Читать книгу Farmer's Glory - A. G. Street - Страница 8

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Harvest finished usually early in September, and the final event in the farm year was the large sheep fair in the middle of that month. The only work done on Fair day, apart from essentials such as milking, was the driving of the three hundred odd sale lambs to the fair. Half the lambs would be ewe or chilver lambs, and the best one hundred and fifty of these would be kept at home to replenish the flock. The male or wether lambs would be sorted into a best hundred and two fifties. The remaining ewe lambs would provide another lot of fifty, and the odd ones of each sex would be put together and sold as so many mixed lambs.

As the farm was only a bare two miles from the fair ground, the sale sheep were driven to the fair in separate small flocks, as they were to be sold. Truly, a lordly procession, which left the fold at 4 a.m., led by the head shepherd and the best hundred lambs.

I have seen seventy thousand sheep penned and sold in that fair in one day, in addition to many cattle and horses. To the uninitiated the fair field must have appeared as a confused muddle of rustics, sheep, and dogs, with a cacophony of baas and barks as a never-ending accompaniment.

I think that the auctioneers who sold the sheep enjoyed the day’s work thoroughly. I can see the leading one now. He had a raised plank walk down between the pens, from which he surveyed the sheep and company as an admiral upon his quarter-deck. Servant of the farmers he might be, but when selling that day, he was master of all, both buyers and sellers.

The sheep sold, the farm settled down to the customary ploughing and planting for the next season, but before I leave this prosperous period there was one more happening in the farming year which is worthy of mention. I refer to the harvest supper.

The big barn would be cleared out sufficiently to make room for the seating of thirty or forty people. The words, ‘God Speed the Plough,’ in letters eighteen inches high, on the wall at one end, would be freshened up with whitewash; this was usually my job. A local caterer would arrive in the morning with tables, benches and provender. The menu consisted of cold meat, beef, mutton, or ham, with hot boiled potatoes for the first course, and hot figgety duff puddings with whole raisins in them for the second. They were boiled all the day in the dairy copper.

There were no windows in the barn, and the lighting was provided by oil lamps hanging from the beams on chain plough traces. I can visualize that scene quite clearly: three tables in U-shaped formation, my father in the chair at the top table, and the foreman and myself at the ends of the others. I can see the ruddy countenances of the company, shining like burnished copper in the pool of light from the lamps overhead. The light would filter through cracks in the reflectors here and there, and faintly outline the arching rafters of the barn, giving the whole scene almost a churchlike appearance. Indeed, the company might have been a gathering of old and jolly friars, save that whiskers predominated.

Most of them drank beer, and here I would like to correct the common impression that the farm worker of that day lived only for beer. Very rarely did I ever notice any one drink to excess on these occasions, although a certain mellowing was apparent. And there was no stint. A barrel was horsed at one end, and they helped themselves. As a class they had arrived at the correct valuation of beer in their scheme of things. For long hours of manual labour in hot weather, beer was the best drink. In the days years before, when part of their wages consisted of beer, the allowance for a carter in the harvest field was one gallon daily, while the head carter was allowed five quarts. And in my day in the harvest, if you wanted to get a field finished before nightfall, you were far more likely to get the extra effort out of your men by sending out some beer in the evening than by any promise of overtime pay. But on an occasion like this, to get fuddled with beer when you were not working, was deemed a breach of good manners, and frowned on by all.

Supper finished, and grace said, the toast of the King was given, and then china basins filled with shag were placed at intervals down the tables. The effeminate, who smoked only cigarettes, had to provide their own. I was in this category in those days, and used to take a plentiful supply with me. My father would beckon me to take his cigar case round to the foreman and heads of departments. There did not seem to be any jealousy at this subtle distinction. After all, the farm labourer lived so close to nature that he had a true sense of fundamentals, and thought it only seemly to give to every man his proper due according to his station. Also the non-cigar men got a good deal of amusement out of the laborious efforts of the favoured ones to smoke their cigars. The shepherd, I remember, burnt his at one end and chewed it fiercely at the other. When you consider that he had the best part of a leg of mutton inside him, it was probably wisest to finish the cigar as quickly as possible. As his face was whiskers all over, I used to imagine horrible catastrophes as the glowing end got nearer and nearer to the jungle.

The evening then developed into a smoking concert, interspersed with speeches, much like a lodge dinner. First, my father would give the toast of the staff. I cannot remember the words he used, but he sincerely thanked them for their year’s work, and gave them the impression that it was greatly appreciated by him, which it was, and he would finish up with a special reference to the foreman, the head shepherd, the head dairyman, and the chief carter.

