CHAPTER XXVII

LINCOLNSHIRE FOLKSONG

Dan Gunby and The Ballad of the Swan.

There is no great quantity of native verse in this county, and children’s songs of any antiquity are by no means so common with us as they are in Northumbria, but there is _The Lincolnshire Poacher_ with its refrain, “For ’tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year,” the marching tune of the Lincolnshire Regiment; and there is an old quatrain here and there connected with some town, such as that of Boston, and that is all.

It was my luck, however, to know, fifty years ago, a man who wrote genuine ballad verses, some of which I took down from his lips. They have never been printed before, but seem to me to be full of interest, for the man who wrote them was a typical east-coast native, a manifest Dane, as so many of these men are—unusually tall, upright, with long nose and grey eyes, and a most independent, almost proud, bearing. He was a solitary man, and made his living, as his earliest forefathers might have done, by taking fish and wild fowl as best he could; and, for recreation, drinking and singing and playing his beloved fiddle. It seemed as if the runes of his Scandinavian ancestors were in his blood, so ardently did he enjoy music and so strongly, in spite of every difficulty, for he had had little education, did he feel the impulse to put the deeds he admired into verse.

[Sidenote: R. L. NETTLESHIP]

It is something to be thankful for that, in spite of railways and Board Schools, original characters are still to be found in Lincolnshire. They were more abundant two generations ago, but they are still to be met with, and one of the most remarkable that I have personally known was this typical east-coaster, whose name was Dan Gunby. It was in September, 1874, when I was a house master at Uppingham, under the ever-famous Edward Thring, that my dear friend, R. L. Nettleship, then a fellow of Balliol, came to our house at Halton, and after a day or two there, we passed by Burgh over the marsh to Skegness, eleven miles off.

[Illustration: _Southend, Boston._]

We were making for the old thatched house by the Roman bank, for this belonged to our family, and here, with one old woman to “do” for us, and with the few supplies we had brought with us and the leg of a Lincolnshire sheep in the larder, we felt we could hold out for a week whilst we read, unmolested by even a passing tradesman. Sundays we spent at Halton, walking up on Saturday and down again on Monday, after which we took off our boots for the rest of the week.

[Sidenote: DAN GUNBY]

One night about ten o’clock, as we were sitting over our books, a step was heard on the plank bridge, and a loud knock resounded through the house. I went to the door and opened it. It was pitch dark, and from the darkness above my head, for Dan was a tall man, came a voice: “Ah’ve browt ye sum dooks. Ye knaw me, Dan Gunby.” We gratefully welcomed them as a relief from the sheep, and after a talk we agreed to go over and see Dan in his home at Gibraltar Point, where the Somersby Brook, “a rivulet then a river,” runs out into Wainfleet haven. Accordingly, on the 12th of September, 1874, we set off, going along on the flat dyke top for four miles till we came to what seemed the end of the habitable world. Here the level, muddy flat stretched out far into the distant shallow sea, groups of wading shore-birds were visible here and there, and an occasional curlew flew, with his melancholy cry, overhead, or a lonely sea-gull passed us—

“With one waft of the wing.”

We came to a small river channel with steep, slimy banks; just beyond it was an old boat half roofed over, and, sitting on it, was our friend Dan mending a net. We shouted to ask how we were to get to him, and he said, “Cum along o’er, bottoms sound.” We pulled off our boots and got down without much difficulty, but to get up, “Hic labor, hoc opus est.” But Dan shouted encouragement: “Now then, stick your toäs in, and goo it.” We did ‘goo it,’ and soon landed by the old boat, and sitting on it, we asked him if he always slept there, and what he did for a living. He answered “Yees, this is my plaäce, an’ it’s snug, an all. Ye see I hev a bit of a stoäve here.”

“Is that your duck-shout (the name for a sort of canoe for duck shooting) and gun?”

“Yees, ye sees I’m a bit of a gunner, an’ a bit of a fisherman, an’ a bit of a fiddler.”

“And a bit of a poet, too, aren’t you, Dan?”

“Well, I puts things down sometimes in the winter evenings like.”

“About your shooting, isn’t it?”

“Yees, moästlins.”

“And you have got tunes to them?”

“Yees. It’s easy to maäke the tunes up o’ the fiddle, but the words is a straänge hard job oftens.”

“Well now, will you let us hear one of them?”

“To be sewer I will,” and he took his fiddle and sat on the gunwale, while we listened to the following:—

It was in the iambic metre—which befits a ballad—with occasional anapæsts.

