Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  We were very glad indeed that we had seen the sheep-shearing, though the road had been hot, and long, and dusty, and we were as yet unrefreshed and hungry. When we had understood the separate actions of the busy scene, we could begin to notice individuals. I soon picked out a very beautiful young woman as an object of admiration and interest. She stood by a buxom woman of middle age, who had just sufficient likeness to point her out as the mother. Both were folding fleeces, and folding them well; but the mother talked all the time with a rich-toned voice, and a merry laugh and eye, while the daughter hung her head silently over her work; and I could only guess at the beauty of her eyes by the dark sweeping shadow of her eyelashes. She was well dressed, and had evidently got on her Sunday gown, although a good deal for the honour of the thing, as the flowing skirt was tucked up in a bunch behind, in order to be out of her way: beneath the gown, and far more conspicuous--and, possibly, far prettier--was a striped petticoat of full deep blue and scarlet, revealing the blue cotton stockings common in that part of the country, and the pretty, neat leather shoes. The girl had tucked her brown hair back behind her ears; but if she had known how often she would have had occasion to blush, I think she would have kept that natural veil more over her delicate cheek. She blushed deeper and ever deeper, because one of the shearers, in every interval of his work, looked at her and sighed. Neither of them spoke a word, though both were as conscious of the other as could be; and the buxom mother, with a side-long glance, took cognizance of the affair from time to time, with no unpleased expression.

  I had got thus far in my career of observation when our hostess for the day came to tell us that tea was ready, and we arose stiffly from the sward on which we had been sitting, and went indoors to the house-place. There, all round, were ranged rows of sedate matrons; some with babies, some without; they had been summoned from over mountains, and beyond wild fells, and across deep dales, to the shearing of that day, just as their ancestors were called out by the Fiery Cross. We were conducted to a tea-table, at which, in spite of our entreaties, no one would sit down except our hostess, who poured out tea, of which more by-and-by. Behind us, on the dresser, were plates piled up with ‘berry-cake’ (puff-paste with gooseberries inside), currant and plain bread and butter, hot cakes buttered with honey (if that is not Irish), and great pieces of new cheese to be put in between the honeyed slices, and so toasted impromptu. There were two black teapots on the tray, and taking one of these in her left hand, and one in her right, our hostess held them up both on high, and skilfully poured from each into one and the same cup; the teapots contained green and black tea, and this was her way of mixing them, which she considered far better, she told us, than if both the leaves had been ‘masked’ together. The cups of tea were dosed with lump upon lump of the finest sugar, but the rich yellow fragrant cream was dropped in but very sparingly. I reserved many of my inquiries, suggested by this Dale tea-drinking, to be answered by Mrs C., with whom we were lodging: and I asked her why I could neither get cream enough for myself, nor milk sufficient for the children, when both were evidently so abundant, and our entertainers so profusely hospitable. She told me, that my request for each was set down to modesty and a desire to spare the ‘grocer’s stuff,’ which, as costing money, was considered the proper thing to force upon visitors, while the farm produce was reckoned too common and everyday for such a choice festivity and such honoured guests. So I drank tea as strong as brandy and as sweet as syrup, and had to moan in secret over my children’s nerves. My children found something else to moan over before the meal was ended; the good farmer’s wife would give them each ‘sweet butter’ on their oat-cake or ‘clap-bread;’ and sweet butter is made of butter, sugar, and rum melted together and potted, and is altogether the most nauseous compound in the shape of a dainty I ever tasted. My poor children thought it so, as I could tell by their glistening piteous eyes and trembling lips, as they vainly tried to get through what their stomachs rejected. I got it from them by stealth and ate it myself, in order to spare the feelings of our hostess, who, evidently, considered it as a choice delicacy. But no sooner did she perceive that they were without sweet butter than she urged them to take some more, and bade me not scrimp it, for they had enough and to spare for everybody. This ‘sweet butter’ is made for express occasions--the clippings, and Christmas; and for these two seasons all christenings in a family are generally reserved. When we had eaten and eaten--and, hungry as we were, we found it difficult to come up to our hostess’s ideas of the duty before us--she took me into the real working kitchen, to show me the preparations going on for the refreshment of the seventy people there and then assembled. Rounds of beef, hams, fillets of veal, and legs of mutton bobbed, indiscriminately with plum puddings, up and down in a great boiler, from which a steam arose, when she lifted up the lid, reminding one exceedingly of Camacho’s wedding. The resemblance was increased when we were shown another boiler out of doors, placed over a temporary framework of brick, and equally full with the other, if, indeed, not more so.

