Grain and Chaff from an English Manor

by Arthur Herbert Savory

The edict, when its effect was apparent, was therefore revoked, but it was too late, the lambs were gone, and as everybody was hungry for his usual Easter lamb, the demand was immense, and the price rose in proportion. I had thirty or forty lambs intended for the Easter markets, and had, with great difficulty and the sacrifice of grass which should have stood for hay, managed to keep them on, scarcely knowing what to do with them. But the sudden demand arose just in time, and I sent them to the Alcester auction sale, where buyers from Birmingham and the neighbourhood attend in large numbers. A capital sale resulted, the price going as high as 60s., in those days a big figure for lambs about four months old. I was so pleased with the result and my deliverance from the dilemma, that, passing through the town on my way home, and spying an old Worcester china cup and saucer, and a bowl o£ the same, all with the rare square mark, I invested some of my plunder in what time has proved an excellent speculation, and my cabinet is still decorated with these mementoes, which I never see without calling to mind the story of the lamb edict and its result.

During the Great War some controlling wiseacre evolved precisely the same scheme for bringing about an imaginary increase in the supply of mutton, by prohibiting the slaughter of any lambs until June. The Dorset breeders, who buy in ewes at high prices for the special production of early lamb—the lambs of this breed are born in October and November—were more particularly affected, and the absurdity of the prohibition having been later represented to the authorities, the order was withdrawn, though not before great loss and difficulty were inflicted upon the unfortunate producers. It goes to prove the necessity of the administration of such matters by competent men, and how easily apparently sound theory in inexperienced hands may conflict with economical practice.

Of late years the competition of the importations of New Zealand lamb has reduced the price of English lamb to an unremunerative level. This thin dry stuff bears about the same resemblance to real fat home-grown lamb, as do the proverbial chalk and cheese to each other; but it is good enough for the restaurants and eating-houses; and the consumer who lacks the critical faculty of the connoisseur in such matters, devours his "Canterbury" lamb, well disguised with mint sauce, in sublime ignorance, and, apparently, without missing the succulence of the real article—convinced as he is that it was produced in the neighbourhood of the cathedral city of the same name, and unaware of the existence of such a place as Canterbury in New Zealand, or that the name, if not exactly a fraud, is calculated to mislead. Doubtless it is the mint sauce that satisfies the uncritical palate. Just as the boy who, when asked after a treat of oysters how he liked them, said with gusto, "The oysters was good, but the vinegar and pepper was _de_licious!"

It is well known that there is a tendency among men in charge of special kinds of domestic animals gradually to approximate to them in appearance, and we are told that men sometimes gradually acquire a resemblance to men they admire. I knew a pedigree-pig herdsman, very successful in the show-ring, who was curiously like his charges, and I had at least two shepherds whose profiles were extraordinarily sheepish—though not in the ordinary acceptation of the term. Such an appearance confers a singularly simple expression. It must have been a man whose character justified such a facial peculiarity, who, having to bring the flock of one of my neighbours over a railway crossing between two of his fields, neglected to open the further gate first, drove the sheep on to the rails, and proceeded to do so, only to find the sheep, in the meantime, had wandered down the line. Before he could collect them a train dashed into them, and many were killed and others injured. The railway company not only repudiated all liability, but sent in a counterclaim for damage to their engine!

But the tables were turned morally, if not actually, by a friend of mine, who certainly scored off a railway company. My friend's waggon, with two horses and a load of hay, was passing over a level crossing on his land, when the London express came into view slinging downhill in all the majesty of triumphant speed, but far enough away to be brought up in time, ignominiously and abruptly. The railway company wrote my friend a letter of remonstrance suggestive of pains and penalties, and telling him that his waggoner should have made sure of the safety of crossing before attempting it—not an easy thing to do at this particular place. My friend replied that his right of way existed centuries before the railway was dreamed of, that the crossing was a concession for the company's convenience, it had saved the expense of a bridge, and that his hay was an urgent matter in view of the weather; and that uninterrupted harvesting was of more importance than the punctuality of their passengers.

