But Mr. George, the
farmer, who has been working among the haymakers, steps out from the rank,
and going some way aside pauses awhile to consider. You should not address
him as Farmer George. Farmer as an affix is not the thing now; farmers are
'Mr. So-and-so.' Not that there is any false pride about the present
individual; his memory goes back too far, and he has had too much
experience of the world. He leans on his prong--the sharp forks worn
bright as silver from use--stuck in the sward, and his chest pressing on
the top of the handle, or rather on both hands, with which he holds it.
The handle makes an angle of forty-five degrees with his body, and thus
gives considerable support and relief while he reflects.
He leans on his prong, facing to windward, and gazing straight into the
teeth of the light breeze, as he has done these forty and odd summers
past. Like the captain of a sailing ship, the eye of the master haymaker
must be always watching the horizon to windward. He depends on the sky,
like the mariner, and spreads his canvas and shapes his course by the
clouds. He must note their varying form and drift; the height and
thickness and hue; whether there is a dew in the evenings; whether the
distant hills are clearly defined or misty; and what the sunset portends.
From the signs of the sunset he learns, like the antique Roman
husbandman--
'When the south projects a stormy day,
And when the clearing north will puff the clouds away.'
According as the interpretation of the signs be favourable, adverse, or
doubtful, so he gives his orders.
This afternoon, as he stands leaning on the prong, he marks the soft air
which seems itself to be heated, and renders the shade, if you seek it for
coolness, as sultry as the open field. The flies are numerous and
busy--the horses can barely stand still, and nod their heads to shake them
off. The hills seem near, and the trees on the summit are distinctly
visible. Such noises as are heard seem exaggerated and hollow. There is
but little cloud, mere thin flecks; but the horizon has a brassy look, and
the blue of the sky is hard and opaque. Farmer George recollects that the
barometer he tapped before coming out showed a falling mercury; he does
not like these appearances, more especially the heated breeze. There is a
large quantity of hay in the meadow, much of it quite ready for carting,
indeed, the waggons are picking it up as fast as they can, and the rest,
if left spread about through next day--Sunday--would be fit on Monday.
On Sunday there are no wages to pay to the labourers; but the sun, if it
shines, works as hard and effectually as ever. It is always a temptation
to the haymaker to leave his half-made hay spread about for Sunday, so
that on Monday morning he may find it made. Another reason why he
hesitates is because he knows he will have trouble with the labourers, who
will want to be off early as it is Saturday. They are not so ready to work
an hour or two overtime as when he was a boy. On the other hand, he
recollects that the weather cablegrams from America foretell the arrival
of a depression. What would his grandfather have thought of adjusting the
work in an English meadow to the tenour of news from the other side of the
Atlantic?
Suddenly, while he ponders, there arises a shout from the labourers. The
hay in one spot, as if seized by an invisible force, lifts itself up and
revolves round and round, rising higher every turn. A miniature cyclone is
whirling it up--a column of hay twisting in a circle and rising above the
trees. Then the force of the whirlwind spends itself; some of the hay
falls on the oaks, and some drifts with the breeze across the field before
it sinks.
This decides him at once. He resolves to have all the hay carted that he
can, and the remainder put up into haycocks. The men grumble when they
hear it; perhaps a year ago they would have openly mutinied, and refused
to work beyond the usual hour. But, though wages are still high, the
labourers feel that they are not so much the masters as they were--they
grumble, but obey. The haycocks are put up, and the rick-cloth unfolded
over the partly made rick. Farmer George himself sees to it that the cloth
does not touch the rick at the edges, or the rain, if it comes, will go
through instead of shooting off, and that the ropes are taut and firmly
belayed. His caution is justified in the night by a violent thunderstorm,
and in the morning it is raining steadily.
It rains again on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursday it does not
rain, but the hedges are wet, the ground is soaked, the grass hung with
raindrops, the sky heavy with masses of drifting cloud. The hay cannot be
touched; it must lie a day till sufficiently dry. Friday is more hopeful.
He walks out into the fields, and kicks a haycock half over. The hay is
still wet, but he congratulates himself that not much damage is done.
