ARCADY.*
AFTER twenty-five years of life in a city, passed chiefly, we believe, as head-master of a great echool, Dr. Augustus Jeesopp accepted the charge of a Norfolk parish, and betook himself once more to the rural life with which, as an unusually poor curate, he had once been thoroughly familiar. A clergyman resolved to do his duty, a shrewd and keen man of the world, and a sympathetic humourist, he began at once observing the people round him in all grades, from the nouveau riche who had bought out the old squire, and who, while benefiting the parish, bragged of his own position, down to the loafers who are below the labourers, and in different ways outside the village com- munity. Squire and farmer, peasant and labourer, artisan and poacher, he watched them all with a glance which, in spite of the genial laughter and sympathy in him, must often, we should imagine, have made him slightly dreaded. As he observed he criticised, and as he criticised he wrote down his criticisms hot and fresh, and forwarded them to the Nineteenth Century. The result was a series of papers now embodied in a volume which is, to oar minds, one of the most delightful ever published in English. Indeed, we doubt if such an account of English village-life, its bad and good sides, its specialities, its humours, and the odd, gnarled characters it produces, ever has been published. The book is full of thought, but fuller yet of a subtle humorousness which is not Addition's or Lamb's, but something as separate, and almost as attrac- tive,—the humorousness of a man who, if his work had lain that way, might have been one of the raciest and moat widely read of English novelists. There are a hundred Characters in his pages, all as distinct as in a play by a great dramatist, yet all described by a few apparently incidental touches, or left to describe themselves. Whether the reader knows the country-folk or not, he feels that they and their characters and their speech are accurately brought before him. The true Arcadian, for example, the labourer who has not been taught utterance, never says anything, to a superior at least, that is quite direct. Hie speech is in- " What may be called the dubitative or approximating style. He is always feeling for what be has to say through a mass of tangled expletives, qualifications, retractations, and corrections. He knows he is not sure of his ground, that he has not said what he had in his mind ; he is afraid of the consequences of articulate speech, and expects to gain something by silence ; his ' hopes and fears that kindle hope, an undistingaishable throng,' confuse him, and his speech bewrayeth him. 'How's your old misses to-day, Mark r you inquire simply.—Mark pauses, takes off his cap and wipes his head, and begins his reply.' Well, thank ye, sir, she's a poor critter as you may say. What I'm a thinking on is, you see, as she's coming on in years. Not but there's some as is older 'an she, but you know you can't never treat 'em, they'll say anything, 'fares [it appears] as some on 'em will. Now I reckon as I'm four score years come Martinmas, but then you ain't got my register for me, don't you see, as you said you would, though Biddy Blake ha' got hers. [This with a certain gentle rebuke at your negligence, and a spice of jealousy too.] And my ;Mama, somehow she's maybe a year younger, leastways I ain't certain, but I kind o' reckon so But how about the rheumatics P' you suggest. Hereupon Mark, having delivered himself of his preamble, repeats the process with a dozen repetitions of ' leaatways,' ''fares as if,' whereby don't you know,' ' not but what,' I ain't a going to say,' etc. After ten minutes you are left to infer that the old woman is pretty much as she was, and would like some more pudding."
That is characteristic enough; but this, from a chapter on the superstitions of the country-aide, fall of out-of-the-way informa- tion, is still better. A friend of the author's, Mr. Wright, had interfered to compel a sorcerer who had been plundering some poor people by selling them charms, to refund his ill-gotten gains. "Mr. Claypole " consented, repaid the money, and in a sort of frenzy of fear, buried his books like any village Prospero. A lad in his employ thus told the story :—
" 'And Lor ! sir, bow you did scare that there man. He come back that day like a wild thing. He couldn't say nothing only "Aw, Jemmy! Aw, Jemmy ! Aw, Jemmy ! I'm done for, baw !" And he kept saying it over and over again ; and then he began and tould ma what you'd said to him, and he went in and took his grit big books. There was lots on 'em—more nor two men could ha' carried ; and he see, "Jemmy, I'm a going to bury 'ern. Don't you never ha' nothing to du with them sort o things as long as you live. Do [If you do] you'll niver come to no good." I was that afeared I wouldn't touch 'em. I didn't know what mightn't come to me, and I says, " Mas'r," says I, " I ain't a goin' to touch them sort of things, not if it's ever so.
