by A G Street
BUTTERCUP JOE
1
O, I’m a breastin sort ov a chap
Me father comes from Shareham
Me mother got some more like I
She well knows ’ow to rear ’em
O, some they call me bacon vace
An’ others turmut ’ead
But I’m as clever as other volk
Although I’m country bred.
Chorus:
I can drive a plough
Or milk a cow
O, I can reap or sow
I’m as fresh as the daisies in the fields
And they calls I Buttercup Joe.
2
You ’eavy swells mid laugh and chat
To see us eat vat bacon
But you can’t drink our country beer
And that’s where you’re mistaken
A drop o’ moey and shannon too
You drink it at your ease
But give to me an ’omebrewed glass
With crust ov bread and cheese.
3
O ain’t it prime in summer time
When we go out haymakin’
The lads and lasses with us chaps
Freedom will be taken
And don’t they jiggle and make us laugh
Ov course in harmless play
They likes to get us country chaps
To roll ’em in the hay.
4
O, do you know my young ooman
They calls her our Mary
She works as busy as a bee
In Farmer Johnson’s dairy
And ain’t her suety dumplins nice
My gosh I mean to try
And ask her if she’d like to wed
A rusty chap like I.
The spelling of the song is entirely phonetic, and possibly other versions of it may differ a little. The ‘moey and shannon’ in the second verse is obviously Moet and Chandon.
Next came the toast of the visitors, which was always placed in the skilled hands of Thomas Trowbridge. He had whiskers all round his face in a fringe, giving him the appearance of a very genial monkey. The visitors usually consisted of the parson, schoolmaster, blacksmith, harness-maker, a keeper or two, and a sailor, retired on pension, who used to measure the men’s hoeing each year. Their toast went something like this: ‘Chaps, thease be our yearly jollifications, zno, and we can’t ’ave ’ee proper wi’out some visitors. And tudn be perlite not to drink their jolly good health. We do know ’em all; fact we do keep the main on ’em, specially passon, and they do know we. And I says we be dom glad to see ’em here thease evenin’. Dom glad we be, and I fears no man when I says that, zno.’ And the old fellow would glare round at the company with his whisker fringe all a-bristle with defiance. ‘But I bain’t no speechifier, ’cepting to say as ow they be truly welcome. Zo I asks ’ee to rise and drink their jolly good health.’ This done, the old man would say: ‘Now, sit down, all ov ’ee, and I’ll sing to ’ee.’ There would be loud cries for ‘Dick Turpin’, and when silence reigned we would hear the following:
DICK TURPIN
1
As I was a-ridin’ along on the moor
I seed the lawyer on before
I steps up to ’em, these words I say
Hast thee seed Turpin pass this way?
Chorus: Tibby Hi Ho Turpin Hero
Tibby Hi Ho Turpin O.
2
No, said the lawyer, an’t a seed him this way
Neither do I want to see him this long day
For he robbed my wife all ov ten poun’
A silver snuff box and a new gown
3
O, says Turpin, I’ll play cute
I’ll put my money down in my boot
O, says the lawyer, ’ee can’t have mine
Fer mine’s sewn up in the cape behind
4
As I were a gwaine up Bradbury ’ill
I bid the lawyer to stand still
Fer the cape of his cwoat I mus’ cut off
Fer me ’oss ’ee want a new saddle cloth
5
I robbed the lawyer of all his store
And bid him to go to law for more
And if my name he is questioned in
He can tell ’em my name is Dick Turpin
6
I am the last of Turpin’s gang
And I am sure I shall be hanged
Here’s fifty poun’ before I die
To gie Jack Ketch fer hanging I.
When the applause had subsided the parson would respond for the visitors, and sometimes give us a song himself. Anybody who could sing sang, and a lot of folk who couldn’t sing did likewise. On one occasion I sang, and I have a voice like a corncrake. Still, I got through ‘Richard of Taunton Dean’ with great success.
