Kitabı oku: «Spring in a Shropshire Abbey», sayfa 14

CHAPTER VI
JUNE

 
“Now is the time for mirth,
Nor cheek or tongue be dumbe,
For the flowrie earth
The golden pomp is come.”
 

Herrick.

Yes, the golden pomp had come. The earth was radiant. Down below the Abbey extended sheets of golden buttercups, the world was full of song, and a clear turquoise sky, cloudless and glorious, rose above us, and all through the joyous days we were bathed in glad sunshine.

Peace had come, inside and outside the house. The storms that ended May had vanished, and my domestic coach seemed rolling gaily along. Bess had grown good again, the roughest children sometimes do. The lessons were learnt without too much grumbling, and Miss Weldon no longer carried her head low with shame. Mrs. Langdale and Célestine had settled down into hostile neutrality, and for that I was thankful.

“Ma’zelle’s tongue is like a firebrand, but I give her no chance, I never speak to her,” my old friend told me. And as angry silence is better than open war, I received its advent with thanksgiving; but all messages were impossible, and I suspected Fremantle had hard work to steer his boat between the sullen seas of “the room.”

A SUMMER GARDEN

But a truce to domestic worries, for early in June I gardened; that is to say, I stood about on the close-shorn turf and Burbidge gave directions for the summer plants to be put in the beds. This always is a solemn summer function, and Burbidge had all the importance of a Prime Minister moving amongst his Cabinet, whilst I stood by and admired.

On the east side of the Abbey Farmery, as it was once called, we had already put in round beds of heliotrope (the old cherry-pie of childhood). Burbidge had planted a bed of scarlet verbenas, and was, when I went out, putting in one of the delicate pure white variety, that smells so sweet after a passing shower in the twilight. Besides these, there were to be spudded in beds of crimson and scarlet geraniums, near the high southern wall running from the oratory to the gazebo. We had planted, a few years before, sweet tea-roses of all colours – pink, orange, and copper, a Choisya ternata, the orange-blossom of Mexico, patches of close-clinging Virginian creeper, to enjoy their autumn glory, and over the pillars different varieties of large-flowering clematises. These, as they make their full growth, will be tied to the stone balls that crown the wall. The clematises are of the most beautiful modern sorts, mauve, lavender, and purple, and in August and September, I trust, will repay us amply for our care during the dark winter months, and in the sharp winds of March.

Burbidge was solemnly having his plants brought out, and stood watching that no mishap took place, for, he assured me, “boys were born careless.”

Round the sundial were to be planted four scarlet plots of geraniums, and all were to be edged with a ribbon of blue lobelia. “How commonplace!” some of my readers will exclaim; but all the same, very gay and cheery during the late summer and early autumn, and a brilliant note of colour when the glory of the herbaceous borders is over. We must always remember that there are many forms of beauty, and that even the newest one day will be old-fashioned, and that a fashion immediately past may have something to commend it, in spite of the gardening papers of the day, and learned critics. When the beds were planted and the tiny little string of lobelia added, then the wire netting that encircled each bed was carefully put back, or otherwise, to quote Burbidge, “Adam and his crew would soon be the death of the greenhouse stuff, sure enough.”

After that, we planted a bed of heliotrope, of a beautiful Jamaica variety, that was brought back from there by a friend; and then a bed or two of fuchsias, including a few two- or three-year-old standards in the centre, for nothing gives a bed greater beauty than that it should be of different heights. The old flat bed was poor and ugly, and did not give half the effect of colour that one does of different heights. Then I saw put out beds of latana, red, yellow, and brown, and salmon and pink geraniums, and the old stone troughs and tubs were filled with rich velvety petunias. After all the small beds were planted, we came to the long border immediately in front of the new southern wall. There Burbidge put in squares of that dear old plant known to children as the lemon verbena plant, and great patches of many different sorts of sweet-scented geraniums. Amongst these delights were the old peppermint, the rose geranium, the lemon-scented, the citron-scented, the apple-scented, and the pennyroyal, and some of the best of the named sorts, such as Little Gem, Pretty Polly, Lady Plymouth, Shottesham Park, and Lady Scarborough. Altogether, Burbidge told me with pride, there were not less than twenty sorts. All these perfumed pelargoniums have a delicious fragrance of their own, distinct, and exquisitely sweet. All will bed out well in an English garden, but care should be taken to plant out in the same bed sorts that grow about the same height, as some varieties are much more vigorous than others in the open, and, to quote Burbidge’s words, “fair trample down the weaker sorts, like horses wud childer, if yer put ’em alongside.”

