Part 30
I remember, sir, that some quarter of a century ago, you were interested in the popular songs of our English country-folk, and so may possibly think gleanings in this field still worthy of notice. In that belief, I send this note of some “singing-matches,” which, by a lucky chance, I was able to attend last week in West Berks. The matches in question were for both men and women, a prize of half a crown being offered in each case. The occasion was the village “veast,” or annual commemoration of the dedication of the parish church, still the immemorial day of gathering and social reunion in every hamlet of this out-of-the-way district. I was glad to find the old word still in use, for as a Wessex man it would have been an unpleasant shock to me to find the “veast” superseded by a “festival,” habitation, or other modern gathering. In some respects, however, I must own that the character of the “veast” has changed; these singing-matches, for instance, being a complete novelty to me. There used to be singing enough after the sports, as the sun went down, and choruses, rollicking and sentimental, came rolling out of the publicans’ booths--for the most part of dubious character--but singing-matches for prizes I never remember. I suppose the craze for competitive examination in every department of life may account for this new development; anyhow, there were the matches to come off--so the bills assured us--in the village schoolroom, of all places, which was thrown open for this purpose, and for dancing, at sunset. Hither, then, I repaired from the vicar’s fields, where the sports had been held, in the wake of a number of rustic couples and toffee-sucking children. The school is a lofty room, fifty feet long, with a smaller class-room as transept at the upper end, along which ran a temporary platform. Upon this the Farringdon Blue-Ribbon Band, in neat uniforms, were already playing a vigorous polka. Presently this first dance ended, the band stood back, and the three judges coming to the front, announced the terms of the competition, the men to begin, and a dance to be interpolated after every two songs, every singer, one at a time, to come up on the platform. There was no hesitation amongst the singers, the first of whom stepped up at once, and so the matches went on, two songs and a dance alternately, until all who cared to compete had sung. Then, at about 9 P.M., the prizes were awarded, and I left, the dancing going on merrily for another two hours.
I was amused by the award of the men’s prize to the singer of a vociferously applauded ditty, entitled “The Time o’ Day,” for it showed that the keenest zest of the Wessex rustic is still, as it was thirty years ago, to get a rise out of--or, in modern slang, to score off--“thaay varmers.” It began:--
A straanger wunst in Worcestershèer,
A gen’lman he professed,
He lived by takin’ o’ people in,
He wuz so nicely dressed.
Wi’ my tol-de-rol, etc.
This stranger, having a gold chain round his neck, swaggers in the farmers’ room on market-day, till--
He zets un in a big arm-cheer,
And, bein’ precious deep,
Sticks out his legs, drows back his arms,
And “gammots” off to sleep.
The farmers canvas him, and doubt if he has any watch to his chain. His friend, “by them not understood,” pulls out the chain, shows a piece of wood at the end, and puts it back. The stranger wakes; the farmers ask him “the time o’ day”; he excuses himself, on the plea that last night, having taken a glass too much, he did not wind up his watch. At this--
The varmers said, and did protest,
Ez sure ez we’re alive,
Thet thee dost not possess a watch
Of pounds we’ll bet thee vive.
The stranger covers the bets, pulls out a piece of wood, touches a spring, and shows a watch inside:--
‘Bout vifty pounds thaay varmers lost,
Which in course thaay hed to paay,
And the bwoys run arter’em down the street,
Wi’ “Gee us the time O’ daay.”
Wi’ my tol-de-rol, etc.
I did not, however, concur in the award myself. I should have given the prize for a love-song, a sort of rustic rendering of “Phyllis is my only Joy,” the chorus of which ran:--
For ef you would, I’m sure you could
Jest let a feller know;
Ef it strikes you as it likes you,
Answer yes or no.
The judges, however, followed, if (two being “varmers”) they did not thoroughly sympathise with, the obvious feeling of the crowded room. The patriotic songs, I noticed, had quite changed their character. They never were of the vulgar jingo kind in Wessex, but there used to be much of the old Dibdin and tow-row,-row ring about them. “The Poor Little Soldier Boy” may be taken as a specimen of the new style. His father dies of wounds; he ’lists; comes home; is discharged; wanders starving, till, opposite a fine gate, he sinks down, asking the unknown inmates how they will like to find him, “dead at their door in the morn.” At this crisis a lady appears, who takes him in and provides for him for life. The only lines I carried away were from a song even more pacific in tone than “The Poor Little Soldier Boy.” They ran:--
Ef I wur King o’ France,
Or, better, Pope o’ Rome,
I’d hev no fightin’ men abroad,
Nor weepin’ maids at home.
