It may possibly be true, that a few beautiful, fair-haired heretics in love or religion have been stone-masoned up alive in the walls of abbeys or convents. Sir Walter Scott leaned to that belief, and perhaps had credible history for it. But if the trowel has slain its thousands, the whitewash swab has slain its ten thousands of innocents. Think of the furlongs of richly-wrought tapestry, full of sacred and profane history, and the furlongs of curiously-carved panels, wainscoting, and cornice that floppy, sloppy, vandal brush of pigs’ bristles and pail of diluted lime have eclipsed and obliterated for ever, and not a retributive drop of the villainous mixture has fallen into the perpetrator’s eye to “make his foul intent seem horrible!” Think of Christian kings of glorious memory, even Defenders of the Faith, with their fair queens, princes of the blood, and knights, noble and brave, all, in one still St. Bartholomew night of that soft, thin, white flood, buried from the sight of the living as completely as the Roman sentinel at his post by the red gulf-stream of Vesuvius! Still, we must not be too hard on these seemingly barbarous transactions. “Not in anger, not in wrath,” nor in foolish fancy, was that dripping brush always lifted upon these works of art. Many a person of cultivated taste saw a time when he could say, almost with Sancho Panza, “blessings on the man who invented whitewash! It covers a tapestry, a carving, or a sculpture all over like a blanket;” like that one spoken of in Macbeth. England is just beginning to learn what treasures of art in old mansions, churches and cathedrals were saved to the present age by a timely application of that cheap and healthy fluid. For there was a time when stern men of iron will arose, who had no fear of Gothic architecture, French tapestry, or Italian sculpture before their eyes; who treated things that had awed or dazzled the world as “baubles” of vanity, to be put away, as King Josiah put away from his realm the graven images of his predecessors. And these men thought they were doing good service to religion by pushing their bayonets at the most delicate works of the needle, pencil and chisel; ripping and slitting the most elaborately wrought tapestry,—stabbing off the fine leaf, and vine-work from carved cornices and wainscoting, and mutilating the marble lace-work of the sculptor in the old cathedrals. The only way to save these choice things was to make them suddenly take the white veil from the whitewasher’s brush. Thousands of them were thus preserved, and they are now being brought forth to the light again, after having been shut away from the eye of man for several centuries.
The school-house is still standing in Huntingdon, in good condition and busy occupation, in which Oliver Cromwell stormed the English alphabet and carried the first parallel of monosyllables at the point of the pen. The very form or bench of oak from which he mounted the breach is still occupied by boys of the same size and age, with the same number of inches between their feet and the floor which separated it from his. Had the photographic art been discovered in his day, we might have had his face and form as he looked when seated as a rosy-faced, light-haired boy in the rank and file of the youngsters gathered within those walls. What an overwhelming revelation it would have been to his young, honest and merry mind, if some seer, like him who told Hazael his future, could have given him a sudden glimpse of what he was to be and do in his middle manhood!
After tea, I continued my walk westward to a small, quiet, comfortable village, about five miles from Huntingdon, where I became the guest of “The Old Mermaid,” who extended her amphibious hospitalities to all strangers wishing bed and board for the night. Both I received readily and greatly enjoyed under her roof, especially the former. Never did I occupy a bed so fringed with the fanciful artistries of dreamland. It was close up under the thatched roof, and it was the most easy and natural thing in the world for the fancies of the midnight hour to turn that thatching into hair, and to cheat my willing mind with the delusion that I was sleeping with the long, soft tresses of Her Submarine Ladyship wound around my head. It was a delightful vagary of the imagination, which the morning light, looking in through the little checker-work window, gently dispelled.
The next day I bent my course in a north-westerly direction, and passed through a very fertile and beautiful section. The scenery was truly delightful;—not grand nor splendid, but replete with quiet pictures that please the eye and touch the heart with a sense of gladness. The soft mosaic work of the gently rounded hills, or figures wrought in wheat, barley, oats, beans, turnips, and meadow and pasture land, and grouped into landscapes in endless alternation of lights and shades, and all this happy little world now veiled by the low, summer clouds, now flooded by a sunburst between them—all these lovely and changing sceneries made my walk like one through a continuous gallery of paintings.
