Digital Mitford: Letters

MORE OF OUR VILLAGE.A PARTING GLANCE AT OUR VILLAGE.

When I get acquainted with people, whether in a printed book, or in that huge and multifarious volume the world, I like to hear how they go on. Perhaps the courteous readers of the Lady's Magazine may have the same laudable desire of knowledge—curiosity some wicked wights are apt to call it, and let them—really there is no objection to the phrase; we will speak it out manfully ourselves. Many may have the same friendly curiousity, and would have no objection to hear tiding of our village;—that village which had the honor to be introduced to their notice near the close of the last year, and of whose denizens, one or two of them at least, little glimpses of intelligence have since occasionally peeped out. Lizzy and Mayflower, though very pretty things in their way, are not the only villagers worth talking about—at least I think so; but we shall see[empty]

[empty]It is now eighteen months since our village first sat for its picture, and I cannot say farewell to my courteous readers, without giving them some little intelligence of our goings on, a sort of parting glance at us and our condition. In outward appearance our villageit hath, I suppose, undergone less alteration since my last notice,[empty] than any place of its inches in the kingdom. There it stands, the same long straggling street of pretty cottagescottages, divided by pretty gardens, wholly unchanged in size or appearance, unincreased and undiminished by a single brick. To be sure, yesterday evening a slight misfortune happened to our goodly tenement, occasioned by the unlucky diligence mentioned in my last,first notice, which, under the conduct of a sleepy coachmancoachman, and a restive horse, contrived to knock down and demolish the wall of our court, and fairly to drive through the front garden, thereby destroying sundry curious stocks, carnations, and geraniums. It is a mercy that the unruly steed was content with battering the wall; for the messuage itself would come about our ears at the touch of a finger, and really there is one little end-parlour, an after-thought of the original builder, which stands so temptingly in the way, that I wonder the sagacious quadruped missed it. There was quite din enough without that addition. The three insides (ladies) squalling from the interior of that commodious vehicle; the outsides (gentlemen) swearing on the roof; the coachman, still half asleep, but unconsciously blowing his horn; we in the house screaming and scolding; the passers-by shouting and hallooing; and May, who little brooked such an invasion of her territories, barking in her tremendous lion-note, and putting down the other noises like a clap of thunder. But passengers, coachman, horses, and spectators, all righted at last; and there is no harm done but to my flowers and to the wall. May, however, stands bewailing the ruins, for that low wall was her favourite haunt; she used to parade backwards and forwards on the top of it, as if to show herself, just after the manner of a peacock on the top of a house; and would sit or lie for hours on the corner next the gate, basking in the sunshine like a marble statue. Really she has quite the air of one who laments the destruction of personal property; but the wall is to be rebuilt to-morrow, with old weather-stained bricks—no patchworkpatch-work! and exactly in the same form; May herself will not find the difference; so that in the way of alteration this little misfortune will pass for nothing. Neither have we any improvements worth calling such. Except that the wheeler’s green door hath been retouched, out of the same pot (as I judge from the tint) with which he furbished up our new-old pony-chaise; that the shop-window of our neighbour, the universal dealer, hath been beautified, and his name and callingscalling splendidly set forth in yellow letters on a black ground; and that our landlord of the Rose hath hoisted a new sign of unparalleled splendour; one side consisting of a full-faced damask rose,rose of the size and hue of a piony, the other of a maiden-blushmaiden blush in profile, which looks exactly like a carnation, so that both flowers are considerably indebted to the modesty of the “out-of-door artist,” who has warily written The Rose under each;—except these trifling ornaments, which nothing but the jealous eye of a lover could detect, the dear place is altogether unchanged.