In this long border there were also placed round bushes of Paris Marguerites, and here and there Burbidge slipped in a castor-oil plant with its overshadowing handsome foliage and horse-chestnut-like fruit, and at intervals a spike of cannas, and a plant or two of tasselled maize with variegated leaf, “to bring them tropics home,” I was told. Then in the foreground, “his boys” spudded in African marigolds, soft mauve violas, asters, and stocks, besides patches of geraniums, to bring in “a smart snap of colour,” as my old gardener put it.

“SOME NOSEGAY BLOWS”

After luncheon I went out on the other side of the old house, to what is known as the Quadrangle, to witness further garden operations. I pleaded in favour of putting into some of the tubs what Burbidge calls “some nosegay blows.” Burbidge acceded to my request; “But us must mind the colours too,” he declared. He put in, however, to please me, a few little brown evening stocks, that smell sweetest at nights, for I told him that it was delightful to come and sit out after dinner, and enjoy the scents of night. He put in a few verbenas also, for the chance of evening showers, some nicotianas, and a few crimson humeas. Round the old redstone building, he planted three rows of Jacoby geraniums, “For them will mean brightness,” he said.

As I stood and watched the last row of geraniums being put in the soil, I was joined by Bess and Mouse.

“Oh, mum!” Bess told me, “Mouse has been growling and growling at something behind the ivy. If it had been at night, I should say she had met a devil or ogre. Every minute she was with Nana and me, she got crosser and crosser; and see, her nose is quite red and bleeding, just like Hals’ when he tumbled downstairs. Could it be a real robber?” and Bess’s eyes opened wide.

“No,” I answered, “I don’t think it could be a robber; but let’s go and see.”

So we started off across the gravel. Mouse ran on ahead, as if anxious to show us something. Suddenly she stopped with a whimper. I followed on, jumped down the crypt, and, peering behind the ivy leaves, soon discovered the cause of my dog’s excitement and displeasure. I found half covered up with dead leaves and rolled tightly into a ball of prickles, a poor little hedgehog.

“For shame, Mouse!” I cried, and called her off. For Mouse, at the sight of the poor little beast, growled angrily, and wished once more to go for her antagonist.

“Better to kill un’,” said Burbidge, who had arrived on the scene. “Hedgehogs baint good for naught. They be milk-suckers, and death on the squire’s game.”

For like most country-folks, Burbidge’s hand was against hedgehogs. Burbidge had in his hand a rake, and was about to strike the poor little prickly creature, but I interposed.

MY SANCTUARY

“They do no harm. Besides, this is my sanctuary,” I said. “In the Abbey Church no bird or beast may be harmed.”

Burbidge walked away growling, “Varmint should be killed anywhere.”

Then Bess and I went and inspected the little ball of spikes.

“See, Bess,” I said, “how it defends itself. All the winter this hedgehog has slept amongst a bed of dead ivy leaves, and so has passed long months. But now that summer has returned it will walk about, and at nights he will crop the grass, and eat insects.”

