Hughes Thomas
Tom Brown at Oxford

CHAPTER XLVI
FROM INDIA TO ENGLEBOURN

If a knowledge of contemporary history must be reckoned as an important element in the civilization of any people, then I am afraid that the good folk of Englebourn must have been content, in the days of our story, with a very low place on the ladder. How, indeed, was knowledge to percolate, so as to reach down to the foundations of Englebournian society – the stratum on which all others rest – the common agricultural labourer, producer of corn and other grain, the careful and stolid nurse and guardian of youthful oxen, sheep and pigs, many of them far better fed and housed than his own children? All-penetrating as she is, one cannot help wondering that she did not give up Englebourn altogether as a hopeless job.

So far as written periodical instruction is concerned (with the exception of the Quarterly, which Dr. Winter had taken in from its commencement, but rarely opened), the supply was limited to at most half a dozen weekly papers. A London journal, sound in Church and State principles, most respectable but not otherwise than heavy, came every Saturday to the rectory. The Conservative county paper was taken in at the Red Lion; and David the constable, and the blacksmith, clubbed together to purchase the Liberal paper, by help of which they managed to wage unequal war with the knot of village quidnuncs, who assembled almost nightly at the bar of the Tory beast above referred to – that king of beasts, red indeed in colour but of the truest blue in political principle. Besides these, perhaps three or four more papers were taken by the farmers. But, scanty as the food was, it was quite enough for the mouths; indeed, when the papers once passed out of the parlours, they had for the most part performed their mission. Few of the farm-servants, male or female, had curiosity or scholarship enough to spell through the dreary columns.

And oral teaching was not much more plentiful, as how was it likely to be? Englebourn was situated on no trunk road, and the amount of intercourse between it and the rest of the world was of the most limited kind. The rector never left home; the curate at rare intervals. Most of the farmers went to market once a week and dined at their ordinary, discussing county politics according to their manner, but bringing home little, except as much food and drink as they could cleverly carry. The carrier went to and from Newbury once a week; but he was a silent man, chiefly bent on collecting and selling butter. The postman, who was deaf, only went as far as the next village. The waggoners drove their masters' produce to market from time to time, and boozed away an hour or two in the kitchen, or tap, or skittle-alley, of some small public-house in the nearest town, while their horses rested. With the above exceptions, probably not one of the villagers strayed ten miles from home, from year's end to year's end. As to visitors, an occasional peddler or small commercial traveller turned up about once a quarter. A few boys and girls, more enterprising than their fellows, went out altogether into the world, of their own accord, in the course of the year; and an occasional burly ploughboy, or carter's boy, was entrapped into taking the Queen's shilling by some subtle recruiting sergeant. But few of these were seen again, except at long intervals. The yearly village feasts, harvest homes, or a meet of the hounds on Englebourn Common, were the most exciting events which in an ordinary way stirred the surface of Englebourn life; only faintest and most distant murmurs of the din and strife of the great outer world, of wars, and rumors of wars, the fall of governments, and the throes of nations, reached that primitive, out-of-the-way little village.

A change was already showing itself since Miss Winter had been old enough to look after the schools. The waters were beginning to stir; and by this time, no doubt, the parish boasts a regular book-hawker and reading-room; but at that day Englebourn was like one of those small ponds you may find in some nook of a hill-side, the banks grown over with underwood, to which neither man nor beast, scarcely the winds of heaven, have any access. When you have found such a pond, you may create a great excitement amongst the easy-going newts and frogs who inhabit it, by throwing in a pebble. The splash in itself is a small splash enough, and the waves which circle away from it are very tiny waves, but they move over the whole face of the pond, and are of more interest to the frogs than a nor'-wester in the Atlantic.

So the approaching return of Harry Winburn, and the story of his doings at the wars, and of the wonderful things he had sent home, stirred Englebourn to its depth. In that small corner of the earth, the sergeant was of far more importance than governor-general and commander-in-chief. In fact, it was probably the common belief that he was somehow the head of the whole business; and India, the war, and all that hung thereon, were looked at and cared for only as they had served to bring him out. So careless were the good folk about everything in the matter except their own hero, and so wonderful were the romances which soon got abroad about him, that Miss Winter, tired of explaining again and again to the old women without the slightest effect on the parochial faith, bethought her of having a lecture on the subject of India and the war in the parish schoolroom.

