May 25th. When told of the maid’s state, and the necessity of saving a girl’s reputation, by adoption of the child, my wife took it ill.
This beginning of June, was the clover lea cut for hay. The weather being doubtful the second day, we enlarged the cocks and did not turn them, but left a hollow within to allow air to penetrate and dry. A steady rain for half a day did little damage therefore, and the weather is dry once more. As experiment, I left at least three cocks’-worth tedded over the field at nightfall, and on returning in the dewy morning found that the moisture had penetrated and expelled some of the juices, mixing with the sap, and so expelling also the smell of the grass, which in the cocks was exhaled much stronger: these having not been in contact, excepting their bases, with the nitrous properties of dew. I indicated this to the mowers and even the gatherers, but they seemed not to understand. The women and children laughed at my talk, indeed. One hay-rake broke upon a stone the last day, its brace having come loose, but not spotted in time. The grass having been mown at the time it began to knot, this crop should be exceeding rich, whereas if left longer, so that the stems are showing, it will be thinner and sourer. The crop has not suffered overmuch from the dry, although the barley amongst it is somewhat thin and brownish.
The maid has taken to a fuller skirt. She appears robust. I have put aside already the cost of her carrying, which she agreed at 7s, which is indeed a princely sum for a natural task, involving as it did her pleasure, which 1 have asked the Lord His forgiveness for.
June 20th: a hard rainfall, that left the barley ears dripping, and the thatch-runnel to go down my neck, and the corn to lose its thirst by, for it fell for two hours without cease.
I found this day, upon entering the hogs-yard, my wife seated amidst the peelings with a clout about her head, looking exceeding merry. My brandy bottle lay broken upon the ground, and I feared for the animals that their feet may be penetrated by the pieces of glass, and rendered maim. She allowed me to take her back into her bed, and I noted that she had clarted her hands and face with hogs’-dung, and washed her in silence, for I was angered by this display which was injurious to all our reputations, since it was seen by several of the servants gathered for their payment that evening, this being the close of the month, and no doubt chosen by her for that very reason. I have spoken to Dr Kemp, after the Meeting yesterday, who advises rest, and a medicament of some tincture with a Latin name that smells of camomile underfoot in autumn, but is not. My wife is going mad, owing, no doubt, to the confinement and its subsequent effects some time ago referred to. I prayed with her that God might meliorate her condition, and render her fit. Today was very hot. The sun has already undone the wetness of the recent rain, and the earth cracks and is friable underfoot. The odours of the aforesaid hogs’-dung are not displeasing, however, within these walls, as they turn my mind to Improvements.
The peas in the top field are somewhat thinnish. The new trees I planted thereabout to fend off the northerly winds have a blighted look owing to the lack of rain, but they have life in them yet, and should serve. My bird-boy bagged two ravens this morning with a sling-shot, and hung them out to smell off the others. On close inspection, the raven resembles Jewry, with its beak, that is larger than an ordinary crow’s, and its feathers, that are loose about the neck, like a Jew’s scarf in the illustrations. This same bird-boy, however, killed a rook last week, which no more resembles the ordinary crow than I resemble a common thief. He is no more than nine, but has an exceeding lack of teeth, which I put to his habit of chewing on sticks, which he does without cease from dawn to nightfall, as well as a certain tendency to brawls with his elders in the village. Despite the heat, he wears a coat of the thickest hide. I dwell upon this boy because he is the same age as my own would have been, had the good Lord seen fit to let him be so. How strange divine Justice appears to us mortals below, when one sees this boy hollering from his station by the oak on the headland, brought into this world only to scare off or slaughter scavengers such as himself, if of a lower order!
On my return from market this day, I made way for a shearing team of twenty or so, who were white from head to foot from the dust of the road, on the way to Squire Norcoat’s, and who resembled the fleeces they were to relieve the sheep of.
This day, July 1st, I made the girl lift her dress so that I might feel the belly. She is well filled, and ripe in the cheeks. She asks now for 8s, but I have remained firm. My wife has gone flueish, and remains abed. Dr Kemp inspected her stool this day, and pronounced it of a better colour than before. She is much disturbed this night by strains of music, which she believes to be of angelic origin, but which I have informed her (to no avail) has been carried by the breeze, this being south-easterly, from the concert at the Hall, that Lord and Lady Chalmers are giving for their heir’s coming-of-age, and is said to be very grand. I have seen lights moving in the trees, that are afar, yet there being no moon the merriment may be thus glimpsed, as well as heard.
I write this late, and unsteadily. The rags from London arrived midday, in two carts, and I hesitated where to store them. I chose a cart-shed built before my grandfather’s time and half stoved-in by weather and time, but great enough for the purpose. The rags smelt strong, of vagrants, sweat and suchlike, and I was chary of touching them, fearing pox and so on, but the carter was keen for a 1d to unload, and did so. Hearing a noise, like that of an animal in distress, from the rear of the shed, where the wood abuts us, and is much given over to bramble and bedwine and pernicious shrubs, and is generally wild, some of it clinging to the shed wall, and pulling at the old bricks, I ventured round with a mattock, and saw between the leafy growth into an unexpected clearing, wherein my maid and a newish labourer taken on for the harvest were coupled, he crouched behind like a bull, she on her fours with her belly and dugs suspended, tupping as the beasts do. I stood fixed to my station, and they continued unawares, half-concealed by the wild growth, while the carter unloaded nearby, whistling. I confess I cried, and the noise disturbing them, they uncoupled, and grinned foolishly, and I drove off the labourer, by the name of Griffin, with my mattock, and he was much torn, it appeared, by the wild growth he fled through. I seized the maid by the shoulders, and shook her vigorously, whereupon she turned pale, and I left off. On enquiring why she should risk 7s and the child by bathing its head in another man’s seed, this being pernicious in the extreme to its health, even its life, she gave me notice of her intent to tell Parson Brazier (old fool though he be) of the true declination of the bellying, that her conscience might be appeased, and she might enter into the Kingdom of Heaven anywise. We agreed, therefore, to 9s. I am employing twelve old people from the village to chop up the rags upon a block set out for the purpose, which will cost circa 7d per hundred pieces. My head is full of pence and shillings this day, and the wet-heading of my heir by a common labourer hurts me greatly, but I must proceed gently. The stink of the rags is still about my person, much of it of smoke from the city, as well as of general poverty. I noted one shirt to have the stain of blood all down its front, whether from illness or some heinous action I will never fathom. I am keen to bury them, that they might go finnowy the quicker.