These are not the least of the causes that contribute to produce that timidity of disposition which, in an early part of the chapter, I have said to belong to many country people. My grandfather’s house was such a place. It stood in a solitary valley, with a great wood flanking the northern side. It had all sorts of legends and superstitions hanging about it. This field, and that lane, and one chamber or outbuilding or another, had a character that made them all hermetically sealed to a human foot after dark-hour, as it is there called. My grandmother was a bold woman in some respects, but these fears were perfectly triumphant over her; and she had, on one occasion, met with an incident which did not make her feel very comfortable alone in her house, in the day time. An Ajax of a woman once besieged her when left entirely by herself; who finding the doors secured against her, began smashing the windows with her fists, as with two sledge-hammers; and declared she would wash her hands in her heart’s blood. My grandfather too, had had a little adventure which just served to shew what courage he had, or rather had not. In that primitive time and place, if a tailor were wanted, he did not do his work at his own house, but came to that of his employer, and there worked, day after day, till the job was finished; that is, till all making and mending that could possibly be found about the house by a general examination of garments, was completed. He then adjourned to another house, and so went the round of the parish. I know not whether the tailors of those primitive times were as philosophical as Heinrich Johann Jung Stilling, and his fellows of Germany, who thus went from house to house, and both there with their employers, and on Sundays when they wandered into the woods, held the most interesting conversations on religion, philosophy, and literature: if this were the case, our country tailors have very much retrograded; and yet it would almost seem so, for my grandfather was passionately fond of Paradise Lost, and on a terribly snowy day had been reading it all day to the tailor, who had established himself by the parlour fire, with all his implements and work before him. He had been thus employed; but the tailor was gone, and the old gentleman having supped, dropped asleep on the sofa. When he awoke it was late in the night; no one had ventured to disturb him, but all had gone to bed. The house was still; the fire burning low; but he had scarcely become aware of his situation before he was aware also of the presence of some one. As he lay, he saw a man step out of the next room into the one in which he was. The man immediately caught sight of the old gentleman, and suddenly stopped, fixing his eyes upon him; and perhaps to ascertain whether he were asleep, he stepped back and drew himself up in the shadow of the clock-case. The old gentleman slowly raised himself up without a word, keeping his eyes fixed on the shadow of the clock-case, till he had gained his feet, when with a hop, stride, and jump, he cleared the floor, and flew up stairs at three steps at a time. Here he raised a fierce alarm, crying—“there is a sturdy rogue in the house! there is a sturdy rogue in the house!” But this alarm, instead of getting anybody up, only kept them faster in bed. Neither man, woman, nor child, would stir; neither son nor servant, except to bolt every one his own chamber door. In the morning they found the thief had taken himself off through a window, with the modest loan of a piece of bacon.
This house, however, was not quite out of hearing of neighbours. Beyond the wood was a village, thence called Wood-end; and a large horn was hung in the kitchen at the Fall,—so this house was named, which was blown on any occasion of alarm, and brought the inhabitants of the Wood-end thither speedily. The cowardice which had grown upon this family in such matters,—for in others they were bold as lions, and one son was actually killed in a duel,—was become so notorious, that it once brought a good joke upon them. The farm-servants were sitting, after their day’s labour, by the kitchen fire at the close of a winter’s day. Preparation was making for tea, and there were some of those rich tea-cakes which wealthy country ladies know so well how to make, in the act of buttering. Now I dare say that the sight of those delicious cakes set the mouths of all those hearty working men a-watering; but there was a cunning rogue of a lad amongst them, who immediately conceived the felicitous design of getting possession of them. It is only necessary to say that his name was Jack; for all Jacks have a spice of roguery in them. Jack was just cogitating on this enterprise, when his mistress said, “Jack, those sheep in the Hard-meadow have not been seen to-day. Your legs are younger than anybody else’s; so up and count them before you go to bed;—it is moonlight.” Jack, whose blood after the chill of the day was circulating most luxuriously in his veins before that warm hearth, felt inwardly chagrined that so many great lubberly fellows should be passed over, and this unwelcome business be put upon him. “Ay,” thought he, “they may talk of young legs, but mistress knows very well that none of those burly fellows dare go all the way to the Hard-meadow to-night,—through the dingle; over the brook; and past the hovel where old Chalkings was found dead last August, with his hand still holding fast his tramp-basket, though his clothes were rotten on his back! No! Jack must trudge, though the old gentleman himself were in the way!” This persuasion furnished him at once with a scheme of revenge, and of coming at the tea-cakes. He therefore rose slowly, and with well-feigned reluctance; put on his clouted shoes, which he had put off to indulge his feet with their accustomed portion of liberty and warmth before he went to bed; and folding round him a sack-bag, the common mantle and dread-naught of carters and farmers in wet or cold weather, he went out. Instead of marching off to the Hard-meadow, however, of which he had not the most remote intention, he went leisurely round to the front door, which he knew would be unfastened; for what inhabitants of an old country-house would think of fastening doors till bed-time? He entered quietly; ascended the front stairs; and reaching a large, old oaken chest which stood on the landing-place, all carved and adorned with minster-work, he struck three bold strokes on the lid with a pebble which he had picked up in the yard for the purpose.
