Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/523

 516 From the Blacksmith’s we would go to my friend the village cobbler, who is very radical, and we would renew the topic of the Emperor of the French. The cobbler is doubly dear to me, as he is naturally—being a cobbler—the best fisherman in the parish. Now, shoeing a horse does not raise the French Emperor in the eyes of the cobbler, and I fear that the excellence of the French boot-makers aggravates my friend, for he always gets on the old sore.

“What business have those beggarly French boot-makers to come here?”

“What business indeed?” say I.

(N.B.—I never wear anything but French boots myself.)

“All, damn un! if Lewis came here I would stick this into un!” And our friend the cobbler would brandish a shoe-maker’s knife with about half-an-inch of blade left.

And then—Smith or Brown—I could show you the oldest and deafest old Newfoundland dog you ever saw. This old dog sits at the top of the green looking up the road—probably for his master who died five years ago—and three or four strong-lunged men at a time can go behind him and roar in his ear, and unless the only eye, with which he can see, is towards them, the old dog sits looking into space quite unconscious. And yet this old dog, who, to all appearance is only a stuffed animal, winks his old blood-shot eye at any small company of children who want to play with him, and carries dolls on his back, and does anything that they wish him; and my impression is that he is in second puppyhood, and can only understand their childish prattle. Then, again, friends Smith and Brown, if you ever knew what cricket was before the times of betting, cricket slang, and three-day matches, you would find it here in perfection. We don’t talk dreary slang about Jones’s bowling not being “on the spot,” or Brown not being “in good form,” or Buffer “collaring the slows,” but we play cricket—and good cricket too—with neighbouring parishes, before a goodly circle of spectators who are heart and soul in the success of their village, and I am as anxious to get a good score, for the credit of our village, as I ever was, years ago, when a boy at Winchester, in our contests at Lord’s against Eton and Harrow. And then. Smith and Brown, if you wanted some good company, you would only have to sit down at one of our cricket-dinners after a match, where you would have the society of all the village tradespeople who played in the match; and when, if you could sing a good old English song or propose an honest toast, you would be applauded to the echo; but woe be unto you if you ever come amongst us with the London “''haw! haw!''” swagger.

Perhaps, my friends, you would be doubtful how to get through Sunday in our village. Come, now, I will honestly admit that going to church is very slow work in some parishes in London. It is dreary work when the rector has a swarm of young curates who deplore the extinction of church discipline, and who write to the “Guardian” about the tonsure of the clergy and ecclesiastical dress; and again, it is dreary when the parsons are all red-hot “Exeter Hall-ers,” or when the rector is a fashionable preacher who draws much carriage company. In fact, it is always dreary unless the rector combines a little common sense and scholarship with his other requisites. I think, however, if you spent Sunday with me, you would not find it dreary to go to church even twice on a Sunday. I could show you a pretty village church where a pleasant old gentleman in a smock-frock tolls the bell, and afterwards puts on a large pair of horn spectacles, and does “clerk” in a magnificent rural twang; you would see a nice sprinkling of smock-frocks amongst the congregation, and some coats of wonderful cut. There is a very old man, a cut above a labourer, and a cut below a farmer, whose best coat was made in the reign of George the Fourth. I can swear to the fact, for it is a fac-simile of a coat which appears in the pages of “Tom and Jerry.” The coat was evidently made for some “Corinthian” in the Georgian era, when superfine cloth was superfine cloth, for the gloss is still on it in spite of age. The careful reader of “Tom and Jerry” may remember a wonderful picture of “Tom and Jerry sporting a toe amongst the swells at Almack’s.” In that picture is the figure of a “swell” in a mulberry-coloured coat ornamented with two buttons, one on each shoulder blade, and a collar about ten inches deep. That is the very coat which my old friend wears. There is a great deal to hear in church besides what one sees. The singing is as good as most London churches can boast, and our pleasant village-parson preaches such delightful rural sermons, of twenty minutes in length, that I feel quite bucolic, like the elder Mr. Pendennis, and think, that like him, I could “go to the market town and munch corn, punch geese in the chest, and weigh them with a knowing air.”

Well, Smith and Brown, I could go on for pages enumerating the many pleasures which are yet to be found in an out-of-the-way country village. I could expatiate on the innumerable kindnesses which strangers of all kinds have shown me. With the exception of trout fishing, and partridge and pheasant shooting, (which nobody but a snob would ask leave for, and nobody but a fool would grant to a person whom he did not know) the country gentlemen and farmers seem to be overflowing with kindness in granting every favour which I ask of them. The key of the park is lent, or leave to fish for jack granted, on my simple application as a stranger staying in the neighbourhood; and I am for the time being—as far as enjoyment goes—as absolute proprietor of some miles of fishing, and in as perfect possession of a large extent of a magnificent park, as if I paid the keepers, or was heir to the property. I still believe in the large-heartedness of the country. In some villages you may sometimes find a snob, who is a half-breed between a country gentleman and a farmer, who thinks himself “a somebody,” but the breed is fortunately scarce; they are a class of men who have about ten acres of their own, and rent three hundred of some one else, and try to merge the tenant in the freeholder; but the metal is not true, and won’t ring, and the largeness of heart is wanted which alone makes the gentleman, whatever be the cloth of his coat.

“Cui bono, are these gossiping details of our