Full of this idea, she wrote off to Tom, who was the medium of communication on Indian matters, and propounded it to him. The difficulty was, that Mr. Walker, the curate, the only person competent to give it, was going away directly for a three weeks' holiday, having arranged with two neighbouring curates to take his Sunday duty for him. What was to be done? Harry might be back any day, it seemed; so there was no time to be lost. Could Tom come himself, and help her?

Tom could not, but he wrote back to say that his friend Hardy was just getting away from Oxford for the long vacation, and would gladly take Mr. Walker's duty for the three weeks, if Dr. Winter approved, on his way home; by which Englebourn would not be without an efficient parson on week-days, and she would have the man of all others to help her in utilizing the sergeant's history for the instruction of the bucolic mind. The arrangement, moreover, would be particularly happy, because Hardy had already promised to perform the marriage ceremony, which Tom and she had settled would take place at the earliest possible moment after the return of the Indian heroes.

Dr. Winter was very glad to accept the offer; and so, when they parted at Oxford, Hardy went to Englebourn, where we must leave him for the present. Tom went home – whence, in a few days, he had to hurry down to Southampton to meet the two Harrys. He was much shocked at first to see the state of his old school-fellow. East looked haggard and pale in the face, notwithstanding the sea voyage. His clothes hung on him as if they had been made for a man of twice his size, and he walked with difficulty by the help of a large stick. But he had lost none of his indomitableness, laughed at Tom's long face, and declared that he felt himself getting better and stronger every day.

"If you had only seen me at Calcutta," he said, "you would sing a different song. Eh, Winburn?"

Harry Winburn was much changed, and had acquired all the composed and self-reliant look which is so remarkable in a good non-commissioned officer. Readiness to obey and command was stamped on every line of his face; but it required all his powers of self-restraint to keep within bounds his delight at getting home again. His wound was quite healed, and his health re-established by the voyage; and, when Tom saw how wonderfully his manners and carriage were improved, and how easily his uniform sat on him, he felt quite sure that all would soon be right at Englebourn, and that Katie and he would be justified in their prophecies and preparations. The invalids had to report themselves in London, and thither the three proceeded together. When this was done, Harry Winburn was sent off at once. He resisted at first, and begged to be allowed to stay with his captain until the captain could go to Berkshire himself. But he was by this time too much accustomed to discipline not to obey a positive order, and was comforted by Tom's assurance that he would not leave East, and would do everything for him which the sergeant had been accustomed to do.

Three days later, as East and Tom were sitting at breakfast, a short note came from Miss Winter, telling of Harry's arrival – how the bells were set ringing to welcome him; how Mr. Hardy had preached the most wonderful sermon on his story the next day; above all, how Patty had surrendered at discretion, and the banns had been called for the first time. So the sooner they would come down the better – as it was very important that no time should be lost, lest some of the old jealousies and quarrels should break out again. Upon reading and considering which letter, East resolved to start for Englebourn at once, and Tom to accompany him.

There was one person to whom Harry's return and approaching wedding was a subject of unmixed joy and triumph, and that was David the constable. He had always been a sincere friend to Harry, and had stood up for him when all the parish respectabilities had turned against him, and had prophesied that he would live to be a credit to the place. So now David felt himself an inch higher as he saw Harry walking about in his uniform with his sweetheart, the admiration of all Englebourn. But, besides all the unselfish pleasure which David enjoyed on his young friend's account, a little piece of private and personal gratification came to him on his own. Ever since Harry's courtship had begun, David had felt himself in a false position towards, and had suffered under, old Simon, the rector's gardener. The necessity for keeping the old man in good humor for Harry's sake had always been present to the constable's mind; and for the privilege of putting in a good word for his favorite now and then, he had allowed old Simon to assume an air of superiority over him, and to trample upon him and dogmatize to him, even in the matters of flowers and bees. This had been the more galling to David on account of old Simon's intolerant Toryism, which the constable's soul rebelled against, except in the matter of Church music. On this point they agreed, but even here Simon managed to be unpleasant. He would lay the whole blame of the changes which had been effected upon David, accusing him of having given in where there was no need. As there was nothing but a wall between the Rectory garden and David's little strip of ground, in which he spent all his leisure time until the shades of evening summoned him to the bar of the Red Lion for his daily pint and pipe, the two were constantly within hearing of one another, and Simon, in times past, had seldom neglected an opportunity of making himself disagreeable to his long-suffering neighbour.