The visitors and he and I would then rise and solemnly drink their health. Then my father would ask if anyone would give us a song. After much chaff, one of the under-carters would drink deeply, and rise to his feet prepared to do his worst. Their songs were chiefly of a morbid sentimental type. Some I can remember now. ‘It was only a beautiful picture in a beautiful golden frame’, was one; something about angels’ eyes watching a lonely little cabin on the railway line and averting some terrible catastrophe, was another; and ‘They laid him sad and lonely in his faded coat of blue’ was a third. A note of humour crept in when one of the labourers sang about the delights of jumping out of bed when the cock begins to crow, as my father’s love of bed was common knowledge.

However, when once started there was no need to call for volunteers; they were ready and waiting—at least amongst the younger men—to exhibit their prowess. The old men bided their time. ‘Let these boys finish their squawking, and then we’ll show ’em zummat,’ was their attitude. Once, I remember, we got a modern note. A young dairy lad about sixteen sang ‘All the nice girls love a sailor’, which some of the old hands thought hardly suitable for the occasion. That particular lad is now managing a large Grade A Tuberculin Tested Dairy up in Hampshire. Not only in his choice of song at sixteen was he more up to date than his fellows, but also in the outlook which shaped his subsequent career.

However, his song brought a lull in the proceedings, and the foreman seized the opportunity to rise to his feet and call for order. His speech, as I remember it, went something like this. ‘Chaps, we be all yer once again, and we be glad to be yer, and wishes to say thank you to the Guvnor fer a downright good spread. We’ve a finished another year together, and we be truly thankful. The Guvnor, he said as ’ow we ain’t ’ad no onpleasantness, and that ’ee do vally our work. Well, speaken fer one and all, I says as ’ow we do vally to work fer un. Course, there mid a bin a bit ov a miff, now and agen. The Guvnor, ’ee will get hisself into sich a tear at haymakin’ and harvest. But there, we do know as a can’t ’elp it, and we’ve a come droo thease year all right, and shall agen, please God. Still, ’ee do play fair, in the manner o’ speaken, and we do vally it. We be pleased and proud to work fer un. Course, there’s the young Guvnor. ’Ee do know a lot, and there’s a limb ov a lot as ’ee don’t know. But ’ee don’t do so bad, and we be a learnin’ ’im smartish. But I low fore I asks ’ee all to drink their health, that I muddn’ ferget the Guvnor’s wife, who do do a lot fer we. You do know, chaps. When you be ill, or when yer wife do ’ave a youngster, ’tis the Missus who do make it go easier and more suent like. Well, now then, let’s ’ave you. We’ll drink their health and long life to ’em all.’ The toast over, the foreman would start the chorus ‘For they are jolly good people’, to which an accompaniment would be played on an accordion by the head carter.

The serious business of the evening being over, the old dairyman would offer to give us a song. He was, and is, a dear gentle old man, and he had usually two or three goes before he could pitch his song so that he could sing it without breaking down. After two or three false starts he would have another swig at his glass, beam at the company, and launch forth into that old South Country song, ‘Buttercup Joe’. As the singer is happily still with me as I write, I am able to give you the words of his song. I asked him the other day if he would write them out on a piece of paper for me if he could remember them, and he agreed to do so. This morning, I was over in the dairy, printing up some butter, and he came up to me and said: ‘About thic zong, zur. I bain’t much ov a scholard like, and they at whoam don’t want to bother wi’ un. But we be yer by ourselves now. There iddn nobody about. If I were to say un to ’ee, you could write un down, couldn ’ee?’ So on a sheet of butter paper I wrote out the song as he repeated it. He did so in a sing-song voice, and kept straying into the tune at intervals. Here it is.

BUTTERCUP JOE

1

O, I’m a breastin sort ov a chap

Me father comes from Shareham

Me mother got some more like I

She well knows ow to rear ’em

O, some they call me bacon vace

An’ others turmut ’ead

But I’m as clever as other volk

Although I’m country bred.

Chorus:

I can drive a plough

Or milk a cow

O, I can reap or sow

I’m as fresh as the daisies in the fields

And they calls I Buttercup Joe.

2

You ’eavy swells mid laugh and chat

To see us eat vat bacon

But you can’t drink our country beer

And that’s where you’re mistaken

A drop o’ moey and shannon too

You drink it at your ease

But give to me an ’omebrewed glass

With crust ov bread and cheese

3

O ain’t it prime in summer time

When we go out haymakin’

The lads and lasses with us chaps

Freedom will be taken

And don’t they jiggle and make us laugh

Ov course in harmless play

They likes to get us country chaps

To roll ’em in the hay.