But there was an approach to “waving the flag” amongst the women, one of whom, a strapping damsel, sang:--
We’ve got the strength of will,
And old England’s England still,
And every other nation knows it--“rather”!
which word “rather” ended every verse of a somewhat vulgar ditty. She did not get the prize, nor did the matron whom I fixed on as the winner, who sang without a hitch a monotonous and, I began to think, never-ending ballad on the rivalries of “young Samuèl” and one “Barnewell” for the graces of an undecided young woman. The attention with which this somewhat dreary narrative was listened to deceived me, for the prize went, without public protest, to a young woman of whose song I could not catch a line, though I could just gather that it was feebly sentimental. My impression is that it was her bright eyes, and pretty face and figure, that carried it with the judges, rather than her singing. If I am right, it will neither be the first nor last time that the prizes in this world fall to _tes beaux yeux_.
The school faces the upper end of the village green, and I left it so crowded that it was a wonder how the dancers could get along at all with their polkas and handkerchief dances, the latter a kind of country dance, which were the only ones in vogue. When I got out, I saw lighted booths at the other end of the green, and went down to inspect. It was a melancholy sight.
There was the publican’s dancing-booth without a soul in it. One swing only was occupied in the neighbouring acrobatic apparatus, and the round-about was motionless. The gipsies were there, ready and eager to tell fortunes, and with a well-lighted alley for throwing at cocoa-nuts with bowls rather larger than cricket-balls--the most modern and popular substitute, I am told, for skittles. There they were, but not a customer in sight, the only human being but myself being the solitary county policeman, who patrolled the green with most conscientious regularity, only slackening his pace for a moment or two as he passed under the bright open windows of the schoolroom, from which the merry dance-music came streaming out into the moonlight. I could almost find it in my heart to pity the publican and gipsies, so overwhelming did their defeat seem, for not a glass of beer had been allowed all day in the vicar’s fields, where the cricket-match had been played and all the races run, on milk, tea, or aerated waters. The whole stock of these last beverages, supplied from the “Hope Coffee Room,” which has faced the public-house on the village green now for about three years, was drunk out before the dancing ended and the school closed on “veast” night, to the exceeding joy of the vicar’s niece and her lieutenants, two bright Cornish damsels, handy, devoted, and ardent teetotalers. These three have been fighting the publicans since 1886, when they started the “Hope Coffee Room,” supplied with bread, butter, and cakes from the vicarage, and aerated drinks and light literature, all, I take it, at something under cost price, though this the three ardent damsels will by no means admit. The vicar, who is no teetotaler himself, shrugs his shoulders laughingly, plays his fiddle, pays the bills, and lets them have their own way, with an occasional protest that some night he shall have his barn and ricks burnt. There is, however, no real danger of this, as he has lived with and for his poor for more than thirty years with scarcely one Sunday’s break, and gipsy or publican would get short shrift who damaged him or anything that is his. I found him quite ready to admit the great improvement which is apparent in the “veast,” as in many other phases of rustic life, though he cannot get over, or look with anything but dislike and distrust at, the cramming and examining system, which, as he mourns, embitters the only time in the lives of his poor children which used to be really happy, when they could play about on the village green and in the lanes regardless of Inspector and Government grant. Nor am I sure that he does not look with regret at the disappearance of cudgel-playing and wrestling out of the programme of the yearly “Veast-Sports.” Cricket, fine game as it is, does hot bring out quite the same qualities. No doubt there were now and then bad hurts in those sports, and fights afterwards; but these came from beer, and might happen just as easily over cricket. So he muses, and I rather sympathise. As has been well sung by the ould gamester:--
Who’s vor a bout O’ vrendly plaay,
As never should to anger move,
Sech spworts be only meant for thaay
As likes their mazzards broke for love.
But I should be sorry to believe that there are fewer youngsters to-day in the West country who “likes their mazzards broke for love” than there used to be half a century ago.
The Divining-Rod, 21st September 1889.
About a quarter of a century ago, I had the chance of seeing some experiments in the search for water by the use of “the divining rod” on a thirsty stretch of the Berkshire chalk range. Oddly enough (what a lot of odd things there are lying all round us!) at the highest points of this very range you might come on “dew-ponds,” which never seemed to run dry, though how the white chalky water got there, or kept there, no one, I believe, has ever been able to explain from that day to this. But these “dew-ponds” were of no use, of course, to the cottages scattered along the hillside, and whoever wanted spring-water, had to go down about 400 feet for it. Well, I neglected that chance, and ever since have been regretting it.
