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Chapters (44)
  1. Lark Rise to Candleford
  2. Copyright
  3. LARK RISE
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  5. 2
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  19. OVER TO CANDLEFORD
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  34. CANDLEFORD GREEN
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The father could see at once that the old man was not in a fit state to walk seven or eight miles at night in that weather and begged him not to think of doing so. But what was to be done? They were far from a railway station, even had there been a convenient train, and there was no vehicle for hire within three miles. Then some one suggested that Master Ashley’s donkey-cart would be better than nothing, and the father departed to borrow it. He brought it to the garden gate, for he had to drive it himself, and this, surprisingly, he was ready to do although he had just come in tired and damp from his work and had had no proper meal.

With his knees wrapped round in an old fur coat that had once belonged to the children’s grandmother and a hot brick at his feet, the visitor was about to say “Farewell,” when the mother, Martha like, exclaimed: “I’m sorry it’s such a poor turn-out for a gentleman like you to ride in.”

“Poor!” he exclaimed. “I’m proud of it and shall always remember this day. My Master rode through Jerusalem on one of these dear patient beasts, you know!”

A fortnight afterwards she read in the local paper that the Rev. Alfred Augustus Peregrine Marley, who was relieving the Vicar of Such-and-such a parish, had collapsed and died at the altar while administering Holy Communion.

15

Harvest Home

If one of the women was accused of hoarding her best clothes instead of wearing them, she would laugh and say: “Ah! I be savin’ they for high days an’ holidays an’ bonfire nights.” If she had, they would have lasted a long time, for there were very few holidays and scarcely any which called for a special toilet.

Christmas Day passed very quietly. The men had a holiday from work and the children from school and the churchgoers attended special Christmas services. Mothers who had young children would buy them an orange each and a handful of nuts; but, except at the end house and the inn, there was no hanging up of stockings, and those who had no kind elder sister or aunt in service to send them parcels got no Christmas presents.