Field and Hedgerow | Page 5

did he
not go into the workhouse? 'I be afeared if I goes in there they'll put me
with the rough uns, and very likely I should get some of my clothes
stole.' Rather than go into the workhouse he would totter round in the
face of the blasts that might cover his weak old limbs with drift. There
was a sense of dignity and manhood left still; his clothes were worn,
but clean and decent; he was no companion of rogues; the snow and
frost, the straw of the outhouses, was better than that. He was
struggling against age, against nature, against circumstance; the entire
weight of society, law, and order pressed upon him to force him to lose
his self-respect and liberty. He would rather risk his life in the
snowdrift. Nature, earth, and the gods did not help him; sun and stars,
where were they? He knocked at the doors of the farms and found good

in man only--not in Law or Order, but in individual man alone.
The bitter north wind drives even the wild fieldfare to the berries in the
garden hedge; so it drives stray human creatures to the door. A third
came--an old gipsy woman--still stout and hearty, with green fresh
brooms to sell. We bought some brooms--one of them was left on the
kitchen floor, and the tame rabbit nibbled it; it proved to be heather.
The true broom is as green and succulent in appearance in January as
June. She would see the 'missis.' 'Bless you, my good lady, it be
weather, bean't it? I hopes you'll never know what it be to want, my
good lady. Ah, well, you looks good-tempered if you don't want to buy
nothing. Do you see if you can't find me an old body, now, for my
girl--now do'ee try; she's confined in a tent on the common--nothing
but one of our tents, my good lady--that's true--and she's doing jest
about well' (with briskness and an air of triumph), 'that she is! She's got
twins, you see, my lady, but she's all right, and as well as can be. She
wants to get up; and she says to me, "Mother, do'ee try and get me a
body; 'tis hard to lie here abed and be well enough to get up, and be
obliged to stay here because I've got nothing but a bedgown." For you
see, my good lady, we managed pretty well with the first baby; but the
second bothered us, and we cut up all the bits of things we could find,
and there she ain't got nothing to put on. Do'ee see if 'ee can't find her
an old body.' The common is an open piece of furze and heath at the
verge of the forest; and here, in a tent just large enough to creep in, the
gipsy woman had borne twins in the midst of the snow and frost. They
could not make a fire of the heath and gorse even if they cut it, the
snow and whirling winds would not permit. The old gipsy said if they
had little food they could not do without fire, and they were compelled
to get coke and coal somehow--apologising for such a luxury. There
was no whining--not a bit of it; they were evidently quite contented and
happy, and the old woman proud of her daughter's hardihood.
By-and-by the husband came round with straw beehives to sell, and
cane to mend chairs--a strong, respectable-looking man. Of all the
north wind drove to the door, the outcasts were the best off--much
better off than the cottager who was willing to break his spade to earn a
shilling; much better off than the white-haired labourer, whose strength
was spent, and who had not even a friend to watch with him in the dark
hours of the winter evening--not even a fire to rest by. The gipsy

nearest to the earth was the best off in every way; yet not even for
primitive man and woman did the winds cease. Broad flakes of snow
drifted up against the low tent, beneath which the babes were nestling
to the breast. Not even for the babes did the snow cease or the keen
wind rest; the very fire could scarcely struggle against it. Snow-rain
and ice-rain; frost-formed snow-granules, driven along like shot,
stinging and rattling against the tent-cloth, hissing in the fire; roar and
groan of the great wind among the oaks of the forest. No kindness to
man, from birth-hour to ending; neither earth, sky, nor gods care for
him, innocent at the mother's breast. Nothing good to man but man. Let
man, then, leave his gods and lift up his ideal beyond them.
Something grey and spotted and puffy, not unlike a toad, moved about
under