Lark Rise to Candleford (11 page)

When King Arthur first did reign,

He ru-led like a king;

He bought three sacks of barley meal

To make a plum pud-ding.

The pudding it was made

And duly stuffed with plums,

And lumps of suet put in it

As big as my two thumbs.

The king and queen sat down to it

And all the lords beside:

And what they couldn't eat that night

The queen next morning fried.

Every time Laura heard this sung she saw the queen, a gold
crown on her head, her train over her arm, and her sleeves rolled up, holding
the frying-pan over the fire. Of course, a queen
would
have fried
pudding for breakfast: ordinary common people seldom had any left over to fry.

Then Lukey, the only bachelor of mature age in the hamlet,
would oblige with:

Me feyther's a hedger and ditcher,

An' me mother does nothing but spin,

But I'm a pretty young girl and

The money comes slowly in.

Oh, dear! what can the matter be?

Oh, dear! what shall I do?

For there's nobody coming to marry,

And there's nobody coming to woo.

They say I shall die an old maid,

Oh, dear! how shocking the thought!

For them all my beauty will fade,

And I'm sure it won't be my own fault.

Oh, dear! what can the matter be?

Oh, dear! what shall I do?

There's nobody coming to marry,

And there's nobody coming to woo!

This was given point by Luke's own unmarried state. He sang
it as a comic song and his rendering certainly made it one. Perhaps, then, for
a change, poor old Algy, the mystery man, would be asked for a song and he would
sing in a cracked falsetto, which seemed to call for the tinkling notes of a
piano as accompaniment:

Have you ever been on the Penin-su-lah?

If not, I advise you to stay where you haw,

For should you adore a Sweet Spanish senor-ah,

She may prove what some might call sin-gu-lah.

Then there were snatches that any one might break out with at
any time when no one else happened to be singing:

I wish, I wish, 'twer all in vain,

I wish I were a maid again!

A maid again I ne'er shall be

Till oranges grow on an apple tree

or:

Now all you young chaps, take a warning by me,

And do not build your nest at the top of any tree,

For the green leaves they will wither and the flowers they will
decay,

And the beauty of that fair maid will soon pass away.

One comparatively recent settler, who had only lived at the
hamlet about a quarter of a century, had composed a snatch for himself, to sing
when he felt homesick. It ran:

Where be Dedington boo-oys, where be they now?

They be at Dedington at the 'Plough';

If they be-ent, they be at home,

And this is the 'Wagon and Horses'.

But, always, sooner or later, came the cry, 'Let's give the
old 'uns a turn. Here you, Master Price, what about "It was my father's
custom and always shall be mine", or "Lord Lovell stood", or
summat of that sort' as has stood the testing o' time?' and Master Price would
rise from his corner of the settle, using the stick he called his 'third leg'
to support his bent figure as he sang:

Lord Lovell stood at his castle gate,

Calming his milk-white steed,

When up came Lady Nancy Bell

To wish her lover God-speed.

'And where are you going, Lord Lovell?' she said.

'And where are you going?' said she.

'Oh, I'm going away from my Nancy Bell,

Away to a far country-tre-tre;

Away to a far coun-tre.'

'And when will you come back, Lord Lovell?' she said,

'When will you come back?' said she.

'Oh, I will come back in a year and a day,

Back to my Lady Nancy-ce-ce-ce.

Back to my Lady Nan-cee.'

But Lord Lovell was gone more than his year and a day, much
longer, and when he did at last return, the church bells were tolling:

'And who is it dead?' Lord Lovell, he said.

'And who is it dead,' said he.

And some said, 'Lady Nancy Bell,'

And some said, 'Lady Nancy-ce-ce-ce,

And some said,'Lady Nan-cee.'

… … …

Lady Nancy died as it were to-day;

And Lord Lovell, he died to-morrow,

And she, she died for pure, pure grief,

And he, he died for sorrow.

And they buried her in the chancel high,

And they buried him in the choir;

And out of her grave sprung a red, red rose,

And out of his sprung a briar.

And they grew till they grew to the church roof,

And then they couldn't grow any higher;

So they twined themselves in a true lovers' knot,

For all lovers true to admire.

After that they would all look thoughtfully into their mugs.
Partly because the old song had saddened them, and partly because by that time the
beer was getting low and the one half-pint had to be made to last until closing
time. Then some would say, 'What's old Master Tuffrey up to, over in his corner
there? Ain't heard him strike up to-night', and there would be calls for old
David's 'Outlandish Knight'; not because they wanted particularly to hear it—indeed,
they had heard it so often they all knew it by heart—but because, as they said,
'Poor old feller be eighty-three. Let 'un sing while he can.'

So David would have his turn. He only knew the one ballad,
and that, he said, his grandfather had sung, and had said that he had heard his
own grandfather sing it. Probably a long chain of grandfathers had sung it; but
David was fated to be the last of them. It was out of date, even then, and only
tolerated on account of his age. It ran:

An outlandish knight, all from the north lands,

A-wooing came to me,

He said he would take me to the north lands

And there he would marry me.

'Go, fetch me some of your father's gold

And some of your mother's fee,

And two of the best nags out of the stable

Where there stand thirty and three.'

She fetched him some of her father's gold

And some of her mother's fee,

And two of the best nags out of the stable

Where there stood thirty and three.

And then she mounted her milk-white steed

And he the dapple grey,

And they rode until they came to the sea-shore,

Three hours before it was day.

'Get off, get off thy milk-white steed

And deliver it unto me,

For six pretty maids I have drowned here

And thou the seventh shall be.

'Take off, take off, thy silken gown,

And deliver it unto me,

For I think it is too rich and too good

To rot in the salt sea.'

