THE VILLAGE FACTORY. VILLAGE VISITORS. WILLOW-WORK
In the daytime the centre of a certain village may be said to be the shop
of the agricultural machinist. The majority of the cottagers are away in
the fields at work, and the place is elsewhere almost quiet. A column of
smoke and a distant din guide the visitor to the spot where the hammers
are clattering on the anvils.
Twisted iron, rusty from exposure, lies in confusion on the blackened
ground before the shed. Coal-dust and the carbon deposited from volumes of
thick smoke have darkened the earth, and coated everything with a black
crust. The windows of the shed are broken, probably by the accidental
contact of long rods of iron carelessly cast aside, and some of the slates
of the roof appear gone just above the furnace, as if removed for
ventilation and the escape of the intense heat. There is a creaking of
stiff leather as the bellows rise and fall, and the roar of the blast as
it is forced up through the glowing coals.
A ceaseless hum of wheels in motion comes from the rear, and the peculiar
crackling sound of a band in rapid revolution round the drum of the engine
and the shaft. Then the grinding scrape of sharp steel on iron as the edge
of the tool cuts shavings from the solid metal rotating swiftly in the
lathe. As blow follows blow the red-hot 'scale,' driven from the surface
of the iron on the anvil by the heavy sledge, flies rattling against the
window in a spray of fire. The ring of metal, the clatter, the roaring,
and hissing of steam, fill the air, and through it rises now and then the
shrill quick calls of men in command.
Outside, and as it seems but a stone's throw distant, stands the old grey
church, and about it the still, silent, green-grown mounds over those who
once followed the quiet plough.
Bound the corner of the village street comes a man with a grimy red flag,
and over the roofs of the cottages rises a cloud of smoke, and behind it
yet another. Two steam ploughing engines are returning from their work to
their place beside the shed to wait fresh orders. The broad wheels of the
engines block up the entire width of the street, and but just escape
overthrowing the feeble palings in front of the cottage doors. Within
those palings the children at play scarcely turn to look; the very infants
that can hardly toddle are so accustomed to the ponderous wonder that they
calmly gnaw the crusts that keep them contented. It requires a full hour
to get the unwieldy engines up the incline and round the sharp turns on to
the open space by the workshop. The driver has to 'back,' and go-a-head,
and 'back' again, a dozen times before he can reach the place, for that
narrow bye-way was not planned out for such traffic. A mere path leading
to some cottages in the rear, it was rarely used even by carts before the
machinist came, and it is a feat of skill to get the engines in without,
like a conqueror, entering by a breach battered in the walls. When, at
last, they have been piloted into position, the steam is blown off, and
the rushing hiss sounds all over the village. The white vapour covers the
ground like a cloud, and the noise re-echoes against the old grey church,
but the jackdaws do not even rise from the battlements.
These engines and their corresponding tackle are the chief stock-in-trade
of the village machinist. He lets them out to the farmers of the district,
which is principally arable; that is, he contracts to do their ploughing
and scarifying at so much per acre. In the ploughing seasons the engines
are for ever on the road, and with their tackle dragging behind them take
up the highway like a train. One day you may hear the hum and noise from a
distant field on the left; in a day or two it comes from another on the
right; next week it has shifted again, and is heard farther off
northwards, and so all round the compass.
The visitor, driving about the neighbourhood, cannot but notice the huge
and cumbrous-looking plough left awhile on the sward by the roadside.
One-half of the shares stand up high in the air, the other half touch the
ground, and it is so nicely balanced that boys sometimes play at see-saw
on it. He will meet the iron monster which draws this plough by the bridge
over the brook, pausing while its insatiable thirst is stayed from the
stream. He will see it patiently waiting, with a slight curl of steam over
the boiler, by the wayside inn while its attendants take their lunch.
It sometimes happens in wet weather that the engines cannot be moved from
the field where they have been ploughing. The soil becomes so soft from
absorbing so much water that it will not bear up the heavy weight. Logs
and poles are laid down to form a temporary way, but the great wheels sink
too deeply, and the engines have to be left covered with tarpaulins. They
have been known to remain till the fresh green leaves of spring on the
hedges and trees almost hid them from sight.
The machinist has another and lighter traction engine which does not
plough, but travels from farm to farm with a threshing machine. In autumn
it is in full work threshing, and in winter drives chaff-cutters for the
larger farmers. Occasionally it draws a load of coal in waggons or trucks
built for the purpose. Hodge's forefathers knew no rival at plough time;
after the harvest they threshed the corn all the winter with the flail.
Now the iron horse works faster and harder than he.