  Just at this moment--as she and I stood on the remote side or the farm-buildings, within sound of all the pleasant noises which told of merry life so near, and yet out of sight of any of them, gazing forth on the moorland and the rocks, and the purple crest of the mountain, the opposite base of which fell into Watendlath--the gate of the yard was opened, and my rustic beauty came rushing in, her face all a-fire. When she saw us she stopped suddenly, and was about to turn, when she was followed, and the entrance blocked up by the handsome young shearer. I saw a knowing look on my companion’s face, as she quietly led me out by another way.

  ‘Who is that handsome girl?’ asked I.

  ‘It’s just Isabel Crosthwaite,’ she replied. ‘Her mother is a cousin of my master’s, widow of a statesman near Appleby. She is well to do, and Isabel is her only child.’

  ‘Heiress, as well as beauty,’ thought I; but all I said was,

  ‘And who is the young man with her?’

  ‘That,’ said she, looking up at me with surprise. ‘That’s our Tom. You see, his father and me and Margaret Crosthwaite have fixed that these young ones are to wed each other; and Tom is very willing--but she is young and skittish; but she’ll come to--she’ll come to. He’ll not be best shearer this day anyhow, as he was last year down in Buttermere; but he’ll maybe come round for next year.’

  So spoke middle age of the passionate loves of the young. I could fancy that Isabel might resent being so calmly disposed of, and I did not like or admire her the less because by-and-by she plunged into the very midst of the circle of matrons, as if in the Eleusinian circle she could alone obtain a sanctuary against her lover’s pursuit. She looked so much and so truly annoyed that I disliked her mother, and thought the young man unworthy of her, until I saw the mother come and take into her arms a little orphan child, whom I learnt she had bought from a beggar on the roadside that was ill-using her. This child hung about the woman, and called her ‘Mammy’ in such pretty trusting tones, that I became reconciled to the matchmaking widow, for the sake of her warm heart; and as for the young man--the woe-begone face that he presented from time to time at the open door, to be scouted and scolded thence by all the women, while Isabel resolutely turned her back upon him, and pretended to be very busy cutting bread and butter, made me really sorry for him; though we--experienced spectators--could see the end of all this coyness and blushing as well as if we were in church at the wedding.

  From four to five o’clock on a summer’s day is a sort of second noon for heat; and now that we were up on this breezy height, it seemed so disagreeable to think of going once more into the close woods down below, and to brave the parched and dusty road, that we gladly and lazily resigned ourselves to stay a little later, and to make our jolly three o’clock tea serve for dinner.