My notion of the water-diviner was gathered from Sir Walter’s famous portrait of Dousterswivel in the _Antiquary_; a fellow “who amongst fools and womankind talks of the Cabala, the divining-rod, and all the trumpery with which the Rosicrucians cheated a darker age, and which, to our eternal disgrace, has in some degree revived in our own.” I was resolved that the revival should in no case be forwarded by me, and so lost my opportunity, and have been ever since tantalised by reports of marvels wrought by the hazel-wand, as to which I was quite at a loss to form any reasonable opinion. It was with no little satisfaction, therefore, that I received, and accepted, an invitation to assist at a water-search about to be undertaken by a diviner of considerable reputation in the outskirts of Deer Leap Wood, in the parish of Wootton, Surrey.
This wood, notable even amongst the loveliest of that favoured county, belongs to the worthy representative of the author of _Sylva_ and the _Memoirs_, who, having built some excellent cottages on its confines, desires to find the occupants a good supply of spring-water _in situ_. Accordingly a group of us, men and women of all ages, and of all degrees of scepticism--for I doubt if there was a single believer in the efficacy of the rod, though the squire himself and a friend preserved a judicious silence--gathered last Friday after breakfast on the lawn before Wootton House, to await the arrival of the water-doctor, whom the agent had gone to meet at the station. It was agreed on all hands that a preliminary test should be applied, and that the lawn on which we stood offered quite admirable facilities for this purpose. For, more than two hundred years ago, John Evelyn had diverted a portion of the stream, which runs down the valley in which the house stands, for the purpose of making a fountain on the terraces. (Let it be noted in passing, that the lead-work of that fountain has needed no repair from that day to this! There _were_ plumbers in those days!) From this fountain two pipes carry the water into the house, under the lawn on which we stood. Now the lawn turf is as smooth as a billiard-table, without the slightest indication of the whereabouts of these pipes, which indeed was only known vaguely to the squire, and not at all to any one else of those present. If the divining-rod could discover these, the experiment at “Deer Leap Wood” might be undertaken with good hope.
Well, the doctor, conducted by the steward, arrived in due course, a stout middle-aged man, of the stamp of a high-class mechanic; plain and straightforward in speech, and with no pretence whatever to mystery. In answer to our questions, he said: “He couldn’t tell how it came about; but of this he was sure, that he could find springs and running water. Thirty years ago he was working as a mason at Chippenham, with a Cornish miner amongst others. He saw this man find water with the rod; had then tried it himself, and found he could do it. That was all he knew. Any one*of us might have the same power. Why, two young gentlemen who saw him working at Warleigh, near Bath, had copied him, and found a spring right under their father’s library.” We listened, and then proposed that he should just try about the lawn. He produced a hazel twig shaped like a Y, the arms, each some eighteen inches long; the point, perhaps, six inches. I may note, however, that the dimensions can be of no consequence, for he used at least half a dozen in his trials, cutting them at random out of the hazel-bush as we walked along, and taking no measure of any of them. Taking an arm of the Y between the middle fingers of each hand, he walked across the lawn slowly, stooping slightly forward, so as to keep the point downwards, about a foot from the ground. He had not gone a dozen yards before the rod quivered, and then the point rose at once straight up into the air. “There’s running water here,” he said, “and close to the surface.” We marked the spot and followed him, and some twenty-five yards further the point of the Y again sprang up into the air. The steward, who knew the plans accurately, was appealed to, and admitted that these were the precise spots under which the pipes ran. In answer to the suggestion that the point sprang up by pressure of his fingers, voluntary or involuntary, he asked two of us to hold the arms beyond his fingers, and see if we could prevent the point rising. We did so (I being one), and did all we could to keep it pointed downwards, but it rose in spite of us, and I watched his hands carefully at the same time and could detect no movement whatever of the muscles. Then he broke one of the arms, all but the bark, and still the point rose as briskly as ever. Lastly, he proposed that each of us should try if we had the power. We did so, but without success, except that in the case of Mrs. Evelyn and another lady the point trembled, and seemed inclined, though unable, to rise. He then took hold of their wrists, and at once it rose, nearly as promptly as it had done with him. This was enough; and we started in procession, on ponies, in carriage^, or walking, to Deer Leap Wood, where in the course of an hour he marked with pegs some half dozen spots, under which running water will be found at from 70 feet to 100 feet. He did not pretend to be able to give the exact depth, but only undertook to give the outside limits. And so we all went back to lunch, and Mullins took his fee and departed. I know, sir, that you have many scientific readers, and can picture to myself the smile tinged with scorn with which they will turn to your next page when they get thus far. Well, I own that the boring remains to be done, the results of which I hope to send you in due course. Meantime, let me remind them of a well-known adventure of one of the most famous of their predecessors towards the end of last century. Sir Joseph Banks, botanising on the downs on a cloudless June day, came across a shepherd whom he greeted with the customary “Fine day,”--“Ees,” was the reply, “but there’ll be heavy rain yet, afore night.” Sir Joseph passed on unheeding, and got a thorough drenching before he reached his inn. Next morning he went back, found the shepherd, and put a guinea in his hand, with “Now, my man, tell me how you knew there was going to be rain yesterday afternoon.”
