More Bywords

He beheld a small village maiden;
Of loose flocks of wool her lap was quite full,
With a bundle her arms were laden.

“What seekest thou, child, ’mid the bushes wild,
Thy face and thine arms that thus tear?”
“The wool the sheep leave, to spin and to weave;
It makes us our clothes to wear.”

Then she led him in, where her mother did spin,
And make barley bannocks to eat;
They gave him enough, though the food was rough—
The kindliness made it most sweet.

Many years had past, report ran at last,
The rich Alderman Smith was dead.
Then each knight and dame, and each merchant came,
To hear his last testament read.

I, Harry Smith, found of mind clear and sound,
Thus make and devise my last will:
While England shall stand, I bequeath my land,
My last legacies to fulfil.

“To the muddy spot, where they cleaned them not,
When amongst their fields I did roam;
To every one there with the unkempt hair
I bequeath a small-toothed comb.

“Next, to Mitcham proud, and the gaping crowd,
Who for nobody’s sorrows grieve;
With a lash double-thong, plaited firm and strong,
A horsewhip full stout do I leave.

“To Walton-on-Thames, where, ’mid willow stems,
The lads and the lasses idle;
To restrain their tongues, and breath of their lungs,
I bequeath a bit and a bridle.

“To Betchworth so fair, and the households there
Who so well did the stranger cheer,
I leave as my doles to the pious souls,
Full seventy pounds by the year.

“To Cobham the thrifty I leave a good fifty,
To be laid out in cloth dyed dark;
On Sabbath-day to be given away,
And known by Smith’s badge and mark.

“To Leatherhead too my gratitude’s due,
For a welcome most freely given;
Let my bounty remain, for each village to gain,
Whence the poor man was never driven.”

So in each sweet dale, and bright sunny vale,
In the garden of England blest;
Those have found a friend, whose gifts do not end,
Who gave to that stranger a rest!

Henry Smith’s history is literally true.  He was a silversmith of immense wealth in London in the latter part of the sixteenth century, but in his later years he chose to perambulate the county of Surrey as a beggar, and was known as ‘Dog Smith.’  He met with various fortune in different parishes, and at Mitcham was flogged at the cart’s tail.  On his death, apparently in 1627, he was found to have left bequests to almost every place in Surrey, according to the manners of the inhabitants—to Mitcham a horsewhip, to Walton-on-Thames a bridle, to Betchworth, Leatherhead, and many more, endowments which produce from £50 to £75 a year, and to Cobham a sum to be spent annually in woollen cloth of a uniform colour, bearing Smith’s badge, to be given away in church to the poor and impotent, as the following tablet still records:—

1627

Item—That the Gift to the impotent and aged poor people, shall be bestowed in Apparell of one Coulour, with some Badge or other Mark, that it may be known to be the Gift of the said Henry Smith, or else in Bread, flesh, or fish on the Sabbath-day publickly in the Church.  In Witness whereof the said Henry Smith did put to his Hand and seal the Twenty-first day of January in the Second Year of the Reign of our most gracious Sovereign Lord King Charles the First.

A REVIEW OF NIECES

GENERAL SIR EDWARD FULFORD, K.G.C., to his sister MISS FULFORD

UNITED SERVICE CLUB, 29thJune.

