Part 9 (2/2)
It is remarkably high, and from thence the various roads converging on the town are visible. The province lies stretched out beneath. There is the gleam of water--the little river, with its ancient mills--that flows beside the town; there are the meadows, with their pleasant footpaths.
Yonder the ploughed fields and woods, and yet more distant the open hills.
Along every road, and there are many, the folk are hastening to their capital city, in gigs, on horseback, in dog-traps and four-wheels, or st.u.r.dily trudging afoot. The breeze comes sweet and exhilarating from the hills and over the broad acres and green woods; it strikes the chest as you lean against the parapet, and the jackdaws suspend themselves in mid-air with outstretched wings upheld by its force. For how many years, how many centuries, has this little town and this district around it been distinct and separate? In the days before the arrival of the Roman legions it was the country of a distinct tribe, or nation, of the original Britons. But if we speak of history we shall never have done, for the town and its antique abbey (of which this tower is a mere remnant) have mingled more or less in every change that has occurred, down from the earthwork camp yonder on the hills to to-day--down to the last puff of the locomotive there below, as its driver shuts off steam and runs in with pa.s.sengers and dealers for the market, with the papers, and the latest novel from London.
Something of the old local patriotism survives, and is vigorous in the town here. Men marry in the place, find their children employment in the place, and will not move, if they can help it. Their families--well-to-do and humble alike--have been there for so many, many years. The very carter, or the little tailor working in his shop-window, will tell you (and prove to you by records) that his ancestor stood to the barricade with pike or matchlock when the army of King or Parliament, as the case may be, besieged the st.u.r.dy town two hundred years ago. He has a longer pedigree than many a t.i.tled dweller in Belgravia. All these people believe in Fleeceborough. When fate forces them to quit--when the young man seeks his fortune in New Zealand or America--he writes home the fullest information, and his letters published in the local print read curiously to an outsider, so full are they of local inquiries, and answers to friends who wished to know this or that. In the end he comes back--should he succeed in getting the gold which tempted him away--to pa.s.s his latter days gossiping round with the dear old folk, and to marry amongst them.
Yet, with all their deep local patriotism, they are not bigoted or narrow-minded; there is too much literature abroad for that, and they have the cosiest reading-room wherein to learn all that pa.s.ses in the world.
They have a town council held now and then in an ancient wainscoted hall, with painted panels and coats of arms, carved oaken seats black with age, and narrow windows from which men once looked down into the street, wearing trunk hose and rapier.
But they have at least two other councils that meet much more often, and that meet by night. When his books are balanced, when his shop is shut, after he has strolled round his garden, and taken his supper, the tradesman or shopkeeper walks down to his inn, and there finds his circle a.s.sembled. They are all there, the rich and the moderately well-to-do, the struggling, and the poor. Each delivers his opinion over the social gla.s.s, or between the deliberate puffs of his cigar or pipe. The drinking is extremely moderate, the smoking not quite so temperate; but neither the gla.s.s nor the cigar are the real attractions. It is the common hall--the informal place of meeting.
It is here that, the real government of the town is planned--the mere formal resolutions voted in the ancient council-room are the outcome of the open talk, and the quiet whisper here. No matter what subject is to the front, the question is always heard--What will 'he' do? What will 'he'
say to it? The Volunteers compete for prizes which 'he' offers. The cottage hospital; the flower show; the cattle show, or agricultural exhibition; the new market buildings arose through his subscriptions and influence; the artesian well, sunk that the town might have the best of water, was bored at his expense; and so on through the whole list of town affairs. When 'he' takes the lead all the lesser gentry--many of whom, perhaps, live in his manor houses--follow suit, and with such powerful support to back it a movement is sure to succeed, yet 'he' is rarely seen; his hand rarely felt; everything is done, but without obtrusiveness. At these nightly councils at the chief hostelries the farmers of the district are almost as numerous as the townsmen. They ride in to hear the news and exchange their own small coin of gossip. They want to know what 'he' is going to do, and little by little of course it leaks out.
But the town is not all so loyal. There is a section which is all the more vehemently rebellious because of the spectacle of its staid and comfortable neighbours. This section is very small, but makes a considerable noise. It holds meetings and utters treasonable speeches, and denounces the 'despot' in fiery language. It protests against a free and open park; it abhors artesian wells; it detests the throwing open of nut woods that all may go forth a-nutting; it waxes righteously indignant at every gift, be it prizes for the flower show or a new market site. It scorns those mean-spirited citizens that cheer these kindly deeds. It asks why? Why should we wait till the park gates are open? Why stay till the nut woods are declared ready? Why be thankful for pure water? Why not take our own? This one man has no right to these parks and woods and pleasure grounds and vast walls; these square miles of ploughed fields, meadows and hills. By right they should all be split up into little plots to grow our potatoes. Away with gilded coronet and watchman, batter down these walls, burn the ancient deeds and archives, put pick and lever to the tall church tower; let us have the rights of man! These violent ebullitions make not the least different. All the insults they can devise, all the petty obstructions they can set up, the mud they can fling, does not alter the calm course of the 'despot' one jot. The artesian well is bored, and they can drink pure water or not, as pleases them. The prizes are offered, and they can compete or stand aloof. Fleeceborough smiles when it meets at night in its council-rooms, with its gla.s.s and pipe; Fleeceborough knows that the traditional policy of the Hall will continue, and that policy is acceptable to it.
