I visited the old Alton farm, and obtained all particulars of the latest kind of hop-kiln in the neighbourhood from the inventor, and instructed him to prepare plans and specifications for the conversion of an old malthouse close to the Manor. I contracted with Tom G. for all the carpenter's work, and with an excellent stonemason or bricklayer for that belonging to his department. They both entered with enthusiasm upon the job, and we had many interesting discussions as to improvement, as it proceeded. Tom G. was a man of great resource, and could always find a way out of every difficulty; he told me, before we began, that he could see the completed building as if actually finished, just as a great sculptor once said how easy it was to produce a statue from a block of marble, for all he had to do was to cut away the superfluous material!

The alterations entailed a new roof from end to end of the old building, and a new floor for the upper part, the length being about 70 and the width about 20 feet. The old roof was covered mostly with stone-slates—flakes of limestone from the Cotswolds—very uneven in size and rough as to surface, and in part with ordinary blue slates. The latter lie much more closely on the laths, the stone slates allowing the passage of more air between them, and it was interesting to find that while the ancient laths under the stone slates were fairly well preserved, those beneath the blue slates were much decayed, evidently from the fact of the damp in an unheated building remaining longer where the air was excluded, though one would have expected the close-lying blue slates to be the better protection of the two.

Much expense was saved by Tom G.'s economical use of materials; wherever the old oak beams could be used again they were incorporated with the new work. He never cut sound old or new pieces of timber to waste; almost every scrap came in somewhere, for he worked with his head as well as his hands.

The difference in this respect is very noticeable in different men; an old plumber once told me that he had been employed upon a pump on a neighbouring farm, where the slot in which the handle works was so worn on one side that the bolt which carries the handle had given way, owing to the man, who had used it for years, not keeping it running truly in the centre. He called the man's attention to the cause of the damage, and, being a sententious old fellow, asked him why he didn't think what he was doing. The answer was, "I'm not paid to think."

The hop-kiln was a great success, and later, with the same workmen, I added two more, as my hopyards extended, on exactly the same lines. They would probably have been annually in use in the picking season up to the present time had it not been that the low prices ruling latterly have rendered a crop which requires so much labour, knowledge, and supervision, not worth growing.

I hear, however, with much satisfaction, that these old hop-kilns and storerooms have been of great service during the war for drying medicinal herbs, chiefly belladonna and henbane, and that in 1917 the turnover exceeded L6,000.



CHAPTER V.



AN OLD FASHIONED SHEPHERD—OLD TRICKER—A GARDENER—MY SECOND HEAD CARTER—A LABOURER.

"Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way." —GRAY'S Elegy.

I had experiences of various shepherds, and the man I remember best was John C. Short, sturdy, strong, and willing, he was somewhat prejudiced and old-fashioned, with many traditions and inherited convictions as to remedies and the treatment of sheep. John had a knowing expression; his nose projected and his forehead and chin retreated, so that his profile was angular. He wore the old-fashioned long smock-frock—not the modern short linen jacket which goes by the name of smock, but a garment that reached to his knees, with a beautifully worked front over the chest. It is a pity that these old smock-frocks are no longer in vogue: I never see one now; they were most picturesque, and afforded great protection from the rough weather which a shepherd has constantly to face. His hat was of soft felt, placed well towards the back of his head, and, behind it, he wore a wealth of curls overlapping the collar of his smock. John was very proud of his curls; he told a group of men, who were sheep-dipping with him, that the parasites of the sheep, which are formidable in appearance, never troubled him until they reached his head. "Into them curls, I suppose, John?" said a flippant bystander. John was pleased that his most attractive feature should receive even this recognition.

Altogether he presented a notable figure, and one quite typical of his profession, especially when armed with his staff of office, his crook. He was inclined to superstitious beliefs, and told me when I noticed the matted condition of the manes of some colts domiciled in a distant set of buildings that he reckoned "Old P. G."—an ancient dame in a neighbouring cottage with a reputation for witchcraft—"had been a-ridin' of 'em on moonlight nights." This matted appearance of colts' manes, which is only the natural result of their not being groomed or combed when young and unbroken, was known in many country places as "hag-ridden." Such superstitions are now nearly, if not quite, extinct, but still linger in old place-names, for it was usual in former times to attribute any uncommon or surprising physical appearance to supernatural agency. Thus we have such names as "Devil's Dyke," "Devil's Punchbowl," "Puck Pits," "Pokes-down" (Puck's Down), and many others.

The fairy rings, too, which puzzled our ancestors, are explicable by a natural process. The starting-point is a fungus, Marasmius oreades, which in due course sheds its spores in a tiny circle around it; the decay of the fungus supplies nitrogen to the grass, and renders it dark green in colour. The circle expands, always outwards, more and more fungi appearing every year; it does not return inwards because the mineral constituents of the soil are exhausted by the growth of the fungus and of the grass, under the stimulus of the abundant nitrogen left by the former, so that the dark ring of grass extends its diameter year by year.

In the Tempest Shakespeare refers to the fairies:

"... That By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites."

John carried a magic bottle of caustic liniment for application to the feet of sheep affected with the complaint called "foot-rot." The cause of this troublesome disease is excessive development of the walls of the hoof, owing to the animals grazing exclusively on wet pasture, the surface of which is too soft to keep them worn down; the walls gradually double over and collect wet mud, which causes inflammation. It never occurred on my arable land, either among ewes or younger sheep, but whenever I bought sheep from the flint stones of Hampshire and grazed them on soft pasture, it soon made its appearance. The remedy is timely and constant paring of the hoof before any tendency to lameness is observed, and when this is properly attended to no caustic application is necessary. Lame sheep indicate an inefficient shepherd, and the disorder has been well called "Shepherd's Neglect."

An eminent breeder of prize Hampshire Down sheep told me that, when contemplating the exhibition of sheep, the first necessity is to get a "prize shepherd," a man with a presence, and a reputation which he would not risk in the show-ring without something worth exhibiting. I started a flock of pedigree Shropshires, but my land was too good and grew them too big and coarse for showing, and I soon found that it was useless to try, though I succeeded in taking a prize at the Warwickshire county show. It so happened that when my shepherd (not John) returned in great triumph from the show, he found his first-born son, who had arrived in his absence, awaiting him. "Well done, shupperd," said a neighbour, "got him a son and a prize the same day!"

John was jealous of any interference in his remedial measures for ailing sheep, but my wife, who doctored the village generally, was anxious to try her hand, having little faith in his skill; so we arranged that the next time he had what he considered a hopeless case it was to be given over to her exclusively. The opportunity soon occurred; a ewe was found caught by the fleece in some rough briars in an old hedge, where it had been some hours in great distress, and, with much struggling to free itself, it was quite exhausted. Pneumonia supervened, and when John thought it impossible to save its life he handed the case over to my wife. She succeeded, chiefly, I think, by careful nursing, in pulling it through, much to John's surprise; doubtless he thought its recovery a lucky fluke. John was given to occasional alcoholic lapses; on one occasion I found him aimlessly driving sheep across a field of growing mangolds! I could see that he was muddled, and on reaching home later I sought an interview. He was not to be found, but at his cottage his wife told me that John was not very well. I postponed my reckoning till the following day, when, with great readiness, he explained how it happened. "The day before," he said, "I frained my fittle (refrained from my victuals) all day, and when I got up yesterday I didn't feel justly righteous (quite right) ov my inside; so I gets a bit of 'bacca, just about as much as you med put in your pipe (this, apparently, to incriminate me), and I putts it at the bottom of a tay-cup, with a drop ov rum; then I fills it up with hot tay and drinks it off, and very soon I felt it a coming over (overcoming) mer (me)."

Sheep-breeding was not one of the most important branches of farming in my part of Worcestershire: the land is too stiff and wet, they thrive much better on the Cotswolds or the chalk downs of Hampshire. At one time I visited the latter county every summer, attending the big fairs like Overton or Alresford, for the purpose of buying 100 draft ("full-mouthed") ewes from one of the best flocks. It was very interesting in the early morning, reaching Overton by rail from Basingstoke, where I had passed the night at the Red Lion with L300 in bank-notes under my pillow, to see the gipsies in the village asleep on the ground under their vans, the girls sometimes awake, combing their hair, and beautifying themselves in readiness for the pleasure fair where they were to appear in charge of the shooting-galleries and competitions. A short walk, with only time for a passing glance at the speckled trout near the bridge over the Itchen, which I never omitted, took me to the sheep-pens on the hill-top where the fair is held. One could see the flocks, with their shepherds always in front and the dogs behind, winding along the narrow lanes, which, from all directions, lead to the hill, in a cloud of chalky dust, flock after flock with only a few dividing yards between them. It is advisable to reach the fairground thus early, to see the sheep before they are penned; they can be much better inspected in the open than when packed close together, and a more reliable opinion of their condition can be formed. From the aesthetic point of view the grand old shepherds interested me most, dignified, patriarchal men, with a reserve of strength of character evident in their rugged features, and the patience and hardihood that takes little heed of exposure to every variety of weather.