I have sometimes passed through a remote village on a Sunday where the obsequies of a pig were to be seen in full view from the road; these were usually places where the church was in an adjoining mother-parish, and of course there are times when, for reasons of health or perhaps more correctly ill-health, it is impossible to defer the ceremony. As a rule, I should imagine that greater privacy is sought, at any rate so far as the public point of view is concerned. One remembers the story of the man doing some Sunday carpentering; his wife expostulated with him as a Sabbath breaker; he replied that in driving in the nails he could not help making some noise; "then why," said she, "don't you use screws?"

An old Dorset labourer who helped with the removal of the pig-wash, and did other small jobs for successive tenants of mine at a furnished cottage on my land in Hampshire, invariably estimated the social status and resources of each new tenant by the consistency of the wash. When some rather extravagant occupiers were in possession, he reported them as, "Quite the right sort; their wash is real good, thick stuff." The villagers at Aldington did not smoke their bacon, but, as it usually hung in the kitchen not far from the big open hearth, and as the place was often full of fragrant wood smoke, the bacon acquired a pleasant suggestion of the smoked article of the southern counties. The cottagers rarely complained of the smoky state of their kitchens, consoling themselves with the saying, "'Tis better to be smoke-dried nor starred [starved with the cold] to death." Bacon naturally suggests eggs; many of the villagers kept a few fowls which sometimes strayed into my orchards; as a rule, I made no objection, but it was not pleasing, when the apples were over-ripe and dropping from the trees, to notice the destructive marks of their beaks on some extra fine Blenheim oranges.

My wife determined to take over our fowls into her own jurisdiction; hitherto they had been under my bailiff's care, and he rather resented the change as an implication on his management, until it was explained that she was anxious to undertake the poultry as a hobby. One of the carter boys was detailed to collect the eggs, as some of the hen-houses were in out-of-the-way corners of the yards and difficult to approach. My wife thought the middleman was appropriating most of the profit; she was determined to get as directly to the consumer as possible and, among others, she arranged with the head of a large school for a weekly supply of dairy and poultry produce. All went well for a time until one day the boy, anxious to produce as many eggs as possible, as he received a royalty per dozen for collecting, discovered some nests which my man had set for hatching before he retired from the post. The boy, not recognizing this important fact, came in greatly pleased with an unusually large quantity, and it so happened that the school received the eggs from this special lot. Next morning forty eggs appeared at the boys' breakfast table, and forty boys simultaneously suffered a terrible shock on the discovery of forty incomplete chickens. The head wrote an aggrieved letter of complaint, and though my wife was by that time able to explain the matter, and regret her own loss too of forty chickens, he removed his custom to a more reliable source.

This schoolmaster was a collector of antique furniture and china, and, knowing that I was interested, he asked me to come and see some Chippendale chairs he had just acquired. It happened that some months before I had declined to buy four or five chairs that were offered at 10s. apiece. I had not then fully developed the taste for the antique, which once acquired forbids the connoisseur to refuse anything good, whether really wanted or not, and at that time there was much more choice in such matters than at the present day. The chairs were very dilapidated and I did not recognize their possibilities, but I noticed the arms of the elbow chairs were particularly good, being carved at the junction of the horizontal and vertical pieces with eagles' heads. Deciding that I did not want them I sent a dealer to the house and forgot all about the matter. The schoolmaster took me into his drawing-room, and I instantly recognized the set I had refused; they were quite transformed, nicely cleaned, lightly polished, and the seats newly covered. I duly admired them, and on inquiry found that he had purchased them in Worcester from the dealer I had sent to look at them; they cost him £5 each, and I suppose at the present time they would be worth £20 apiece at least.

I have previously mentioned old Viper as a family friend, but like all dogs he had his faults. He acquired a liking for new laid eggs and hunted the rickyard for nests in the straw. My bailiff determined to cure him; he carefully blew an egg, and filled it with a mixture of which mustard was the chief component. Viper was tempted to sample the egg, which he accepted with a great show of innocence; the effect when he had broken the shell was electrical; he fled with downcast tail and complete dejection, and nothing would ever induce him to touch an egg again.