The only real improvement with which we have been visited for our sins—(I hate all innovationinnovation, whether for better or worse, as if I was a furious Tory, or a woman of three-score and ten)—the only misfortune of that sort which has befallen us, is under foot. The road has been adjusted on the plan of Mr. Mac-Adam; and a tremendous operation it is. I do not know what good may ensue; but,but for the last six months, some part or other of the highway has been impassable for any feet, except such as are shod by the blacksmith; and even the four-footed people who wear iron shoesshoes, make wry faces, poor things! at those stones, enemies to man and beast. However, the business is nearly done now; we are covered with sharp flints every inch of us, except a “bad step” up the hill, which, indeed, looks like a bit cut out of the deserts of Arabia, fitter for camels and caravans than for Christian horses and coaches; a point which was acknowledged even by our surveyora point which in spite of my dislike of alteration I was forced to acknowledge to our surveyor, a portly gentleman, who, in a smart gig drawn by a prancing steed, was kicking up a prodigious dust at that very moment. He and I ought to be great enemies; for, besides the Mac-Adamite enormity of the stony road, he hath actually been guilty of tree-murder, having been an accessory before the fact in the death of three limes along the rope-walk—dear sweet innocent limes, that did no harm on earth except shading the path! I never should have for- given that offence, had not their removal, by opening a beautiful view from the village up the hill, reconciled even my tree-loving eye to their abstraction. And, to say the truth, though we have had twenty little squabbles,squabbles there is no bearing malice with our surveyor; he is so civil and good-humoured, has such a bustling and happy self-importance, such an honest earnestness in his vocation (which is gratuitous by the bye), and such an intense conviction that the state of the turnpike-road between B. and K.K., is the principal affair of this life, that I would not undeceive him for more worlds than one ever has to give. How often have I seen him on a cold winter morning, with a face all frost and business, great-coated up to the eyes, driving from post to post, from one gang of laborerslabourers to another, praising, scolding, ordering, cheated, laughed at, and liked by them all! Well, when once the hill is finished, we shall have done with him for ever, as he used to tell me by way of consolation, when I shook my head at him, as he went jolting along over his dear new roadsroads, at the imminent risk of his springs and his bones; we shall see no more of him; for the Mac-Adam ways are warranted not to wear out. So be it; I never wish to see a road-menderroadmender again.

But if the form of outward things be all unchanged around us, if the dwellings of man remain the same to the sight and the touch, the little world within hath undergone its usual mutations;—the hive is the same;same, but of the bees some are dead and some are flown away, and some that we left babes and sucklings, insects in the shell, are already putting forth their young wings. Children in our village really sprout up like mushrooms; the air is so promotive of growth, that the rogues spring upspring into men and women, as if touched by Harlequin’s wand, and are quite offended if one happens to say or do any thing which has a reference to their previous condition. My father grievously affronted Sally L.[empty], only yesterday, by bestowing upon her a great lump of gingerbreadgingerbread, with which he had stuffed his pockets at a fair. She immediately, as she said, gave it to “the children.” Now Sally cannot be above twelve to my certain knowledge, though taller than I am. Lizzy herself is growing womanly. I actually caught that little gentlewomanlady stuck on a chest of drawers, contemplating herself in the glass, and striving with all her might to gather the rich curls that hang about her neck, and turn them under a comb. Well! If Sally and Lizzy live to be old maids, they may probably make the amende honorableamende honorable to time, and wish to be thought young again. In the meanwhile, shall we walk up the street?

