Thomas Hardy's Dorset. R. Thurston Hopkins
is no reason to suppose that he is slower than any other rustic, but one is inclined to think that the "stupidity" of the countryman covers a deep, if only half-realised, philosophy. Nevertheless we must admit that Hodge often wins through in his slow way. There is a good deal of humour in the Dorset rustic, but perhaps most of his wit is unconscious. That reminds me of the story of a Dorset crier who kept the officials of the Town Hall waiting for two hours on a certain morning. They were about to open the proceedings without him when a boy rushed in and handed the Mayor a message. He read the message and seemed deeply affected. Then he announced:
"I have just received a message from our crier, saying, 'Wife's mother passed away last night. Will not be able to cry to-day.'"
That story may be a very ancient "chestnut," but here is a true instance of Hodge's unconscious humour. The wife of a blacksmith at an isolated forge in Dorset had died rather suddenly, and it happened that during one of my rambles I applied to the forge for food and lodging for the night. The old fellow opened the door to me, and I guessed that he was in trouble by the fresh crape band round his soft felt hat, which is weekday mourning of the rustic. However, the old fellow was quite pleased to have me for company, and I stayed at his forge for some days.
"Her was a clever woman; her kept my things straight," he said to me one night at supper, as he looked wistfully at his old jacket full of simple rents from hedgerow briars. "But it's no manner of use grumbling—I never was a bull-sowerlugs [a morose fellow]. And thank the Lord she was took quick. I went off for the doctor four miles away, and when I gets there he was gone off somewhere else; so I turned, and in tramping back along remembered I had a bottle of medicine which he did give me last year, so says I, 'That will do for the ol' woman'; so I gave it to her and she died."
The old blacksmith drank his beer and dealt with his ham and bread for ten minutes in silence. Then he looked into the amber depths of his ale and said: "Say, mister—wasn't it a good job I didn't take that bottle of physic myself?"
Dorset is only one of the several cider-making counties in Wessex. The good round cider is a warming and invigorating drink that is in every way equal to a good ale, and sometimes—especially if it has been doctored with a little spirit and kept in a spirit cask—is considerably stronger, and is by no means to be consumed regardless of quantity. And one must be cautious in mixing drinks when taking cider. But the cider which is consumed by the Dorset rustic is, to use a local word, rather "ramy" or "ropy" to the palate of a person unaccustomed to it. That is to say that it is sour and often rather thick. Of course the rustic knows nothing, and would care nothing, for the so-called cider sold in London which resembles champagne in the way it sparkles. Such stuff is only manufactured for folk out of Wessex.
A Dorset rustic, on being reproved by a magistrate for being drunk and disorderly, explained that his sad plight was the result of taking his liquor the wrong way up; for, said he,
"Cyder upon beer is very good cheer,
Beer 'pon cyder is a dalled bad rider!"
The worthy magistrate, not to be vanquished by the poetic tippler, told him to remember—
"When the cyder's in the can
The sense is in the man!
When the cyder's in the man
The sense is in the can."
"I wish," said an old shepherd to me, with regret in his voice, "that you might taste such beer as my mother brewed when I was a boy. Bread, cheese and ingyens [onions] with a drop of beer was parfuse [ample] for a meal in those days, 'ess fay! But this beer they sell now is drefful wishee-washee stuff. I'll be dalled if I'll drink it; 'tez water bewitched and malt begridged [begrudged]." In Hodge's uncouth speech are found many words and usages of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, though it is not now relished by fastidious palates. William Barnes, the Dorset poet, enumerates the chief peculiarities of the Dorset dialect in his books on speech lore. He loved the odd phrases of children, and it is easy to see why. For a child, not knowing the correct method of describing a thing and seeking to express its meaning, will often go back to the strong old Anglo-Saxon definitions. The child can often coin very apt phrases. As, for instance, the Dorset child who spoke of honey as "bee-jam." Barnes was delighted, too, with the boy "who scrope out the 'p' in 'psalm' 'cose it didn't spell nothen."
Many of the humours of Arcady have been moulded into enigmatical sayings and metaphors which may still be heard on the lips of the Dorset rustic:
Tea with a dash of rum is called "milk from the brown cow"; the dead are "put to bed with a shovel"; a noisy old man is a "blaze wig"; a fat and pompous fellow is a "blow-poke"; the thoughts of the flighty girl go a-"bell-wavering"; the gallows is the "black horse foaled by an acorn." The Dorset rustic has devised many names for the dullard: "billy-buttons," "billy-whiffler," "lablolly," "ninnyhammer," and "bluffle-head" are some of them. The very sound of such names suggests folly.
"Leer" is a curious word still heard in Dorset and Devon. It is used to express the sense of craving produced by weakness and long fasting. Perhaps Shakespeare used Lear in a metaphorical sense. I remember once hearing a Sussex labourer speak of taking his "coager" (cold cheer?), a meal of cold victuals taken at noon, but I am told the mouthful of bread and cheese taken at starting in the morning by the Dorset rustic rejoices in the still more delightful name of "dew-bit."
"Crowder" (a fiddler) is a genuine British word, used up to a few years ago, but I was unable to trace anyone using it in Dorset this year. In Cornwall the proverb, "If I can't crowdy, they won't dance" (meaning, "They will pass me by when I have no money to feast and entertain my friends"), was commonly quoted fifty years ago.
Another tale regarding unconscious humour is told of by a Dorset rector who was holding a Confirmation class. He was one of the old-fashioned parsons and made it his solemn duty to call at the village inn and drink a pint of ale with his flock every evening. One of the candidates for Confirmation was the buxom daughter of the innkeeper, and when he came to ask her the usual fixed question, "What is your name?" the girl, holding her head on one side, glanced at him roguishly, and said:
"Now dawntee tell me you don't know. As if you diddent come into our place every night and say, 'Now, Rubina, my dear, give me a half-pint of your best ale in a pint pewter!'"
The story of village sports and the way in which the rustic was wont to enjoy himself is always interesting. One of the most singular forms of contest once in common practice in the west of England was whiplegs. The procedure of this pastime consisted of the men standing a yard or so apart and lashing each other's legs with long cart whips till one cried "Holt!" The one who begged for quarter of course paid for the ale. The rude leather gaiters worn by tranters or carters fifty years ago would, of course, take much of the sting out of the whip cuts.
Thatch survives in nearly every village, and one of the favoured building materials is stone from the Dorset quarries. At Corfe the houses are built of stone from foundation to roof, and stone slabs of immense size are made to take the place of tiles and slates. We find "cob" cottages here and there, and this perhaps is the most ancient of all materials, being a mixture of clay or mud and chopped straw. It is piled into walls of immense thickness and strength, and then plastered and white-washed. The natives in Egypt and Palestine construct their village homes with the same materials, and the result is not only wonderfully picturesque, but satisfactory in the more important respect of utility. But now the Dorset people seldom build their walls of "cob" as of yore, and yet such work is very enduring. As an old Devonshire proverb has it: "Good cob, a good hat, and a good heart last for ever."
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The beautiful tract of coast-line between Seaton on the west and West Bay on the east is a region of great charm; for here will be found all the most pleasing features of the sister counties, Dorset and Devon. The gracious greenery and combes of Devon trespass over the border at Lyme Regis and so bestow on this nook the wooded charm of the true West Country, which is lacking on the chalky grass hills of other parts of Dorset. If the coast is followed from Lyme Regis we soon thread our way into the wild tangles of Devon. Things have changed somewhat in these days, but still the true son of Devon carries his country with him wherever he goes;