John Keble's Parishes Read online

  Then, bethinking himself, he exclaims:

  I have a little bottle, called elecampane,

  If the man is alive, let him rise and fight again.

  The application of the elecampane so far restores the Turkish knight that he partly rises, entreating:

  O pardon me, St. George, O pardon me, I crave,

  O pardon me this once, and I will be thy slave.

  Very inconsistently with his late remorse, St. George replies-

  I never will pardon a Turkish knight,

  Therefore arise, and try thy might.

  The combat is renewed, and the Turkish knight falls prostrate, on which the Foreign King comes forward, shouting:

  St. George, St. George, what hast thou done,

  For thou hast slain mine only son!

  But, after marching round the fallen hero, he cries:

  Is there a doctor to be found,

  That can cure this man lies bleeding on the ground?

  In response, the doctor appears:

  O yes, there is a doctor to be found,

  That can cure this man lies bleeding on the ground.

  The anxious father asks:

  Doctor, doctor, what is thy fee?

  The doctor replies:

  Ten guineas is my fee,

  But ten pounds I'll take of thee.

  The king answers:

  "Take it, doctor, but what canst thou cure?"

  The doctor's pretensions are high, for he says:

  I can cure the ague, palsy, and the gout,

  And that's a roving pain that goes within and out;

  A broken leg or arm, I soon can cure the pain,

  And if thou break'st thy neck, I'll stoutly set it again.

  Bring me an old woman of fourscore years and ten,

  Without a tooth in her head, I'll bring her young again.

  The king observes:

  "Thou be'st a noble doctor if that's all true thou be'st talking about."

  And the doctor, taking to prose, replies:

  "I'm not like those little mountebank doctors that go about the streets, and say this, that, and the other, and tell you as many lies in one half-hour as you would find in seven years; but what I does, I does clean before your eyes, and ladies and gentlemen, if you won't believe your own eyes, 'tis a very hard case."

  The king agreeing that it is, the doctor goes to the patient, saying:

  "I have a little bottle that I call golden foster drops. One drop on the root of this man's tongue and another on his crown, will strike the heat through his body, and raise him off the ground."

  Accordingly the Turkish knight slowly rises and decamps, St. George exclaiming:

  "Arise, arise, thou cowardly dog, and see how uprightly thou can'st stand. Go home into your own country and tell them what old England has done for you, and how they'll fight a thousand better men than you.

  This last speech may have been added after the Crimean War, as the drama was copied out in 1857; but the staple of it was known long before, though with variations, in different villages, and it always concludes with little Johnny Jack, the smallest of the troup, with a bundle of dolls on his back, going round with a jingling money-box, saying:

  Here comes I, little Johnny Jack,

  Wife and family at my back,

  My family's large though I am small,

  And so a little helps us all.

  Roast beef, plum pudding, strong beer and mince-pies,

  Who loves that better than Father Christmas or I?

  One mug of Christmas ale soon will make us merry and sing;

  Some money in our pockets will be a very fine thing.

  So, ladies and gentlemen, all at your ease,

  Give the Christmas boys just what you please.

  Before Christmas carols had to be reformed and regulated lest they should be a mere occasion of profanity and rudeness, that curious one of Dives and Lazarus was occasionally heard, of which two lines could never be forgotten-

  He had no strength to drive them 'way,

  And so they licked his sores.

  And when Lazarus afterwards sees "Divers" "sitting on a serpent's knee."

  May Day too survived in a feeble state, with the little voices singing:

  April's gone! May's come!

  Come and see our garland.

  Mr. Keble improved the song into:

  April's gone, the king of showers,

  May is come, the queen of flowers,

  Give me something, gentles dear,

  For a blessing on the year.

  For my garland give, I pray,

  Words and smiles of cheerful May;

  Birds of spring, to you we come,

  Let us pick a little crumb.

  In the dew of the morning we gathered our flowers

  From the woodlands and meadows and garden bowers,

  And now we have twisted our garland so gay,

  We are come here to wish you a happy May Day.

  We cannot but here add an outline of a village character from Old Times at Otterbourne:-

