Another story Tom Peregrine is fond of reading to us relates how a labouring man was recommended to get some oxtail soup to strengthen him. He goes into the town and sees "Oxikali Soap" written up on a shop window. He buys a cake of it, makes his wife boil it up in the pot, and then proceeds to drink it for his health. When he has taken a spoonful or two and found it very unpleasant, his wife makes him finish it up, saying it is sure to do him good; and she consoles him with the assurance that all medicine is nasty.
At the harvest home in the big barn, after the applause which followed Tom Peregrine's recitation had died away, a sturdy carter stood up and sang a very old Gloucestershire song, which runs as follows:--
THE TURMUT HOWER.
"I be a turmut hower,
Vram Gloucestershire I came;
My parents be hard-working folk,
Giles Wapshaw be my name.
The vly, the vly,
The vly be on the turmut,
An' it be aal me eye, and no use to try
To keep um off the turmut.
"Zum be vond o' haymakin',
An' zum be vond o' mowin',
But of aal the trades thet I likes best
Gie I the turmut howin'.
The vly, etc.
"'Twas on a summer mornin',
Aal at the brake o' day,
When I tuck up my turmut hower,
An' trudged it far away.
The vly, etc.
"The vust pleace I got work at,
It wus by the job,
But if I hed my chance agen,
I'd rayther go to quod.
The vly, etc.
"The next pleace I got work at,
'Twer by the day,
Vor one old Varmer Vlower,
Who sed I wur a rippin' turmut hower.
The vly, etc.
"Sumtimes I be a-mowin',
Sumtimes I be a-plowin',
Gettin' the vurrows aal bright an' clear
Aal ready vor turmut sowin'.
The vly, etc.
"An' now my song be ended
I 'ope you won't call encore;
But if you'll kum here another night,
I'll seng it ye once more.
The vly, etc."
CHAPTER V.
ON THE WOLDS.
Time passes quickly for the sportsman who has the good fortune to dwell in the merry Cotswolds. Spring gives place to summer and autumn to winter with a rapidity which astonishes us as the years roll on.
So diversified are the amusements that each season brings round that no time of year lacks its own characteristic sport. In the spring, ere red coats and "leathers" are laid aside by the fox-hunting squire, there is the best of trout-fishing to be enjoyed in the Coln and Windrush--streams dear to the heart of the accomplished expert with the "dry" fly. In spring, too, are the local hunt races at Oaksey and Sherston, at Moreton-in-the-Marsh and Andoversford. Pleasant little country gatherings are these race meetings, albeit the bonâ-fide hunter has little chance of distinguishing himself between the flags in any part of England nowadays. The Lechlade Horse Show, too, is a great institution in the V.W.H. country at the close of the hunting season.
Annually at Whitsuntide for very many centuries "sports" have been held in all parts of the country. It is said that they are the floralia of the Romans. Included in these sports are many of those amusements of the middle ages of which Ben Jonson sang:
"The Cotswold with the Olympic vies
In manly games and goodly exercise."