Mrs Estcourt had meantime left the field, after beckoning to Augustus, who followed her. While she was present there was some check on their rivalry; but no sooner did they perceive that she was gone than it rose to a still greater height. Valentine, pulling himself together, and taking advantage of a thinner wake than usual, ran ahead, and went back to the rear. Seeing this, Geoffrey hurled the hay up with such force and vigour that he literally covered the shepherd, who could barely struggle out of it.
“Lord, I be as dry as a gicks!” said Jabez, when he did get free, and meaning by his simile the stem of a dead hedge-plant.
“And here’s bailie wi’ th’ bottle. Bide a bit, my lards.”
By this time “my lards” thoroughly understood why haymakers like their ale, and plenty of it. Working under the hot sun, with the dust or dry pollen flying from the hay, causes intense thirst. So the waggon stood still, and Valentine, hot and angry, took the bottle—being the nearest—from Augustus, and essayed to drink. This “bottle” was a miniature cask of oaken staves, with iron hoops, and a leathern strap to carry it by. It held about a gallon. To drink, the method is to put the lips to the bung-hole, situate at the largest part of the circumference, toss the barrel up, and hold the head back. Valentine could not get more than the merest sip, though the bottle was quite full. This, scientifically speaking, was caused by the pressure of the atmosphere. There is the same difficulty in drinking from a flask.
“Let th’ aair in—let th’ aair in!” said the shepherd, himself an adept. “Open th’ carner of yer mouth.”
But attempting to do that Val let too much “aair” in, and spilt the ale, to his intense disgust.
“Put th’ cark in, zur, and chuck un up to I.” Jabez caught the “bottle” as tenderly as a mother would her infant and quitted not his hold till half the contents had disappeared, nor would he have left it then, had not Augustus grumbled and claimed his turn. Mrs Estcourt now returned, attended by a servant carrying a basket of refreshments for which she had gone, not forgetting the more civilised bottles issued by the divine Bass. Throwing down forks and rakes, they assembled in the shade of the tall hawthorn hedge and sat down on the hay. When the delicate flavour of his cigar floated away on the soft summer air, even Valentine’s acerbity of temper relaxed. Opposite, at some distance, stood the waggon now fully loaded; Diamond and Captain eating the hay put for them, and the shepherd lying at full length on the grass. Augustus, the “bottle” by his side, and his hand laid lovingly on it, fell asleep in the shade of the waggon.
The wild-roses on the briars that stretched out from the hedge towards the meadow opened their petals full to the warmth. The breeze rustled the leaves of the elm overhead. Rich flute-like notes of music came from the copse hard by—it was the blackbird.
“Ah, this is merry England,” said Felix, who loved his cigar, watching the tiny cloud float away from its tip. “The blackbird sings in the scorching sun at noonday, when the other songbirds are silent. You did not know Geof was a writer, did you?” He drew forth a piece of paper, when Newton began to protest, and would have taken it from him by main force, had not the ladies insisted on hearing the contents. So Felix read the verses.
Noontide in the Meadow.
Idly silent were the finches—
Finches fickle, fleeting, blithe;
And the mower, man of inches,
Ceased to swing the sturdy scythe.
All the leafy oaks were slumb’rous;
Slumb’rous e’en the honey-bee;
And his larger brother, cumbrous,
Humming home with golden knee.
But the blackbird, king of hedgerows—
Hedgerows to my memory dear—
By the brook, where rush and sedge grows,
Sang his liquid love-notes clear.