Mouse looked abashed at my lavishing notice on a hedgehog, and jumped up on a bank of thyme and watched intently what I was doing. Great Danes are remarkably sensitive dogs, and the mildest rebuke is often sufficient to make them miserable for long spells. A friend of mine, who had a very large one, said, “I never dared do more than whip its kennel. As a puppy, that was punishment enough.” So I spoke gently to Mouse, and said, “You must never hurt hedgehogs again.” At this, Mouse gravely descended from her heights, sat down by my side, and inspected the hedgehog, and I felt certain she would never hurt one again.

Then I said to Bess that perhaps there were some little hedgehogs not far off, funny little creatures, born with little, almost soft, prickles; and I told the child how useful they were in a garden. How they feed on slugs and insects, and how, when introduced in a kitchen, they would even eat black beetles.

“Once,” I told my little maid, “I had read that a poor scullion, in the Middle Ages, had one that he taught to turn the spit. So you see, Bess,” I said, “hedgehogs can be very useful creatures; not at all the wicked murderous race that Burbidge would wish you to believe.”

Bess looked at me askance. “I cannot like them as much as you, mama,” she answered in a pained voice; “for Nana said too that they sucked the cows. And see how this one has pricked poor Mouse’s nose.”

“Well, let us leave the hedgehog,” at last I said, “and wash foolish Mouse’s wounds.” So we wandered off to the fountain, and dipped our handkerchiefs into the clear water, and washed my great hound’s fond and foolish nose.

At first, Mouse objected; but as Bess told her, “One gets used to washing, same as lessons,” so after a minute or two, she sat by us until we had washed away all traces of the fray.

As we were thus engaged, Auguste, the French cook, went by. I noticed, as he passed us, that he carried in his hand a basket.

“Voyez, madame,” he cried. “Quelle belle trouvaille. Elles sont superbes.” And he showed me a mass of creepy, crawly, slimy brown snails. Auguste was as proud as if he had found a basketful of new-laid eggs, and proposed with his aides to have a magnificent souper. “Quelle luxe!” I heard him say to himself, as he made his way to his kitchen, “et dire dans toute cette valetaille il n’y a que nous, qui en voudrons.”

Auguste will steep them in cold water, and then cook them. I must honestly confess I have never had the courage to eat one, but I believe now that there is a growing demand for escargots in London, and I have been told that in one shop alone, more than a hundred thousand are sold each season.

“Come on, mamsie,” at last cried Bess. “Even Nana couldn’t make Mouse cleaner.” So my little maid and I went off hand-in-hand across the well-tended lawns of the Cloister garth.

“ONLY YOU AND ME AND MOUSE”

Bess was full of confidences. “Mamsie,” said my little maid, “I never want to grow any older, ’cause why – I should have to wear long, long dresses, like grown-ups, and then, how could I climb the trees. But I should like all days to go on just the same as to-day – no lessons, no rain, no governesses, nobody but you and me and Mouse.”

I caught something of the child’s enthusiasm. The glory of the summer was like an intoxicating draught. “Wouldn’t it be lovely, dear,” I said, “to have no commonplaces, no tiresome duties – only summer and the song of birds; and never to catch cold, or feel ill, or tired, or worried?”

Bess laughed, and we kissed each other.

We walked on along the path that encircled the ruins. Young, fat, flopperty thrushes, with large brown eyes and short tails, hopped about the grass. On the bough of a lime tree, we came across a line of little tom-tits, nine in a row. There they sat, chirping softly, or charming, as the people call it here. The poor parent birds, in an agony of terror, flew backwards and forwards, imploring their offspring to return to the nest, but the young ones took no notice. They would not believe in the existence of such monsters as boys or cats. They, too, like us, were charmed with the sunshine and the gaiety of the outside world, and utterly declined to go back to what folks call here, “their hat of feathers.” A little further on, however, our enthusiasms received a chill. In the branches of a dead laurel, that I had for some time been watching, was a thrush’s nest, and it was deserted. The mother-bird had sat day and night, and I had watched the tips of her brown tail, or met, at intervals, the gaze of her round anxious eye. And now the nest was forsaken. How sad! She had become almost a friend. For days, after breakfast, I had brought out a saucer full of bread and milk, and placed it at a respectful distance from the nest. And yet in spite of all my care, behold! an enemy had come in the night, some horrid boy or evil cat, and the thrush had forsaken the nest, and we lamented over the eggs – cold as stones.

