Part 2 (1/2)
The schoolroom was intended to hold all the children who did not go to Mrs. Yates, both boys and girls, and it was sufficient, for, in the first place, n.o.body from Fryern-hill came. Mrs. Green had a separate little school there. Then the age for going to school was supposed to be six.
If anyone sent a child younger, the fee was threepence instead of a penny. The fee for learning writing and arithmetic was threepence, for there was a general opinion that they were of little real use, and that writing letters would waste time (as it sometimes certainly does).
Besides this, the eldest daughter of a family was always minding the baby, and never went to school; and boys were put to do what their mothers called ”keeping a few birds” when very small indeed, while other families were too rough to care about education so that the numbers were seldom over thirty.
There were no such people as trained mistresses then. The National Society had a school for masters, but they were expensive and could only be employed in large towns; so all that could be looked for was a kind, motherly, good person who could read and do needlework well. And the first mistress was Mrs. Creswick, a pleasant-looking person with a pale face and dark eyes, who had been a servant at Archdeacon Heathcote's, and had since had great troubles. She did teach the Catechism, reading, and work when the children were tolerably good and obeyed her, but boys were a great deal too much for her, and she had frail health, and such a bad leg that she never could walk down the lane to the old Church. So, after Sunday School, the children used to straggle down to Church without anyone to look after them, and sit on the benches in the aisle and do pretty much what they pleased, except when admonished by Master Oxford's stick.
Mr. Shuckburgh had by this time come to reside in the parish, in the house which is now the post-office, and there was at last a double Service on the Sunday.
The next thing was to consider what was to be done about the boys, who could not be made to mind Mrs. Creswick. A row of the biggest sat at the back of the school, with their heels to the wall, and by constant kicking had almost knocked a hole through the mud wall; so the Vicar, who was now the Archdeacon's son, the Rev. Gilbert Wall Heathcote, gave permission for the putting up another mud and rough cast school house near the old Church, for the boys, in an empty part of the Churchyard to the north- east, where no one had ever been buried.
However, there Master Oxford was installed as schoolmaster, coming all the way down from his house on the hill (a pretty-timbered cottage, now pulled down). He and his boys had a long way to walk to their school, but he taught them all he knew and set them a good example. The boys were all supposed to go to him at six years old, and most were proud of the promotion. One little fellow was known to go to bed an hour or two earlier that he might be six years old the sooner! But some dreaded the good order enforced by the stick. There was one boy in particular, who had outgrown the girls' school, and was very troublesome there. He would not go to the boys', and his mother would not make him, saying she feared he would fall into the water. ”Well,” said Mrs. Bargus, who was a most bright, kindly old lady of eighty, ”I'll make him go.” So she took a large piece of yellow glazed calico intended for furniture lining, walked up to school, and held it up to the little boy. She said she heard that he would only go to the girls' school, and, since everybody went there in petticoats, she had brought some stuff to make him a petticoat too! The young man got up and walked straight off to the boys' school.
Here are some verses, written by Mrs. Yonge in 1838, on one of the sights that met her eye in the old Churchyard:--
While on the ear the solemn note Of prayer and praises heavenward float, A b.u.t.terfly with brilliant wings A lesson full of meaning brings, A sermon to the eye.
There on an infant's grave it stands, For it hath burst the shroud's dull bands, Its vile worm's body there is left, Of gross earth's habits now bereft It soars into the sky.
Thus when the grave her dead shall give The little form below shall live, Clothed in a robe of dazzling white Shall spring aloft on wings of light, To realms above shall fly!
Changes were setting in all this time. The rick-burnings, in which so many foolish persons indulged, was going on in 1831 in many parts of Hamps.h.i.+re. They were caused partly by dislike to the thres.h.i.+ng machines that were beginning to be used, and partly by the notion that such disturbances would lead to the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bill, which ignorant men believed would give every poor man a fat pig in his stye. There was no rick-burning here, though some of the villagers joined the bands of men who wandered about the country demanding money and arms at the large houses. But, happily, none of them were actually engaged in any violence, and none of them swelled the calendar of the Special a.s.size that took place at Winchester for the trial of the rioters.
