Gaskell Catherine Henrietta Milnes
Spring in a Shropshire Abbey
In a ride below, I saw a magpie hopping about, its long green-black tail bobbing up and down on the grass. At this sight Thady gravely took off his cap and saluted him, saying aloud —
“One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
Four for a birth.”
And then cried out in a tone of excitement, “Look out, yer leddyship, begorra, look out for another; for it is mirth to-day and no sorrow whatever that we must have.”
Then we plunged into the heart of the wood. Fred and Jill alone kept to the path. How lush it was, that soft moist turf in April, all teeming with moisture and freshness – not even the driest summer sun can parch or dry the soil of the Edge Wood. Here and there I saw little plantations of self-sown ash amidst beds of downy moss, and everywhere hundreds and thousands of little infinitesimal plants, struggling for existence. As I walked along I noted open glades, which later would be rosy with pink campion, or purple with the stately splendour of the foxglove. Now and then a bird flew away, and I saw at intervals the white scut of a frightened rabbit.
BIRD-NESTING WE GO
Suddenly Thady stopped before a yew tree. Hals and Bess followed, panting and crying out eagerly, “Where, where?” for Thady had discarded his jacket, and in a twinkling had thrown his arms round the tree. In a second he was aloft. “A lintie’s nest,” he whispered, and then peered in. A minute later he called out, “Two eggs.”
“Will you bring one down?” we said in chorus. For all answer, Thady nodded, slipped an egg into his mouth, and then proceeded to descend. We looked at the little egg that Thady held out on the palm of his hand. It was of a pale bluish white, speckled and streaked with lines of purplish brown.
After we had all peered over it, the egg was put back solemnly by Thady.
A little further on, and Thady again halted. “Here it be, yer leddyship,” he cried, in a high treble; and there, sure enough, looking upward, we discerned a nest of twigs and roots. It was quite low down, and I was able easily to lift up the children to get a peep themselves. The little nest was lined with hair and wool stolen from the neighbouring fields, but as yet there were no eggs. “A nope’s (bullfinch’s) sure enough,” said Thady, dogmatically. Then on we wandered until we paused below a fir tree. Below the bole of the tree there was no herbage, for the fir leaves had fallen like needles and had pierced and stabbed the grass to death – so it was quite bare now, not a leaf, or even a patch of moss; as bare, in fact, as a village playground.
Suddenly we heard overhead a loud, ringing clap of wings, and as we looked up, we saw an ill-made nest of sticks, and two eggs, which last we could see glistening inside, like two button mushrooms. For a minute I had a vision of a big departing bird of a soft lavender grey, and as I looked, Thady called out, “Quice,” which is the Shropshire name for the wood-pigeon. Thady was anxious to mount the tree and bring me down an egg for closer inspection; but I begged him not to do so, for the Cushat-Doos, as he tells me he has heard them called in the North Country, are very shy birds in a wild state, and I have been told will never return to a nest where the hand of man has trifled with eggs or nest.
I lingered, looking up at the shining round pink eggs with the light glimmering through the twigs; and then I mounted up the hill, which was very hard work, for both children were a little weary and hot, and I went up the incline, pulling both up as best I could. Mouse kept close to my heels. She had had dark suspicions ever since we entered the wood, and was convinced of the existence, I felt sure, of robbers, footpads, wolves, and also of innumerable vague dangers, and alarms.
We passed a blackbird’s nest, but Thady waved his hand in lofty disdain, and refused to pull back the bough so that we might look at the eggs. “’Tisn’t for dirt like that that I’ll trouble yer leddyship and the young squire to spier round,” he exclaimed. “The black ouzel is just a conny among feathered folk, or what blackberries be ’mongst the fruit.”
Thady seemed to know every inch of the ground. “It isn’t in woods or field that I forget myself,” he remarked to me, when I commended him for his knowledge of the Edge. “Devil a bit,” he said, “if I have ever lost my way along, or missed a mark or forgotten the bend of a stick; but,” he added, in a tone of contrition, “’tis in the book larning and figures that Thady Malone cannot always discern rightly.”
At last, after much puffing and panting, we reached the top of the hill.
THE SCOBBY’S NEST
“Like enough we’ll find a scobby’s nest in the hedge,” said Thady. Then he went on to say, “They be wonderful builders be scobbys; ‘tight and nanty,’ as folks say here.” And sure enough, a little further on, fixed in a branch of blackthorn, we saw a little nest of exquisite beauty. Outside it appeared to be built almost entirely of lichen, pulled off the bark of trees; whilst inside it was lined with hair and feathers, woven together with marvellous dexterity. There were three eggs, all of a reddish pale grey, blotched here and there with vinous patches.
