FAVOURITE PURSUITS OF ENGLISH COTTAGERS AND WORKMEN.  
In my last chapter I gave a general view of the present rural sports and pastimes of the peasantry—perhaps as it regards wrestling, more prominently than some readers might think judicious. But what is prominent in the country life of any part of England, it is my bounden duty to set before my readers; and there is no feature of English life more remarkable than the sanguine attachment of the people of some particular parts to particular sports; more especially where those sports have relaxed their ancient hold on the people in all other districts, or have refused to be engrafted on other districts; as golf continues to be one of the prime sports of Scotland, but will not travel across the Tweed. Let us now, before closing the department of this work appropriated to the peasantry, notice some characteristic features, which I think must strongly interest us all.
After all, the happiness of a people is not found in their amusements. Amusements may indicate, in a certain degree, that a people is happy; but real happiness is a thing of a more domestic nature. It is a Lar, and belongs to the household, or is to be found in the quiet and enclosed precincts of home gardens. A great portion of the happiness of the common people is therefore little perceived, for it is unobtrusive; and consists in following out those peculiar biases and penchants, which in higher personages are termed genius. The genius of the working classes, which[542] from its deriving little help from science, or field of exercise from circumstance, is seldom admitted to be genius at all, still exhibits itself in a variety of ways, and contributes at once to their prosperity, their happiness, and to the stamping of individual character. A great deal of it is necessarily exerted in their particular trades, and produces all that is beautiful and exquisite in handicraft arts. That which gives an artisan eminence in the workshop of his master, would probably have produced specimens of art that would have claimed the admiration of the whole community. Those glorious specimens of architectural perfection which adorn our chief cathedrals, the work of the middle ages, are the evidences of masonic skill, which in this age might probably have been employed on our plainer structures, or in building steam-engines, or elaborating some piece of plate, or carving the handles of parasols. Circumstance has much to do in the decision of the fate of all genius and ingenuity. It is a striking fact, that the greater number of artisans who eminently excel in their own line, partake largely of the temperament and foibles of genius. They are often irregular in their application to business, fond of company and of its excitements; so that nothing is so common as to say, that man is an inimitable workman, but that he will not work half his time, and is too fond of the public-house, where he draws a circle of admirers around him. But when a man is at once skilful, steady, and enthusiastic in his art,—that man is a happy man. His mind has a constant subject of reflection, of exercise, of satisfaction, before it. He sees with pride the workmanship of his hands, and enjoys with as much inward delight the reputation and applause it brings him, as does a poet, a philosopher, or a conqueror the fame of their respective works.
But, in many others, the peculiar instinct shews itself in some other pursuit than their trade. It does not happen to them to have fallen upon that profession which would have called forth the slumbering spirit, and when it wakes it shews itself in some other form. These men are said to have their HOBBY. They have a favourite scheme, or occupation, which shares their attention with their trade, and often supersedes it. Crabbe, that close observer of whatever passed in this grade of life, has well described these propensities. If they shew themselves in a man’s own trade:
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Then to the wealthy you will see denied
Comforts and joys that with the poor abide;
There are who labour through the year, and yet
No more have gained than—not to be in debt;
Who still maintain the same laborious course,
Yet pleasure hails them from some favourite source;
And health, amusement, children, wife, or friend,
With life’s dull views their consolations blend.
But if the bias of the mind does not lie in the man’s own art:
Nor these alone possess the lenient power
Of soothing life in the desponding hour;
Some favourite studies, some delightful care
The mind with trouble and distresses share;
And by a coin, a flower, a verse, a boat,
The stagnant spirits have been set afloat;
They pleased at first, and then the habit grew,
Till the fond heart no higher pleasure knew.
Oft have I smiled the happy pride to see
Of humble tradesmen in their evening glee;
When of some pleasing,fancied good possessed,
Each grew alert, was busy, and was blest.
Whether the call-bird yield the hours delight,
Or magnified in microscope, the mite;
Or whether tumblers, croppers, carriers seize
The gentle mind, they rule it, and they please.
