This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen
and David Widger
Autumn had succeeded to summer, winter to autumn, and the spring of1468 was green in England, when a gallant cavalcade was seen slowlywinding the ascent of a long and gradual hill, towards the decline ofday. Different, indeed, from the aspect which that part of thecountry now presents was the landscape that lay around them, bathed inthe smiles of the westering sun. In a valley to the left, a full viewof which the steep road commanded (where now roars the din of tradethrough a thousand factories), lay a long, secluded village. Thehouses, if so they might be called, were constructed entirely of wood,and that of the more perishable kind,—willow, sallow, elm, and plum-tree. Not one could boast a chimney; but the smoke from the singlefire in each, after duly darkening the atmosphere within, sent itssurplusage lazily and fitfully through a circular aperture in theroof. In fact, there was long in the provinces a prejudice againstchimneys! The smoke was considered good both for house and owner; thefirst it was supposed to season, and the last to guard "from rheums,catarrhs, and poses." [So worthy Hollinshed, Book II. c. 22.—"Thenhad we none but reredosses, and our heads did never ache. For as thesmoke, in those days, was supposed to be a sufficient hardening forthe timber of the house, so it was reputed a far better medicine tokeep the goodman and his familie from the quacke, or pose, wherewithas then very few were oft acquainted."] Neither did one of thesehabitations boast the comfort of a glazed window, the substitute beinglattice, or chequer-work,—even in the house of the franklin, whichrose statelily above the rest, encompassed with barns and outsheds.And yet greatly should we err did we conceive that these deficiencieswere an index to the general condition of the working class. Farbetter off was the labourer when employed, than now. Wages wereenormously high, meat extremely low; [See Hallam: Middle Ages, Chap.xx. Part II. So also Hollinsbed, Book XI., c. 12, comments on theamazement of the Spaniards, in Queen Mary's time, when they saw "whatlarge diet was used in these so homelie cottages," and reports one ofthe Spaniards to have said, "These English have their houses of sticksand dirt, but they fare commonlie so well as the king!"] and ourmotherland bountifully maintained her children.
On that greensward, before the village (now foul and reeking with thesqualid population whom commerce rears up,—the victims, as themovers, of the modern world) were assembled youth and age; for it wasa holiday evening, and the stern Puritan had not yet risen to sour theface of Mirth. Well clad in leathern jerkin, or even broadcloth, theyoung peasants vied with each other in quoits and wrestling; while themerry laughter of the girls, in their gay-coloured kirtles andribboned hair, rose oft and cheerily to the ears of the cavalcade.From a gentle eminence beyond the village, and half veiled by trees,on which the first verdure of spring was budding (where now, aroundthe gin-shop, gather the fierce and sickly children of toil and ofdiscontent), rose the venerable walls of a monastery, and the chime ofits heavy bell swung far and sweet over the pastoral landscape. Tothe right of the road (where now stands the sober meeting-house) wasone of those small shrines so frequent in Italy, with an image of theVirgin gaudily painted, and before it each cavalier in the processionhalted an instant to cross himself and mutter an ave. Beyond, stillto the right, extended