CORRESPONDENCE.
A RUSTIC SKETCH.
[A LETTER FROM A COUNTRY COTTAGE.]
I MOULD like to give you some idea of life in this little out- of-the-way nook. You know that sort of instinct which makes one put down anything one sees or feels. I am sure one sees a great deal more than people have any idea of who usually live here, and if they knew the impression their lives make on one, I fear they would consider the county asylum might soon have another occupant. As for thinking that the impression itself was worth studying, that would seem maddest of all. You know I used to spend my holidays here, poke at every- thing and talk to every one; so I know a good deal more about their ways than an ordinary literary being might pick up,— not that such an one has ever put foot in this place. "No end, like a —shire lane," is a native proverb. That is why I thought I would give you my holiday notes upon some characteristics of the life in this unknown country place.
Here it is quite impossible to realise that people are ever harried or ever sociable ; that anywhere there can be over- crowding or over-population ; that in the universe there can be any noise at all, except the sharp, sea-like murmur so intense among this summer's parched, stiff leaves, wherever there is any breeze* That seems noise, here. Yesterday was Sunday. In the parish,. extending over about nine miles by five at longest and broadest, about one soul in five of the four hun- dred and fifty-six turned into the crooked, " cobbled " lanes, and came to the morning assembly within the church. This church has no architectural beauties, though, restored from one with every possible defect, it is now clean and bright, with beeswased benches, aggressive texts, and brilliant but really effective and suitable Munich glass windows. It nas a surpliced choir, too, of men and lads, most con- scious, in more ways than one, of spotless and very stiffly starched robes, and of dignity with "bear's grease" (as they call "what shines their heads "). They strive manfully to overcome the rustic tendency to drag feet—and music—as they sing a festival hymn, not quite reaching that trying F. Passing through the well-pleased congregation, the parson's kindly cultivated face peers forward a little anxiously as if he could check Jem Armstrong's special shout. (Jem never has
• Written in 1887—the year of sunshine.
understood—and never will—why, as he possesses a louder voice than others, the parson persists in .telling him he must not sing above them ; and in procession parson is behind him, and human nature loves to take an opportunity of displaying its unique endowments.) The congregation sings also, but ruraldom reads slowly—even that portion of it which is. surpliced—and, when the psalms are bawled as fast as doubts of pronunciation will allow, the full nasal sound of the nave respectfully follows the vigorous lead of the choir. Every one now likes the psalms sang, except one farmer ; but he reads his words to drown the singers; no one minds that,—it is his. way, just as it is his way to say " Aymen." in a great hurry before the choir can possibly sing " Ahrmen." A short, pithy sermon is listened to with calm and civil respect ; but, still decorously, yet decidedly, they turn to more interesting per-. Banal gossip on getting out again to the churchyard. Never- theless, they quite believe that parson believes what he says ; he who for almost all the year lives alone, as for five-and- twenty years he has lived, in the big house, "a-top o' th' hill."' This is a "family" living, and the " squaraon " was meant to. be a thriving younger son with an enormous family; or he have been a "mighty hunter," for this is good country, and he could get at two packs ; or the five-miles-off railway- station might have made visitors accessible, or going away of frequent feasibility ; but—some miles off being the also unmarried patron's house—the parson is usually "t' whoara."' (The door-bell frightens him when about once a year it rings,. —it means a telegram of family sorrow, unless pulled by a perfectly strange tramp !) No other " quality " live near. As a younger man he used to go for the then much more frequent stereotyped three days' visit to the various county houses ; but the county has changed too ; and, besides, he is. "not so young as he was." So he is generally all alone,. in quick sympathy with all the minor ills of rural life. He knows how fast the pig fattens, here ; there, the poultice on the gathered finger, the bandage on the cut, or the wool the- doctor has carefully placed over, the scald, will be more quickly stripped of for him than even for the other neighbours; he- knows who is " courtin' " whom, and which lad is the " ne'er-do- weel," or, what is quite as distressing, the " scholard ".of the family ; he sits in the public-house porch with genial uncon- sciousness as he chats over the sale of cheese or the baby's baptism. " Wanting " him some day, his parishioners will know what it is to have had this educated kindliness as force available in all emergencies. Our parson is no scholar; he took his degree, and sold his books the next day at Oxford; he buys a few good commentaries, and for the rest, he reads his daily paper, believes in his party, if he has one, and seeks for "good in Life's familiar face." Yet his chief interest is in his schools.. He loves, and never misses, the brief space devoted to religious. knowledge (it is not his fault if religion is not thereby fostered), and he is proud when the post of honour in the- Diocesan Inspectors' Report is occupied by • his children. Uneasily feeling that "in his best days" such geography,. such arithmetic, such history, was unknown to him, he lingers admiringly to hear the capital secular teaching. "How is the school supported?" you ask. " Oh ! well," he says; "I let the master and mistress keep the grant besides their salary ; but. there are subscriptions, you know." Yes, there are sub- scribers, three subscribers ; the patron gives three guineas,. one farmer gives another guinea, and the third pays—" the rest, and sees things are done, you know, for there is no endow- ment, and things must be kept up." And it is very odd that such a congregation as was before described often has a. far larger offertory for foreign missions or charities than me- in a crowded town. It would be odder if we did not gaess that, though the living is rich, the parson remains poor.
