Again, within the memory of the old inhabitants of your village, the hill beacons were brought into use when Napoleon I. threatened to invade England; and on January 31, 1803, by some mistake, the fire on Hume Castle, in Berwickshire, was lighted; other beacons responded, and ere morning dawned thousands were marching ankle-deep through the dense mud of the winter roads to their appointed stations. The mistake was not without its uses, as Napoleon saw that England was ready, and did not venture to attack our shores. A similar accident took place in the reign of Henry VIII. There was a conspiracy against the king by the Roman Catholics, who did not like their monasteries being destroyed, called “The Pilgrimage of Grace.” Beacons were erected on the heights of Pendel, in Lancashire, and on the various hills of Yorkshire and Derbyshire; but the beacon on Pendel was fired before the conspirators were quite ready for action, and their plot came to nothing.
Once again in the history of our country were these beacon fires lighted; but it was not to announce the approach of an enemy, but to reflect the gladness of the nation which for so many years had enjoyed the reign of so good a ruler as Queen Victoria, who has now passed away from us, and whom the whole nation mourns. And as we witnessed the sudden blaze of the beacons we thought, perhaps, of other occasions when they were used, and were thankful that rejoicings and thanksgivings were the cause, and not invasions or conspiracies.
[10] This is a corruption of the old Norman-French word oyez, “hear ye.”
CHAPTER XXI
VILLAGE SPORTS AND PASTIMES
Decay of old sports—Twelfth Night—Shrovetide—Mothering Sunday— Hocktide—May Day—Miracle plays—St. John’s Day—Rush-bearing—Beating the bounds—Archery—Quintain—Football—Christmas games—Stocks— Cucking-stool.
It is the custom of some writers to represent the lot of an English villager in past ages as having been particularly hard and disagreeable; to enlarge upon the scanty wages which he received; and to compare his position unfavourably with that of the agricultural labourer of the present day. I have already pointed out that the small wages which he received are no test of his poverty, because he received so much more in lieu of wages; and certainly he had far more opportunities of enjoyment and recreation than the present generation has. Now we have scarcely any village games or sports, except when some energetic rector or curate starts a cricket club. Old social customs, which added such diversity to the lives of the rustics two centuries ago, have died out. The village green, the source of so much innocent happiness, is no more; and a recent writer has observed that the ordinary existence of agricultural labourers is so dull that in East Anglia they have almost forgotten how to laugh!
We will now try to realise how our village forefathers used to enjoy themselves, how they used to spend their holidays, and to picture to ourselves the scenes of happy social intercourse which once took place in our own hamlet. Every season of the year had its holiday customs and quaint manner of observance, some of them confined to particular counties, but many of them universally observed.