第3章 AGEN.--JASMIN'S BOYHOOD.(2)

There were three ragged beds;a cupboard,containing a few bits of broken plates;a stone bottle;two jugs of cracked earthenware;a wooden cup broken at the edges;a rusty candlestick,used when candles were available;a small half-black looking-glass without a frame,held against the wall by three little nails;four broken chairs;a closet without a key;old Boe's suspended wallet;a tailor's board,with clippings of stuff and patched-up garments;such were the contents of the house,the family consisting in all of nine persons.

It is well that poor children know comparatively little of their miserable bringings-up.They have no opportunity of contrasting their life and belongings with those of other children more richly nurtured.The infant Jasmin slept no less soundly in his little cot stuffed with larks'feathers than if he had been laid on a bed of down.Then he was nourished by his mother's milk,and he grew,though somewhat lean and angular,as fast as any king's son.He began to toddle about,and made acquaintances with the neighbours'children.

After a few years had passed,Jasmin,being a spirited fellow,was allowed to accompany his father at night in the concerts of rough music.He placed a long paper cap on his head,like a French clown,and with a horn in his hand he made as much noise,and played as many antics,as any fool in the crowd.Though the tailor could not read,he usually composed the verses for the Charivari;and the doggerel of the father,mysteriously fructified,afterwards became the seed of poetry in the son.

The performance of the Charivari was common at that time in the South of France.When an old man proposed to marry a maiden less than half his age,or when an elderly widow proposed to marry a man much younger than herself,or when anything of a heterogeneous kind occurred in any proposed union,a terrible row began.The populace assembled in the evening of the day on which the banns had been first proclaimed,and saluted the happy pair in their respective houses with a Charivari.Bells,horns,pokers and tongs,marrow-bones and cleavers,or any thing that would make a noise,was brought into requisition,and the noise thus made,accompanied with howling recitations of the Charivari,made the night positively hideous.

The riot went on for several evenings;and when the wedding-day arrived,the Charivarists,with the same noise and violence,entered the church with the marriage guests;and at night they besieged the house of the happy pair,throwing into their windows stones,brickbats,and every kind of missile.

Such was their honeymoon!

This barbarous custom has now fallen entirely into disuse.

If attempted to be renewed,it is summarily put down by the police,though it still exists among the Basques as a Toberac.

It may also be mentioned that a similar practice once prevailed in Devonshire described by the Rev.S.Baring Gould in his "Red Spider."It was there known as the Hare Hunt,or Skimmity-riding.

The tailor's Charivaris brought him in no money.

They did not increase his business;in fact,they made him many enemies.His uncouth rhymes did not increase his mending of old clothes.However sharp his needle might be,his children's teeth were still sharper;and often they had little enough to eat.

The maintenance of the family mainly depended on the mother,and the wallet of grandfather Boe.

The mother,poor though she was,had a heart of gold under her serge gown.She washed and mended indefatigably.When she had finished her washing,the children,so soon as they could walk,accompanied her to the willows along the banks of the Garonne,where the clothes were hung out to dry.There they had at least the benefit of breathing fresh and pure air.Grandfather Boe was a venerable old fellow.He amused the children at night with his stories of military life--"Wept o'er his wounds,or,tales of sorrow done,Shouldered his crutch,and showed how fields were won."During the day he carried his wallet from door to door in Agen,or amongst the farmhouses in the neighbourhood;and when he came home at eve he emptied his wallet and divided the spoil amongst the family.If he obtained,during his day's journey,some more succulent morsel than another,he bestowed it upon his grandson Jacques,whom he loved most dearly.

Like all healthy boys,young Jasmin's chief delight was in the sunshine and the open air.He also enjoyed the pleasures of fellowship and the happiness of living.Rich and poor,old and young,share in this glorified gladness.Jasmin had as yet known no sorrow.His companions were poor boys like himself.

They had never known any other condition.

Just as the noontide bells began to ring,Jasmin set out with a hunch of bread in his hand--perhaps taken from his grandfather's wallet--to enjoy the afternoon with his comrades.Without cap or shoes he sped'away.The sun was often genial,and he never bethought him of cold.On the company went,some twenty or thirty in number,to gather willow faggots by the banks of the Garonne.

"Oh,how my soul leapt!"he exclaimed in his Souvenirs,"when we all set out together at mid-day,singing.'The Lamb whom Thou hast given me,'a well known carol in the south.

The very recollection of that pleasure even now enchants me.

'To the Island--to the Island!'shouted the boldest,and then we made haste to wade to the Island,each to gather together our little bundle of fagots."The rest of the vagrants'time was spent in play.They ascended the cliff towards the grotto of Saint John.They shared in many a contest.They dared each other to do things--possible and impossible.There were climbings of rocks,and daring leaps,with many perils and escapades,according to the nature of boys at play.At length,after becoming tired,there was the return home an hour before nightfall.And now the little fellows tripped along;thirty fagot bundles were carried on thirty heads;and the thirty sang,as on setting out,the same carol,with the same refrain.