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Newspapers, if folded so as to show the red Government stamp, went for a penny, but nothing might be put into them, and not a word beyond the address written on them. The reason of all this was that the cost of carriage was then so great that it could only be made to answer by those high rates, and by preventing everything but real letters and newspapers from being thus taken. As Government then, as now, was at the expense of postage, its own correspondence went free, and therefore all Members of Parliament had the privilege of sending letters freely. They were allowed to post eleven a day, which might contain as much as would weigh an ounce, without charge, if they wrote the date at the top and their name in the right hand corner. This was called franking, and plenty of letters by no means on public business travelled in that way.

There was no post office in Otterbourne till between 1836 and 1840; for, of course there were few letters written or received, and thus it did not seem to many persons worth while for village children to learn to write. If they did go into service at a distance from home, their letters would cost more than their friends could afford to pay. This was a sad thing, and broke up and cut up families very much more than any distance does now. It really is easier to keep up intercourse with a person in America or even New Zealand now, than it was then with one in Scotland, Northumberland, or Cornwall; for travelling was so expensive that visits could seldom be made, and servants could not go to their homes unless they were within such a short distance as to be able to travel by coach or by carrier’s cart, or even walking all the way, getting a cast now and then by a cart.

People who did not travel by coaches, or who went where there was no coach, hired post-chaises, close carriages something like flies. Most inns, where the coaches kept their horses, possessed a post-chaise, and were licensed to let out post horses for hire. Most of the gentlefolks’ families kept a close carriage called a chariot, and, if they did not keep horses of their own, took a pair of post-horses, one of which was ridden by a man, who, whatever might be his age, was always called a post-boy. Some inns dressed their post-boys in light blue jackets, some in yellow ones, according to their politics, but the shape was always the same; corduroy tights, top boots, and generally white (or rather drab-coloured) hats. It used to be an amusement to watch whether the post-boy would be a blue or a yellow one at each fresh stage. Hardly any one knows what a post-boy was like now, far less an old-fashioned travelling carriage or chariot and its boxes.

The travelling carriage was generally yellow. It had two good seats inside, and a double one had a second seat, where two persons sat backwards. The cushion behind lifted up and disclosed a long narrow recess called the swordcase, because, when there were highwaymen on the roads, people kept their weapons there. There were sometimes two, sometimes one seat outside, called the box and the dickey—much the pleasantest places, for it was very easy to feel sick and giddy inside. A curved splashboard went up from the bottom of the chariot to a level with the window, and within it fitted what was called the cap box, with a curved bottom, so that when in a house it had to be set down in a frame to hold it upright. A big flat box, called the imperial, in which ladies put their dresses, was on the top of the carriage, two more long, narrow ones, generally used for shoes and linen, fitted under the seat, and another square one was hung below the dickey at the back, and called the drop box. Such a mischance has been known as, on an arrival, a servant coming in with the remains of this black box between his arms, saying—“Sir, should not this box have a bottom to it?” The chariot thus carried plenty of goods, and was a sort of family home on a journey. To go to Plymouth, which now can be done in six or seven hours, then occupied two long days, halting for the night to sleep at an inn.

The Old Church

Some of us can still remember the old Church and the old Sunday habits prevailing before 1830. The Churchyard was large and very pretty, though ill kept, surrounded with a very open railing, and with the banks sloping towards the water meadows clothed with fine elm trees—one with a large and curious excrescence on the bark. There was a deep porch on the south side of the Church, with seats on each side. Then, on red tiles, one entered between two blocks of pews of old brown unpainted oak (their doors are panels to the roof of the boys’ school). In the space between them were two or three low benches for the children. There were three arches leading to the chancel, but that on the south side was closed by the pulpit and reading desk, and that on the north by a square pew belonging to Cranbury. Within the chancel on the north side was a large pew lined with red, belonging to Cranbury, and on the south, first the clerk’s desk, then a narrow seat of the clergyman’s, and then a large square pew. Boys in the morning and men in the afternoon used to sit on the benches placed outside these, and beyond was the rail shutting in the Altar, which was covered with red cloth, and stood below a large window, on each side of which were the Commandments in yellow letters on a blue ground, and on the wall were painted the two texts, “The Cup of Blessing, is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ?” and “The Bread which we break, is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ?” The vestry was built out to the north, and was entered from the sanctuary.