T:FArcadttr. For Blotter for Worm By A. Jossopp, D.D. 1 vol. London I don't mind digging the hole, but I never heard tell of them Zode Jacks doing no one no good." So he ups wi' his grit books, and we digged a hole big as a pit, that war, and he set 'em in right careful; and it's my belief they're there now !' "
The "Zode Jacks" were the signs of the Zodiac, which were roughly scrawled upon the charms he sold. The book is fall of snob things, while it contains one full-length picture, called "A Swain of Arcady," the biography of a half-witted loafer, which is, to our minds, more strangely pathetic, yet horrible, than almost any figure we can recall in fiction
During the bitter winter of 11380.81 some of the roads were blocked by the snow, and Ben was at work with a gang of men making cuttings through the dangerous drifts. The miserable weather lasted for weeks, and some of the labourers were wet through all day long. It is almost incredible, but it is none the less true, that during all that winter Ben never slept in a house, bat buried himself in the straw of a barn where he had leave to lay himself down. I asked him, with a shudder, whether he was not afraid of the rats P—He laughed aloud
with triumphant glee. make no more count of them rata than if they were fleas !'—He could not have expressed his indifference more contemptuously. Nay, the rats rather amused him, except that he. objected to their tails—they tickled his face sometimes !—Didn't he suffer from the cold P—Ho didn't know what folks meant by being cold.—Had he never been ill P—Yes, he'd been bad' once aboard: ship ; he would not try that again !—Never had rheumatism ?—What call had folks to get rheumatics P He ' didn't hold wi' rheumatics."'' Or take this:— "Mrs. Grimbley was reading her tract in the great chimney- corner, and she was holding over her head a large umbrella to protect her against the rain; the miserable hovel was fall of smoke ; the fire was sputtering with big raindrops that came down the vast chimney steadily, heavily. I closed the door and eat down upon a three- legged chair (a genuine Queen Anne), and I attempted conversation somewhat timidly, for I saw that Widow Grimbley was not in the mood for talk. At such times I avoid the nee of pronouns as much as possible, and shrink from preaching or anything like it. Then the following dialogue ensued, question and answer following one another with long intervals of silence. ' Chimney always smoke ?'—' Always.' =Used to it P'—' Can't say as I am; I don't like it anyhow, but I've got to bear it. It's the law.'—' Law's a rum an, eh ! and a bad nn, or some of us wouldn't be clothed in purple and fine linen and some of us have to sit under an umbrella.'—' Rain comes down here seemingly when some winds blow.'—' Some winds P It don't stop coming down for winds. Ah ! There now ; you've found it out too ! —This d propos of a big blob of soot that fell upon my hand, brought down by the pelting rain.—` Grand old chimney though to look at, eh P I verily believe, Mrs. Grimbley, that if I had a rampant horse with vaunting ambition enough I could drive a gig rep that chimney. Would you come P I'd take you with me.'—This was too mach for Mrs. Grimbley ; she shuddered silently. At last she could not reatrain her sense of the ludicrous. Poor old soul, she used. to know what laughter was once—ever so long ago—and she tried not to laugh and tried to keep it back now, ashamed of the weak phantom of merriment that had surprised her.—' I ain't no call to laugh,' she said, and then she dried her eyes. The old chimney, I've heard my grandfather say, was a very old one ever since he could remember. It belonged to him and it don't belong to me, and if it did I shouldn't be none the better. There ain't no room in this world now for the Little ones. That's the law !' "
Dr. Jeesopp does not, ae might be expected, write down his experiences merely to amuse. He wants to tell the outside- world what manner of men he finds in Arcady, and it is not altogether a pleasant picture. He finds everywhere more in- telligence, but also more discontent, less of the old careless life, and a hungry greed for cash as the only solid thing. There are- fewer small farms, fewer opportunities of rising, and, in Dr. Jessopp's opinion, a very small increase in silver wages, the married women, in particular, earning decidedly less than they did. The houses of the labourers, too, except on the large proper- ties, are still shameful, and a great deal of ill-feeling has grown up- between them and the farmers, who, pressed by the bad times, begin to regard the men as "hands," and discharge them when- ever work is profitless. Still, Dr. Jeesopp notes a great deal of improvement. The old cruelty, which was once so prevalent, has wholly disappeared. Formerly, everybody was kept in order with the whip, the poor loved all cruel sights, and the servant- girl who had never been flogged was an exception. We have- not space for the story of old Reed, who, as a boy, was nearly killed by a farmer with his cart-whip because he was a little late; but this short extract speaks volumes :—
" Witfin's wife is his senior by five or six years. Unluckily, she is a commonplace old lady, and you mast not pat too great a strain- upon her. What you can get from her take, and when you see her put her hand to her head with a Lawk, now I'm mated !' give her a. shilling and go your ways. But old Biddy Wiffia has her vivid recol- lections too, and abs has a word to say to the modern lasses. I can't abide all their fal.lals !' she says sometimes. I am never so indiscreet as to ask her what she means, and I assume ' fal.lals' to be some heinous vices about which it would be indelicate to imp:Lire. Worked op to virtuous indignation, she becomes voluble, and then is your time. ' Gala! there ant no gals—they're ladies. You've got to call.
'em Miss, or they'll canoe you! When I was young, I was a gal! I was one of the lucky Ones, though, I was ! You mayn't credit it, but it's as Mae as you're sitting there I never had a mistress as ever give me a jiogging—not one !' "
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