One poor maid-servant in the parish, from the North of Hamps.h.i.+re, had, however, two brothers, who were intelligent men of some education, and who, having been ringleaders, were both sentenced to death. The sentence was, however, commuted to transportation for life. At Sydney, being of a very different cla.s.s from the ordinary convict, they prospered greatly, and their letters were very interesting. They were wonderful feats of penmans.h.i.+p, for postage from Australia was ruinously expensive, and they filled sheets of paper with writing that could hardly be read without a microscope. If we had those letters now they would be curious records of the early days of the Colony, but all now recollected is the account of a little kangaroo jumping into a hunter's open s.h.i.+rt, thinking it was his mother's pouch.
The Reform Bill, after all, when pa.s.sed made no present difference in Otterbourne life--nothing like the difference that a measure a few years after effected, namely, the Poor-law Amendment Bill. Not many people here remember the days of the old Poor-law, when whatever a pauper family wanted was supplied from the rates, and thus an idle man often lived more at his ease on other people's money than an industrious man on his own earnings. It was held that if wages were small they might be helped out of the rates, and thus the ratepayers were often ruined. In the midst of the street stood the old Poorhouse. It had no governor nor anyone to see that order was kept or work done there, and everybody that was homeless, or lazy, or disreputable, drifted in there. They went in and out as they pleased, and had a weekly allowance of money. Now and then there was a great row among them. One room was inhabited by an old man named Strong, who was considered a wonder because he ate adders cut up like eels and stewed with a bit of bacon. Every now and then a message would come in that old Strong had got a couple of nice adders and wanted a bit of bacon to cook with them. Then there was a large family whose father never worked for any one long together, and lived in the Workhouse, with a wife and six or seven children, supported by the parish. These people were pursuaded to go to Manchester, where there was sure to be work in the factories for all their many girls. The men in receipt of parish pay were supposed to have work found for them on the roads, but there was not much of this to employ them, and as they were paid all the same whether they worked or not, some were said to hammer the stones as if they were afraid of hurting them, or to make the wheeling a couple of barrows of chalk their whole day's work.
A good deal depended on the vestry management of each parish, and there was less of flagrant idleness supported by the rates here than at many places. There was also a well-built and arranged Workhouse at Hursley, and the Poor law Commissioners consented to make one small Union of Hursley, Otterbourne, Farley, and Baddesley, instead of throwing them into a large one.
The discontinuance of out-door relief to help out the wages was a great shock at first, but, when the ratepayers were no longer weighed down, they could give more work and better wages, and the labourers thus profited in the end, and likewise began to learn more independence. Still the times were hard then. Few families could get on unless the mother as well as the father did field work, and thus she had no time to attend thoroughly to making home comfortable, mending the clothes, or taking care of the little ones. The eldest girl was kept at home dragging about with the baby, and often grew rough as well as ignorant, and the cottage was often very little cared for. The notion of what was comfortable and suitable was very different then.
The country began to be intersected by railways, and the South-Western line was marked out to Southampton. The course was dug out from Shawford and Compton downs, and the embankment made along our valley. It was curious to see the white line creeping on, as carts filled with chalk ran from the diggings to the end, tipped over their contents, and returned again. When the foundations were dug for the arch spanning the lane the holes filled with water as fast as they were made, and nothing could be done till the two long ditches had been dug to carry off the water to Allbrook. In the course of making them in the light peaty earth, some bones of animals and (I believe) stags' horns were found, but unluckily, were thrown away, instead of being shown to anyone who would have made out from them much of the history of the formation of the boggy earth that forms the water meadows.
{The Old Church, Otterbourne: p32.jpg}
It is amusing to remember the kind of dread that was felt at first of railway travelling. It was thought that the engines would blow up, and, as an old coachman is reported to have said, ”When a coach is overturned, there you are; but when an engine blows up, where are you?” He certainly was so far right that a coach accident was fatal to fewer persons than a railway accident generally is.