As we stood watching the nest, the handsome little cock chaffinch eyed us anxiously. With a quick movement he turned round, and we caught the flash of his white wings. “A bobsome, joyous little gent,” said Thady; “a scobby, I have heard folks say, is the last bird to give over singing in summer.”
Then we sat down to luncheon. “We must eat,” Bess cried with conviction; “seeing so many nests has made me feel eggy with hunger.” All round us the birds filled the thicket with the joy of their carols. “The place fair swarms with them,” observed Thady, “but come a week or two, we shall have all the foreigners over.” By which he, doubtless, meant the arrival of all the delicious warblers that come from the South in spring, not to mention many of the cock chaffinches, most of the pipits, the yellow water-wagtails, the gorgeous redstarts, and the beautiful turtle, or Wrekin doves.
Listening to the different notes, we sat down and got our luncheon, which Bess and Hal, who had acquired the appetite of hunters, declared was fit for any king, and believed that even Nan, if she had been there, wouldn’t grumble.
“When I’m at home,” said Bess, after a pause, “I eat mutton, but here I call it the flesh of sheep,” and as she spoke she put upon Hal’s knees another slice. Hal looked at her and retorted gravely, “Mutton isn’t good, but the flesh of sheep is fit for a general.”
Thady, overhearing these remarks, exclaimed, “Begorra, it is a poor place where Thady Malone cannot eat to your leddyship’s health.” And added, “Deed, I’m like Mrs. Langdale’s chickens, I could peck a bit wherever it was.” So saying, he fell heartily to work on some huge beef sandwiches which had been prepared for him and Fred, by Auguste. A few minutes later, the girths of the saddle were loosened and Jill was allowed to graze at her own free will, nipping and cropping the tender grass with avidity.
“Mamsie,” said Bess, after the last scrap of chocolate had been eaten, and the last Blenheim orange apple munched, “have you no fairy-story to tell us, for you know, this is a real place for fairy-tales.” Then the children crept under my cloak, and I rambled on aloud about princes and princesses, giants and dragons, enchanted castles, good and evil fairies, and knights and ladies.
Thady approached our group and listened also. “’Tis better nor a theatre,” he was kind enough to say, as I came to an end at last, with the happy marriage of the prince and princess, and a description of the royal festivities on that occasion. “Begorra,” he exclaimed, “I’d like to be a man, and fight dragons and giants. Fightin’ is the life for me.”
Then we got up, packed the basket, and prepared to return homeward across the fields. Jill was caught, but could with difficulty be girthed, so enlarged had she become by several hours of happy browsing; but after a struggle the saddle and basket are put on, and we turned our heads homewards. Hals had been silent for the last few moments.
“Well,” I said, “what is it?”
“I too should like to fight,” he answered, “but it must be on a horse and in armour.”
THE GLORY OF AULD OIRELAND
“’Tis all one, sir,” replied Thady, cheerily, “so long as yer get a stomach full of blows and can give good knocks back. Fighting,” he explained, “is what makes the difference between boys and girls, and it is the glory of auld Oireland.”
We talked away and walked homeward. There was a nest of a cutty wren in a juniper bush, which Thady knew of, and a tomtit’s in a hollow tree, beautifully made of a mass of feathers, and in it were many tiny eggs, almost too small to touch without breaking, and Fred lifted both children up to see. A little further on, Thady pointed away to a distant orchard that encircled two lonely cottages nestling against the opposite hill. “There,” he said, “be the nest of a Harry red-cap.” But our energy had died away for bird-nesting. “It shall be for another day,” said Bess. And then added dreamily, “I didn’t think I ever could have seen bird-nests enough, but I think some other play now would be nice.”
So we walked on, Hals leading the way, and Thady bringing up the rear and whistling, as he went along, the Shan Van Vocht. Thus we returned home, Bess and Hals riding on Jill in turns. The cry of the cuckoo pursued us like a voice out of dreamland, while the scents of the sweet spring day were wafted to us on a hundred eddying breezes.
In the evening I found a note from Constance at the Abbey. She sent me a full list of the flowers she proposed working on the quilts, and added, “What do you think of these words about sleep? —
“‘Sweet sleep fell upon his eyelids.’ —The Odyssey
“‘Sleep and death.’ —The Iliad
“‘Death and his brother sleep.’ – Shelley
“‘Sleep thy fill, and take thy soft repose.’ – Quarles
“‘Sleep in peace and wake in joy.’ – Scott, Lord of the Isles
“‘Never sleep the sun up.
