As to the harp, whenever he praised its melody, she declared it odious and unbearable, and gave preference to the fiddle, the bagpipes, or even the hurdy-gurdy; and the Welsh female costume she protested still more loudly against, and asked him with a sneer if he did not conceive it capable of improvement.
“Oh, certainly, my dear,” would he reply; “for instance, I would have the Glamorganshire girls wear shoes, and feet to their stockings, and convert their awkward wrappers into neat gowns; the Cardiganshire fair ones should doff their clogs, and wear leathern shoes; and the Breconshire lass, with all others who follow the abominable habit, should be hindered from wearing a handkerchief around the head; but I know of no improvement that can be suggested for the Pembrokeshire damsel, except one which would be equally applicable to all Welsh girls,—namely, to throw off their flannel shifts and wear linen ones.”
Now this good gentlewoman, whose leading weakness it was to suspect her husband’s fidelity when from home, kindled with rage at this remark. “Shifts, Mr. Graspacre,” exclaimed the angered lady, “what business have you to concern yourself about such matters? You ought, at least, to know nothing about such matters, but I dare say you know too much. There’s but one woman’s shifts in the world of which you ought to know anything, but no, you seem to know the cut of every girl’s shifts, and you couldn’t get that experience without other of a different kind.”
Anxious as a seaman to turn his bark from the direction of a dangerous rock, he mildly replied, “Surely, my dear, I may exercise my eyes, when the washed clothes are bleaching on the hedge,” and then adding in the same breath, “indeed, if I were you, my dear, I would make some improvements, such as your good taste will suggest, among our own maids; taking care however, not to destroy the stamp of nationality on their garbs at any rate.” This was a well-judged hit on his part, and had the effect of averting the impending storm.
It should have been mentioned before, that the squire, soon after his marriage, had made a tour of South Wales, and, as his lady expressed it, taken a whim in his head of engaging a maid servant in every county through which he passed; so that in Graspacre Hall there were to be found maiden representatives in their native costumes, of all the different shires in South Wales, except Radnor, in which, the squire said, the barbarous jargon of Herefordshire, and the English cottons, had supplanted the native tongue and dress of Wales. There might you see the neat maiden of Pembrokeshire in her dark cloth dress of one hue, either a dark brown approximating to black, or a claret colour, made by the skill of a tailor, and very closely resembling the ladies’ modern riding-habit,—a perfect picture of comfort and neatness, in alliance with good taste.
There would you see the extreme contrast, the Glamorganshire lass in stockings cut off at the ankle, and without shoes; and, although a handsome brunette with fine black eyes, dressed in a slammatkin check wrapper of cotton and wool, utterly shapeless, and tied about the middle like a wheat-sheaf, or a faggot of wood; possessing, however, the peculiar convenience that it could be put on in an instant, without the loss of time in dressing tastefully, and that it would fit every body alike, as it is neither a gown nor a bedgown, but between both, and without a waist.
There would you see the young woman of Breconshire, with her pretty blushing face, half hidden in a handkerchief which envelops her head that at first you would fancy the figure before you to be a grandmother at least. Her long linsey gown is pinned up behind, each extreme corner being joined together in the centre, and confined a few inches below her waist; she has her wooden-soled shoes for every day, and leathern ones for Sunday, or for a dance, which, with her stockings, she very economically takes off should a shower of rain overtake her on a journey; and when it ceases, washes her feet in the first brook she meets, and puts them on again. Some might term this a curious method of appreciating the protective excellence of the shoemaker’s art, but a Welsh girl, or rather, a Breconshire girl studies economy quite as much as comfort, and considers her shoes to be made as much for ornament as for use, and rather more.
This fair one takes especial care that her drapery shall be short enough to discover her pretty ankle, and her apron sufficiently scanty to disclose her gay red petticoat with black or white stripes, beneath, and at the sides. Then comes the stout Carmarthenshire lass, with her thick bedgown and petticoat of a flaring brick-dust red, knitting stockings as she walks, and singing a loud song as she cards or spins.
Lastly, though not least in importance, behold the clogged and cloaked short-statured woman of Cardiganshire. She scorns the sluttish garb and bare feet of the Glamorganshire maiden, and hates the abominable pride of the Pembrokeshire lass who is vain enough to wear leathern shoes instead of honest clogs; proving at the same time that her own vanity is of a more pardonable stamp. “Thank God too, that she is not vain like the others are. Yet in her thanks shows vanity,” while she boasts with truth, that her dress costs twice as much as either of the others. The Cardiganshire woman’s dresses, in fact—generally blue, with red stripes and bound at the bottom with red or blue worsted caddis, are entirely of wool, solidly woven and heavy, consequently more expensive than those made of linsey or minco, or of the common intermixture of wool and cotton, and presenting an appearance of weighty warmth, equally independent of a comely cut and tasty neatness.
It was one of the squire’s fancies never to call these girls by their proper names, but by that of their shires, as thus, “Come here little Pembroke, and buckle my shoe: and you Carmarthen, bring me a bason of broth; Cardigan, call Glamorgan and Brecon, and tell them they must drive a harrow a piece through the ploughed part of Rockfield.”