But now David was a free man again; and he took the earliest occasion of making the change in his manner apparent to Simon, and of getting, as he called it, "upsides" with him. One would have thought, to look at him, that the old gardener was as pachydermatous as a rhinoceros; but somehow he seemed to feel that things had changed between them, and did not appreciate an interview with David now nearly so much as of old. So he found very little to do in that part of the garden which abutted on the constable's premises. When he could not help working there, he chose the times at which David was most likely to be engaged, or even took the trouble to ascertain that he was not at home.

Early on Midsummer day, old Simon reared his ladder against the boundary wall, with a view of "doctorin'" some of the fruit trees, relying on a parish meeting, at which the constable's presence was required. But he had not more than half finished his operations before David had returned from vestry, and, catching sight of the top of the ladder and Simon's head above the wall, laid aside all other business, and descended into the garden.

Simon kept on at his work, only replying by a jerk of the head and one of his grunts to his neighbour's salutation.

David took his coat off, and his pruning knife out, and, establishing himself within easy shot of his old oppressor, opened fire at once —

"Thou'st gi'en thy consent, then?"

"'Tis no odds, consent or none – her's old enough to hev her own waay."

"But thou'st gi'en thy consent?"

"Ees, then, if thou wilt hev't," said Simon, somewhat surlily; "wut then?"

"So I heerd," said David, indulging in an audible chuckle.

"What bist a laughin' at?"

"I be laughin' to think how folks changes. Do'st mind the hard things as thou hast judged and said o' Harry? Not as ever I known thy judgment to be o' much account, 'cept about roots. But thou saidst, times and times, as a would come to the gallows."

"So a med yet – so a med yet," answered Simon. "Not but wut I wishes well to un, and bears no grudges; but others as hev got the law ov un medn't."

"'Tis he as hev got grudges to bear. He don't need none o' thy forgiveness."

"Pr'aps a medn't. But hev 'em got the law ov un, or hevn't em?"

"Wut do'st mean – got the law ov un?"

"Thaay warrants as wur out agen un, along wi' the rest as was transpworted auver Farmer Tester's job."

"Oh, he've got no call to be afeard o' thaay now. Thou know'st I hears how 'tis laid down in Sessions and 'Sizes, wher' I've a been this twenty year."

"Like enuff. Only, wut's to hinder thaay tryin' ov un, if thaay be a minded to 't? That's what I wants to know."

"'Tis wut the counsellors calls the Statut o' Lamentations," said the constable, proudly.

"Wutever's Lamentations got to do wi't?"

"A gurt deal, I tell 'ee. What do'st thou know o' Lamentations?"

"Lamentations cums afore Ezekiel in the Bible."

"That ain't no kin to the Statut o' Lamentations. But ther's summut like to't in the Bible," said the constable, stopping his work to consider a moment. "Do'st mind the year when the land wur all to be guv back to thaay as owned it fust, and debts wur to be wiped out?"

"Ees, I minds summut o' that."

"Well, this here statut says, if so be as a man hev bin to the wars, and sarved his country like; as nothin' shan't be reckoned agen he, let alone murder. Nothin' can't do away wi' murder."

"No, nor oughtn't. Hows'mdever, you seems clear about the law on't. There's Miss a callin'."

And old Simon's head disappeared as he descended the ladder to answer the summons of his young mistress, not displeased at having his fears as to the safety of his future son-in-law set at rest by so eminent a legal authority as the constable. Fortunately for Harry, the constable's law was not destined to be tried. Young Wurley was away in London. Old Tester was bedridden with an accumulation of diseases brought on by his bad life. His illness made him more violent and tyrannical than ever; but he could do little harm out of his own room, for no one ever went to see him, and the wretched farm-servant who attended him was much too frightened to tell him anything of what was going on in the parish. There was no one else to revive proceedings against Harry.

