Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/99

 88 a high order, still the State should ever have in reserve a stock of improvements to meet emergencies; not making them common till required by the presence of adverse circumstances. The State should “keep a hold of the actual, knit the new securely to it, and give to them both conjointly a fresh direction.” The astonishment created by the results of the Armstrong gun is simply a proof how much the progressive actual is overlooked by the many, while the special individual by time and thought turns it to account; and then it is assumed that we can go no further, not heeding the words of the philosopher poet—

Men my brothers! Men the workers! ever making something new; That which they have done but earnest, of the things that they shall do.”

Author:William Bridges Adams.

the many disquisitions on our popular pastimes, I believe it remains to your humble servant to chronicle to the world the doughty game of Running the Hood at Haxey. And it is that I may depict this, that I venture to invite you to accompany me for a day’s sport to Haxey, in the isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire.

It was a fine sunny morning that I landed from the boat, somewhat benumbed, at Ferry-on-Trent, on the 6th of January in the present 1859. After refreshing the inward man at mine host’s of the White Hart, I started on my way to walk to Haxey, for this part of the country is, as yet, unsophisticated by that great innovator, the rail. Proceeding through Ferry, you enter the parish of Owston, both so closely together that the one may be said to merge into the other; and now, after passing the church, you are fairly out into the open country. What a contrast do the quiet fields and green lanes present to the noise and rattle of a thickly peopled town.

During the earlier part of the morning the air had been thick and misty, and intensely cold: but now the sun broke out in his splendour. The air, before sharp and biting, was now mellowed to a more genial temperature, sending the warm blood tingling through one’s veins. The birds twittered on the leafless branches, and in the distance, borne on the wind, came the song of the ploughboy as he followed his team. Here and there are substantial farmsteads of the real old English style, whose thickly-thatched roofs, well covered with patches of moss, bespeak their green old age. The cattle in the fold-yard gaze dreamily on you, while comely matrons and sturdy children open their doors to see and look after you as you pass along. This is a trait peculiar to the country, and has this advantage, that whereas it is the prerogative of the great to be the "cynosure of every eye" in populous cities, here the humblest, if he be a stranger, may indeed be

Leaving these behind, you see, at a turn of the lane, the fine old church of Haxey, high-seated on the hill, looking, as it were, like a patriarch of old watching the flock entrusted to his care. Anon you meet a carter and his horse, dragging their "slow length along." Horse and driver seem perfectly to understand each other, and it might be a point for sophists to discuss, which were the more intelligent of the two. They are both seemingly engaged in the exhilarating occupation of doing as little distance in as long a time as possible.

You now enter the picturesque and well-populated village of Haxey, nearly every house newly white-washed, looking so clean and trim—suggestive of the idea that they must have been under the hands of the laundress, to be well starched and bleached, so neat do they appear in their snowy purity. Buxom, laughing-eyed damsels trip lightly along in their Sunday best, for it is holiday to-day, and all work is suspended for at least another. And now, having received a hearty welcome from the friends who were expecting me, and partaken freely of the huge sirloin and savoury ham, for the brisk walk had somewhat sharpened one's appetite, let me take a turn to see what may be seen.

A few steps soon take us again to the fields; and here let me mention an interesting feature peculiar to this locality. Before you, lay immense tracts of lands, parcelled out into lots of one acre, more or less. All fields are divided into what are technically termed "lands," with a deep furrow between each, for drainage. And it is one of these strips of land which constitute a lot, so that a ten-acred field may be the property of nearly as many owners. The advantages to the middle and poorer classes are clearly apparent; for while the former may safely invest a spare fifty or hundred pounds, and the latter be induced to save a like sum, neither would attempt the purchase of broad-acred fields, and those who, poorer still, cannot afford to purchase, may hire, at an easy rental, a strip or two to fill their unemployed time; by these means a man may grow his own corn, all his garden stuff, and have some to spare for market at a very trifling cost, and have a good pig in stye at Christmas to boot. And it may be attributed to this, that this district is so important among the electors of Lindsey.

It is to be deplored that this system is not more widely extended in our agricultural districts. Let your broad-acred philanthropists, and those who prate in after-dinner speeches on the condition of the working classes, take this lesson to their hearts; here is a system, easy and practicable, and which is, like mercy, twice blest, enriching him that receives and him that gives. And but to see, as I have, these various strips of land in summer time, clothed in all the rich luxuriance of their varied crops, is a sight not easily to be forgotten from their beauty and their novelty; the many shades of green, from dark to light, from light to yellow, interspersed with stripes of ripening corn, and at intervals a line of the black-eyed bean-flower or sweet scented pea, with here and there a strip of land laid fallow, forming, as it were, a groundwork and relief to the whole.

And now let us ascend the brow of the hill. What a fine panoramic view extends before us! There, in the horizon, nods an old church on the hill, standing out clearly against the sky; before us, in the distance, are the spires of Doncaster; to