The sheep were sold by auction, and when I had bought a pen of 100, generally from Lord Ashburton's flock, paid the auctioneer's clerk as soon as possible and received a ticket permitting the release of the sheep, as the roads in all directions are soon crowded, I induced the shepherd to help in driving them to the railway-station. He was always a dear old fellow, and full of interesting information. On reaching the station we packed the sheep into three open trucks, so close that they could not jump out, and despatched them to Worcestershire, whither they would arrive about noon the following day. We never had a mishap with them on the journey, but they were terribly thirsty on reaching Aldington, and made straight for water immediately.

Old Tricker came to Worcestershire originally with a farmer who migrated from Suffolk, which proves him to have been a valuable man. But he was worn out even when he first came to work for me, though as willing and industrious as ever. My bailiff often praised him—for his work was excellent, if somewhat slow on account of his age—and used to tell him that "All as be the matter with you, Tricker, is that you was born too soon," which was only too true, for he must have been the oldest man on the farm by at least twenty years. He was a steady worker, and was often so absorbed in his job, such as hoeing, that, being, moreover, somewhat deaf, he was not aware of my approach until I was quite close. On such occasions, with a violent start, he always said: "My word, how you did frighten I, to be sure! Shows I don't look about me much, however, don't it?"

He was fond of fairs, wakes, and "mops"—no doubt they were reminiscent of old days, for he lived in the past—and he would often beg a day off for such outings; he was a subject for the chaff of the other men for his gaiety when these jaunts took place. They pretended that, as a widower for many years, it was time for him to think of another courtship. On a festive occasion, when we were giving a dinner to all the men and their wives, great amusement was caused by crackers, which the guests, I think, had never seen before, containing paper caps and imitation jewellery; and it was a merry scene when all around the tables were decorated in the most incongruous fashion. Old Tricker happened to become possessed of a plain gilt wedding-ring, and of course chaff was levelled at him from all sides: "Ah, Tricker; sly dog, sly dog!" and so on. He was greatly pleased, accepting good-naturedly the part of pantaloon of the piece; and I am sure, from his beaming smiles, he felt, for a time at least, dozens of years younger.

Years before, when still able to do a good day's work, he walked to Ipswich to revisit his old home, a distance of about 160 miles, which he accomplished in four days, and returned in the same time. He had been specially struck by the building of a new post-office there—this must have been at least thirty years before the time of which I am writing. One of my brothers who lived near Ipswich was visiting me, and I introduced him to the old man, knowing that they would have common interests. No sooner did Tricker hear that my brother had just come from Ipswich than he inquired anxiously if the new post-office was finished. "Oh yes, and pulled down some years ago, and a new one built!" Tricker was astonished; the years had evidently slipped by him unnoticed, and no record of dates remained in his memory.

Tricker often got a little mixed in the names of novelties or in unusual words. I chanced to pass him one day along the road, on my omnicycle, and next time I saw him he referred to it, adding: "I didn't know as you'd got a phlorsopher (velocipede and philosopher)"! Some of my land had been occupied by the Romans in very distant days, and coins and pottery were frequently found. Tricker, having heard of the Romans, also of Roman Catholics, jumbled them together, and "reckoned" that the former inhabitants of these fields were "some of those old Romans or Cartholics."

This mixture of words, generally bearing some relation to each other, was not infrequently carried still further by making one word of two. With some of the villagers "conservatory" stood for conservative and tory, and "containment" for concert and entertainment. A messenger who was asked to bring Daniel Deronda from the Evesham library returned with the announcement that "Dannel Deronomy" was not available; this appeared to be a confusion between the books of Daniel and Deuteronomy. A cook (not a Worcestershire person) was asked if the papers had come. "Yes; the Standard has arrived, but not the Condy's fluid (Connoisseur) "! The regatta at Evesham was always "the regretta." An old sexton working in a churchyard, from whom I inquired if there was a bridge over the river, replied: "Only a temperance bridge (temporary bridge)."

Tricker, as a very typical representative of the agricultural labourer in old age, was engaged as model for a figure in a picture by Mr. Chevalier Taylor, then staying in Badsey. He sat in this capacity when work was not very pressing, and day by day used to repair to the artist's lodgings with his tools on his shoulder. His remuneration was half a crown a day—ordinary day wages for an able-bodied man—but he told me that the inaction was very trying, and that a day as model was much more exacting than a day's work on the farm.

When the old man could no longer complete even a short day's work, and suffered from the cold in winter, he decided to go to the workhouse for a time, but he was out again before the cuckoo was singing, and we found him light jobs "by the piece," so that he could work for as long or as short a time as suited him. He was most grateful for any assistance, and told me that "A little help is worth a deal of sympathy." Eventually he became a permanent inmate of the workhouse, much to my grief; but it is, of course, impossible to run a farm on which heavy poor-rate has to be paid, as a philanthropic institution. The difficulty with aged and infirm persons is not so much food and maintenance as the necessity for nursing and supervision, which are expensive and difficult to arrange. Tricker told me that he could live on sixpence a day, and if it had been a question of food only, and our village could have cut itself adrift from the Union and the rates it entailed, we could easily have more than kept the poor old man to the end of his days in comfort. For years he was the only parishioner receiving any help from the immense sum the parish annually paid in rates. I have heard it said that out of every shilling of the ratepayer's contributions the poor people only get twopence or its equivalent, the officials and administration expenses absorbing the remaining tenpence.

My first gardener had been employed at the Manor, when I came, for very many years, and at the end of ten more he was obliged to resign through old age. He had planted the poplars round the mill-pond in his earliest days, and, among other trees, the beautiful weeping wych-elm on the lawn behind the house. The weeping effect he produced by beheading the tree when quite small and grafting it with a slip of the weeping variety, and the junction was still plainly visible. It was a symmetrical and, especially when in bloom, a lovely tree, but as the blossoms died and scattered themselves all over the grass, they worried the methodical old man, and every spring he wished it had never been planted. It had flourished amazingly, and we could comfortably find sitting room at tea for sixty or seventy people at a garden-party in its shade.

He was an excellent gardener, but did not care about novelties in flowers, though at one time he made a hobby of raising new kinds of potatoes. His greatest success was the original Ashleaf variety, the stock of which he sold to Mr. Myatt for a guinea, and which was afterwards introduced to the public as "Myatt's Early Ashleaf." It was one of the best potatoes ever grown, very early, and splendid in quality, and it was unfortunate that he parted with it so cheaply, though, of course, the purchaser of the first few tubers had no idea of its immense potential value, and possibly, like so many novelties, it might have proved a failure. It is still in cultivation, though its constitution is impaired, like that of all potatoes of long standing. Later on I shall have more to say about this unfortunate tendency to deterioration.

J.E. was one of my most reliable men, working for me, first as under-carter and afterwards as head carter, for, I think, altogether twenty-six years; he was well educated and a great reader, quiet and somewhat reserved, and though his humour did not lie on the surface, he could appreciate a joke. My recollections of him, after his steadiness and reliability, are chiefly of his personal mishaps, for he was an unlucky man in this particular.

I was on my round one morning when I met a breathless carter-boy making for the village. Asked where he was off to, "Please, sir," he replied, "I be to fetch Master E. another pair of trowsers!" "Trousers," said I; "what on earth for?" "Please, sir, the bull ha' ripped 'em!" I hurried on, and soon saw that it was no laughing matter, for I found poor E. in a terrible plight of rags and tatters, sitting in a cart-shed in some outlying buildings, on a roller. The cowman was standing by holding a Jersey bull. The story was soon told. The cowman, having to go into the yard, had asked E. to hold the bull a minute. Unfortunately, the animal had only a halter on him, the cowman having omitted to bring the stick, with hook and swivel, to attach to the bull's nose-ring. No sooner was the cowman out of sight than the bull began to fret, and, turning upon E., knocked him down between a mangoldbury and the outside wall of the yard. In this position he was unable to get a direct attack upon the man, but he managed to gore him badly and tear his clothes to pieces. The cowman, hearing E. calling, came back and rescued him, the bull becoming quite docile with his regular attendant. Poor E. was black and blue when he got home in the pony-cart, and was laid up for many weeks afterwards. He undoubtedly had a very narrow escape. It is curious that, though the Jersey cows are the most docile of any kind, the bulls are the most uncertain and, when annoyed, savage; I had trouble with two or three, and one became so dangerous that he had to be killed in his stall.

E.'s bad luck overtook him again when returning from Evesham with, fortunately, an empty waggon and team; one of the horses was startled, and E. ran forwards to catch the reins. By some means he fell, and the waggon-wheels passed over him; had it been full, as it was on the outward journey, with a heavy load of beans, it would have been a serious matter, but nevertheless he suffered a great deal for some time afterwards.

J.E. must have walked many hundreds of miles among my hops with the horses drawing "the mistifier," a syringing machine which pumped a mist-like spray of soft soap and quassia solution upon the under-side of the hop-leaves, when attacked by the aphis blight; and he must have destroyed many millions of aphides, for the blight was an annual occurrence at Aldington, and taxed our energies to the utmost at one of the busiest times of year.