The first cottage is that of Mr. H. the patriot, the illuminator, the independent and sturdy yet friendly member of our little state, who, stout and comely, with a handsome chaise-cart, a strong mare, and a neat garden, might have passed for a portrait of that enviable class of EnglishmenEnglishmen, who, after a youth of frugal industry, sit down in some retired place to “live upon their means.” He and his wife seemed the happiest couple on earth; except a little too much leisure, I never suspected that they had one trouble or one care. But careCare, the witch, will come every whereeverywhere, even to that happiest stationstation, and this prettiest place. She came in one of her most terrific forms—blindness—or (which is perhaps still more tremendous) the faint glimmering light and gradual darkness which precede the total eclipse. For a long time we had missed the pleasant bustling officiousness, the little services, the voluntary tasks, which our good neighbour loved so well. Fruit-treesFruit trees were blighted, and escaped his grand specific, fumigation; wasps multiplied, and their nests remained untraced; the cheerful modest knock with which, just at the very hour when he knew it could be spared, he presented himself to ask for the newspaper, was heard no more; he no longer hung over his gate to way-lay passengers, and entice them into chat; at last he even left off driving his little chaise, and was only seen moping up and down the garden walkgarden-walk, or stealing gropingly from the woodpilewood-pile to the house. He evidently shunned conversation or questions, forbade his wife to tell what ailed him, and even when he put a green shade over his darkened eyes, fled from human sympathy with a stern pride that seemed almost ashamed of the humbling infirmity. That strange (but to a vigorous and healthy man perhaps natural) feeling soon softened. The disease increased hourly, and he became dependent on his excellent wife for every comfort and relief. She had many willing assistants in her labour of love; all his neighbours strove to return, according to their several means, the kindness which all had received from him in some shape or other. The country boysboys, to whose service he had devoted so much time, in shaping bats, constructing bows and arrows, and other quips and trickeries of the same nature, vied with each other in performing little offices about the yard and stable; and John Evans, the half-witted gardener, to whom he had been a constant friend, repaid his goodness by the most unwearied attention. Gratitude even seemed to sharpen poor John’s perception and faculties. There is an old blind manold man in our parish work-house, who occasionally walks through the street, led by a little boy holding the end of a long stick. The idea of this man, who had lived in utter blindness for thirty years, was always singularly distressing to Mr. H. I shall never forget the address with which our simple gardener used to try to divert his attention from this miserable fellow-sufferer. He would get between them to prevent the possibility of recognition by the dim and uncertain vision; would talk loudly to drown the peculiar noise, the sort of duet of feet, caused by the quick short steps of the child, and the slow irregular tread of the old man; and, if any one ventured to allude to blind Robert, he would turn the conversation with an adroitness and acuteness which might put to shame the proudest intellect. So passed many months. At last Mr. H. was persuaded to consult a celebrated oculist, and the result was most comforting. The disease was ascertained to be a cataract; and now with the increase of darkness came an increase of hope. The film spread, thickened, ripened, speedily and healthily; and to-day the requisite operation has been performed with equal skill and success. You may still see some of the country boys lingering round the gate with looks of strong and wondering interest; poor John is going to and fro, he knows not for what, unable to rest a moment; Mrs. H. tooMrs. H., too, is walking in the garden, shedding tears of thankfulness; and he who came to support their spiritsspirit, the stout strong-hearted farmer A., seems trembling and overcome. The most tranquil person in the house is probably the patient: he bore the operation with resolute firmness, and he has seen againhe has seen again. Think of the bliss bound up in those four words! He is in darkness now, and must remain so for some weeks; but he has seenseen, and he will see; and that humble cottage is again a happy dwelling.