My Dear Charlotte,—I find I shall need at least a month to get through the necessary business; so that I shall only have a week at last for my dear mother and the party collected at New Cove.  You will have ample time to decide which of the nieces shall be asked to accompany us, but you had better give no hint of the plan till you have studied them thoroughly.  After all the years that you have accompanied me on all my stations, you know how much depends on the young lady of our house being one able to make things pleasant to the strange varieties who will claim our hospitality in a place like Malta, yet not likely to flag if left in solitude with you.  She must be used enough to society to do the honours genially and gracefully, and not have her head turned by being the chief young lady in the place.  She ought to be well bred, if not high bred, enough to give a tone to the society of her contemporaries, and above all she must not flirt.  If I found flirtation going on with the officers, I should send her home on the spot.  Of course, all this means that she must have the only real spring of good breeding, and be a thoroughly good, religious, unselfish, right-minded girl; otherwise we should have to rue our scheme.  In spite of all you would do towards moulding and training a young maiden, there will be so many distractions and unavoidable counter-influences that the experiment would be too hazardous, unless there were a character and manners ready formed.  There ought likewise to be cultivation and intelligence to profit by the opportunities she will have.  I should not like Greece and Italy, to say nothing of Egypt and Palestine, to be only so much gape seed.  You must have an eye likewise to good temper, equal to cope with the various emergencies of travelling.  N.B.  You should have more than one in your eye, for probably the first choice will be of some one too precious to be attainable.—Your affectionate brother,

    EDWARD FULFORD.

MISS FULFORD to SIR EDWARD FULFORD

1 SHINGLE COTTAGES, NEW COVE, S. CLEMENTS, 30thJune.

My Dear Edward,—When Sydney Smith led Perfection to the Pea because the Pea would not come to Perfection, he could hardly have had such an ideal as yours.  Your intended niece is much like the ‘not impossible she’ of a youth under twenty.  One comfort is that such is the blindness of your kind that you will imagine all these charms in whatever good, ladylike, simple-hearted girl I pitch upon, and such I am sure I shall find all my nieces.  The only difficulty will be in deciding, and that will be fixed by details of style, and the parents’ willingness to spare their child.

This is an excellent plan of yours for bringing the whole family together round our dear old mother and her home daughter.  This is the end house of three on a little promontory, and has a charming view—of the sea in the first place, and then on the one side of what is called by courtesy the parade, on the top of the sea wall where there is a broad walk leading to S. Clements, nearly two miles off.  There are not above a dozen houses altogether, and the hotel is taken for the two families from London and Oxford, while the Druces are to be in the house but one next to us, the middle one being unluckily let off to various inhabitants.  We have one bedroom free where we may lodge some of the overflowings, and I believe the whole party are to take their chief meals together in the large room at the hotel.  The houses are mostly scattered, being such as fortunate skippers build as an investment, and that their wives may amuse themselves with lodgers in their absence.  The church is the weakest point in this otherwise charming place.  The nearest, and actually the parish church, is a hideous compo structure, built in the worst of times as a chapel of ease to S. Clements.  I am afraid my mother’s loyalty to the parochial system will make her secure a pew there, though at the farther end of the town there is a new church which is all that can be wished, and about a mile and a half inland there is a village church called Hollyford, held, I believe, by a former fellow-curate of Horace Druce.  Perhaps they will exchange duties, if Horace can be persuaded to take a longer holiday than merely for the three weeks he has provided for at Bourne Parva.  They cannot come till Monday week, but our Oxford professor and his party come on Thursday, and Edith will bring her girls the next day.  Her husband, our Q.C., cannot come till his circuit is over, but of course you know more about his movements than I do.  I wonder you have never said anything about those girls of his, but I suppose you class them as unattainable.  I have said nothing to my mother or Emily of our plans, as I wish to be perfectly unbiased, and as I have seen none of the nieces for five years, and am prepared to delight in them all, I may be reckoned as a blank sheet as to their merits.—Your affectionate sister,

    CHARLOTTE FULFORD.

July 4.—By noon to-day arrived Martyn,[1 - In the book this genealogy is a diagram. It is rendered as text here.—DP]  John Fulford: sons: John Fulford

(married Margaret Lacy) and Henry

.

 John Fulford and Margaret Lacy: Sir Edward Fulford (married Avice Lee—died after two years), Arthur, Q.C. (married Edith Ganler)

, Martyn (Professor, married Mary Alwyn)

, Charlotte, Emily, Margaret (married Rev. H. Druce)

.

 Henry had a son called Henry—whose son was also Henry—whose daughter was Isabel.