Mr. Graspacre upholds the national customs, and Welsh custom receives his support. A “tiff” with Lady Graspacre. The squire defends bed courtships. Newcastle Emlyn Ale. Thirsty rats. At this time a warm altercation one day took place between the squire and his lady, which terminated in consequences little expected by either. Notwithstanding the prejudice to which Squire Graspacre’s harsh conduct had given birth, on his first settlement in Cardiganshire, he had about him certain saving points, that not only reconciled them to his rule, but really gained their esteem. He was a plain, bold, sensible man, and although entertaining a most exalted opinion of English superiority, generally, in particular instances he had the liberality to confess that he found things in this nation of mountaineers highly worthy of imitation among his more civilized brethren. There are many exceptions like the squire, but we are sorry to add that in Wales we have more illiberal Englishmen, who sneer at all Welsh customs, because they are Welsh, than people would dream of. They forget that our usages are as dear to us, as theirs to them, and that however peculiar they may be in the eyes of an Englishman, the Welshman considers them He had formerly expressed his disapprobation of a custom prevalent among Welsh farmers of leaving their corn a long time on the ground after being cut, instead of housing it as soon as possible; but experience taught him that they were right and himself in error; among the corn was a large quantity of weeds, which required to be dried, before it could with safety be brought to the barn or the rick, otherwise the grain was sweated, and literally poisoned with the rank juice. He found the Cardiganshire mode of cropping the young mountain furze, and giving it as food for horses and cattle, worthy of his attention, and after various trials, decided on its efficacy so far as to adopt it for the future; and actually set Carmarthen Jack to gather the seed of that mountain plant, which he forwarded to England to be sown and reared on his Devonshire farms. The planting of flowers on the graves of deceased friends, he eulogized as a beautiful and endearing custom, forming an agreeable contrast to the clumsy English tombstones with barbarous lines, often setting truth, rhyme and reason at defiance. The Welsh harp he declared the prince of all musical instruments, and Welsh weddings the best contrived, and conducted in the best manner in the world, and proved his sincerity by always giving something at the Biddings of the peasantry, and patronizing all those who entered that happy state. Above all things he admired the female costume in Wales, and protested with much truth, that the poor people in England were not half so well or so neatly clothed. His lofty lady, although a Welshwoman bred and born, entertained a very different set of ideas on these subjects. Whenever her husband related the anecdote of Polydore Virgil’s ecstacy on his first landing “And yet, my dear,” he would answer, “Polydore Virgil was a native of no rude soil, but came from the land of the laurel, the cypress, and the vine, the orange, the lemon, and the citron, and many other splendid plants, the very names of which you perhaps never heard of; yet he had the liberality to admire what he justly deemed beautiful, even in a northern clime, and a comparatively harsh mountainous district.” As to the harp, whenever he praised its melody, she declared it odious and unbearable, and gave preference to the fiddle, the bagpipes, or even the hurdy-gurdy; and the Welsh female costume she protested still more loudly against, and asked him with a sneer if he did not conceive it capable of improvement. “Oh, certainly, my dear,” would he reply; “for instance, I would have the Glamorganshire girls wear shoes, and feet to their stockings, and convert their awkward wrappers into neat gowns; the Cardiganshire fair ones should doff their clogs, and wear leathern shoes; and the Breconshire lass, with all others who follow the abominable habit, should be hindered from wearing a handkerchief around the head; but I know of no improvement that can be suggested for the Pembrokeshire damsel, except one which would be equally applicable to all Welsh girls,—namely, to throw off their flannel shifts and wear linen ones.” Now this good gentlewoman, whose leading weakness it was to suspect her husband’s fidelity when from home, kindled with rage at this remark. “Shifts, Mr. Graspacre,” exclaimed the angered lady, “what Anxious as a seaman to turn his bark from the direction of a dangerous rock, he mildly replied, “Surely, my dear, I may exercise my eyes, when the washed clothes are bleaching on the hedge,” and