Ulverton (7 page)

May 25th. When told of the maid’s state, and the necessity of saving a girl’s reputation, by adoption of the child, my wife took it ill.

This beginning of June, was the clover lea cut for hay. The weather being doubtful the second day, we enlarged the cocks and did not turn them, but left a hollow within to allow air to penetrate and dry. A steady rain for half a day did little damage therefore, and the weather is dry once more. As experiment, I left at least three cocks’-worth tedded over the field at nightfall, and on returning in the dewy morning found that the moisture had penetrated and expelled some of the juices, mixing with the sap, and so expelling also the smell of the grass, which in the cocks was exhaled much stronger: these having not been in contact, excepting their bases, with the nitrous properties of dew. I indicated this to the mowers and even the gatherers, but they seemed not to understand. The women and children laughed at my talk, indeed. One hay-rake broke upon a stone the last day, its brace having come loose, but not spotted in time. The grass having been mown at the time it began to knot, this crop should be exceeding rich, whereas if left longer, so that the stems are showing, it will be thinner and sourer. The crop has not suffered overmuch from the dry, although the barley amongst it is somewhat thin and brownish.

The maid has taken to a fuller skirt. She appears robust. I have put aside already the cost of her carrying, which she agreed at 7s, which is indeed a princely sum for a natural task, involving as it did her pleasure, which 1 have asked the Lord His forgiveness for.

June 20th: a hard rainfall, that left the barley ears dripping, and
the
thatch-runnel to go down my neck, and the corn to lose its thirst by, for it fell for two hours without cease.

I found this day, upon entering the hogs-yard, my wife seated amidst the peelings with a clout about her head, looking exceeding merry. My brandy bottle lay broken upon the ground, and I feared for the animals that their feet may be penetrated by the pieces of glass, and rendered maim. She allowed me to take her back into her bed, and I noted that she had clarted her hands and face with hogs’-dung, and washed her in silence, for I was angered by this display which was injurious to all our reputations, since it was seen by several of the servants gathered for their payment that evening, this being the close of the month, and no doubt chosen by her for that very reason. I have spoken to Dr Kemp, after the Meeting yesterday, who advises rest, and a medicament of some tincture with a Latin name that smells of camomile underfoot in autumn, but is not. My wife is going mad, owing, no doubt, to the confinement and its subsequent effects some time ago referred to. I prayed with her that God might meliorate her condition, and render her fit. Today was very hot. The sun has already undone the wetness of the recent rain, and the earth cracks and is friable underfoot. The odours of the aforesaid hogs’-dung are not displeasing, however, within these walls, as they turn my mind to Improvements.

The peas in the top field are somewhat thinnish. The new trees I planted thereabout to fend off the northerly winds have a blighted look owing to the lack of rain, but they have life in them yet, and should serve. My bird-boy bagged two ravens this morning with a sling-shot, and hung them out to smell off the others. On close inspection, the raven resembles Jewry, with its beak, that is larger than an ordinary crow’s, and its feathers, that are loose about the neck, like a Jew’s scarf in the illustrations. This same bird-boy, however, killed a rook last week, which no more resembles the ordinary crow than I resemble a common thief. He is no more than nine, but has an exceeding lack of teeth, which I put to his habit of chewing on sticks, which he does without cease from dawn to nightfall, as well as a certain tendency to brawls with his elders in the village. Despite the heat, he wears a coat of the thickest hide. I dwell upon this boy because he is the same age as
my
own would have been, had the good Lord seen fit to let him be so. How strange divine Justice appears to us mortals below, when one sees this boy hollering from his station by the oak on the headland, brought into this world only to scare off or slaughter scavengers such as himself, if of a lower order!

On my return from market this day, I made way for a shearing team of twenty or so, who were white from head to foot from the dust of the road, on the way to Squire Norcoat’s, and who resembled the fleeces they were to relieve the sheep of.

This day, July 1st, I made the girl lift her dress so that I might feel the belly. She is well filled, and ripe in the cheeks. She asks now for 8s, but I have remained firm. My wife has gone flueish, and remains abed. Dr Kemp inspected her stool this day, and pronounced it of a better colour than before. She is much disturbed this night by strains of music, which she believes to be of angelic origin, but which I have informed her (to no avail) has been carried by the breeze, this being south-easterly, from the concert at the Hall, that Lord and Lady Chalmers are giving for their heir’s coming-of-age, and is said to be very grand. I have seen lights moving in the trees, that are afar, yet there being no moon the merriment may be thus glimpsed, as well as heard.