Saturday Is warm and fine--work goes on again. But Sunday is near. Sunday
is fiery hot. Monday, the rain pours down with tropical vehemence.
Thus the monotonous, heart-breaking days go by and lengthen into weeks,
and the weeks extend into months. The wheat is turning colour, and still
the hay lies about, and the farmer has ceased even to tap the barometer.
Those fields that are not cut are brown as brown can be--the grass has
seeded and is over ripe. The labourers come every day, and some trifling
job is found for them--the garden path is weeded, the nettles cut, and
such little matters done. Their wages are paid every week in silver and
gold--harvest wages, for which no stroke of harvest work has been done. He
must keep them on, because any day the weather may brighten, and then they
will be wanted. But the weather does not brighten, and the drain of ready
cash continues. Besides the men, the mowing machine is idle in the shed.
Even if the rain ceases, the crops are so laid that it is doubtful if it
can be employed. The horse-rake is idle, the elevator is idle, the
haymaking machine is idle, and these represent capital, if not to a large
amount. He notes the price of hay at the market. For months past it has
been low--so low that it has hardly paid him to sell that portion of old
hay which he felt he could spare. From October of last year to June of
this [1879] the price remained about the same. It is now rising, but he
has no more old hay to part with, and the new is not yet made. He has to
bear in mind that his herd of cows has to be kept in high feed all the
winter, to supply an unvarying quantity of milk to the London purchaser.
These wet days, forcing him unwillingly to stay within doors, send him to
his books and accounts, and they tell a story somewhat at variance with
the prevalent belief that dairy-farming is the only branch of farming that
is still profitable. First, as to the milk-selling. Cows naturally yield a
larger supply in the summer than in winter, but by the provisions of the
contract between the farmer and the milkman the quantity sent in summer is
not to exceed, and the quantity in winter not to fall short of, a
stipulated amount.[Footnote: An improvement upon this system has been
introduced by the leading metropolitan dairy company. The farmer is asked
to fix a minimum quantity which he will engage to supply daily, but he can
send as much more as he likes. This permits of economical and natural
management in a dairy, which was very difficult under the rigid rule
mentioned above.] The price received in summer is about fivepence or
fivepence-halfpenny per imperial gallon, afterwards retailed in London at
about one shilling and eightpence. When the cost of conveyance to the
station, of the horses, of the wear and tear, of the men who have to be
paid for doing nothing else but look after the milk, is deducted, the
profit to the farmer is but small. He thinks, too, that he notices a
decided falling-off in the demand for milk even at this price.
Some dairies find a difficulty in disposing of the milk--they cannot find
a purchaser. He has himself a considerable surplus over and above what the
contract allows him to send. This must either be wasted entirely or made
into butter and cheese. In order to make cheese, the plant, the tubs,
vats, presses, and so on, must be kept in readiness, and there must be an
experienced person to superintend the work. This person must be paid a
salary, and lodge and board in the house, representing therefore a
considerable outlay. The cheese, when made and sent to market, fluctuates
of course in price: it may be as low as fourpence a pound wholesale; it
may go as high as sixpence. Fourpence a pound wholesale will not pay for
the making; sixpence will leave a profit; but of late the price has gone
rather to the lower than the higher figure. A few years since, when the
iron industries flourished, this kind of cheese had a good and ready sale,
and there was a profit belonging to it; but since the iron trade has been
in so depressed a condition this cheese has sold badly. The surplus milk
consequently brings no profit, and is only made into cheese because it
shall not be wasted, and in the hope that possibly a favourable turn of
the cheese market may happen. Neither the summer cheese nor the summer
milk is bringing him in a fortune.
Meantime the hay is spoiling in the fields. But a few years ago, when
agricultural prices were inflated, and men's minds were full of
confidence, he recollects seeing standing grass crops sold by auction for
5_l_. the acre, and in some cases even higher prices were realised. This
year similar auctions of standing grass crops hardly realised 30_s_. an
acre, and in some instances a purchaser could not be found even at that
price. The difference in the value of grass represented by these prices is
very great.