Rise to prevent the sun.’ – Vaughan.”
When I had written to Constance, I thought of bed in a happy sleepy state of mind. As I brushed out my hair, I went over our pleasant long day in the woods, away from men, and noise, and even home. A day spent amidst birds and beasts, looking at nests, resting on mossy banks, and seeing only the sweet, sprouting things of field and lane, is a delightful thing.
Is there anything better than a day out in the heart of the country? As I slipped into bed, Bess’s last words came back to me as she went off to her cot. “Is it really very wicked, mamsie, to take nests and eggs? – for Fred says he has done it scores and scores of times, and he doesn’t see no use in such things if they can’t make sport for young ladies and gentlemen.”
“Some day you will understand,” I had replied. “One cannot know some things when one is very young.” And I have often noticed with children, that, up to a certain age, the uneducated view of everything is the sympathetic and natural one; later, to a few, the light does come.
CHAPTER V
MAY
“Come lasses and lads, take leave of your dads,
And away to the May-pole hie;
For every he has got him a she,
And a minstrel standing by.
For Willy has gotten his Jill,
And Johnny has got his Joan
To jig, to jig it, jig it up and down.”
Old May Song.
All the morning Bess had been beside herself, jumping up and down, and running round in gusts of wild excitement. At noon the fête was really to take place, and at that hour Constance and her band were to come down by a back way through the town. The piano had already been moved on the bowling green, between the yew hedges. In the distance I had watched Burbidge superintending, and I am sure grumbling freely by the ominous shakes of his head. Our old servant had been in a great state of alarm about his lawns since the dawn, and the passing of the piano under the great yew arch had been to him a matter of grave anxiety “They be centuries in growing, be yews,” he said to me, “and the commonest piano as is made, can break ’em.”
However, in spite of his hostile tone, Burbidge and “his boys” went out quite early and brought back an abundance of fiery marsh marigolds from the marshes, great sprays of budding beech, and a few branches of opening hawthorn; besides which they gathered bunches of primroses, the last of the season that were still in flower in damp woodlands and against northern banks, and also purple heads of meadow orchises. “She’ll be fine,” Burbidge told Nan, “but it be a sad waste of time pulling wild things that come up all by themselves, when we might have been puttin’ taters in or wheelin’ on manure.” At this old Nan had waxed wroth and had exclaimed, “There’s none too old to idle sometimes, Burbidge.” “Ay,” had replied our old gardener in a surly tone, “but let me idle in my own way.”
However, for all his apparent hostility, I had an idea at the back of my head, that Burbidge would be concerned if the little fête did not go off well; and I believed, in spite of his angry tones, that he and his boys would deck the May-stang and order all rightly for me.
I was not deceived, for as I looked out of the drawing-room windows, I saw a little later the gardeners all at work, putting up the May-pole. In a little while it was finely decked with gay flowers, and Célestine and Nana, for once united in a common cause, brought out many yards of coloured ribbon, which they tied in knots of pink, red, white, blue, and yellow amongst the flowers. These floated like a hundred little flags in the breeze, and seemed to fill the air with gaiety.
DECKED FOR THE FÊTE
When this operation was at last completed, the dressing of Bess began in earnest, and my little maid for once sat quite still, and allowed mademoiselle to brush and fluff her hair till it stood out like the mane of a Shetland pony. This done, Nana put her on a little white bodice and paniers, and sewed on bunches of primroses and white violets, and then crowned her with a crown of golden marsh marigolds that the deft fingers of Célestine had twisted together. “Thee’ll be crowned, dear,” said the old nurse softly, “with the lucky flower.” Then all the maids from upstairs and downstairs crowded to the nursery, and Bess received me graciously, looking like a little fairy. In her hand she held her sceptre as May Queen, round which was wound a sprig of ivy, and one little bunch of violets.
All the time my little girl had been dressing, her lips had never ceased to move. I asked her what was the matter? “My verses, my verses,” was her reply. When all was completed, and the bunches re-sewn in places so that none could fall, Nana looked out of a passage window. “They be all a-comin’ to see my lamb,” she cried. And sure enough there were old men in smocks, old beldames in quaint old black sun-bonnets, and all the children from the National School. On they streamed together. Then Constance and her dancers appeared, some of them running to escape observation, and all attired in waterproofs, so that nobody might see the splendour of their festive apparel. The garlands on their heads even were covered with Shetland shawls. They had slipped down by the churchyard and so into the ground, to try and gain unseen the back of the great yew hedge and walnut tree.
