Chapter Twenty-Two
MIGRANTS
I often, think that the politest man I ever knew was Frank Brown, who was the bailiff at the Home Farm when we were children. He was a slim, dapper little man, in appearance more like a solicitor than a farmer; and though he looked about fifty, I believe he was never under eighty. On Sunday mornings he always appeared in Netherhampton Church supremely dressed in a black cut-away coat, pale-grey trousers with pin stripes, a tall hat, and gloves of thick lavender suède. His politeness was chiefly shown in those gloves. During the service he took them off and laid them very neatly on the shelf in front of him; and before leaving the church he put them on again and very slowly buttoned them up, for he always walked some way into the park with my father after the service, and according to Frank Brown’s code, gloved hands were essential when walking with rectors. Then came the crux. Some of the family often walked through the park to meet my father, and we sometimes came upon the two men quite suddenly round a comer, or we sat waiting under a tree in the shade, so that they did not see us till they were actually upon us. Then Frank Brown feverishly began to unbutton his right hand glove in order to shake hands with the ladies. It often stuck, and it always took a long time; but while the frantic struggle went on, Mr. Brown never looked at us. He remained bowed over his own hand, and we, too, looked at the distant view, appearing not to see his agonized exertions. When at last the glove was off, each party started up appearing to perceive the other for the first time, and then we cordially shook hands.
Frank Brown was an enthusiastic naturalist and sportsman, which greatly endeared him to my father; and when they took these Sunday walks together, they were constantly reminding each other of historic runs with the different Wiltshire packs, or they told stories of bustards, badgers, and otters.
Frank Brown had a very good story about a fox, which he once saw trotting along, within its mouth a curious white thing. At first Mr. Brown could not make out what this was, but after a time he saw that it was rather a large piece of sheep’s wool. He watched the fox till he reached one of the dew ponds on the down, and there he turned round and went backwards into the water, walking cautiously towards the deepest part till he was entirely submerged except for his nose and mouth, which projected from the water, still holding the piece of wool. Then he stood still. Frank Brown was so much interested that he crept near to the water’s edge and looked on, while the fox was far too busy to notice him.
After a few minutes some black specks appeared on the wool. These increased in number till they completely covered the white surface. Something was coming up out of the water. Then Mr. Brown saw that this was an army of fleas, and that the fox had devised this cunning way of driving his enemies off his body. He waited patiently till the black mass had ceased to increase in size, then he dropped the piece of wool into the pond, walked out of the water and trotted away.
Wiltshire is like that fox, and so are Wiltshire people. Ever since the dawn of history, successive migrants have crossed it, been shaken off, and have been forgotten. Yet they continue to come. The natives endure them for a time, seeming to ignore them and to go on mouching about the streets, leaning against the walls, hanging over the gates and staring vacantly over bridges into the water. Then they wake up, and shaking off the alien visitors, they go on as before, forgetting all about them.
To the migrant flitting by on his gaily coloured wings, the corduroy-clad native will always appear drab and dreary. The Cockney thinks the Wiltshire-man unendurably slow and stupid. He is not such a fool as he looks, as was proved once for all by the story of the Moonrakers, which gave the Wiltshireman his nickname. Although this story is very familiar, I will tell it again.
The village of Bishop’s Cannings lies almost exactly in the middle of the county, and many of the best Wiltshire stories are told of the Bishop’s Cannings men. One evening in the early nineteenth century, an exciseman from London was driving over the downs in the direction of Devizes, and as he neared the village of Bishop’s Cannings, he saw a group of men in charge of a float which was drawn by a donkey. They had pulled up beside a dew-pond and were busily raking the water with their long wooden hay rakes. The exciseman stopped, and in his refined London accent he asked these yokels what in the world they were doing. The stupid fellows pointed to the reflection of the full moon in the pond—large, yellow, and round.
‘Zomebody bin and lost a cheese,’ they said, ‘and us be a-raking of un out o’ thic thur pond.’
This was an excellent story for the exciseman to produce