He has no pigs to sell, because, for a long while past, he has had nothing
upon which to feed them, the milk being sold. The pigsties are full of
weeds; he can hardly fatten one for his own use, and has scarcely better
facilities for keeping pigs than an agricultural labourer. The carriage of
the milk to the station requires at least two quick horses, and perhaps
more; one cannot do it twice a day, even with a very moderate load. The
hard highway and the incessant work would soon knock a single horse up.
The mowing machine and the horse-rake must be drawn by a similar horse, so
that the dairy farm may be said to require a style of horse like that
employed by omnibus proprietors. The acreage being limited, he can only
keep a certain number of horses, and, therefore, has no room for a brood
mare.
Farmer George is aware that nothing now pays like a brood cart mare with
fair good luck. The colt born in April is often sold six months
afterwards, in September, for 20_l_. or 25_l_., and even up to 30_l_.,
according to excellence. The value of cart-horse colts has risen greatly,
and those who are fortunately able to maintain a brood mare have reaped
the profit. But Mr. George, selling the milk, and keeping a whole stud of
nags for the milk cart, the mowing machine, the horse-rake, and so forth,
cannot maintain a brood mare as well. In the winter, it is true, the milk
may sell for as high a price as tenpence per gallon of four quarts, but
then he has a difficulty in procuring the quantity contracted for, and may
perhaps have to buy of neighbours to keep up the precise supply.
His herd must also be managed for the purpose, and must be well fed, and
he will probably have to buy food for them in addition to his hay. The nag
horses, too, that draw the milk waggon, have to be fed during the winter,
and are no slight expense. As for fattening a beast in a stall, with a
view to take the prize at Christmas at the local show, he has abandoned
that, finding that it costs more to bring the animal up to the condition
required than he can afterwards sell it for. There is no profit in that.
America presses upon him hard, too--as hard, or harder, than on the
wheat-grower. Cases have been known of American cheese being sold in
manufacturing towns as low as twopence per pound retail--given away by
despairing competition.
How, then, is the dairyman to succeed when he cannot, positively cannot,
make cheese to sell at less than fourpence per pound wholesale? Of course
such instances are exceptional, but American cheese is usually sold a
penny or more a pound below the English ordinary, and this cuts the ground
from under the dairyman's feet; and the American cheese too is acquiring a
reputation for richness, and, price for price, surpasses the English in
quality. Some people who have long cherished a prejudice against the
American have found, upon at last being induced to try the two, that the
Canadian cheddar is actually superior to the English cheddar, the English
selling at tenpence per pound and the Canadian at sevenpence.
Mr. George finds he pays a very high rent for his grass land--some 50_s_.
per acre--and upon reckoning up the figures in his account-books heaves a
sigh. His neighbours perchance may be making fortunes, though they tell
quite a different tale, but he feels that he is not growing rich. The work
is hard, or rather it is continuous. No one has to attend to his duties so
regularly all the year round as the man who looks after cows. They cannot
be left a single day from the 1st of January to the 31st of December. Nor
is the social state of things altogether pleasant to reflect on. His sons
and daughters have all left home; not one would stay and take to the dairy
work. They have gone into the towns, and found more congenial employment
there. He is himself growing in years. His wife, having once left off
making cheese when the milk selling commenced, and having tasted the
sweets of rest, is unwilling to return to that hard labour. When it is
done he must pay some one to do it.
In every way ready money is going out of the house. Cash to pay the
haymakers idling about in the sheds out of the rain; cash to pay the men
who manage the milk; cash to pay the woman who makes the cheese out of the
surplus milk; cash to pay the blacksmith for continually re-shoeing the
milk cart nags and for mending machines; cash to pay the brewer and the
butcher and the baker, neither of whom took a sovereign here when he was a
lad, for his father ate his own bacon, brewed his own beer, and baked his
own bread; cash to pay for the education of the cottagers' children; cash,
a great deal of cash, to pay the landlord.
