Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

The dance pleased all so well, that Constance and her little corps dramatique were obliged to go through the whole of it again. “It be better nor a ballet” said old Timothy. “I seed one once years agone at Shrewsbury Theatre, after the Crimean war; but this here be dancing on the green – and not dancing for money, but for pure joy.” So away the little dancers footed it again. Even the little lads, who hitherto had remained stolid and apparently indifferent, caught something of the enthusiasm of the spectators, for at intervals they bowed with eagerness, and pointed and laughed at the little maidens, and ejaculated aloud, as they had been taught by Constance to do at the rehearsals, “Good, good, well done, Mistress Betty; excellently, madam,” and so on, till, as a fond mother said, “Anybody might think as they had been born play-actors, for they took to mumming same as widdies (young ducks) do to water.”

When all was over, and even the tinkling piano was heard no more, Fremantle and footmen bearing trays of cake, beer, and milk appeared on the scene. As to the children, we made them stand in long lines on the paths, and gave them slices of cake and buns, and drinks of milk in the blue and white mugs of the country; but before they fell to, they repeated in chorus the old grace which Constance had found in praise of May merry-making. At last, not even the youngest little boy could eat any more, and gradually all my guests bowed and curtsied, and left the lawn, but old Timothy who was seized with a violent fit of coughing, leant feebly on his stick, and looked at me piteously out of his rheumy eyes.

“’Tis the rheumatics as has got hold of me,” he said, between two fits of coughing. “They be terrible companions, be rheumatics, worse than snakes nor wasps, and allus with ’un summer and winter. Rheumatics,” he added wheezily, “be like burrs, they hangs on to yer all seasons.”

“Come in for a bit,” I said, “and rest by the fire.” Young blood is warm, but the sun hasn’t much warmth yet. So I led old Timothy into the housekeeper’s room, whilst kind Auguste made him on the gas stove a “bon bouillon” and prepared for him a glass of spiced beer.

“I can’t say, marm, why I took on like that,” said old Timothy, humbly. “It cumed like all of a sudden, and I shook like a leaf, and a kind of a swim-swammy sense mastered me, and dwang-swang, I think I should have found myself on the turf, if you hadn’t taken me in and comforted me.”

As the old man spoke, I saw that some colour was coming back into his old cheeks. He felt cheered by his drop of broth, and when he had sipped of the warm ale his tongue began to wag.

“To-day,” he said, “put me to mind of the old days when the world ran merrily at Wenlock, and for the matter of that, all through the countryside. They had holidays, they had, afore they had invented trains, trams, and motors. There war the Wakes proper, and the Wisheng Wells – all sports and jollity after good work.”

“ONCE I GRINNED THROUGH A HORSE-COLLAR”

Then old Timothy proceeded to tell me how, in the old times, “they used to clap up booths and have shows, and dances. My grandam used to tell how they had in her time Morris dancers and play-acting, and I remember,” he continued, “a rare bit of fun. ’Twas to grin through a horse-collar at Church Stretton. When I war a lad,” said old Timothy, “’twas accounted a fine thing to be able to make the horriblest face in the town – next best to being the sweetest scraper on a fiddle or a fine singer in a catch. I was never much of a musician,” pursued my old guest, regretfully, “but for downright, hugeous horror put into a human face, I war bad to beat.”

Then, after a pause, he went on to say, “I mind me there war St. Milburgha’s Wake at Stoke. There used to be pretty sports there. The lads used to come in smocks and dance. They used to foot it sharp to old country dances, cheery with lot of jumping, skipping, and bobbing. Men used to say ’twas in honour of St. Milburgha. I don’t hold to saints, as a rule,” explained Timothy; “they be mostly old bones, nails, and useless rubbish; but I draws a difference between Shropshire and the rest, and I believes in Shropshire saints proper, same as in my own parish church and in grandam’s grave.”

After a few minutes, the old man went on to tell me about the Well Wakes. “Folks used to flock to ’em,” he said. “They used to meet and have a jolly time. There war the Beach Wake, near against Chirbury. There they went in great numbers, and the best class of farmers and their wives. There war a Whirl-stone then, but on Wake Sunday it turned all by itself, Old Jackson as sold the best ale allus used to say.

