FARM-SERVANTS.  
The clown, the child of nature, without guile,
Blessed with an infant’s ignorance of all
But his own simple pleasures; now and then
A wrestling match, a foot-race, or a fair.—Cowper.
We have in a preceding chapter, taken a view of the English farmer. We have seen him at market—in his fields, and in his house receiving his friends to a holiday feast. If we were to go to the farm-house on any other day, and at any season of the year, and survey the farmer and his men in their daily and ordinary course of life, we should always see something to interest us; and we should have to contemplate a mode of existence forming a strong contrast to that of townsmen; and, notwithstanding the innovation which the progress of modern habits has made on life in the country, still presenting a picture of simplicity, homeliness, and quiet, which no other life retains. Thousands, indeed, looking into a farm-house, surveying its furniture, the apparatus and supply of its table, the manners and the language of its inhabitants, would wonder where, after all, was the vast change said to have taken place in the habits of the agricultural population. O! rude and antiquated enough in all conscience, are hundreds of our farm-houses and their inmates, in many an obscure district of merry England yet. The spots are not difficult to be found even now, where the old oak table, with legs as thick and black as those of an elephant, is spread in the homely house-place, for the farmer and his family—wife, children, servants, male and female; and is heaped with the rude plenty of beans and bacon, beef and cabbage,[108] fried potatoes and bacon, huge puddings with “dip” as it is called, that is, sauce of flour, butter, and water boiled, sharpened with vinegar or verjuice, and sweetened with brown sugar or more economical molasses—“dip,” so called, no doubt, because all formerly dipped their morsel into it; a table where bread and cheese, and beer, and good milk porridge and oatmeal porridge, or stirabout, still resist the introduction of tea and coffee and such trash, as the stout old husbandman terms it. Let no one say that modern language and modern habits have driven away the ancient rusticity, while such dialogues between the farmer and guest as the following may be heard—and such may yet be heard in the Peak of Derbyshire, where this really passed.
Farmer at table to his guest.—Ite, mon, ite!
Guest.—Au have iten, mon. Au’ve iten till Au’m weelly brussen.
Farmer.—Then ite, and brust thee out mon: au wooden we hadden to brussen thee wee.[2]
[2] This is the present genuine dialect of the Peak, and is nearly as pure Saxon. It is curious to see in the southern agricultural counties, how the old Saxon terms are worn out by a greater intercourse with London and townspeople, although the people themselves have a most Saxon look, with their fair complexions and light brown hair; while, as you proceed northward, the Saxon becomes more and more prevalent in the country dialects. In the midland counties bracken is the common term for fern—in the south not a peasant ever heard it. The dialects of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Staffordshire, are so similar to that of the Sassenach of Scotland, the Lowland Scots, that the language of Burns was nearly as familiar to me when I first read his poems, as that of my village neighbours; and the Scotch read that clever romance of low life, “Bilberry Thurland,” with a great relish, the dialogues of which are genuine Nottinghamshire, because they said, it was such good Scotch. I have noticed that the plays of the boys in Derbyshire and in the Scotch Lowlands have similar names, differing from the English names in general; as the English game of bandy, in Derbyshire is shinny, in Scotland shinty.
It is no rare sight to see the farmer himself, with his clouted shoon and his fustian coat, ribbed blue or black worsted stockings, and breeches of corduroy; to see him arousing his household, at five o’clock of a morning, and his wife hurrying the servant-wenches, as they call them, from their beds, crying,—“Up, up, boulder-heads!” that is pebble-heads, or heavy-heads, and asking them if they mean to lie till the sun burns their eyes out; having them up to light fires, sweep the hearth, and get to milking,[109] cheese-making, churning, and what not; while he gets his men and boys to their duties,—in winter, to fodder the horses and cows, and prepare for ploughing, or carting out manure; to supply the “young beast,”—young cattle, in the straw-yard with food; to chop turnips, carrots, mangel-würzel, cut hay, boil potatoes for feeding pigs or bullocks; thrash, winnow, or sack corn. In summer, to be off to the harvest-field. The wife is ready to take a turn at the churn, or to turn up her gown-sleeves to the shoulders, and kneeling down on a straw cushion, to press the sweet curd to the bottom of the cheese-pan. To boil the whey for making whey butter, to press the curd into the cheese-vats; place the new cheese in the press; to salt and turn, and look after those cheeses which are in the different stages of the progress from perfect newness and white softness, to their investment with the unctuous coating of a goodly age. He is ready to go with the men into the farm; she is ready to see that the calves are properly fed, and to bargain with the butcher for the fat ones; to feed her geese, turkeys, guinea-fowls, and barn-door fowls; to see after the collection of eggs; how the milk is going on in the dairy, the cream churning, and moulding of butter for sale. In some counties, especially in the west of England, numerous are those homely and most useful dames that you see mounted on their horses with nothing but a flat pad, or a stuffed sack under them, jogging to market to dispose of the products of their dairy and poultry yard, as fresh, hale, and independent, as their grandmothers were. As to the farmer himself, he can hold the plough as his father did before him. He hates your newfangled notions; he despises your fine-fingered chaps, that are brought up at boarding-schools till they are fit for nothing but to ride on smart whisk-tailed nags to market, and carry a bit of a sample-bag in their pockets; and had rather, ten times, be off to the hunt or the race-course than to market at all; or to be running after a dog and gun, breaking down fences and trampling over turnip and potato crops, when they ought to be watching that other idlers did not commit such depredations. He sits with his men, and works with his men; and, while he does as much as the best of them—follows the plough, the harrow, or the drill, empties the manure-cart on his fallows, loads the hay or the corn-wagon,—he many a[110] time says to himself that the “master’s eye does still more than his hand.” The celebrated Mr. Robinson of Cambridge, who was fond of farming, gives in a letter to a friend, a most striking view of the perpetual recurrence of the little occupations which present themselves to the practical farmer, and however apparently trivial, are really important, and full of pleasure to those whose hearts are in such pursuit.