Winter gloom hangs in the skies, the cloud meeting the mist above the trees. We were off to church this morning, my wife riding in her chair against the cold, and I in my cloak with high fur collar and fur hat, so that if a bear had met me on the way he would have announced me brother.
A poor sermon and poorer singing. I am confirmed in my view that singing with many voices is not singing but an instrumental chorus, with the sense of the words lost. There should be one or two voices at most, and one a counterpoint. But, as a gentleman, I did not inform the parson of this.
Espied old Kneebone, my farmer Lear, escorted by both daughters. I bade him joy of the season, and asked him how his new state be.
The old man laughed. ‘I should have done it five years back when my old Bessie died, God rest her soul. Strong sons to build strong fires, grandchildren at my knee, and my Kate’s cooking! What man can wish for more?’
I wished him health and a good year, and watched them go, both daughters helping the old man to his chair, the sons-in-law to carry him. Stratford, it seems, does not breed a Lear, only the man who wrote him.
Nor does it seem we have a witch, for Susanna today at dinner told us how old Mistress Feathergale hunts snails all the summer (the woods here are rich in them) and grinds their shells and all to make a broth, and dries them for her winter feasts as well. Snails and nettles, hazelnuts and pippins, and berries of the field, the food of a poor woman who knows the fruits to glean about the forest. No witchcraft; though I be glad her dinner is not ours.
This town is what it was in my childhood: a market town; and, at its heart, a market too, of sheep and meat and fleeces. Crabbed and confined I found it then, and as a gentleman I find it so as well.
Once today in church I thought I smelt a breeze from far-off lands of sun: the scent of oranges and flowers; Verona or even Venice, where, they say, the women have more beauty than any others in the world, and the meanest hovel is a palace bright with frescos and poet’s song. But when I breathed again it was but the pomander Susanna carries, made by her good husband, to ward off the sour smells of the congregation.
Home, to the same faces I have seen all winter, where only dinner varies and my bowels.
Tomorrow I must check that our garden beds are freshly manured to make heat to give us winter strawberries, asparagus and spinach and all salletting; that the cauliflowers are protected each night and still fat; that the new orange and lemon trees be protected, as are my apricots and grapes. Perhaps next year I may venture to grow pineapples. Ah, what adventures to look forward to. My ambition has come to this, that I may grow a pineapple.
Dinner: saddle of mutton, stuffed and baked; collops of pork with green sauce; a pheasant pie; mushrooms, pickled; a dish of onions, baked; a pie of strawberries, preserved; a medlar jelly. Second course: glazed leg of kid with sauce of Carmeline; chickens stuffed with raisins of the sun; buttered worts; pies of Paris; baked pears; olives; nuts; the claret, this time spiced with caraway and apple.
Bowels: stopped.