Next we come to the shoemaker’s abode. All is unchanged there, except that its master becomes more industrious and more pale-faced, and that his fair daughter is a notable exemplification of the developement which I have already noticed amongst our young things. But she is in the real transition state, just emerging from the chrysalis, and the eighteen months, between fourteen and a half and sixteen, would metamorphosemeta- morphose a child into a woman all the world over. She is still pretty, but not so elegant as when she wore frocks and pinafores, and, unconsciously classical, parted her long brown locks in the middle of her forehead, and twisted them up in a knot behind, giving to her finely-shaped head and throat the air of a Grecian statue. Then she was stirring all day in her small housewifery, or her busy idleness, delving and digging in her flower-border, tossing and dandling every infant that came within her reach, feeding pigs and poultry, playing with May, and prattling with an open-hearted frankness to the country lads, who assemble at evening in the shop to enjoy a little gentle gossiping; for be it known to my London readers, that the shoemaker’s in a remotecountry village is now what (according to traditiontradition, and the old novels) the barber’s used to be, the resort of all the male newsmongers, especially the young. Then she talked to these visitors gaily and openly, sang and laughed and ran in and out, and took no more thought of a young man than of a gosling. Then she was only fourteen. Now she wears gowns and aprons,—puts her hair in paper,—has left off singing, talks,—has left off running, walks,—nurses the infants with a grave solemn grace,—has entirely cut her former playmate Mayflower, who tosses her pretty head as much as to say—who cares?—and has nearly renounced all acquaintance with the visitors of the shop, who are by no means disposed to take matters so quietly. There she stands on the threshold, shy and demure, just vouchsafing a formal nod or a faint smile as they pass, and, if she in her turn be compelled to pass the open door of their news-room (for the working apartment is separate from the house), edging along as slyly and mincingly as if there were no such beings as young men in the world. Exquisite coquette! I think (she is my opposite neighbour, and I have a right to watch her doings,—the right of retaliation), there is one youth particularly distinguished by her non-notice, one whom she never will see or speak to, who stands a very fair chance to carry her off. He is called Jem Tanner, and is a fine lad, with an open ruddy countenance, a clear blue eye, and curling hair of that tint which the poets are pleased to denominate golden. Though not one of our eleven, he was a promising cricketer. We have missed him lately on the green at the Sunday eveningSunday-evening game, and I find on inquiryenquiry that he now frequents a chapel about a mile off, where he is the best male singer, as our nymph of the shoe-shop is incomparably the first female. I am not fond of betting; but I would venture the lowest stake of gentility, a silver three-pence, that, before the winter ends, a wedding will be the result of these weekly meetings at the chapel. In the long dark evenings, when the father has enough to do in piloting the mother with conjugal gallantry through the dirty lanes, think of the opportunity that Jem will have to escort the daughter. A little difficulty he may have to encounter: the lass will be coy for a while; the mother will talk of their youth, the father of their finances; but the marriage, I doubt not, will ensue.

Next in order, on the other side of the street, is the blacksmith’s house. Change has been busy here in a different and more awful form. Our sometime constable, the tipsiest of parish officers, of blacksmiths and of men, is dead. Returning from a revel with a companion as full of beer as himself, one or the other, or both, contrived to overset the cart in a ditchditch; (the living scapegrace is pleased to lay the blame of the mishap on the horse, but that is contrary to all probability, this respectable quadruped being a water-drinker);water-drinker ;) and inward bruises, acting on inflamed blood and an impaired constitution, carried him off in a very short time, leaving an ailing wife and eight children, the eldest of whom is only fourteen years of age. This sounds like a very tragical story;story: yet, [empty]perhaps, because the loss of a drunken husband is not quite so great a calamity as the loss of a sober one, the effect of this event is not altogether so melancholy as might be expected. The widow, when she was a wife, had a complaining broken-spirited air, a peevish manner, a whining voice, a dismal countenance, and a person so neglected and slovenly, that it was difficult to believe that she had once been remarkably handsome. She is now quite another woman. The very first Sunday she put on her weeds, we all observed how tidy and comfortable she looked, how much her countenance, in spite of a decent show of tears, was improved, and how completely through all her sighings her tone had lost its peevishness. I have never seen her out of spirits or out of humour since. She talks and laughs and bustles about, managing her journeymen and scolding her children as notably as any dame in the parish. The very house looks more cheerful:cheerful; she has cut down the old willow-trees that stood in the court, and let in the light; and now the sun glances brightly from the casement windows, and plays amidst the vine-leaves and the clusters of grapes which cover the walls; the door is newly painted, and shines like the face of its mistress:mistress; even the forge has lost half its dinginess. Every thing smiles. She indeed talks by fits of “poor George,” especially when any allusion to her old enemy mine host of the Rose brings the deceased to her memory; then she bewails (as is proper) her dear husband and her desolate condition; calls herself a lone widow; sighs over her eight children; complains of the troubles of business, and tries to persuade herself and others that she is as wretched as a good wife ought to be. But this will not do. She is a happier woman than she has been any time these fifteen years, and she knows it.—Myit. My dear village-husbands, if you have a mind that your wives should be really sorry when you die, whether by a fall from a cart or otherwise, keep from the alehouse!