Further space was provided by two galleries, one on the north side, supported on iron poles, and entered from the outside by a step ladder studded with large square-headed nails to prevent it from being slippery. The other went across the west end, and was entered by a dark staircase leading up behind the pews, which further led to the little square weather-boarded tower containing two beautifully toned bells. These were rung from the outer gallery where the men sat. There was a part boarded off for the singers. The Font was nearly under the gallery. It was of white marble, and still lines our present Font. Tradition says it was given by a former clerk, perhaps Mr. Fidler, but there is no record of it. An older and much ruder Font was hidden away under the gallery stairs close to an old chest, where women sometimes found a seat, against the west wall.

In those days, now more than half a century ago, when Archdeacon Heathcote was Vicar, he or his Curate used to ride over from Hursley on Sunday for the service at Otterbourne. There was only one service, alternately in the morning and afternoon, at half-past ten or at three, or in the winter at half-past two. The time was not much fixed, for on a new comer asking when the service would take place, the answer was “at half-past two, sir, or at three, or else no time at all,” by which was meant no exact hour or half-hour. This uncertainty led to the bells never being rung till the minister was seen turning the corner of Kiln-lane, just where the large boulder stone used to be. The congregation was, however, collecting, almost all the men in white smocks with beautifully worked breasts and backs, the more well-to-do in velveteen; the women in huge bonnets. The elder ones wore black silk or satin bonnets, with high crowns and big fronts, the younger ones, straw with ribbon crossed over, always with a bonnet cap under. A red cloak was the regular old women’s dress, or a black or blue one, and sometimes a square shawl, folded so as to make a triangle, over a gown of stuff in winter, print in summer. A blue printed cotton with white or yellow sprays was the regular week day dress, and the poorest wore it on Sundays. The little girls in the aisle had the like big coarse straw bonnets, with a strip of glazed calico hemmed and crossed over for strings, round tippets, and straight print frocks down to their feet. The boys were in small smocks, of either white or green canvas, with fustian or corduroy jackets or trowsers below, never cloth. Gloves and pocket handkerchiefs were hardly known among the children, hardly an umbrella, far less parasols or muffs. Ladies had pelisses for out-of-door wear, fitting close like ulsters, but made of dark green or purple silk or merino, and white worked dresses under them in summer.

Well, the congregation got into Church—three families by the step ladder to one gallery, and the men into another, where the front row squeezed their knees through the rails and leant on the top bar, the rest of the world in the pews, and the children on benches. The clerk was in his desk behind the reading desk—good George Oxford, with his calm, good, gentle face, and tall figure, sadly lame from rheumatism caught when working in the brick kilns. His voice was always heard above the others in the responses, but our congregation never had dropped the habit of responding, and, though there was no chanting, the Amens and some of the Versicles used to have a grand full musical sound peculiar to that Church. People also all turned to the east for the Creed, few knelt, but some of the elder men stood during the prayers, and, though there was far too much sitting down during the singing, every body got up and stood, if “Hallelujah” occurred, as it often did in anthems.

There were eight or ten singers, and they had a bassoon, a flute, and a clarionet. They used to sing before the Communion Service in the morning, after the Second Lesson in the afternoon, and before each Sermon. Master Oxford had a good voice, and was wanted in the choir, so as soon as the General Thanksgiving began, he started off from his seat, and might be heard going the length of the nave, climbing the stairs, and crossing the outer gallery. Sometimes he took his long stick with him, and gave a good stripe across the straw bonnet of any particularly naughty child. In the gallery he proclaimed—“Let us sing to the praise and glory of God in the Psalm,” then giving the first line.

