Lark Rise to Candleford

by Flora Thompson

  But, side by side with these changes, the old country civilization lingered. Traditions and customs which had lasted for centuries did not die out in a moment. State-educated children still played the old country rhyme games; women still went leazing, although the field had been cut by the mechanical reaper; and men and boys still sang the old country ballads and songs, as well as the latest music-hall successes. So, when a few songs were called for at the 'Wagon and Horses', the programme was apt to be a curious mixture of old and new.

  While the talking was going on, the few younger men, 'boy-chaps', as they were called until they were married, would not have taken a great part in it. Had they shown any inclination to do so, they would have been checked, for the age of youthful dominance was still to come; and, as the women used to say, 'The old cocks don't like it when the young cocks begin to crow'. But, when singing began they came into their own, for they represented the novel.

  They usually had first innings with such songs of the day as had percolated so far. 'Over the Garden Wall', with its many parodies, 'Tommy, Make Room for Your Uncle', 'Two Lovely Black Eyes', and other 'comic' or 'sentimental' songs of the moment. The most popular of these would have arrived complete with tune from the outer world; others, culled from the penny song-book they most of them carried, would have to have a tune fitted to them by the singer. They had good lusty voices and bawled them out with spirit. There were no crooners in those days.

  The men of middle age inclined more to long and usually mournful stories in verse, of thwarted lovers, children buried in snowdrifts, dead maidens, and motherless homes. Sometimes they would vary these with songs of a high moral tone, such as:

  Waste not, want not,

  Some maxim I would teach;

  Let your watchword be never despair

  And practise what you preach.

  Do not let your chances like the sunbeams pass you by,

  For you'll never miss the water till the well runs dry.

  But this dolorous singing was not allowed to continue long. 'Now, then, all together, boys,' some one would shout, and the company would revert to old favourites. Of these, one was 'The Barleymow'. Trolled out in chorus, the first verse went:

  Oh, when we drink out of our noggins, my boys.

  We'll drink to the barleymow.

  We'll drink to the barleymow, my boys,

  We'll drink to the barleymow.

  So knock your pint on the settle's back;

  Fill again, in again, Hannah Brown,

  We'll drink to the barleymow, my boys,

  We'll drink now the barley's mown.

  So they went on, increasing the measure in each stanza, from noggins to half-pints, pints, quarts, gallons, barrels, hogsheads, brooks, ponds, rivers, seas, and oceans. That song could be made to last a whole evening, or it could be dropped as soon as they got tired of it.

  Another favourite for singing in chorus was 'King Arthur', which was also a favourite for outdoor singing and was often heard to the accompaniment of the jingling of harness and cracking of whips as the teams went afield. It was also sung by solitary wayfarers to keep up their spirits on dark nights. It ran:

  When King Arthur first did reign,

  He ru-led like a king;

  He bought three sacks of barley meal

  To make a plum pud-ding.

  The pudding it was made

  And duly stuffed with plums,

  And lumps of suet put in it

  As big as my two thumbs.

  The king and queen sat down to it

  And all the lords beside:

  And what they couldn't eat that night

  The queen next morning fried.

  Every time Laura heard this sung she saw the queen, a gold crown on her head, her train over her arm, and her sleeves rolled up, holding the frying-pan over the fire. Of course, a queen would have fried pudding for breakfast: ordinary common people seldom had any left over to fry.

  Then Lukey, the only bachelor of mature age in the hamlet, would oblige with:

  Me feyther's a hedger and ditcher,

  An' me mother does nothing but spin,

  But I'm a pretty young girl and

  The money comes slowly in.

  Oh, dear! what can the matter be?

  Oh, dear! what shall I do?

  For there's nobody coming to marry,

  And there's nobody coming to woo.

  They say I shall die an old maid,

  Oh, dear! how shocking the thought!

  For them all my beauty will fade,

  And I'm sure it won't be my own fault.

  Oh, dear! what can the matter be?

  Oh, dear! what shall I do?

  There's nobody coming to marry,

  And there's nobody coming to woo!

  This was given point by Luke's own unmarried state. He sang it as a comic song and his rendering certainly made it one. Perhaps, then, for a change, poor old Algy, the mystery man, would be asked for a song and he would sing in a cracked falsetto, which seemed to call for the tinkling notes of a piano as accompaniment:

  Have you ever been on the Penin-su-lah?

  If not, I advise you to stay where you haw,

  For should you adore a Sweet Spanish senor-ah,

  She may prove what some might call sin-gu-lah.

  Then there were snatches that any one might break out with at any time when no one else happened to be singing:

  I wish, I wish, 'twer all in vain,

  I wish I were a maid again!

  A maid again I ne'er shall be

  Till oranges grow on an apple tree

  or:

  Now all you young chaps, take a warning by me,

  And do not build your nest at the top of any tree,

  For the green leaves they will wither and the flowers they will decay,

  And the beauty of that fair maid will soon pass away.

  One comparatively recent settler, who had only lived at the hamlet about a quarter of a century, had composed a snatch for himself, to sing when he felt homesick. It ran:

  Where be Dedington boo-oys, where be they now?