Mrs. J.E. was, and is, one of those kind persons always ready to do a good turn to a neighbour. She and her husband brought up a large family, all of whom have done well, and a son in the Grenadier Guards especially distinguished himself in the war. She has a remarkable memory for dates of birthdays, weddings, and such-like events, and often writes us one of her interesting letters, full of information of the old village.

I had many experiences of the honesty of the agricultural labourer, but one especially remains in my mind. I.P., a man living some two miles from Aldington, regularly walked the four miles there and back for many years, in addition to his day's work. He was an excellent drainer, and a most useful all-round man, exceedingly strong and willing, bright and cheerful in conversation, and I had a very high opinion of him. I had just reached the end of a long pay when he reappeared—having taken his wages earlier in the proceedings—and asked if I had made a mistake in his money; a sovereign was missing, and he could not remember actually taking it from the table with the rest of the cash. I at once balanced my payments and receipts for the evening, but they corresponded exactly. It was a serious matter, as a half-year's rent was due to the owner of his cottage that day, and I.P. was one of those men who take a pride in paying up with punctuality. I could see, as he realized that the sovereign was lost, how disappointed and worried he felt, and being glad of an opportunity to do him a good turn, I gave him another, and sent him away very grateful. Later still he returned again, placed a sovereign on my table, and said that he had nearly reached home when he felt something hard against his knee, inside his corduroys, where he found the missing coin; there was a hole in his pocket, but the encircling string which labourers tie below the knee had prevented its escape.



CHAPTER VI.



CHARACTERISTICS OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS AND VILLAGERS.

"My crown is in my heart, not on my head: Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones," —3 Henry VI.

The agricultural labourer, and the countryman generally, does not recognize any form of property beyond land, houses, buildings, farm stock, and visible chattels. A groom whom I questioned concerning a new-comer, a wealthy man, in the neighbourhood, summed him up thus: "Oh, not much account—only one hoss and a brougham!" A railway may run through the parish, worth millions of invested capital, but the labourer does not recognize it as such, and a farmer, employing a few men and with two or three thousand pounds in farm stock, is a bigger man in his eyes than a rich man whose capital is invisible.

The labourer in the days of which I am writing was inclined to be suspicious of savings banks and deposit accounts at a banker's; his savings represented a vast amount of hard work and self-denial; and he looked askance at security other than an old stocking or a teapot. He had heard of banks breaking, and felt uncomfortable about them. A story was current in my neighbourhood of a Warwickshire bank in difficulties, where a run was in progress. A van appeared, from which many heavy sacks were carried into the bank, in the presence of the crowd waiting outside to draw out their money. Some of the sacks were seen to be open, and apparently full of sovereigns; confidence was restored, and the run ceased. Later, when all danger was over, it transpired that these supposed resources were fictitious, for the open sacks contained only corn with a thin layer of gold on the top.

Formerly it was said of a certain street in Evesham, chiefly inhabited by market-gardeners and their labourers, that the houses contained more gold than both the banks in the town, and I have no doubt that, even at the present day, there is an immense amount of hoarded money in country places. Only a short while ago, long after the commencement of the Great War, the sale of a small property took place in my neighbourhood, when the purchaser paid down in gold a sum of L600, the bulk of which had earned no interest during the years of collection. No doubt people, as a rule, in these days of war bonds and certificates, have a better idea of investment, but probably a vast sum in possible loans has been lost to the Government through want of previous information on the subject. It should have been a simple matter, during the last fifty years of compulsory education, to teach the rudiments of finance in the elementary schools, and I commend the matter as worth the consideration of educational enthusiasts.

The labourer's attitude, as I have said, is suspicious towards lawyers. I was chatting with a man, specially taken on for harvest, who expressed doubts of them; he continued, "If anybody were to leave me a matter of fifty pounds or so, I'd freely give it 'em," meaning that by the time all charges were paid he would not expect more than a trifle, because he supposed stamps and duties to be a part of the lawyer's remuneration, and that very little would be left when all was paid.

I was once discussing farming matters with a labourer when prospects were looking very black, and ended by saying that I expected soon to be in the workhouse. "Ah, sir," said he, "I wish I were no nearer the workhouse nor you be!" It should not be forgotten that the agricultural labourer's financial horizon does not extend much beyond the next pay night, and were it not for the generosity of his neighbours—for the poor are exceedingly good to each other in times of stress—a few weeks' illness or unemployment, especially where the children are too young to earn anything, may find him at the end of his resources.

Almost the first time I went to Evesham, in passing Chipping Norton Junction—now Kingham—three or four men on the platform, in charge of the police, attracted my attention. I was told that they were rioters, guilty of a breach of the peace in connection with the National Agricultural Labourers' Union, then under the leadership of Joseph Arch. Being so close to my new neighbourhood, where I was just beginning farming, the incident was somewhat of a shock. Arch undoubtedly was the chief instrument in raising the agricultural labourer's wages to the extent of two or three shillings a week, and the increase was justified, as every necessity was dear at the time, owing to the great activity of trade towards the end of the sixties. The farmers resisted the rise only because, already in the early seventies, the flood of American competition in corn-growing was reducing values of our own produce; and as all manufactured goods which the farmer required had largely increased in price, he did not see his way to incur a higher labour bill.

Arch sent a messenger to me a few years later, to ask permission to hold a meeting in Aldington in one of my meadows. I saw at once that opposition would only stimulate antagonism, and consented. The meeting was held, but only a few labourers attended, and no farmers, and agitation, so far as we were concerned, died down. One or two of my men were, I think, members of the Union, but having already obtained the increased wages there was nothing more to be gained for themselves by so continuing, and they soon dropped out of the list. Eventually the organization collapsed. Arch was a labourer himself, and exceedingly clever at "laying" hedges, or "pleaching," as it is still called, and was called by Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing:

"Bid her steal into the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles, ripen'd by the sun, Forbid the sun to enter."

Pleaching is a method of reducing and renovating an overgrown hedge by which all old and exhausted wood is cut out, leaving live vertical stakes at intervals, and winding the young stuff in and out of them in basket-making fashion, after notching it at the base to allow of bending it down without breakage. Arch was a native of Warwickshire, the home of this art; it takes a skilled man to ensure a good result, but when well done an excellent hedge is produced after two or three years' growth. The quickset or whitethorn (May) makes the strongest and most impervious hedge, and it flourishes amazingly on the stiff clay soils of the Lias formation in that county and its neighbour Worcestershire.

I have often wondered at, and admired, the labourer's resignation and fortitude in adversity; a discontented or surly face is rarely seen among them; they have, like most people, to live lives of self-sacrifice, frugality, and industry, which doubtless bring their own compensation, for the exercise and habit of these very virtues tend to the cheerfulness and courage which never give up. Possibly, too, the open-air life, the vitalizing sunshine, the sound sleep, and the regularity of the routine, endows them with an enviable power of enjoyment of what some would consider trifles. After a long day out of doors in the natural beauty of the country, who shall say that the labourer's appetite for his evening meal, his pipe of tobacco beside his bright fireside, and his detachment from the outside world, do not afford him as great or greater enjoyment than the elaborate luxury of the millionaire, with his innumerable distractions and responsibilities?

The labourer has, as I have said, little appreciation of the invisible or what does not appeal strongly to his senses; he cannot understand, for instance, that a small bag of chemical fertilizer, in the form of a grey, inoffensive powder, can contain as great a potentiality for the nutrition of crops as a cartload of evil-smelling material from the farmyard; nor is he aware that, in the case of the latter, he has to load and unload 90 pounds or thereabouts of worthless water in every 100 pounds with which he deals. Possibly, however, his preference for the natural fertilizer is not wholly misplaced, for there is, no doubt, much still to be learned concerning the relative values of natural and artificial compounds with special reference to the bacterial inoculation of the soil and its influence on vegetable life.

He is not without some aesthetic feeling for the glories of Nature daily before him, and though like Peter Bell, of whom we are told that

"A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more,"

and putting aside the metaphysical analogy and the moral teaching which are presented by every tree and plant, he enjoys, I know, the simple beauty of the flower itself, the exhilarating freshness of the bright spring morning, the prodigality of the summer foliage, the ripe autumnal glow of the harvest-field, and the sparkling frost of a winter's day. But he very rarely expresses his enthusiasm in superlatives: "a usefulish lot," and "a smartish few," meaning in Worcestershire "a very good lot," and "a great many," is about the limit to which he will commit himself. His natural reticence in serious situations and calamity, and his reserve in the outlet of feeling by vocal expression, give a wrong impression of its real depth, and may even convey the impression of callousness to anyone not conversant with the working of his mind.

To a nephew of mine who was surprised to see his gardener's little son leaving the garden, the man explained: "That little fellow be come to tell I a middlinish bit of news; 'e come to say as his little sister be dead." Notice the "middlinish bit of news," where a much stronger expression would have been justified, and note the restraint as to his loss, suggesting an unfeeling mind, though in reality very far from the grief he was shy of expressing.