I showed Bess the nest. “How wicked!” cried Bess, “to frighten off a poor bird like that. Well, I am sure,” she added, “the wicked creature that has done that ought to go to prison. Perhaps Barbara, the housemaid,” she continued, after a moment’s reflection, “might tell her policeman. Policemen should be of use, sometimes.”

With a sense of regret, I retraced my steps, till I reached the tourist’s wicket, that leads into the public road. Seated close by, on a mossy bank, I found old Timothy Theobalds.

I told him about the forsaken thrush’s nest.

“Lord, love yer, marm!” he answered contemptuously, “they be as common as blackberries, be thrushes; there’s any amount of they – there be one not a hundred yards off, just on the ground. The feathered gentry will fly, give ’em a week or so. I don’t think nothin’ of they. But I do remember a yellow water wagtail’s nest, when I was a boy. It war down by the pond. I was stayin’ with grandam, and the missus that lived here at the farm had a fine lot of white ducks then. Well, she seed me one day speerin’ round, and her thought I war arter her ducks. ‘What be yer lookin’ round here for?’ her cried out, furious. I told her I was arter a yellow dip-tail, but her wouldn’t believe me. ‘I’ll mak’ yer know the taste of the willow’ – for there was a great one then by the pond – ‘and yer won’t wish to know it twice,’ her said. Farmer folk war masterful then” mused old Timothy; “they held the land from the gentry, and the land was meat and drink.”

After a pause I asked the old man if he was not enjoying the sunshine.

THE APPLE HOWLERS

“Pretty fair,” he replied. “But how about the apples? ’Tis good,” he acknowledged, “a bit of summer; but yer should have know’d the summers in the old days,” he exclaimed; “they war built up by plenty. Now,” he said, sadly, “there’s always somethin’ agin’ summer, like there be agin’ most things. Summer blows bain’t enough to content poor folks like me. Us old ’uns want our apples bobbin’ in beer come Christmas.”

I then remembered hearing a few days before that the apple-blossom had been sadly nipped by the late spring frosts.

“Them as is rich can buy the foreigners,” pursued Master Theobalds, “but to poor folks, frosts mean the end of pleasure. But there bain’t like to be much fruit now in the orchards,” he continued, “since folks have given up the decent customs of their forefathers.”

“What ones?” I asked. “And how did folks in the years gone by prevent frosts, and blights?”

“You’ll hear, you’ll hear,” and old Timothy, in a high squeaky voice of ninety years and more, told me of old Wenlock customs long since forgotten.

“I mind me,” he pursued, “when it war different; but in grandam’s time, it was a regular custom for them as had apple trees and plum orchards to get the young men to go round and catch round the trees with their arms – ”

“What good did that do?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“What good!” and old Timothy glared at me for this impertinent interpellation. “Why, mam, it was accounted a deed of piety in those days ‘to march’ the orchards, as folks called it. Religion war a different thing altogether, even when I war a lad,” he said sadly. “The devil we thought a lot of ’im in my time – always raging and rampaging up and down, it was supposed. Now, from what I hear, he seems a poor lame kind of played-out devil, broken-winded and drugged; not the rowdy, handsome chap us used to be afeard of. Years agone we thought he could get anywhere – in our houses, in our cupboards, up the chimney, down the wells, anywhere. ‘Keep him out,’ parsons used to say; and us thought us had done a good job if us could keep him out of our gardens, and from our fruit trees. So the lustiest lads of a parish would come round, call out a benediction, and tramp round. They would – they that war nimble with their fists – have a set-to, mostly, at Wenlock, in the churchyard. Many’s the match I’ve a-seen. Two young fellows fighting, fair and square, as Christians should, and after they had found the best man, they’d go and brace the trees. ‘Apple Howlers’ folks used to call ’em, and the best man war captain of the lot.”

