Thomas Hughes

“ I was vexed at his just coming in, and taking the word out of my mouth.
“Why I was telling Joe that you’ll stop and take me up the hill, if he leaves me behind; won’t you now, Mr. Warton?”
“Leave you behind, indeed! here’s a pretty to do!” said he, laughing. “What in the world are you all talking about?”
“About the wrestling and backsword play,” struck in Joe; “now she says—”
“Well, now, I’ll leave it to Mr. Warton,” said Miss Lucy, interrupting him; “I know he won’t say it’s right for men to be fighting upon a high stage before all the country side.” ”

“ If the horse couldn’t stand well, at any rate she could step out, and away we whirled down the white road; Joe red in the face with holding on, his feet well out to the splash-board, his chest thrown forward, and his elbows down at his side, hauling the chestnut’s head right back, till her nose nearly touched the collar. But for all that, away went her legs right straight out in front, shooting along so fast that I began to feel queer, not being used to horses, and took tight hold of the seat with my left hand, so that Joe shouldn’t see; for the cart jumped sometimes enough to pitch you out. ”

“ I couldn’t tell what had come to me when I got up stairs alone by myself, for I seemed as if a new life were growing up in me, and I were getting all of a sudden into a much bigger world, full of all sorts of work and pleasure, which I had never dreamt of, and of people whom I could get to love and honour, though I might never see or speak to them. ”

“ Do you approve of the other sports, running matches, jumping matches, and all the rest?”
“Yes, Sir, of course I do,” said I.
“And you see no harm in one man beating another in a race for a prize?”
“No, Sir, no harm at all.”
“Well, but I suppose one must have activity and endurance to win in any of them?”
“Yes,” said I, “and good pluck, too, Sir. It takes as much heart, I’m sure, any day, to win a hard race as a bout at backsword.”
“Very good,” said he. “Then putting every thing else aside, tell me which you think the best man, he who doesn’t mind having his head broken, or he who does?” ”

“ We do hope that our example will lead Englishmen of other counties, to cherish every legend and story which hangs round any nook of their neighbourhood, connecting it with the times and the men who have gone before; to let no old custom, which has a meaning, however rude, die out, if it can be kept alive; and not to keep either legend or custom to themselves, but (like us) to put them in the best shape they can, and publish them for the benefit of their countrymen; we of the White Horse Committee, at any rate, hereby pledging ourselves to read all such publications. ”

“ They are his feasts: how, then, can we come to them as his guests—guests who will be pleasing to him, who will use his feasts as he would have us? For if we go to a man’s feast, the first thing we have to do is to go in such a temper and such a dress as will make us acceptable guests; and shall we do less as the guests of God?
The first thing, then, we have to consider is the temper, the state of mind in which we should go to our feasts; and here, as I said before, the Bible tells us all we want to know. The temper which he required of the Jews, he will require of us. ”

“ I found the family gone to bed, and only Joe and the Parson in the kitchen, and there, over a last pipe, we chatted about the sports.
At last the Parson turned to me, and said, “You saw a good deal of the play on the stage; now, would you stop it if you could?”
I thought a minute over what I had seen, and what the Doctor had said.
“No, Sir,” said I, “I can’t say that I would.”
“That’s candid,” said he. “And now I’ll make an admission. There’s a good deal of the play that wants very close watching. The umpires should be resolute, quick men, and stand no nonsense. ”

“ Now, my brethren, are wrestling matches a proper way of keeping God’s feasts? That is the question we have to answer.
The object of wrestling and of all other athletic sports is to strengthen men’s bodies, and to teach them to use their strength readily, to keep their tempers, to endure fatigue and pain. These are all noble ends, my brethren. God gives us few more valuable gifts than strength of body, and courage, and endurance—to you labouring men they are beyond all price. ”

“ The feasts of the Jews were all either feasts in remembrance of the dedication of the Temple, or of thanksgiving for the good gifts of God, or of commemoration for some great national deliverance.
And ours are the very same. Do not think I am dealing unfairly with you in comparing our country feasts to the great national feasts of the Jews. It is not unfair to compare small things with great: families, parishes, nations, must stand or fall by the same laws. A society cannot do evil or good without reaping the fruits thereof, whether it be very small or very great. ”