Next comes the tall thin red house, that ought to boast genteeler inmates than its short fat mistress, its children, its pigs, and its quantity of noise, happiness, and vulgarity. The din is greater than ever. The husband, a merry jolly tar, with a voice that sounds as if issuing from a speaking trumpet, is returned from a voyage to India; and another little one, a chubby roaring boy, has added his lusty cries to the family concert.

This door, blockaded by huge bales of goods, and half darkened by that moving mountain, the tilted waggon of the S. mill which stands before it, belongs to the village shop. Increase has been here too in every shape. Within fourteen months two little pretty quiet girls have come into the world. Before Fanny could well manage to totter across the road to her good friend the nymph of the shoe-shop, Margaret made her appearance; and poor Fanny, discarded at once from the maid’s arms and her mother’s knee, degraded from the rank and privileges of “the baby,” (for at that age precedence is strangely reversedreversed,) would have had a premature foretaste of the instability of human felicity, had she not taken refuge with that best of nurses, a fond father. Every thing thrives about the shop, from the prettyrosy children to the neat maid and the smart apprentice. No room now for lodgers, and no need! The young mantua-making schoolmistresses, the old inmates, are gone; one of them not very far. She grew tired of scolding little boys and girls about their A, B, C, and of being scolded in her turn by their sisters and mothers about pelisses and gowns; so she gave up both trades almost a year ago, and has been ever since our pretty Harriet, the successor to Lucy's office, Lucy's favor, and more than Lucy's lovers.Harriet. I do not think she has ever repented of the exchange, though it might not perhaps have been made so soon, had not her elder sister, who had been long engaged to an attendant at one of the colleges of Oxford, thought herself on the point of marriage just as our housemaid left us. Poor Betsy! She had shared the fate of many a prouder maiden, wearing out her youth in expectation of the promotion that was to authorise her union with the man of her heart. Many a year had she waited in smiling constancy, fond of William in no common measure, and proud of him, as well she might be; for, when the vacation so far lessened his duties as to render a short absence practicable, and he stole up here for a few days to enjoy her company, it was difficult to distinguish him in air and manner, as he sauntered about in elegant indolence with his fishing-rod and his flute, from the young Oxonians his masters. At last promotion came; and Betsy, apprised of it by an affectionate and congratulatory letter from his sister, prepared her wedding-clothes, and looked hourly for the bridegroom. No bridegroom came. A second letter announced, with regret and indignation, that William had made another choice, and was to be married early in the ensuing month. Poor Betsy! We were alarmed for her health, almost for her life. She wept incessantly, took no food, wandered recklessly about from morning till night, lost her natural rest, her flesh, her colour; and in less than a week she was so altered, that no one would have known her. Consolation and remonstrance were alike rejected, till at last Harriet happened to strike the right chord by telling her that “she wondered at her want of spirit.” This was touching her on the point of honour; she had always been remarkably high-spirited, and could as little brook the imputation as a soldier or a gentleman. This lucky suggestion gave an immediate turn to her feelings; anger and scorn succeeded to grief; she wiped her eyes, “hemmed away a sigh,” and began to scold most manfully. She did still better. She recalled an old admirer, who in spite of repeated rejections had remained constant in his attachment, and made such good speed, that she was actually married the day before her faithless lover; and she islover, and is now the happy wife of a very respectable tradesman.

Ah! the in-and-out cottage! the dear, dear home! No weddings there! No changes! except that the white kitten, who sits purring at the window under the great myrtle, has succeeded to his lamented grandfather, our beautiful Persian cat, I cannot find one alteration to talk about. The wall of the court indeed—but that will be mended to-morrow.

