A scene, described to me by a professional land-agent, would seem to belong to the generation of Parson Adams and Squire Western, but it actually occurred but the other day, and only seven miles from one of our largest county towns. This land-agent was sent for on business by an old gentleman of large landed estate in that county. As the gentleman’s house was in a secluded situation, off the highways, and it was a fine, cool, autumnal day, he took a footpath which led the whole way across delightful fields, and after enjoying his walk through meadows and woods, arrived at the Hall with a most vigorous appetite, just as the squire and his housekeeper were sitting down to dinner. Of course, nothing less could take place than an invitation for him to join them; which he was not in the disposition by any means to decline. I need scarcely say that the fact of the squire and his housekeeper sitting at the same table indicates the ancient gentleman as one of the real old school. He was, in fact, a tall, gaunt, meagre old fellow, whose sole pleasure was putting out his rents on good security, and whose sole family consisted of his housekeeper and one old amphibious animal, who, if he had as many heads as occupations, would have carried at least four more than Janus—occupying his talents, as he did, as gardener, groom, serving-man, and three or four other personages. The whole house and every thing about it bore amplest marks of neglect and antiquity. Not a gate, or a door, or a window, or a carpet, or any other piece of furniture, but was just as his father left it fifty years before, except for the work which time, and such tying and patching as were absolutely needful to keep certain things together, had done. Our agent looked with some curiosity at the two covers on the table before them, which being removed revealed a single partridge and three potatoes. The housekeeper having cut the partridge into quarters, gave each of the gentlemen one, and took the third herself. Our worthy land-agent supposing this to be but a slight first course, was astounded to hear the squire say, he hoped Mr. Mapleton would make a dinner—for he saw what there was! On this significant hint Mr. Mapleton made haste to dispatch his quarter of bird, and cast eager looks on the remaining quarter in the dish. The housekeeper, indeed, was just proceeding to extend the knife and fork towards it, saying, perhaps Mr. Mapleton would take the other quarter, when the old gentleman said very smartly; “Don’t urge Mr. Mapleton unpleasantly—don’t overdo him—I dare say he knows when he has had enough, without so much teasing. I have made an excellent dinner indeed!”
Hereupon the housekeeper’s arms and weapons were drawn back abruptly; the old gentleman rang the bell, and the shuffling old serving-man entered and cleared all away. As the cloth and the housekeeper disappeared, the squire also opened a tall cupboard on one side of the fireplace, and Mr. Mapleton began to please his fancy with a forthcoming apparition of wine. Having sate, however, some time, and hearing from behind the tall door, which was drawn partly after the old squire so as to conceal him, certain sounds as of decanting liquor, and as of a knife coming in contact with a plate, sounds particularly familiar and exciting to hungry ears, he contrived to lean back so far in his chair as to catch a view of the tall figure of the squire standing with a large plum-cake upon the shelf before him, into which he had made a capacious incision; and a glass of wine, moreover, at a little distance. This discovery naturally making our land-agent extremely restless, he began to indicate his presence by sundry hems, shuffles, coughs, and drummings on his chair, which immediately produced this consequence. The old squire’s head protruded from behind the cupboard door with an inquiring look; and finding the eyes of Mr. Mapleton as inquiringly fixed on him, he said—“Mr. Mapleton, will you take a glass of wine?” “Certainly, sir, with the greatest pleasure.” The wine was carefully poured out, making various cluckings or sobbings in the throat of the bottle, as very loath to leave it, and was set on the table before Mr. Mapleton. No invitation, however, to a participation of the cake came; and after sitting perhaps a quarter of an hour longer, listening to the same inviting sounds of scraping plate and decantation, he was compelled again to shuffle, hem, and drum. This had a similar happy effect to the former attempt; out popped the squire’s head, with a—“Would you take another glass, Mr. Mapleton?” “Certainly, sir, with the greatest pleasure, I feel thirsty with my walk.” The bottle was produced and the glass filled, but to put an end to any further intimations of thirst, the door was instantly closed, the key dropped into the squire’s capacious pocket, and the old gentleman forthwith entered upon business, which, in fact, concerned thousands of pounds.