Some of the great tenant-farmers have sets of ploughing-engines and tackle
of their own, and these are frequently at the machinist's for repairs. The
reaping, mowing, threshing, haymaking, hoeing, raking, and other machines
and implements also often require mending. Once now and then a bicyclist
calls to have his machine attended to, something having given way while on
a tour. Thus the village factory is in constant work, but has to encounter
immense competition.
Country towns of any size usually possess at least one manufactory of
agricultural implements, and some of these factories have acquired a
reputation which reaches over sea. The visitor to such a foundry is shown
medals that have been granted for excellence of work exhibited in Vienna,
and may see machines in process of construction which will be used upon
the Continent; so that the village machinist, though apparently isolated,
with nothing but fields around him, has in reality competitors upon every
side.
Ploughing engines, again, travel great distances, and there are firms that
send their tackle across a county or two. Still the village factory, being
on the spot, has plenty of local work, and the clatter of hammers, the
roar of the blast, and the hum of wheels never cease at the shed. Busy
workmen pass to and fro, lithe men, quick of step and motion, who come
from Leeds, or some similar manufacturing town, and whose very step
distinguishes them in a moment from the agricultural labourer.
A sturdy ploughboy comes up with a piece of iron on his shoulder; it does
not look large, but it is as much as he can carry. One edge of it is
polished by the friction of the earth through which it has been forced; it
has to be straightened, or repaired, and the ploughboy waits while it is
done. He sits down outside the shed on a broken and rusty iron wheel,
choosing a spot where the sun shines and the building keeps off the wind.
There, among the twisted iron, ruins and fragments of machines, he takes
out his hunch of bread and cheese, and great clasp knife, and quietly
enjoys his luncheon. He is utterly indifferent to the noise of the
revolving wheels, the creak of the bellows, the hiss of steam; he makes no
inquiry about this or that, and shows no desire to understand the wonders
of mechanics. Something in his attitude--in the immobility, the almost
animal repose of limb; something in the expression of his features, the
self-contained oblivion, so to say, suggests an Oriental absence of
aspiration. Only by negatives and side-lights, as it were, can any idea be
conveyed of his contented indifference. He munches his crust; and, when he
has done, carefully, and with vast deliberation, relaces his heavy shoe.
The sunshine illumines the old grey church before him, and falls on the
low green mounds, almost level with the sward, which cover his ancestors.
These modern inventions, this steam, and electric telegraph, and even the
printing-press have but just skimmed the surface of village life. If they
were removed--if the pressure from without, from the world around, ceased,
in how few years the village and the hamlet would revert to their original
condition!
On summer afternoons, towards five or six o'clock, a four-wheel
carriage--useful, but not pretentious--comes slowly up the hill leading to
the village. The single occupant is an elderly man, the somewhat wearied
expression of whose features is caused by a continuous application to
business. The horse, too well fed for work, takes his own time up the
hill, and when at the summit the reins are gently shaken, makes but an
idle pretence to move faster, for he knows that his master is too
good-natured and forbearing to use the whip, except to fondly stroke his
back. The reins are scarcely needed to guide the horse along the familiar
road to a large farmhouse on the outskirts of the village, where at the
gate two or more children are waiting to welcome 'papa.'
Though a farmhouse, the garden is laid out in the style so often seen
around detached villas, with a lawn for tennis and croquet, parterres
bright with summer flowers, and seats under the pleasant shade of the
trees. Within it is furnished in villa fashion, and is in fact let to a
well-to-do tradesman of the market town a few miles distant. He has wisely
sent his family for the summer months to inhale the clear air of the
hills, as exhilarating as that of the sea. There they can ride the pony
and donkeys over the open sward, and romp and play at gipsying. Every
evening he drives out to join them, and every morning returns to his
office. The house belongs to some large tenant-farmer, who has a little
freehold property, and thus makes a profit from it.
This practice of hiring a village home for the summer has become common of
recent years among the leading tradesmen of country towns. Such visitors
are welcome to the cottage folk. They require the service of a labourer
now and then; they want fresh eggs, and vegetables from the allotment
gardens. The women have the family washing to do, and a girl is often
needed to assist indoors, or a boy to clean the knives and shoes. Many
perquisites fall to the cottage people--cast aside dresses, and so on;
besides which there are little gifts and kindnesses from the lady and her
children.
Towards November, again, the congregation in the old church one Sunday
morning find subject for speculation concerning a stranger who enters a
certain well-appointed pew appropriated to The Chestnuts. He is clearly
the new tenant who has taken it for the hunting season. The Chestnuts is a
mansion built in modern style for a former landowner. As it is outside the
great hunting centres it is let at a low rental compared with its
accommodation. The labourers are glad to see that the place is let again,
for although the half-pay officer--the new occupant--who has retired,
wounded and decorated, from the service of a grateful country, has
probably not a third the income of the tradesman, and five times the
social appearance to maintain, still there will be profit to be got from
him.
