A WINTER'S MORNING
The pale beams of the waning moon still cast a shadow of the cottage,
when the labourer rises from his heavy sleep on a winter's morning.
Often he huddles on his things and slips his feet into his thick
'water-tights'--which are stiff and hard, having been wet over night--by
no other light than this. If the household is comparatively well managed,
however, he strikes a match, and his 'dip' shows at the window. But he
generally prefers to save a candle, and clatters down the narrow steep
stairs in the semi-darkness, takes a piece of bread and cheese, and steps
forth into the sharp air. The cabbages in the garden he notes are covered
with white frost, so is the grass in the fields, and the footpath is hard
under foot. In the furrows is a little ice--white because the water has
shrunk from beneath it, leaving it hollow--and on the stile is a crust of
rime, cold to the touch, which he brushes off in getting over. Overhead
the sky is clear--cloudless but pale--and the stars, though not yet fading,
have lost the brilliant glitter of midnight. Then, in all their glory, the
idea of their globular shape is easily accepted; but in the morning, just
as the dawn is breaking, the absence of glitter comes the impression of
flatness--circular rather than globular. But yonder, over the elms, above
the cowpens, the great morning star has risen, shining far brighter, in
proportion, than the moon; an intensely clear metallic light--like
incandescent silver.
The shadows of the trees on the frosted ground are dull. As the footpath
winds by the hedge the noise of his footstep startles the blackbird
roosting in the bushes, and he bustles out and flies across the field.
There is more rime on the posts and rails around the rickyard, and the
thatch on the haystack is white with it in places. He draws out the broad
hay-knife--a vast blade, wide at the handle, the edge gradually curving to
a point--and then searches for the rubber or whetstone, stuck somewhere in
the side of the rick. At the first sound of the stone upon the steel the
cattle in the adjoining yard and sheds utter a few low 'moos,' and there
is a stir among them. Mounting the ladder he forces the knife with both
hands into the hay, making a square cut which bends outwards, opening from
the main mass till it appears on the point of parting and letting him fall
with it to the ground. But long practice has taught him how to balance
himself half on the ladder, half on the hay. Presently, with a truss
unbound and loose on his head, he enters the yard, and passes from crib to
crib, leaving a little here and a little there, for if he fills one first,
there will be quarrelling among the cows, and besides, if the crib is too
liberally filled, they will pull it out and tread it under foot. The
cattle that are in the sheds fattening for Christmas have cake as well,
and this must be supplied in just proportion.
The hour of milking, which used to be pretty general everywhere, varies
now in different places, to suit the necessities of the milk trade. The
milk has, perhaps, to travel three or four miles to the railway station;
near great towns, where some of the farmers deliver milk themselves from
house to house, the cows are milked soon after noonday. What would their
grandfathers have said to that? But where the old customs have not much
altered, the milker sits down in the morning to his cow with the stars
still visible overhead, punching his hat well into her side--a hat well
battered and thickly coated with grease, for the skin of the cow exudes an
unctuous substance. This hat he keeps for the purpose. A couple of milking
pails--they are of large size--form a heavy load when filled. The milker,
as he walks back to the farmhouse, bends his head under the yoke--whence
so many men are round-shouldered--and steps slowly with a peculiar swaying
motion of the body, which slight swing prevents it from spilling.
Another man who has to be up while the moon casts a shadow is the carter,
who must begin to feed his team very early in order to get them to eat
sufficient. If the manger be over-filled they spill and waste it, and at
the same time will not eat so much. This is tedious work. Then the lads
come and polish up the harness, and so soon as it is well light get out to
plough. The custom with the horses is to begin to work as early as
possible, but to strike off in the afternoon some time before the other
men, the lads riding home astride. The strength of the carthorse has to be
husbanded carefully, and the labour performed must be adjusted to it and
to the food, i.e. fuel, consumed. To manage a large team of horses, so as
to keep them in good condition, with glossy coats and willing step, and
yet to get the maximum of work out of them, requires long experience and
constant attention. The carter, therefore, is a man of much importance on
a farm. If he is up to his duties he is a most valuable servant; if he
neglects them he is a costly nuisance, not so much from his pay, but
because of the hindrance and disorganisation of the whole farm-work which
such neglect entails.
Foggers and milkers, if their cottages are near at hand, having finished
the first part of the day's work, can often go back home to breakfast,
and, if they have a good woman in the cottage, find a fire and hot tea
ready. The carter can rarely leave his horses for that, and, therefore,
eats his breakfast in the stable; but then he has the advantage that up to
the time of starting forth he is under cover. The fogger and milker, on
the other hand, are often exposed to the most violent tempests. A gale of
wind, accompanied with heavy rain, often readies its climax just about the
dawn. They find the soil saturated, and the step sinks into it--the
furrows are full of water; the cow-yard, though drained, is a pool, no
drain being capable of carrying it off quick enough. The thatch of the
sheds drips continually; the haystack drips; the thatch of the stack,
which has to be pulled off before the hay-knife can be used, is wet; the
old decaying wood of the rails and gates is wet. They sit on the
three-legged milking-stool (whose rude workmanship has taken a dull polish
from use) in a puddle; the hair of the cow, against which the head is
placed, is wet; the wind blows the rain into the nape of the neck behind,
the position being stooping. Staggering under the heavy yoke homewards,
the boots sink deep into the slush and mire in the gateways, the weight
carried sinking them well in. The teams do not usually work in very wet
weather, and most of the out-door work waits; but the cattle must be
attended to, Sundays and holidays included. Even in summer it often
happens that a thunderstorm bursts about that time of the morning. But in
winter, when the rain is driven by a furious wind, when the lantern is
blown out, and the fogger stumbles in pitchy darkness through mud and
water, it would be difficult to imagine a condition of things which
concentrates more discomfort.
