"Yes, I have been a fine hand at it," he said, after sending for a jug of ale, and two bell-rummers; "there never was a cloud, but I know the meaning of 'un, though without they long names they has now. Bessie, my dear, fetch Ticknor's marks. Don't care much to do it now – nought to lose or gain of it. Not much odds to this land of England now, what weather God Almighty please to send. 'And when they shamed the Lord out of caring to mind the harvest, the Government goeth for to hirritate Him more, with a Hoffice to tell us what sort of hat to put upon our heads, when us can't pay for none. But I'll bet my Sunday beaver against his band of gold. What say to that, Mr. Cranleigh? I stuck 'un on the barn-door every marnin' as long as there was anything to care for in the whitfields. It covereth a whole year, don't it, Bessie? Cross stands for wrong, and straight line for right."
Ticknor's marks, as he called his calendar, certainly seemed to hit the mark more often than the men of science did. On a great blackboard were pasted in parallel columns the "Daily forecasts" and Farmer Ticknor's predictions entered at noon of each preceding day. His pretty daughter Bessie, the editor, no doubt, of his oracles, displayed them with no little pride.
"If you will be pleased to observe, Mr. Cranleigh" – Bessie had been at a boarding-school – "my father's predictions are in manuscript of course," – and much better than he could write, thought I, – "while the authorised forecasts are in type. Now the crosses on the manuscript are not quite five per cent; while those upon the printing exceed seventy-five. If there were any impartiality in politics, don't you think, Mr. Cranleigh, they would give father the appointment? And he would be glad to do it in these bad times, for less than half the money. Though we must not blame the gentlemen who have to do it all through the window."
"You never hear me boast," interrupted the farmer; "there never was that gift in our family. But I'll go bail to give that Meatyard man, or whatever they calls 'un, five pips out of ten – all this reckoning by scents hath come after my time – and give 'un twelve hours longer with his arrows and his dots; and then I'll name the day agin him, for the best joint in his yard. But bless your heart and mine too, Master Jarge, what odds for the weather now? Why, even the hay, they tell me now, is to come in little blocks from foreign parts. Make a ton of it they say they can by hyderaulic something come out not a morsel bigger than the parish-Bible. Well, well! Well, well!"
Knowing that if he once began upon "Free Trade," there would be many changes of weather before he stopped, I brought him back to the other subject, and contrived to lead him as far as the margin of the wood, where the clouds by which he made his divinations could be contemplated more completely; but he told me a great deal about their meanings, although he knew nothing of their names; all of which I forget, though I tried to attend.
It was not for any knowledge of clouds, or weather, or politics, or even harvest-prospects, that I was come to see this Prophet Ticknor in the woods. My mother's favourite subject was the "Fulfilment of Prophecy;" but what I cared for now, and thought myself bound to follow out, was the vision (seen by others as well as myself) of a foreign young maiden – if it must be so – unequalled by any of English birth. The prevalence of loose commercial ideas, and the prostitution of Britannia (so highly respected while she locked her own gate), had given me a turn against things foreign, though none but my enemies could call me narrow-minded. And here I was open to conviction, as usual, with a strong prepossession against my country, or, at any rate, against her girls, however lovely.
"I suppose you don't happen to know," I said to that excellent Ticknor, while still among his clouds, "whether anybody lives in that old place, where there seems to be such a lot of black stuff? What is it? Ivy it looks like. And old walls behind it, or something very old. I think I have heard of some old Monastery there; and it was part of our property long and long ago. Oh, Farmer Ticknor, how everything does change!"
The farmer afforded me a glance of some suspicion. Narrow trade-interests had got the better of him. "You be gone into the retail line," he said. "To think of the Cranleighs coming down to that. But you don't sell milk by the quart now, do 'e?"
Though I did not see how it could bear upon the subject, I assured him that most of our milk went to London, under contract with a great man, whose name I mentioned; and the rest we kept for making butter.
"Well, then, I does a good little stroke of business there. Though not much profit out of that, of course. They takes in a gallon-can every morning. And they asked the boy whether I didn't keep no goats."
"Goats! Why then they must be foreigners," I said. "No English people care about goat's milk. At least, unless their doctor orders it."
"They ha'n't got no doctor, and don't want none. A rare strong lot according to all I hear. Toorks I call them, and I put it on the bill, 'Toork Esquire, debtor to John Ticknor.' Having raised no objection, why it stands they must be Toorks."
"But people can't live on milk alone, Mr. Ticknor. And they must have some other name besides Turks. Even if they are Turks, which I scarcely can believe."
"Well, you knows more about them than I do, sir. I never form an opinion, so long as they pays me good English money. But they never has no butcher's meat, nor no beer; and that proves that they bain't English folk. If you want to know more about them, Mr. Cranleigh, the one as can teach you is my dog Grab. Grab feeleth great curiosity about them, because of the big dogs inside the old wall. He hath drashed every other dog in the parish; and it goeth very hard with him to have no chance to drash they. Never mind, old boy, your time will come."
An atrocious bull-dog of the fiercest fighting type, who had followed us from the farmhouse, was nuzzling into his master's grey whiskers. Now I love nearly all dogs, and, as a rule, they are very good to me; but that surly fellow, who is supposed to be the type of our national character, does not appear to me, by any means, adorable. Very faithful he may be, and consistent, and straightforward, and devoted to his duty. But why should he hold it a part of his duty to kill every gentle and accomplished dog he meets, unless the other dips his tail, the canine ensign, to him? And of all the bull-dogs I have ever seen, this Grab was the least urbane and polished. A white beast with three grisly patches destroying all candour of even blood-thirstiness, red eyes leering with treacherous ill-will, hideous nostrils, like ulcers cut off, and enormous jowls sagging from the stark white fangs. He saw that I disliked him, and a hearty desire to feel his tusks meet in my throat was displayed in the lift of his lips, and the gleam of his eyes.
"Wonnerful big hounds they furriners has, according to what my milk-boy says," the farmer continued, with a plaintive air; "but they never lets them free of the big wall hardly, to let Grab see what they be made of. But come back to house, and have a bit of supper with us, before you go home, Mr. Cranleigh. 'T is a roughish ride even in summer-time."
"Thank you; not a bit to eat; but perhaps before I go, another glass of your very fine home-brewed. But I see a tree down in the valley there, that I should like to know more about. I'll follow you back to the house in a few minutes. But how long did you say that those strangers have been here? It seems such an odd thing that nobody appears to know anything about them."
"Well, a goodish long while they must have been there now. And they don't seem to make no secret of it. Bakes their own bread, if they have any; never has any carriage-folk to see them, never comes out with a gun to pot a hare; don't have no fishmonger, butcher, grocer, nor any boy to call out 'papper' at the door. My boy Charlie is uncommon proud, because he have got into their 'Good-morning.' They says it like Christians, so far as he can judge, and naturally he sticketh up for them. You can ask him, Master Jarge, if you think fit. Nothing clandestical about Ticknor's Mew. But none of them Inspectors to pump into our milk, and swear as we did it. That's why I keep you, Grab."
Farmer Ticknor made off with this little grumble, lifting his hat to me, until I should return. For he did not look down upon the "Gentry of the land," for being out at elbows. After thinking for a minute of all that I had heard, which was not very much to dwell upon, I twirled my riding-crop (which I had brought from habit, and been glad to have when I watched Grab's teeth), and set off with a light foot, to explore that lonely valley.
I was now on the opposite side from that by which I had entered it to the tune of the nightingale, and at first I could scarcely