Harvesting had commenced in real earnest, and the wheat-fields were full of reapers, some wielding the sickle, others the scythe. When I saw men and women bending almost double to cut their sheaves close to the ground, I longed to walk through a barley-field with one of our American cradles, and show them how we do that sort of thing. As yet I have seen no reaping machines in operation, and I doubt if they will ever come into such extensive use here as with us, owing to the abundance of cheap labor in this country. I saw on this day’s walk the heaviest crop of wheat that I have noticed since I left London. It must have averaged sixty bushels to the acre for the whole field.
Late in the afternoon it began to rain; and I was glad to find shelter and entertainment at a comfortable village inn, under the patronage of “The Green Man,” perhaps a brother or near relative of Mermadam my hostess that entertained me the preceding night. It was a unique old building, or rather a concrete of a great variety of buildings devoted to a remarkable diversity of purposes, including brewing, farming, and other occupations. The large, low, dark kitchen was flanked by one of the old-fashioned fire-places, with space for a large family between the jambs, and the hollow of the chimney ample enough to show one of the smaller constellations at the top of it in a clear night. A seat on the brick or stone floor before one of these kitchen fire-places is to me the focus of the home comforts of the house, and I always make for it mechanically. As the darkness drew on, several agricultural laborers drifted in, one after the other, until the broad, deep pavement of the hearth was lined by a row of them, quite fresh from their work. They were quiet, sober-looking men, and they spoke with subdued voices, without animation or excitement, as if the fatigue of the day and the general battle of life had softened them to a serious, pensive mood and movement. As they sat drying their jackets around the fire, passing successive mugs of the landlord’s ale from one to the other, they grew more and more conversational; and, as I put in a question here and there, they gave me an insight into the general condition, aspects and prospects of their class which I had not obtained before. They were quite free to answer any questions relating to their domestic economy, their earnings, spendings, food, drink, clothing, housing and fuel, also in reference to their educational and religious privileges and habits.
It was now the first week of harvest; and harvest in England, in any one locality, covers the space of a full month, in ordinary weather. Then, as the season varies remarkably, so that one county is frequently a week earlier in harvesting than that adjoining it on the north, the work for the sickle is often prolonged from the middle of July to the middle of September. This is the period of great expectation as well as toil for the agricultural laborers. Every man, woman, and boy of them is all put under the stimulus of extra earnings through these important weeks. Even the laborers hired by the year have a full month given them for harvesting forty or fifty extra shillings under this stimulus. Nearly all the grain in England is cut for a certain stipulated sum per acre; and thousands of all ages, with sickle or scythe in hand, see the sun rise and set while they are at work in the field. In the field they generally breakfast, lunch, and dine; and when it is considered there is daylight enough for labor between half-past three in the morning to half-past eight at night, one may easily see how many of the twenty-four hours they may bend to their toil. The price for cutting and binding wheat is from 10s. to 14s., or from $2 40c. to $3 36c. per acre, and 8s., or $1 92c. per acre for oats and barley. The men who cut, bind, and shock by the acre generally have to find their own beer, and will earn from 24s. to 28s., or from $5 76c. to $6 72c. per week. The regular laborers frequently let themselves to their employers during the harvest month at from 20s. to 24s. per week, which is just about double their usual wages. In addition to this pay, they are often allowed two quarts of ale and two quarts of small beer per day; not the small beer of New England, made only of hops, ginger, and molasses; but a far more stimulating drink, quite equal to our German lager. This gallon of beer will cost the farmer about 10d., or 20c. Where the piece-work laborer furnishes his own malt liquor, it must cost him on an average about an English shilling, or twenty-four cents, a day.