Here is the new sign, the well-frequented Rose inn! Plenty of changes there! Our landlord is always improving, if it be only a pig-sty or a watering-trough—plenty of changes and one splendid wedding. Miss Phoebe is married, not to her old lover the recruiting sergeant (for he had one wife already, probably more),more,) but to a patten-maker, as errant a dandy as ever wore mustachios. How Phoebe could “abase her eyes” from the stately sergeant to this youth, half a foot shorter than herself, whose “waist would go into any alder-man’s thumb-ring,” might, if the final choice of a coquette had ever been matter of wonder, have occasioned some speculation. But our patten-maker is a man of spirit; and the wedding was of extraordinary splendorsplendour. Three gigs, each containing four persons, graced the procession, beside numerous carts and innumerable pedestrians. The bride was equipped in muslin and satin, and really looked very pretty with her black sparkling eyes, her clear brown complexion, her blushes and her smiles; the bride-maidens were only less smart than the bride; and the bridegroom was “point device in his accoutrements,” and as munificent as a nabob. Cake flew about the village; plum-puddings were abundant; and strong beer, aye, even mine host’s best double X, was profusely distributed. There was all manner of eating and drinking, with singing, fiddling, and dancing between; and in the evening, to crown all, there was Mr. Moon the conjuror. Think of that stroke of good fortune !—Mr. Moon, the very pearl of all conjurors, who had the honour of puzzling and delighting their late majestiesMajesties with his “wonderful and pleasing exhibition of Thaumaturgics, Tachygraphy, mathematical operations, and magical deceptions,deceptions,” happened to arrive about an hour before dinner, and commenced his ingenious deceptions very unintentionally at our house. Calling to apply for permission to perform in the village, being equipped in a gay scarlet coat, and having something smart and sportsman-like in his appearance, he was announced by Harriet as one of the gentlemen of the C. Hunt, and taken (mistakenmistaken I should have said) by the whole family for a certain captain newly arrived in the neighbourhood. That misunderstanding, which must, I think, have retaliated on Mr. Moon a little of the puzzlement that he inflicts on others, vanished of course at the production of his bill of fare; and the requested permission was instantly given. Never could he have arrived in a happier hour! Never were spectators more gratified or more scared. All the tricks prospered. The cock crew after his head was cut off; and half-crowns and sovereigns flew about as if winged; the very wedding-ring could not escape Mr. Moon’s incantations. We heard of nothing else for a week. From the bridegroom, un esprit fortun esprit fort, who defied all manner of conjuration and diableriediablerie, down to my Lizzy, whose boundless faith swallows the Arabian Tales, all believed and trembled. So thoroughly were men, women, and children, impressed with the idea of the worthy conjuror’s dealings with the devil, that when he had occasion to go to B., not a soul would give him a cast, from pure awe; and if it had not been for our pony-chaise, poor Mr. Moon must have walked. I hope he is really a prophet; for he foretold all happiness to the new-married pair.

So this pretty white house with the lime-trees before it, which has been under repair for these three years, is on the point of being finished. The vicar has taken it, as the vicarage-house is not yet fit for his reception. He has sent before him a neat modest maid-servant, whose respectable appearance gives a character to her master and mistress,—a hamper full of flower-roots, sundry boxes of books, a piano-forte, and some simple and useful furniture. Well, we shall certainly have neighbours, and I have a presentiment that we shall find friends.

Lizzy, you may now come along with me round the corner and up the lane, just to the end of the wheeler’s shop, and then we shall go home; it is high time. What is this afficheaffiche in the parlour window ? “Apartments to let—inquire within.” These are certainly the curate’s lodgings—is he going away? Oh I suppose the new vicar will do his own duty—yet, however well he may do it, rich and poor will regret the departure of Mr. B. Well, I hope that he may soon get a good living. “Lodgings to let”—who ever thought of seeing such a placard hereabout? The lodgings, indeed, are very convenient for a single gentleman, “a man and his wife, or two sisters,sisters,” as the newspapers say—comfortable apartments, neat and tasty withal, with the addition of very civil treatment from the host and hostess. Lodgings to let in our village!

THE END.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY R. GILBERT, ST. JOHN’S SQUARE.