Yes, it is in these and many other occupations, dictated by individual organization, or taste, that numbers of the working class find a world of happiness. Some are amateurs of one kind, some of another; some are rearers of fancy pigeons, some of fancy dogs; others are enthusiasts in music, singing, bell-ringing, and make a noise in the world from belfries, organ-lofts, orchestras, at harmonic meetings, and in rural festivals. Some spend a whole life in seeking the perpetual motion; some in devising improvements in steam-engines, and other machines. Whether they deal with realities, or with chimeras, as too often they do, the busy spirit of humanity will be at work in the breasts of the operative class. In the country it assumes many a shape that is beautiful, and others that are picturesque. Some are incorrigible poachers, from the love of the pursuit of wild creatures, of strolling about in solitary glens and woods, of night-watching, and adventure. Others have an inextinguishable love of a gun,—these men all their lives are[544] noted for this propensity. They have a certain keeper-like appearance. They affect fustian or velveteen jackets, with wide skirts, and huge pockets; gaiters, and strong shoes. They have a lounging, yet unauthorized air, which betrays them to be not the true men of office. They have always some excuse for carrying a gun; they are stuffers of curious birds and animals; or they procure them for one who is; and it is alike amazing how they escape the penalties of the law for trespasses and destruction of game, and yet bring home such owls, squirrels, herons, sea-birds, curlews, plovers, martins, and fillimarts, shrikes, waxen-chatterers, and foxes, and young fawns, as are not to be obtained except by a traversing, daily and nightly, of parks, preserves, woods, and chases, as must be perilous, and, indeed, impracticable to any other men. Noblemen and gentlemen generally find it desirable in the end, to instal this particular variety of the human species in all the honours and freedom of keepership. Happy is the man of this stamp who reaches America. That is the land for him! A land of woods, of herds of deer, and turkeys, of bears and buffaloes. There he may roam the paradise of back settlements, and satiate his soul with hunting and shooting; with lying in wait, and with wild adventure, without fear of game-laws, and the obstructions of monopoly.
Others, again, have an indomitable passion for hunting otters, badgers, polecats, rats, hedgehogs, and similar tenants of out-of-the-way dales, river-sides, thickets and plantations; and have perpetually at their heels, terriers of every kind, spaniels, and lurchers. These are generally well entitled to be classed under the head of ragamuffins; and are generally more than half poachers, being as ready to snap up a leveret, rabbit, or young wild duck, as they are to destroy a stoat. But the passion for their peculiar fancy is inextinguishable, and not to be put out by a whole bench of magistrates, or a voyage to New South Wales, for there the dogs would instinctively muster at their heels, and they would be after the kangaroos at the very first opportunity.
A congener of these, and yet of a somewhat more civilized grade, is the bird-catcher and trainer. Beware of your nightingales that come in April from some sunny land, and shew you the preference of settling for the season in your shrubbery, or coppice. If this man be your neighbour, the glorious song of midnight will[545] soon experience a mysterious hush. You hear it, and proclaim the news to your family. By day you catch its not-to-be-mistaken notes amongst the budding trees, as you pass in and out of your grounds. “There is the very same bird come to its favourite spot,” you say, to delight your wife, or sister, or children, who clap their hands, and run to carry the news into the housekeeper’s room. “There is the fine old nightingale again in the shrubbery!” At evening on are put bonnets and hats, shawls and cloaks, and forth sallies the happy domestic group. The air is chill, for it is but April; yet the moon is rising in her sweet pensiveness, and the freshness of the air and the budding boughs are about you. Down the narrow path you go, where the primroses gleam faintly from amongst the mossy stems of the shrubbery trees. Past the rustic summer-house you go, down by the close turf of the shadowy lawn—near to the brook, that flows so subduedly in its singing murmurs that it cannot drown a single bird-note. You have reached the little wooden bridge—and hark!—it is there sure enough! Yes, to-night, and the next, and perhaps the next, it is there,—and then it is gone. You wonder why. Can it have deserted its favourite haunt? Can it be the stormy weather? The east wind must have silenced it? No! it is moping in the cage of that villanous bird-catcher, who is intending to aggravate his crime of kidnapping this prince of air-minstrels, by fetching the blackbird which sings on the top of your ash, and the thrush that flings back his notes from the distant elm. Beware of your woodlarks, and your bullfinches, if this man be your neighbour. He has an ear which recognises in a moment the master singer, and he has a dozen arts to put in practice against his liberty. In his little house is a collection of prisoners that would make any reasonable person’s heart ache. He has blackbirds that are studying artificial tunes,—marches and waltzes—how much more apt one would think them to learn dirges and laments! But he has even poor Robin Redbreast put to school under the nightingale—bullfinches that are blinded, and then made to listen in doleful obedience to his flute or pipe. They are to be piping bullfinches of great note and value. But let us leave the melodious melancholy of his prison-house, and when we have lightened our hearts in the open air, we may muster up charity enough to do the man justice. He has, after all, no[546] lack of kindness in his heart. He takes them captive as the Christians take negroes—to civilize them, and make them happier! His soul is in all that he does. I one day met an old man and woman in a wood. As I drew near them I heard a strange chirping of young birds. It was a fine summer evening. “How is this,” I said; “it is time for the birds to be at roost, and yet I hear young ones chirping?” “0!” said the old man—“here they are;” opening his basket, and shewing a nest full of young canaries. “It was a fine evening,” said he, “and I and my old woman thought a walk would do us good, and we thought it would do the birds good too.”
