Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

by R. D. Blackmore

Of this great “ordinary”—great at any rate as regards consumption—Farmer Gates, the churchwarden, was by ancestral right the chairman; but for several market-days the vice-presidency had been vacant. A hot competition had raged, and all Steyning had thrilled with high commotion about the succession to the knife and fork at the bottom of the table; until it was announced amid general applause that Bottler was elected. It was a proud day for this good pigman, and perhaps a still prouder one for Bonny, when the new vice-president was inducted into the Windsor chair at the foot of the long and ancient table; and it marked the turning-point in the life of more than one then present.

The vice-president’s cart was in the shed close by, and on the front lade sat Bonny, sniffing the beauty of the “silver-side,” and the luscious suggestions of the marrow-bone. Polly longed fiercely to be up there with him; but her mother’s stern sense of decorum forbade; the pretty Miss Bottlers would be toasted after dinner,—and was one to be spied in a pig-cart? No sooner was the cloth removed, than the chairman proposed, in most feeling and eloquent language, the health of his new colleague. And now it was Bottler’s reply which created a grand revolution in Steyning. With graceful modesty he ascribed his present proud position, the realization of his fondest hopes, neither to his well-known integrity, industry, strict attention to business, nor even the quality of his bacon. All these things, of course, contributed; but “what was the grand element of his unparalleled success in life?” A cry of “white stockings!” from the Bramber pig-sticker was sternly suppressed, and the man kicked out. “The grand element of his success in life was his classical education!”

Nobody knowing what was meant by this, thunders of applause ensued; until it was whispered from cup to cup that Bottler, when he was six years old, had been three months at the Grammar School. He might have forgotten every word he had learned, but any one might see that it was dung dug in. So a dozen of the farmers resolved at once to have their children Latined; and Bonny in his inmost heart aspired to some education. What was the first step to golden knowledge? He put this question to himself obscurely, as he rode home on his faithful Jack, with all the marrow-bones of the great feast rattling in a bag behind him. From the case of Bill Harkles he reasoned soundly, that the first thing to do was to go and get shot.

On the following day—the month being August, or something very near it, in the year 1812 (a year behind the time we got on to)—Mr. Hales, to keep his hand in, took his favourite flint-gun down, and patted it, and reprimed it. He had finished his dinner, it had been a good one; and his partner in life had been lamenting the terrible price of butcher’s meat. She did not see how it could end in anything short of a wicked rebellion, when the price of bread was put with it. And the Rector had answered, with a wink to Cecil, “Order no meat for to-morrow, my dear, nor even for the next day. We shall see what we shall see.” With this power of promise, he got on his legs, and stopped all who were fain to come after him. He knew every coney and coney’s hole on the glebe, and on the clerk’s land; and they all would now be out at grass, and must be treated gingerly. He was going to shoot for the pot, as sportsmen generally did in those days.

With visions of milky onions, about to be poured on a broad and well-boiled back, the Rector (after sneaking through a furzy gate) peeped down a brown trench of the steep hill-side; here he spied three little sandy juts of Recent excavation, and on each of them sat a hunch-backed coney, proud of the labours of the day, and happily curling his whiskers. The Rector, peering downward, saw the bulging over their large black eyes, and the prick of their delicate ears, and their gentle chewing of the grass-blade. There was no chance of a running shot, for they would pop into earth in a moment; so he tried to get two of them into a line, and then he pulled his trigger. The nearest rabbit fell dead as a stone; but the Rector could scarcely believe his eyes, when through the curls of the smoke he beheld, instead of the other rabbit, a ragged boy rolling, and kicking, and holloaing!

“Am I never to shoot without shooting a boy?” cried the parson, rushing forward. “Another guinea! A likely thing! I vow I will only pay a shilling this time. The sport would ruin a bishop!”

But Mr. Hales found to his great delight that the boy was not touched by a shot, nor even made pretence to be so. He had craftily crept through the bushes from below, and quietly lurked near the rabbit’s hole, and after the shot, had darted forth, and thrown himself cleverly on the wounded rabbit, who otherwise must have got away to die a lingering death in his burrow. The quickness and skill of the boy, and the luck of thus bagging both rabbits, so pleased the Rector that he gave him sixpence, and bade him follow, to carry the game and to see more sport. Bonny had a natural turn for sport, which never could be beaten out of him, and to get it encouraged by the rector of the parish was indeed a godsend. And in his excitement at every shot, he poured forth his heart about rabbits, and hares, and wood-queests, and partridges, and even pheasants.

“Why, you know more than I do!” said the Rector, kindly laying his hand on the shoulder of the boy, after loading for his tenth successful shot. “How ever have you picked up all these things? The very worst poacher of the coming age; or else the best gamekeeper.”

“I looks about, or we does, me and Jack together,” answered Bonny, with one of his broadest and most genuine grins; and the gleam of his teeth, and the twinkle of his eyes, enforced the explanation.

“Come to my house in the morning, Bonny,” said the Rector. And that was the making of him. For the boy that cleaned the knives and boots had never conscientiously filled that sphere, though he was captain of the Bible-class. And now he had taken the measles so long, that they had put him to earth the celery. Here was an opening, and Bonny seized it; and though he made very queer work at first, his native ability carried him on, till he put a fine polish on everything. From eighteenpence a week he rose to two and threepence, within nine months; and to this he soon added the empty bottles, and a commission upon the grease-pot!