The gathering broke up at ten o’clock with the singing of ‘God Save the King’. Most of the company had to be up betimes next day, for a farm goes on relentlessly in spite of joy or sorrow, sickness or health, good weather or bad. The dairyman and I would be the last to leave, as we were responsible to see that all was safe, and that no match or cigarette end was left glowing, as fire is a real danger to farm buildings in September. When all was safe we would close the barn doors, and stand for a moment looking at the sky in a weather-conscious manner. ‘Reg’lar harvest moon, that be. ’Nother blazer to-morrow, zur.’ ‘Yes, dairyman,’ I would say, ‘rare weather. Looks as if there’d be time to get in another harvest.’
Around us towered the chunky shadows of the new corn stacks. Bats were flitting overhead. A rat scuttled somewhere in the straw. A three-days-old calf would give a hoarse blare in calling to its mother, who would answer from the home pasture. A flight of wild duck, returning from a moonlight feed on the stubble, would swish overhead in a V-shaped formation. From some nearby field would come the sound of a horse rubbing against the gate. The whole life of the farm seemed subdued by the warm soft-scented dark, but it was there waiting eagerly for to-morrow’s dawn.
After wishing the dairyman good night, I would stand at the drive gate, listening to his footsteps getting fainter and fainter as he plodded down the road to his cottage. An owl would swoop by my face as I went up the drive to the house, and vanish silently in the moonlight. The house looked so solid and permanent against the sky. What a secure, pleasant, spacious business my whole life and surroundings seemed. Rooted so firmly in the soil, surely nothing could ever interrupt or upset its even happy tenor. Farmer’s Glory! Farmer’s Glory! A swift pat to my retriever, who had slipped a cold nose into my hand, and I would be indoors and soon asleep.
CHAPTER V
Of the agricultural labourer of that epoch I can write only with affection and respect; with affection for his kindliness and courtesy to his neighbours, and with respect for his inviolable adherence to his duty by the soil. Not for wages, nor to please his employer, but because the land was a sacred thing to him, and any neglect was deemed a sin. Possibly the fact that he had no other interest had a good deal to do with this, and another factor was a proper personal pride in his own reputation as a craftsman. I remember once that we finished making a wheat rick on a very windy evening. Granted, when the last sheaf was put in place, it wasn’t a very tidy-looking roof, as the wind was nearly strong enough to blow the men off the rick. Still, it was good enough to serve. As often happens, the wind dropped about eight o’clock. My father and I had gone home, but the rick-maker paid some of his mates to stay with him till ten o’clock that evening, pull the roof off and rebuild it more to his liking. ‘I wadna gwaine to ’ave no one say as ’ow Bill Toomer built a roof like ’ee wur,’ he said to me the next morning when I asked him about it.
A shepherd at lambing times would leave his cottage and live as a bachelor in the shepherd’s house in the field for a month, never going home for one night. And one such I knew, who always shamed me in that at six o’clock each morning I would always find him freshly shaved, whereas I, with every convenience at home, often had a s
tubble on my chin.
The labourer hated to see any product of the land spoiled, and would go out of his way to stop it, regardless of any consequent effect on his own comfort and well-being. And in extreme age when they were past work, this interest and concern for the welfare of crops and stock in the neighbourhood still persisted. As an instance of this, let me tell you the story of Samuel Goodridge.
Sedgebury Wallop is a Wiltshire village on the banks of the river Avon. It is almost untouched by modern improvements, and, save for one eyesore in the shape of a garage, it presents to the passing motorist the same picturesque serenity as to the passenger in the stage coach of years ago.
Its inhabitants are primarily, nay almost solely, interested in agricultural problems. The farms run from the rolling downs above the village to the water meadows below.
At any season of the year these meadows seem to be the home of abiding peace. In summer one gets peeps of a lush, verdant green between the silvery foliage of poplar and willow. Should one meander gently through them (no other pace is fitting), one finds that they are occupied chiefly by herds of gentle, placid cows and their attendant dairymen, with, here and there, a fisherman or water-keeper.