The Psalms were always from the New or Old Versions. A slate with the number in chalk was also hung out—23 O.V., 112 N.V., as the case might be. About four verses of each were sung, the last lines over and over again, some very oddly divided. For instance—

“Shall fix the place where we must dwell,
The pride of Jacob, His delight,”

was sung thus:—

“The pride of Ja—the pride of Ja—the pride of Ja—” (at least three times before the line was ended).

But rough as these were, some of these Psalms were very dear to us all, specially the old twenty-third:—

“My Shepherd is the living Lord,
   Nothing, therefore, I need,
In pastures fair, by pleasant streams
   He setteth me to feed.

He shall convert and glad my soul,
   And bring my soul in frame
To walk in paths of holiness,
   For His most Holy Name.

I pass the gloomy vale of death,
   From fear and danger free;
For there His guiding rod and staff
   Defend and comfort me.”

Another much-loved one was the 121st:—

“To Zion’s hill I lift my eyes,
   From thence expecting aid,
From Zion’s hill and Zion’s God,
   Who heaven and earth hath made.

Sheltered beneath the Almighty’s wings,
   Thou shall securely rest,
Where neither sun nor moon shall thee
   By day nor night molest.

Then thou, my soul, in safety rest,
   Thy Guardian will not sleep,
His watchful care, that Israel guards,
   Shall Israel’s monarch keep.

At home, abroad, in peace or war,
   Thy God shall thee defend,
Conduct thee through life’s pilgrimage,
   Safe to thy journey’s end.”

Will the sight of these lines bring back to any one the old tune, the old sounds, the old sights of the whitewashed Church, and old John Green in the gallery, singing with his bass voice, with all his might, his eyebrows moving as he sung? And then the Commandments and Ante-Communion read not from the Altar, but the desk; the surplice taken off in the desk instead of the Vestry; Master Oxford’s announcements shouted out from his place, generally after the Second Lesson—“I hereby give notice that a Vestry Meeting will be held on Tuesday, at twelve o’clock, to make a new rate for the relief of the poo-oor.” “I hereby give notice that Evening Service will be at half-past two as long as the winter days are short.” Well, we should think these things odd now, and we have much to be thankful for in the changes; but there were holy and faithful ones then, and Master Oxford was one of them.

In the days here described, from 1820 to 1827, few small villages had anything but dame schools, and Otterbourne children, such as had any schooling at all, were sent to Mrs. Yates’s school on the hill, where she sat, the very picture of the old-fashioned mistress, in her black silk bonnet, with the children on benches before her, and her rod at hand.

Several families, however, did not send the children to school at all, and there were many who could not read, many more who could not write, and there was very little religious teaching, except that in the Sunday afternoons in Lent, the catechism was said in Church by the best instructed children, but without any explanation.

About the year 1819 Mrs. Bargus and her daughter came to live at Otterbourne, and in 1822 Miss Bargus married William Crawley Yonge, who had retired from the army, after serving in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. Both Mr. and Mrs. Yonge had clergymen for their fathers, and were used to think much of the welfare of their neighbours. It was not, however, till 1823 that Mrs. Yonge saw her way to beginning a little Sunday School for girls, teaching it all by herself, in a room by what is now Mr. J. Misselbrook’s house. While there was still only one Service on Sundays, she kept the school on the vacant half of the day, reading the Psalms and Lessons to the children, who were mostly biggish girls. This was when Archdeacon Heathcote was the Vicar of Hursley and Otterbourne, and the Rev. Robert Shuckburgh was his Curate. Archdeacon and Mrs. Heathcote, who were most kind and liberal, gave every help and assisted in setting up the Clothing Club.