Mr. George, having had enough of his accounts, rises and goes to the
window. A rain cloud sweeping along the distant hills has hidden them from
sight, and the rack hurries overhead driven before the stormy wind. There
comes a knock at the door. It is the collector calling the second time for
the poor rates, which have grown heavier of late.
But, however delayed, the haymaking is finished at last, and by-and-by,
when the leaves have fallen and the hunting commences, a good run drives
away for the time at least the memory of so unpropitious a season. Then
Mr. George some mild morning forms one of a little group of well-mounted
farmers waiting at a quiet corner while the hounds draw a great wood. Two
of them are men long past middle age, whose once tawny beards are
grizzled, but who are still game, perhaps more so than the rising
generation. The rest have followed them here, aware that these old hands
know every inch of the country, and are certain to be in the right place.
The spot is not far from the park wall, where the wood runs up into a
wedge-shaped point, and ends in a low mound and hedge. Most of the company
at the meet in the park have naturally cantered across the level sward,
scattering the sheep as they go, and are now assembled along the side of
the wood, near where a green 'drive' goes through it, and apparently gives
direct access to the fields beyond. From thence they can see the huntsman
in the wood occasionally, and trace the exact course the hounds are taking
in their search.
A gallant show it is by the wood! Horsemen and horsewomen, late comers
hastening up, restless horses, a throng for ever in motion, and every now
and then the blast of a horn rising up from the trees beneath. A gallant
show indeed, but two old cunning ones and their followers have slipped
away down to this obscure corner where they can see nothing of it, and are
themselves hidden. They know that the wood is triangular in shape, and
that from this, the apex, they have merely to pass the low hedge in front,
and, turning to the left, ride along the lower side, and so bisect the
course the fox will probably take. They know that the 'drive,' which
offers so straight and easy a descent through the wood from the park, is
pleasant enough till the lower ground is reached. There the soft, oozy
earth, which can never dry under the trees, is poached into a slough
through which even timber carriages cannot be drawn. Nor can a horseman
slip aside, because of the ash poles and thorn thickets. Those who are
trapped there must return to the park and gallop all round the wood
outside, unless they like to venture a roll in that liquid mud. Any one
can go to a meet, but to know all the peculiarities of the covers is only
given to those who have ridden over the country these forty years. In this
corner a detached copse of spruce fir keeps off the wind--the direction of
which they have noted--and in this shelter it is almost warm.
The distant crack of a whip, the solitary cry of a hound, a hollow shout,
and similar sounds, come frequently, and now and then there is an
irrepressible stir in the little group as they hear one of the many false
alarms that always occur in drawing a great wood. To these noises they are
keenly sensitive, but utterly ignore the signs of other life around them.
A pheasant, alarmed by the hounds, comes running quietly, thinking to
escape into the line of isolated copses that commences here; but, suddenly
confronted by the horsemen just outside, rises with an uproar, and goes
sailing down over the fields. Two squirrels, happy in the mild weather,
frisk out of the copse into the dank grass, till a curvet of one of the
horses frightens them up into the firs again.
Horses and men are becoming impatient. 'That dalled keeper has left an
earth open,' remarks one of the riders. His companion points with his whip
at the hedge just where it joins the wood. A long slender muzzle is thrust
for a moment cautiously over the bare sandy mound under cover of a thorn
stole. One sniff, and it is withdrawn. The fox thought also to steal away
along the copses, the worst and most baffling course he could choose. Five
minutes afterwards, and there is this time no mistake. There comes from
the park above the low, dull, rushing roar of hundreds of hoofs, that
strike the sward together, and force by sheer weight the reluctant earth
to resound. The two old hands lead over the hedge, and the little company,
slipping along below the wood, find themselves well on the track, far in
front of the main body. There is a block in the treacherous 'drive,' those
who where foremost struggling to get back, and those behind struggling to
come down. The rest at last, learning the truth, are galloping round the
outside, and taking it out of their horses before they get on the course
at all.
