I did not relate this story by my own wish. To my mind there"s nothing very much in it to relate. At the time it was written the newspapers were squabbling about farmers" boys and field labour and political economy. "And," said a gentleman to me, "as you were at the top and tail of the thing when it happened, and are well up in the subject generally, Johnny Ludlow, you may as well make a paper of it." That was no other than the surgeon, Duffham.
About two miles from d.y.k.e Manor across the fields, but in the opposite direction to that of the Court where the Sterlings lived, Elm Farm was situated. Mr. Jacobson lived in it, as his father had lived before him.
The property was not their own; they rented it: it was fine land, and Jacobson had the reputation of being the best farmer for miles round.
Being a wealthy man, he had no need to spare money on house or land, and did not spare it. He and the Squire were about the same age, and had been cronies all their lives.
Not to go into extraneous matter, I may as well say at once that one of the labourers on Jacobson"s farm was a man named John Mitchel. He lived in a cottage not far from us--a poor place consisting of two rooms and a wash-house; they call it back"us there--and had to walk nearly two miles to his work of a morning. Mitchel was a steady man of thirty-five, with a round head and not any great amount of brains inside it. Not but what he had as much brains as many labourers have, and quite enough for the sort of work his life was pa.s.sed in. There were six children; the eldest, d.i.c.k, ten years old; and most of them had straw-coloured hair, the pattern of their father"s.
Just before the turn of harvest one hot summer, John Mitchel presented himself at Mr. Jacobson"s house in a clean smock frock, and asked a favour. It was, that his boy, d.i.c.k, should be taken on as ploughboy. Old Jacobson objected, saying the boy was too young and little. Little he might be, Mitchel answered, but not too young--warn"t he ten? The lad had been about the farm for some time as scarecrow: that is, employed to keep the birds away: and had a shilling a week for it. Old Jacobson stood to what he said, however, and little d.i.c.k did not get his promotion.
But old Jacobson got no peace. Every opportunity Mitchel could get, or dare to use, he began again, praying that d.i.c.k might be tried. The boy was "cute," he said; strong enough also, though little; and if the master liked to pay him only fourpence a day, they"d be grateful for it; "twould be a help, and was wanted badly. All of no use: old Jacobson still said No.
One afternoon during this time, we started to go to the Jacobsons" after a one-o"clock dinner,--I and Mrs. Todhetley. She was fond of going over to an early tea there, but not by herself, for part of the way across the fields was lonely. Considering that she had been used to the country, she was a regular coward as to lonely walks, expecting to see tramps or robbers at every corner. In pa.s.sing the row of cottages in Duck Lane, for we took that road, we saw Hannah Mitchel leaning over the footboard of her door to look after her children, who were playing near the pond in the sunshine with a lot more; quite a heap of the little reptiles, all badly clad and as dirty as pigs. Other labourers" dwellings stood within hail, and the children seemed to spring up in the place thicker than wheat; Mrs. Mitchel"s was quite a small family, reckoning by comparison, but how the six were clothed and fed was a mystery, out of Mitchel"s wages of ten shillings a week.
It was thought good pay. Old Jacobson was liberal, as farmers go. He paid the best wages; gave all his labourers a stunning big portion of home-fed pork at Christmas, with fuel to cook it: and his wife was good to the women when they fell sick.
Mrs. Todhetley stopped to speak. "Is it you, Hannah Mitchel? Are you pretty well?"
Hannah Mitchel stood upright and dropped a curtsey. She had a bundle in her arms, which proved to be the baby, then not much above a fortnight old.
"Dear me! it"s very early for it to be about," said Mrs. Todhetley, touching its little red cheeks. "And for you too."
"It is, ma"am; but what"s to be done?" was the answer. "When there"s only one pair of hands for everything, one can"t afford to lie by long."
"You seem but poorly," said Mrs. Todhetley, looking at her. She was a thin, dark-haired woman, with a sensible face. Before she married Mitchel, she had lived as under-nurse in a gentleman"s family, where she picked up some idea of good manners.
"I be feeling a bit stronger, thank you," said the woman. "Strength don"t come back to one in a day, ma"am."
The Mitchel children were sidling up, attracted by the sight of the lady. Four young grubs in tattered garments.
"I can"t keep "em decent," said the mother, with a sigh of apology.
"I"ve not got no soap nor no clothes to do it with. They come on so fast, and make such a many, one after another, that it"s getting a hard pull to live anyhow."
Looking at the children; remembering that, with the father and mother, there were eight mouths to feed, and that the man"s wages were the ten shillings a week all the year round (but there were seasons when he did over-work and earned more), Mrs. Todhetley might well give her a.s.senting answer with an emphatic nod.
"We was hoping to get on a bit better," resumed the wife; "but Mitchel he says the master don"t seem to like to listen. A"most a three weeks it be now since Mitchel first asked it him."
"In what way better?"
"By putting little d.i.c.k to the plough, ma"am. He gets a shilling a week now, he"d got two then, perhaps three, and "twould be such a help to us.
Some o" the farmers gives fourpence halfpenny a day to a ploughboy, some as much as sixpence. The master he bain"t one of the near ones; but d.i.c.k be little of his age, he don"t grow fast, and Mitchel telled the master he"d take fourpence a day and be thankful for"t."
Thoughts were crowding into Mrs. Todhetley"s mind--as she mentioned afterwards. A child of ten ought to be learning and playing; not working from twelve to fourteen hours a day.
"It would be a hard life for him."
"True, ma"am, at first; but he"d get used to it. I could have wished the summer was coming on instead o the winter--"twould be easier for him to begin upon. Winter mornings be so dark and cold."
"Why not let him wait until the next winter"s over?"