If, as often happens, the man is far from home--perhaps he has walked a
mile or two to work--of course he cannot change his clothes, or get near a
fire, unless in the farmer's kitchen. In some places the kitchen is open
to the men, and on Sundays, at all events, they get a breakfast free. But
the kindly old habits are dying out before the hard-and-fast money system
and the abiding effects of Unionism, which, even when not prominently
displayed, causes a silent, sullen estrangement.
Shepherds, too, sometimes visit the fold very early in the morning, and in
the lambing season may be said to be about both day and night. They come,
however, under a different category to the rest of the men, because they
have no regular hours, but are guided solely by the season and the work. A
shepherd often takes his ease when other men are busily labouring. On the
other hand, he is frequently anxiously engaged when they are sleeping. His
sheep rule his life, and he has little to do with the artificial divisions
of time.
Hedgers and ditchers often work by the piece, and so take their own time
for meals; the ash woods, which are cut in the winter, are also usually
thrown by the piece. Hedging and ditching, if done properly, is hard work,
especially if there is any grubbing. Though the arms get warm from
swinging the grub-axe or billhook, or cleaning out the ditch and
plastering and smoothing the side of the mound with the spade, yet feet
and ankles are chilled by the water in the ditch. This is often dammed up
and so kept back partially, but it generally forces its way through. The
ditcher has a board to stand on; there is a hole through it, and a
projecting stick attached, with which to drag it into position. But the
soft soil allows the board to sink, and he often throws it aside as more
encumbrance than use. He has some small perquisites: he is allowed to
carry home a bundle of wood or a log every night, and may gather up the
remnants after the faggoting is finished. On the other hand, he cannot
work in bad weather.
Other men come to the farm buildings to commence work about the time the
carter has got his horses fed, groomed, and harnessed, and after the
fogger and milker have completed their early duties. If it is a frosty
morning and the ground firm, so as to bear up a cart without poaching the
soil too much, the manure is carried out into the fields. This is plain,
straightforward labour, and cannot be looked upon as hard work. If the
cattle want no further attention, the foggers and milkers turn their hands
after breakfast to whatever may be going on. Some considerable time is
taken up in slicing roots with the machine, or chaff-cutting--monotonous
work of a simple character, and chiefly consisting in turning a handle.
The general hands--those who come on when the carter is ready, and who are
usually young men, not yet settled down to any particular branch--seem to
get the best end of the stick. They do not begin so early in the morning
by some time as the fogger, milker, carter, or shepherd; consequently, if
the cottage arrangements are tolerable, they can get a comfortable
breakfast first. They have no anxieties or trouble whatever; the work may
be hard in itself, but there is no particular hurry (in their estimation)
and they do not distress themselves. They receive nearly the same wages as
the others who have the care of valuable flocks, herds, and horses; the
difference is but a shilling or two, and, to make up for that, they do not
work on Sundays. Now, the fogger must feed his cows, the carter his horse,
the shepherd look to his sheep every day; consequently their extra wages
are thoroughly well earned. The young labourer--who is simply a labourer,
and professes no special branch--is, therefore, in a certain sense, the
best off. He is rarely hired by the year--he prefers to be free, so that
when harvest comes he may go where wages chance to be highest. He is an
independent person, and full of youth, strength, and with little
experience of life, is apt to be rough in his manners and not overcivil.
His wages too often go in liquor, but if such a young man keeps steady
(and there are a few that do keep steady) he does very well indeed, having
no family to maintain.
A set of men who work very hard are those who go with the steam-ploughing
tackle. Their pay is so arranged as to depend in a measure on the number
of acres they plough. They get the steam up as early as possible in the
morning, and continue as late as they can at night. Just after the
harvest, when the days are long, and, indeed, it is still summer, they
work for extremely long hours. Their great difficulty lies in getting
water. This must be continually fetched in carts, and, of course, requires
a horse and man. These are not always forthcoming in the early morning,
but they begin as soon as they can get water for the boiler, and do not
stop till the field be finished or it is dark.
The women do not find much work in the fields during the winter. Now and
then comes a day's employment with the threshing-machine when the farmer
wants a rick of corn threshed out. In pasture or dairy districts some of
them go out into the meadows and spread the manure. They wear gaiters, and
sometimes a kind of hood for the head. If done carefully, it is hard work
for the arms--knocking the manure into small pieces by striking it with a
fork swung to and fro smartly.