Before closing this gallery of country oddities, I must say that, in some instances, much goodness of heart is mixed up with this wild growth of queerness. There are very many who will know of whom I am speaking, when I say that there was in the last generation a gentleman in one of the midland counties, who was affected with this singular species of monomania: at every execution at the county-town he purchased the rope or ropes of Jack Ketch. These ropes, duly labelled with the name of the culprit, the date of his execution, and the crime for which he suffered, were hung round a particular room. On one occasion, arriving at the town, and being told that the criminal was reprieved, he exclaimed—“Gracious Heavens, then I have lost my rope!” The son of this gentleman still displays a good deal of hereditary eccentricity, but has destroyed these ropes. Nevertheless, I am told, that the carving-knife used in his kitchen is the very sword with which Lord Byron killed Chaworth. He still lives in the same house, and, old bachelor as he is, maintains the old English style and hospitality in a degree not often to be witnessed now. His personal appearance is unique. He is tall, with a ruddy countenance, with white whiskers, white waistcoat, white breeches, and white lining to his coat. He always appears most scrupulously and delicately clean. His estate is large; and whoever goes to his house on business, finds bread and cheese and ale set before him. His housekeeper is said to receive no regular wages, but every now and then a fifty-pound note is put into her hands, so that she has grown tolerably rich. It is a standing order in the house, that every poor person, come whence he may, who has lost a cow, and is seeking to get another, shall receive a sovereign. I have heard a gentleman say, who knows him well, that his benevolence, particularly to young tradesmen, is most extraordinary: and that being himself once supposed to be on his death-bed, this worthy man came, sate down by him, cried like a child, and told him if he had not provided for his children just as he wished, that he had only to tell him what he would have done, and then and there it should be done. No relationship whatever existed; and this noble offer was not accepted. The same gentleman told me that it is the regular habit of this worthy example of Old English simplicity and goodness of heart, every evening, before he retires to rest, to sit quietly for a certain time in his easy chair, endeavouring to discover whether he has done any thing wrong during the day, or has possibly hurt any one’s feelings; and if he fancies he has, he hastens the next morning to set all right. It is delightful to have to record proofs of the yet existing spirit of ancient hospitality and simple worth of character.[7]
[7] Since the first edition was published, this worthy but eccentric gentleman is dead.
In conclusion,—let me observe that some of the foregoing cases are shocking ones; but they are only too true; and such are but the events of every day in those sleepy hollows, where public opinion has no weight, and where ignorance and avarice are handed down from age to age. I have seen hundreds of such things in such places. And what mode of regeneration shall reach this class of people, who have the rust of whole ages in their souls? You cannot offer to them education, as you do to the poor. You cannot reason with them, as with the poor. They have too much pride. It can only be by educating all around them, that you can reach them. When they feel the effect of the education of the poor, their pride will compel them to educate their children. This will be one of the many good results that will flow from the education of the poor in the back settlements of England. Let us, then, direct the stream of knowledge into the remotest of these obscure places. If the penny periodicals were, by some means, made to circulate there, as they circulate in towns—the Penny Magazine, and Saturday Magazine, with their host of wood-cuts and useful facts; and Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, with its more refined and poetical spirit,—they would work a great change. Prints and cuts from good originals would awaken a better taste; higher ideas of the beauty of created forms: for I say with Rogers,
Be mine to bless the more mechanic skill
That stamps, renews, and multiplies at will;
And cheaply circulates through distant climes,
The fairest relics of the purest times.
We blame our populace for not possessing the same refined taste as the French and Italians; for being brutal and destructive; that parks, public walks, and public buildings, cannot be thrown open to them without receiving injury. We ought not to blame them for this; for is not this the English spirit that has been praised in Parliament? for the encouragement of which, bull-baitings, dog-fightings, cock-fightings, and boxings have been pleaded for by senators, as its proper aliment? and the Romans, with their gladiatorial shows, quoted as good precedents? Forgetting that while the Romans were a growing and conquering people, they were a simple and domestic people. When they had their amphitheatres and their bloody shows of battling-men and beasts, they fell under imperial despotism, and thence into national destruction. If we will have a better spirit, we must take better means to produce it. We can never make our rural population too well informed. Ireland, with all manner of horrible outrages, England with its rick-burnings, and Scotland with its orderly peasantry, all point towards the evils of ignorance and oppression, and the national advantage and individual happiness that are to be reaped from the spread of sound knowledge through our rural districts.
