T.Miller (1855)
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January, with its short days, and long nights, though it still
comes as of old, with frost, and snow, and cold, and darkness
brings with it once a-year its merry Plough Monday; and in a few
out-of-the-way country places the village street is all astir with the
little crowd of gaping rustics, just as it was, except for the changes
in costume and architecture, three or four centuries ago. The old
fiddler, who dates every incident in his life from the many country
wakes, feasts, and atatutes be has attended, is again in requisition,
although the snow lies deep upon the ground; the drum, which
only sounds at the club-feast, or on such occasions as these, is
again dragged from its hiding-place; and sometimes the old-
fashioned pipe and tabor, which have been blown and beaten by
the descendants of the same family, through many generationa,
are called in to awaken the sleeping echoes of Winter. You hear
the noisy group long before they heave into sight along the winding
lane, engirded with its high and leafless hedges green only where
the ivy trails, or the prickly holly shoots up; they are announced
by the loud huzzas which rend the air, and are followed by all
the loiterers who have congregated from the villages for miles
around.
Heralding the way, come the healthy-looking round chubby-
faced country lads, waving their hats and caps, regardless of the
cold; their heavy boots crunching the snow at every step, and
their hard naked hands nearly blue or purple through exposure to
the frosty air. They are followed by pipe and tabor, fiddle and
drum. Then appears a strong healthy-looking ploughman, with
his heavy ankle-boots, worsted stockings, stout corduroy breechea,
and thick plush waistcoat, over which he wears a gown, borrowed
for the occasion of Nanny or Molly, and the skirt of which he
generally tucks up under his waistcoat until he enters the village,
to keep it from draggling; and thus arrayed, with bonnet and cap
on head, he comes dancing along, about as gracefully as a brown
shaggy bear, and rattling the money-box, which he carries in his
hand, at every step, for he is the Betsy, so famous in the olden
PLOUGH MONDAY. 9
time as the chief figurante on a Plough Monday. Next follows the
plough, drawn by ten or a dozen stout countrymen, by ropes either
thrown over their shoulders, or faatened around their waists, while
their hats or white smock-frocks are decorated with ribbons of
almost all colours, amid which are placed bunches of ears of corn;
he who guides the plough being ornamented like another Ceres,
and, doubtless, like her, intended to represent the emblem of plenty.
Next appear the threshers with their flails, and reapers with their
hooks; waggoners with long whips dangling over their shoulders;
bringing before the eye the whole procession of harvest, from the
plougher, the sower, the reaper, the thresher, down to the dusty
miller, who has covered himself with an extra coat of meal for the
occaaion, and has come to take toll out of tbe proceeds of the
day.
While writing, the scene rises before the eye as distinctly as
when in our boyish days, above twenty years ago, we stood a happy
spectator, regardless of Winter-
Cloathed all in frieze,
Chattering his teeth for cold, that did him chill:
Whilst on his hoary beard his breath did freeze. - SPENSER
We again see the big farm-house, with ita ivy-covered porch, in
which the jolly farmer, with his top-boots, blue coat, and pipe in
mouth, stood beside his buxom and merry-faced wife, looking on
with as much apparent pleasure as the little children, who rested
with their hands on the topmost and frost-covered bar of the gate
which they had climbed. What he dropped into "Betsy" the
ploughman's box, fell with a heavy sound, causing the bonneted
bearer to rattle it with extra force, and to cut a variety of most
unlady-like capers. Then came the great brown jug, piled high
with foaming mighty ale, which seemed quite a load even for the
strong arms of the stout dairymaid who bore it; little Jack, the
farmer's boy, followed with large drinking-horns, and a basket
filled with such huge hunches of bread and cheese s showed
that tbe worthy giver knew right well how to measure a plough-
man's appetite. Then pipe and tabor, and drum and violin, were
mute for several minutes, and all the sound heard, excepting an
occasional huzza, was like that of a dozen horses crunching and
feeding together. The jug was again refilled and emptied; and so
10 THE COUNTRY YEARBOOK.
tbey passed on from house to house, until they at last came to one
where a noted miser resided. They knocked at the door - there
was no answer. "Betsy" rattled his box louder than ever, but no
one came; drum, tabor, pipe, and violin thundered and screamed
in vain; huzza after huzza was sent forth by the assembled crowd,
but excepting a stealthy peep from behind the blind, and which
would have cost the waiting-maid her place had ahe been discovered
by the old curmudgeon, no other sign of life appeared
within. "Gee-ho! Come-up!" exclaimed the man who held the
stilts or handles of the plough, and in a moment the deep bright
share was into the ground: backwards and forwards it went,
cutting deeper, and the men pulling stronger at every furrow they
made, until the whole lawn at the front of the miser's house lay
brown, bare, and ridgy at a newly-ploughed field.
When the mischief was done, the old miser made his appearance,
and threatened the ploughman with law, imprilOnment, transporta-
tion; but no one seemed to advocate his cauae. It was an old
custom thus to plough up the ground at the front of the doors of
those who gave not "largess" on Plough Monday; nor do we
remember a single instance of prosecution for the misdemeanor.
Such abuses, however, we doubt not, have been instrumental in
abolishing these old and useless customs. What we have here
presented is a faithful portraiture of rural England only twenty
years ago; and there are still, we believe, a few green, quiet corners
in our island, where Plough Monday is kept up in the present day.
We have here preterved the outline of a faint and faded picture,
the rich colouring of which began to decay from the very hour
when Cromwell and his Roundheads shut up the ancient gallery
of old English amusements. It was opened again at the restoration
of Charles; but the damp and the mildew had settled down upon
it. A new race of men had sprung up, and a mighty change,
which ia still advancing, began to show itself throughout the land -
the merry England of our forefathers was growing into the working
and thinking England in which we now live.
The race of yore,
Who danced our infancy upon their knee,
And told our marvelling boyhood legends store
Of their strange ventures happ'd by land or sea;
How are they blotted from the things that be! - SCOTT. |
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