“We are all ready,” cried Constance, as we made our way out and gained her group. I looked at her band of children. “Some will be dancers,” she said, “in yellow and green, some in blue, and the rest in cherry or scarlet. Behind her little lasses stood eight little lads in smocks, with soft felt hats, looped up with ribbons, and each gay bachelor had a posy knot, like the bouquets coachmen used to wear at a drawing-room in Queen Victoria’s time.
“They will dance,” whispered Constance to me in an aside, and pointed to her little swains, “another year, and then the little girls will not have all the fun to themselves.”
Then there was a hush, and the Shetland shawls and the cloaks were all taken off in a jiffey, and at a signal given, Dinah started playing on the piano. The old tune across the lawn sounded like a far-off tinkle. Dinah made a pretty picture. She was dressed like a village maiden of the eighteenth century. On her head she had a mobcap, across her shoulders was folded a fichu of lawn, and on her hands were a pair of old black silk mittens that belonged long years ago to Constance’s grandmother.
All the people stood aside as the players and dancers made their way to the centre of the lawn.
Then the singers stood by the piano and started in unison an old May song. The sun shone forth brightly, and a throstle joined in from a damson tree at the top of his voice.
There was a general sense of joy. The young voices sounded sweet and clear, and all the meadows and distant hills seemed bathed in a blue mist.
At last the singing died away. Then Bess, with bright eyes, but somewhat nervous steps, advanced and repeated her verses. She spoke as clearly as she could. Nana looked at her, as if she could eat her up with pride, and afterwards declared that Bess had spoken like an archbishop; and even old Sally Simons, who is believed to be deafer than any post on the estate, affirmed that she could hear “’most every word.”
Across the budding sward Milton’s beautiful verses in praise of May seemed to ring in my ears. In the far meadows, the rooks were cawing amongst the poplars, and over the Abbey pool a few swallows were skimming and catching flies —
“HAIL! BOUNTEOUS MAY”
“Hail! bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth and warm desire.”
The world seemed young again – old age a myth, and nature exceedingly fair. At last Bess’s lines were ended, and my little maid made her curtesy and tripped back to me. Then the dancers stepped forward and the music broke out afresh into a merry jingle. They stood round the May-pole, advanced solemnly and made profound reverences. A few seconds later, the tinkling of the piano grew quicker and quicker, for the eight little maidens had all caught hold of each other’s hands, and round and round they went as fast as youth and gaiety could take them. The people clapped, and the old folks broke forth into shrill laughter. Old Timothy beat the gravel with his stick, till Burbidge glared at him and muttered something disagreeable about “folks not being able to behave themselves;” whereupon my old guest hung his head and began to cough asthmatically.
The dance pleased all so well, that Constance and her little corps dramatique were obliged to go through the whole of it again. “It be better nor a ballet” said old Timothy. “I seed one once years agone at Shrewsbury Theatre, after the Crimean war; but this here be dancing on the green – and not dancing for money, but for pure joy.” So away the little dancers footed it again. Even the little lads, who hitherto had remained stolid and apparently indifferent, caught something of the enthusiasm of the spectators, for at intervals they bowed with eagerness, and pointed and laughed at the little maidens, and ejaculated aloud, as they had been taught by Constance to do at the rehearsals, “Good, good, well done, Mistress Betty; excellently, madam,” and so on, till, as a fond mother said, “Anybody might think as they had been born play-actors, for they took to mumming same as widdies (young ducks) do to water.”
When all was over, and even the tinkling piano was heard no more, Fremantle and footmen bearing trays of cake, beer, and milk appeared on the scene. As to the children, we made them stand in long lines on the paths, and gave them slices of cake and buns, and drinks of milk in the blue and white mugs of the country; but before they fell to, they repeated in chorus the old grace which Constance had found in praise of May merry-making. At last, not even the youngest little boy could eat any more, and gradually all my guests bowed and curtsied, and left the lawn, but old Timothy who was seized with a violent fit of coughing, leant feebly on his stick, and looked at me piteously out of his rheumy eyes.
“’Tis the rheumatics as has got hold of me,” he said, between two fits of coughing. “They be terrible companions, be rheumatics, worse than snakes nor wasps, and allus with ’un summer and winter. Rheumatics,” he added wheezily, “be like burrs, they hangs on to yer all seasons.”