  Mr. William Stainer was a baker. His bread was excellent, and he was also noted for what were called Otterbourne buns, the art of making which seems to have gone with him. They were small fair-complexioned buns, which stuck together in parties of three, and when soaked, expanded to twice or three times their former size. He used to send them once or twice a week to Winchester. But though baking was his profession, he did much besides. He was a real old-fashioned herbalist, and had a curious book on the virtues of plants, and he made decoctions of many kinds, which he administered to those in want of medicine. Before the Poor Law provided Union doctors, medical advice, except at the hospital, was almost out of reach of the poor. Mr. and Mrs. Yonge, like almost all other beneficent gentlefolks in villages, kept a medicine chest and book, and doctored such cases as they could venture on, and Mr. Stainer was in great favour as a practitioner, as many of our elder people can remember. He was exceedingly charitable and kind, and ready to give his help so far as he could. He was a great lover of flowers, and had contrived a sort of little greenhouse over the great oven at the back of his house, and there he used to bring up lovely geraniums and other flowers, which he sometimes sold. He was a deeply religious and devout man, and during an illness of the clerk took his place in Church, which was more important when there was no choir and the singers sat in the gallery. He was very happy in this office, moving about on felt shoes that he might make no noise, and most reverently keeping the Church clean, and watching over it in every way. He also continued in the post of schoolmaster, which at first he had only taken temporarily, and quaintly managing it. He was found setting as a copy "A blind man's wife needs no paint," which he defended as "Proverbs, sir, Proverbs." Giving up part of his business to his nephew, he still sat up at night baking, for the nephew, he said, was only in the A B C book of baking, and he also had other troubles: there was insanity in his family, and he was much harassed. His kindness and simplicity were sometimes abused. He never had the heart to refuse to lend money, or to deny bread on credit to hopeless debtors; and altogether debts, distress, baking, and watching his sisters all night, and school keeping all day, were too much for him. The first hint of an examination of his school completed the mischief and he died insane, drowning himself in the canal. It is a sad story, but many of us will remember with affectionate regard the good, kind, quaint, and most excellent little man.

  A few lines, half parody, half original, may be added as picturing the old aspect of Otterbourne, about 1830:-

  OLD REMEMBRANCES

  I remember, I remember,

  Old times at Otterbourne,

  Before the building of the Church,

  And when smock frocks were worn!

  I remember, I remember,

  When railroads there were none,

  When by stage coach at early dawn

  The journey was begun.

  And through the turnpike roads till eve

  Trotted the hor
ses four,

  With inside passengers and out

  They carried near a score.

  "Red Rover" and the "Telegraph,"

  We knew them all by name,

  And Mason's and the Oxford coach,

  Full thirty of them came.

  The coachman wore his many capes,

  The guard his bugle blew;

  The horses were a gallant sight,

  Dashing upon our view.

  I remember, I remember,

  The posting days of old;

  The yellow chariot lined with blue

  And lace of colour gold.

  The post-boys' jackets blue or buff,

  The inns upon the road;

  The hills up which we used to walk

  To lighten thus the load.

  The rattling up before the inn,

  The horses led away,

  The post-boy as he touched his hat

  And came to ask his pay.

  The perch aloft upon the box,

  Delightful for the view;

  The turnpike gates whose keepers stood

  Demanding each his due.

  I remember, I remember,

  When ships were beauteous things,

  The floating castles of the deep

  Borne upon snow-white wings;

  Ere iron-dads and turret ships,

  Ugly as evil dream,

  Became the hideous progeny

  Of iron and of steam.

  You crossed the Itchen ferry

  All in an open boat,

  Now, on a panting hissing bridge

  You scarcely seem afloat.

  Southampton docks were sheets of mud,

  Grim colliers at the quay.

  No tramway, and no slender pier

  To stretch into the sea.

  I remember, I remember,

  Long years ere Rowland Hill,

  When letters covered quarto sheets

  Writ with a grey goose quill;

  Both hard to fold and hard to read,

  Crossed to the scarlet seal;

  Hardest of all to pay for, ere

  Their news they might reveal.

  No stamp with royal head was there,

  But eightpence was the sum

  For every letter, all alike,

  That did from London come!

  I remember, I remember,

  The mowing of the hay;

  Scythes sweeping through the heavy grass

  At breaking of the day.

  The haymakers in merry ranks

  Tossing the swathes so sweet,

  The haycocks tanning olive-brown

  In glowing summer heat.

  The reapers 'mid the ruddy wheat,

  The thumping of the flail,

  The winnowing within the barn

  By whirling round a sail.

  Long ere the whirr, and buzz, and rush

  Became a harvest sound,

  Or monsters trailed their tails of spikes,

  Or ploughed the fallow ground.

  Our sparks flew from the flint and steel,

  No lucifers were known,

  Snuffers with tallow candles came

  To prune the wick o'ergrown.

  Hands did the work of engines then,

  But now some new machine

  Must hatch the eggs, and sew the seams,

  And make the cakes, I ween.

  I remember, I remember,

  The homely village school,

  The dame with spelling book and rod,

  The sceptre of her rule.

  A black silk bonnet on her head,

  Buff kerchief on her neck,

  With spectacles upon her nose,

  And apron of blue check.

  Ah, then were no inspection days,

  No standards then were known,

  Children could freely make dirt pies,

  And learning let alone!

  Those Sundays I remember too,

  When Service there was one;

  For living in the parish then

  Of parsons there were none.

  And oh, I can recall to mind,

  The Church and every pew;

  William and Mary's royal arms

  Hung up in fullest view.

  The lion smiling, with his tongue

  Like a pug dog's hung out;

  The unicorn with twisted horn,

  Brooding upon his rout.

  Exalted in the gallery high

  The tuneful village choir,

  With flute, bassoon, and clarionet,

  Their notes rose high and higher.

  They shewed the number of the Psalm

  In white upon a slate,

  And many a time the last lines sung

  Of Brady and of Tate.