“What did they do?”

“Why, they used to march in smocks, and with garlands and blows, same as on May Day. Holy Thursday war the great day, I’ve heard tell, and ’em used to shout till ’em fair broke their lungs, singing such old songs as ‘Blow winter snows across the plain,’ ‘Fair shines my lady’s garden,’ ‘Spring voices strong,’ and ‘Phœbus smiles on groves anew.’ Who Phœbus was I never knowd,” remarked old Timothy, “but Salter Mapps used to sing that finely and mak’ the whole place alive when he roared it out.”

“And the maids,” I said, “did they have no part in the merry-making?”

“THE MAIDS HELD THEIR PEACE”

“The maids,” answered Master Theobalds, severely, “held their peace. If they did anything, they peeped out of the winders, waved hankies, and kissed their hands. ’Twas enough for the maids in those days.”

“Yes; but tell me,” I urged, “about the rite. What did the young men do in the orchards?”

“Why, them rampaged round like young cart colts on spring grass, and they seized each others’ hands and danced aunty-praunty, as if their arms were made of cart-ropes, round the trees, and they capered like young deer, as the deer do at Apley Park, up beyond Bridgenorth, and they kind of hugged a tree, crying out —

 
“‘Stand fast root, bear well top,
God send us a youngling sop.
Every twig big apple,
Every bough fruit enough.’
 

And then wherever they passed they got cakes and ale. There war holy beer, made from church water caught in a butt from the roof, and that war supposed to be the best – ‘the life of the season,’ folks called it then. And if the lads got a touch too merry, folk knew what to do – they looked the other way. Rough play, rough pleasure; but they war men then.”

As the old man ceased talking, I remembered having read in some old book on “Strange Customs” an account of “Apple Blow Youling,” as it was called in the West. The rite was probably a survival of an old heathen custom. It is supposed that it arose from a Roman practice of giving thanks to Æolus, the god of the winds, and that this pious invocation was instituted by them soon after their conquest of Britain. Anyway, the rite became popular, and long survived the occupation of the Romans; and in some places, apple youling, or howling, went on through the early part of the nineteenth century. There was a pause, and then old Timothy began to talk about the difficulty of inducing village maids to go into domestic service.

“They all thinks themselves born ladies now,” he said sourly. “There’s my cousin Polly Makin’s granddaughter, a fine strapping lass to look at, but her went off last week to Birmingham. Dull, ’er said, it be here. What does her mean,” asked the old man, in a tone of righteous wrath, “by finding it dull in her native town? When folks found it dull in their native place, when I war a lad, we called ’em stoopid; now they calls ’em larned and too good. Now ’tis all roar and express train. But her’ll creep back some day, will Polly – young Polly, and be glad and thankful to find a place to lie her head in. They be all for pleasurin’ now, expeditions and excursions, running everywhere with no eyes, that’s what I call their modern games.”

“But in old days, if I had wanted a housemaid or a scullery-maid, what should I have done?” I asked, bringing back my old friend to his subject.

OLD-WORLD SERVANTS

“In old days,” replied Timothy, “there warn’t no manner of difficulty in the matter. The men and the maids used to stand in their native places on hire, which was a decent, open custom. At Christmas, there war the Gawby Market in the North; at Whitchurch there war the Rag Fair, as they called it; and at Shrewsbury, during fair time, all the farmers and their wives used to go in to engage a maid or a man. At Much Wenlock, I’ve heard hirin’ day was 12th of May; at Church Stretton it used to be on the 14th. At Market Drayton, I’ve often, in the forties and fifties, seen the carters stand forth, whips in hand, so that all might know their trade, and cry out, ‘A driver, a driver, good with a team,’ and such-like. Then the lasses wud stand with broom, or milk-pails and make known their callings, and the missuses and the masters would look round and engage who they had a mind to; and they cud mostly all scrub and clean, milk and churn, brew and bake in those days, for they couldn’t read nor write, so their hearts were set on housewifely jobs. But now the maids know nought. It is all eddication, all readin’ and writin’, and they mostly can do nothing with a broom, or a brush. Readin’ isn’t often much good to ’em what works. Now servant wenches talk of getting engaged; hirin’ war the word in the old time. When they war got in the old time, it war for a year, and not a penny did most of ’em get till the year had slipped away.”