“Come in for a bit,” I said, “and rest by the fire.” Young blood is warm, but the sun hasn’t much warmth yet. So I led old Timothy into the housekeeper’s room, whilst kind Auguste made him on the gas stove a “bon bouillon” and prepared for him a glass of spiced beer.
“I can’t say, marm, why I took on like that,” said old Timothy, humbly. “It cumed like all of a sudden, and I shook like a leaf, and a kind of a swim-swammy sense mastered me, and dwang-swang, I think I should have found myself on the turf, if you hadn’t taken me in and comforted me.”
As the old man spoke, I saw that some colour was coming back into his old cheeks. He felt cheered by his drop of broth, and when he had sipped of the warm ale his tongue began to wag.
“To-day,” he said, “put me to mind of the old days when the world ran merrily at Wenlock, and for the matter of that, all through the countryside. They had holidays, they had, afore they had invented trains, trams, and motors. There war the Wakes proper, and the Wisheng Wells – all sports and jollity after good work.”
“ONCE I GRINNED THROUGH A HORSE-COLLAR”
Then old Timothy proceeded to tell me how, in the old times, “they used to clap up booths and have shows, and dances. My grandam used to tell how they had in her time Morris dancers and play-acting, and I remember,” he continued, “a rare bit of fun. ’Twas to grin through a horse-collar at Church Stretton. When I war a lad,” said old Timothy, “’twas accounted a fine thing to be able to make the horriblest face in the town – next best to being the sweetest scraper on a fiddle or a fine singer in a catch. I was never much of a musician,” pursued my old guest, regretfully, “but for downright, hugeous horror put into a human face, I war bad to beat.”
Then, after a pause, he went on to say, “I mind me there war St. Milburgha’s Wake at Stoke. There used to be pretty sports there. The lads used to come in smocks and dance. They used to foot it sharp to old country dances, cheery with lot of jumping, skipping, and bobbing. Men used to say ’twas in honour of St. Milburgha. I don’t hold to saints, as a rule,” explained Timothy; “they be mostly old bones, nails, and useless rubbish; but I draws a difference between Shropshire and the rest, and I believes in Shropshire saints proper, same as in my own parish church and in grandam’s grave.”
After a few minutes, the old man went on to tell me about the Well Wakes. “Folks used to flock to ’em,” he said. “They used to meet and have a jolly time. There war the Beach Wake, near against Chirbury. There they went in great numbers, and the best class of farmers and their wives. There war a Whirl-stone then, but on Wake Sunday it turned all by itself, Old Jackson as sold the best ale allus used to say.
“Then when us could, us went to the Raven’s Bowl and to the Cuckoo’s Cup on the Wrekin at the proper times. God Almighty, we war taught to believe, kept they full of water for his birds, and ’twar there that we Shropshire lads, seventy years agone and more, used to go and wish, when we had a mind to wed a wench – seventy years agone,” the old man lingered over the words, repeating them softly. “One summer mornin’ I got up,” he continued, “when the dew was lying like jewels on the turf and wet the grass it war so that yer could wring it out with a cloth. I war up betimes, and I walked, and walked till I got to the spot. There warn’t many places in Shropshire as I didn’t know then,” Timothy exclaimed with pride; and added with enthusiasm, “yer gets to know the betwixts and betweens of everything, sure enough, when yer be earth-stopper to the hunt. Dad warn’t by trade, but Uncle Mapp war – Peregine Mapp, as us used to call un – as lived behind Muckley Cross and war the best ount-catcher as ever I knowed, rat-catcher, and stoat-trapper, and death to varmint generally. Well, he took me on from rook scarin’ for Farmer Burnell; I lived with he till I war twelve. They talks now of eddication, but ’tis the eddication of wood and hill as be the right ’un to make a man of yer.”
THE EDUCATION OF WOOD AND HILL
“Yes, Timothy,” I said; and to bring him back to his first subject, I added, “but you were telling me about your walk to the Wrekin, and how you drank from the Raven’s and Cuckoo’s bowls there.”
“Ay, ay, sure I was,” replied the old man, and a gleam of light shot into his lustreless eyes. So saying he rubbed his hands softly before the blazing logs and went on —
“Well, it war the longest day of the year. That night in June, I’ve heard say, when they used to light fires on the hill tops, and when the men used to sing, and some of ’em used to leap through the fires and call it Johnnie’s Watch; but the squires, when they took to planting on the hillsides, forbid that sport, and there war somethin’ to be said on that score, for I believe myself it frightened foxes.
