XII. THE PASTORAL
The pastoral song is fairly frequent, especially in the Southern counties of England. Its chief theme is the joys of country life. Such are the songs in which the ploughman is the chief personage, and one who glories in his calling. In Sussex Songs we find a very typical example—
“Come all ye jolly ploughboys, come listen to my lays, And join with me in chorus, I’ll sing the ploughboy’s praise. My song is of the ploughboy’s fame, And unto you I’ll relate the same, He whistles, sings, and drives his team, The brave ploughing boy.”
Then there are sheep-shearing songs, some of which may be seen in Dr Barrett’s English Folk-Songs and elsewhere. English County Songs provides this ordinary example—
“Our sheep shear is over, and supper is past; Here’s a health to our mistress all in vull glaas, For she’s a good ’ooman and purvides us good cheer, Here’s a health to our mistress, so drink up your beer.”
Other verses would, of course, provide for consumption of more beer by drinking the health of all the members of the family, and of such neighbours as the contents of the barrel allowed.
Harvest-home songs too are not lacking, and a small number take the form of a dialogue between a gardener and a ploughman, or between a husbandman and a serving-man.
A famous song well known among farm-labourers is that known as “Poor Old Horse,” and of this there are several versions. This song probably suggested to Charles Dibdin his once popular song “The High-Mettled Racer,” and to Thomas Bewick, the wood-engraver, his fine print of a worn-out horse in the rain called “Waiting for Death.”
The ploughboy is sometimes in love and sings of his passion in the folk-song. Sometimes it is the lady who declares her love for the handsome ploughboy, and both varieties are quite popular specimens of rural simplicity.
XIII. DRINKING SONGS AND
HUMOROUS SONGS
The drinking song is not very common among folk-songs. “The good old leathern bottle,” and some other South country songs, chiefly dealing with harvest-home festivities, can scarcely be called such. They speak of the home-brewed farm ale in an honest fashion, and without the gloating over liquor which is so much a feature of the eighteenth century bacchanalian song. “When Joan’s ale was new” is popular over most parts of England, and “Drink old England dry” is another very harmless production.
The humorous song does not very frequently occur. Sometimes we may come across one that fulfils all the essentials of wit but will scarcely bear repetition. Others are humorous and in other respects quite satisfactory. “Richard of Taunton Dean” is too well known to quote, and “The Dumb Wife Cured” is another that has been frequently reprinted, and it is possibly, really, not a folk-song. “The Grey Mare” is an excellent example. It tells of a young miller who made overtures to a young lady’s father to obtain her hand. The dowry was agreed upon, save that the young man had fixed his mind upon the farmer’s grey mare as part of it. The old man not being inclined to part with this the bargain was “off.” After the death of the farmer the miller again sought the lady, who declared she did not know him. Except that
“A man in your likeness,
With long yellow hair,
Did once come a-courting
My father’s grey mare.”
“Eggs in the basket,” narrating the adventures of two sailors, of which there are several versions in the Folk-Song Journal, comes under the category of humorous songs, and the Devonshire song “Widdicombe Fair” has, since its publication in Songs of the West, met with wide appreciation. Songs in dispraise of a married life are not frequent in folk-song, but there is a well-known one in “Advice to Bachelors,” in Dr Barrett’s English Folk-Songs, that appears to be a genuine folk-song. Its end verse contains the gist of the story. A criminal under the gallows is offered free pardon if he will marry, but—
“He pondered deep, for life is dear,
But still he thought without a fear
That wives are cheap, and he knew well
How much his sorrows one might swell.
There’s people here of every sort,
And why should I prevent their sport?
The bargain’s hard in every part;
But the woman’s the worst—
Drive on the cart!”
XIV. HIGHWAYMAN AND
POACHER SONGS
If the pressgang was an unpleasant factor in eighteenth century life, so also were the footpad and highwayman. The highwayman generally claimed the sympathy of the folk-song maker on the ground that—
“He never robbed a poor man upon the King’s highway,” and that his takings from the rich were distributed among the poor. This atoned for all crimes against person and property that were committed by such men as “Brennan on the Moor,” the hero of a very favourite ballad. Sometimes these highwayman songs take a more moral tone, and the criminal, in the condemned cell, offers his fate as a warning to others. Charles Reilly, for example, sings—
“Adieu, adieu, I must meet my fate, I was brought up in a tender state, Until bad counsel did me entice To leave off work, and follow vice. Which makes me to lament and say, As in my doleful cell I lay, ‘Pity the fall of young fellows all; Ah well a day! Ah well a day!’ At seventeen I took a wife; She was the joy of all my life, And to maintain her rich and gay, I went to rob on the King’s highway, Which makes me to lament and say,” etc.
Poaching was a matter so near the class that sang folk-songs that as a subject it could not fail in interest. If the folk-singer was not himself a poacher he was sufficiently in touch to feel a brotherly sympathy with him in his misfortunes, and in his triumphs, over the gamekeeper. As a consequence there are many poaching songs well known in rural districts, as—“Young Henry the poacher,” “The Sledmere poachers,” “The death of Bill Brown,” “Hares in the old plantation,” etc.
Highway robbery and poaching led to execution and transportation, and both these are subjects for the folk-song maker. The execution songs appear, however, generally to be the work of professional ballad makers, and the “last dying speech and confession” of a criminal, with appended verses, was in print long before he had paid the penalty of his crime. The ballad was sung to one or other of those doleful tunes especially appropriated to this kind of song by the ballad chanter, who hawked the broadsides through the towns on the night of the execution. Frequently the tag to such ditties was—
“Young men all now beware How you fall into a snare.”
In a somewhat similar strain are the songs that tell of the miseries of transportation to Van Diemen’s Land, for poaching or other offences.