'If I must take off my silken gown,

Pray turn thy back to me,

For I think it's not fitting a ruffian like you

A naked woman should see.'

He turned his back towards her

To view the leaves so green,

And she took hold of his middle so small

And tumbled him into the stream.

And he sank high and he sank low

Until he came to the side.

'Take hold of my hand, my pretty ladye,

And I will make you my bride.'

'Lie there, lie there, you false-hearted man,

Lie there instead of me,

For six pretty maids hast thou drowned here

And the seventh hath drowned thee.'

So then she mounted the milk-white steed

And led the dapple grey,

And she rode till she came to her own father's door,

An hour before it was day.

As this last song was piped out in the aged voice, women at
their cottage doors on summer evenings would say: 'They'll soon be out now. Poor
old Dave's just singing his "Outlandish Knight".'

Songs and singers all have gone, and in their places the
wireless blares out variety and swing music, or informs the company in cultured
tones of what is happening in China or Spain. Children no longer listen
outside. There are very few who could listen, for the thirty or forty which throve
there in those days have dwindled to about half a dozen, and these, happily,
have books, wireless, and a good fire in their own homes. But, to one of an
older generation, it seems that a faint echo of those songs must still linger
round the inn doorway. The singers were rude and untaught and poor beyond
modern imagining; but they deserve to be remembered, for they knew the now lost
secret of being happy on little.

There were three distinct types of home in the hamlet. Those
of the old couples in comfortable circumstances, those of the married people
with growing families, and the few new homes which had recently been established.
The old people who were not in comfortable circumstances had no homes at all
worth mentioning, for, as soon as they got past work, they had either to go to
the workhouse or find accommodation in the already overcrowded cottages of
their children. A father or a mother could usually be squeezed in, but there
was never room for both, so one child would take one parent and another the
other, and even then, as they used to say, there was always the in-law to be
dealt with. It was a common thing to hear ageing people say that they hoped God
would be pleased to take them before they got past work and became a trouble to
anybody.

But the homes of the more fortunate aged were the most
comfortable in the hamlet, and one of the most attractive of these was known as
'Old Sally's'. Never as 'Old Dick's', although Sally's husband, Dick, might have
been seen at any hour of the day, digging and hoeing and watering and planting
his garden, as much a part of the landscape as his own row of beehives.

He was a little, dry, withered old man, who always wore his
smock-frock rolled up round his waist and the trousers on his thin legs
gartered with buckled straps. Sally was tall and broad, not fat, but massive,
and her large, beamingly good-natured face, with its well-defined moustache and
tight, coal-black curls bobbing over each ear, was framed in a white cap frill;
for Sally, though still strong and active, was over eighty, and had remained
faithful to the fashions of her youth.

She was the dominating partner. If Dick was called upon to
decide any question whatever, he would edge nervously aside and say, 'I'll just
step indoors and see what Sally thinks about it,' or 'All depends upon what
Sally says.' The house was hers and she carried the purse; but Dick was a
willing subject and enjoyed her dominion over him. It saved him a lot of
thinking, and left him free to give all his time and attention to the growing
things in his garden.

Old Sally's was a long, low, thatched cottage with
diamond-paned windows winking under the eaves and a rustic porch smothered in
honeysuckle. Excepting the inn, it was the largest house in the hamlet, and of
the two downstair rooms one was used as a kind of kitchen-storeroom, with pots
and pans and a big red crockery water vessel at one end, and potatoes in sacks
and peas and beans spread out to dry at the other. The apple crop was stored on
racks suspended beneath the ceiling and bunches of herbs dangled below. In one
corner stood the big brewing copper in which Sally still brewed with good malt
and hops once a quarter. The scent of the last brewing hung over the place till
the next and mingled with apple and onion and dried thyme and sage smells, with
a dash of soapsuds thrown in, to compound the aroma which remained in the children's
memories for life and caused a whiff of any two of the component parts in any
part of the world to be recognized with an appreciative sniff and a mental
ejaculation of 'Old Sally's!'

The inner room—'the house', as it was called—was a perfect
snuggery, with walls two feet thick and outside shutters to close at night and
a padding of rag rugs, red curtains and feather cushions within. There was a
good oak, gate-legged table, a dresser with pewter and willow-pattern plates,
and a grandfather's clock that not only told the time, but the day of the week
as well. It had even once told the changes of the moon; but the works belonging
to that part had stopped and only the fat, full face, painted with eyes, nose
and mouth, looked out from the square where the four quarters should have
rotated. The clock portion kept such good time that half the hamlet set its own
clocks by it. The other half preferred to follow the hooter at the brewery in
the market town, which could be heard when the wind was in the right quarter.
So there were two times in the hamlet and people would say when asking the
hour, 'Is that hooter time, or Old Sally's?'

The garden was a large one, tailing off at the bottom into a
little field where Dick grew his corn crop. Nearer the cottage were fruit trees,
then the yew hedge, close and solid as a wall, which sheltered the beehives and
enclosed the flower garden. Sally had such flowers, and so many of them, and
nearly all of them sweet-scented! Wallflowers and tulips, lavender and sweet
william, and pinks and old-world roses with enchanting names—Seven Sisters,
Maiden's Blush, moss rose, monthly rose, cabbage rose, blood rose, and, most
thrilling of all to the children, a big bush of the York and Lancaster rose, in
the blooms of which the rival roses mingled in a pied white and red. It seemed
as though all the roses in Lark Rise had gathered together in that one garden.
Most of the gardens had only one poor starveling bush or none; but, then,
nobody else had so much of anything as Sally.