—“Rose at three o’clock; crawled into the library, and met one who said,—‘work while ye have the light; the night cometh, when no man can work: my father worketh hitherto, and I work.’ Rang the great bell, and roused the girls to milking, went up to the farm, roused the horsekeeper, fed the horses while he was getting up; called the boy to suckle the calves and clean out the cow-house; lighted the pipe, walked round the garden to see what was wanted there; went up to the paddock to see if the weaning calves were well; went down to the ferry to see if the boy had scooped and cleaned the boat; returned to the farm, examined the shoulders, heels, traces, chaff and corn of eight horses going to plough, mended the acre-staff, cut some thongs, whip-corded the plough-boys’ whips, pumped the troughs full, saw the hogs fed, examined the swill-tubs, and then the cellar; ordered a quarter of malt, for the hogs want grains, and the men want beer; filled the pipe again, returned to the river, and bought a lighter of turf for dairy fires, and another of sedge for ovens; hunted out the wheelbarrows, and set them a trundling; returned to the farm, called the men to breakfast, and cut the boys’ bread and cheese, and saw the wooden bottles filled; sent one plough to the three roods, another to the three half-acres, and so on; shut the gates, and the clock struck five; breakfasted; set two men to ditch the five roods, two men to chop sods, and spread about the land, two more to throw up manure in the yard, and three men and six women to weed wheat; set on the carpenter to repair cow-cribs, and set them up till winter; the wheeler, to mend the old carts, cart-ladders, rakes, etc., preparatory to hay-time and harvest; walked to the six-acres, found hogs in the grass, went back and set a man to hedge and thorn; sold the butcher a fat calf and the suckler a lean one.—The clock strikes nine; walked into the barley-field; barleys fine—picked off a few tiles and stones, and cut a few thistles; the peas fine but foul; the charlock must be[111] topped; the tares doubtful, the fly seems to have taken them; prayed for rain, but could not see a cloud; came round to the wheat-field, wheats rather thin, but the finest colour in the world; sent four women on to the shortest wheats; ordered one man to weed along the ridge of the long wheats, and two women to keep rank and file with him in the furrows; thistles many, blue-bottles no end; traversed all the wheat-field, came to the fallow-field; the ditchers have run crooked, set them straight; the flag sods cut too much, the rush sods too little, strength wasted, shew the men how to three-corner them; laid out more work for the ditchers, went to the ploughs, set the foot a little higher, cut a wedge, set the coulter deeper, must go and get a new mould-board against to-morrow; went to the other plough, gathered up some wood and tied over the traces, mended a horse-tree, tied a thong to the plough-hammer, went to see which lands wanted ploughing first, sat down under a bush, wondered how any man could be so silly as to call me reverend; read two verses in the Bible of the loving-kindness of the Lord in the midst of his temple, hummed a tune of thankfulness, rose up, whistled, the dogs wagged their tails, and away we went, dined, drunk some milk and fell asleep, woke by the carpenter for some slats which the sawyers must cut, etc. etc.”
So spends many a farmer of the old stamp his day, and at night he takes his seat on the settle, under the old wide chimney—his wife has her little work-table set near—the “wenches” darning their stockings, or making up a cap for Sunday, and the men sitting on the other side of the hearth, with their shoes off. He now enjoys of all things, to talk over his labours and plans with the men,—they canvass the best method of doing this and that—lay out the course of to-morrow—what land is to be broke up, or laid down; where barley, wheat, oats, etc. shall be sown, or if they be growing, when they shall be cut. In harvest-time, lambing-time, in potato setting and gathering time, in fact, almost all summer long, there is no sitting on the hearth—it is out of bed with the sun, and after the long hard day—supper, and to bed again. It is only in winter that there is any sitting by the fire, which is seldom diversified further than by the coming in of a neighbouring farmer, or the reading of the weekly news.
Such is the rustic, plodding life of many a farmer in England,[112] and there is no part of the population for which so little has been done, and of which so little is thought, as of their farm-servants. Scarcely any of these got any education before the establishment of Sunday schools—how few of them do yet, compared with the working population of towns? The girls help their mothers—the labourers’ wives—in their cottages, as soon almost as they can waddle about. They are scarcely more than infants themselves, when they are set to take care of other infants. The little creatures go lugging about great fat babies that really seem as heavy as themselves. You may see them on the commons, or little open green spots in the lanes near their homes, congregating together, two or three juvenile nurses, with their charges, carrying them along, or letting them roll on the sward, while they try to catch a few minutes of play with one another, or with that tribe of bairns at their heels—too old to need nursing, and too young to begin nursing others. As they get bigger they are found useful in the house—they mop and brush, and feed the pig, and run to the town for things; and as soon as they get to ten or twelve, out they go to nurse at the farm-houses; a little older, they “go to service;” there they soon aspire to be dairymaids, or housemaids, if their ambition does not prompt them to seek places in the towns,—and so they go on scrubbing and scouring, and lending a hand in the harvest-field, till they are married to some young fellow, who takes a cottage and sets up day-labourer. This is their life; and the men’s is just similar. As soon as they can run about, they are set to watch a gate that stands at the end of the lane or the common to stop cattle from straying, and there through long solitary days they pick up a few halfpence by opening it for travellers. They are sent to scare birds from corn just sown, ............