An old woman in a parish adjoining mine, having lost a child, received the condolences of a visitor with, "Yes, mum; we seems to be regular unlucky, for only a few weeks ago we lost a pig."

A lady well known to me, the daughter of the Vicar of a Cumberland parish, was calling on a woman whose husband had died a few days previously, and expressing her sympathy with the widow in her affliction, spoke of the sadness of the circumstances. The widow thanked her visitor, and added: "You know, miss, we was to have killed a pig that week, but there, we couldn't 'ave 'em both about at the same time"!

All these incidents suggest callousness, but in reality they were plain statements of fact from persons with a limited vocabulary and unskilled in the niceties of polished language.

Another incident will illustrate how faulty expression may give an unintended impression. A lady, calling at a cottage, exclaimed with appreciation at the fragrant odour of frying bacon which greeted her. The cottager was busy with it at the fire. "Yes, miss," she said, "it is nice to 'ave a bit of bacon as you've waited on yourself"—of course, referring to the fact that she knew the animal was always fed on really good food, an important and reassuring condition, though a tender heart might have regretted the sacrifice of an intimate creature which some would have regarded almost as a pet.

The cottager does not look upon his pig in that light; it is fed well and comfortably housed with a definite object, and very little love is lost between the pig and his master. Children in some places in Worcestershire were formerly kept at home in order to be present on the great occasion of the pig's obsequies. A woman, asked why her children were absent from school, replied: "Well, sir, you see, we killed our pig that day, and I kept the children at home for a treat; there's no harm in that, sir, I'm sure, for pigs allus dies without malice!"

Villagers accept the novel significations which time or fashion gradually confer upon old words very unreadily. I could see, at first, that they were puzzled by my use of the word "awful," now long adopted generally to strengthen a statement, very much as they themselves make use of "terrible," "desp'rate," or "de-adly." They connect the word "friend" with the signification "benefactor" only; a man, speaking of someone born with a little inherited fortune, said that "his friends lived before him." I told an old labourer that my little daughter considered him a great friend of hers. He looked puzzled, and replied: "Well, I don't know as I ever gave her anything." They still distinguish between two words now carrying the same meaning. I told a man that I was afraid some work he had for me would give him a lot of trouble. He corrected me: "'Twill be no trouble, master, only labour."

The labourer does not appreciate a sudden order or an unreasonable change in work once commenced; he does not like being taken by surprise in such matters: the necessary tool—for farm labourers find their own hand implements—may not be readily available, may be out of order, require grinding, or a visit to the blacksmith's for repair or readjustment. The wise master introduces the subject, whenever possible, gradually beforehand. "We shall have to think about wheat-hoeing, mowing, potato-digging, next week," prepares the man for the occasion, so that when the time comes he has his hoe, axe, scythe, or bill-hook, as the case may be, ready. The job, too, may demand some special clothing—hedging gloves, gaiters, new shoes, and so forth.

He is often suspicious of new arrangements or alteration of hours, and is inclined to attribute an ulterior motive to the proposer of any change in the unwritten but long-accustomed laws which govern his habits; he lives in a groove into which by degrees abuses may have crept, and some alteration may have become imperative.

When we introduced a coal club for the villagers, with the idea of buying several trucks at lowest cash price, collecting their contributions week by week during the previous summer, when good wages were being earned, and delivering the coal gratis in my carts shortly before winter, they seemed very doubtful as to the advantage of joining. Some saw the advantage at once, knowing the high prices of single half-tons or hundredweights delivered in coal-merchants' carts; others would "let us know in a day or two," wanted time to consider the matter, being taken "unawares"; others, assured that nobody would undertake such a troublesome business without an eye to personal profit, but anxious not to offend my daughter, who was visiting each cottage, replied: "Oh yes, miss, if 'tis to do you any good"! Eventually, however, they were all satisfied and very grateful, appreciating the fact that the cartage was not charged for, and that they were getting much better coal than before at a lower price.

Village people, I am afraid, are rather fond of horrors; the newspaper accounts of events which come under that description, such as murders, suicides, and sensational trials, afford, apparently, much interest. A man was working for me on some repairs close to my door; as he was a stranger, I tried, as usual, to induce him to talk whenever I passed. I had no success and could not get a word out of him, until, one morning, I chanced to see a sensational headline in a local paper about a suicide in a neighbouring town. On passing my workman, he immediately broke out in great excitement, "Did you read in the paper about that bloke who went to his father's house at W——, sat down on the doorstep, and cut his throat?" The account had evidently seized upon his imagination, and had thoroughly roused him out of himself, but the following day he was as silent as before.

Births, marriages, and deaths are interesting topics in the village, and perhaps with reason, for, after all, they are the most important events in our lives, and in the villages most of the cottagers are more or less related. All the inhabitants were much excited when a poor old widow, living very near my house, sitting on a low circular stone parapet round her well, lost her balance in some way, fell in, and was drowned. I was foreman of the jury at the inquest, and after hearing the evidence, which amounted to no more than the finding of the body soon after the event, the coroner expressed his opinion that it was a case of accidental death, with which I at once concurred. With some reluctance, the other jurymen agreed; they had, I imagine, as usual, made up their minds for a more sensational verdict, but scarcely liked to suggest it, and a verdict of accidental death was accordingly returned. Afterwards I heard that the villagers were saying that it was very kind of me to bring in such an indulgent verdict, but they "knowed very well it was suicide."

I was invited to the wedding feast of my bailiff's daughter, and being, I suppose, regarded as the principal guest, was, according to custom, requested to carve the excellent leg of mutton which formed the piece de resistance. The parish clerk, considerably over eighty at the time, was one of the most sprightly members of the company; he kept us interested with historical recollections going back to the Battle of Waterloo, and spoke of Wellington and Napoleon almost as familiarly as we now speak of Earl Haig and the Kaiser. He had a strong sense of humour, and, after a very hearty meal, announced that he didn't know how it was, but he'd "sort of lost his appetite," pretending to regard the fact as an injury, premeditated by the hospitality of our host and hostess.

The labourer dearly loves a grievance, not exactly for its own sake, but because it affords an interesting topic of conversation. One autumn, returning from a holiday in the Isle of Wight, I found the whole village agog with the first County Council election. A magistrate candidate, in the neighbouring village of Broadway, was to be opposed by an Aldington man. I found a local committee holding excited partisan meetings on behalf of the latter, active canvassing going on, a villager appointed as secretary (always called "seckertary" in these parts), and the election the sole topic of conversation. The village people, always delighted in the possession of a common enemy and a common cause, were making the election a village affair, as opposed to the village of the other candidate; popular feeling was running very high, Badsey, of course, joining up with Aldington as strong allies. Some young men had lately been before the magistrates at Evesham, and fined for obstructing the footpath, and the magistrate candidate was selected as the scapegoat for the affront to our united villages. At the election the Aldington man was returned, and his supporters started with him on a triumphal progress through the constituency. Of course, they visited Broadway, to crow over the conquered village, but the wind was somewhat taken out of their sails when the defeated candidate at once came forward, shook hands with his opponent, and congratulated him upon his success! The return journey was not so hilarious; one of the men of Broadway, noticing a string of carts in the procession, conveying sympathizers with the victor, in addition to the owners of the vehicles—thus rendering the latter liable to the carriage duty of 15s. each—and strongly resenting the spirit which brought the victorious party to Broadway, sent a telegram to the Superintendent of Police at Evesham, who met the returning procession and took down their names, with the ultimate result of a substantial haul in fines for the excise!

During the Boer War the common foe was, of course, "Old Kruger" (with a soft g), and we hoisted the Union Jack in front of the Manor whenever our side scored a substantial success. The news of Lord Roberts's victory at Paardeburg reached Badsey in the morning, after the papers, and, returning by road from my farm round, I heard great rejoicings and cheering from the direction of the village. Meeting a boy, I learned that "Old Cronje" was defeated and a prisoner, with "'leven thousand men!"—a report which proved to be correct with the trifling discount of 9,000 of the latter! The same spirit of union for a common cause was almost as evident at that time as in the far more strenuous struggle of 1914-1918, and so long as England to herself remains but true, doubtless our enemies will fulfil the part assigned to them by the greatest of English poets.

A love of the marvellous is a common characteristic of country village folks, and I have already referred to such beliefs in the supernatural among my men. We had our own "white lady" on the highroad where it turns off to Aldington, though I never met anyone who had seen her; there were, too, signs and wonders before approaching deaths, and a thrilling story of a headless calf in the neighbourhood.

An old house at Badsey, once a hospitium or sanatorium for sick monks from Evesham Abbey in pre-Reformation days, was reported to be haunted, and people told tales of "the old fellows rattling about again" of a night. Probably these beliefs had been encouraged in former times by the monks themselves, to prevent the villagers prying too closely into their occupations; and no doubt the scattered individuals of the same body originated the popular theory that the Abbey lands of which they were dispossessed would never, owing to a curse, pass by inheritance in the direct line from father to eldest son—an event that in the course of nature often fails, though by no means invariably.

