Читать книгу Downland Echoes - Victor L. Whitechurch - Страница 5

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Nearly everybody who really belonged to the village was reticent. It was one of the characteristics of their lives. For this reason the outsider seldom understood the countryman, not knowing that what he imagined was sheer ignorance or stupidity was often the cloak for an underlying shrewdness that rarely became apparent on the surface.

This characteristic reticence was hereditary. It had come down through the centuries. British ancestors had to make use of it in Roman times, for it was not wise to let the dominant race know all there was to know about them. Saxon forefathers had to practise concealment under the conquering Normans. In feudal times the villeins were not over-anxious that the lord of the manor should be aware of all their doings. The landlordism that dates from the seventeenth century helped to produce further the wielding of the weapon of reticence. And so it was that the quality of secretiveness was so strongly developed that it became difficult to find out reasons for actions. They didn’t, as a rule, give any reasons. But they had them. To begin to discover reasons you had to live among them. At first they seemed a simple people, easy to understand, but at the end of five years you were a wise person if you admitted, candidly, that you really knew little about them. Then you commenced to learn, and the learning was no easy task. Rarely would they admit reasons for actions to anyone whom they had not learned to trust. But once they trusted you, there was a chance of grasping something of their peculiar psychology.

For example, there was the case of the Choir Strike in the village of East Harford. Paäson there introduced a new hymn-book, with the full approval of the adult members of the choir. They, one and all, said they were pleased with it. They knew—as every village choir knew—that they were the very best choir in Downland. They spoke of the fact quite naturally—especially when they met choirmen of other parishes. So they knew it was quite right for them to have fresh opportunities of showing their powers in the way of new hymns and new tunes. Had Paäson suggested that they should attempt the “Hallelujah Chorus” as an anthem for the harvest festival they would not have turned a hair.

Therefore Paäson, who understood them just a little, knew that there was no false modesty about it when the men of the choir suddenly, without warning, refused to sing any of the hymns in the new book. At practice they sat down when the hymns were rehearsed, glaring straight in front of them and refusing to open their mouths—leaving the task to the boys. In service time they stood quite dumb during the singing of hymns, ostentatiously bookless. Paäson expostulated, asked them their reasons, but all he got out of them was:

“We ent goin’ to sing ara hymn out o’ that new book.”

At length, one night at practice, the oldest man, on being pressed, grudgingly admitted:

“We thinks the book’s silly, sir!”

“Silly? But why? What makes you say that?”

But they only sat silent.

Next practice Paäson pressed the point. As it happened he had lived some years among them and had somewhat gained their confidence. Otherwise he would never have arrived at the real reason.

The oldest choirman took up one of the offending hymn-books, opened it, slowly turned the pages over, found what he wanted and handed it to Paäson, pointing out a particular couplet with his long forefinger.

Paäson read out loud the words of that ancient hymn:

“Thy turrets and thy pinnacles

With carbuncles shall shine.”

“Well?” he asked.

“There, sir,” came the reply, “we ent goin’ to sing such foolishness as that. Whoever heered tell o’ decoratin’ towers wi’ corns and bunions!”

Their reason was a perfectly legitimate one. They had never heard of a precious stone called the carbuncle, but they did know what a carbuncle on the back of the neck was like. They reasoned quite logically. They acted quite logically. To them the book was foolish. An outsider who knew nothing about the rustic mind, and who could never have abstracted their real motive, would have denounced them as being stupid and pigheaded.

There was a village working men’s club. Paäson thought he would amuse the men, so one evening he went in and, uninvited, read them one of the funniest stories of a particularly humorous author. It was a screamingly comic yarn, but not the vestige of a smile appeared on the face of a single man there. The ordinary observer would have said that they had no sense of humour, but he would have been quite wrong. The real reason was nothing of the kind. For a long time they refused to say what it was. They had recourse to the inevitable weapon of reticence. They told the usual perversion of the truth. They said they didn’t see anything in what they had heard. But Paäson knew better, and persevered. Then it came out. One man said reluctantly:

“Well, sir, we doän’t like being treated like children. We can all o’ us read for ourselves if we want to.”

