Cuthbert Bede

“ The fine old church of our country parish has a pretty peal of bells, whose silvery tongues melodiously proclaim to the neighbourhood the various joyful events that break into pleasant ripples the still surface of our usual humdrum existence. ”

“ Pleasant is it on a July day to struggle out of the glaring sunshine into the refreshing retreat of these cool cloisters,—to pace their paved walks on their northern and western sides, and watch the golden light glowing on the other sides of the square, bringing out into all the sharpness of shine and shade the bright flower-knots, the creeping masses of ivy, the mullioned windows, and buttresses, and battlements, and warming up the queer old Gargoyles into fresh leers and laughter. ”

“ When any one dies in our country parish, the passing-bell is tolled. If you listen to its solemn tongue, you may know the sex of the departed. Three times three for a woman; three times two for a man. As the last toll dies away in faint vibrations, the labourer out in the fields who hears it, bares his head, and says, “God give him a good God-speed.” This word “God-speed” is one of our country parish sayings. ”

“ But, it is the belief of young ladies in our country parish, that leap-year permits them to do something more. I am informed by one of my fair young friends in that romantic village, that if, in any leap-year, she should so far forget herself as to suggest an union between herself and a bachelor acquaintance, who should be uncivil enough to decline her polite proposals, she could, thereupon, demand from him the gift of a new silk dress: but that, to claim this dress with propriety, she must, at the time of asking, be the wearer of a scarlet petticoat ”

“ Milkinsop inclines to the idea that this name is a rustic record of the shriving and confession customary to the day prior to the Reformation.
The letting-in of the New Year is an important matter in our country parish; though in our folk-lore regarding it, we are not quite so polite as usual: for we say, that if the first person who crosses your threshold on the New Year’s morning is a male, it will bring you good luck through the ensuing year; whereas, if a female is your first visitor, you will have bad luck. ”

“ Standing about on the dark oak floor—tall, attenuated, and gaunt, the very ghosts of woe-begone bookcases—are numerous old presses, containing more numerous, and still older, books. The presses are very shabby in their outward seeming; the books still more so. Yet, as in life, those squalid, shabby-looking cases have bright and good contents, that can make sunshine in many a dark spot, and cheer many a sad hour. These gaunt and shabby presses are so many armouries for books ”

“ As we pursue our respective occupations—he, blowing clouds of dust, and rusting his hands, and rattling his chains, like a very Bibliomaniac as he is,—I, poring over a very fleshy Moses being taken out of very verdant bulrushes by a doll-faced lady attired in the horned head-dress of Henry the Fifth,—while we are thus buried in meditation and clouds of dust, the cathedral service is going on down below, and the waves of sound float into our dim old chamber, and waft our thoughts to the haven where they would be. ”

“ So let this fragment of folk-lore from our country parish prove a warning to clergymen—more especially to bachelors like Mr. Milkinsop—who would desire to stand well in the opinions of their poorer neighbours.
If twins are born in our country parish, it is believed that of the little bipeds—like the quadrupedal martin-heifers and free-martins—only one will prove the father (or mother) of a family.
If any of our women are seen abroad, and pursuing their ordinary out-of-door occupations, before they have been “churched,” they at once lose caste in the eyes of their neighbours. ”

“ Our country parish holds the same bit of folk-lore with regard to the killing of pigs; so that when we wish to slay our favourite porkers and Dorkings, the commonest feelings of humanity lead us first to ascertain if the executioner has washed his face. ”

“ Our country parish is a favourite resort of the gipsies. There is plenty of grass in the green lanes for camping purposes; and the brooks are very convenient. Our hedges suffer from the intrusion; but, our hen-roosts and more valuable articles are safe; for our gipsies are grateful; and, after their own peculiar code of honour, thieve from our neighbours instead of from us. When a child is born to them, they bring it to Mr. Milkinsop to be baptised ”

“ Why, don’t you know as you can’t kill any living thing till you’ve washed your face first? I’m sure that I tried for full ten minutes to wring this ’En’s neck, and I couldn’t kill her nohow. And all because I hadn’t time to wash my face this morning. [The mistress administers a homily to the domestic; the hen is put out of its misery, and the scene closes upon the domestic’s ablutions.] ”

“ When Christmas comes, we have some very pretty customs in our country parish; but, as I am here specially speaking of its folk-lore, I will, for the present, leave these customs to take care of themselves. For the customs that are retained in our old-world quarter, are quite as numerous as our scraps of folk-lore; and it would swell this paper to unreasonable dimensions, were I now to tell of our May-day customs, and our Curfew customs, and our Clemening customs, and our customs on Goody Tuesday and St. ”

“ Their homes all lie in these cloistered courts, and they form a corporation of their own, as the aforesaid jocose prebendary observed, when he directed attention to the increasing rotundity in the form of one of the reverend gentlemen; and they have their own lands and properties, and are mighty big folk accordingly.
My Agreeable Monk—in anticipation, I suppose, of the coming change in his condition,—has thought fit to convert a room, on the opposite side of the cloistered quad, into a kitchen, that is as unlike to an ordinary kitchen as the Agreeable Monk is to an anchorite of old. ”

“ But I am digressing from my gipsy, and the narrative of his death and burial, as told me by our oldest inhabitant. This gipsy was an ordinary member of his tribe, and he lay ill of a pleurisy in the camp, in our country parish. They called in a surgeon from the neighbouring town; and, after much persuasion, the surgeon bled him. The man became worse ”

“ Scattered around the room, are cases and chests, clamped and bound with iron, and profusely padlocked: they are outwardly covered with dust, and inwardly crammed with ancient deeds and registers, and nobody knows what. ”

“ They are also a very Tyburn for books; for every book is hung in chains, like culprit volumes that have been gibbeted for their evil deeds; and it is far from impossible but what they may, in their time, have murdered many a fact and reputation. These chains are long and rusty, and are made to slide upon iron rods that run the whole length of the presses, and are then fastened with a padlock ”