In recent years a startling story has been told, and even appeared in a local paper, of a ghostly adventure near the Aldington turning. A young lady (not a native), riding her bicycle to Evesham from Badsey, passed, machine and all, right through an apparition which suddenly crossed her path, without any resulting fall.

In connection with the monk's hospitium I lately made an interesting discovery as to the origin of a curious name of one of my fields, which had always puzzled me. The field adjoined the hospitium, and was always known as "the Signhurst." Field-names are a very interesting study, they usually bear some significance to a peculiarity in the field itself, or its position with reference to its surroundings, and it has always been a hobby of mine to trace their derivations. The word "Signhurst" presented no clue to its origin except the Anglo-Saxon "burst," signifying a wood, but there was no appearance or tradition of any wood having ever occupied the spot, and the land was so good, and so well situated as to aspect, that it was unlikely to have been such a site, even in Anglo-Saxon days. I stumbled upon a passage in May's History of Evesham which mentioned the "Seyne House," meaning "Sane House," the equivalent of the modern word "sanatorium," and I saw at once the origin of the corrupted word "Signhurst"—the field near the Seyne House.

Wages are, of course, the crowning reward of the working-man's week; throughout the whole of my time 15s. a week was the recognized pay for six full summer days—"a very little to receive, but a good deal to pay away," as a neighbour once said. During harvest, and at piecework, more money was earned, and it always pleased me that I could pay much better prices for piece-work among the hops than for piece-work at wheat-hoeing or on similar unremunerative crops. The reason is obvious: the hoeing of an acre of wheat, a crop which might possibly return a matter of L10 per acre, takes no more manual effort than the hoeing of an acre of hops, where a gross return of L70 or L80 per acre is not unusual, and is sometimes considerably exceeded.

As wages must eventually always depend upon prices of produce raised by the labour for which such wages are expended, when the agricultural labourer buys his bread he is only buying back his own labour in a concrete form plus the other relative expenses on the farm, and the cost of milling, baking, and distribution, so that when he gets a high price for his labour he must expect to pay a high price for his food; and when the price of food is reduced the price of his labour also falls. Here, again, the rudiments of economics, taught in the schools, would conduce to his understanding the position, and the eradication of discontent.

It is impossible, economically speaking, to defend the system of equal wages to the most capable and industrious men on the one hand and to inefficient slackers on the other; and as a graduated scale of payment, according to results, is not practicable without arousing ill-feeling and jealousy, the farmer's only remedy is to get rid of the slackers. Inefficiency and slacking are often due to a man's enfeebled mental and physical condition, owing to neglect in his bringing up as a child, or to insufficient or unwholesome food provided by an improvident wife in his home.

I was fortunate in meeting with very few of these degenerates, but I remember one tall, delicate-looking man who seemed unable to apply either his strength or his attention to his work. He was denounced by the foreman under whom he worked as not only useless, but "the starvenest wretch as ever I see," intended to convey the impression, and confirming my own conclusion, that cold and hunger were really the cause of his inability to render a fair day's work.

I remember, too, when some elderly women, with a younger one, were hay-making, one of the old ladies, dragging the big "heel-rake" behind the waggon in course of loading—always rather a tough job—tried to induce the younger woman to take her place with, "Here, Sally, thee take a turn at it; thee be a better 'ooman nor I be." My bailiff, overhearing, at once interposed: "Be she a better 'ooman than thee, Betsy, ov a Saturday night [pay-night]?"

Hard-and-fast laws and fixed prices for agricultural labour will be found very difficult to maintain as to piecework; no wage board can fix just prices, because conditions are so variable. Of two men cutting corn on separate plots in the same field, the one at 12s. an acre may really earn more money per diem than another man at 15s. an acre on the other side of the field, owing to the difference in the weight of the crop or its condition, it being, perhaps, erect in the first case, and laid by heavy storms in the second.

There is, too, a vast difference in the value of boys' work and usefulness; one may easily be worth double another, yet no difference is allowable by the new law; or one may demoralize another, so that two are less effective than one. A good old saying puts the matter very plainly: "One boy's a boy, two boys are half a boy, and three boys are no boy at all!"

It is, in fact, ridiculous for townspeople, lawyers, and manufacturers to legislate for the labour of the farm; they do not understand that indoor labour in the workshop or factory, under regular conditions and with unvarying materials, is totally different from labour out of doors, in constantly changing conditions of season, weather, and the resulting crops dealt with. An old maxim of the Worcestershire labourer who, without a fixed place, took on piece-work at specially busy times, will confirm this: "Go to a good farmer for wheat-hoeing, and to a bad one for harvesting." I may explain that the fields of the good farmer are clean and nearly free from weeds, so that hoeing is a comparatively light job; but the same, or nearly the same, price per acre is paid by the bad farmer, whose corn is overrun with weeds, entailing much more time and harder work. On the other hand, the good farmer's wheat crop is much heavier than that of the bad, and, the prices for cutting being again very similar, more money per diem can be earned at harvest on the farm of the latter.

It is a sound old Worcestershire saying that "the time to hoe is when there are no weeds"—apparently a paradox, but the meaning is simple: when no weeds are to be seen above ground there are always millions of tiny seedlings just below the surface ready to increase and multiply wonderfully with a shower of rain; if attacked at the seedling stage, these can be slaughtered in battalions, with far greater ease and efficacy than when they become deep-rooted and established, and dominate the crop.

I have heard of farmers to whom pay-night was a sore trial; one such was frequently known to mount his horse and gallop away just before his men appeared: how he settled eventually I do not know. Some farmers will pay out of doors on their rounds, having a rooted objection to business of any kind under a roof; and one small farmer, I was told, always passed the cash to his men behind his back so that he might not have the agony of parting actually before his eyes.

A labourer is supposed to come to work in his master's time and go home in his own, thus sharing the necessary loss, and, as a rule, they are fairly punctual; but one defaulter in this particular will waste many moments of a whole gang working together, as it seems to be etiquette not to begin till they are all present. I have often heard, too, sarcastic comparisons made between the day-man and "the any-time-of-day man."

The cottagers have their feuds, and the use of joint wash-houses or baking-ovens between two or more adjoining cottages is a frequent source. I have had excited wives of tenants coming to me at unseasonable hours to settle these differences, and I found it a very difficult business to reconcile the disputants. I could only visit the locus in quo and arrange fixed and separate days and regulations; but though the wisdom of Solomon may administer justice in a dispute, it is impossible to ensure a really peaceful solution that will endure.

Sometimes feuds, originating in such or similar causes, were maintained for years by neighbours living with only a 9-inch party wall between them, and daily meetings outside, to the extent of not even "passing the time of day." At last, however, in a day of distress to one, the heart of the unafflicted other would melt, and after an offer of help, or actual assistance, kind relations would be once more established. Or a peace offering, in the shape of a dish of good pig-meat, sent over with a kind message, would restore more genial conditions, and they would return to happy and neighbourly familiarity.

I once employed an old Dorset labourer, a tall, slim, aristocratic figure, with an elegant, refined nose to match; he bore the well-known name of an ancient and distinguished Dorset family, and I have no doubt was well descended. He was decidedly a canny, not to say crafty, man. I gave him a holiday at Whitsuntide to visit his old home, but he overran the time agreed upon and returned some days late. Before I could begin the rebuke I proposed to administer, he produced a charming photograph of a ruined abbey near his old locality, and handed it to me as a present. "I thought upon you, master, while I was away, and knowing as you was fond of ancient things I've brought you this picture." I was completely disarmed, and the rebuke had to be postponed sine die.

As I was talking one day to my bailiff—one of the men who lived a mile away standing near—he said: "Tom, here, is always the first man to arrive in the morning; I have never known him to be late." I congratulated Tom, and asked what time he went to bed: "Oh, about seven o'clock!" He was, in fact, a lonely old bachelor, and, being "no scholard," it saved lights and firing to be early to bed.

This man, like many villagers, had very vague ideas of geography. To save the trouble of cooking, he lived largely on American tinned beef, and got chaffed about it by his fellow-workers. "How be you getting on with the 'Merican biff?" Tom was asked. "Oh," said he, "never no more 'Merican biff for me." "How's that, Tom?" "Why, the other day I found a trouser-button in it!" The point of this story lies in the fact that the Russo-Turkish war was proceeding at the time. Tempora mutantur, we were then encouraging Turkey against Russia, though the latter had declared war to avenge the atrocities in Bulgaria of which the Turks were guilty, while in the recent struggle the position was almost exactly reversed.

There was then a violent militant feeling here in Britain, and excited crowds were singing:

"We don't want to fight but, by Jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, We've got the money too."

Hence the expression "Jingoism," which we often hear to-day, though, perhaps, the origin is now almost forgotten.

It is not unusual to see villagers, as married couples, complete contrasts to each other in appearance and character—one fat and jolly, the other thin and miserable; one happy and contented, the other grumbling and morose; one open-hearted and generous, the other close and parsimonious. In matrimony people are said to choose their opposites, and possibly, as time goes on, the difference in their appearance and dispositions becomes still more definitely developed.

