The English Peasant/Peasant Life in the New Forest
V.
Peasant Life in the New Forest.
(Golden Hours, 1892.)
It is a mistake into which most people fall, to suppose that a forest is simply a large wood. In its original signification the word "forest" meant very much the same as it does now in the mouth of a backwoodsman, and included the whole country exterior to the towns or the lands cleared and brought under civilization. Such has always been the character of the New Forest, the greater part of which is moorland, bare of trees, covered with heather, ling, and brake.
In old Saxon times civilization had advanced a few steps into the Forest, but further progress was peremptorily stopped by the stern edict of the conquering Norman. Nevertheless, it does not appear that it was ever entirely without inhabitants. A few hamlets, with here and there a solitary toft or farmhouse, and many a little cot of mud and thatch on its outskirts, sheltered a population which, from generation to generation, has continued to dwell there under conditions quite peculiar to themselves. For its human inhabitants were only just tolerated, and lived under the most terrible penalties if they dared in the slightest way to interfere with the wild animals for whose preservation the Forest existed.
Whatever may be the exact truth about the origin of the New Forest, it is certain the Conqueror much enlarged it, absorbing the lands of many Saxon owners; and, above all, greatly increased the severity of the Forest Laws, executing them with fierce rigour.
The cruelty and injustice of these laws is one of the main points in English history, and did more than anything else to turn the Norman barons themselves into the champions of liberty. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that in the New Forest itself they excited the bitterest antagonism. Within the memory of some living, almost every man in the Forest was a poacher. To kill the king's deer was looked upon as no sin. In early times it had worn the mask of patriotism, but though the halo had long departed, public opinion was affected by the tradition.
Even in recent times quite a system of snaring the deer existed. Sometimes hooks were baited with apples; sometimes the fawn's hoof was pared, or a thorn thrust into the foot, in order to keep the doe in one spot until the poacher wanted to kill her. Thus the foresters were never without "mutton," as they called the venison. If one house had not a supply, another had some, and community in lawlessness made them very neighbourly.
Stretching down almost to the seashore, and from its very nature well adapted for the commission of every dark deed under the sun, with a public opinion thus demoralized by ages of oppression, the New Forest was just the place for smuggling to take root and to flourish. At the close of the seventeenth century the narrowest commercial policy prevailed in England, so much so, that during the war with Louis XIV., trade with France was entirely prohibited. The rapid decay of most of the ports on the Channel soon ensued, and many of the inhabitants took to smuggling. Even great capitalists embarked in it, and illicit trade became so extensive that all the efforts of the Government during the whole of the eighteenth century were insufficient to place any effectual bar in its way, much less to put it down. On the Hampshire coast the smugglers grew so bold in their impunity, that at times as many as twenty or thirty waggons laden with kegs, and guarded by two or three hundred horsemen, each horseman bearing some two or three tubs, would come over Hengistbury Heath, making their way in open day past Christ Church into the Forest. The demoralization of the district became so thorough that at one time a gang of desperadoes took possession of Ambrose Cave, on the borders of the Forest, plundering the whole country, and murdering upwards of thirty people, throwing their bodies down a well.
Boat-building went on in many a barn, and the foresters had fierce fights with the coast-guard, defending their ill-gotten booty with "swingels." Sometimes they had the worst of it, and then in their flight they would pitch the goods into one of the numerous ponds with which the Forest abounds, returning some subsequent night to haul them up again. Thus arose the well-known expression "moon-rakers." The spirits were frequently kept buried beneath the fireplace or the stable, as the local proverb says, "Keystone under the hearth, keystone under the horse's belly."
Happily the temptation to smuggling and poaching has ceased to exist,—in the latter case by the withdrawal of the deer in 1851. It is still true that there are men in the Forest who partially support themselves by stealing game, but the general tone of public morality has so much improved that one who has lived amongst them as a minister nearly thirty years, affirms that, if drink were put aside, he does not believe that there is a more decent, orderly, and honest community in the kingdom.
What a fact for the advocates of the abolition of the Game Laws and of ale-houses! Here is a population for eight centuries a lawless race, made so because their rulers cared more for the preservation of wild animals than they did for the moral elevation of the human beings committed to their charge. The deer abolished, the laws concerning them a dead letter, and the demoralized people rapidly return to law-abiding ways.