“Whoy,” said Hodge, with a grin, “I zeed my ould ram a shovin’ hisself back’ards in under thuck girt thornin bush; and wenever a doos that there’ll sartin sure be heavy rainfall afore sundown.”
Note.--Water was found where it was expected by the Diviner, and this well is now used by the tenants of the Deer Leap Cottages.--October 1895.
Sequah’s “Flower of the Prairie,” Chester, 26th March 1890.
“Why, what on earth can this be?” I asked of the man who stood next me in the Foregate some ten days ago, as we paused at a crossing to allow the strange object which had drawn from me the above ejaculation to pass on, with its attendant crowd. It was a mighty gilded waggon, certainly fourteen feet long by six feet or seven feet broad. It was drawn by four handsome bays. On two raised seats at the front sat eight men, English, I fancy, every man of them, but clad over their ordinary garments in long leather coats with fringes, such as our familiar Indians wear in melodrama, and in the broad-brimmed, soft felts of the Western cowboy. They were all armed with brass instruments and made the old streets resound with popular airs. Behind these raised seats, in the body of the waggon, rode some half dozen, including three strapping brown men, Indians, I fancy they pose for, but they looked to me more like the half-castes whom one sees on the Texan and Mexican ranches on the Bio Grande. They also were clad in fringed leather coats, and wore sombreros over their long black locks. The sides of the waggon, where not gilt, were panelled with mirrors, on which were emblazoned the Stars and Stripes and other coloured devices. Altogether, the thing seemed to me well done in its way, whatever it might mean; and I turned inquiringly to my neighbour and repeated my question, as the huge gilded van and its jubilant followers passed away down the station road. “Oh! ’tis the ‘Merikin chap, as cures folks’s rheumatics and draws their teeth.”
“He must draw something more than their teeth,” I said, “to keep up all that show.” My neighbour grinned assent. “He’ve drawed pretty nigh all the loose money as is going hereabouts already,” he said as we parted. “One more quack to fleece the poor,” I thought, as I walked on. “Well, anyhow, they get a show for their shillings; that van beats Barnum!”
In this mind I reached the vicarage of one of our biggest city parishes to which I was bound. “I don’t know about quack,” said the vicar, when I had detailed my adventure on the way, using that disparaging phrase; “but this I do know, that I have given over writing certificates for my poor from downright shame, the demand is so great.” And then he explained that the “medicineman,” whose stage name was Sequah, made no charge to any patient who brought a clergyman’s certificate of poverty; that the van had now been in the town above a week; and at first he, the vicar, had given such certificates freely, both for treatment (tooth-drawing) and for the medicines, but now refused except in the case of the very poorest. No! not because Sequah was an impostor; on the contrary, he had done several noteworthy cures--at any rate temporary cures--on some of the vicar’s own parishioners: notably in the case of one old man who had been drawn up to the van in a wheel-chair. He had had rheumatism for two years, which had quite disabled him, and was in great pain when he got on the platform. After he had been treated he walked down the steps without help, and wheeled his chair home himself. Unluckily, Sequah had advised him to get warm woollen underclothing, and on his pleading that he had not the money to buy it, had given him a sovereign. This so elated him that he felt quite a new man, and could not help breaking his sovereign on the way home to give the new man a congratulatory glass at a favourite pot-house. This had thrown him back, and his knees were a little stiff again, but the pain had not returned even in this case.