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SKETCHES FROM LIFE . Bx Harriet Martineau . VII—THE FARM-LABOURER . THE SON . It has been told that Susan Banks found , herself well placed , after the death of her insane aunt obliged her to look , for a home and a maintenance . As I am not telling her story , I -will pass over the account of the efforts she made to be a schoolmistress , and the instruction she had as a dressmaker . She was in
poor health ( reduced by hunger ) and in debt £ 3 to her uncle , and nervous and anxious , when she heard that a lady from the North , then visiting in the neighbourhood , wanted just such a maid as Susan thought she could become with a little . teaching . She obtained the place , took pains to learn to wait at table , &c , and within a year had paid her debt to her uncle and spared £ 2 besides to her family ; and all this , though her box had had but few clothes in it when she went to her new home .
At the end of a year , her employer , Miss Foote , began to think of cultivating the small portion of land about the house which had hitherto been let off for grazing , a , nd which was deteriorating in quality from the mismanagement of the tenant . Not approving of the methods of tillage in the neighbourhood , and knowing that there were no spare hands there , Miss Foote wrote to a " parish officer in Susan ' s and her own native county , to ask if a labourer of good character and gound qualifications could be sent to her by the parish , on her engaging to pay him
twelve shillings a-week for a year and a half , while her experiment of cultivation was under trial ; and longer , if it should be found to answer . This was all she could undertake , as she could not afford to carry on the scheme at a loss . The answer was some time * in coming . When it came , it told that pauper labourers could not be recommended ; but a better sort of labourer might be sent , and his place in the parish would be filled , only too easily , by some of the young men from the workhouse . The proposal was to send the very best man of his class
known to the parish officers . He and his wife had money enough in the savings bank to pay their journey , and they were willing to make the venture . The man ' s name was Harry Banks . Miss Foote took the letter into the kitchen , and read it to Susan and her fellow-servant . When Susan heard the name , she started as if she had been shot , and screamed out , " Why , that ' s my brother ! " Thus far , far away from home , she was to have a brother and his wife
beside her , living in the pretty little cottage which was building behind the oak copse for the new labourer . Miss Foote inquired about the wife , but could learn little . Susan told nothing but that she was a respectable woman , but so old , and otherwise unsuitable , that it was a vexation to the family that Hair } ' had made such a marriage . Harry never seemed to see a single fault in her ; but his father and ' mother did not like Dinah at all .
When Miss Foote afterwards cajne to know the whole , she thought this marriage the most terribly significant part of the whole faknily history of the Bankscs . At thirty years of age Harry was u pattern of a farm labourer ; yet he had no prospect in life but of earning a precarious !) n . a-week , till he phould be too old to cum ho much . He worked for a rich , close-fisted Dissenting gentleman , who had always pious « : iyingH on his lips and at the point of his pen , but never took off bin eye for an instant from his money gains and savings . His wife was like him , and their servants grew like them—even the warm-hearted , impetuous Harry , and much more
. Dinah , their worn-out maid-of-all-work . Dinah always said that the register of her birth was unfortunately lost , and she could not tell precisely bow old hIio was ; ami ahe called herself " upwards o'forty . " Most people supposed her about sixty when Rho married . Sho used to toll Harry that she wan the prettiest fjirl in the city when she was young , and Harry < u « l not . auk how lonpj ago that was , nor look too much ; it the little , wizi'nod face , not morn marked by smallpox than by si ^ us of over-exhausting toil . Whatever might be her u ^ e , she , was worn out by exoesmvo work . When Harry'n father heard that she and Harry were going before the registrar to be married , li « kindly and seriously asked Harry if he bnd
con-— ______________ sidered what he was about ; and Harry ' s reply was enough to make any heart ache . " Yes , father , I have . I ' not so very much set on it ; but I think it will be most comfortable . You see , there's no use in people like us thinking of having children . Children would only starve us downright , and bring us to the union . You see , none of us are married , nor likely to be , except me with Dinah . She ' s clean and tidy , you see , and she has some wages laid by , -and so have I ; and so nobody need find fault . And I shall be more comfortable like , with somebody to do for me at home ; and ....
And he was going on to tell how Dinah would cook his dinner and mend his clothes , but his father could not bear to hear him , and finished off with saying that it was his own affair , and he wished them well . It was within a year after their marriage that Harry was engaged by Miss Foote . In great glee he made haste to prepare himself for his important new place in every way he could think of . He learned to trim a vine , not knowing that the place he was going to was too far off for vine-growing . He made
interest with a butcher to learn how to kill a pig . He made a little collection of superior cabbage and turnip seeds , seed potatoes , &c , thus proving to Miss Foote et the outset that he had plenty of energy and quickness . She found , too , that he had courage . His employers , vexed to lose two servants whom they had trained to excessive economy , as well as hard work , did everything that was possible , while there was any chance of success , to frighten them from moving northwards . They told Dinah , with mournful countenances , that they would certainly die , —
that it was all the same as being transported , —that it was cruelty in the parish officers to let them be tempted . Dinah repeated all this to Harry ; and it staggered him at first ; but he presently remembered that Susan wrote that her health had improved ; and her letters had not only contained post-office orders , but plain signs that she was very happy . Harry determined to proceed ; and , when he had once made up his mind , his employers showed themselves very kind , —helping their preparations , and having them to dinner on the last day .
