The Vanishing Curtsey - Page 2

the custom is dying out, if, for some reason, strangers are often seen
in the place. Such a village is Selborne, and an amusing experience I
met with there some time ago serves to show that the old rustic
simplicity of its inhabitants is now undergoing a change.

I was walking in the village street with a lady friend when we noticed
four little girls coming towards us with arms linked. As they came near
they suddenly stopped and curtseyed all together in an exaggerated
manner, dropping till their knees touched the ground, then springing to
their feet they walked rapidly away. From the bold, free, easy way in
which the thing was done it was plain to see that they had been
practising the art in something of a histrionic spirit for the benefit
of the pilgrims and strangers frequently seen in the village, and for
their own amusement. As the little Selbornians walked off they glanced
back at us over their shoulders, exhibiting four roguish smiles on
their four faces. The incident greatly amused us, but I am not sure
that the Reverend Gilbert White would have regarded it in the same
humorous light.

Occasionally one even finds a village where strangers are not often
seen, which has yet outlived the curtsey. Such a place, I take it, is
Alvediston, the small downland village on the upper waters of the
Ebble, in southern Wiltshire. One day last summer I was loitering near
the churchyard, when a little girl, aged about eight, came from an
adjoining copse with some wild flowers in her hand. She was singing as
she walked and looked admiringly at the flowers she carried; but she
could see me watching her out of the corners of her eyes.

"Good morning," said I. "It is nice to be out gathering flowers on such
a day, but why are you not in school?"

"Why am I not in school?" in a tone of surprise. "Because the holidays
are not over. On Monday we open."

"How delighted you will be."

"Oh no, I don't _think_ I shall be delighted," she returned. Then
I asked her for a flower, and apparently much amused she presented me
with a water forget-me-not, then she sauntered on to a small cottage
close by. Arrived there, she turned round and faced me, her hand on the
gate, and after gazing steadily for some moments exclaimed, "Delighted
at going back to school--who ever heard such a thing?" and, bursting
into a peal of musical child-laughter, she went into the cottage.

One would look for curtseys in the Flower Walk in Kensington Gardens as
soon as in the hamlet of this remarkably self-possessed little maid.
Her manner was exceptional; but, if we must lose the curtsey, and the
rural little ones cease to mimic that pretty drooping motion of