Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/75

12, 1862.] strict justice shown did more for morality than any deviation would have done, and gave me more influence. I told him, on presenting it, that when I gave a prize for the best man, I hoped he would obtain that also.

We had a contumacious blacksmith who never would come into the gardening rules, and who had the gratification of seeing his home the only eye-sore of the village. My husband allotted a certain field for what were then called cow-gates, and built a row of cow-sheds. A cricket-club he also organised, in which our sons played; it was most useful in keeping the young men from the public-house on Saturday nights, and made the rising generation intimately known to us.

Our labourers’ wages were always paid on a Friday, to enable a judicious expenditure of them at the Saturday market. So much labour was in demand that the rate of wages, for some miles round, rose considerably and permanently. It was delightful, after working on for seven years, to see the changed aspect of everything around us—it was a rich reward for what had been very happy work.

My pen almost refuses to go on with my history, but I should never have known the deep affection felt by these poor villagers, had not one of those life shocks that scatters existence, and leaves it a blank and dreary waste, henceforth and for ever fallen on me!

I was gone—my place knew me no more. No explanation had these poor friends; but, years after, I found they had never doubted me. I was staying in the neighbourhood and drove over to see them, and few such days greet one, in this life, as the one I spent with them. My visit was wholly unexpected. As I walked down the village, the first woman I met was one whose child had almost died in my arms. She looked as if she had seen a vision; then, setting down her water-pail, she seized both my hands, and finally threw her arms round my neck and wept there. I went into every home—tears and the tenderest welcome greeted me; they showed me much true delicacy—such an absence of all unseemly curiosity, and of questions that might have pained me; such charming anecdotes were remembered and told me about my children! All that could cheer and comfort me they seemed to think of with such demonstration of affection that it was what one would have thought more appertaining to Irish than English character: it was beautiful and deeply affecting. I had put up our horses at a neighbouring farmhouse; the tenant who held it when I lived near was dead—and my visit was to his widow. There had been a sale after the sad catastrophe I have alluded to, and all the little treasures accumulated in happy days—each with some dear association attached to it—were scattered for ever. One single article I had commissioned this good man to bid for; it chanced to be—so his daughter told me—now, the one thing he wished to buy himself, and several persons also came from a distance to purchase it. But he passed the word in the crowd that he was “bidding for the missis,” and no one bid against him. He had insisted on packing it and sending it with his own team to the station.

In no spirit of self-laudation have I written this little history, but to prove that the hearts and feelings of the poor may be gained by those who will try, as we tried, by sympathy and real love to them in the beautiful words of Scripture, “Weeping with those that weep, and rejoicing with those that rejoice.” The poor are accurate judges of character—I should say, better judges than we are; they see it more undisguised, and know its deep springs, which, with us, are lost in artificial wanderings over cultured fields, and are too often absorbed in the selfishness of over-refinement. All affectation with them is seen through in a moment. Nothing is gained by an undignified familiarity. The manners of a gentleman and a lady you must never attempt to lay aside to accommodate yourself to their vulgarity; their manners will refine under your influence; hats that, at first, would not have been even touched as you passed them, will come off altogether, if they feel sure of a kindly greeting in return.

How natural this is! Did we never look another way if a fine lady, whom we thought likely to cut us, was driving past us in the park?

The old feudal feelings of aristocracy are dying out all around us. Democracy is upon us—it is inevitable—and we must accept the situation; but, if we are to be the “masters” of it, we must help to carry out the only safe democracy, which is that of a developed Christianity.

K. T. L.

one of the earliest notices of our island to be found in Latin authors the reproach which even now is so often cast upon its climate is at once broadly stated. “Britain,” says Tacitus, “has an atmosphere foul with showers and clouds.” November is popularly supposed to be the month in which such influences have most power, and in which consequently, it is said, that most suicides occur. As a matter of fact, however, England, though a rainy country, is far surpassed by Norway, and even by a part of Spain. Except in such an abnormal year as 1860, sunny weather during six months at least may be reasonably expected as the rule and not the exception. Yet the misty ideas of the Roman historian still float in people’s minds. Even if dispossessed of the notion that England as a country is remarkable for rain and clouds, every one transfers the notion to his own county or to some other county where his summer holiday was once spoilt, so as to suit his particular grievance. Devon and Westmoreland are special victims to this, but Lincolnshire is the general scapegoat for atmospheric sins. It is but quite recently that railroads have informed people that its inhabitants are not web-footed, and do not keep boats instead of carriages. It is supposed to be the home of fogs, mists, and aguish miasmata. Only those who are deeply read can discriminate between the fens, wolds, and marsh into which it is physically divided; and the leaping-poles, still to be seen in a few districts, serve to keep in a state of credulous vitality the fabulous notions which have been mentioned. Yet, notwithstanding its evil odour, statistics disclose to us that Lincolnshire is amongst the driest counties of England.

One of the most thankless offices of science is