" Skulemaster " is another personage,—the only other " reader " in the upper classes of our village. No one is excited about "politicks," or anything else, " hereaways." No. lady forms a Primrose League,—there are no ladies. "Parson '11 lend t' skuleroom t' Whigs or t' Tories indifferent,' and nobody cares for either. There is no Dissent in the parish, and the meeting-house on its borders attracts few. There are- no feuds, but no points of union. The young men make no use of the permission to play football or cricket in the park.. Except as against outsiders, there is no fellow-feeling. "They keep themselves to themselves," is said of family after family, till the inquirer begins to understand the truth ; no aristocracy is so exclusive as that of Arcadia,—for each step on the ladder
has perchance but one representative. Perhaps the farmers should associate with each other ? A cheese—or, on the larger farms, two cheeses—to be made every day all summer, the feudal cares of a farm family, soon take ideas of " junketting " from the ideas of heads of households. Town cowing must be amused on and with the farm. In other places there are lawn- tennis clubs, but one family can scarcely form a dab. You may not see the distinction between those who have "held t' farm a hunderd," and those who have been there but sixty years ; nor could you understand the force of the parenthesis :— "They came last Michaelmas — (five years) !" Still, in this part of the world a shrug or silence might enlighten you a little. Personality plays a small part here; it is the size, and -especially "the ways" of the farm, which stamp "Miss Dod o' t' Oaks" as above "Miss Kettle o' t' Hough." These girls, who rarely speak to each other, having come home "finished," practise their piano" a little, read a little—Casselrs Family Magazine—and, in secrecy, sometimes, make their own frocks -after one of the fashion-articles; or they visit aunt Jane in .the county town, and bring back a cousin or two with them. .0n Sunday they all come out in the latest fashions (as guessed at),—robes worn on broad figures, headgear on good-tempered, unstirred, but by no means unintelligent faces; except that here and there is one "moped," or "peaked," or " dwiny," who does not know that both food and feelings in Arcadia are just a little too healthy for her invalid frame. She is -dull, and it is well if her temper is not sharpened, poor 'thing! But the greater iramleer are not dull,—neither dull nor dulled; only they are busy in their little circles as you can scarcely guess, for if you went to see them they never would let you see any trace of occupation, and, un- pressed, unlike the cottager class, they would never begin to speak of any subject relating to themselves. Their life is themselves, nevertheless,—themselves, in patriarchal fashion, including the servants hired from year to year, all their con- nections, and the following of their occupation. To work, and to eat, and to sleep, and withal "to keep yourself respectable," holding your head as high as may be,—that is their ideal. Is it restful, or is it irritating P There is one man in the village who, by instinct, is not of -these traditions. He does not work, he only paints ! Poor man, he is a Wordsworth of the brush, a Millet of England ...on a smaller scale. Some day he may be known. He has -exhibited, and charmed a few—the best—visitors to the Northern exhibitions; but he has no power of push, nor capital to push with. Nor does he make the most of an -opening. He loves Nature ; there are hundreds of sketches of the neighbouring bits, "just what I see, you know," rolled up carelessly in the kitchen cupboard ; for a fellow-artist he brings them out to the tiny garden, and shows them in a cracked frame. He has not a studio ; he "never works indoors," 'so that does not matter. His early patron is dead, but he works for the sake of his art. Nobody knows him, but he is not fitted for society ; so that matters least of all. Only his poor little wife brings out the lines in which some critic has praised his ." Academy pictures "—once he had two accepted—and she, for the children's sake, would like "something to come out of :all that work some day."
But no one sees these transcripts from Nature,--sunny brook, shady bank, gleaming reeds, or silvery hay; no one knows that by this practice the little painter has acquired a perfect -facility of poetical representation, elasticity preserved by fol- lowing Nature from day to day. There is no one to disturb, but no one to stimulate, no one to reward, at least, the patient, half. 'comprehendingwife. It is very still here, as he turns lovingly over the sketches never shown but to the sympathetic and rare stranger; it is very still, and so lonely ! So the quick feeling comes that even in these days of scribbling and of travelling, genius may remain true to its sensitive nature,— and to its incapacities. The way to my night's resting-place lies through the village churchyard, as once did Gray's. It .seems to many improbable that any nature rich in force could ever lack opportunity;, yet how possible is it that humble life and humble birth may once and again deprive a Millet of his temporary honour, entailing on those he loves loss of comfort and on himself that loss of power which often follows the withholding of happiness ! It has been well said,—" Some- times we need the pruning-hook, but oftener the sunshine." Our little painter is generally content to work on ; he knows very little of the noisy world ; if it had applause for any- thing so quiet and truthful, unless as a fashion, its applause would not add much to the pleasure of his life, perhaps. Nevertheless, in sudden vivid discontent I passed the quiet pine-shadowed graves, and forward to the mist-touched meadows. There are great cracks in the dried clay-clods, the grass smells sweet as it cools, and the evening air is very fresh, as the soft colours of Nature's pictures lie before print.. tired eyes. Even the trees are quiet now. The town-trained nerves hear silence. Is it fear—the shudder of a mood of terror—which causes one to realise the eerie isolation of that great calm P The churchyard is yet more still than these solitary meadows, and in it there is no isolation. But here, there is a keen sensation of spiritual loneliness, not a physical dread. This is no student's solitude ; this is no moment for the enjoyment of earth's beauty as she shines, sympathetically restful, under the pure, unclouded evening sky ! The other life—all that was meant by the rush and roll of the hurrying crowd seems now the other life—the noise of the other life is more than ever repellent, and yet—God knows the cause of that impulse of revolt, that restlessness of reason or of unreason, against this deep peacefulness !
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