[Sidenote: THE SWAN]

[Sidenote: YOUNG JIM HALL]

“It’s called The Swan this ’ere un,” he said, and, with a preliminary flourish on the fiddle, he went off.

I should say that we got the words in his own writing afterwards spelt as I give them.

THE SWAN.

Now it Gentel men hall cum lisen to me, And ile tell you of a spre, When Sam and Tom Gose in there boats, Tha never dise a Gre.

CHORUS.

For the Halls they are upon the spre, Tha’ll do the best tha can, Am when tha goä to seä my boys Tha meäns to shoot a Swan.

Then a storking down clay-’ole,[14] And laying as snug as tha can, For it’ Slap Bang went both the guns And down come the Swan.

Now Sam and Tom ’as got this Swan, Tha do not now repent; Tha will pull up to Fosedyke Brige, And sell him to Hary Kemp.

Now Sam and Tom they got a shere Tha dow not see no Feer, Tha will call too the Public-house, An git a Galling of Beer.

Sam says to Tom here’s luck my lad, We will drink hall we can; And then wele pull down Spalding sett To loke for another Swan.

There’s young Jim Hall he has a fine gun Tha say it weighs a ton, And he will pull down Spalding Set To have a bit of fun.

CHORUS.

For the Halls they are upon the spre, Tha’ll do the best tha can, And when tha goä to seä my boys Tha means to shoot a swan.

And when tha hev got side by side Tha moastly scheme and plan, Tha meän to shoot either duck or goose Or else another swan.

Jim, Bill an Tom was storking At thousands of geese in a line, Tha fired three guns before daylight An killed ninety-nine. (My eye! they did an’ all.)

The old man larned the boys to shoot Without any fere or doubt, And young Jim Hall he was the man Who made the Gun and Shout.[15]

There’s young Ted Hall he’s fond of life, His diet is beäf and creäm He cares nothing about shooting He’d rayther goä by steäm.

Captain Rice, he’s deäd an gone, We hope he is at rest, All his delight was guns and boäts, And he always did his best.

He was a hearty old cock As ever sailed on the sea. He has paid for many a galling of ale When he was in company.

CHORUS.

For the Halls tha are upon the spre, Tha’ll do the best tha can, An when tha goä to seä my boys Tha meäns to shoot a swan.

[Sidenote: CAPTAIN RICE]

Dan paused for some time after he had finished the ballad, and then said with much feeling in look and voice, “Captain Rice, poor chap, he died after I’d gotten yon lines finished, and I had to alter them, ye knaw. It took me three weeks to get ’em altered.”

The captain was well remembered; he had “paid for many a galling of ale.” But the family that Dan most admired were the Halls, the old man and his three eldest sons—Jim, Bill and Tom. Young Ted he despised; he cared nothing about shooting, he would rather sit in a train!

He tells in two other short ballads of how they hunted the seal on the bar or on the long sand, and there is a poetic touch in the way he makes the seals talk, and in the description of their eyes and teeth.

But “The Swan” is Dan’s great achievement, and is a real good folk song, and has lines with the true ballad ring. “Down come the swan” is a fine expressive line, and “He was a hearty old cock, As ever sailed on the sea” has a ring in it like _Sir Patrick Spens_.

When Dan came to the astonishing kill of ninety-nine he never failed to make the ejaculation I have given above; the geese were Brent geese and were feeding in a creek or wet furrow. There was a big gun used in the “Gruft holes” or deep channels in the sands going seaward, where the gunner sat waiting for the “flighting” of the ducks. This was called a “raille,” and was fired from the shoulder. The gun which weighed a ton is a poetic exaggeration; but the old duck-shout guns were more than one man would care to lift, and about six to eight feet long. The man lay on a board to sight and fire this miniature cannon or demi-culverin, which was loaded to the muzzle, and the rusty piece of ordnance shot back with the recoil underneath him; had it been made fast to the canoe or duck-shout it would have torn the little boat to bits.

[Sidenote: THE SEALS]

The ballads of the seals are as follows:—

SEALS ON THE BAR.

1.

There is two seäls upon the bar, Tha lay like lumps of lead. When tha see Sam and Tom coming Tha begins to shaäke their head.

CHORUS.

For the Halls tha are upon the look out Tha love to see a seäl, An when tha git well in my boys He’s bound to taäste a meäl.

2.