In winter the scene is changed. Both fishermen and cows have migrated to warmer, drier quarters. A rushing torrent takes the place of that tranquil stream of summer days, and practically the only inhabitant is the drowner, undoubtedly a very important person. He it is who manages the irrigation of the water meadows so that the following spring there shall be early grass for the cows. From October to January you will find him, one to every half mile or so of stream, cleaning out ditches, and regulating the water so as to get an even supply to every yard of the meadows. Considerable rivalry obtains between drowner and drowner, for they are craftsmen of high degree, and woe betide any foolish person who does not accord to these experts their due meed of deference and respect.
Now Samuel Goodridge was a drowner. He had lived at Sedgebury Wallop all his life. He started his career on leaving school as a bird starver at two shillings and sixpence weekly, and had graduated through various stages to the position of head labourer at Willow Grove Farm. He was an expert hedger and thatcher, but his chief claim to local fame was that his ‘medders’ had a bite of grass ten days earlier than any others in the district. In short, he was the king of drowners in that locality.
He relinquished this position very reluctantly, when compelled by the physical infirmities of seventy years of age, to one Bill Yates, a young upstart of but fifty summers. Farmer Wright let him stay on in his cottage rent free, and as his wife was also qualified for the old age pension, and he’d put by a bit of money, he settled down in comparative comfort as a local pundit in drowning matters.
Poor Bill Yates had a sorry time. Whatever he did in the ’medders’ was wrong, and Sam’ll missed no chance of telling him so. He used to toil on his two sticks up to the Red Lion on Saturday nights, and hold forth on the poor state of Willow Grove meadows.
‘Poorish show o’ grass in Big Maid this spring,’ he would declaim to the company in the tap-room. ‘Zum volk wun’t learn nothin’. Putten stops in main carriages! Thee bist a b——y vooil, Bill Yates. Why dussent get off thee tail water, like I telled ’ee?’
‘Oh, gie Bill a rest, Granfer,’ someone would say. ‘Thee bissent doin’ t’maids now. Let ’ee ’ave a show.’ ‘Show!’ Granfer would snort. ‘Where’s ’is show o’ grass?’ This sort of thing went on, week after week, and Bill Yates was on the point of giving up his job, when, fortunately for him, the British Army intervened.
A General Danvers bought Willow Grove Farm that spring, and came to live there. He was sixty years old, very precise, spruce in appearance, and as upright as a bolt. He looked on the farm and the village as a hopeless muddle, and he brought the full force of his military training to his rural problems. To do him justice, he recognized the etiquette and customs of the countryside where possible, and also the obligations which devolved on him as the owner of Willow Grove.
Early in his career as a landowner he met Granfer, and told him to carry on in his cottage rent free. Granfer thanked him grudgingly, but in the privacy of his cottage gave voice to his real opinion of the General. ‘’Ee be a meddler, ’ee be. Mark wot I says, ’ee be gwaine t’upset Wilier Grove. ’Ee spoke I fair, an’ gied I the cottage, but I bain’t ’appy in me mind.’
Granfer was right. The General was a meddler. He purchased tractors and other weird implements. He fenced and cross-fenced. He put in a water supply to the farm, and also to every cottage. Incidentally, it was over this that he and Granfer first came to argument.
The General decided that each cottage must pay the sum of one shilling per annum for water. Granfer objected. ‘Dang ’is new-fangled water supply,’ he said, ‘I got me pump. ’E’ll do fer I.’ The General went to see him. ‘Haw!’ he said, twirling his moustache, ‘what’s all this nonsense about the water charge, Goodridge?’ ‘’Tain’t nonsense,’ said Granfer. ‘God Almighty never intended fer a man to pay fer water.’ ‘Perhaps he didn’t,’ replied the General, ‘but God Almighty never brought it to you in a tap. You’ll pay a shilling a year, and don’t be such an old fool.’ And away he went, twirling his moustache. ‘Alright,’ mumbled Granfer to himself, ‘I pays, but I bain’t quite ’appy in me mind. ’E’s one o’ they volk as can’t be telled nothin’.’
