Women of the Country | Page 3

one saw that it was not an impressive country. There
were no hills, no grandeurs, no proximity to the sea. It was a country
whose pageants were made, not by great heights or sombre woods, but
by the orderly and coloured procession of the harvests; where one
recovered the preoccupied sight of little children, seeing so much to
absorb one near the ground that one did not seek the horizon; where
matters were measured and done not by the clock but by the sun's
height, by midday heat and darkness, by the lowing of cows or the
calling of lambs.
A woman, well on the way to middle age, sat in the house-place of a
small cottage on the white high-road. Everything had been done for the
night, the pigs and pony fed; the cow milked and the milk strained; the
churn cleaned and the cream standing. The hens had been driven in and
were almost asleep on their perches. The wood was ready for the
morning and the clock had been wound up. She had not had her supper
yet she did not remove her sun-bonnet or yard-boots. She cut herself a
slice of stale bread and a large piece of cheese, dipped a cup in the
barrel of buttermilk and sat down on a low stool with the bread and
cheese in one hand and the cup of milk in the other. She was evidently
in great perturbation, for at times she forgot to eat altogether and sat
with the bread and cheese suspended in her hand while she thought
deeply. Her rather large plain features had a dignity of expression
which was pleasing, though it betrayed a tendency to melancholy. She
had no frown, for her blue eyes were of excellent strength and one does

not sit up late in the country. She was tall and rather bony, a strong
peasant woman.
Presently she rose, her supper still unfinished, and took from a shelf,
from among a medley of herbs and medicine bottles, a penny bottle of
ink with a pen sticking in it. Searching in a drawer of the round table
she found a large envelope on which was written, "Giant pennyworth of
note." She took from it one of the thin bluish sheets of paper, and
sitting at the table, her sun-bonnet making a grotesque shadow behind
her, she began to write. She wrote with little hesitation, urged by the
strength of some feeling. Her handwriting was large and she made long
loops to her g's.
"DEAR SIR,--Though you passed by my cottage yesterday you are so
unknown to me by sight, that I have only just discovered who it was
that was brought to such a pitiable condition before me. First, sir, let
me describe to you what a sight I saw before me, when, hearing a great
plunging and shouting in the road, I came out from the shippon to see
what was the matter.
"I saw, sir, a strong, well-looking, well-dressed young man of
twenty-six lying in the mud of the road, his foot in one stirrup of his
horse, he, mad with drink cursing, first the poor horse (a very quiet
stallion), then the road (a very easy one) and last, the Almighty God of
love. The horse, dragged everywhere by the efforts of the young man to
gain a footing, was rewarded for its patience when its master at last, by
my help, regained his feet, by severe kicks in the belly, and I, a poor
woman, was abused and called evil names.
"Sir! if instead of cursing the good-tempered beast or the God of love
above you, you had cursed the origin of such a spectacle as you then
were, your clothes covered with mud, your mouth full of blaspheming,
staggering about the road pulling at the mouth of your horse--strong
drink--you would have been a more reasonable being.
"What, sir, had the horse done to you? What had this poor woman done
to you? What, sir, had your heavenly Father done to you, that you
should fill your mouth with curses against us all? Your enemy was

none of us, but that viper, strong drink.
"O sir! shun your enemy I beseech you. I am a woman who has had no
children, but, sir, if I had been the mother of so strong and
good-looking a man as you, it would have broken my heart to see you
lying there muddy and cursing, a poorer sight under God's sky than the
poor dumb beast that bore you.--Your obedient servant,
Ann Hilton."
The woman folded and fastened the letter and then wiped her eyes with
the corner of her apron. She looked round the room as if to see that
everything was done and went to shut the door for the