Eight centuries of deer-stealing, one might have supposed, would have so ingrained poaching into the nature of a forester, that their removal would have only driven him to seek a new channel for the gratification of his propensity. But such has not been the case with the greater part of the population; and it is fair to argue that, just as the forester has learnt to be honest now the deer are gone, so would he learn to be sober if that infinitely more demoralizing influence was removed, namely, the existence of ale-houses.
All agree that drinking is the great vice of the foresters. It drags them down with remorseless grasp, and is without doubt the chief evil which oppresses them. Such, however, is the force of custom in this particular, that some of their employers help to make them careless workmen and improvident parents by paying them their weekly wages in the village tap-room.
While, however, the abolition of the deer has greatly elevated the tone of public morality in the Forest, it has without doubt increased the hardship of life to the labouring portion of the community. For it is manifest life with plenty to eat is a very different thing from life with an empty stomach. Formerly it was meat every day, and as much as they liked; now it must be something very different, seeing that the ordinary wages of a New Forest labourer vary from ten to twelve shillings a week. A carter gets a shilling more, and is allowed a house and garden rent-free.
Under the old state of things the harshness of the law was somewhat balanced by a number of privileges enjoyed by the foresters, such as the right of pasturage, and of getting wood, turf, and fern out of the Forest. It was found, however, that great abuses had crept in, and in 1848 the rights of the foresters were defined. As is usually the case in these legal arrangements, to those who had was given, while to those who had not was taken away that which they had. The result is that the poorer foresters have now no privileges whatever, except that of picking up the fallen pieces from the trees and pulling up the furze stumps, locally called "blacks," after a fire.
Those, however, who put in their claims, and could show anything like a title, seem to have retained their right of pasturage, and many are thus enabled to keep a horse or a cow. Some keep asses, and some rear a few of the ponies, which are now as much a feature of the Forest as the deer formerly were. Pigs also can be turned out during masting-time, to eat the beech-nuts and acorns. Wood, too, can be bought for fuel.
Moreover, the neighbourhood of the Forest presents so many opportunities whereby a shrewd and industrious man may fairly increase his income, that it does not appear that the poverty of the district is anything like so severe as it is in many other parts of agricultural England.
From autumn to spring is the time for felling the larger timber. First the fir, then the beech, lastly the oak. In the spring the young trees in the enclosures, locally called "flitterns," have to be thinned. Then comes the hay harvest, and the turf, and fern seasons, while all the year round there is work of some kind going on—making fresh enclosures, cutting brambles and brushwood, hedging, ditching, and draining.
The wood-cutters work in companies of six or eight, under the eye of an overlooker, who has frequently been a workman himself, and so practically understands the setting out of the work and its management. These overlookers are answerable to the inspectors, of whom there are eight; they in their turn are subject to the Deputy-Surveyor of the Forest, who resides at the Queen's House in Lyndhurst.
The labour is very severe, and the men often have to walk some miles to their work. "Their average wages are twelve shillings a week, and even if they work by the piece, they are not expected to earn more. Cutting and peeling the oak is paid by the piece, stacking up the wood by the fathom, faggotting by the hundred. The work, however, only employs a limited number of men, and these not entirely; so that there are many other occupations pursued by the foresters.
Some of course find enough to do tending their cattle, ponies, and pigs. Others, who go by the name of "broom-squires," makes brooms from the heath, and sell them in the neighbouring towns; some purchase wood, which they hawk for firing; while the very poorest use their right to collect the dead sticks in the Forest, make them into bundles, and sell them as "Match" or "Farthing faggots."
In these various ways a labourer in the New Forest may make, upon an average, fourteen or fifteen shillings a week all the year round. Such an estimate, however, implies intelligence; but since we know this is not a gift possessed by the majority of any community, we may judge that life here is not quite so easy as such a sum might lead an economist to expect.
There is a class of small farmers in the Forest, such as have elsewhere sunk into the condition of labourers, but whose position is V here maintained by the benefits accruing from Forest privileges. Some farm as few as five acres, for which they pay a rental of about £12 the year, and do all the work themselves, with the assistance of their wives and children. As they are obliged to keep a couple of horses, they use them when unemployed in doing job-work. They keep one or two cows and a number of fowls, and once a week the farmer's wife carries the produce of their little farm to the nearest market-town for sale.