“Well, sure enough I walked, as I said, to the Wrekin over the Severn by Buildwas Bridge, and up beyond near Little Wenlock and through Wenlock Wood. I war desperate sweet on Susie Langford – I hadn’t hardly opened my mouth to her, but the sight of her remained with me, night and day, same as the form of a good horse does to a young man who can’t afford to buy him – and I stood on the heights of the great hill, and I drank out of the bowls and wished and wished, and made sure as I should get my heart’s desire, for grandam had allus said, ‘Him as goes to the Wrekin on midsummer morning, gains his wish as sure as a throstle catches a worm on May morning.’ Them, her used to say, ‘as goes to the Wrekin on the May Wakes, gets nought but a jug of ale and a cake.’ Well, I think I got nought but water, and never a cake that mornin’, for little the wish or the bowls did for me.”
“Did you mind very much?” I asked, watching the shadow that swept over his face.
“Did I mind?” replied old Timothy, vehemently. “Some three months arter, when they told me that Susie war agoin to marry the miller in the Dingle, I laid me down on the cold ground in the old Abbey Church, and thought I should have died of the pure howgy misery of the whole job. Grandam she gave me all she could to comfort me. I got thin as a lath – she gave me can-doughs and flap-jacks and begged apples to slip into dumplins, off the neighbours; and her brewed me a drop of beer from the water from the church roof. But it warn’t nothing to me, yer can’t comfort a man by his stomach, when he be in love.
“Anton Ames war a hugeous fellow and one of the best with fist or gloves, or I’d have killed ’un,” broke out old Timothy, “for he seemed to poison the whole countryside for me.”
“But you got over her loss at last,” I ventured to say, “though you have never married.”
“One do,” replied the old man grimly. “There be a time for everything – for women, for posy knots, dancing, and all the kickshaws. They be all toys, mere toys. ’Tis only sport and beer as lasts.” As he spoke the old man looked gloomily into the fire and warmed his wrinkled hands afresh.
“And Susie?” I could not refrain from asking; “what happened to her?”
“Her married and reared a pack of childer,” answered Timothy, “and when Anton fell off his cart one dark night from Shrewsbury Market, they said her cried, but cried fit to wash away her eyes. But her got comforted in time – they mostly do, does women; and then, after a bit, her took a chapman. They often do, for number two I’ve noticed,” continued Timothy, meditatively; “for chapmans have ready tongues, and be oily and cheeky in one. And Sue her had a bit of siller, and they married sharp off, at Munslow Church, I heard, and Sue her used to go hawking with Gipsy Trevors, as they called ’im, and they used to pass through Bridgenorth, Stretton, and up by Ludlow, same as if her had never been born respectable or had rubbed bright an oak dresser, or swept a parlour carpet.”
“What did you do at the Wakes, and how long did they last?” I asked as old Timothy relapsed into silence.
OLD SHROPSHIRE PLEASURES
“Oh, they was most part a week,” answered the old man. “There war too much fun then in folks, to let the fun die out so quick as it does now. Now, if a squire has a cricket-match, ’tis all over in no time. Piff-paff like a train through a tunnel. There’s nought now but a smack, and a taste of jollity, and it dies with daylight. When I was a boy, it was altogether different. Us could work, and us could play, and us liked to take our fill, same as young bullocks on spring grass. Us used to dance and sing, run races, and jump for neckties and hat-bands, and play kiss-in-the-ring, and manage,” said old Timothy, with a twinkle in his eye, “to stand by a pretty lass then, and to wrestle and box besides. They war merry times.” And here his voice sank almost to a whisper, “And then there was cock-fightin’.”
“Cock-fightin’?” I enquired. “Have you ever seen much of that?”
“Lord love yer!” retorted Master Theobalds, with kindly contempt. “Of course I have, and a prettier, more gentlemanly sport I b’aint acquainted with. I mind me of the good old time, when every squire had his own main of cocks, and many war the farmers as had a good clutch, and great war the pride of the missus in rearin’ a good ’un round the Clee, and over at Bridgenorth. Folks used to say at Ludlow, as there were some as thought more of their cocks, than of their own souls. Why, marm, when I war a little un, we should have thought a town a poor benighted one-horse place as hadn’t got its cock-pit. There used,” continued old Timothy, “to be a fine place beyond what is now the vicarage, where they used to fight ’em regularly on Easter Monday, and at the May Fair at Much Wenlock. Every serving-man as had a touch of sport in his blood used to get leave to go ‘cocking,’ as they called it then, and a right merry sport it war, sittin’ fine days on the spring grass, and seeing two game uns go tooth and nail for each other.”