Eustace Marchmont: A friend of the people

by Evelyn Everett-Green

First, copious libations of cider were poured round the roots of these trees, whilst large toast sops were placed amid the bare branches; all this time the chant was sung again and again, and the young girls and little children danced round in a ring, joining their shriller voices with the rougher tones of the men. The cider can that supplied the trees with their libations passed freely amongst the singers, whose voices grew hoarse with something beyond exercise.

When the serenading and watering had been sufficiently accomplished, guns were fired through the branches of the chosen trees, and the company broke up, feeling that now they had done what was necessary to ensure a good crop of cider-apples for the ensuing year.

But whilst the singing and drinking was at its height, and the moon gazed calmly down upon the curious assembly beneath the hoary old trees in the farmer’s orchard, a keen observer might have noted a pair of figures slightly withdrawn from the noisy throng around the gnarled trees that were receiving the attentions of the crowd—a pair that gravitated together as if by mutual consent, and stood in a sheltered nook of the orchard; the man leaning against the rude stone wall which divided it from the farm buildings of one side, the girl standing a few paces away from him beside a sappling, her face a little bent, but a look of smiling satisfaction upon her red lips. She was clasping and unclasping her hands in a fashion that bespoke something of nervous tremor, but that it was the tremor of happiness was abundantly evident from the expression of her face.

The moon shone clearly down upon the pair, and perhaps gave a touch of additional softness and refinement to them, for at that moment both appeared to the best advantage, and looked handsome enough to draw admiring regards from even fastidious critics.

The man was very tall, and although he was habited in the homely garb of a farm labourer of the better sort, there was a something in his air and carriage which often struck the onlooker as being different from the average man of his class. If he had been a gentleman, his mien would have been pronounced “distinguished;” but there was something incongruous in applying such a term as that to a working man in the days immediately prior to the Reform agitation of 1830. If the artisan population of the Midlands had begun to recognise and assert their rights as members of the community, entitled at least to be regarded as having a voice in the State (though how that was to be accomplished they had hardly formulated an opinion), the country labourer was still plunged in his ancient apathy and indifference, regarding himself, and being regarded, as little more than a serf of the soil. The years of agricultural prosperity during the Great War had been gradually followed by a reaction. Whilst trade revived, agriculture was depressed; and the state of the labourers in many places was very terrible. Distress and bitter poverty prevailed to an extent that was little known, because the sufferers had no mouthpiece, and suffered in silence, like the beasts of the field. But a growing sense of sullen discontent was slowly permeating the land, and in the restless North and the busy Midlands there was a stirring and a sense of coming strife which had not yet reached the quiet far West. And here was this young son of Anak, with the bearing of a prince and the garb of a labourer, standing beside the farmer’s daughter, Genefer, and telling her of his love.

Although he was but one of the many men who worked by day for her father, and slept at night in a great loft above the kitchen, in common with half-a-dozen more men so employed, yet Genefer was listening to his words of love with a sense of happy triumph in her heart, and without the smallest feeling of condescension on her part. Possibly her father might have thought it presumptuous of the young man thus boldly to woo his only daughter; and yet the girl did not feel much afraid of any stern parental opposition; for Saul Tresithny, in spite of a history that to many men would have been a fatal bar towards raising himself, had acquired in the parish of St. Bride’s a standing somewhat remarkable, and was known upon the farm as the handiest and most capable, as well as the strongest man there, and one whom the farmer especially favoured.

Genefer was the farmer’s only daughter, and had to work as hard as either father or brothers, for since her mother’s death, a year or two ago, the whole management of the dairy and of the house had passed into her hands, and she had as much to do in the day as she could get through. Perhaps it was from the fact that Saul was always ready to lend a helping hand when her work was unwontedly pressing, and that he would work like a fury at his own tasks by day in order to have a leisure hour to lighten her labours towards supper-time, that she had grown gradually to lean on him and feel that life without him would be but a barren and desolate sort of existence. Her brothers, ’Siah and ’Lias, as they were invariably called, were kind to her in their own fashion, and so was her father, who was proud of her slim active figure, her pretty face, and crimpy dark hair. West-Country women are proverbially good to look at, and Genefer was a favourable specimen of a favoured race. Her eyes were large and bright, and of a deep blue tint; her skin was clear, and her colour fresh and healthy, and the winter winds and summer suns had failed to coarsen it. She was rather tall, and her figure was full of unconscious grace and activity. If her hands were somewhat large, they were well shaped and capable, and her butter, and cream, and bread were known far and wide for their excellence. She had a woman and a girl to help her in the house, but hers was the head that kept all going in due order, and her father had good cause to be proud of her.

And now young Saul stood beside the old grey wall in the light of the full moon, and boldly told her of his love.

“I’ll be a gude husband to yu if yu’ll have me, Genefer,” he said in the soft broad speech of his native place, though Saul could speak if he chose without any trace of dialect, albeit always with a subtle intonation, which gave something of piquancy to his words. “I du lovee rarely, my girl. Doee try to love me back. I’ll serve day and night for yu if thee’ll but say the word.”

“What word am I to zay, Zaul?” asked the girl softly, with a shy upward look that set all his pulses tingling. “Yu du talk so much, I am vair mazedheaded with it all. What is it yu would have me zay to thee?”