In the spring, when the great heaps of roots are opened--having been
protected all the winter by a layer of straw and earth--it is necessary to
trim them before they are used. This is often done by a woman. She has a
stool or log of wood to sit on, and arranges a couple of sacks or
something of the kind, so as to form a screen and keep off the bitter
winds which are then so common--colder than those of the winter proper.
With a screen one side, the heap of roots the other, and the hedge on the
third, she is in some sense sheltered, and, taking her food with her, may
stay there the whole day long, quite alone in the solitude of the broad,
open, arable fields.
From a variety of causes, the number of women working in the fields is
much less than was formerly the case; thus presenting precisely the
reverse state of things to that complained of in towns, where the clerks,
&c., say that they are undersold by female labour. The contrast is rather
curious. The price of women's labour has, too, risen; and there does not
appear to be any repugnance on their part to field-work. Whether the
conclusion is to be accepted that there has been a diminution in the
actual number of women living in rural places, it is impossible to decide
with any accuracy. But there are signs that female labour has drifted to
the towns quite as much as male--especially the younger girls. In some
places it seems rare to see a young girl working in the field (meaning in
winter)--those that are to be found are generally women well advanced in
life. Spring and summer work brings forth more, but not nearly so many as
used to be the case.
Although the work of the farm begins so soon in the morning, it is, on the
other hand, in the cold months, over early. 'The night cometh when no man
can work' was, one would think, originally meant in reference to
agricultural labour. It grows dusk before half-past four on a dull
winter's day, and by five is almost, if not quite, dark. Lanterns may be
moving in the cowyards and stables; but elsewhere all is quiet--the
hedger and ditcher cannot see to strike his blow, the ploughs have ceased
to move for some time, the labourer's workshop--the field--is not lighted
by gas as the rooms of cities.
The shortness of the winter day is one of the primary reasons why, in
accordance with ancient custom, wages are lowered at that time. In summer,
on the contrary, the hours are long, and the pay high--which more than
makes up for the winter reduction. A labourer who has any prudence can, in
fact, do very well by putting by a portion of his extra summer wages for
the winter; if he does not choose to exercise common sense, he cannot
expect the farmer (or any manufacturer) to pay the same price for a little
work and short time as for much work and long hours. Reviewing the work
the labourer actually does in winter, it seems fair and just to state that
the foggers, or milkers, i.e. the men who attend on cattle, the carters,
and the shepherds, work hard, continuously, and often in the face of the
most inclement weather. The mere labourers, who, as previously remarked,
are usually younger and single men, do not work so hard, nor so long. And
when they are at it--whether turning the handle of a winnowing machine in
a barn, cutting a hedge, spreading manure, or digging--it must be said
that they do not put the energy into it of which their brawny arms are
capable.
'The least work and the most money,' however, is a maxim not confined to
the agricultural labourer. Recently I had occasion to pass through a busy
London street in the West-end where the macadam of the roadway was being
picked up by some score of men, and, being full of the subject of labour,
I watched the process. Using the right hand as a fulcrum and keeping it
stationary, each navvy slowly lifted his pick with the left half-way up,
about on a level with his waistcoat, when the point of the pick was barely
two feet above the ground. He then let it fall--simply by its own
weight--producing a tiny indentation such as might be caused by the kick
of one's heel It required about three such strokes, if they could so
called strokes, to detach one single small stone. After that exhausting
labor the man stood at ease for a few minutes, so that there were often
three or four at once staring about them, while several others lounged
against the wooden railing placed to keep vehicles back.
A more irritating spectacle it would be hard to imagine. Idle as much
agricultural labour is, it is rarely so lazy as that. How contractors get
their work done, if that is a sample, it is a puzzle to understand. The
complaint of the poor character of the work performed by the agricultural
labourer seems also true of other departments, where labour--pure and
simple labour of thews and sinews--is concerned. The rich city merchant,
who goes to his office daily, positively works harder, in spite of all his
money. So do the shopmen and assistants behind their counters; so do the
girls in drapers' shops, standing the whole day and far into the evening
when, as just observed, the fields have been dark for hours; so, indeed,
do most men and women who earn their bread by any other means than mere
bodily strength.
But the cattle-men, carters, and shepherds, men with families and settled,
often seem to take an interest in their charges, in the cows, horses, or
sheep; some of them are really industrious, deserving men. The worst
feature of unionism is the lumping of all together, for where one man is
hardly worth his salt, another is a good workman. It is strange that such
men as this should choose to throw in their lot with so many who are
idle--whom they must know to be idle--thus jeopardising their own position
for the sake of those who are not worth one-fifth the sacrifice the
agricultural cottager must be called upon to make in a strike. The
hard-working carter or cattle-man, according to the union theory, is to
lose his pay, his cottage, his garden, and get into bad odour with his
employer, who previously trusted him, and was willing to give him
assistance, in order that the day labourer who has no responsibilities
either of his own or his master's, and who has already the best end of the
stick, should enjoy still further opportunities for idleness.