At the sound, up started every soul in the kitchen. “What is that?” said every one at once in consternation. The mistress ordered the maid to run and see; but the maid declared that she would not go for the world. “Go you, then, Betty cook—go Joe—go Harry!” No, neither Betty, Joe, Harry, nor anybody else would stir a foot. They all stood together aghast, when a strange rumbling and grinding sound assailed their ears. It was Jack rubbing the pebble a few times over the carved lid of the chest. This was too much for endurance. A great fellow in a paroxysm of terror, snatched down the horn from its nail, and blew a tremendous blast. It was not long neither before its effect was seen. The people of Wood-end came running in a wild troop, armed with brooms, pitchforks, spits, scythes, and rusty swords. They were already assured by the dismal blast of the horn that something fearful had occurred, but the sight of the white faces of the family made them grow white too. “What is the matter! What is the matter in heaven’s name?” “O! such sounds, such rumblings, somewhere upstairs!” In the heat of the moment, if heat it could be called, it was resolved to move in a body to the mysterious spot. Swords, scythes, pitchforks fell into due rank; candles were held by trembling hands; and in a truly fearful phalanx they marched across the sitting-room and reached the stair-foot. Here was a sudden pause; for there seemed to be heavy footsteps actually descending. They listened—tramp! tramp! it was true; and back fled the whole armed and alarmed troop into the kitchen, and banged the door after them. What was now to be done? Every thing which fear could suggest or terror could enact was done. They were on the crisis of flying out of the house, and taking refuge at Wood-end, when Jack was heard cheerfully whistling as if returning from the field. Jack had made the tramp upon the stairs; for, hearing the sound of the horn, and the approach of many feet below, he thought it was time to be going; and had the armed troop been courageous enough, they would have taken him in the fact. But their fears saved both him and his joke. He came up with a well-affected astonishment at seeing such a body of wild and strangely armed folk. “What is the matter?” exclaimed Jack; and the matter was detailed by a dozen voices, and with a dozen embellishments. “Pshaw!” said Jack, “it is all nonsense, I know. It is a horse kicking in the stable; or a cat that has chucked a tile out of the gutter, or something. Give me a candle; I durst go!” A candle was readily put into his hands, and he marched off, all following him to the foot of the staircase, but not a soul daring to mount a single step after him. Up Jack went—“Why,” he shouted, “here’s nothing!” “O!” they cried from below, “look under the beds; look into the closets,” and look into every imaginable place. Jack went very obediently, and duly and successively returned a shout, that there was nothing; it was all nonsense! At this there was more fear and consternation than ever. A thief might have been tolerated; but these supernatural noises! Who was to sleep in such a house? There was nothing for it, however, but for them to adjourn and move to the kitchen, and talk it all over; and torture it into a thousand forms; and exaggerate it into something unprecedentedly awful and ominous. The Wood-endians were regaled with a good portion of brown-stout; thanked for their valuable services, and they set off. The family was left alone. “Mistress,” said Jack, “now you’d better get your tea; I am sure you must want it.” “Nay Jack,” said she, “I have had my tea: no tea for me to-night. I haven’t a heart like thee, Jack; take my share and welcome.”
Jack sate down with the servant maids, and talked of this strange affair, which he persisted in calling “all nonsense;” and devoured the cakes which he had determined to win. Many a time did he laugh in his sleeve as he heard this “great fright,” as it came to be called, talked over, and painted in many new colours by the fireside; but he kept his counsel strictly while he continued to live there; for he knew a terrible castigation would be the sure consequence of a disclosure; but after he quitted the place, he made a full and merry confession to his new comrades, and occasioned one long laughter to run all the country round. The people of the Fall, backed by the Wood-endians, persisted that the noises were something supernatural, and that this was an after-invention of Jack’s to disgrace them; but Jack and the public continued to have the laugh on their side.