I write this late, and unsteadily. The rags from London arrived midday, in two carts, and I hesitated where to store them. I chose a cart-shed built before my grandfather’s time and half stoved-in by weather and time, but great enough for the purpose. The rags smelt strong, of vagrants, sweat and suchlike, and I was chary of touching them, fearing pox and so on, but the carter was keen for a 1d to unload, and did so. Hearing a noise, like that of an animal in distress, from the rear of the shed, where the wood abuts us, and is much given over to bramble and bedwine and pernicious shrubs, and is generally wild, some of it clinging to the shed wall, and pulling at the old bricks, I ventured round with a mattock, and saw between the leafy growth into an unexpected clearing, wherein my maid and a newish labourer taken on for the harvest were coupled, he crouched behind like a bull, she on her fours with her belly and dugs suspended, tupping as the beasts do. I stood fixed to my station, and they continued unawares, half-concealed
by
the wild growth, while the carter unloaded nearby, whistling. I confess I cried, and the noise disturbing them, they uncoupled, and grinned foolishly, and I drove off the labourer, by the name of Griffin, with my mattock, and he was much torn, it appeared, by the wild growth he fled through. I seized the maid by the shoulders, and shook her vigorously, whereupon she turned pale, and I left off. On enquiring why she should risk 7s and the child by bathing its head in another man’s seed, this being pernicious in the extreme to its health, even its life, she gave me notice of her intent to tell Parson Brazier (old fool though he be) of the true declination of the bellying, that her conscience might be appeased, and she might enter into the Kingdom of Heaven anywise. We agreed, therefore, to 9s. I am employing twelve old people from the village to chop up the rags upon a block set out for the purpose, which will cost circa 7d per hundred pieces. My head is full of pence and shillings this day, and the wet-heading of my heir by a common labourer hurts me greatly, but I must proceed gently. The stink of the rags is still about my person, much of it of smoke from the city, as well as of general poverty. I noted one shirt to have the stain of blood all down its front, whether from illness or some heinous action I will never fathom. I am keen to bury them, that they might go finnowy the quicker.

Viewing all of my fields in turn, I note how the riper corn (or grass) lies at the headland, though the soil there be often poorer. This, says my cousin, who has come to inspect my rags, that are this day being chopped, is owing to the easier start the corn had under the lee of the hedge at the headlands, where the earth is warmer, because sheltered. The ears there lie full in the hull, where the rest of the field’s are not yet swollen. The advantages of enclosure are obvious, therefore, to even the stubbornest commoner.

My wife has not talked to me one word for two weeks now. I continue, however, to read her passages from the Epistles. Her bed-linen is stained with her sweat, although she has no fever to speak of. She does not appear much in distress, but now and again will walk to the window, open wide the shutters, and mutter into the yard upon her herbs. She will not be parted from her straw doll, that she lies with. This day, being my birthday, we turned a
roast
upon the spit, and my cousin and the servants who live with us (this being three) drank too much berry wine. My wife remained abed.

More rain, for a half hour, this July 17th, but not sufficient to meliorate the barley. I meditated in my bed upon ways of irrigation in times of drought, and conceived of a pump with several mouths, that might be carried upon a cart, if the cart be watertight and very large. This just before I slept and dreamed of a son delivered from a raven, which disturbed me greatly in the middest night.

The maid this morning ran to me crying whilst I was overseeing the loading of the rag pieces onto the waggon for carriage down to the fallow. She had a cut upon her arm, where my wife had lashed her with a waggon-thong from the shed. An old ploughman called Perry, who was up to view the rags, recalled how the witch Anne Cobbold could cure these fevers of the mind by mumbling and staring and various doings with animal bones laid in the river at night. He it was who as a boy kept the sheep watched over while the old shepherd sinned with her, when she was turned into a ewe: there being little doubt of the truth thereof, as I have heard this from the mouth of a most reliable witness, and also from one who delivered Anne Cobbold of a dead child, that was covered over with a silky fleece throughout, and had a blunt snout very like a sheep’s. Yet I remonstrated with the man to keep the Devil’s work out of it, and he kept his silence then. He is full of stories and no teeth. I sent the maid home. I fetched an old dame from the village to scour, wash et cetera and ring up the cheese clout, while my wife lay abed. I found the waggon-thong upon a hook in the still-room, in the shape of a noose. We scattered the rag pieces evenly upon the naked fallow, each seed-lip taking a goodly number when packed in, and earthed them in with the coulter. My cousin says they might warm the ground through the winter, as they once warmed poor fellows. I said I preferred not to recall from whence they derived. The two seeds-men thought the whole affair the work of madness. I said that when they saw the crop chissum despite this spongy ground they would heal their words with the tines of Reason and Progress. They said, nay, it would only give the ground pox.