What chance has such a gentleman in bargaining with the cottagers? How
should he know the village value of a cabbage? How should he understand
the farmyard value of a fowl? It may possibly strike him as odd that
vegetables should be so dear when, as he rides about, he sees whole fields
green with them. He sees plenty of fowls, and geese, and turkeys, gobbling
and cackling about the farmyards, and can perhaps after awhile faintly
perceive that they are the perquisites of the ladies of the tenants'
households, who drive him a very hard bargain. He, too, has cast aside
suits, shoes, hats, and so forth, really but little worn, to give away to
the poor. If married, his family require some help from the cottage women;
and there are odd jobs, well paid for, on the place for the men. Thus the
cottagers are glad of the arrival of their new masters, the one in the
summer, the other in the winter months.
The 'chapel-folk' of the place have so increased in numbers and affluence
that they have erected a large and commodious building in the village.
Besides the cottagers, many farmers go to the chapel, driving in from the
ends of the parish. It is a curious circumstance that many of the largest
dealers in agricultural produce, such as cheese, bacon, and corn, and the
owners of the busiest wharves where coal and timber, slate, and similar
materials are stored, belong to the Dissenting community. There are some
agricultural districts where this class of business is quite absorbed by
Dissenters--almost as much as money-changing and banking business is said
to be the exclusive property of Jews in some Continental countries. Such
dealers are often substantial and, for the country, even wealthy men. Then
there are the Dissenting tradesmen of the market town. All these together
form a species of guild. The large chapel in the village was built by
their united subscriptions. They support each other in a marked manner in
times of difficulty, so that it is rare for a tenant-farmer of the
persuasion to lose his position unless by wilful misconduct. This mutual
support is so very marked as to be quite a characteristic fact.
The cottagers and their families go to chapel with these masters. But
sometimes the cottager, as he approaches the chapel door, finds upon it
(as in the church porch) a small printed notice affixed there by the
overseers. If the labourer is now recognised as a person whose opinion is
to be consulted, on the other hand he finds that he is not without
responsibilities. The rate-collector knocks at the cottage door as well as
at the farmer's. By gradual degrees village rates are becoming a serious
burden, and though their chief incidence may be upon the landlord and the
tenant, indirectly they begin to come home to the labourer. The school
rate is voluntary, but it is none the less a rate; the cemetery, the
ancient churchyard being no more available, has had to be paid for, and,
as usual, probably cost twice what was anticipated. The highways, the
sanitary authority, not to speak of poor relief, all demand a share. Each
in itself may be only a straw, but accumulated straws in time fill a
waggon.
One side of the stable of the village inn, which faces the road, presents
a broad surface for the country bill-sticker. He comes out from the market
town, and travels on foot for a whole day together, from hamlet to hamlet.
posting up the contents of his bag in the most outlying and lonely
districts. Every villager as he passes by reads the announcements on the
wall: the circus coming to the market town, some jeweller's marvellous
watches, the selling off of spring or summer goods by the drapers at an
immense reduction, once now and then a proclamation headed V.R., and the
sales of farm stock (the tenants leaving) and of large freehold
properties.
These latter are much discussed by the callers at the inn. A carter comes
along perhaps with a loaded waggon from some distance, and as he stays to
drink his quart talks of the changes that are proceeding or imminent in
his locality. Thus the fact that changes are contemplated is often widely
known before the actual advertisement is issued. The labourers who hear
the carter's story tell it again to their own employer next time they see
him, and the farmer meeting another farmer gossips over it again.
There has grown up a general feeling in the villages and agricultural
districts that the landed estates around them are no longer stable and
enduring. A feeling of uncertainty is abroad, and no one is surprised to
hear that some other place, or person, is going. It is rumoured that this
great landlord is about to sell as many farms as the family settlements
will let him. Another is only waiting for the majority of his son to
accomplish the same object. Others, it is said, are proceeding abroad to
retrench. Properties are coming into the market in unexpected directions,
and others are only kept back because the price of land has fallen, and
there is a difficulty in selling a large estate. If divided into a number
of lots, each of small size, land still fetches its value, and can be
readily sold; but that is not always convenient, and purchasers hesitate
to invest in extensive estates. But though kept back, efforts are being
made to retrench, and, it is said, old mansions that have never been let
before can now be hired for the season. Not only the tenant-farmers, but
the landowners are pacing through a period of depression, and their tenure
too is uncertain. Such is the talk of the country side as it comes to the
village inn.