“Wasn’t that rather hard?” I asked.

“The lads and lasses of the old days,” answered Timothy, not without a certain dignity, “took the rough with the smooth. Folks then didn’t all spec’ to find roast larks dissolved in their mouths when they opened them, any more than to pull roses at Yuletide. Hard work and plenty of it, small pay and long service, that war their lot – the lot of the lads I knew by name. Times war harder than they be now, but Shropshire war a better, more manly place than it be now. Now there’s no hirin’. The maids go off to registry offices in back streets. Palaver, dress, and flummery, that’s what service be now. They writes up, and off they goes to London, Wolverhampton, or Birmingham. Not much but paper and stamps now in service. A deal of dislikes and not an honest peck of work in the whole year – that’s what folks call progress now.”

Then we passed on to other subjects. “Is the world better, Timothy,” I asked, “for the abolition of the stocks, and pillory? Surely the punishments of the old world were very brutal.”

But my old friend would not allow this.

“Rough sinners need rough measures,” he said. “The stick, when used properly, be a right good medicine, and when the stick bain’t enough, take the lash. They cannot rule, as be afraid of tears.

“In old Shropshire the law crushed offence. At Newport the stocks were up till late years, and I mind me ’tisn’t more than half a century ago that they were used at Wenlock. They had made a new one, it seems the last, and put it on wheels, so that it might run like a Lord Mayor’s coach, they said. But to the last man, Snailey, as they put in, ’twas no punishment, for his friends they handed him up beer the whole way, and he came out drunk as a lord. I’ve never seen ’em whipped, but grandam did many’s the time,” continued old Timothy. “One of the posts of the Guildhall made the whippin’-post in the old times. And grandam often told me how she seed ’em herself whipped from the dungeon below the Guildhall to the White Hart Inn, and so round the town.

“When the job was over,” pursued old Timothy, “they washed the stripes with salt and water. Old Sally Shake-the-Pail, as they called her, wud come round with salt and water, and sponge their backs. They used, I’ve heard, some of ’em, to scream fit to leave their skins behind; whilst others, grandam used to say, would never speak, lay on the lash as they would, and walk round the town smilin’, so braced up war they, to appear as if they didn’t mind a farthin’ piece.

PAINS AND JUDGMENTS

“The Judgments, as they war called,” continued my informant, “took place on market days. Then it war as they put a bridle on the scolds.

“Lor!” chuckled old Timothy, “’tis a scurvy pity as they can’t clap ’em on now. There’s many a wench as would be the better for it. There be Rachel Hodgkis, own cousin to Young Polly, and Mary Ann James, my great-nevy’s wife, as ’twould do pounds of good to. But things are changed now, and ’tis all the women folks as have got the upper hand, and any pelrollick may grin, flount, jeer, and abuse as much as it plaizes her now. But in the old times it war different – different altogether.”

Then old Timothy went on to say, “Many’s the time as I’ve seen Judy Cookson in a bridle. Her war a terrible sight in one. Her wud scream and yell till her mouth fair ran with blood. Judy, folks said, cud abuse against any – in fact,” old Timothy said, with local pride, “I think her cud have given points to many in Shrewsbury. Her war that free with her tongue, and bountiful of splitters.