It is a splendid burst, and the pace is terrible. The farmers' powerful
horses find it heavy going across the fresh ploughed furrows and the wet
'squishey' meadows, where the double mounds cannot be shirked. Now a lull,
and the two old hands, a little at fault, make for the rising ground,
where are some ricks, and a threshing machine at work, thinking from
thence to see over the tall hedgerows. Upon the rick the labourers have
stopped work, and are eagerly watching the chase, for from that height
they can see the whole field. Yonder the main body have found a succession
of fields with the gates all open: some carting is in progress, and the
gates have been left open for the carter's convenience. A hundred horsemen
and eight or ten ladies are galloping in an extended line along this
route, riding hardest, as often happens, when the hounds are quiet, that
they may be ready when the chiding commences.
Suddenly the labourers exclaim and point, the hounds open, and the
farmers, knowing from the direction they point where to ride, are off. But
this time the fox has doubled, so that the squadrons hitherto behind are
now closest up, and the farmers in the rear: thus the fortune of war
changes, and the race is not to the swift. The labourers on the rick,
which stands on the side of a hill, are fully as excited as the riders,
and they can see what the hunter himself rarely views, _i.e._ the fox
slipping ahead before the hounds. Then they turn to alternately laugh at,
and shout directions to a disconsolate gentleman, who, ignorant of the
district, is pounded in a small meadow. He is riding frantically round and
round, afraid to risk the broad brook which encircles it, because of the
treacherous bank, and maddened by the receding sound of the chase. A boy
gets off the rick and runs to earn sixpence by showing a way out. So from
the rick Hodge has his share of the sport, and at that elevation can see
over a wide stretch of what he--changing the 'd' into a 'j'--calls 'the
juke's country.'
It is a famous land. There are spaces, which on the map look large, and
yet have no distinctive character, no individuality as it were. Such broad
expanses of plain and vale are usefully employed in the production of
cattle and corn. Villages, hamlets, even towns are dotted about them, but
a list of such places would not contain a single name that would catch the
eye. Though occupying so many square miles, the district, so far as the
world is concerned, is non-existent. It is socially a blank. But 'the
juke's country' is a well-known land. There are names connected with it
which are familiar not only in England, but all the world over, where
men--and where do they not?--converse of sport. Something beyond mere
utility, beyond ploughing and sowing, has given it within its bounds a
species of separate nationality. The personal influence of an acknowledged
leader has organised society and impressed it with a quiet enthusiasm.
Even the bitterest Radical forgives the patrician who shoots or rides
exceptionally well, and hunting is a pursuit which brings the peer and the
commoner side by side.
The agricultural population speak as one man upon the subject. The old
farmer will tell you with pride how his advice was sought when disease
entered the kennels, and how his remedy saved the lives of valuable
hounds. The farmer's son, a mere lad, whose head barely rises to his
saddle, talks of 'the duke' as his hero. This boy knows the country, and
can ride straight, better than many a gentleman with groom and second
horse behind. Already, like his elders, he looks forward impatiently to
the fall of the leaf. The tenants' wives and daughters allude with
pleasure to the annual social gatherings at the mansion, and it is
apparent that something like a real bond exists between landlord and
tenant. No false pride separates the one from the other--intercourse is
easy, for a man of high and ancient lineage can speak freely to the
humblest labourer without endangering his precedence. It needs none of the
parvenu's _hauteur_ and pomp to support his dignity. Every tenant is
treated alike.
On small estates there is sometimes a complaint that the largest tenant is
petted while the lesser are harshly treated. Nothing of that is known
here. The tenants are as well content as it is possible for men to be who
are passing under the universal depression. _Noblesse oblige_--it would be
impossible for that ancient house to stoop to meanness. The head rides to
the hunt, as his ancestors rode to battle, with a hundred horsemen behind
him. His colours are like the cockades of olden times. Once now and then
even Royalty honours the meet with its presence. Round that ancient house
the goodwill of the county gathers; and when any family event--as a
marriage--takes place, the hearty congratulations offered come from far
beyond the actual property. His pastime is not without its use--all are
agreed that hunting really does improve the breed of horses. Certainly it
gives a life, a go, a social movement to the country which nothing else
imparts.
It is a pleasant land withal--a land of hill and vale, of wood and copse.