  While far below upon the floor

  Along the narrow aisle,

  The children on their benches sat

  Arranged in single file.

  And there the clerk would stump along

  And strike with echoing blow

  Each idle guilty little head

  That chattered loud or low.

  Ah! I remember many things,

  Old, middle-aged, and new;

  Is the new better than the old,

  More bright, more wise, more true?

  The old must ever pass away,

  The new must still come in;

  When these new things are old to you

  Be they unstained by sin.

  So will their memory be sweet,

  A treasury of bliss

  To be borne with us in the days

  When we their presence miss.

  Trifles connected with the love

  Of many a vanished friend

  Will thrill the heart and wake the sense,

  For memory has no end!

  CHAPTER XVI-NATURAL HISTORY

  Or animal life, though abundant, there is little or nothing special to record, besides the list of birds.

  Polecats and martens only exist in the old rating book, but weasels and stoats remain, as well as a profusion of their prey-hares and rabbits. Squirrels haunt the trees, and otters are occasionally found in the river. Trout, grayling, now and then a pike, as well as the smaller fry of minnows and sticklebacks, are of course found in the streams. Eels used to be caught there on the moonlight nights by old labourers with a taste for sport, and the quaint little river cray-fish may be picked out of the banks of the "water-carriages."

  Toads and frogs are a matter of course. Sometimes a procession of tiny, but perfectly formed "Charley Frogs," as the village boys call them, just emerged from their tadpole state, may be seen making their way up from their native pools.

  The pretty crested newt, dark brown and orange, with a gold crest along its back like an iguana, is found in shallow ponds, also the smooth newt. These efts, or evvets, as the people call them, are regarded with horror by the peasantry. The children speak of having seen one as if it were a crocodile; and an abscess in the arm has been ascribed to having picked up an "evvet in a bundle of grass."

  The slow-worm, in silvery coat, is too often slaughtered as a snake. Vipers come to light in the woods, also the harmless brown snake. One of these has been seen swimming across a pond, his head just out of the water, another climbing an oak tree, and one, upon the lawn, was induced to disgorge a frog, which gathered up its legs and hopped away as if nothing had happened.

  Of rats and mice and such small deer there are only too many, though it is worth while to watch rats at play round a hay-rick on Sunday evenings, when they know they will not be persecuted, and sit up like little kangaroos. The vole, which is not a rat, is a goodly sight, and the smooth round dormouse (or sleep-mouse, as the children call it) is a favourite gift imprisoned in an old tea-pot.

  The beautiful nest of a field-mouse has been found in a cypress's thick foliage, and dead shrews bestrew the paths; though the magic effects of having a "sherry mouse" die in one's hand, and thus being enabled to stroke cattle and cure them, have nev
er been experienced.

  The anodon or fresh water mussel used to be found in Fisher's Pond on Colden Common, bordering on Otterbourne, and the green banks were strewn with shells left by the herons, but the pond is fast drying up and the herons have been driven away by guns.

  The delicate paludina, of brown, horn-coloured, gracefully-formed shell, creeps on the water weeds, and hosts of snails may be studied.

  Of insects less can be said here, but it is worth noting that one live purple emperor has been captured in Ampfield wood, two dead dilapidated ones picked up at Otterbourne.

  The forest fly, so called, does not often come here; but it is observable that while strange horses are maddened by it, the native ones do not seem disturbed, knowing that it only creeps and does not bite. It is small and brown, not so formidable looking as the large fly, popularly called a stout, as big as a hornet, which lays eggs under the skin of cows.

  But with the blue, green, and orange dragonflies of summer, this list must conclude, and turn to the birds and botany of the place, mostly well known, and verified by Mr. Townsend's Flora of Hampshire.

  BIRDS

  THE KITE (Milvus ictinus).-Sometimes hovering over heathlands or farmyards, but not very common.

  SPARROW-HAWK (Accipiter fringillarius).-Taken in a trap set for rats at Otterbourne House.

  PEREGRINE FALCON (Falco peregrinus), Hursley, 1857.-As a pair for many years had a nest on Salisbury spire, this one may have flown thus far.

  KESTREL (Falco tinnunculus)-Otterbourne, 1856.

  SHORT-EARED OWL (Otus brachyotus).-Baddesley Common, 5th March 1861.

  WHITE OWL (Strix flammea).-Nested in a barn, another year in a pigeon-loft, and again in an old tub at Otterbourne. To be seen skimming softly along on summer evenings.

  BROWN OWL (Ulula stridula).-Glides over the fields like a huge moth, and on moonlight nights in August may be heard the curious hunting note. As the eggs are hatched, not all at once, but in succession, a family taken out of a loft and put into a sea-kale pot were of various ages, the eldest nearly fledged, standing up as if to guard the nest, the second hissing and snapping, as if a naughty boy, and two downy infants who died. One brown owl was kept tame, and lived 14 years. The village people call this bird Screech Owl, and after a sudden death always mention having heard it.

  CHIMNEY SWALLOW (Hirundo rustica).-They chase the flies under the bridges on the Itchen, and display their red throats.