He had insulted them. Without knowing it, he had really hurt their pride, as people are constantly hurting the pride of the agricultural labourer. It rankled bitterly; struck at their sturdy independence. They acted on pure reason. It was a sense of their own dignity that made them refuse to laugh.

They so often scored over this reticence of theirs. Just outside the village was a bit of land, known from immemorial days as “Church Acre,” let by the churchwardens from year to year, and the proceeds paid in to the “church expenses.” The letting of the said piece of ground always dated from Michaelmas, according to ancient custom.

One Michaelmas, Farmer Wood and his fellow-churchwarden, Farmer Gringer, came to see Paäson. They told him that William Briggs, also a farmer, who for years had rented “Church Acre,” refused to take it on again unless they granted him a reduction of rent.

“He’s always paid fifty shillings for it,” said Farmer Wood, “and now he says he won’t give more than forty-five.”

“You see, Vicar,” explained Farmer Gringer, “ ’tis this way. We don’t want to lower the value o’ ‘Church Acre.’ It has brought us in fifty shillings a year as long as I can remember, and ’tis a pity to drop five shillings.”

Paäson agreed. He knew how closely the churchwardens reckoned—after the manner of their kind. Five shillings was no insignificant sum. No sum, even fivepence, was ever insignificant to their minds. Besides, this was establishing a bad precedent—the lowering of the value of Church property, a far more serious business from their point of view than strict orthodoxy of doctrine. It was downright faithfulness to the Church that made them come to him. He knew this.

“Oh,” he said, “can’t you persuade old William Briggs to take it on for the same rent?”

But they said they had tried hard to do this, with blank refusal.

“William’s orkard,” explained Farmer Gringer.

“Well,” said Paäson, “I’ll have a talk with him myself and see what I can do.”

They assented to his proposition, but were dubious of results.

So Paäson went to see William Briggs, and found him, as usual, affable and charming. He was smoking, so Paäson pulled out his own pipe and pouch, hoping to arrange matters over the peaceful weed as man to man.

Old William listened in silence while Paäson propounded the reason for keeping up the rent and exhorted him as a good Churchman—which he was—to agree to the payment of the fifty shillings in full. And when he had finished William took his pipe from his mouth and said, without the slightest prevarication or the propounding of any difficulty whatsoever:

“All right, Vicar. I see your point of view; and I’ll be pleased to take on ‘Church Acre’ as usual for fifty shillings. ’T’ent worth more than forty-five, but what you say is quite right.”

Paäson went forth elated. He had done what the churchwardens could not do. He had, with the greatest ease, talked over the old farmer. It was a great feather in his clerical hat, metaphorically speaking. He rejoiced exceedingly in his own diplomacy and persuasive powers, and took the earliest opportunity of informing the churchwardens of his victory.

But they, knowing their own kind a great deal better than he did, instead of patting him on the back, only shook their heads. And Farmer Wood said:

“Ah! I’m afraid William ’ull best us yet. ’T’ent like him not to.”

At Easter—six months later, during which period William kept strict silence on the matter of “Church Acre”—folks paid a subscription to church expenses. They did not call it a subscription. They called it a “voluntary rate.” It was a survival of the old “church rate,” and they had agreed to pay it years before on the condition that there should not be collections at every service in the church.

Farmer Gringer collected it. In due course he asked William Briggs for his customary subscription. William pulled out of his pocket the canvas bag that served him for a purse and produced five shillings.

“But,” said Gringer, “ ’tis ten shillings you always give, William.”

William half-closed one of his eyes and replied deliberately:

“Ah! But Paäson wanted me to give ’ee fifty shillings for ‘Church Acre.’ I told him ’twas only worth forty-five. I can only give ’ee five shillings now instead o’ ten. I had to make it up to myself somehow!”

They were right: he had bested them. And Paäson came down from his pedestal to the level of the humility that he felt he deserved.