My eight swine have yielded, in one year, fifty-two loads of fine manure. I am glad to have kept such close account of this, the first year I have done so. I have a book wherein I vouch to record all possible numbers of yields, loads etc., that a proper reckoning might be made of methods of Improvement, and the exact profit thereby pertainable.

In order to meliorate my wife’s illness, I have given over the sum of £5 to the building of a new Chapel upon the site of the old, in Bew’s Lane, this one to be of brick, not wood, and my name to be enscribed with the other contributors within, upon a small stone.

The field of St Foin that I hayned up from the cattle is well filled, and ready for cutting: the kernel is of a purplish hue, and the husk brown. Being thus not quite full in general, excepting at the headlands, the seed will not shed overmuch at mowing. It being extremely hot in the day, the mowers will start in the middest night, at three of the morning, and cease cutting when the sun shining causes the seed to shatter. They may then proceed again in the cool of the evening.

Our pond is quite dried out, and cracked. It is exceeding hot, and the river is full of children these days. The field is almost mown. The moon is at its fullest and by its light the mowers can see as well as in the day. They say it is still too hot, even in the night, and the owls make them fearful, because they are a superstitious breed of people here, and would rather be abed. One, by the name of Shail, claims to have witnessed a dance of fairies on his way to the field, this occurring in the ash-copse, and filling him with much wonder, but I scolded him severely for his softness. The roads at this early hour are very white indeed under the moonlight, and it is indeed surprising warm, and odorous. I insist upon the swarths being turned in the early hours, when the moistness in the ground sticks the seed to the ear, and not when the sun is hot. I demonstrated to the mowers the efficacy of this rule by shaking lightly a rakeful in the midday and shaking out well nigh all the seed. The swarths are turned by the handle of the rake, ears first, as advised to me by Farmer Barr. The seed is not ripe enough to cock straightway.

My wife has spoken to me, but names me the Duke, as in the latterly-dismissed Marlborough, I presume. I cannot fathom to what this refers, or whether in her madness it means but nonsense. Over what have I gained victory? What armies can I lead in her befuddled head? The servants giggle in corners of the yard, which distresses me greatly. The maid is very full for her time. All the St Foin is reeked and they are to be thatched forthwith. I noted that when the cocks were built up, the bulk of each shook all over when struck by the rake, that striking the top sent a shiver, as it were, all the way to the bottom, as if the mown grass had turned into a jelly. So the action on one part of a body affects the whole. The reeks are too large for this effect to be easily noticed.

The maid took me into the still-room very early, at six, and we coupled, which made me anxious for the child, but she had hold of my member and it was exceeding hard to desist, as I had not lain with her for a month or more. We coupled like beasts.

The wheel upon a waggon returning over the St Foin stubble and striking an indentation cracked and split suddenly, and threw a labourer from his seat atop the hay. His head in turn striking a flint upon the ground, was cracked wide open, and he was carried into the village by his fellow harvesters, to the inn, where he died forthwith. His name was James Pyke. He was a good man, a member of our Chapel, an excellent labourer and servant, and left a large family. I had only been talking to him, about the dryness of the reeked hay, and the possibility of thunder, an hour before. I fear the hard frosts of the winter acting upon the damp wood weakened the wheel within. It was the same waggon I found split before, having lain abroad, and took in, but too late, it seems. The other fellows returned greatly upset by this misfortune, and resumed thatching with unwilling limbs, or so it appeared. The bell rang out and we took off our hats and stood for a moment and I read a short prayer. The wainwright stated the wheel to be too far split to be mended, and I have perforce to pay for a new one, which being of a large and heavy type, will prove costly. The split occurred along two of the spokes, these being of cleft oak, but nevertheless weakened as stated before, which led to the general collapse of the felloes, and the weight of the waggon falling
cracked
the nave. So might a small error lead to the greater, and to fatality. The way is harsh and uneven for the true pilgrim.