The labourer understands sarcasm and makes use of it himself, but irony is often lost upon him. Passing an old man on a pouring wet day, I greeted him, adding, "Nice morning, isn't it?" He stared, hesitated, and then, "Well, it would be if it wasn't for the rain!" I only remember one surly man—not one of my workers or tenants. He was scraping a very muddy road, and I remarked, for something to say, "Makes it look better, doesn't it?" All I got in reply was, "I shouldn't do it if it didn't!"

It is important, in managing a mixed lot of farm labourers, to find out each man's special gift, making him the responsible person when the time or opportunity arrives for its application. There are men, excellent with horses, who have no love of steam-driven machinery, and vice versa; and there are men who are capable at small details, yet unable to take comprehensive views.

Responsibility is the life-blood of efficiency, and men can always be found upon whom responsibility will act like a charm, producing quickened perception, interest, foresight, economy, resource, industry, and all the characteristics that responsibility demands. Put the square peg in the square hole, the round peg in the round hole; show the man you have confidence in him, teach him to act on his own initiative in all the lesser matters that concern his job, coming only to the master in those larger considerations to which the latter are subordinate, and my experience is that your confidence will not be betrayed, and that he will save you an immense amount of tiresome detail.

The most difficult man to deal with is the over-confident "know-all"; he is always ready to oppose experience—often dearly bought—with his superior knowledge, he can suggest a quicker or a cheaper way of doing everything, and in his last place he "never saw" your system followed. He is the penny-wise and pound-foolish individual, and his methods are "near enough." It has been said that at twenty a man knows everything, at forty he is not quite so sure, and at sixty he is certain that he knows nothing at all; but there are exceptions even to this rule, who continue all their lives thinking more and more of their own opinions, and completely satisfied with their own methods. On the other hand, the master will always find, among the more experienced, men from whom much is to be learnt; they are generally diffident and not too ready to hazard an opinion, but when consulted they can give very valuable help. I willingly acknowledge my indebtedness to my old hands, their well-founded convictions that were the fruit of long years of practical experience, and their readiness to impart them in times of doubt and difficulty.

Just as bad-tempered grooms make nervous, bad-tempered horses; rough and noisy cattle-men, fidgety cows; ill-trained dogs and savage shepherds, sheep wild and difficult to approach; so does the bad-tempered, impatient, or slovenly master make men with the same bad qualities, when a smile or a kind word will bring out all that is good in a man and produce the best results in his work.

I began my farming with four dear old women, working on the land, when wanted for light jobs; the youngest must have been fifty at least. They received the time-honoured wage of tenpence a day, and worked, or talked, about eight hours. They loved to work near the main road, discussing the natural history of the occupants of passing carts or carriages. They knew something comic, tragic, or compromising about everybody, and expressed themselves with epigrammatic force. A farmer occupant of a neighbouring farm in long-past days, was a favourite subject of such recollections. After relating how "he were a random duke," and recalling his habits, one old lady would conclude the recital with an account of his last days, adding, as if everything was thereby finally condoned:

"But there, 'e was just as nice a carpse as ever I see, and I was a'most minded to put his paddle [thistle-spud] beside him in his coffin, for he was always a-diggin' and a-delvin' about with it."

One member of this quartet, when ill, had a dish of minced mutton sent her in the hopes of tempting her appetite. She eyed the gift with disfavour, and announced with scorn that "she preferred to chew her meat herself!"

In due course these old ladies retired from active service and younger women took their places; women were especially necessary in the hop-yards for the important operation of tying the selected bines to the poles with rushes and pulling out those which were superfluous. It was difficult, at first, to accustom them to the fact that the hop always twines the way of the sun, whilst the kidney bean takes the opposite course. And there was a problem which greatly exercised their minds: How were they to reach the hops at the tops of the poles—14 feet from the ground—when the time came? It did not occur to them that it was possible to cut the bine and pull up the pole. They soon became very quick and expert at the tying, and their well-worn wedding-rings, telling of a busy life, would flash brightly in the sunshine as they tenderly coaxed the brittle bines round the base of the poles, securing them with the rush tied in a special slip-knot, so that it easily expanded as the bine enlarged.

Women are splendid at all kinds of light farm work whenever deftness and gentle touch are required, such as hop-tying and picking, or gathering small fruit like currants, raspberries, and strawberries; but I do not consider them in the least capable of taking the place of men in outdoor work which demands muscular strength and endurance and the ability to withstand severe heat or bitter cold or wet ground under foot, through all the varying seasons. Village women have, too, their home duties to attend to, and it is most important that their men-folk should be suitably fed and their houses kept clean and attractive.

On the farm of my son-in-law, in Warwickshire, I have seen something of the work of land girls, to the number of seventy or more, for whom he provided a well-organized camp with a competent lady Captain; and I know how useful they proved in the emergency caused by the War, but I still adhere to my former conclusion as to the more strenuous forms of farm labour, without in the least detracting from my admiration for the courage and patriotism that brought them forward.

I know one woman, however, who quite successfully undertakes very strenuous garden work, including digging, having been inured to it at a very early age. If she could be spared from her own work to take the position of instructress for young girls determined to make the land their chief employment, they would be saved a vast amount of unnecessary fatigue and labour by learning the art of using spades, forks, hoes, and rakes in the way that experience teaches, relying more upon the weight and designed capabilities of the tool to do the work than upon their own untrained muscles.

We could always get a supply of excellent maids for house-work from among the village families; they began very young, coming in for a few hours daily to help the regular staff, and, as these left or got married, they were ready trained to take their places. These girls were quite free from the self-importance of the present-day domestic, but I remember one nice village girl about whom we inquired as a likely maid who, it then appeared, was engaged to marry a thriving small tradesman. The girl's mother, being over-elated at her daughter's apparently brilliant prospects of independence, rejected the proposal with some hauteur, adding that her daughter "would soon be keeping her own maid." I fear, however, that she was disappointed, as the course of true love did not run smooth.

We preferred a married man as shepherd, because, when I had only a few cows, he combined his duties with those of cowman; and, bringing in the milk and doing the churning, he was much about the back premises. On one occasion, however, I engaged a young bachelor, partly because he replied, with a knowing smile, to a question as to whether he was married, that he dared say he could be if he liked—which I optimistically took to amount to an announcement of his engagement.

Time went on and he remained a single man, but it was observable that he lingered on his milky way, and was more in evidence in the dairy than his duties appeared to warrant. We concluded that he was attracted by the cook. One day my wife said to another maid: "I can't think why the shepherd spends so much time in the house. I suppose cook is the attraction?" The girl blushed, hesitated, and looked down, but finally courageously murmured: "Please, mum, it's me, mum!" They were married in due course, and we lost an excellent servant.

Some of the village women and girls filled up spare moments with "gloving"; the large kid-glove manufacturers in Worcester supplied the material, cut into shape, and a stand, with a kind of vice divided into spaces the exact size of each stitch, which held the work firmly while the stitching was done by hand; they grew very quick at this work, and turned out the gloves with beautifully even stitches, but I don't think they could earn much at it in a day, and it must have been rather monotonous.

I was interested to read in Mr. Warde Fowler's Kingham Old and New an account of a peculiar ceremony—called "Skimmington," by Mr. Hardy, in his Mayor of Casterbridge—which took place in Kingham village. I have known of two similar cases, one in Surrey and one at Aldington, under the name of "rough music." The Kingham case was quite parallel with that at Aldington, being a demonstration of popular disapproval of the conduct of a woman resident, in matters arising out of matrimonial differences.

The outraged neighbours collect near the dwelling of the delinquent, having provided themselves with old trays, pots and pans, and anything by means of which a horrible din can be raised, and proceed to serenade the offender. To be the subject of such a demonstration is regarded as a signal disgrace and a most emphatic mark of popular odium. Mr. Warde Fowler tells me, on the authority of a German book on marriage, etc., that "the same sort of din is made at marriage in some parts of Europe to drive evil spirits away from the newly married pair." Possibly, therefore, the custom among our own villagers may have originated with the same idea, and they may formerly have taken the charitable view that evil spirits were responsible for evil deeds, and that their exorcism was a neighbourly duty.

The holiday outings I gave my men were a quid pro quo for some hours of overtime in the hay-making, and included a day's wages, all expenses, and a supply of food. They generally went to a large town where an agricultural show was in progress, but I think the sea trips to Ilfracombe and Weston-super-Mare were the most popular, offering as they did much greater novelty. I have a vivid recollection of the preparation of the rations on the previous night: a vast joint of beef nicely roasted and got cold before operations commenced, my wife and daughter making the sandwiches, while I cut up the beef in the kitchen, sometimes in my shirt-sleeves on a hot summer night; mountains of loaves of bread, great slices of cake, and pounds of cheese, completed the provisions. The rations were wrapped in separate papers and placed in a hipbath, covered with a cloth, and finally kept in a cool building, whence each man took his portion at early dawn. For the sea trips the train took the party to Gloucester and Sharpness, where they embarked upon the steamer.

