Susan Spray (Virago modern classics) Book

"Susan dreamed a strange dream ... She had a curious sensation of being mistress of the world and of the suns, and she seemed to hear herself saying over and over again I my own - I am my own". This is an unusual account of the life and loves of a Sussex farm labourer-s daughter who became a female preacher. CONTENTS: Part OneSUSAN SPRAYPart TwoSUSAN STRUDWICKPart ThreeSUSAN CLARABUTPart FourSUSAN PELLa selection from Part One * Susan Spray: - 1 Susan Spray was born at Copthorne on the Surrey and Sussex borders, in the year 1834. Her father was a poor field labourer working on a farm known as Pickdick. He had married early, and at Susan's birth was only twenty-two. He and his wife Ruth were inordinately proud of their first child, who was a pretty little girl, small-boned and graceful, quite an elegant little lady compared with the roundabout red-faced children of the neighbours. Ruth Spray used to call her "My lady," and pretend she was very grand; she made her two little calico dresses, one pink and one blue, working them with feather-stitching, as she could not afford lace. By the time Susan had grown out of them, which was not till she was three, there were two little sisters waiting to wear them, Tamar and Ruth. Tamar was dark and delicate like Susan, but Ruth was fat and pippin-faced, a great grabber and screamer and roller in the mud. Eighteen months later came Aaron the first boy, and the parents were trustful enough in God's providence to be proud and glad. They were still proud when Elis and William, the twins, were born in the spring of 1840, that hungry year, but not so glad, for life was already becoming difficult in the little cottage known as the Boot. Adam Spray earned nine shillings a week on Pickdick, and had besides his cottage, a hundred faggots a year and free gleaning. It was not a bad wage for a man in his position, but it was scarcely enough to feed his family of eight in those hard times. Ruth Spray made puddings of flour and water for dinner, and on Sundays there might be a rabbit for them all. At first they had kept a pig, which they had fed on a swill made of scraps, also hens, which they fattened on the sharps and meal left over when their gleanings were ground at the mill. But now there were no scraps for pigs--every piece that was left over went to make the flour dumplings more nourishing; and as there was no money to pay the miller, they had to let him have the offal of the grain instead. Those were hard days for field-labouring men. The Corn Laws drove up the price of flour to three shillings a stone, and other articles of food were dear in proportion. The Game Laws also were strictly enforced, and at Copthorne it was a crime even to snare a coney. None the less, Adam Spray put out his snare in the field down by the Spinney, for without it his family would have starved. Pickdick was not an over-prosperous farm, and the men did not receive those bounties of skim-milk, dung, and straw that would have made all the difference between the struggle of failure and the struggle of success. The Manor, besides, did not play its usual bountiful part in the neighbourhood. In some districts a whole village would be clothed by the Squire, while in others every inhabitant might expect two quarts a week of soup from his kitchen in winter. But at Copthorne the Squire was indifferent and much away from home. He was, moreover, a widower and a childless man; there was no "young ladies" to visit and report cases of poverty. The villagers and labourers on the farms must shift as best they could.Read More