Once a week the discordant note of a horn or bugle, loudly blown by a man
who does not understand his instrument, is heard at intervals. It is the
newspaper vendor, who, like the bill-sticker, starts from the market town
on foot, and goes through the village with a terrible din. He stops at the
garden gate in the palings before the thatched cottage, delivers his print
to the old woman or the child sent out with the copper, and starts again
with a flourish of his trumpet. His business is chiefly with the
cottagers, and his print is very likely full of abuse of the landed
proprietors as a body. He is a product of modern days, almost the latest,
and as he goes from cottage door to cottage door, the discordant uproar of
his trumpet is a sign of the times.
In some districts the osier plantations give employment to a considerable
number of persons. The tall poles are made into posts and rails; the
trunks of the pollard trees when thrown are cut into small timber that
serves many minor purposes; the brushwood or tops that are cut every now
and then make thatching sticks and faggots; sometimes hedges are made of a
kind of willow wicker-work for enclosing gardens. It is, however, the
plantations of withy or osier that are most important. The willow grows so
often in or near to water that in common opinion the association cannot be
too complete. But in the arrangement of an osier-bed water is utilised,
indeed, but kept in its place--i.e. at the roots, and not over the stoles.
The osier should not stand in water, or rise, as it were, out of a
lake--the water should be in the soil underneath, and the level of the
ground higher than the surface of the adjacent stream.
Before planting, the land has to be dug or ploughed, and cleared; the
weeds collected in the same way as on an arable field. The sticks are then
set in rows eighteen inches apart, each stick (that afterwards becomes a
stole) a foot from its neighbours of the same row. At first the weeds
require keeping down, but after awhile the crop itself kills them a good
deal. Several willows spring from each planted stick, and at the end of
twelve months the first crop is ready for cutting. Next year the stick or
stole will send up still more shoots, and give a larger yield.
The sorts generally planted are called Black Spanish and Walnut Leaf. The
first has a darker bark, and is a tough wood; the other has a light yellow
bark, and grows smoother and without knots, which is better for working up
into the manufactured article. Either will grow to nine feet high--the
average height is six or seven feet. The usual time for cutting is about
Good Friday--that is, just before the leaf appears. After cutting, the
rods are stacked upright in water, in long trenches six inches deep
prepared for the purpose, and there they remain till the leaf comes out.
The power of growth displayed by the willow is wonderful--a bough has only
to be stuck in the earth, or the end of a pole placed in the brook, for
the sap to rise and shoots to push forth.
When the leaf shows the willows are carried to the 'brakes,' and the work
of stripping off the bark commences. A 'brake' somewhat resembles a pair
of very blunt scissors permanently fixed open at a certain angle, and
rigidly supported at a convenient height from the ground. The operator
stands behind it, and selecting a long wand from the heap beside him
places it in the 'brake,' and pulls it through, slightly pressing it
downwards. As he draws it towards him, the edges of the iron tear the bark
and peel it along the whole length of the stick. There is a knack in the
operation, of course, but when it is acquired the wand is peeled in a
moment by a dexterous turn of the wrist, the bark falls to the ground on
the other side of the brake, and the now white stick is thrown to the
right, where a pile soon accumulates. The peel is handy for tying up, and
when dried makes a capital material for lighting fires. This stripping of
the osiers is a most busy time in the neighbourhood of the large
plantations--almost like hop-picking--for men, women, and children can all
help. It does not require so much strength as skill and patience.
After the peeling the sticks have to be dried by exposure to the sun; they
are then sorted into lengths, and sold in bundles. If it is desired to
keep them any time they must be thoroughly dried, or they will 'heat' and
rot and become useless. This willow harvest is looked forward to by the
cottagers who live along the rivers as an opportunity for earning extra
money. The quantity of osier thus treated seems immense, and yet the
demand is said to be steady, and as the year advances the price of the
willow rises. It is manufactured into all kinds of baskets--on farms,
especially arable farms, numbers of baskets are used. Clothes baskets,
market baskets, chaff baskets, bassinettes or cradles, &c., are some few
of the articles manufactured from it. Large quantities of willow, too, are
worked up unpeeled into hampers of all kinds. The number of hampers used
in these days is beyond computation, and as they are constantly wearing
out, fresh ones have to be made. An advantage of the willow is that it
enables the farmer to derive a profit from land that would otherwise be
comparatively valueless. Good land, indeed, is hardly fitted for osier; it
would grow rank with much pith in the centre, and therefore liable to
break. On common land, on the contrary, it grows just right, and not too
coarse. Almost any scrap or corner does for willow, and if properly tended
it speedily pays for the labour.
The digging and preparation of the ground gives employment, and afterwards
the weeding and the work required to clean the channels that conduct water
round and through the beds. Then there is the cutting and the peeling, and
finally the basket-making; and thus the willow, though so common as to be
little regarded, finds work for many hands.