By their own account their journey must have been a curious affair . Their heads were so full of notions of thieves and sharpers , that they did everything in the sliest way , and wrapped themselves in mystery , and pretended to despise their boxes , while in one continued agony about them . When met by a kind gentleman who was to see them through London , Dinah pretended not to be the right person , lest the gentleman should not be the right ; so that it was lucky they did not lose his help altogether . Miss Foote was disagreeably impressed by their account of their great slyness , and not less by the suspicious temre-, —natural perhaps to Dinah , but
not at all so to Harry , —in which they began their new mode of life . Dinah was no servant of hers ; so she bad nothing to do with Dinah ' s ways , but to check the jealousy and suspicion she showed of her young sister-in-law and the young cook . On occasion of leaving home for some weeks , the lady took the opportunity of intimating to the people at the cottage that there was a perfect understanding between the girls and herself , and as perfect a confidence as there can be between mother and daughters ; that their acquaintances came by her permission , and so forth . Harry promised to be attentive mid sociable with bis sister , and not to grow hot with the cook about bow to feed the fowls and manage the churn . That was the time when Dinah left off peeping through the laurels to see who went to the back door , and looking mysterious and Nympaihetio when holding forth to Mis . s Foote about young people . Still it was loiifj ; before she left off locking her < lo 6 r and biding the key , if hIio turned her back for a miiuite , and taking every hotly she did not know for a thief . She was left to her own notions ; but with Harry a serious remonstrance wa . s necessary , more tlian once within the first year of bis new service . Miss Footo was a « much annoyed as amused with his higgling wny « , all in zeal for her interests . Sho feared thut she ahotild have the reputation in the neighbourhood of being ft peri ' oct misor , no wonderful wero Harry ' s stories of the bargains he attempted to drive . Sho told him she hoped he would never succeed In any one such bargain as the many ho told her of ; find » he laid hor positive commands upon him nevef , in her name , to bent , down the seller of anV
article she sent him to buy . As she supposed , she found he had caught up the trick from example , and had not knowledge whereby to remedy it . When she told him it was not the way of the place to cheat in making charges , he shook his head , arid very nearly put his tongue in his cheek ; but when she explained to him how prices came to be , and how an article cannot property be bought for less than it took td make or grow it , he was convinced at once , and his higgling method was softened down into a mere excessive strictness and
vigilance in buying and selling transactions . There never was any real meanness about the man . In a few months he sent his father" 10 s . } in a few months more he sent him £ 1 . A small anecdote will show , better than thig , that the money is not naturally the first object with him . When his employer kills a pig he is allowed to take a quarter at wholesale price ; and Dinah cures the ham so well that by selling it they get their bacon for next to nothing . One autumn when two pigs were killed there was such a scramble for them , and so many neighbours
would be " hurt in their feelings" if they could not have a portion , that Miss Foote found herself left with two gammons , but no ham . Harry heard this in the kitchen . He kept silence till his ham was finely cured , and then , touching his hat as if asking a favour , he told his employer that she had done good things for him , and he had never been able to do any for her , and he should be much pleased if she would take the ham for what he gave for it . Though not agreeing to this exactly , Miss Foote found herself obliged to take the ham very cheap .
Another small incident showed the same gentlemanly spirit . At the time when his whole soul was engrossed with the desire to make " the experiment " answer , he had a request to present , as often during a whole winter as he could edge it in . There was a certain long ugly hedge , pernicious in every way , which divided the field from a neighbour ' s . The hedge belonged to the neighbour ; and it appeared that he would be heartily glad to give it away to anybody who avouH take it down and put up some fence which would cover less ground and harbour less vermin . Harry was so eager to be allowed to remove the hedge that Miss Foote at last told him that she
should never have dreamed of his undertaking such a job in addition to his regular work ; but that he might please himself . She would put up a new fence if he chose to make way for it . He did it with no help but in felling some pollards . One afternoon , when wheeling up hill an enormous load of wood from the hedge , he heard himself laughed at from the next field . Now , no man winces more under a laugh than Harry ; yet he bore it well this time . Some men called out mockingly that he was doing horse ' s work and man ' s work at once , and they would not do that to please anybody . "No , " said Harry , turning full round towards them , " nor I neither . Miss Foote never asked me to do this . I do it to please myself . "
No man , I have said , winces under a laugh more than Harry ; and his only suffering worth mentioning , since he came to his new place , has been from this dislike of ridicule . When the new cottage was ready Miss Foote proposed a house warming , and invited herself and her two mauls there to tea . It was a particularly pleasant evening , with a fine fire , ami plenty of light , and good tea and cake , and all the live in capital spirits . Harry was made to take the armchair by bis own fireside ; and when he began to crack his jokes it appeared that he had his own
notions of the ridiculous . He quizzed his nearest neighbour , an old man who had married a comparatively young woman , and whoso children were for ever playing about Miss Foote's gate . When Harry joked about that . unequal match , Miss Foote could not laugh . She thovtght bis own infinitely worse . And the poor follow booh miw that others were quizzing him , much moro severely than be had quizzed fix ; old man . He looks grave about Dinith now , and has left off talking of bis own prudence in making such a
marriage . He has nlso fold bin nister that when Dinah dies be shall not . marry again . It is very painful ; and yet Dinah in improved beyond all that could have been anticipated . Sho has put off her false front , and lets h < ir grizzled hair appear . Sho no longer scans Miss Foote ' s face to make out what it would be mont acceptable that she should say , but rattles away about her affairs with a sort of youthful gleo . She no longer upeflks in a whining tono , but IoIn her voicfc take Ha own way . One day she leaned 6 ri Mr
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fftrte ?^* ™^* " ??* te ° urage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . —Gokthe .
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March I , 1851 . ] ftf , a , ***** . ' 20 S
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 1, 1851, page 205, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1872/page/17/
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