then adding in the same breath, “indeed, if I were you, my dear, I would make some improvements, such as your good taste will suggest, among our own maids; taking care however, not to destroy the stamp of nationality on their garbs at any rate.” This was a well-judged hit on his part, and had the effect of averting the impending storm. It should have been mentioned before, that the squire, soon after his marriage, had made a tour of South Wales, and, as his lady expressed it, taken a whim in his head of engaging a maid servant in every county through which he passed; so that in Graspacre Hall there were to be found maiden representatives in their native costumes, of all the different shires in South Wales, except Radnor, in which, the squire said, the barbarous jargon of Herefordshire, and the English cottons, had supplanted the native tongue and dress of Wales. There might you see the neat maiden of Pembrokeshire in her dark cloth dress of one hue, either a dark brown approximating to black, or a claret colour, made by the skill of a tailor, and very closely resembling the ladies’ modern riding-habit,—a perfect picture of comfort and neatness, in alliance with good taste. There would you see the extreme contrast, the Glamorganshire lass in stockings cut off at the ankle, and without shoes; and, although a handsome brunette with fine black eyes, dressed in a slammatkin check wrapper of cotton and wool, utterly shapeless, and tied There would you see the young woman of Breconshire, with her pretty blushing face, half hidden in a handkerchief which envelops her head that at first you would fancy the figure before you to be a grandmother at least. Her long linsey gown is pinned up behind, each extreme corner being joined together in the centre, and confined a few inches below her waist; she has her wooden-soled shoes for every day, and leathern ones for Sunday, or for a dance, which, with her stockings, she very economically takes off should a shower of rain overtake her on a journey; and when it ceases, washes her feet in the first brook she meets, and puts them on again. Some might term this a curious method of appreciating the protective excellence of the shoemaker’s art, but a Welsh girl, or rather, a Breconshire girl studies economy quite as much as comfort, and considers her shoes to be made as much for ornament as for use, and rather more. This fair one takes especial care that her drapery shall be short enough to discover her pretty ankle, and her apron sufficiently scanty to disclose her gay red petticoat with black or white stripes, beneath, and at the sides. Then comes the stout Carmarthenshire lass, with her thick bedgown and petticoat of a flaring brick-dust red, knitting stockings as she walks, and singing a loud song as she cards or spins. Lastly, though not least in importance, behold the clogged and cloaked short-statured woman of Cardiganshire. She scorns the sluttish garb and bare feet of the Glamorganshire maiden, and hates the abominable pride of the Pembrokeshire lass who is vain enough to wear leathern shoes instead of honest clogs; proving at the same time that her own vanity is of a more pardonable stamp. “Thank God too, that she It was one of the squire’s fancies never to call these girls by their proper names, but by that of their shires, as thus, “Come here little Pembroke, and buckle my shoe: and you Carmarthen, bring me a bason of broth; Cardigan, call Glamorgan and Brecon, and tell them they must drive a harrow a piece through the ploughed part of Rockfield.” On his return to dinner, a few days after the suggestion about the dresses of the maids, he was astonished to find that Mrs. Graspacre had used her privilege with a vengeance; having with decided bad taste, put them all, at their own expense, to be deducted from their wages, into glaring cotton prints. The girls were unhappy enough at this change, as well as at the expense thus incurred, and they could not enter the town without experiencing the ridicule of their friends and neighbours; the Cardiganshire maid, who considered such a change in the light of disowning her country, and like a renegade putting on the livery of the Saxon, in something of a termagant spirit, tendered her resignation to her master rather than comply with such an innovation. This ungenerous invasion of his harmless rules, roused his indignation; and after venting a few “damns,” a la John Bull, against draggle-tail cotton rags, without a word of expostulation with his rib, he desired the girls to bring all their trumpery to him, which they gladly did, and he made them instantly into a bonfire in the farm-yard. Then in a firm undertone At this juncture little Pembroke came in with rosy