“Then when us could, us went to the Raven’s Bowl and to the Cuckoo’s Cup on the Wrekin at the proper times. God Almighty, we war taught to believe, kept they full of water for his birds, and ’twar there that we Shropshire lads, seventy years agone and more, used to go and wish, when we had a mind to wed a wench – seventy years agone,” the old man lingered over the words, repeating them softly. “One summer mornin’ I got up,” he continued, “when the dew was lying like jewels on the turf and wet the grass it war so that yer could wring it out with a cloth. I war up betimes, and I walked, and walked till I got to the spot. There warn’t many places in Shropshire as I didn’t know then,” Timothy exclaimed with pride; and added with enthusiasm, “yer gets to know the betwixts and betweens of everything, sure enough, when yer be earth-stopper to the hunt. Dad warn’t by trade, but Uncle Mapp war – Peregine Mapp, as us used to call un – as lived behind Muckley Cross and war the best ount-catcher as ever I knowed, rat-catcher, and stoat-trapper, and death to varmint generally. Well, he took me on from rook scarin’ for Farmer Burnell; I lived with he till I war twelve. They talks now of eddication, but ’tis the eddication of wood and hill as be the right ’un to make a man of yer.”

THE EDUCATION OF WOOD AND HILL

“Yes, Timothy,” I said; and to bring him back to his first subject, I added, “but you were telling me about your walk to the Wrekin, and how you drank from the Raven’s and Cuckoo’s bowls there.”

“Ay, ay, sure I was,” replied the old man, and a gleam of light shot into his lustreless eyes. So saying he rubbed his hands softly before the blazing logs and went on —

“Well, it war the longest day of the year. That night in June, I’ve heard say, when they used to light fires on the hill tops, and when the men used to sing, and some of ’em used to leap through the fires and call it Johnnie’s Watch; but the squires, when they took to planting on the hillsides, forbid that sport, and there war somethin’ to be said on that score, for I believe myself it frightened foxes.

“Well, sure enough I walked, as I said, to the Wrekin over the Severn by Buildwas Bridge, and up beyond near Little Wenlock and through Wenlock Wood. I war desperate sweet on Susie Langford – I hadn’t hardly opened my mouth to her, but the sight of her remained with me, night and day, same as the form of a good horse does to a young man who can’t afford to buy him – and I stood on the heights of the great hill, and I drank out of the bowls and wished and wished, and made sure as I should get my heart’s desire, for grandam had allus said, ‘Him as goes to the Wrekin on midsummer morning, gains his wish as sure as a throstle catches a worm on May morning.’ Them, her used to say, ‘as goes to the Wrekin on the May Wakes, gets nought but a jug of ale and a cake.’ Well, I think I got nought but water, and never a cake that mornin’, for little the wish or the bowls did for me.”

“Did you mind very much?” I asked, watching the shadow that swept over his face.

“Did I mind?” replied old Timothy, vehemently. “Some three months arter, when they told me that Susie war agoin to marry the miller in the Dingle, I laid me down on the cold ground in the old Abbey Church, and thought I should have died of the pure howgy misery of the whole job. Grandam she gave me all she could to comfort me. I got thin as a lath – she gave me can-doughs and flap-jacks and begged apples to slip into dumplins, off the neighbours; and her brewed me a drop of beer from the water from the church roof. But it warn’t nothing to me, yer can’t comfort a man by his stomach, when he be in love.

“Anton Ames war a hugeous fellow and one of the best with fist or gloves, or I’d have killed ’un,” broke out old Timothy, “for he seemed to poison the whole countryside for me.”

“But you got over her loss at last,” I ventured to say, “though you have never married.”

“One do,” replied the old man grimly. “There be a time for everything – for women, for posy knots, dancing, and all the kickshaws. They be all toys, mere toys. ’Tis only sport and beer as lasts.” As he spoke the old man looked gloomily into the fire and warmed his wrinkled hands afresh.

“And Susie?” I could not refrain from asking; “what happened to her?”

“Her married and reared a pack of childer,” answered Timothy, “and when Anton fell off his cart one dark night from Shrewsbury Market, they said her cried, but cried fit to wash away her eyes. But her got comforted in time – they mostly do, does women; and then, after a bit, her took a chapman. They often do, for number two I’ve noticed,” continued Timothy, meditatively; “for chapmans have ready tongues, and be oily and cheeky in one. And Sue her had a bit of siller, and they married sharp off, at Munslow Church, I heard, and Sue her used to go hawking with Gipsy Trevors, as they called ’im, and they used to pass through Bridgenorth, Stretton, and up by Ludlow, same as if her had never been born respectable or had rubbed bright an oak dresser, or swept a parlour carpet.”

“What did you do at the Wakes, and how long did they last?” I asked as old Timothy relapsed into silence.