Many and thrilling were the tales I heard next day; the sea was fairly smooth until they reached the Bristol Channel, but then, if they met a south-west wind, the vessel began to roll, and jovial faces looked thoughtful. I must not dwell upon the delightful horrors of the voyage on such occasions; they were accepted with good-humour and regarded as part of the show, but it was curious that not one of the narrators himself suffered the fate that he so graphically described as the portion of the others. Arrived at their destination, they inspected the town, watched the people on the piers and parades, and the children playing on the sands. The latter created the greatest interest, busy with their spades and buckets, or, as one man expressed it, "little jobs o' draining and summat!"

At Christmas the village children always came in small gangs to sing, or rather chant, a peculiar and very ancient seasonable greeting:

"I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, A pocket full of money and a cellar full of beer, A good fat pig to last you all the year. May God bless all friends near! A merry, merry Christmas and a happy New Year."



CHAPTER VII.



MACHINERY—VILLAGE POLITICS—ASPARAGUS.

"Last week came one to the county town To preach our poor little army down." —Maud.

Though machinery has lightened the labour of manual workers to some extent, it entails much more trouble upon masters and foremen, for breakages are frequent and always occur at the busiest time. What with mowers, reapers, thrashing machines, chaff-cutters, root-pulpers, and grain-mills run by steam-power or in connection with horse-gears; hop-washers, separators, and other delicately adjusted novelties, the master must of necessity be something of a mechanic himself. I doubt if machinery is really quite the advantage claimed by theorists and reconstructionists at the present day. Even the thrashing machine, universally adopted, presents disadvantages in comparison with the ancient flail, generally regarded as obsolete, though still to be found in occasional use by the smallholder or allotment occupier. In former times the farmer reserved his thrashing by hand, for the most part, for winter work during severe frost or wet weather, when nothing could be done outside. The immense barns, which still exist, were filled almost to the roof at harvest; thatching was not necessary, and every sheaf was absolutely safe from rain as soon as it was under cover. Continuous winter work was provided for the men, and a daily supply of fresh straw for chaff-cutting and bedding, besides fresh chaff and rowens or cavings for stock throughout the winter. With the thrashing machine in use for ricks, thatching is a necessity, and is often difficult to arrange in the stress of harvest; the machine and engine demand a day's work for two teams of horses to fetch them, and the cartage and expense of much coal, now so dear. On a small farm extra hands have to be engaged, the straw has to be stacked or carried to the barns, and the same applies to the chaff and rowens. If the weather is damp, straw, chaff, and rowens get stale, mouldy, and unpalatable to the stock, a heavy charge is made for the hire of the machine and the machine men, and the latter require food and drink or payment instead. The machine breaks and bruises many grains of corn, which are thereby damaged for seed or malting, whereas the less urgent flail leaves them intact.

The sound of the thrashing machine gives an impression to outsiders of brisk and remunerative work, but it is cheerful to the farmer only when high prices are ruling. Far otherwise was it for many years before the War, when corn-growers heard only its moaning, despondent note, telling anything but a flattering tale, only varied by an occasional angry growl, when irregular feeding choked its satiated appetite.

From the aesthetic standpoint uncouth and noisy machines, such as mowers and reapers, cannot be compared to a lusty team of men with scythes, in their white shirts, backed by the flowering meadows; or a sunny field of busy harvesters facing a golden wall of corn, and leaving behind them the fresh-shorn stubble dotted with sheaves and nicely balanced shocks. The rattle of the machines, too, is discordant and out of harmony with the peaceful countryside.

It is related of Ruskin that, hearing the insistent rattle of a mowing machine in a meadow adjoining his home by the beautiful Coniston Water, and his sense of the fitting being outraged, he interviewed the owner, and, by an offer to pay the trifling difference between machine and hand labour, induced him to discontinue the annoyance.

As to the relative cost of machine and hand wheat-cutting, quite early in my farming I obtained the opinion of a distinguished farmer, then well known on the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society, Mr. Charles Randell, of Chadbury, near Evesham, on the subject: "If you can get a good crop," he said, "cut, tied, and stocked by hand at anything like 15s. an acre, don't use a machine. If the corn is ripe it knocks out and wastes quite a bushel of wheat per acre" (worth at that time about 5s., now nearer 9s. or 10s.). "I always bring out my machines, and have them oiled and made ready, but I don't want to use them."

In a wet harvest the machine is unworkable on sticky clay soil, and after a wet summer, when the corn is badly laid and twisted, it makes very poor work, cutting off the ears and scattering them, and leaving a quantity of uncut and untidy straw on the ground.

In my own case my equanimity was never disturbed by a reaping machine, with its unwieldy tossing arms, on my land, for I had to find employment for my full staff of regular hands, specially required for the much more important hop-picking a little later, and it pleased me that they should get the extra pay for harvest work as well.

The cream separator, I admit, is a wonderful invention, and its hum is not unmusical; it provides fresh skim milk for the calves and pigs morning and night, which, as well as the cream, is thoroughly cleansed in the process. The aeration of the skim milk leaves it a most wholesome and nourishing article of diet for the villagers if they could be made to understand its value, and that the removal of the cream takes away only the fat (heating material), leaving the bone and muscle making constituents in the milk. I could never induce my village folk to accept this rudimentary proposition; they fancied that all the goodness was gone with the cream, and though I offered the skim milk at the nominal price of one halfpenny a quart, very few would send their children to fetch it, though they mostly lived within a hundred yards of the dairy.

The hay or straw elevator is one of the greatest helps, saving much heavy overhand labour in rick-building. An old labourer, pointing to one, with great appreciation, on a farm I was visiting, said: "That's a machine as will be always kept in the dry and took care on." He spoke from experience of the arduous work of unloading and the passing of heavy weights, sometimes from the bed of the waggon to the summit of the rick; for, as my bailiff often said, "Nobody knows so well where the shoe pinches as the man who has to wear it."

Steam has not done all that was expected of it as an agricultural slave. The steam plough is not a success on heavy land where the ridges are high and irregular in width, and even the steam cultivator has to be used with caution lest the soil should be carried from the ridges to the furrows, and the "squitch" (couch) buried to a depth at which it is difficult to eradicate. The great convenience of steam cultivation is that full advantage can be taken of a short spell of hot, dry weather for fallowing operations, and the soil is left so hollow that it soon bakes and kills the weeds. I fully sympathize with Tennyson's, Northern Farmer, Old Style:

"But summon 'ull come ater meae mayhap wi' 'is kittle o' steaem Huzzin' an' maaezin' the blessed feaelds wi' the Devil's oaen teaem";

for, except on a large farm with immense fields, the ponderous and ungainly steam, tackle gives one a sensation of intrusion. Such a field can be found on a farm between Evesham and Alcester; it contains 300 acres. The occupier, speaking of it, mentioned that it was all wheat that year except one corner. To a question as to the size of the corner, it transpired that it was 50 acres, and growing peas. For comparison there is a story of a Devonshire farmer who said he had been very busy one winter making four fields into one. "Then you've got a big field," said a friend. "Yes," was the reply; "it's just four acres."

When the farm labourer was enfranchised in 1885 he became an important member of the electorate. Candidates and canvassers alike had a much more strenuous time than ever before, the former were constrained to hold meetings in every village, and the latter were obliged to visit nearly every cottage. The late Sir Richard Temple after a distinguished career in India, became Conservative candidate for our division. The doctrine of "three acres and a cow," in opposition to every tenet of rural economy, as well as the division of the land among the labourers, were at the time paraded by theorists and paid agitators, as bribes to purchase the votes of the new electors, and as ensuring the salvation of the rural population, which was then beginning to suffer from unemployment, resulting from the destruction of corn-growing by foreign competition.

The more credulous of the labourers were excited and unsettled by the alluring prospect of independence thus held out to them, and it was reported that some went so far as to survey the fields around their villages and select the plots they proposed to cultivate, and that others took baskets to the poll in which to bring home the all-powerful magic of the mysterious vote! Among the new voters in a neighbouring village, a man of very decided views found it puzzling to decide by which candidate they were most nearly represented, and, determined to make no mistake at the poll, he consulted a fellow-labourer, inquiring: "Which way be the big uns a-going, because I be agin they?"

The Squire of an adjoining parish met an old villager with whom he had always been on good terms; after mutual greetings, the man sympathised: "I be sorry for you, Squire." "Why?" was the rejoinder. "Yes, I be regular sorry for you, Squire, that I be.." "What's the matter?" asked the Squire. "Ay! about this here land; 'tis to be divided amongst we working men." "Indeed," said the Squire; "but look here, after a bit, some of you won't want to cultivate it any longer, and some, with improvident habits, will sell their plots to others, so that soon it will be all back again into the hands of a few; what will you do then?" The man looked puzzled, scratched his head, and cogitated deeply, until a simple solution presented itself: "Then, Squire," said he, "we shall divide again!"