The owd seäl said unto his wife, Yon’s sumthing coming sudden, We must soon muster out o’ this Or we shall get plum-pudden.

CHORUS.

For the Halls they are upon the look out Tha love to see a seäl, An when they git well in my boys He’s bound to taäste a meäl.

SEÄLS ON THE LONG SAND.

1.

Bill and Jim was shoving down the North And keepin close to the land, Jim says to Bill, we’ll pull across, Right ower to the Long Sand.[16]

CHORUS, _after each verse_.

For the Halls tha are upon the look out, Tha love to see a seäl, An when tha git well in my boys, He’s bound to taäste a meäl.

2.

And when tha hed got ower Tha hed a cheerful feel. Bill says to Jim “What greät heäd’s yon?” It must be a monstrous seäl.

3.

For his eyes like fire they did shine An his teeth was long an white, Then slap bang went boäth the guns, An he wished ’em boäth good-night.

4.

Well done, my lad! We’ve hit ’im hard, He’ll niver git ashore, For I knaw his head will ake to-day And ’twill be very sore.

CHORUS.

For the Halls tha are upon the look out, Tha love to see a seäl, An when tha git well in my boys He’s bound to taäste a meäl.

Seals are more common on this coast than one would think. Only this autumn, 1913, great complaints have been made by the fishermen of the destruction of soles, etc., in the ‘Wash’ by the increased number of these unwelcome visitors.

[Sidenote: NORTH COUNTRY HUMOUR]

[Sidenote: NATURE’S POETS]

Dan Gunby, in spite of his fiddling and attendance at all the dances in the neighbourhood, was not of a jovial nature. His life was hard and his outlook on it was always serious, and any humour which he had was of the dry order, which is so frequent in the northern counties. Terse remarks with a touch of humour, sly or grim, he doubtless showed at times, but a real hearty laugh he would seldom allow himself. We find this same almost unconscious habit of saying a biting thing in a sly way frequent in the counties north of Lincolnshire, as for instance, when in Westmorland a man meeting a friend says, “I hear Jock has gotten marriet” and the rejoinder, which expresses so much in so few words, both about the man in question and the subject of matrimony generally, is “Ah’m gled o’ that, ah niver liked Jock.” Another time, a man meets a ‘pal’ and for a bit of news says, “We’m gotten a chain for oor Mayor,” and the answer, “Han yo? We let yon beggar of ourn go loose” is far more funny than was ever intended. But Gunby and his likes, of whom there are more in the regions of the hills and fells than elsewhere, have not only the seriousness of those who live solitary and have leisure to do a deal o’ thinking, but dwelling apart in places where they can commune with Nature and the stars they get the poetic touch from their surroundings. The mountain shepherd goes up on to the heights and spends long hours with his dog and sheep. He marks the great clouds move by, and listens to the voice of the streams. He knows “the silence that is in the starry sky;” the great constellations are his companions; he sees the rising moon, and the splendours of the dawn and sunset. Those sights which fill us with such delight and wonder when beheld now and then in a lifetime, are before his eyes repeatedly. Now he watches the storm near at hand in all its fury, the thunder echoing round him from crag to crag; soon the clouds roll off and disclose the brilliant arch of the rainbow across the glistening valley, each perfect in its different way. At one time he must be out on the slopes sparkling with snow, at another his heart gladdens at the approach of spring, and he feels himself one with it all. And so the changing seasons of the year cannot fail to touch him more than most men, and what the heart feels the lips will strive to utter. In the same way Dan Gunby used to watch the wide sunsets across the marsh, and see the floods of golden light on the shore, and the ebbing and flowing of the far-spread tide about his anchored cabin. He saw, at one time, the ripples crested with gold by the sun’s last rays, at another the red orb rising from the sea on a clear morning; or, in the mist which closed him in, he listened to the cries of the sea-birds sweeping by invisible. At times, when the wind was up and the tide high, he heard the roar of the waves dashed on the sand; or, upon a calm night, he looked out on a gently moving water led by the changing moon. There were always some voices of the night, and usually some visions both at eve and morn; and with his observant eye and ear, and his leisure to reflect, while Nature was his one companion, how could he fail to be in some sort a poet?

I lately heard of a shepherd or crofter who was quite a case in point; but as he was not a Lincolnshire native but lived in the Scotch Lowlands, I put the account of him and his poetry, which, by the help of a Scotch lady, I have succeeded in collecting, small in quantity but some of it very good, I think, in quality, into an appendix at the end of the volume.

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