“Besides these old judgments,” said Timothy, “I’ve seen many strange things – sale of wives, and such-like trifles. Did yer ever hear, marm, the story of how Seth Yates sold his wife?” There was a pause, then Timothy drew breath and began afresh. “It must have been seventy years and odd,” he declared, “but I mind it all as if war yesterday. A bit of a showery day, rain on and off, but sunshine between whiles.

“Yates, the husband, he lived at Brocton, and he and his missus couldn’t git on nohow. They fought, they scratched, and scrabbled like two tom-cats that had met on the roof. Mattie, they said, would screech and nag, and then Seth wud take up a stick and lay it on sharp. This went on for weeks, till the neighbours said there was no peace, and that they cud bear it no longer. The hurly-burly and rampage war that disgraceful.

“So Mattie thought matters over. She had a Yorkshire cousin at the hall, came from Barnsley, or some such outlandish place, her said, and her thought out, by her advice, how her cud carry out a separation with her man. ‘Getting shunt,’ Venus, her cousin, named it; for it appears in Yorkshire yer can sell yer wife, same as yer dog, if yer’ve got a mind, and even the bishops there say ’tis a handy practice. So Mattie said what can be done in Yorkshire can be done in Shropshire, for ’tis the same king as rules over the land.

“Seth he spoke up for a private sale; but Mattie said, ‘I war married in public, and I’ll be sold in public,’ for her war fearful of the law, seeing what back-handers the law can give, when they mightn’t reasonably be expected. And so they settled as all should be done fair and square, and above board on market day. Then for once folks said the pair they agreed.”

“Was the sale effected?” I asked.

“Simple and straightforward, same as pigs in a pen,” replied old Timothy. “The missus, her came into the market, dressed in her Sunday best, in a trim cotton, and wearin’ a new and stylish tippet, with fine ends of primrose ribbon, and round her neck her gude man had put a halter.

A WIFE FOR SALE

“When Yates got to Wenlock market, he turned shy and silly. ‘Let be, missus,’ he said to his wife, ‘I’ll treat thee fair, if thee’ll keep a civil tongue.’ But her turned round savage like, like a hen when a terrier pup will meddle with her clutch of chickens, and her flapped her apurn slap in his face. ‘I’ve come in to be sold,’ her said, ‘and I wull be sold if there’s justice in England according to civilized customs.’ And them as was standing by roared with laughter, and Tom Whinnall, a cheap Jack, turned to Seth and he cried out, ‘Let her be. A man never did wisely yet what kept a woman ’gainst her will. A woman what won’t settle, be as mad as a tup in a halter.’ So Seth he got shamed like, and he called out, ‘Have it thy own way.’ And her cried out furious, ‘I’d rather go down the river like Jimmy Glover’s cat, than bide with thee.’ Then she got up in an empty cart, and Tom Whinnall he put her up for auction. Her fetched half a crown and a pot of beer.”

“And what happened afterwards?”

“Oh, nothing much,” replied Master Theobalds. “Anyway, Mattie had nothing to complain of. David Richards bought her, a great strapping fellow, that worked for the farmer at the Abbey, afore they turned it back into a mansion. Folks said that Mattie showed off first night, but David he just looked at her, and she minded him from the beginning. The neighbours never heard a sound. He war masterful war David, and he looked blacker than night when he had a mind, which, I take it, is the right way with such as Mattie, for sure enough the two lived happy as Wreken doves in the Bull Ring till Mattie died.”

“Were there any penances in your time, Timothy?” I asked.

Timothy scratched his head and looked puzzled, and at last answered, “I never seed any, but I’ve heard of ’em. Betty Beaman was the last as I’ve heard tell of. She had, it seems, to appear before all the people in a white sheet. Her felt it war cruel hard, I’ve heard grandam say. One day a neighbour told, of how years afterwards, her stood by the pump and told a friend that her had never got over that job. Her felt the misery of it even then. And her hoped some good soul would help the Lord to disremember, if so be she ever got to paradise.”