How well remembered are the copses on the hills, and the steeples, those
time-honoured landmarks to wandering riders! The small meadows with double
mounds have held captive many a stranger. The river that winds through
them enters by-and-by a small but ancient town, with its memories of the
fierce Danes, and its present talk of the hunt. About five o'clock on
winter afternoons there is a clank of spurs in the courtyard of the old
inn, and the bar is crowded with men in breeches and top-boots. As they
refresh themselves there is a ceaseless hum of conversation, how so-and-so
came a cropper, how another went at the brook in style, or how some poor
horse got staked and was mercifully shot. A talk, in short, like that in
camp after a battle, of wounds and glory. Most of these men are tenant
farmers, and reference is sure to be made to the price of cheese, and the
forthcoming local agricultural show.
This old market town has been noted for generations as a great cheese
centre. It is not, perhaps, the most convenient situation for such a
market, and its population is inconsiderable; but the trade is, somehow or
other, a tradition of the place, and traditions are hard to shake. Efforts
have been made to establish rival markets in towns nearer to the modern
resorts of commerce, but in vain. The attempt has always proved a failure,
and to this day the prices quoted at this place rule those of the
adjoining counties, and are watched in distant cities. The depression made
itself felt here in a very practical manner, for prices fell to such an
extent that the manufacture of the old style of cheese became almost a
dead loss. Some farmers abandoned it, and at much trouble and expense
changed their system, and began to produce Cheddar and Stilton. But when
the Stilton was at last ready, there was no demand for it. Almost
suddenly, however, and quite recently, a demand sprang up, and the price
of that cheese rose. They say here in the bar that this probably saved
many from difficulties; large stocks that had been lying on hand
unsaleable for months going off at a good price. They hope that it is an
omen of returning prosperity, and do not fail to observe the remarkable
illustration it affords of the close connection between trade and
agriculture. For no sooner did the iron trade revive than the price of
cheese responded. The elder men cannot refrain from chuckling over the
altered tone of the inhabitants of cities towards the farmers. 'Years
ago,' they say, 'we were held up to scorn, and told that we were quite
useless; there was nothing so contemptible as the British farmer. Now they
have discovered that, after all, we are some good, and even Manchester
sympathises with us.'
It is now hoped that the forthcoming local show--largely patronised and
promoted by the chief of the hunting field--will be better than was at one
time anticipated. Those who would like to see the real working of an
agricultural show such as this should contrive to visit the yard early in
the morning of the opening day, some few hours before the public are
admitted. The bustle, the crash of excited exhibitors, the cries of men in
charge of cattle, the apparently inextricable confusion, as if everything
had been put off to the last moment--the whole scene is intensely
agricultural. Every one is calling for the secretary. A drover wants to
know where to put his fat cattle; a carter wants to ask where a great
cart-horse is to stand--he and his horse together are hopelessly
floundering about in the crowd. The agent of a firm of implement
manufacturers has a telegram that another machine is coming, and is
anxious for extra space; the representative of an artificial manure
factory is vainly seeking a parcel that has got mislaid. The seedsman
requires permission to somewhat shift his stall; wherever is the
secretary?
When he appears, a clergyman at once pounces on him to apply for tickets
for the dinner, and is followed by a farmer, who must have a form and an
explanation how to fill it up. One of his labourers has decided at the
last minute to enter for a prize--he has had a year to make up his mind
in. A crowd of members of the Society are pushing round for a private
view, and watching the judges at their work. They all turn to the
secretary to ask where such and such an exhibit may be found, and demand
why on earth the catalogues are not ready? Mr. Secretary, a stout tenant
farmer, in breeches and top-boots, whose broad face beams with good nature
(selected, perhaps, for that very quality), pants and wipes his forehead,
for, despite the cold, the exertion and the universal flurry have made him
quiet hot. He gives every inquirer a civil answer, and affably begs the
eager folk that press upon him to come up into the committee-room.