  So I strolled into the busy yard once more, and by watching my opportunity, I crossed between men, women, boys, sheep, and barking dogs, and got to an old man, sitting under the sycamore, who had been pointed
out to me as the owner of the sheep and the farm. For a few minutes he went on doggedly puffing away; but I knew that this reserve on his part arose from no want of friendliness, but from the shy reserve which is the characteristic of most Westmoreland and Cumberland people. By-and-by he began to talk, and he gave me much information about his sheep. He took a ‘walk’ from a landowner with so many sheep upon it; in his case one thousand and fifty, which was a large number, about six hundred being the average. Before taking the ‘walk,’ he and his landlord each appointed two ‘knowledgeable people’ to value the stock. The ‘walk’ was taken on lease of five or seven years, and extended ten miles over the Fells in one direction--he could not exactly say how far in another, but more; yes! certainly more. At the expiration of the lease, the stock are again numbered, and valued in the same way. If the sheep are poorer, and gone off, the tenant has to pay for their depreciation in money; if they have improved in quality, the landlord pays him; but one way or another the same number must be restored, while the increase of each year, and the annual fleeces form the tenant’s profit. Of course they were all of the black-faced or mountain breed, fit for scrambling and endurance, and capable of being nourished by the sweet but scanty grass that grew on the Fells. To take charge of his flock he employed three shepherds, one of whom was my friend Tom. They had other work down on the farm, for the farm was ‘down’ compared with the airy heights to which these sheep will scramble. The shepherd’s year begins before the twentieth of March, by which time the ewes must be all safely down in the home pastures, at hand in case they or their lambs require extra care at yeaning time. About the sixteenth of June the sheep-washing begins. Formerly, said my old man, men stood bare-legged in a running stream, dammed up so as to make a pool, which was more cleansing than any still water, with its continual foam, and fret, and struggle to overcome the obstacle that impeded its progress: and these men caught the sheep, which were hurled to them by the people on the banks, and rubbed them and soused them well; but now (alas! for these degenerate days) folk were content to throw them in head downwards, and thought that they were washed enough with swimming to the bank. However, this proceeding was managed in a fortnight after the shearing or clipping came on; and people were bidden to it from twenty miles off or better; but not as they had been fifty years ago. Still, if a family possessed a skilful shearer in the person of a son, or if the good wife could fold fleeces well and deftly, they were sure of a gay week in clipping time, passing from farm to farm in merry succession, giving their aid, feasting on the fat of the land (‘sweet butter’ amongst other things, and much good may it do them!) until they in their turn called upon their neighbours for help. In short, good old-fashioned sheep-shearings are carried on much in the same sort of way as an American Bee.

  As soon as the clipping is over, the sheep are turned out upon the Fells, where their greatest enemy is the fly. The ravens do harm to the young lambs in May and June, and the shepherds scale the steep grey rocks to take a raven’s nest with infinite zest and delight; but no shepherd can save his sheep from the terrible fly--the common flesh fly--which burrows in the poor animal, and lays its obscene eggs, and the maggots eat it up alive. To obviate this as much as ever they can, the shepherds go up on the Fells about twice a week in summer time, and, sending out their faithful dogs, collect the sheep into great circles, the dogs running on the outside and keeping them in. The quick-eyed shepherd stands in the midst, and, if a sheep make an effort to scratch herself, the dog is summoned, and the infected sheep brought up to be examined, the piece cut out, and salved. But, notwithstanding this, in some summers scores of sheep are killed in this way: thundery and close weather is peculiarly productive of this plague. The next operation which the shepherd has to attend to is about the middle or end of October, when the sheep are brought down to be salved, and an extra man is usually hired on the farm for this week. But it is no feasting or merry-making time like a clipping. Sober business reigns. The men sit astride on their benches and besmear the poor helpless beast with a mixture of tar and bad butter, or coarse grease, which is supposed to promote the growth and fineness of the wool, by preventing skin diseases of all kinds, such as would leave a patch bare. The mark of ownership is renewed with additional tar and raddle, and they are sent up once more to their breezy walk, where the winter winds begin to pipe and to blow, and to call away their brethren from the icy North. Once a week the shepherds go up and scour the Fells, looking over the sheep, and seeing how the herbage lasts. And this is the dangerous and wild time for the shepherds. The snows and the mists (more to be dreaded even than snow) may come on; and there is no lack of tales, about the Christmas hearth, of men who have gone up to the wild and desolate Fells and have never been seen more, but whose voices are yet heard calling on their dogs, or uttering fierce despairing cries for help; and so they will call till the end of time, till their whitened bones have risen again.

