Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

on the verge of her own ground, paying for it 2001. to Mr. Gordon.

Such was the condition of the Hamlet of East Burnham at the period when accident led me to become acquainted with this "out-of-the-way" spot. I had for some time been on the look-out for a rural dwelling in some healthful, retired district, where the air and water were good, and where I could find facilities for walking and rambling about, on ground other than a dusty high-road. These conditions appearing to be realized by the district in question, I opened a negotiation with Mr. Gordon, which resulted in a purchase, by Mr. Grote, of that property which Mr. Sayer had left, for her life, to Mrs. Coxe: consisting of the house and land, a labourer's cottage and garden (let to G. Taylor), and a wood, of about eleven acres, called "Tomkins' Wood." We took possession of this little estate about the month. of June, 1838, but found that extensive repairs must be undertaken, which were effected in time to enable us to establish our residence therein during the course of the same autumn. It would have been wise to have pulled down all the older portion (or "Sheridan's Cottage," as Mr. Sayer used to call it), together with the stabling and out-buildings, and to have rebuilt these. However, my state of health was at this time too delicate to allow of my postponing the occupation of our country retreat, and we accordingly contented ourselves with mending up the old concern so as to be "habitable;" removing to our London house about Christmas, 1838-9.

Within a year of our establishing this ménage at

East Burnham, we made an exchange of lands with Lady Grenville, which conduced sensibly to the comfort of our occupancy. The adjacent orchard and a cottage, together with a close lying north of this orchard, and bounding our garden on the east, were conveyed over to us by Lady Grenville, along with a slip of land through which a public footpath ran from East Burnham to the common-side.

In return for this lot of land, we gave up to her, first, a cottage and garden on the north edge of our meadow (called the Captain's Meadow); secondly, two very good meadows, called respectively "Dod's Meadow" and "Appletree Close," situate on the east side of the slip on the slope of the hill, containing more land than the lot which we obtained; and over and above this exchange, we paid Lady Grenville in money the sum of 2007. The object we considered so desirable, of possessing the ground abutting on our garden, that we willingly consented to this arrangement, which certainly left her ladyship a clear gainer.

On Lady Grenville's coming into the exercise of her rights over the property and privileges of East Burnham, I have understood that "a court" was held at which (among other business) it was laid down as a regulation that no person should be permitted to cut turf for firing on the common except the inhabitants of East Burnham proper, and that such inhabitants were to limit their cutting to 2000 turves for each cottage, or, as the phrase ran, for "each chimney." Now, as I was anxious to be informed how the matter stood in regard to the lord of the manor and the occupiers of houses in the "Liberty," I asked Mr. Bowman (the steward of Lady Grenville) to state the footing on which this

privilege was placed. The steward told me that I was at liberty to cut turves for my own house, and turves for my cottage at the end of the orchard, at the rate of 2000 each tenement.

I caused turf to be cut on this understanding from 1838 till 1851, when I quitted my original residence in East Burnham. My successor and tenant did the same; no hindrance or objection ever arose on the part of Lady Grenville, to the best of my knowledge, nor were the labouring people ever interfered with in cutting and carrying away their parcels. It was universally believed that this right belonged to the inhabitants, in the same way as the right of turning out animals to pasture and hogs to fatten on the acorns and beechmast-a right, subject, of course, to restrictions against injury to the property of the manor, or to the persons and property of other parties, or the general interests of the public frequenting the district.

I shall return to this subject by-and-bye, but meanwhile I must say a word or two upon the general character of the population of East Burnham, such as I found it in 1838, and during many following years. In the first place, the inhabitants earned their living almost entirely by husbandry labour. Neither a tailor, shoemaker, plumber, or, in fact, any kind of skilled artisan, was to be found in our hamlet. One old man, of the name of Hughes, lived by working as a bricklayer; and a young man, named John James, bred to the trade of a wheelwright and cart-maker, could also act as carpenter, bricklayer, or in almost any handicraft connected with country life. He, however, did not at first live in East Burnham, but occupied a tenement in Farnham parish, until I

"located" him, a few years later, in a house which I caused to be built (on the ruins of another cottage) on a croft adjoining the common, bought in 1844 of a family living at Beaconsfield.

Besides Hughes, there was the landlord of the little alehouse called "The Crown," and a man named Ryder, who got his living by attending markets, and again selling by retail various produce, such as oats, bran, flour, poultry, pigs, and pigmeat-keeping a horse and cart; and also a huckster's shop on an humble scale. These formed the exceptions. All my other neighbours followed husbandry in all its branches, including woodcutting and hurdlemaking, thatching and sheepshearing, &c. We could not even boast of a smith in "the Liberty," though one lived hard by, in the adjoining parish of Farnham; neither had we a baker!-the Burnham baker regularly bringing bread on stated days, to supply the dwellers in East Burnham, only a few of whom adhered to the old practice of "baking" at home. women were, here and there, in the habit of hawking small wood, in donkey carts, to Eton and Windsor, distant four to five miles-buying wood in the copses, fetching it out, and cutting it up at home in little faggots, called "pimps." Sometimes, I am afraid, the faggots were made not wholly out of such wood, but out of wood stolen by the urchins out of the copses, at dusk-at least so said the wood-overseers in the service of the proprietors. Again, a few of my cottagers' wives would have a lace-pillow, which, during winter, they would work at-lace being a traditional occupation in the county of Bucks. But after the year 1844, or thereabouts, lace-making

The

dropped out of the list of industrial occupationsmachine-made lace completely supplanting "pillowmade" by its low price.

The women of East Burnham were, for the most part, hard-working, decent, and good-hearted creatures, and friendly neighbours: labouring in the fields at stone-picking, weeding wheat, reaping, gleaning, &c., and going out to help wash at farmers' and gentlefolks' houses, as occasion offered. For the male portion of the community there was, commonly speaking, a constant round of employment-somewhat more, indeed, than it is usual for rustic labourers to obtain. The vast extent of woodland in that neighbourhood created a constant demand for woodcutters when hard frost and snow forbade farming operations. Thrashing machines obtained but slowly among the farmers round East Burnham, who thus furnished long thrashing jobs, at piece-work (or "by the grate") to their men in hard weather. The immense amount of hedge-rows required a considerable outlay to keep them and their ditches up; the preserving of the game on the manor absorbed many of the men as watchers and under-keepers; and furthermore, at a season which often leaves the farm hands slack of work-namely, whilst the crops are ripening after midsummer, and haymaking is pretty well over-then would our people fall to at "cherry gathering;" a business which, in a good "bearing time," keeps scores of "hands" fully employed. The country

teems with fruit in every direction, and some idea may be framed of the magnitude of the dealings in the article of cherries alone, when I state that John James (the man already mentioned) has for some

« AnteriorContinuar »