David pottered on at his bees and his flowers till old Simon returned, and ascended his ladder again.

"You be ther' still, be 'ee?" he said, as soon as he saw David.

"Ees. Any news?"

"Ah, news enuff. He as wur Harry's captain and young Mr. Brown be comin' down to-morrow, and hev tuk all the Red Lion to theirselves. And thaay beant content to wait for banns – not thaay – and so ther's to be a license got for Saturday. 'Taint scarce decent, that 'taint."

"'Tis best to get drough wi't," said the constable.

"Then nothin'll sarve 'em but the church must be hung wi' flowers, and wher' be thaay to cum from without strippin' and starvin' ov my beds? 'Tis shameful to see how folks acts wi' flowers now-a-days, a cuttin' on 'em and puttin' on 'em about, as prodigal at though thaay growed o' theirselves."

"So 'tis shameful," said David, whose sympathies for flowers were all with Simon. "I heers tell as young Squire Wurley hevs 'em on table at dinner-time instead o' the wittels."

"Do'ee though! I calls it reg'lar Papistry, and so I tells Miss; but her only laughs."

The constable shook his head solemnly as he replied "Her've been led away wi' such doin's ever sence Mr. Walker cum, and took to organ-playin' and chantin'."

"And he ain't no such gurt things in the pulpit, neether, ain't Mr. Walker," chimed in Simon, (the two had not been so in harmony for years). "I reckon as he ain't nothin' to speak ov alongside o' this here new un as hev tuk his place. He've a got a good deal o' move in un' he hev."

"Ah, so a hev. A wunnerful sight o' things a telled us t'other night, about the Indians and the wars."

"Ah! talking cums as nat'ral to he as buttermilk to a litterin' sow."

"Thou should'st a heerd un, though, about the battles. I can't mind the neames on 'em – let me see – "

"I dwun't valley the neames," interrupted Simon. "Thaay makes a deal o' fuss auvert 'taal, but I dwun't tek no account on't. Tain't like the owld wars and fightin' o' the French, this here fightin' wi' blackamoors, let 'em talk as thaay wool."

"No more 'tain't. But 'twur a 'mazin' fine talk as he gi'n us.

Hev 'ee seed ought 'twixt he and young missus?"

"Nothin' out o' th' common. I got plenty to do without lookin' arter the women, and 'tain't no bisness o' mine, nor o' thine neether."

David was preparing a stout rejoinder to this rebuke of the old retainer of the Winter family on his curiosity, but was summoned by his wife to the house to attend a customer; and by the time he could get out again, Simon had disappeared.

The next day East and Tom arrived, and took possession of the Red Lion; and Englebourn was soon in a ferment of preparation for the wedding. East was not the man to do things by halves; and, seconded as he was by Miss Winter, and Hardy, and Tom, had soon made arrangements for all sorts of merrymaking. The school-children were to have a whole holiday, and, after scattering flowers at church and marching in the bridal procession, were to be entertained in a tent pitched in the home paddock of the Rectory, and to have an afternoon of games and prizes, and cake and tea. The bell-ringers, Harry's old comrades, were to have five shillings apiece, and a cricket match, and a dinner afterwards at the second public house, to which any other of his old friends whom Harry chose to ask, were to be also invited. The old men and women were to be fed in the village school-room; and East and Tom were to entertain a select party of the farmers and tradesmen, at the Red Lion; the tap of which hostelry was to be thrown open to all comers at the Captain's expense. It was not without considerable demur on the part of Miss Winter, that some of these indiscriminate festivities were allowed to pass. But after consulting with Hardy, she relented, on condition that the issue of beer at the two public-houses should be put under the control of David, the constable, who, on his part, promised that law and order should be well represented and maintained on the occasion. "Arter all, Miss, you sees, 'tis only for once in a waay," he said; "and 'twill make 'em remember aal as hev bin said to 'em about the Indians, and the rest on't." So the Captain and his abettors, having gained the constable as an ally, prevailed; and Englebourn, much wondering at itself, made ready for a general holiday.