After all, I know not whether the world of sprites and hobgoblins may not assume a greater latitude of action and revelation in these out-of-the-world places than in populous ones; whether the Lars and Lemures, the Fairies, Robin-goodfellows, Hobthrushes and Barguests, may not linger about the regions where there is a certain quietness, a simplicity of heart and faith, and ample old rooms, attics, galleries and grim halls to range over, seeing that they hate cities, and knowledge, and the conceit that attends upon them; for certainly, I myself have seen such sights and heard such sounds as would puzzle Dr. Brewster himself, with all his natural magic, to account for. In an old house in which my father lived when I was a boy, we had such a capering of the chairs, or what seemed such in the rooms over our heads; such aerial music in a certain chimney corner, as if Puck himself were playing on the bagpipes; such running of black cats up the bed-curtains and down again, and disappearing no one knew how; and such a variety of similar supernatural exhibitions, as was truly amusing. And a friend of mine, having suffered a joiner to lay a quantity of elm boards in a little room near a kitchen chimney to dry, was so annoyed by their tumbling and jumbling about, that when the man came the next day to fetch part of them, he desired him to take the whole, giving him the reason for it. “O!” said the man, “you need not be alarmed at that—that is always the way before a coffin is wanted!” As if the ghost of the deceased came and selected the boards for the coffin of its old world-mate the body.
But enough of the terrors of solitary houses without those of superstition. I close my chapter; and yet I expect, dear readers, that in every place where you peruse this, you will say, “O, these are nothing to what I could have told. If Mr. Howitt had but heard so and so.” Thank you, my kind and fair friends in a thousand places—I wish I had.
CHAPTER VI.
MIDSUMMER IN THE FIELDS.
I never see a clear stream running through the fields at this beautiful time of the year but I wish, like old Izaak Walton, to take rod and line and a pleasant book, and wander away into some sylvan, or romantic region, and give myself up wholly to the influence of the season; to angle, and read, and dream by the ever-lapsing water, in green and flowery meadows, for days and weeks, caring no more for all that is going on in this great and many-coloured world, than if there was no world at all beyond these happy meadows so full of sunshine and quietness. Truly that good old man had hit on one of the ways to true enjoyment of life. He knew that simple habits and desires were mighty ingredients in genuine happiness; that to enjoy ourselves, we must first cast the world and all its cares out of our hearts; we must actually renounce its pomps and vanities; and then how sweet becomes every summer bank; how bright every summer stream; what a delicious tranquillity falls upon our hearts; what a self-enjoyment reigns all through it; what a love of God kindles in it from all the fair things around. They may say what they will of the old prince of anglers, of his cruelty and inconsistency; from those charges I have vindicated him in another place,—we know that he was pious and humane. We know that, in the stillness of his haunts, and the leisure of his latter days, wise and kind thoughts flowed in upon his soul, and that the beauty and sweetness of nature which surrounded him, inspired him with feelings of joy and admiration, that streamed up towards the clear heavens above him in grateful thanksgiving. It is these things which have given to his volume an everlasting charm; and that affect me, at this particular time of the year, with a desire to haunt like places It may be the green banks of the beautiful streams of Derbyshire—the Wye, or the Dove; for now are they most lovely, running on amongst the verdant hills and bosky dales of the Peak, surrounded by summer’s richest charms. Their banks are overhung with deep grass, and many a fair flower droops over them; the foliage of the trees that shroud their many windings, is most delicate; and above them grey rocks lift their heads, or greenest hills swell away to the blue sky. And as evening falls over them what a softness clothes those verdant mountains! what a depth of shadow fills those hollows! what a voice of waters rises on the hushed landscape! But even here, in the vale of Trent, it is beautiful. There are a thousand charms gathered about one of these little streams that are hastening towards our fair river. They are charms that belong to this point of time, and that in a week or two will be gone. The spring is gone, with all her long anticipated pleasures. The snowdrop, the crocus, the blue-bell, the primrose, and the cowslip, where are they? They are all buried children of a delicate time, too soon hurried by.
But see! here are delights that will presently be as irrevocably gone. It is evening. What a calm and basking sunshine lies on the green landscape. Look round,—all is richness, and beauty, and glory. Those tall elms which surround the churchyard, letting the grey tower get but a passing glimpse of the river, and that other magnificent arcade of similar trees which stretch up the side of the same fair stream,—how they hang in the most verdant and luxuriant masses of foliage! What a soft, hazy twilight floats about them! What a slumberous calm rests on them! Slumberous did I say? no, it is not slumberous; it has nothing of sleep in its profound repose. It is the depth of a contemplative trance; as if every tree were a living, thinking spirit, lost in the vastness of some absorbing thought. It is the hush of a dream-land; the motionless majesty of an enchanted forest, bearing the spell of an infrangible silence. And see, over those wide meadows, what an affluence of vegetation! See how that herd of cattle, in colour and form, and grouping, worthy of the pencil of Cuyp or Ruysdael, graces the plenty of that field of most lustrous gold; and all round, the grass growing for the scythe almost overtops the hedges in its abundance. As we track the narrow footpath through them, we cannot avoid a lively admiration of the rich mosaic of colours that are woven all amongst them—the yellow rattle—the crimson stems and heads of the burnet, that plant of beautiful leaves—the golden trifolium—the light quake-grass—the azure milkwort, and clover scenting all the air. Hark! the cuckoo sends her voice from the distance, clear and continuous:—