The History of Margaret Catchpole, a Suffolk Girl

by Richard Cobbold

This was a singular penchant for a female child to imbibe, but with it mingled the pleasure of her father’s and brothers’ smiles; and this, after a day of toil, seemed to give elasticity to their spirits, and formed an agreeable change to the unvarying monotony of ploughing straight lines, the clinking of chains, and their rural “wooah come ather, woree, wooo, jeh!" sounds as unintelligible to some readers as the language of the savages of the Caribbee islands, when first discovered.

Sometimes the crack of the whip would make the horses start, and the young men, her brothers, who would try to frighten their sister, found, instead of so doing, that it only increased the pleasure of her ride. At length, she began to trot the leading horse home.

After a time, this privilege was extended to riding the farm-horses down to water; and this appears to have been the very summit of Margaret’s delight. She used to take her brother’s whip in her tiny hand, drive the whole team before her into the water, keep them in order while there, and then drive them out again, up the sandy lane, into the stable-yard.

It is well known that at such times it is no easy task to sit a cart-horse; for they will kick, and plunge, and exhibit that rough kind of amusement known by the name of “horse-play,” which has as much of shrieking and biting as it has of gambolling in it.

In going out to, and coming home from, water, horses accustomed to the heaviest labour, if at all well fed, will exhibit no mean share of this species of spirit; and woe be to the lad without a whip in his hand, or who has not a very steady seat!

Gainsborough and Constable were both lovers of the scenery around Ipswich; and many are the sketches in the possession of their Suffolk friends, which speak their admiration of the beautiful landscapes which surround the river Orwell.

Had these artists seen Margaret in her equestrian character, they would have immortalized her; for nothing could have been more appropriate to the spirit of their works.

Margaret was fearless as a Newmarket jockey; and never was known to have had a single fall. She kept her seat as well as any of the tutored children of the celebrated but unfortunate Ducrow: indeed, it may be fairly questioned if any one of his troop could have managed to sit a Suffolk cart-horse with the same composure.

The fame of our young heroine’s exploits reached but little farther than the sequestered farm-house to which her parents belonged, excepting now and then at the Ipswich races, when some of the lads saw an awkward rider, they would exclaim to each other, “Margaret would beat him hollow.”

Time flew swiftly on, producing no farther change in the family of the Catchpoles than what may be usually seen in the habitations of the labouring class. Those are generally the most stationary race of all people in a parish, who have constant employment on a large farm: the owners of lands change their places of abode—sell their estates—and leave the country; the tenants frequently change their occupations; but the labourer remains to cultivate the soil, and is always found a resident among those “poor who shall never perish out of the land.” They have their friends and fellow-labourers, and feel as much interest in each other’s welfare as the members of richer or wider-spread fraternities.