CHAPTER XLVII
THE WEDDING-DAY

 
One-more-poor-man-un-done
One-more-poor-man-un-done
 

The belfry tower rocked and reeled, as that peal rang out, now merry, now scornful, now plaintive, from whose narrow belfry windows, into the bosom of the soft south-west wind, which was playing round the old grey tower of Englebourn church. And the wind caught the peal and played with it, and bore it away over Rectory and village street, and many a homestead, and gently waving field of ripening corn, and rich pasture and water-meadow, and tall whispering woods of the Grange, and rolled it against the hill-side, and up the slope past the clump of firs on the Hawk's Lynch, till it died away on the wild stretches of common beyond.

The ringers bent lustily to their work. There had been no such ringing in Englebourn since the end of the great war. Not content with the usual peal out of church, they came back again and again in the afternoon, full of the good cheer which had been provided for them; and again and again the wedding peal rang out from the belfry in honour of their old comrade —

 
One-more-poor-man-un-done
One-more-poor-man-un-done
 

Such was the ungallant speech which for many generations had been attributed to the Englebourn wedding-bells; when you had once caught the words – as you would be sure to do from some wide-mouthed grinning boy, lounging over the churchyard rails to see the wedding pass – it would be impossible to persuade yourself that they did, in fact, say anything else. Somehow, Harry Winburn bore his undoing in the most heroic manner, and did his duty throughout the trying day as a non-commissioned groom should. The only part of the performance arranged by his captain which he fairly resisted, was the proposed departure of himself and Patty to the solitary post-chaise of Englebourn – a real old yellow – with a pair of horses. East, after hearing the sergeant's pleading on the subject of vehicles, at last allowed them to drive off in a tax-cart, taking a small boy with them behind, to bring it back.

As for the festivities, they went off without hitch, as such affairs will, where the leaders of the revels have their hearts in them. The children had all played, and romped, and eaten and drunk themselves into a state of torpor by an early hour of the evening. The farmers' dinner was a decided success. East proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom, and was followed by Farmer Grove and the constable. David turned out in a new blue swallow-tailed coat, with metal buttons, of his own fabulous cut, in honor of the occasion. He and the farmer spoke like the leader of the Government and the Opposition in the House of Commons on an address to the Crown. There was not a pin to choose between their speeches, and a stranger hearing them would naturally have concluded that Harry had never been anything but the model boy and young man of the parish. Fortunately, the oratorical powers of Englebourn ended here; and East, and the majority of his guests, adjourned to the green, where the cricket was in progress. Each game lasted a very short time only, as the youth of Englebourn were not experts in the noble science, and lost their wickets one after another so fast, that Tom and Hardy had time to play out two matches with them, and then to retire on their laurels, while the afternoon was yet young.

The old folks in the village school-room enjoyed their beef and pudding, under the special superintendence of Miss Winter, and then toddled to their homes, and sat about in the warmest nooks they could find, mumbling of old times, and the doings at Dr. Winter's wedding.

David devoted himself to superintending the issue of beer, swelling with importance, but so full of the milk of human kindness from the great event of the day, that nobody minded his little airs. He did his duty so satisfactorily that, with the exception of one or two regular confirmed soakers, who stuck steadily to the tap of the Red Lion, and there managed successfully to fuddle themselves, there was nothing like drunkenness. In short, it was one of those rare days when everything goes right, and everybody seems to be inclined to give and take, and to make allowances for their neighbours. By degrees the cricket flagged, and most of the men went off to sit over their pipes, and finish the evening in their own way. The boys and girls took to playing at "kissing in the ring;" and the children who had not already gone home sat in groups watching them.

Miss Winter had already disappeared, and Tom, Hardy and the Captain began to feel that they might consider their part finished. They strolled together off the green towards Hardy's lodgings, the "Red Lion" being still in possession of East's guests.

"Well, how do you think it all went off?" asked he. "Nothing could have been better," said Hardy; "and they all seem so inclined to be reasonable that I don't think we shall even have a roaring song along the street to-night when the "Red Lion" shuts up."

"And you are satisfied, Tom?"

"I should think so. I have been hoping for this day any time this four years, and now it has come, and gone off well, too, thanks to you, Harry."

"Thanks to me? Very good; I am open to any amount of gratitude."

"I think you have every reason to be satisfied with your second day's work at Englebourn, at any rate."

