In this situation do the pigs remain every morning for four hours, enjoying little else than air and exercise. At about nine or ten o'clock, they begin their march homewards, and nothing can form a greater contrast than their entry into their native town does to their exit from it.
Their eager anxiety to get to the dinner-trough that awaits them is almost ungovernable; and they no sooner reach the first houses of the town, than a sort of “sauve qui peut” motion takes place: away each then starts towards his dulce domum; and it is really curious to stand still and watch how very quickly they canter by, greedily grunting and snuffling as if they could smell with their stomachs, as well as their noses, the savoury food which was awaiting them.
At half-past four, the same four notes of the same horn are heard again; the pigs once more assemble—once more tumble over the hot stones on the mountain—once more remain there for four hours—and in the evening once again return to their styes.
Such is the life of the pigs not only of Langen-Schwalbach, but those of every village throughout a great part of Germany: every day of their existence, summer and winter, is spent in the way I have described. The squad consists here of about a hundred and fifty, and for each pig the poor old Schwein-general receives forty kreuzers (about 13d.) for six months’ drilling of each recruit. His income, therefore, is about 20l. a year, out of which he has to pay the board, lodging, and clothing of his two aid-de-camps; and when one considers how unremittingly this poor fellow-creature has to contend with the gross appetites, sulky tempers, and pig-headed dispositions of the swinish multitude, surely not even the most niggardly reformer would wish to curtail his emoluments.
[THE LUTHERAN CHAPEL.]
I have just come from the little Lutheran chapel, and while the picture is fresh before my mind, I will endeavour to describe it.
On entering the church, the service I found had begun, and the first thing that struck me was, that the pulpit was empty, there being no minister of any sort or kind to be seen! The congregation were chaunting a psalm to very much the same sort of drawling tune which one hears in England; yet the difference in their performance of it was very remarkable. As all were singing about as loud as they could, the chorus was certainly too much for the church: indeed, the sound had not only filled its walls, but, streaming out of the doors and every aperture, it had rolled down the main street, where I had met it long before I reached the church. Yet, though it was certainly administered in too strong a dose, it was impossible to help acknowledging that it proceeded from a peasantry who had a gift or natural notion of music, quite superior to anything one meets with in an English village, or even in a London church. The song was simple, and the lungs from which it proceeded were too stout; yet there was nothing to offend the ear: in short, there were no bad faults to eradicate—no nasal whine—no vulgar tremulous mixture of two notes—no awkward attempts at musical finery—but in every bar there was tune and melody, and with apparently no one to guide them, these native musicians proceeded with their psalm in perfect harmony and concert.
As this singing lasted nearly twenty minutes, I had plenty of time to look about me. The church, which with its little spire stands on a gentle eminence above the houses of the main street, is a small oblong building of four windows in length by two in breadth; the glass in these recesses is composed of round, plain, unpainted panes, about the size of a common tea-saucer. The inside of the building is whitewashed: a gallery of unpainted wood, supported by posts very rudely hewn, going nearly round three sides of it. There were no pews, but rows of benches occupied about three-fourths of the body of the church; the remaining quarter (which was opposite to the principal entrance-door) being elevated three steps above the rest. At the back of this little platform, leaning against the wall, there was a pulpit containing only one reading-desk, and above it a sounding-board, surmounted by a gilt image of the sun—the only ornament in the church. In front of the pulpit, between it and the congregation, I observed a small, high, oblong table, covered with a plain white table-cloth, and on the right and left of the pulpit, there existed an odd-looking pew, latticed so closely that no one could see at all perfectly through it.
The three galleries were occupied by men dressed all alike in the common blue cloth Sunday clothes of the country. The benches beneath were filled with women; and as I glanced an eye from one row to another, it was impossible to help regretting the sad progress, or rather devastation, which fashion is making in the national costume even of the little village of Langen-Schwalbach. Three benches nearest to the door were filled with women all dressed in the old genuine “buy a broom” costume of this country—their odd little white caps, their open stays, and their fully-plaited short petticoats seeming to have been cast in one model; in short, they were clad in the native livery of their hills. Next to these were seated four rows of women and girls, who, nibbling at novelty, had ventured to exchange the caps of their female ancestors for plain horn combs; over their stays some had put cotton gowns, the coloured patterns of which seemed to be vulgarly quarrelling among each other for precedence. Next came a row of women in caps, frilled and bedizened.