In the autumn the General turned his attention to poultry. He bought new and wonderful fowl houses. One afternoon Granfer plodded by the farm, and stopped to rest against the low wall of the yard, from which point he could get a view of his beloved ’medders’. Down in the Alder Plot, a low pasture near the meadows, he saw the General supervising the erection of a number of fowl houses. ‘That wun’t do,’ said Granfer to himself, and opening the gate with difficulty, he toddled slowly down to the scene of operations.
‘Be you recknin’ to keep vowls down yer in winter time, zur?’ he asked the General.
‘Of course, Goodridge, these are winter houses.’
‘Twun’t do,’ said Granfer. ‘I tell ’ee fer why. Thee’t be flooded out, two years out o’ dree.’
‘Nonsense!’ said the General. ‘I’ve had new hatch gates put in, and with a little foresight the water can be regulated quite easily.’
‘Reggylated be danged,’ snorted Granfer. ‘I be a-tellin’ ’ee. Thee’t be flooded. Vive and forty year I looked atter they ’atches, an’ when the water comes awver the over-fall at Bickton Mill, t’Alder Plot’s swimmin’ dree voot deep. You ’ook they ’ouses out o’ yer to drier groun’.’
‘Well, it isn’t your worry, Goodridge. I’ve gone carefully into the matter, and decided that the water can be regulated without much difficulty.’
‘Gone into the matter, ’ave ’ee? Well! I an’t gone into no matters. I don’t need to. I do know, an’ thee dussent. Thee do wot I tells ’ee.’
‘Rubbish,’ said the General, and turned away to give some instructions to his foreman, muttering something about silly old fools and anachronisms. Unfortunately Granfer, usually hard of hearing, heard this. It was the last straw.
‘Silly owd vooil, be I?’ he screeched. ‘Nackernism too. Wot be you? I’ll tell ’ee. A b——y vooil, thee bist. Furriner too. Thee keep hens down yer, an’ they’ll ha’ to turn into ducks, er drown. General thee bist. Well, all I says is thank God we got a Navy. Thee’t want ’em, too, to rescue they vowls come winter.
‘Look at yer, General,’ he went on, ‘I gies ’ee a week’s notice come Saturday. I bain’t gwaine t’ave no landlord, wot calls I a nackernism.’ And away the old fellow stumped, leaving the men grinning and the General speechless with annoyance and astonishment.
‘What had I better do about his leaving the cottage?’ said he to his wife, to whom he related the incident at tea. ‘Independent old fool! Do you think he means to go?’
‘’Fraid so, dear,’ said his better half, who knew more about rural problems than her husband. ‘You see, you’ve hurt his pride
by not taking his advice. He’ll never forgive you.’
‘Well, what’ll I do, dear? These villagers beat me. They’re more trouble than an army corps.’
‘You’ve got a lot to learn about them yet, dear. Go and see young Bartram. He’s got an empty cottage in the village now that he’s milking by machinery. Tell him the whole story. Not that he won’t have heard it all in detail by now. He’s probably chuckling over it. Still, he’ll enjoy hearing it from you. Then ask him to let Granfer the cottage for eighteen pence a week, and make an arrangement for you to pay the difference.’
‘I see! Just because I want to keep fowls on my own land, I’ve got to go to all this bother. Why the——’
‘Hush, dear! I know exactly how you feel, but there’s no help for it. You can’t let Granfer’s temper cost him five shillings a week till he dies. What would you say if he tried to tell you how to manage a regiment? But don’t arrange for him to pay less than eighteen pence, or he’ll smell a rat at once. I was brought up in a Wiltshire village, and I know these people.’