Two or three of the men who formed the circle around the fire at The Green Man, had come to purchase, or pay for, a keg of beer for their harvest allowance. It was to me a matter of half-painful interest to see what vital importance they attached to a supply of this stimulant—to see how much more they leaned upon its strength and comfort than upon food. It was not in my heart to argue the question with them, or to seek to dispel the hereditary and pleasant illusion, that beer alone, of all human drinks, could carry them through the long, hot hours of toil in harvest. Besides, I wished to get at their own free thoughts on the subject without putting my own in opposition to them, which might have slightly restricted their full expression. Every one of them held to the belief, as put beyond all doubt or question by the experience of the present and all past generations, that wheat, barley and oats could not be reaped and ricked without beer, and beer at the rate of a gallon a day per head. Each had his string of proofs to this conviction terminating in a pewter mug, just as some poor people praying to the Virgin have a string of beads ending in a crucifix, which they tell off with honest hearts and sober faces. Each could make it stand to reason that a man could not bear the heat and burden of harvest labor without beer. Each had his illustration in the case of some poor fellow who had tried the experiment, out of principle or economy, and had failed under it. It was of no use to talk of temperance and all that. It was all very nice for well-to-do people, who never blistered their hands at a sickle or a scythe, to tell poor, laboring men, sweating at their hot and heavy work from sun to sun, that they must not drink anything but milk and water or cold tea and coffee, but put them in the wheat-field a few days, and let them try their wishy-washy drinks and see what would become of them. As I have said, I did not undertake to argue the men out of this belief, partly because I wished to learn from them all they thought and felt on the subject, and partly, I must confess, because I was reluctant to lay a hard hand upon a source of comfort which, to them, holds a large portion of their earthly enjoyments, especially when I could not replace it with a substitute which they would accept, and which would yield them an equal amount of satisfaction.
A personal habit becomes a “second nature” to the individual, even if he stands alone in its indulgence. But when it is an almost universal habit, coming down from generation to generation, throwing its creepers and clingers around the social customs and industrial economies of a great nation, it is almost like re-creating a world to change that second nature thus strengthened. This change is slowly working its way in Great Britain—slowly, but perceptibly here and there—thanks to the faithful and persevering efforts put forth by good and true men, to enlighten the subjects of this impoverishing and demoralising custom, which has ruled with such despotism over the laborers of the land. Little by little the proper balance between the Four Great Powers of human necessity,—Food, Drink, Raiment and Housing, so long disturbed by this habit, is being restored. Still, the preponderance of Drink, especially among the agricultural laborers in England, is very striking and sad. As a whole, Beer must still stand before Bread—even before Meat, and before both in many cases, in their expenditures. The man who sat next me, in muddy leggings, and smoking coat, was mildly spoken, quiet, and seemingly thoughtful. He had come for his harvest allowance of 20s. worth of beer. If he abstained from its use on Sundays, he would have a ration of about tenpence’s worth daily. That would buy him a large loaf of bread, two good cuts of mutton or beef, and all the potatoes and other vegetables he could eat in a day. But he puts it all into the Jug instead of the Basket. Jug is the juggernaut that crushes his hard earnings in the dust, or, without the figure, distils them into drink. Jug swallows up the first fruits of his industry, and leaves Basket to glean among the sharpest thorns of his poverty. Jug is capricious as well as capacious. It clamors for quality as well as quantity; it is greedy of foaming and beaded liquors. Basket does well if it can bring to the reaper the food of well-kept dogs. In visiting different farms, I have noticed men and women at their luncheons and dinners in the field. A hot mutton chop, or a cut of roast-beef, and a hot potato, seem to be a luxury they never think of in the hardest toil of harvest. Both the meals I have mentioned consist, so far as I have seen, of only two articles of food,—bread and bacon, or bread and cheese. And this bacon is never warm, but laid upon a slice of bread in a thin, cold layer, instead of butter, both being cut down through with a jack-knife into morsels when eaten.
Such is a habit that devours a lion’s share of the English laborer’s earnings, and leaves Food, Raiment, and Housing to shift for themselves. If he works by the piece and finds his own beer, it costs him more than he pays for house rent, or for bread, or meat, or for clothes for himself and family. If his employer furnishes it or pays him commutation money, it amounts for all his men to a tax of half-a-crown to the acre for his whole farm. There is no earthly reason why agricultural laborers in this country should spend more in drink than those of New England. I am confident that if a census were taken of all the “hired men” of our six states, and a fair average struck, the daily expenditure for drinks would not exceed twopence, or four cents per head, while their average wages would amount to 4s., or 96 cents, per day through the year. Yet our Summers are far hotter and dryer than in England, our labor equally hard, and there is really more natural occasion for drinks in our harvest fields than here. It would require a severe apprenticeship for our men to acquire a taste for sharp ale or strong beer as a beverage under our July sun. A pail or jug of sweetened water, perhaps with a few drops of cider to the pint, to sour it slightly, and a spoonful of ginger stirred in, is our substitute for malt liquor. Sometimes beer made of nothing but hops, water, and a little molasses, is brought into the field, and makes even an exhilarating drink, without any alcoholic effect. Cold coffee, diluted with water, and re-sweetened, is a healthful and grateful luxury to our farm laborers.