"Unselfish—looking not to see
Proofs of their own dexterity;
But quite contented that 'I' should
Forgotten be in brotherhood."
Of course, whether Tractarian or Evangelical, religious people regarded church-going as a spiritual privilege; but every one recognized it as a civil duty. "When a gentleman is sur ses terres," said Major Pendennis, "he must give an example to the country people; and, if I could turn a tune, I even think I should sing. The Duke of St. David's, whom I have the honour of knowing, always sings in the country, and let me tell you it has a doosed fine effect from the family pew." Before the passion for "restoration" had set in, and ere yet Sir Gilbert Scott had transmogrified the parish churches of England, the family pew was indeed the ark and sanctuary of the territorial system—and a very comfortable ark too. It had a private entrance, a round table, a good assortment of arm-chairs, a fireplace, and a wood-basket. And I well remember a washleather glove of unusual size which was kept in the wood-basket for the greater convenience of making up the fire during divine service. "You may restore the church as much as you like," said an old friend of my youth, who was lay-rector, to an innovating incumbent, "but I must insist on my family pew not being touched. If I had to sit in an open seat, I should never get a wink of sleep again."
A country home left its mark for all time on those who were brought up in it. The sons played cricket and went bat-fowling with the village boys, and not seldom joined with them in a poaching enterprise in the paternal preserves. However popular or successful or happy a Public-School boy might be at Eton or Harrow, he counted the days till he could return to his pony and his gun, his ferrets and rat-trap and fishing-rod. Amid all the toil and worry of active life, he looked back lovingly to the corner of the cover where he shot his first pheasant, or the precise spot in the middle of the Vale where he first saw a fox killed, and underwent the disgusting baptism of blood.
Girls, living more continuously at home, entered even more intimately into the daily life of the place. Their morning rides led them across the village green; their afternoon drives were often steered by the claims of this or that cottage to a visit. They were taught as soon as they could toddle never to enter a door without knocking, never to sit down without being asked, and never to call at meal-time.
They knew every one in the village—old and young; played with the babies, taught the boys in Sunday School, carried savoury messes to the old and impotent, read by the sick-beds, and brought flowers for the coffin. Mamma knitted comforters and dispensed warm clothing, organized relief in hard winters and times of epidemic, and found places for the hobbledehoys of both sexes. The pony-boy and the scullery-maid were pretty sure to be products of the village. Very likely the young-ladies-maid was a village girl whom the doctor had pronounced too delicate for factory or farm. I have seen an excited young groom staring his eyes out of his head at the Eton and Harrow match, and exclaiming with rapture at a good catch, "It was my young governor as 'scouted' that. 'E's nimble, ain't 'e?" And I well remember an ancient stable-helper at a country house in Buckinghamshire who was called "Old Bucks," because he had never slept out of his native county, and very rarely out of his native village, and had spent his whole life in the service of one family.
Of course, when so much of the impressionable part of life was lived amid the "sweet, sincere surroundings of country life," there grew up, between the family at the Hall and the families in the village, a feeling which, in spite of our national unsentimentality, had a chivalrous and almost feudal tone. The interest of the poor in the life and doings of "The Family" was keen and genuine. The English peasant is too much a gentleman to be a flatterer, and compliments were often bestowed in very unexpected forms. "They do tell me as 'is understanding's no worse than it always were," was a ploughman's way of saying that the old squire was in full possession of his faculties. "We call 'im ''Is Lordship,' because 'e's so old and so cunning," was another's description of a famous pony. "Ah, I know you're but a poor creature at the best!" was the recognized way of complimenting a lady on what she considered her bewitching and romantic delicacy.
But these eccentricities were merely verbal, and under them lay a deep vein of genuine and lasting regard. "I've lived under four dukes and four 'ousekeepers, and I'm not going to be put upon in my old age!" was the exclamation of an ancient poultry-woman, whose dignity had been offended by some irregularity touching her Christmas dinner. When the daughter of the house married and went into a far country, she was sure to find some emigrant from her old home who welcomed her with effusion, and was full of enquiries about his lordship and her ladyship, and Miss Pinkerton the governess, and whether Mr. Wheeler was still coachman, and who lived now at the entrance-lodge. Whether the sons got commissions, or took ranches, or become curates in slums, or contested remote constituencies, some grinning face was sure to emerge from the crowd with, "You know me, sir? Bill Juffs, as used to go bird's-nesting with you;" or, "You remember my old dad, my lord? He used to shoe your black pony."
When the eldest son came of age, his condescension in taking this step was hailed with genuine enthusiasm. When he came into his kingdom, there might be some grumbling if he went in for small economies, or altered old practices, or was a "hard man" on the Bench or at the Board of Guardians; but, if he went on in the good-natured old ways, the traditional loyalty was unabated.
Lord Shaftesbury wrote thus about the birth of his eldest son's eldest son: "My little village is all agog with the birth of a son and heir in the very midst of them, the first, it is believed, since 1600, when the first Lord Shaftesbury was born. The christening yesterday was an ovation. Every cottage had flags and flowers. We had three triumphal arches; and all the people were exulting. 'He is one of us.' 'He is a fellow-villager.' 'We have now got a lord of our own.' This is really gratifying. I did not think that there remained so much of the old respect and affection between peasant and proprietor, landlord and tenant."