One other occupation has been carried on in the Forest from the earliest times, and still flourishes, at least in the neighbourhood of Lyndhurst. Everybody has heard of Purkess, the charcoal-burner, in whose cart the body of Rufus was conveyed to Winchester. Nearly eight centuries have rolled away since then, and charcoal is still burnt on the same spot and in the same round ovens; but what is even more wonderful, as showing the unchanging habits of the foresters, is that descendants of this same Purkess, or of his family, are still to be found in the woods and in the village of Minestead.
The cottages in the New Forest are beyond the average. There are some miserable dwellings at Beaulieu Rails, belonging to squatters, which are merely mud huts; but elsewhere they are very comfortable. At Beaulieu every cottage in the parish belongs to Lord Henry Scott, and has a living-room, scullery and pantry, and two or three bedrooms, with good water supply and thorough drainage. Each cottage has a pigstye, and at least twenty perches of garden. The rent charged is only a shilling a week; the average rent for a cottage throughout the Forest is £4 per annum.
The appearance of a New Forest cottage, with its warm cosy thatch spreading in all directions, and its old fruit-trees trained over its sides, standing in its own little orchard or garden, is suggestive of comfort. Bees too are largely kept, and find an untold harvest of honey in the heather bells. Bee-keeping is an ancient custom in the Forest; it is recorded in "Doomsday" book that the woods round Eling in those days yielded twelve pounds of honey every year. Mead is still made and drunk, as in old English times. Obviously a pursuit so long continued on one spot will have a folk-lore of its own. Thus we are told in Mr Wise's interesting work on the New Forest, that the drones are here named the "big bees." The straw caps placed over the "bee-pots" are called "bee-hackles," or "bee-hakes," while the entrance to the hive goes by the name of the "tee-hole." Connected, too, with this subject is the old superstition that if a death occurs in the family the bees must be told of it, or else they will leave their hives and never again return.
Nothing sweeter, nothing more charming, can be imagined than the appearance of a New Forest village, seen as I saw Minestead, on a bright autumnal morning, the blue smoke curling gently heavenwards from its brown thatched roofs, as they peeped out here and there among the trees. Not a jarring note could I hear, not even the clang of the blacksmith's hammer or the woodman's axe; all was silent and still, nought save the happy voice of childhood playing in the "boughy" dells, a sound which rather increased than disturbed the deep repose of the scene.
And such has been its aspect for ages; here generation after generation has—
"Lived and died,
Passing a dreamy life, diversified
By nought of novelty, save now and then
A horn resounding through the neighbouring glen."
But the New Forest affords sights infinitely varied, and changing with every season of the year. It was early autumn when I was there; and the lovely effects of light and shade, the marvellous forms of the gnarled oaks, the huge and rugged hollies, glowing blood-red with their wealth of berries, the brake, all russet and golden, and the sweeps of distant moorland crowned by forest after forest, would make one wonder how it was the dwellers amongst such beauteous scenes were not a race of artists, if we did not remember that it is but rare to find a man who has the "open eye."
Passing through Minestead, I went into a cottage; it was very small, but neat, and its sanded floor gave it a fresh and bright look. The biggest thing in the house was the great chimney. A fire was burning on the hearth, lying on flat iron bars, with two ancient fire-dogs in front; a tall clock ornamented the room. The old dame said they no longer burned turf, for her husband had never put in his claim when he ought to have done, and so they had lost their right; but she did not think it was much of a loss, since they had had to pay heavily for cutting and carting the turf; and besides, it took up so much room. They got their living by keeping cows. Coming out, I noted the beautiful form of the pitchers in use in the Forest, and saw the same make again in Dorset.
On I wandered, down lanes laden with blackberries, and on the outskirts of the village sketched two of its cots. They were good types of all the rest; the thick thatch coming deep down over the upper windows gave them the appearance of two ill-matched eyes peeping out from under heavy humorous eyebrows.
As I sat, I heard the voices of a number of little children all repeating together their catechism. "To submit myself to my pastors and masters, and to order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters," were, singular to say, the words which caught iHy ear.