The railway pa.s.sed so near the old Church that the noise of the trains would be inconvenient on Sundays. At least, so thought those with inexperienced ears, though many a Church has since been built much nearer to the line. However, this fixed the purpose that had already been forming, of endeavouring to build a new Church. The first idea had been of trying to raise 300 pounds to enlarge the old Church, but the distance from the greater part of the parish was so inconvenient, and the railroad so near, that the building of a new Church was finally decided on. There really was not room for the men and boys at the same time on the backless forms they occupied between the pews in the chancel. Moreover, if a person was found sitting in a place to which another held that he or she had a right, the owner never thought of looking for another place elsewhere, and the one who was turned out went away displeased, and declared that it was impossible to come to church for fear of ”being upset.” It is strange and sad that people are so p.r.o.ne to forget what our Master told us about ”taking the highest room,” even in His own House.
But besides the want of accommodation, the old Church was at an inconvenient distance from the parish. No doubt there had once been more houses near, but when the cottage inhabited by old Aaron Chalk was pulled down, nothing remained near but Otterbourne Farm and the Moat House.
Every one living elsewhere had to walk half a mile, some much more, and though Kiln Lane was then much better shaded with fine trees than it is now, it was hard work on a hot or wet Sunday to go twice. Some of us may recollect one constant churchgoer, John Rogers, who was so lame as to require two sticks to walk with, and had to set out an hour beforehand, yet who seldom missed.
Just at this time the Reverend John Keble became Vicar of Hursley, and Otterbourne, and forwarded the plan of church building with all his might.
Few new churches had been built at that time, so that there was everything to be learnt, while subscriptions were being collected from every quarter. Magdalen College, at Oxford, gave the site as well as a handsome subscription, and every endeavour was made to render the new building truly church like. It was during the building that Dr. Rowth, the President of Magdalen College, coming to hold his court at the Moat House, had the model of the church brought out to him and took great interest in it. He is worth remembering, for he was one of the wisest and most learned men in Oxford, and he lived to be nearly a hundred years old. Church building was a much more difficult thing then than it is now, when there are many architects trained in the principles of church building, and materials of all kinds are readily provided.
The cross form was at once fixed on as most suitable; and the little bell turret was copied from one at a place called Corston. Mr. Owen Carter, an architect at Winchester, drew the plans, with the constant watching and direction of Mr. Yonge, who attended to every detail. The white stone, so fit for carving decorations, which had been used in the Cathedral, is imported from Caen, in Normandy. None had been brought over for many years, till a correspondence was opened with the people at the quarries, and blocks bought for the reredos and font. Now it is constantly used.
The panels of the pulpit, with the carvings of the Blessed Virgin, and the four Latin fathers, SS. Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great, were found in a shop for antiquities in London. The shape was adapted to a sounding board, which had been made for the Cathedral, but was rejected there. The altar-rail also was found in a shop. It must previously have been in a church, as it has the sacramental corn and grapes. It is thought to be old Flemish work, and represents a prince on one side with a crown laid down, as he kneels in devotion, and some ladies on the opposite side. The crown is an Emperor's, and there is the collar of the Golden Fleece round his neck, so that it is probably meant for either the Emperor Maximilian or his grandson, Charles V. One of the gentlemen kneeling behind the Emperor has a beautiful face of adoration.
The building of the Church took about two years, the first stone being laid at the north-east corner. It was begun on the 16th of May, 1837, and it was ready for consecration on the 30th of July, 1839. The building had been prosperous, the only accident being the crus.h.i.+ng of a thumb when the pulpit was set in its place.
The new boys' school was built at the same time, the archway of the south door of the old Church being used for the doorway, so as to preserve the beautiful and peculiar decoration, and the roof was lined with the doors and backs of the old oak-pewing. In the flints collected for the building of this and of the wall round the churchyard there was a water wagtail's nest in which a young cuckoo was reared, having, of course, turned out the rightful nestling. Probably it flew safely, for the last time it was seen its foster parents were luring it out with green caterpillars held a little way from the nest.