At this a satisfied smile replaces the troubled expression upon their
faces. They feel that their difficulties are at an end; they have got hold
of the right man at last--there is something soothing in the very sound of
the committee-room. When they get up into this important apartment they
find it quite empty. There is a blazing fire in the grate, and littered on
the long table is a mass of forms, letters, lists, and proofs of the
catalogue waiting for the judges' decision to be entered. After half an
hour or so their hopes begin to fall, and possibly some one goes down to
try and haul the secretary up into his office. The messenger finds that
much-desired man in the midst of an excited group; one has him by the arm
pulling him forward, another by the coat dragging him back, a third is
bawling at him at the top of a powerful voice.
By-and-by, however, the secretary comes panting up into the committee-room
with a letter in his hand and a pleased expression on his features. He
announces that he has just had a note from his Grace, who, with his party,
will be here early, and who hopes that all is going on well. Then to
business, and it is surprising how quickly he disposes of it. A farmer
himself, he knows exactly what is wanted, and gives the right order
without a moment's hesitation. It is no new experience to him, and despite
all this apparent confusion, everything presently falls into its place.
After the opening of the show there is a meeting, at which certain prizes
are distributed, among them rewards to the best ploughman in 'the juke's
country,' and to those labourers who have remained longest in the service
of one master. For the graceful duty of presentation a marchioness has
been selected, who, with other visitors of high social rank, has come over
from that famous hunting mansion. To meet that brilliant party the whole
agricultural interest has assembled. The room is crowded with tenant
farmers, the entire hunting field is present. Every clergyman in the
district is here, together with the gentry, and many visitors for the
hunting season. Among them, shoulder to shoulder, are numbers of
agricultural labourers, their wives, and daughters, dressed in their best
for the occasion. After some speeches, a name is called, and an aged
labourer steps forward.
His grandchildren are behind him; two of his sons, quite elderly
themselves, attend him almost to the front, so that he may have to make
but a few steps unsupported. The old man is frosted with age, and moves
stiffly, like a piece of mechanism rather than a living creature, nor is
there any expression--neither smile nor interest--upon his absolutely
immobile features. He wears breeches and gaiters, and a blue coat cut in
the style of two generations since. There is a small clear space in the
midst of the well-dressed throng. There he stands, and for the moment the
hum is hushed.
For sixty years that old man laboured upon one farm; sixty years of
ploughing and sowing, sixty harvests. What excitement, what discoveries
and inventions--with what giant strides the world has progressed while he
quietly followed the plough! An acknowledgment has been publicly awarded
to him for that long and faithful service. He puts forth his arm; his dry,
horny fingers are crooked, and he can neither straighten nor bend them.
Not the least sign appears upon his countenance that he is even conscious
of what is passing. There is a quick flash of jewelled rings ungloved to
the light, and the reward is placed in that claw-like grasp by the white
hand of the marchioness.
Not all the gallant cavalry of the land fearlessly charging hedge and
brook can, however, repel the invasion of a foe mightier than their chief.
Frost sometimes comes and checks their gaiety. Snow falls, and levels
every furrow, and then Hodge going to his work in the morning can clearly
trace the track of one of his most powerful masters, Squire Reynard, who
has been abroad in the night, and, likely enough, throttled the
traditional grey goose. The farmer watches for the frozen thatch to drip;
the gentleman visiting the stable looks up disconsolately at the icicles
dependent from the slated eave with the same hope. The sight of a stray
seagull wandering inland is gladly welcomed, as the harbinger of drenching
clouds sweeping up on soft south-westerly gales from the nearest coast.
The hunt is up once more, and so short are the hours of the day in the
dead of the year, that early night often closes round the chase. From out
of the gloom and the mist comes the distant note of the horn, with a weird
and old-world sound. By-and-by the labourer, trudging homeward, is
overtaken by a hunter whose horse's neck droops with weariness. His boots
are splashed with mud, his coat torn by the thorns. He is a visitor,
vainly trying to find his way home, having come some ten or fifteen miles
across country since the morning. The labourer shows the route--the
longest way round is the shortest at night--and as they go listens eagerly
to the hunter's tale of the run. At the cross roads they part with mutual
goodwill towards each other, and a shilling, easily earned, pays that
night for the cottager's pipe and glass of ale.