  They be at Dedington at the 'Plough';

  If they be-ent, they be at home,

  And this is the 'Wagon and Horses'.

  But, always, sooner or later, came the cry, 'Let's give the old 'uns a turn. Here you, Master Price, what about "It was my father's custom and always shall be mine", or "Lord Lovell stood", or summat of that sort' as has stood the testing o' time?' and Master Price would rise from his corner of the settle, using the stick he called his 'third leg' to support his bent figure as he sang:

  Lord Lovell stood at his castle gate,

  Calming his milk-white steed,

  When up came Lady Nancy Bell

  To wish her lover God-speed.

  'And where are you going, Lord Lovell?' she said.

  'And where are you going?' said she.

  'Oh, I'm going away from my Nancy Bell,

  Away to a far country-tre-tre;

  Away to a far coun-tre.'

  'And when will you come back, Lord Lovell?' she said,

  'When will you come back?' said she.

  'Oh, I will come back in a year and a day,

  Back to my Lady Nancy-ce-ce-ce.

  Back to my Lady Nan-cee.'

  But Lord Lovell was gone more than his year and a day, much longer, and when he did at last return, the church bells were tolling:

  'And who is it dead?' Lord Lovell, he said.

  'And who is it dead,' said he.

  And some said, 'Lady Nancy Bell,'

  And some said, 'Lady Nancy-ce-ce-ce,

  And some said,'Lady Nan-cee.'

  … … …

  Lady Nancy died as it were to-day;

  And Lord Lovell, he died to-morrow,

  And she, she died for pure, pure grief,

  And he, he died for sorrow.

  And they buried her in the chancel high,

  And they buried him in the choir;

&n
bsp; And out of her grave sprung a red, red rose,

  And out of his sprung a briar.

  And they grew till they grew to the church roof,

  And then they couldn't grow any higher;

  So they twined themselves in a true lovers' knot,

  For all lovers true to admire.

  After that they would all look thoughtfully into their mugs. Partly because the old song had saddened them, and partly because by that time the beer was getting low and the one half-pint had to be made to last until closing time. Then some would say, 'What's old Master Tuffrey up to, over in his corner there? Ain't heard him strike up to-night', and there would be calls for old David's 'Outlandish Knight'; not because they wanted particularly to hear it—indeed, they had heard it so often they all knew it by heart—but because, as they said, 'Poor old feller be eighty-three. Let 'un sing while he can.'

  So David would have his turn. He only knew the one ballad, and that, he said, his grandfather had sung, and had said that he had heard his own grandfather sing it. Probably a long chain of grandfathers had sung it; but David was fated to be the last of them. It was out of date, even then, and only tolerated on account of his age. It ran:

  An outlandish knight, all from the north lands,

  A-wooing came to me,

  He said he would take me to the north lands

  And there he would marry me.

  'Go, fetch me some of your father's gold

  And some of your mother's fee,

  And two of the best nags out of the stable

  Where there stand thirty and three.'

  She fetched him some of her father's gold

  And some of her mother's fee,

  And two of the best nags out of the stable

  Where there stood thirty and three.

  And then she mounted her milk-white steed

  And he the dapple grey,

  And they rode until they came to the sea-shore,

  Three hours before it was day.

  'Get off, get off thy milk-white steed

  And deliver it unto me,

  For six pretty maids I have drowned here

  And thou the seventh shall be.

  'Take off, take off, thy silken gown,

  And deliver it unto me,

  For I think it is too rich and too good

  To rot in the salt sea.'

  'If I must take off my silken gown,

  Pray turn thy back to me,

  For I think it's not fitting a ruffian like you

  A naked woman should see.'

  He turned his back towards her

  To view the leaves so green,

  And she took hold of his middle so small

  And tumbled him into the stream.

  And he sank high and he sank low

  Until he came to the side.

  'Take hold of my hand, my pretty ladye,

  And I will make you my bride.'

  'Lie there, lie there, you false-hearted man,

  Lie there instead of me,

  For six pretty maids hast thou drowned here

  And the seventh hath drowned thee.'

  So then she mounted the milk-white steed

  And led the dapple grey,

  And she rode till she came to her own father's door,

  An hour before it was day.

  As this last song was piped out in the aged voice, women at their cottage doors on summer evenings would say: 'They'll soon be out now. Poor old Dave's just singing his "Outlandish Knight".'

  Songs and singers all have gone, and in their places the wireless blares out variety and swing music, or informs the company in cultured tones of what is happening in China or Spain. Children no longer listen outside. There are very few who could listen, for the thirty or forty which throve there in those days have dwindled to about half a dozen, and these, happily, have books, wireless, and a good fire in their own homes. But, to one of an older generation, it seems that a faint echo of those songs must still linger round the inn doorway. The singers were rude and untaught and poor beyond modern imagining; but they deserve to be remembered, for they knew the now lost secret of being happy on little.