The very suggestion brought tears into Hannah Mitchel"s eyes. "You"d never say it, ma"am, if you knew how bad his wages is wanted and the help they"d be. The older children grows, the more they wants to eat; and we"ve got six of "em now. What would you, ma"am?--they don"t bring food into the world with "em; they must help to earn it for themselves as quick as anybody can be got to hire "em. Sometimes I wonder why G.o.d should send such large families to us poor people."
Mrs. Todhetley was turning to go on her way, when the woman in a timid voice said: "Might she make bold to ask, if she or Squire Todhetley would say a good word to Mr. Jacobson about the boy: that it would be just a merciful kindness."
"We should not like to interfere," replied Mrs. Todhetley. "In any case I could not do it with a good heart: I think it would be so hard upon the poor little boy."
"Starving"s harder, ma"am."
The tears came running down her cheeks with the answer; and they won over Mrs. Todhetley.
Crossing the high, crooked, awkward stile--over which, in coming the other way, if people were not careful they generally pitched head first into Duck Lane--we found ourselves in what was called the square paddock, a huge piece of land, ploughed last year. The wheat had been carried from it only this afternoon, and the gleaners in their cotton bonnets were coming in. On, from thence, across other fields and stiles; we went a little out of our way to call at Glebe Cottage--a small white house that lay back amidst the fields--and inquire after old Mrs. Parry, who had just had a stroke.
Who should be at Elm Farm, when we got in, but the surgeon, Duffham: come on there from paying his daily visit to Mrs. Parry. He and old Jacobson were in the green-house, looking at the grapes: a famous crop they had that year; not ripe yet. Mrs. Jacobson sat at the open window of the long parlour, making a new jelly-bag. She was a pleasant-faced old lady, with small flat silver curls and a net cap.
Of course they got talking about little d.i.c.k Mitchel. Duffham knew the boy; seeing that when a doctor was wanted at the Mitchels", it was he who attended. Mrs. Todhetley told exactly what had pa.s.sed: and old Jacobson--a tall, portly man, with a healthy colour--grew nearly purple in the face, disputing.
d.i.c.k Mitchel would be of as good as no use for the team, he said, and the carters put shamefully upon those young ones. In another year the boy would be stronger and bigger. Perhaps he would take him then.
"For my part, I cannot think how the mothers can like their poor boys to go out so young," cried the old lady, looking up from her flannel bag.
"A ploughboy"s life is very hard in winter."
"Hannah Mitchel says it has to be one of two things--early work or starving," said Mrs. Todhetley. "And that"s pretty true."
"Labourers" boys are born to it, ma"am, and so it comes easy to "em: as skinning does to eels," cried Duffham quaintly.
"Poor things, yes. But it is very hard upon the children. The worst is, all the labourers seem to have no end of them. Hannah Mitchel has just said she sometimes wonders why G.o.d should send so many to poor people."
This was an unfortunate remark. To hear the two gentlemen laugh, you"d have thought they were at a Christmas pantomime. Old Jacobson brought himself up in a kind of pa.s.sion.
What business, in the name of all that was imprudent, had these poor people to have their troops of children, he asked. They knew quite well they could not feed them; that the young ones would be three-parts starved in their earlier years, and in their later ones come to the parish and be a burden on the community. Look at this same man, Mitchel.
His grandfather, a poor miserable labourer, had a troop of children; Mitchel"s father had a troop, twelve; _he_, Mitchel, had six, and seemed to be going on fair for six more. There was no reason in it. Why couldn"t they be content with a moderate number, three or four, that might have a chance of finding room in the world? It was not much less than a crime for these men, next door to paupers themselves, to launch their tens and their dozens of boys and girls into life, and then turn round and say, Why does G.o.d send them? Nice kind of logic, that was!
And so he kept on, for a good half-hour, Duffham helping him. _He_ brought up the French peasantry: saying our folks ought to take a lesson from them. You don"t see whole flocks of children over there, cried Duffham. One, or two, or at most three, would be found to comprise the number of a family. And why? Because the French were a prudent race.
They knew there was no provision for superfluous children; no house-room at home, or food, or clothing; and no parish pay to fall back upon: they knew that however many children they had they must provide for them: they didn"t set up, of themselves, a regiment of little famishing mouths, and then charge it on Heaven; they were not so reckless and wicked. Yes, he must repeat it, wicked; and the two ladies listening would endorse the word if they knew half the deprivation and the sufferings these poor small mortals were born to; he saw enough of it, having to be often amongst them.
"Why don"t you tell the parents this, doctor?"
Tell them! returned Duffham. He _had_ told them; told them till his tongue was tired of talking.
Any way, the little things were grievously to be pitied, was what the two ladies answered.
"I have often wished it was not a sin to drown the superfluous little mites as we do kittens," wound up Duff.
One of the ladies dropped the jelly-bag, the other shrieked out, Oh!
"For their sakes," he added. "It"s true, upon my word of honour. Of all wrongs the world sees, never was there a worse wrong than the one inflicted on these inoffensive children by the parents, in bringing them into it. G.o.d help the little wretches! man can"t do much."
And so they talked on. The upshot was, that old Jacobson stood to his word, and declined to make d.i.c.k Mitchel a ploughboy yet awhile.
We had tea at four o"clock--at which fashionable people may laugh; considering that it was real tea, not the sham one lately come into custom. Mrs. Todhetley wanted to get home by daylight, and the summer evenings were shortening. Never was brown bread-and-b.u.t.ter so sweet as the Jacobsons": we used to say it every time we went; and the home-baked rusks were better than Shrewsbury cake. They made Mrs. Todhetley put two or three in her bag for Hugh and Lena.