smiles, and told her master that Carmarthen Jack wanted to speak to him very particularly, on which the squire laughed, and asked on what important matter. “Why, sir,” said the rustic beauty, while arch smiles and blushes contended in her sweet oval face, “Parson Inco has found out that he has been courting in bed, with Catty the schoolmistress, and he has run here before the parson to say it is all a falsehood.” “There’s an impious rascal for you!” cried the lady of the house, “to charge the clergyman with a falsehood; but I am sure ’tis true, for I long suspected it.” “Madam, your own dignity and delicacy ought to suggest to you that the less you interfere in these matters the more creditable it will be to your own common sense,” said the squire, in a tone which was unmistakable. “I insist,” cried the imperious dame, “that he be put in the stocks, and be ducked in the river.” “Neither shall be done,” said he firmly, “and from henceforward no person shall be annoyed or persecuted on that score, but everyone shall court as he or she pleases.” “What!” cried the indignant lady, “would you fill the country with bastards!” “No, madam,” was the reply, “but with as happy a set of people as possible.” Encouraged by the turn which affairs had taken, the Cardiganshire maid now asked her master for her discharge; as her mistress, she said, had thrown a slur on her brewing abilities, which had almost broken her heart; “for” said she, with a ludicrous whimper, “she says my brewing is unfit for the drinking of Christian people, and hardly worthy of the hogs!—but,” cried the sturdy little wench, raising her voice “Indeed, Cardy,” said the squire, with a smile, “though your mistress may have been too severe in her censure, I must say that your two last brewings were unequal to the first.” “A good reason why, sir; who can brew without malt and hops? who can make bricks without straw? I hear some of the great London brewers do without either malt or hops, but I wouldn’t drink their brewings, I know; their brewings won’t do for us at Newcastle Emlyn! and your wheat, “Damn Newcastle Emlyn!” cried the squire, provoked by her continual reference to her native place. “Master! master!” cried the girl, as if rebuking him for the greatest impiety conceivable, “don’t damn Newcastle Emlyn; I had rather you should knock me down than damn Newcastle Emlyn! it is the country of decent people and good home-brewed ale,—the country where”— “You brewed good ale from the grown wheat the first time,” said the squire, not deeming it necessary to notice her observations. “Good! was it?” retorts the girl, struggling between respect for her master and contempt for his taste in the matter of malt drink; “good was it! I tell you what, master, you are a good master, and I have nothing to “But Cardy, there must be a sound reason for your two last brewings being inferior to the first. You could brew a well-flavoured, palatable beer, but you don’t now, although you have the same ingredients given you.” “The last was better, a good deal, than the other. The first would have turned the devil’s stomach, had he known what was in it.” “Explain yourself,” said the squire, surprised. “I will, sir, if I were to be hanged for it,” cried the girl in a tone of confidence; “it seems that rats love beer as well as any christian folks, and get drunk and die in drink, as a warning to all sober-minded rats; but that is neither here nor there, and I hate to tell a rigmarole story; the long and the short of it is, that when I came to wash out the barrels after the first brewing, I found three rats in one, and two in the other.” “You found what?” asked the squire and his lady at the same time. “I found three rats, sir, that had burst themselves with drinking beer, and afterwards fell in and were drowned—they were then putrid, and it was that, it seems, that made the ale so palatable; there were no dead animals in the last brewing, so that of course it wasn’t so ‘palatable’ and well-flavoured as the other. But had I known your mind I might have killed a couple of cats, or put you in a bushel of lively cockroaches.” This explanation excited a titter among the girls, and a loud laugh from the squire, while the lady evinced the shock which her delicacy had sustained, by making wry faces, and snuffing violently at her smelling-bottle to avoid fainting. The squire good-humouredly addressed the girl,—“now, Cardy, you are perfectly right in the praise you bestow on your own country ale, and I promise This amicable settlement of differences set every one in good humour, except the haughty mistress, who, embittered with her double defeat, retired in gloom, while her husband went to give audience to Jack of Sheer GÂr. |