  V Survivals

  There were three distinct types of home in the hamlet. Those of the old couples in comfortable circumstances, those of the married people with growing families, and the few new homes which had recently been established. The old people who were not in comfortable circumstances had no homes at all worth mentioning, for, as soon as they got past work, they had either to go to the workhouse or find accommodation in the already overcrowded cottages of their children. A father or a mother could usually be squeezed in, but there was never room for both, so one child would take one parent and another the other, and even then, as they used to say, there was always the in-law to be dealt with. It was a common thing to hear ageing people say that they hoped God would be pleased to take them before they got past work and became a trouble to anybody.

  But the homes of the more fortunate aged were the most comfortable in the hamlet, and one of the most attractive of these was known as 'Old Sally's'. Never as 'Old Dick's', although Sally's husband, Dick, might have been seen at any hour of the day, digging and hoeing and watering and planting his garden, as much a part of the landscape as his own row of beehives.

  He was a little, dry, withered old man, who always wore his smock-frock rolled up round his waist and the trousers on his thin legs gartered with buckled straps. Sally was tall and broad, not fat, but massive, and her large, beamingly good-natured face, with its well-defined moustache and tight, coal-black curls bobbing over each ear, was framed in a white cap frill; for Sally, though still strong and active, was over eighty, and had remained faithful to the fashions of her youth.

  She was the dominating partner. If Dick was called upon to decide any question whatever, he would edge nervously aside and say, 'I'll just step indoors and see what Sally thinks about it,' or 'All depends upon what Sally says.' The house was hers and she carried the purse; but Dick was a willing subject and enjoyed her dominion over him. It saved him a lot of thinking, and left him free to give all his time and attention to the growing things in his garden.

  Old Sally's was a long, low, thatched cottage with diamond-paned windows winking under the eaves and a rustic porch smothered in honeysuckle. Excepting the inn, it was the largest house in the hamlet, and of the two downstair rooms one was used as a kind of kitchen-storeroom, with pots and pans and a big red crockery water vessel at one end, and potatoes in sacks and peas and beans spread out to dry at the other. The apple crop was stored on racks suspended beneath the ceiling and bunches of herbs dangled below. In one corner stood the big brewing copper in which Sally still brewed with good malt and hops once a quarter. The scent of the last brewing hung over the place till the next and mingled with apple and onion and dried thyme and sage smells, with a dash of soapsuds thrown in, to compound the aroma which remained in the children's memories for life and caused a whiff of any two of the component parts in any part of the world to be recognized with an appreciative sniff and a mental ejaculation of 'Old Sally's!'

  The inner room—'the house', as it was called—was a perfect snuggery, with walls two feet thick and outside shutters to close at night and a padding of rag rugs, red curtains and feather cushions within. There was a good oak, gate-legged table, a dresser with pewter and willow-pattern plates, and a grandfather's clock that not only told the time, but the day of the week as well. It had even once told the changes of the moon; but the works belonging to that part had stopped and only the fat, full face, painted with eyes, nose and mouth, looked out from the square where the four quarters should have rotated. The clock portion kept such good time that half the hamlet set its own clocks by it. The other half preferred to follow the hooter at the brewery in the market town, which could be heard when the wind was in the right quarter. So there were two times in the hamlet and people would say when asking the hour, 'Is that hooter time, or Old Sally's?'

  The garden wa
s a large one, tailing off at the bottom into a little field where Dick grew his corn crop. Nearer the cottage were fruit trees, then the yew hedge, close and solid as a wall, which sheltered the beehives and enclosed the flower garden. Sally had such flowers, and so many of them, and nearly all of them sweet-scented! Wallflowers and tulips, lavender and sweet william, and pinks and old-world roses with enchanting names—Seven Sisters, Maiden's Blush, moss rose, monthly rose, cabbage rose, blood rose, and, most thrilling of all to the children, a big bush of the York and Lancaster rose, in the blooms of which the rival roses mingled in a pied white and red. It seemed as though all the roses in Lark Rise had gathered together in that one garden. Most of the gardens had only one poor starveling bush or none; but, then, nobody else had so much of anything as Sally.

  A continual subject for speculation was as to how Dick and Sally managed to live so comfortably with no visible means of support beyond their garden and beehives and the few shillings their two soldier sons might be supposed to send them, and Sally in her black silk on Sundays and Dick never without a few ha'pence for garden seeds or to fill his tobacco pouch. 'Wish they'd tell me how 'tis done,' somebody would grumble. 'I could do wi' a leaf out o' their book.'

  But Dick and Sally did not talk about their affairs. All that was known of them was that the house belonged to Sally, and that it had been built by her grandfather before the open heath had been cut up into fenced fields and the newer houses had been built to accommodate the labourers who came to work in them. It was only when Laura was old enough to write their letters for them that she learned more. They could both read and Dick could write well enough to exchange letters with their own children; but one day they received a business letter that puzzled them, and Laura was called in, sworn to secrecy, and consulted. It was one of the nicest things that happened to her as a child, to be chosen out of the whole hamlet for their confidence and to know that Dick and Sally liked her, though so few other people did. After that, at twelve years old, she became their little woman of business, writing letters to seedsmen and fetching postal orders from the market town to put in them and helping Dick to calculate the interest due on their savings bank account. From them she learned a great deal about the past life of the hamlet.