  Towards the middle of January, great care is necessary, as by this time the sheep have grown weak and lean with lack of food, and the excess of cold. Yet as the mountain sheep will not eat turnips, but must be fed with hay, it is a piece of economy to delay beginning to feed them as long as possible; and to know the exact nick of time, requires as much skill as must have been possessed by Emma’s father in Miss Austen’s delightful novel, who required his gruel ‘thin, but not too thin--thick, but not too thick.’ And so the Shepherd’s Calendar works round to yeaning time again! It must be a pleasant employment; reminding one of Wordsworth’s lines--

  In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman stretched

  On the soft grass, through half the summer’s day, &c.

  and of shepherd boys with their reedy pipes, taught by Pan, and of the Chaldean shepherds studying the stars; of Poussin’s picture of the Good Shepherd, of the ‘Shepherds keeping watch by night!’ and I don’t know how many other things, not forgetting some of Cooper’s delightful pieces.

  While I was thus rambling on in thought, my host was telling me of the prices of wool that year, for we had grown quite confidential by this time. Wool was sold by the stone; he expected to get ten or twelve shillings a stone; it took three or four fleeces to make a stone: before the Australian wool came in, he had got twenty shillings, ay and more; but now--and again we sighed over the degeneracy of the times, till he took up his pipe (not Pandean) for consolation, and I bethought me of the long walk home, and the tired little ones, who must not be worried. So, with much regret, we took our leave; the fiddler had just arrived as we were wishing goodbye; the shadow of the house had overspread the yard; the boys were more in number than the sheep that remained to be shorn; the busy women were dishing up great smoking rounds of beef; and in addition to all the provision I had seen in the boilers, large-mouthed ovens were disgorging berry pies without end, and rice-puddings stuck full of almonds and raisins.

  As we descended the hill, we passed a little rustic bridge with a great alder bush near it. Underneath sat Isabel, as rosy red as ever, but dimpling up with smiles, while Tom lay at her feet, and looked up into her eyes; his faithful sheep-dog sat by him, but flapped his tail vainly in hope of obtaining some notice. His master was too much absorbed for that. Poor Fly! Every dog has his day, and yours was not this tenth of July.

  (Household Words, 1853)

  CURIOUS, IF TRUE

  You were formerly so much amused at my pride in my descent from that sister of Calvin’s, who married a Whittingham, Dean of Durham, that I doubt if you will be able to enter into the regard for my distinguished relation that has led me to France, in order to examine registers and archives, which, I thought, might enable me to discover collateral descendants of the great reformer, with whom I might call cousins. I shall not tell you of my troubles and adventures in this research; you are not worthy to hear of them; but something so curious befel me one evening last August, that if I had not been perfectly certain I was wide awake, I might have taken it for a dream.

  For the purpose I have named, it was necessary that I shoul
d make Tours my head-quarters for a time. I had traced descendants of the Calvin family out of Normandy into the centre of France; but I found it was necessary to have a kind of permission from the bishop of the diocese before I could see certain family papers, which had fallen into the possession of the Church; and, as I had several English friends at Tours, I awaited the answer to my request to Monseigneur de ----, at that town. I was ready to accept any invitation; but I received very few; and was sometimes a little at a loss what to do with my evenings. The table d’hote was at five o’clock; I did not wish to go to the expense of a private sitting-room, disliked the dinnery atmosphere of the salle a manger, could not play either at pool or billiards, and the aspect of my fellow guests was unprepossessing enough to make me unwilling to enter into any tete-a-tete gamblings with them. So I usually rose from table early, and tried to make the most of the remaining light of the August evenings in walking briskly off to explore the surrounding country; the middle of the day was too hot for this purpose, and better employed in lounging on a bench in the Boulevards, lazily listening to the distant band, and noticing with equal laziness the faces and figures of the women who passed by.