“ I had half expected to see an old stone building with a moat, and round towers and battlements, and a great flag flying; and that the old gentleman would have walked across the drawbridge, and cried out, “What ho! warder!” and that we should have been waited upon at lunch by an old white-headed man in black velvet, with a silver chain, and keys round his waist. Somehow, the story of the battle, and all the talk about Pendragon and Arthur, coming upon the back of the farm-house, and the out of the way country life, which was so strange to me, had carried me into a sort of new world ”

“ Rich as our land is in historical monuments, there is none more remarkable than the White Horse; and in this belief we put forth this little book in his honour, hoping that it may perhaps fix upon him, and the other antiquities which surround him, the attention of some one who can bring science and knowledge to bear upon the task to which we can only bring good will.
For, alas! let me confess at once, that in these qualities our book is like to be sadly deficient. The compiler has no knowledge whatever of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, or of Saxon or other antiquities. ”

“ Besides, there are several of our clerks whose ways I don’t at all like; so I don’t do any thing I can help which might look as if I liked them. No! hands off, is my motto with these sort of chaps.
I’m sure there’s no pride about me, though. My name’s Easy, and always was; and I like every fellow, whatever his coat is, who isn’t always thinking about the cut of it, or what he has in the pocket of it. But, goodness knows, I can’t stand a fellow who gives himself airs, and thinks himself a chalk above everybody who can’t dress and do just as he can. ”

“ I am afraid I shall make a very poor hand at telling about the sports, because I couldn’t be in five or six places at once; and so I was kept running about, from the stage in the middle of the Castle out on to the downs to see the cart-horse race, and then back again into the Castle for the jingling match, and then out on the other side to the manger for the cheese races, and so on backwards and forwards; seeing the beginning of one sport, and the end of another, and the middle of a third. I wish the Committee would let the sports begin earlier, and then one might be able to see them all. ”

“ I remarked more and more through the day what a shy, shamefaced fellow the real countryman was, while the gypsies and racing boys and tramps, who entered for the races, but not for the backsword or wrestling prizes, were all as bold as brass, and stood chattering away to the Committee-men, till they were almost ordered out of the tent. ”

“ First, I thought I would try to ride the high horse, and be silent and vexed, and make them all uncomfortable; but then, thought I, will Miss Lucy see why I do it? It may be all out of love for her, and jealousy of this Mr. Warton; and they say no young woman dislikes to see men jealous about her. But suppose she shouldn’t see it in that light? Mightn’t she [110] only think, perhaps, that I was a very changeable and disagreeable sort of fellow? That would never do. Besides, after all, thought I, I’m down here at Joe’s house, and I owe it to him to be as pleasant as I can. ”

“ We all know well enough what these feasts are. First, there is our village feast, a day set [292] apart in every year which is specially the feast day of this parish, and of all who belong to it. Then there are our harvest homes, which are not parish but family festivals; when the farmer and those who have worked with him, rejoice together over the garnering in of the fruits which God has given. Lastly, there is the feast which does not come every year, but at longer intervals, the feast of Scouring the White Horse, which is not the feast of one parish, but of the whole country side. ”

“ Warton—” broke in Miss Lucy.
“Now, you were not to say a word, you know,” said he.
“But Joe began, Sir.”
“Joseph, hold your tongue.”
“Very well, Sir,” said Joe, grinning.
“Then we come to this,” said he to me, “a man must have just the same qualities to win at backsword as to win a race; and something else besides, which is good in itself?”
“But, Sir,” said I, “that doesn’t meet the point. What I say is, that backsword is a game in which men are sure to lose their tempers and become brutal.”
“But don’t they sometimes lose their tempers in races?” said he. ”

