Читать книгу From Paddington to Penzance - Charles G. Harper - Страница 15

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Shining with midsummer brilliancy, the sun heated the still air until all movement was irksome, and energy became entirely out of the question; so there was nothing for it but to recline in limp fashion on a hay-rick beside the white and dusty road, lazily noting the passers-by. Few indeed were they who passed down the village street—a shepherd, with barking dog and unruly flock, making in their passage a smother of dust that loaded the hedges with yet another white layer; and, as afternoon wore on, a girl went with pitcher to the well. The sound of buckets being lowered, and the splashing of water as they were wound up, made one feel positively cool. Then came a dull booming that now and again startled the stillness: gun practice off Spithead, without doubt.

Then the sound of Winchester chimes echoed across the four miles of intervening country, and we climbed down from our resting-place and walked up through the village. We were dreadfully thirsty, and, discovering a little inn, passed through the doorway into its stone passage, cool and grateful after the glare outside. The beer was, not to mince words, beastly; but we had a conversation with the rustics, who were sitting or standing in the sanded parlour with striped and coloured beer-mugs in their hands.

“Quiet place, this, sirs,” said one, by way of opening a talk.

“Yes,” said my companion, “it seems so; is it always like this?”

“Well, yes, ’tis, in a manner o’ speakin’, an’ yet ’tisn’t, if so be ye can onderstand me. Leastways, ’tis always quiet like to toun-folk like yourselves; but we has our randys now an’ than, hain’t we, neighbours?”

“Ay, that we has.”

“D’ye mind Jubilee time?” A general laugh followed this inquiry, but to us strangers the allusion was cryptic, and provoked no smile.

But there was one dissentient; he was not a native of these parts. “Randys,” quoth he, “ne’er a one of ’ee has seen such rollickings as we uns used to have up to Amport.” Here one of the company stage-whispered to us, hand to mouth, that “Will’m Benjafield was a old, understanding man, as comed from Andover way.”

“Ay,” said our ancient, “I mind well enow the time when the gr’t house to Amport were open house, as ye may say. ’Twas in the old Markis o’ Winchester’s young days. They’m a old ancient fam’ly, the Paulets: ye can see their three golden daggerds on the carving o’ Winchester Guildhall clock to this day. But ’tis many a long day sence the feastin’s and drinkin’s to Amport House. ’Tis small beer now, ’stead o’ good yale, an’ that do make a man’s stummick to wamble tarrible, sure-ly. I’d ’low the zilliest gawk-hammer in them there days drunk better liquor nor the best o’ you uns in these here, an’ the raggedest jack-o’-lent had a crust an’ cheese for the asking o’ it, an’ suthin better nor a tankard o’ swipes to swill his gullet wi’. ’Twas a bit an’ drap anywhen ye were plazed to ax fort. What dosta say, stunpoll?”

“Why, granfer,” said the young man thus unceremoniously addressed, “I was jest a-hoping you made as good usings o’ yer opportunities as we uns would an we had the chance.”

This was a good enough hint for us. We called for ale for the whole company.

“I’ll tell ’ee,” said “granfer,” laying one hand on my sleeve, while the other carefully described circles with his brimming beer-mug, “I’ll tell ’ee suthin o’ those times when the gran’ company was to the old Markis’s, an’ the huntin’ o’ the fox went arn, with the harses jumpin’ an the harns a-blown’; by gollikins, ’twas times, I tell ’ee. But they was over full rathe; they went the pace too quickly for their pockuts, d’ye see; the folks all went away, the harses sold, till there were scarcely a pair left to whinnick in the big stables. But the Markis, a proud one he wur, wi’ the devil’s own temper, an’ he went a-huntin’ as if he warn’t head an’ heels in debt; an’ they did say the harse he rode warn’t rightly his’n, if all folk’s had their money paid ’em.

“Howsomdever, ’twas one marning he went to the meet at Quarley, an’ ’twas vine sport they had that day, as I see’d myself from the knap. An’ ’twas all the talk o’ the county how the Markis quarrelled wi’ the new Squire, as didn’t rightly know how to ride to hounds. Ye see, ’a was a man who’d been in business all ’a’s life, an’ had bought the Markis’s land, as ’a was obliged to sell it, piece by piece, an so the Markis hated him.

“ ‘What the hell are you up to, sir?’ hollared the Markis, as the new Squire put his harse to a gate right in front of him, just as ’a was a-goin’ to take it. ‘D’ye know who I am, damme?’

“ ‘Yes,’ ses the Squire, ‘I do; an’ I’d rather be a rich squire than a poor markis any day.’

“ ’Twas a hard thing to say to sech a gr’t nobleman, an’ a’ turned away an rode home.

“The nex’ day was Sunday, an’ the Markis comes to church late, lookin’ like thunder. We could hear ’im pokin’ the fire in ’a’s pew right through the zinging an’ the gruntin’ o’ the bass-viol an’ the squeakin’ o’ the viddles, an I ses to John Butcher as played the flute, ‘’Tis a tarrible rage ’a’s in this marnin’, sure enow.’ An’ what text should the pa’son gi’ out then, but ‘Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath.’ ‘Sure-ly,’ I whispers, ‘pa’son don’t knaw nothin’ o’ yesterday’s doin’s; a’ wouldn’t be sech a ninny as to offend the Markis in that way.’ ‘Hush,’ ses John, ‘there’s the Markis a-lookin’.’ ’Twas a way ’a had; ’a liked to zee ivery one at church. ’A was leanin’ on the door o’ the pew an’ lookin’ round, when, sudden-like, the hinges o’ it guv way, an’ that noble Marquis fell down wi’ it, just the same as any common feller, like you an’ me.

“ ‘Blast the door,’ ’a says, wi’ a face as red as a turkey-cock, an’ the pa’son, he says, breakin’ off in his sermond, ‘we will sing to the praise an’ glory of God, the one ’undred an’ twenty-first ’ym.’ We o’ the choir niver knew how we got through that music, some for laffing an’ some for fright at what had happened to such a gr’t lord. The serpent couldn’ blaw, nor the flutes neither, an’ the virst viddle put so much elbow-grease into ’as playin’ that ’a bruk all the strings at onct.” “Ah!” said granfr’, shaking his head and drinking his mug dry, “they wuz times.”

“Well, good day to you, friends,” we said, leaving the inn, and our beer (for, as I have said, the local brew was not of the best); “we must be going.”