# The Vicar of Wakefield/Volume 1/Chapter 4

CHAP. IV.
The place of our new retreat was in a little neighbourhood, consisting of farmers, who tilled their own grounds, and were equal strangers to opulence and poverty. As they had almost all the con­veniencies of life within themselves, they seldom visited towns or cities in search of superfluity. Remote from the polite, they still retained a primaeval simplicity of man­ners, and frugal by long habit, scarce knew that temperance was a virtue. They wrought with chearfulness on days of la­bour; but observed festivals as intervals of idleness and pleasure. They kept up the ​Christmas carol, sent true love-knots on Valentine morning, eat pancakes on Shrove­tide, shewed their wit on the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on Michael­mas eve. Being apprized of our approach, the whole neighbourhood came out to meet their minister, drest in their finest cloaths, and preceded by a pipe and tabor: also a feast was provided for our reception, at which we sat chearfully down; and what the conversation wanted in wit, we made up in laughter.
Our little habitation was situated at the foot of a sloping hill, sheltered with a beautiful underwood behind, and a prat­ling river before; on one side a meadow, on the other a green. My farm consisted of about twenty acres of excellent land, having given an hundred pound for my predecessor's good-will. Nothing could ex­ceed the neatness of my little enclosures: the elms and hedge rows appearing with inexpressible beauty. My house consisted of but one story, and was covered with thatch, which gave it an air of great snug​­ness; the walls on the inside were nicely white-washed, and my daughters undertook to adorn them with pictures of their own designing. Though the same room served us for parlour and kitchen, that only made it the warmer. Besides, as it was kept with the utmost neatness, the dishes, plates, and coppers, being well scoured, and all dis­posed in bright rows on the shelves, the eye was agreeably relieved, and did not seem to want rich furniture. There were three other apartments, one for my wife and me, another for our two daughters, within our own, and the third, with two beds, for the rest of my children.
The little republic to which I gave laws, was regulated in the following manner: by sun-rise we all assembled in our common appartment; the fire being previously kindled by the servant. After we had sa­luted each other with proper ceremony, for I always thought fit to keep up some mechanical forms of good breeding, with­out which freedom ever destroys friendship, ​we all bent in gratitude to that Being who gave us another day. This duty being performed, my son and I went to pursue our usual industry abroad, while my wife and daughters employed themselves in pro­viding breakfast, which was always ready at a certain time. I allowed half an hour for this meal, and an hour for dinner; which time was taken up in innocent mirth be­tween my wife and daughters, and in phi­losophical arguments between my son and me.
As we rose with the sun, so we never pursued our labours after it was gone down, but returned home to the expecting family; where smiling looks, a neat hearth, and pleasant fire, were prepared for our recep­tion. Nor were we without other guests: sometimes farmer Flamborough, our talk­ative neighbour, and often the blind piper, would pay us a visit, and taste our goose­berry wine; for the making of which we had lost neither the receipt nor the reputa­tion. These harmless people had several ​ways of being good company, while one played the pipes, another would sing some soothing ballad, Johnny Armstrong's last good-night, or the cruelty of Barbara Al­len. The night was concluded in the man­ner we began the morning, my youngest boys being appointed to read the lessons of the day, and he that read loudest, distinct­est, and best, was to have an halfpenny on Sunday to put in the poor's box.
When Sunday came, it was indeed a day of finery, which all my sumptuary edicts could not restrain. How well so ever I fancied my lectures against pride had con­quered the vanity of my daughters; yet I still found them secretly attached to all their former finery: they still loved laces, ribbands, bugles and catgut; my wife her­self retained a passion for her crimson pa­duasoy, because I formerly happened to say it became her.
The first Sunday in particular their beha­viour served to mortify me: I had desired my ​girls the preceding night to be drest early the next day; for I always loved to be at church a good while before the rest of the congregation. They punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were to as­semble in the morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters, drest out in all their former splendour: their hair plais­tered up with pomatum, their faces patched to taste, their trains bundled up into an heap behind, and rustling at every mo­tion. I could not help smiling at their va­nity, particularly that of my wife, from whom I expected more discretion. In this exigence, therefore, my only resource was to order my son, with an important air, to call our coach. The girls were amazed at the command; but I repeated it with more solemnity than before.—"Surely, my dear, you jest," cried my wife, "we can walk it perfectly well: we want no coach to carry us now." "You mis­take, child," returned I, "we do want a coach; for if we walk to church in this trim, the very children in the parish ​will hoot after us for a show."—"In­deed," replied my wife, "I always ima­gined that my Charles was fond of see­ing his children neat and handsome about him."—"You may be as neat as you please," interrupted I, "and I shall love you the better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These rufflings, and pinkings, and patch­ings, will only make us hated by all the wives of all our neighbours. No, my children," continued I, more gravely, "those gowns may be altered into some­thing of a plainer cut; for finery is very unbecoming in us, who want the means of decency. I don't know whe­ther such flouncing and shredding is be­coming even in the rich, if we consider, upon a moderate calculation, that the nakedness of the indigent world may be cloathed from the trimmings of the vain."
This remonstrance had the proper ef­fect; they went with great composure, ​that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day I had the satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request employed in cutting up their trains into Sunday waistcoats for Dick and Bill, the two little ones, and what was still more sa­tisfactory, the gowns seemed improved by being thus curtailed.