Ulverton Page 7

  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.

  A horse that is kittle may be so owing to temperament or mischance or ill-breeding or ill-treatment. However it be so, it will prove a danger for its master. So it is with wives. This day I found the straw doll hung from the beam in the cow-house by its neck. I burnt it forthwith. It was indicated to me by one of the servants, who was paid 6d for his silence. The Chapel was knocked down this day, it being only a flimsy structure of wood, and the new to be begun forthwith. Farmer Garrard was over this day, and averred, on surveying my new clover crop, that he might adopt this method of seeding, viz.: to sow the seed in the husk, that it might prove to crop more evenly and thicker, whereas to sow clover-seed on its own, pure, milled from the husk, perforce proves too light a cast in the March winds. I said, that it might be advantageous, then, to mix the seed with sand, or sifted coal, or wood-ash, to give the half-pecks weight, that it might fill the seeds-man’s hand, and not prove too buoyant. He stated, that this was good advice, if the seed were milled, as oatmeal is, but that effort might be spared in the first place by retaining the husk anyways. Farmer Garrard’s own clover field, mixed with Polish oats, that shadows it from this summer heat, is exceeding thin in places, owing to the blustery days in which the pure seed was cast, and scattered errantly. I averred that I would use this digression in my Sunday speech in the Chapel, as a parable fitting to the times. The seed being the soul, and the husk being the body, or flesh. We are cast into this life with the trappings of our flesh, that gives us weight, whereas if we deny the flesh, we are too light, and buoyant, like a cloud of bedwine seed, and know not where we go, as a man who denies himself meat grows thin, and lassitudinous. United in the flesh, our soul grows a goodly crop of virtue, the winds and rains our sufferings, that gives us exercise and greenness, and not to be shirked. Farmer Garrard, who is a Church man, said that the sermon for him mentioned flesh overmuch, although he is himself fleshy, and we laughed.

  Being in the town this day, I viewed the new Corn Exchange, which is exceeding large, and pretty, and built after the manner of a Roman temple. I did good business with a corn merchant from Salisbury, and got a price for a winnowing machine which I must consider, and bought two barley hummellers of improved design. I avoided the new toll-gate by crossing a pasture, which amused my servant greatly. Returning through Ulverdon, I met Mr Webb, the wainwright, who was cutting a mortice into the nave of my new wheel, and who stated he would dish the wheel, it being large enough, at little extra cost. He demonstrated to me his new bruzz, this being a chisel of the shape of a V for the mortice-corners, and much neater in action than his previous tool. It is of much concern to him that a man died owing to the splitting of a wheel he had made, and fears for his reputation. I told him, that I thought it more my doing than his, because I did not cover the waggon through the storms of December, and that the frostiness and dryness of the later winter was all to blame. At the bridge over the river, a vagrant with a mongrel begged for harvest work, but he had no passport. On stating that passports, certificates and suchlike were not required for harvest work, he placed me at a disadvantage as a Christian man, and I had resort to the truth, which was that I did not approve of his face, this being sharpish, and of a gingery stubble cut through by a white scar. He cursed me then and there, which was discomfiting, as his curse was that of the magic arts, and spoke of progeny to be blasted et cetera, et cetera. My servant and a passing neighbour, Mr Hobbs, threw the man into the river, and Mr Hobbs went to tell the warden, that the Justice might be informed of a needed removal.

  Harebells thick upon the waysides and pastures. Larkspur, buttercups, and the ramping fumitory amongst the arable. Hoeing does not coerce these into submission, but they are not sufficiently tall or thick to be a veritable nuisance to the crop, as redweed is, or dead-nettle. The advantage of clover, St Foin etc.: to reduce pernicious weeds. The naked fallow, that I dunged with rags at the second earth, and which Farmer Barr prophesied an abundance of redweed for, has grown up again thickly with that cursed flower, and being a dry, hot year, has turned friable and loose, so that any rain that it receives will run through, without benefit to the wheat I am to sow there. If I were to have left it fallow for a third year, then it might have proved fast and good. But by our errors we learn, and prosper, as much as by our virtues. I might leave it as a fallows-stale for a further year.

  During the harvest, which began Monday last, despite threatening weather, my maid aided the gatherers, which concerned me, but it is the practice amongst the commoners to labour until the final week. She raked together the gleanings, and did not bend to sheave, as this is arduous for one large in belly. The barley is not good, but sufficient. The oils are taller, the husks thicker, than is customary in a wetter year. My sickles are smooth-edged, as the custom of grasping the corn in bunches to cut seems to me to hold up progress, and the smooth edge cuts straight through without the requirement to bunch. However, barley being of a thicker stalk than other crops, the sickles must be sharpened more frequently, their edges taken off by the stalks, and so my cousin at Effley is insistent on using the serrated blade, which requires no strickle to keep it keen. For a proper comparison, one must try both types, and keep careful time on the acres, that one may be seen to be advantageous over the other, although, for an exact, scientific comparison, reapers of the same strength, age, and application must be used, which is a near impossibility, as every labourer appears, these days, to have his own peculiarities of temperament. But the harvest progresses, anyways, and the weather holds off, it still being exceedingly hot, and one labourer
already overcome, though he had no shirt. The air is very dusty, and I have my sneezes, but the sound of the cut corn, like unto the rustling skirt of Nature herself, pleases me as greatly as usual. We have caught twenty-three rabbits and a stoat.

  My wife walks at night.

  The practice of mowing corn with a scythe is not common in these parts, as women find the effort too arduous, and there are not the men to go round. I have heard it to be three to four times as speedier, with one acre per man mown in a day, compared to but a quarter with the sickle. However, it is possible only with an abundance of strong men, despite the amelioration of time, and in this instance I am content to wait until English genius has conjured a suitable machine that will necessitate no rows of dogged reapers, gatherers, bandsters and whatnot, although I fear that time will be long a-coming. I have this day, walking about the top field with my stick, lifted fifty-five docks, and an abundance of bindweed, and almost as much shepherd’s purse. I watch my maid from a distance, whom I have replaced part of the day in the house with the old dame named Trevick. This old dame reeks terribly from the armpits, and has the most sour piss, which makes the houses of office stink long after she has visited, and makes me concerned for the ordure beneath, that it prove to make injurious manure. My maid consorts with the other harvesters most loosely, and they make much fun of her condition. I fear for the child in this heat. The price of the winnowing machine is too high, I have decided. My new throw-crook, of improved design, having its spindle caged and the handle cranked, has been taken to with some reluctance, but it now proves a most efficient and speedy maker of straw-rope, despite its old-fashioned mortal operators, who would still be berry-picking like children for their sustenance if society had been left to their charge.