Leaving Minestead, I crossed Squire Compton's Park, where the cottages, models of beauty, comfort, and picturesqueness, stand in their own Httle grounds in the midst of their lord's larger ones. They were occupied by the labourers on the manor, and were let to them according to size, from one to two shillings a week. On the outskirts of the Forest, near Lyndhurst, I came on a little hamlet, and seating myself on some logs of wood which lay on the corner of the sward, watched its life. Before me on one side of the road stood a row of blind-eyed, brown-bonnetted cots; then a wheelwright's shop, where the furnace was burning and the hammer twanging; next a smithy, where the horse stood quietly while the farrier tapped his shoe; last of all, an old cot under the shade of a large tree, with a man on a ladder mending the roof. Opposite was a little road-side inn, with wondrous attractions both for the waggoner and his horse. In the inn-yard were stacks of fern and hay, the former being used for litter, as straw would be elsewhere. Along the edge of the grass, a couple of black sows, followed by their numerous progeny, went nosing about with a most unsatisfied grunt, while a company of geese with nervous quack-quack strutted over the green.
Twang of hammer, quack of geese, and grunt of mother porker, with sudden squeal of horror from every little pigling if horse or carriage wheel too suddenly approached; loud talk of men and women rising fully with the wind, and you have the sights and sounds which go to make up a picture of out-door life in these secluded spots.
It is quite possible that in the less frequented parts of the Forest one might meet with uncouthness and suspicion, but for my part, I found them not only civil but friendly; and this experience is corroborated by those who know them well, and who protest against a character for unusual rudeness being ascribed to them. One gentleman who has lived amongst them thirty years assures me that he has never received a rude answer but once, and that was from a stranger.
Much, no doubt, has been done by the schools with which the Forest is well supplied. Probably, too, it is they who have driven the old superstitions away, and scattered the mental twilight which for so many ages pervaded these leafy solitudes. Nevertheless, we are assured by Mr Wise, who has made the subject his study, these superstitions still exist, but are rarely alluded to, for fear of ridicule.
Nothing perhaps gives one a better idea of the habits of mind of these "rude forefathers of the" Forest "hamlet," than such a catalogue as he has collected of these weird fancies. Handed down from generation to generation, they were so numerous as to form a rule of life, meeting the unhappy peasant at every step, haunting and terrifying his mind, and driving him into a baseless fatalism, and at times to a sort of devil-worship.
But perhaps the most peculiar custom in the Forest is the great squirrel-hunt, which takes place the day after Christmas. Twenty or thirty men and boys form themselves into a company, and, armed with leaded sticks, called "scales" or "squoyles," go out into the Forest. Directly they see a squirrel, away go the sticks, until the poor creature, bewildered and frightened, is fain to descend, and then is soon killed. When they have caught a sufficient number they put them into a great pie, which is eaten at a feast they hold at some public-house.
No one is so sententious as the peasant. He likes his wit and his wisdom done up in small bundles easy to carry and ready for use. Thus the concentrated experience of every district compacts itself into some proverbial expression. These two proverbs, "A good bark year makes a good wheat year," "To rattle like a boar in a holmebush," are evidently of Forest origin. "A poor dry thing, let it go," smacks of the poacher. "He won't climb up May Hill" tells the sad end of many a poor wood-cutter, daily wet with autumnal mists and the malific miasma, which must ever float about the undrained morasses of the Forest. A villainous historical memory is for ever pilloried in the proverb, "As bad as Jeffreys"; while the reproof to greediness contained in another is interesting, as showing the sort of friends a lonely Forest child may make. For it is said to have originated with a girl who was in the habit of sharing her breakfast with a snake, and when he was inclined to lick up more than his portion, she tapped him on the head with her spoon, with this gentle reminder, "Eat your own side, Speckleback."
Curious and full of meaning are some of their expressions. Thus, "A slink of a thing" means anything, animate or inanimate, which is miserable, weak, half-starved, or of poor quality. Others are interesting because they are peculiar to the district. Ask a peasant in the New Forest the distance to a certain place, and he will reply, "I allow it to be so far."
Should the disafforestation now talked of take place, all these peculiarities will rapidly die out, and with them will pass away in England a condition of things not to be found anywhere else.