What manner of man is this 'despot' and prince behind his vast walls?
Verily his physique matters nothing; whether he be old or of middle age, tall or short, infirm or strong. The policy of the house keeps the actual head and owner rather in the background. His presence is never obtruded; he is rarely seen; you may stay in his capital for months and never catch a glimpse of him. He will not appear at meetings, that every man may be free, nor hesitate to say his say, and abuse what he lists to abuse. The policy is simply perfect freedom, with support and substantial a.s.sistance to any and to every movement set on foot by the respectable men of Fleeceborough, or by the tenant farmers round about. This has been going on for generations; so that the personnel of the actual owner concerns little. His predecessors did it, he does it, and the next to come will do it. It is the tradition of the house. Nothing is left undone that a true princely spirit could do to improve, to beautify, or to preserve.
The antiquities of the old, old town are kept for it, and not permitted to decay; the ancient tesselated pavements of Roman villas carefully protected from the weather; the remnants of the enclosing walls which the legions built for their defence saved from destruction; the coins of the emperors and of our own early kings collected; the spurs, swords, spearheads, all the fragments of past ages arranged for inspection and study by every one who desires to ponder over them. Chipped flints and arrowheads, the bones of animals long extinct, and the strange evidences of yet more ancient creatures that swam in the seas of the prehistoric world, these too are preserved at his cost and expense. Archaeologists, geologists, and other men of science come from afar to see these things and to carry away their lessons. The memories of the place are cherished.
There was a famous poet who sang in the woods about the park; his hermitage remains, and nothing is lost that was his. Art-treasures there are, too, heirlooms to be seen behind those vast walls by any who will be at the trouble of asking.
Such is the policy of Hodge's own prince, whose silent influence is felt in every household for miles about, and felt, as all must admit, however prejudiced against the system, in this case for good. His influence reaches far beyond the bounds even of that immense property. The example communicates itself to others, and half the county responds to that pleasant impulse. It is a responsible position to hold; something, perhaps, a little like that of the Medici at Florence in the olden times.
But here there is no gonfalon, no golden chain of office, no velvet doublet, cloak, and rapier, no guards with arquebuss or polished crossbow.
An entire absence of state and ceremony marks this almost unseen but powerful sway. The cycle of the seasons brings round times of trial here as over the entire world, but the conditions under which the trial is sustained could scarcely in our day, and under our complicated social and political system, be much more favourable.
CHAPTER XII
THE SQUIRE'S 'ROUND ROBIN
A c.o.c.k pheasant flies in frantic haste across the road, beating the air with wide-stretched wings, and fast as he goes, puts on yet a faster spurt as the shot comes rattling up through the boughs of the oak beneath him.
The ground is, however, unfavourable to the sportsman, and the bird escapes. The fir copse from which the pheasant rose covers a rather sharp descent on one side of the highway. On the level above are the ploughed fields, but the slope itself is too abrupt for agricultural operations, and the soil perhaps thin and worthless. It is therefore occupied by a small plantation. On the opposite side of the road there grows a fine row of oaks in a hedge, under whose shade the dust takes long to dry when once damped by a shower. The sportsman who fired stands in the road; the beaters are above, for they desire the game to fly in a certain direction; and what with the narrow s.p.a.ce between the firs and the oaks, the spreading boughs, and the uncertainty of the spot where the pheasant would break cover, it is not surprising that he missed.
The shot, after tearing through the boughs, rises to some height in the air, and, making a curve, falls of its own weight only, like pattering hail--and as harmless--upon an aged woman, just then trudging slowly round the corner. She is a cottager, and has been to fetch the weekly dole of parish bread that helps to support herself and infirm husband. She wears a long cloak that nearly sweeps the ground on account of her much-bowed back, and carries a flag basket full of bread in one hand, and a bulging umbrella, which answers as a walking stick, in the other. The poor old body, much startled, but not in the least injured, scuttles back round the corner, exclaiming, 'Lor! it be Filbard a-shooting: spose a'had better bide a bit till he ha' done.' She has not long to wait. The young gentleman standing in the road gets a shot at another c.o.c.k; this time the bird flies askew, instead of straight across, and so gives him a better opportunity. The pheasant falls crash among the nettles and brambles beside the road. Then a second and older gentleman emerges from the plantation, and after a time a keeper, who picks up the game.
The party then proceed along the road, and coming round the corner the great black retriever runs up to the old woman with the most friendly intentions, but to her intense confusion, for she is just in the act of dropping a lowly curtsey when the dog rubs against her. The young gentleman smiles at her alarm and calls the dog; the elder walks on utterly indifferent. A little way up the road the party get over the gate into the meadows on that side, and make for another outlying plantation.
Then, and not till then, does the old woman set out again, upon her slow and laborious journey. 'Filbard be just like a gatepost,' she mutters; 'a'
don't take no notice of anybody.' Though she had dropped the squire so lowly a curtsey, and in his presence would have behaved with profound respect, behind his back and out of hearing she called him by his family name without any prefix. The cottagers thereabout almost always did this in speaking among themselves of their local magnate. They rarely said 'Mr.'; it was generally 'Filbard,' or, even more familiarly, 'Jim Filbard.' Extremes meet. They hardly dared open their mouths when they saw him, and yet spoke of him afterwards as if he sat with them at bacon and cabbage time.
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