OLD SHROPSHIRE PLEASURES

“Oh, they was most part a week,” answered the old man. “There war too much fun then in folks, to let the fun die out so quick as it does now. Now, if a squire has a cricket-match, ’tis all over in no time. Piff-paff like a train through a tunnel. There’s nought now but a smack, and a taste of jollity, and it dies with daylight. When I was a boy, it was altogether different. Us could work, and us could play, and us liked to take our fill, same as young bullocks on spring grass. Us used to dance and sing, run races, and jump for neckties and hat-bands, and play kiss-in-the-ring, and manage,” said old Timothy, with a twinkle in his eye, “to stand by a pretty lass then, and to wrestle and box besides. They war merry times.” And here his voice sank almost to a whisper, “And then there was cock-fightin’.”

“Cock-fightin’?” I enquired. “Have you ever seen much of that?”

“Lord love yer!” retorted Master Theobalds, with kindly contempt. “Of course I have, and a prettier, more gentlemanly sport I b’aint acquainted with. I mind me of the good old time, when every squire had his own main of cocks, and many war the farmers as had a good clutch, and great war the pride of the missus in rearin’ a good ’un round the Clee, and over at Bridgenorth. Folks used to say at Ludlow, as there were some as thought more of their cocks, than of their own souls. Why, marm, when I war a little un, we should have thought a town a poor benighted one-horse place as hadn’t got its cock-pit. There used,” continued old Timothy, “to be a fine place beyond what is now the vicarage, where they used to fight ’em regularly on Easter Monday, and at the May Fair at Much Wenlock. Every serving-man as had a touch of sport in his blood used to get leave to go ‘cocking,’ as they called it then, and a right merry sport it war, sittin’ fine days on the spring grass, and seeing two game uns go tooth and nail for each other.”

“Did they put spurs on them?” I asked the old man.

“Of course they did, and weighed ’em.” And then old Timothy added, “Scores of times I’ve put on the spurs myself to oblige a squire, or a kindly farmer as had given me a jog back from the meet, or a lift on, when I war searchin’ after a terrier.”

“Was there not a belief that a cock hatched in an owl or magpie’s nest was sure to have luck in the ring?” I asked.

THE COCKFIGHTS OF THE PAST

“Sure there war,” answered Timothy, with conviction. “I remember hearin’ of one, Owen by the Clee, as had a cock that he allus swore had been reared by an owl; and Davies, near Munslow, had a famous green-tailed bird, that he used to say was hatched in a pie’s nest. I cannot say for sure how it war,” said the old man, “but sartain I be that them war the two best birds as ever I seed – let ’em be reared as they might be. They war two upstanding birds, tall in the leg, long, lean heads, and born game. No white feather in they. There war many,” continued the old man, “who tried to get luck in all ways, and stopped at nothing. Some gave ’em chopped beef afore fightin’, and many beat up an egg in their meal to give ’em courage and strength. And then” – and here old Timothy paused – “there war other ways.”

“What ways?” I asked with curiosity.

“Well,” and my old guest sank his voice to a whisper, “there war some on Easter Sunday as took the Sacrament, as took it at no other time.”

“But what had that to do with cock-fighting?” I asked.

“Why, jist this,” and Timothy’s voice became hardly audible. “They drank the wine, but saved the bread, for some believed that a cock that had eaten consecrated bread afore he went into the ring, war bound to win, as the devil fought for ’im himself.”

“What a horrible sacrilege!” I could not refrain from exclaiming.

“That’s what folks wud say now,” agreed Timothy, complacently; “but there war many as didn’t feel that then. Times be different. It war wrong, I suppose,” he added, “but the sport war that strong in Shropshire men then, they wud ha’ raced angels for pence and fought with Bibles, if so be folks would have laid on bets.”

But after a pause, he added, “They didn’t all go that far; some only bought dust from church chancels that they threw on their bird’s feathers, or chucked a pinch into the bags, and there never came no harm from that, for it gave the sextons and vergers a lucky penny, and made use of what otherwise would have been let lie on the midgeon heap. And even parsons didn’t themselves interfere there, ’cause the practice made sextons and church officials easy to find as nuts in the Edge Wood.”

Then I turned, and asked the old man about old Squire Forester’s hounds.

“Ay, they war grand ones.” And my old guest’s eyes flashed with enthusiasm. And then old Timothy went on to ask me if I had ever heard of Tom Moody, “as great a devil as ever rode a horse. There war none to beat Tom – Tom war whipper-in, and then huntsman, and bred a rider. One day he rode, as a little lad, an ugly cob with a pig-bristled mane. Somehow Tom hung on, jumped with the best, and never fell, though the leps that day, they said, were hugeous. I never seed Tom myself,” continued Timothy, “but grandam war his own cousin right enough, and it war a proud moment for any lad to clasp hands with old Tom. There war many then less proud to know a bishop or a peer, than to know Tom.