4

O, do you know my young ooman

They calls her our Mary

She works as busy as a bee

In Farmer Johnson’s dairy

And ain’t her suety dumplins nice

My gosh I mean to try

And ask her if she’d like to wed

A rusty chap like I.

The above spelling is entirely phonetic, and possibly other versions of this song will differ a little. The ‘moey and shannon’ in the second verse is obviously Moet and Chandon.

Next came the toast of the visitors, which was always placed in the skilled hands of Thomas Trowbridge. He had whiskers all round his face in a fringe, giving him the appearance of a very genial monkey. The visitors usually consisted of the parson, schoolmaster, blacksmith, harnessmaker, a keeper or two, and a sailor, retired on pension, who used to measure the men’s hoeing each year. Their toast went something like this: ‘Chaps, thease be our yearly jollification, zno, and we can’t ’ave ’em proper wi’out some visitors. And tudn be perlite not to drink their jolly good health. We do know ’em all; fact we do keep the main on ’em, specially passon, and they do know we. And I says we be dom glad to see ’em here thease evenin’. Dom glad we be, and I fears no man when I says that, zno.’ And the old fellow would glare round at the company with his whisker fringe all a-bristle with defiance. ‘But I bain’t no speechifier, cepting to say as ow they be truly welcome. Zo I asks ’ee to rise and drink their jolly good health.’ This done, the old man would say: ‘Now, sit down, all ov ’ee, and I’ll sing to ’ee.’ There would be loud cries for ‘Dick Turpin’, and when silence reigned we would hear the following:

DICK TURPIN

1

As I was a ridin’ along on the moor

I seed the lawyer on before

I steps up to ’im, these words I say

Hast thee seed Turpin pass this way?

Chorus:

Tibby Hi Ho Turpin Hero

Tibby Hi Ho Turpin O.

2

No, said the lawyer, an’t a seed him this way

Neither do I want to see him this long day

For he robbed my wife all ov ten poun’

A silver snuff box and a new gown

3

O, says Turpin, I’ll play cute

I’ll put my money down in my boot

O, says the lawyer, ’ee can’t have mine

Fer mine’s sewn up in the cape behind

4

As I were a gwaine up Bradbury ’ill

I bid the lawyer to stand still

Fer the cape of his cwoat I mus’ cut off

Fer me ’oss ’ee want a new saddle cloth

5

I robbed the lawyer of all his store

And bid him to go to law for more

And if my name he is questioned in

He can tell ’em my name is Dick Turpin

6

I am the last of Turpin’s gang

And I am sure I shall be hanged

Here’s fifty poun’ before I die

To gie Jack Ketch fer hanging I.

When the applause had subsided, the Parson would respond for the visitors, and sometimes give us a song himself. Anybody who could sing sang, and a lot of folk who couldn’t sing did likewise. On one occasion I sang, and I have a voice like a corncrake. Still, I got through ‘Richard of Taunton Dean’ with great success.

The gathering broke up at ten o’clock with the singing of ‘God Save the King’. Most of the company had to be up betimes next day, for a farm goes on relentlessly in spite of joy or sorrow, sickness or health, good weather or bad. The dairyman and I would be the last to leave, as we were responsible to see that all was safe, and that no match or cigarette end was left glowing, as fire is a real danger to farm buildings in September. When all was safe we would close the barn doors, and stand for a moment looking at the sky in a weather-conscious manner. ‘Reg’lar harvest moon, that be. ‘Nother blazer to-morrow, zur.’ ‘Yes, dairyman,’ I would say, ‘rare weather. Looks as if there’d be time to get in another harvest.’

Around us towered the chunky shadows of the new corn stacks. Bats were flitting overhead. A rat scuttled somewhere in the straw. A three days old calf would give a hoarse blare in calling to its mother, who would answer from the home pasture. A flight of wild duck, returning from a moonlight feed on the stubble, would swish overhead in a V-shaped formation. From some nearby field would come the sound of a horse rubbing against the gate. The whole life of the farm seemed subdued by the warm soft-scented dark, but it was there waiting eagerly for to-morrow’s dawn.

After wishing the dairyman good-night, I would stand at the drive gate, listening to his footsteps getting fainter and fainter as he plodded down the road to his cottage. An owl would swoop by my face as I went up the drive to the house, and vanish silently in the moonlight. The house looked so solid and permanent against the sky. What a secure, pleasant, spacious business my whole life and surroundings seemed. Rooted so firmly in the soil, surely nothing could ever interrupt or upset its even, happy tenor. Farmer’s Glory! Farmer’s Glory! A swift pat to my retriever, who had slipped a cold nose into my hand, and I would be indoors and soon asleep.