"So I am. I only hope it may turn out as well as the first."

"Oh, there's no doubt about that."

"I don't know. I rather believe in the rule of contraries."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, when you inveigled me over from Oxford, and we carried off the sergeant from the authorities, and defeated the yeomanry in that tremendous thunder-storm, I thought we were a couple of idiots, and deserved a week each in the lockup for our pains. That business turned out well. This time we have started with flying colours and bells ringing, and so – "

"This business will turn out better. Why not?"

"Then let us manage a third day's work in these parts as soon as possible. I should like to get to the third degree of comparison, and perhaps the superlative will turn up trumps for me somehow. Are there many more young women in the place as pretty as Mrs. Winburn? This marrying complaint is very catching, I find."

"There's my cousin Katie," said Tom, looking stealthily at Hardy; "I won't allow that there's any face in the country-side to match hers. What do you say, Jack?"

Hardy was confused by this sudden appeal.

"I haven't been long enough here to judge," he said. "I have always considered Miss Winter very beautiful. I see it is nearly seven o'clock, and I have a call or two to make in the village. I should think you ought to get some rest after this tiring day, Captain East?"

"What are you going to do, Tom?"

"Well, I was thinking of just throwing a fly over the mill tail. There's such a fine head of water on."

"Isn't it too bright?"

"Well, perhaps it is a little; marrying weather and fishing weather don't agree. Only what else is there to do? But if you are tired," he added, looking at East, "I don't care a straw about it. I shall stay with you."

"Not a bit of it. I shall hobble down with you, and lie on the bank and smoke a cheroot."

"No, you shan't walk, at any rate. I can borrow the constable's pony, old Nibble, the quietest beast in the world. He'll stand for a week if we like, while I fish and you lie and look on. I'll be off and bring him around in two minutes."

"Then we shall meet for a clumsy tea at nine at my lodgings," said Hardy, as he went off to his pastoral duties.

Tom and East, in due time, found themselves by the side of the stream. There was only a small piece of fishable water in Englebourn. The fine stream, which, a mile or so below, in the Grange grounds, might be called a river, came into respectable existence only about two hundred yards above Englebourn Mill. Here two little chalk brooks met, and former millers had judiciously deepened the channel, and dammed the united waters back so as to get a respectable reservoir. Above the junction the little weedy, bright, creeping brooks afforded good sport for small truants groppling about with their hands, or bobbing with lob worms under the hollow banks, but were not available for the scientific angler. The parish ended at the fence next below the mill garden, on the other side of which the land was part of the Grange estate. So there was just the piece of still water above the mill, and the one field below it, over which Tom had leave. On ordinary occasions this would have been enough, with careful fishing, to last him till dark; but his nerves were probably somewhat excited by the events of the day, and East sat near and kept talking; so he got over his water faster than usual. At any rate, he had arrived for the second time at the envious fence before the sun was down. The fish were wondrous wary in the miller's bit of water – as might be expected, for they led a dog of a life there, between the miller and his men and their nets, and baits of all kinds always set. So Tom thought himself lucky to get a couple of decent fish, the only ones that were moving within his liberty; but he could not help looking with covetous eyes on the fine stretch of water below, all dimpling with rises.

"Why don't you get over and fish below?" said East, from his seat on the bank; "don't mind me. I can watch you; besides, lying on the turf on such an evening is luxury enough by itself."

"I can't go. Both sides below belong to that fellow Wurley."

"The sergeant's amiable landlord and prosecutor?"

"Yes; and the yeoman with whom you exchanged shots on the common."

"Hang it, Tom, just jump over and catch a brace of his trout. Look how they are rising."

"No, I don't know. I never was very particular about poaching, but somehow I shouldn't like to do it on his land. I don't like him well enough."

"You're right, I believe. But just look there. There's a whopper rising not more than ten yards below the rail. You might reach him, I think, without trespassing, from where you stand."

"Shall I have a shy at him?"

"Yes; it can't be poaching if you don't go on his grounds."

Tom could not resist the temptation, and threw over the rails, which crossed the stream from hedge to hedge to mark the boundaries of the parish, until he got well over the place where the fish was rising.

"There, that was at your fly," said East, hobbling up in great excitement.