The delights of angling seize upon another class. People that have not been inoculated with the true spirit, may wonder at the infatuation of anglers—but true anglers leave them very contentedly to their wondering, and follow their diversion with a keen delight. Many old men there are of this class, that have in them a world of science,— not science of the book, or of regular tuition, but the science of actual experience. Science that lives, and will die with them; except it be dropped out piecemeal, and with the gravity becoming its importance, to some young neophyte, who has won their good graces by his devotion to their beloved craft. All the mysteries of times and seasons, of baits, flies of every shape and hue; worms, gentles, beetles, compositions, or substances found by proof to possess singular charms. These are a possession which they hold with pride, and do not hold in vain. After a close day in the shop or factory, what a luxury is a fine summer evening to one of these men, following some rapid stream, or seated on a green bank, deep in grass and flowers, pulling out the spotted trout, or resolutely, but subtilely, bringing some huge pike or fair grayling from his lurking place beneath the broad stump and spreading boughs of the alder. Or a day, a summer’s day, to such a man, by the Dove, or the Wye, amid the pleasant Derbyshire hills; by Yorkshire or Northumbrian stream; by Trent or Tweed; or the banks of Yarrow; by Teith, or Leven, with the glorious hills and heaths of Scotland round him! Why, such a day to such a man, has in it a life and spirit of enjoyment to which the feelings of cities and palaces are dim. The heart of such a man,—the power and passion of deep felicity that come breathing from mountains and[547] moorlands; from clouds that sail above, and storms blustering and growling in the wind; from all the mighty magnificence, the solitude and antiquity of nature upon him—Ebenezer Elliott only can unfold. The weight of the poor man’s life—the cares of poverty—the striving of huge cities, visit him as he sits by the beautiful stream—beautiful as a dream of eternity, and translucent as the everlasting canopy of heaven above him;—they come—but he casts them off for the time, with the power of one who feels himself strong in the kindred spirit of all things around; strong in knowledge that he is a man; an immortal—a child and pupil in the world-school of the Almighty. For that day he is more than a king—he has the heart of humanity and the faith and spirit of a saint. It is not the rod and line that floats before him—it is not the flowing water, or the captured prey, that he perceives in those moments of admission to the heart of nature, so much as the law of the testimony of love and goodness written on every thing around him with the pencil of Divine beauty. He is no longer the wearied and oppressed—the trodden and despised—walking in thread-bare garments, amid men who scarcely deign to look upon him as a brother man,—but he is reassured and recognised to himself in his own soul as one of those puzzling, aspiring and mysterious existences for whom all this splendid world was built, and for whom eternity opens its expecting gates. These are magnificent speculations for a poor angling weaver or carpenter; but Ebenezer Elliott can tell us, that they are his legitimate thoughts when he can break for an instant the bonds of this toiling age, and escape to the open fields. Let us leave him dipping his line into the waters of refreshing thought, and return to the cottage garden. There we shall see another form of that beneficently varied taste which adds so much to the poor man’s pleasures.
We may look into many a cottage garden, and find it a little world of beauty and pleasant cares. Here one poor man is a lover of bees. He has stored his little sheltered garden with all sorts of flowers that bees love, or that come out early in the year for them. On the sunny side of his little domain you see his rustic shed with its row of hives; all neatly thatched, and all sending out their busy stream of honey-gatherers. There is no man of any reflection but must feel what a source of enjoyment that row of hives has[548] been. What cares and contrivances have contributed to extend that row from the solitary swarm, purchased perhaps in the da............