“The old squire, when he seed the lad ride like that, said at the finish —

“‘Will you come back and whip in for me, for yer be the right sort?’

“‘Will I, yer honour? Sure I will,’ said Tom, and his ugly mug broke out like May blows in sunshine, a friend standing by told us. Tom and the squire they never parted till Tom war buried under the sod of Barrow churchyard.

“Up and down dale, war Moody’s way. Nothing lived before him. He never stopped for hedge or ditch. Often ’tis told of ’im that he used to take guests of the squire’s back to Shifnal, where they met the coach for London. Then Tom would drive his prime favourite in the yellow gig. He counted his neck for nothing, and didn’t set no store on theirs, and they did say he would lep pikes and hedges same as if he war hunting, and never injured tongue of buckle or stitch of a strap.”

“Was that possible?” I exclaimed in amazement.

“Lor bless yer, mam, everythin’ war possible with Tom. They said here he war a devil incarnate on a horse, or in his shay, and nothing could stop him. Folks said he loved his old horse better than his soul.”

“What was the name of his horse?”

“OLD SOUL” TO RIDE

“‘Old Soul,’ right enough,” answered Timothy; “a great lean beaste, sixteen hands and more. Any amount of bone and not a square inch of flesh, with a docked tail and a wicked wall eye. He kicked and bit, did Old Soul, as if he war the great Satan himself; and I’ve heard ’em say at the kennels, that there war none but Tom and one other man about the place as dared go near him to dress him down, for he would savage any one when he had a mind. Heels up, and ears back, and his eye the colour of a yule log at Christmastide, those were his ways. Yet Tom at covert side thought mountains of him. ‘Old Soul and I must get to heaven together,’ he used to say, ‘for what the old chap wud do without me, or I without he, ’twould puzzle me to think. And ’tis the wickedest, cutest old devil that ever man sat across,’ Tom used to swear, ‘but if a man’s got a spice of the true hunter in him, he blesses God to be on such a horse when hounds be running, devil or no devil.’

“Once,” continued Timothy, “I heard as Tom war lost. They hunted for ’un everywhere down beyond Kenley, where they had been in the morning. In those days the country there war very marshy in the winter time, for there wasn’t a bit of draining. Well, I’ve heard it said as Tom went in, and it happened in this way. Tom war leading his horse, but the horse war wiser than Tom, for feelin’ the ground shaky, he jerked up his head sudden like, and snapped the bridle and got away. Tom, he tried to leap out of the bog, but he couldn’t, for sure he war sucked in and kept fast prisoner in the clay.

“When the squire and the pack got back to the kennels there war no Tom. ‘Hullo! where be Tom?’ cried the squire, and he got anxious, for never in the born days of man had Tom not turned up. They called and they sent out riders, and they shouted like scholards out on a holiday, but nothin’ of Tom could they hear. So out the squire and the faithful hunt they set, with a fresh pack, and fresh horses, and only a lick down of somethin’ to keep the soul in ’em. On they went, the squire leadin’ like a lord on his white-legged chestnut. Only this time it warn’t no fox-hunting, but a man as they war searchin’ after.

“On they rode across Blakeway, beyond Harley, then turning straight westwards they got to the wild country, and they rode round, I’ve heard say, almost to Church Stretton, up to the foot of the Caradoc; and sure enough, just as the squire war about to give up the job and creep home to get a bit of supper, and get dogs and men to their beds, they heard, as I’m a Christian man, somethin’ a-croaking and calling ‘Tally-ho! tally-ho!’ but so hoarse, and strange, and misty-like, that it seemed no real voice, but whispers from a ghost.

THE MIDNIGHT CHASE

“One of the whipper-ins, a small white-haired little chap as they used to call ‘Soap,’ because he looked so clean and peart, and was a pet-like with the lasses, began to shiver and call out ‘Lord ’a mercy, let’s hunt the fox, but leave alone devils and Herne the Hunter, and such like.’ But the squire, he never turned a hair, and he called out, ‘No bed, or rest for me till we’ve found Tom,’ and he rode on on his chestnut; and then Jack Pendrell, what was a groom, he called out too, ‘Where the squire goes, I go,’ and he set spurs into his grey; and then they followed on, hounds and men, like a covey of partridges. And all of a sudden, I have heard ’em say (for it war the talk of the country-side for many days), Old Dancer gave a whimper and then Regent followed suit, and then Butterfly and Skylark threw in their bell notes, and away the whole hunt burst like steam. They barely seemed to touch the ground, but ran like mad, as hounds do in a killing scent. The squire fairly split the chestnut, Tom Trig and Bob Buckson followed close behind, and they rode as if the devil was at their heels. And all the while the voice kept calling, hullooing like a spirit in a tomb, only fainter and fainter – a kind of unearthly screech like a raven dooming a Christian across a churchyard. At last two hounds ran in, and the squire leapt from his horse, which steamed like a chimney, and there they found Tom sucked up in the ground fit to die, and the wind pretty nearly out of his body. He looked like a ghost when they got him out. He must have perished long before, he told ’em, if it hadn’t been that he had found a stout handful of grass by which he had hung on, and called for his life.