“ In short I begin to suspect that I must have been getting to be a very narrow, bigoted, disagreeable sort of fellow, and it was high time that I should find my way to Elm Close, or some such place, to have my eyes opened a little, and discover that a man may work just as steadily and honestly—aye, much more steadily and honestly—at his own business, without shutting up his brains and his heart against every thing else that is going on in the world around him. ”

“ When the crowd had come round him, the crier began, and I should think he might have been heard at Elm Close:—
“Oh yes! oh yes! by order of the Committee, all persons who mean to play for prizes, must enter their names on the umpires’ lists. Oh yes! oh yes! the umpires’ lists are open in the tent, and names may be entered from now till half-past twelve. Oh yes! a list of the umpires for the different games and sports may be seen on the board outside the tent-door. God save the Queen!” ”

“ Then the course was cleared for a moment, he moved out of the line, making a signal to the farmer, who pushed the wheel at once over the brow, and cried, “Off.” The wheel gained the road in three bounds, cleared it in a fourth monster bound which measured forty yards, and hurried down far away to the bottom of the manger, where the other two umpires were waiting to decide who is the winner of the race.
Away go the fourteen men in hot pursuit, gypsies, shepherds, and light-heeled fellows of all sorts, helter-skelter; some losing their foothold at once, and rolling or slipping down ”

“ So I went down to the office and told Jem Fisher and little Neddy, that I had made up my mind to go and see my old friend Joe, in Berkshire, before they had had time to get their office coats on.
“What? that jolly fellow with the brown face and red whiskers,” said Jem, “who came up and slept in your room last Christmas cattle-show, and wanted to fight the cabman for a gallon of beer, who charged him half-a-crown from Baker Street to Gray’s Inn Lane?”
“Yes,” said I, “that’s the man.” ”

“ You see there’s an old White Horse cut out in the side of the highest hill hereabouts, (a regular break-neck place it is, and there ain’t three men in the country as’ll ride along the hill-side under the Horse,) and many folks sets a good deal of store by it, and seems to think the world’d come to an end if the horse wasn’t kept all straight. May be I’m a bit of that mind myself—anyhow you’ll see by the paper inside what’s going on; and being a scholar, may be you’ll know about the White Horse, and like to come down to a scouring. And I can tell you it will be good fun ”

“ But the race is not always to the swift, at least not to those who are swiftest at starting. Half-way up the course, Dairymaid ceases to gain; then she shows signs of distress, [178] and scarcely answers to Joe’s persuasions. “King of the Isle” is creeping up to her—the carter shakes his bridle, and begins to ply his long cart-whip—they are crossing the Ridgeway, where stand the carter’s fellow-servants, Mr. Whitfield’s fogger, shepherd, ploughboys, &c. who set up a shout as he passes, which sends the bay right up abreast of the mare. ”

“ I beseech you all to think of what I have said, and endeavour, each in your own way, to retain, or to bring back, if necessary, God’s feasts into your own parishes. You, old and grown-up men and women, by living soberly and righteously; never making mischief, or quarrelling; treating your children with forbearance and love, doing your own work, and helping others to do theirs. ”

“ So the first thing I did, after going home and locking up most of my money, and speaking to my landlady, who is the best old soul alive if you take her in her own way, was, to set off to Clare Market, and buy some cow-heel and sausages; and on my way back through the Turnstile, I thought, as it was so hot, I would have some fruit too; so I bought a pottle of plums and a piece of a pine-apple, and got home.
They came in sharp to time, and I and my landlady had every thing ready, and two foaming pewter pots full of bitter beer and porter. ”

“ And we are also to rejoice before him, as members of a family, of a parish, of a country; thinking, therefore, of others, and not of ourselves; making up quarrels, exercising hospitality to all according to our means, seeking to do kindnesses to all who need them, to our debtors, to the oppressed and unfortunate amongst us, to the widows, the fatherless, and the stranger; and in all ways strengthening and deepening the bond which binds us to one another, and to him. ”

“ But nothing puts out old Harry Seeley; no upper cut can reach his face, for his head is thrown well back, and his guard is like a rock; and though the old blue shirt is cut through and through, he makes no more of the welts of the heavy stick than if it were a cat’s tail. ”