Mrs. Yonge’s first list of Easter prizes contains twenty names of girls, and the years that have passed have left but few of them here. A large Bible bound in plain brown leather was the highest prize; Prayer Books, equally unornamented, New Testaments, and Psalters, being books containing only the Psalms and Matins and Evensong, were also given, and were then, perhaps, more highly valued than the dainty little coloured books every one now likes to have for Sunday. Then there were frocks, coarse straw bonnets, and sometimes pocket handkerchiefs, for these were not by any means such universal possessions as could be wished, and only came out on Sunday. As to gloves, silk handkerchiefs, parasols, muffs, or even umbrellas, the children thought them as much out of their reach as a set of pearls or diamonds, but what was worse, their outer clothing was very insufficent, seldom more than a thin cotton frock and tippet, and the grey duffle cloaks, which were thought a great possession, were both slight and scanty.

About 1826, Mrs. Yonge was looking at the bit of waste land that had once served as a roadway to the field at the back of Otterbourne House, when she said, “How I wish I had money enough to build a school here.” “Well,” said Mrs. Bargus, “You shall have what I can give.” The amount was small, but with it Mr. Yonge contrived to put up one room with two new small ones at the back, built of mud rough cast, and with a brick floor, except for the little bedroom being raised a step, and boarded.

The schoolroom was intended to hold all the children who did not go to Mrs. Yates, both boys and girls, and it was sufficient, for, in the first place, nobody from Fryern-hill came. Mrs. Green had a separate little school there. Then the age for going to school was supposed to be six. If anyone sent a child younger, the fee was threepence instead of a penny. The fee for learning writing and arithmetic was threepence, for there was a general opinion that they were of little real use, and that writing letters would waste time (as it sometimes certainly does). Besides this, the eldest daughter of a family was always minding the baby, and never went to school; and boys were put to do what their mothers called “keeping a few birds” when very small indeed, while other families were too rough to care about education so that the numbers were seldom over thirty.

There were no such people as trained mistresses then. The National Society had a school for masters, but they were expensive and could only be employed in large towns; so all that could be looked for was a kind, motherly, good person who could read and do needlework well. And the first mistress was Mrs. Creswick, a pleasant-looking person with a pale face and dark eyes, who had been a servant at Archdeacon Heathcote’s, and had since had great troubles. She did teach the Catechism, reading, and work when the children were tolerably good and obeyed her, but boys were a great deal too much for her, and she had frail health, and such a bad leg that she never could walk down the lane to the old Church. So, after Sunday School, the children used to straggle down to Church without anyone to look after them, and sit on the benches in the aisle and do pretty much what they pleased, except when admonished by Master Oxford’s stick.

Mr. Shuckburgh had by this time come to reside in the parish, in the house which is now the post-office, and there was at last a double Service on the Sunday.

The next thing was to consider what was to be done about the boys, who could not be made to mind Mrs. Creswick. A row of the biggest sat at the back of the school, with their heels to the wall, and by constant kicking had almost knocked a hole through the mud wall; so the Vicar, who was now the Archdeacon’s son, the Rev. Gilbert Wall Heathcote, gave permission for the putting up another mud and rough cast school house near the old Church, for the boys, in an empty part of the Churchyard to the north-east, where no one had ever been buried.

However, there Master Oxford was installed as schoolmaster, coming all the way down from his house on the hill (a pretty-timbered cottage, now pulled down). He and his boys had a long way to walk to their school, but he taught them all he knew and set them a good example. The boys were all supposed to go to him at six years old, and most were proud of the promotion. One little fellow was known to go to bed an hour or two earlier that he might be six years old the sooner! But some dreaded the good order enforced by the stick. There was one boy in particular, who had outgrown the girls’ school, and was very troublesome there. He would not go to the boys’, and his mother would not make him, saying she feared he would fall into the water. “Well,” said Mrs. Bargus, who was a most bright, kindly old lady of eighty, “I’ll make him go.” So she took a large piece of yellow glazed calico intended for furniture lining, walked up to school, and held it up to the little boy. She said she heard that he would only go to the girls’ school, and, since everybody went there in petticoats, she had brought some stuff to make him a petticoat too! The young man got up and walked straight off to the boys’ school.

Here are some verses, written by Mrs. Yonge in 1838, on one of the sights that met her eye in the old Churchyard:—