“Well, the long and the short of it was, when they hauled him out – which they did by ropes and knotting their handkerchiefs together – they put him on an old dun pony. But Tom war that silly and faint, that they had to tie him on to keep him from falling, and so they got him home.

“When they got back to Willey, the squire had him taken straight to his own bed, and clapt inside. ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘don’t yer die; yer drink and yer bain’t worth much, but fox-hunting in Shropshire can’t live without yer.’ And,” continued old Timothy, “Tom declared then he felt fit to die of glory at the thought as he, Tom, and fox-hunting war one and the same thin’ in Shropshire. Well, Tom got round, for all his chill and lying in the ground six mortal hours, but he never war the same man again. The squire spared no expense on him, and made him take the same medicines as he took himself, and gave him foreign wines, though they do say as Tom would have liked old ale better.”

“When did old Tom die at last?” I asked.

“I cannot precisely remember, but I’ve heard it war in 1796 or thereabouts. He war no great age, but he had lived fast and went to bed mellow, as fellows used to do then. Well, ma’am, when the doctor gave up hope, it wasn’t long as Tom was ill, for once out of the saddle he hadn’t much to live for, as I’ve heard ’em say. The days seemed mortal long to Tom, lyin’, as he said, mute as a log and nothing to interest ’im but the goin’ out and the comin’ home of the hounds. When Tom had made up his mind that he warn’t long for this world, he begged the squire to step down.

“‘Squire,’ he said, ‘I’ve been a sinner, and God forgive me; not of much good to nobody save on a horse, but I’ve hunted to please you and to please myself.’ And they say that the old squire, when he heard Tom talk like that, spoke very gentle and pitiful, and he said, taking Tom’s hand, ‘Tom, my man, yer don’t owe me nothin’. You’ve been a right good servant, gone like the devil, and loved the hounds like yer brothers.’

A HUNTING FUNERAL

“‘Right, squire, right,’ answered Tom. And then he told him what war in his mind about his berrial.

“There’s some as like it one way and some another,” said old Timothy, “but Tom he’d set his mind on a hunting funeral. The hounds war to be in at the death, as he called it, and the good men who rode hard and straight war to be there too, and give a view holloa after parson had said the prayers. Would parson mind? Tom had asked. But the squire told ’im not to vex hisself, for the parson war of the right sort, and would understand that fox-hunting and the Church war both the glory of Englishmen. Then he asked, did Tom, that his favourite old horse, him as he had called Old Soul, was to follow behind ready saddled as for a day’s hunting. And then, when all was settled to Tom’s mind, he and the squire shook hands and said good-bye to each other. The squire,” continued my old guest, “war a right proper man, masterful but kind, knew his own mind, but war faithful to them as had been faithful to him, and what he promised Squire George allus did. He was iron as to promises – said little, but stuck to a promise as if it had been the last word of his mother, folks said. So in November, a matter of a few days after poor Tom had died, they buried him accordin’ to his instructions, and all the good fellows that had followed the hunt, and seen him show them rattling sport fine days and foul days alike, came from far and near to do him honour. And when they shouted, after lowering Tom’s coffin, there war no irreverence in the job whatever. People now,” continued Timothy, “don’t understand sport. They think ’tis only fit stuff for a daily paper, and mayn’t come nohow to church or touch Church goings on. Oh, but Lord love yer!” – and my old friend drew himself up straight in his chair – “they thought different then, and they gave Tom a view holloa, for all they were worth, did the hunt, and stood there reverent and pious over his grave bareheaded alongside, till the woods and hills fair rang with their voices. No harm,” said my old friend, “war meant, and no harm war done, for God Almighty wouldn’t make foxes if he didn’t hold to fox-chasing.” As he spoke, Master Theobalds got up. “Good-bye, marm, and thank you kindly,” he said. “It does me good to talk of the old days and of the old goin’s on. It kind of brings back a bit of sun to me.”