Sir Richard Temple was undoubtedly an able man, but he was a complete stranger to the local conditions of the constituency. The villagers of Badsey especially, as well as of other adjoining parishes, were just beginning to retrieve their position, threatened by the collapse of corn-growing and consequent unemployment, by the adoption of market-gardening and fruit-growing. The land, run down and full of weeds and rubbish, had been cut up into allotments and offered to them as tenants, their only choice lying between years of hard work in redeeming its condition or emigration. Many young men chose the latter, and did well in the States of America; but where there was a wife and young children that course was scarcely possible, and the man became an allotment tenant. Passing one of these on a plot full of "squitch," which he was laboriously breaking up with a fork to expose it in big clods to a baking sun, I asked if he had taken it. "Well," said he, "I don't know whether I've taken it or it's taken me!"

These men, by unceasing labour and self-denial, were just beginning to turn the corner; they had cleaned the land, ameliorated its mechanical condition by application of soot and by deep digging with their beloved forks, and, having discovered how wonderfully asparagus nourished on this deep, rich soil, had planted large areas, as well as plum-trees and other market-garden crops, and the well-merited return was coming in increasingly year by year.

Sir Richard Temple did not understand the difference between the small holder, growing corn and ordinary crops in less favoured parts of the countrymen the one hand, and market-gardeners in the Vale of Evesham, with its early climate, splendid soil, and railway connection with huge artisan populations, delivering the produce with punctuality and despatch, on the other. He considered that small holders could not make an economic success where the farmers had failed, and had made his views well known in the constituency, but he did not distinguish between the small holder and the market-gardener.

The men of Badsey felt aggrieved, they knew better, and at a meeting he held in the village they gave him a rather noisy hearing, with interruptions such as, "Keep off them steel farks," "Mind them steel farks, Sir Richard," and so on.

Sir Richard came to ask for my support and assistance in our village, and, as I was not at home, my wife entertained him in my absence, with tea and wedding-cake. She innocently asked if he had come to canvass me; her straightforward query surprised him, but, after a moment's hesitation, he replied cautiously: "Well, something of that sort."

He was eventually returned, and the men of Badsey continued to flourish on asparagus-growing in spite of his warnings; new houses sprang up in every direction, and available labour grew scarcer and scarcer. Those splendid asparagus "sticks" or "buds," as they are called, tied with osier or withy twigs, which may be seen in Covent Garden Market and the large fruiterers' shops in Regent Street, are grown in and around the parishes of Badsey and Aldington. They command high prices, up to 15s. and 20s. a hundred for special stuff, and this year (1919) I see that L21 was realized for the champion hundred at the Badsey Asparagus Show. That, of course, must be regarded as quite exceptional, and possibly there were special considerations which made it worth the money to the purchaser.

Later came difficulties; after successive dry summers the asparagus was attacked by a fungoid complaint, called by the growers "rust." Instead of growing vigorously after the crop had been gathered—which is the time when the buds for next year's crop are developing on the crowns of the plants—and finally dying off naturally in beautiful feathery plumes of green and gold, it presented a dingy and rusty appearance, eventually turning black. Asparagus cannot stand long-continued summer and autumn drought; it likes plenty of moisture, in free circulation but not stagnant. The crops that followed the appearance I have described were very deficient, proving that the growing season of one year's foliage is the time when next year's crop is decided.

The growth of asparagus is still a very important part of the market-gardener's business in the parishes referred to, but it does not continue to produce the best results indefinitely and continuously on the same land, and the growers have been obliged to extend their acreages and take fresh plots. I have little doubt that with the scientific application of artificial fertilizers the yield would continue satisfactory for a much longer period. Plant disease of any kind is nearly always due to starvation for want of the chemical constituents upon which the crop feeds, though sometimes caused by unhealthy sap, the result of late spring frosts or unsuitable weather.

The asparagus-growers relied too much upon soot as a fertilizer; it has a marvellous effect upon the mechanical condition of heavy land; its particles intervene between the particles of the almost impalpable powder of which clay is composed, and the soil approximates to a well-tilled garden plot after a few applications and careful incorporation, and in the local phraseology, it becomes "all of a myrtle." But as plant food soot contains nitrogen only, a great plant stimulant, which quickly exhausts the soil of the other necessary constituents. If the growers would make use of basic slag, superphosphate, or bone dust to replace the phosphate of lime removed by the crop, and of potash in one of its available forms, they would soon experience a great improvement in the power of their asparagus to resist disease and deterioration.

I am aware that some of the smaller growers regard all kinds of artificial fertilizers with suspicion, but they may be interested, should they ever read these pages, in the following story. When Peruvian guano was first introduced into this country, the farmers could not be persuaded that it merited any reliance as a manure. The importers, in despair, caused some of the despised stuff to be sown in the form of huge letters spelling the word "FOOLS" upon a bare hillside, visible from a great distance. The following spring, with the beginning of growth, and throughout the summer, the word stared the farmers in the face whenever they chanced to look that way, in dark green outstanding characters upon the yellow background; after this practical demonstration there was no difficulty in finding purchasers.

Sir Richard Temple was opposed by Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, one at least of whose canvassers was not above stretching a point to obtain the votes of the labourers. My men told me that they had been promised roast beef and plum pudding every day of their lives should the Liberal party be returned. These tactics were again resorted to in the election of 1906, when walls were placarded with pictures of the Chinese employed in the gold-mines of the Transvaal, driven in chains by cruel overseers, presumably representing the Conservative Government which had sanctioned their employment. I know from what I heard in my new home, for I was no longer at Aldington, that this misrepresentation decided the votes of many of the more ignorant voters.



CHAPTER VIII.



MY THREE VICARS—CHURCH RESTORATION—CHURCHWARDEN EXPERIENCES— CLERICAL AND OTHER STORIES.

"Where many a generation's prayer, Hath perfumed and hath blessed the air." —GLADSTONE.

I saw a good deal of my three successive Vicars, for I was Vicar's churchwarden for a period of nearly twenty years, and was treasurer of the fund for the restoration and enlargement of Badsey Church. My first Vicar had held the living for over thirty years when we decided upon this important undertaking; and not wishing to be burdened with the correspondence which the work would entail, he invited me to act for him. I was pleased, because I have always been interested in the architecture of old buildings, especially churches, and readily undertook the post. I had the constant and intimate co-operation of my co-warden, Mr. Julius Sladden, of Badsey, and I may say that no two people ever worked together with greater harmony.

The restoration had been debated for many years; the ancient church was sadly dilapidated, and disfigured by an ugly gallery at the west end of the nave, which obscured the finest arch in the building, leading into the tower; and the incident which brought the matter within the range of possibility was romantic. The Vicar succeeded quite unexpectedly to a large inheritance; the news reached him and his wife, who was away from home at the time, simultaneously. The letters they wrote to each other on their good fortune crossed in the post, and characteristically each wrote "Badsey Church must now be restored." Soon afterwards the Vicar came to my house and, sitting down at my table, wrote me a cheque for L500 to start the fund.

On the advice of the patrons of the living—the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Oxford—we invited Mr. Thomas Graham Jackson, now Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, R.A., to undertake the duties of architect. His work was well known at Oxford at the time, as the beautiful New Schools had just been completed from his designs; we were also most fortunate in obtaining the services of Mr. Thomas Collins, of Tewkesbury, as builder. Mr. Collins was devoted to church architecture, and the financial consideration of such work was to him quite secondary to the pleasure he experienced as a connoisseur in restoring to the dignity and beauty of the past any ecclesiastical building of distinguished interest. The first estimate was, I think, L1,500, exclusive of architect's fees, but when the work was completed we had expended in all a sum of over L2,130. We did not finally clear off the debt until 1894, nine years after the reopening of the church, and since then a considerable further sum has been expended in rehanging the old bells and adding two new ones to make up the full peal of eight.

It was delightful to experience the willingness of everybody to help; subscriptions, large and small, came in readily at the very outset, and this part of the work never became arduous until the last few hundreds had to be raised. Most of us experienced the truth of the proverb Bis dat qui cito dat, but in a different sense from that which usually commends it, for many who gave quickly not only literally gave twice, but three times or more. Bazaars, concerts, and entertainments of all kinds were undertaken by the parishioners, a sum of L376 being raised by these means. Among them a bazaar at Badsey realized L130; another, later, at Aldington in one of my old barns, L80; and two concerts—afternoon and evening—at Malvern, organized by my wife and her sister, Miss Poulton, L100.

The Vicar received a notable letter from the late Lord Salisbury, the Premier; they had been at Eton and Christ Church together, and Lord Salisbury was godfather to the Vicar's eldest son. The Vicar had written of the fortune he had inherited, and spoke of some rooks as having brought the luck by building, for the first time, in an elm-tree in the vicarage grounds. Lord Salisbury, in sending a donation of L25 to the restoration fund, added: "I see a great many rooks building near my house" (Hatfield), "but the luck has not come to me yet." The Vicar's comment to me was: "If the luck has not yet come to Lord Salisbury, I don't see how anyone can hope for it!"

The Malvern concert was a strenuous undertaking; Badsey being a long way from Malvern, it was necessary to interest the inhabitants and to some extent to plead in forma pauperis, for we were really a poor parish without any large resident landowners. The first thing was to get a good list of influential local patrons; and as soon as Lady Emily Foley consented, the promoters felt that the work was half done. Lady Emily Foley was supreme at Malvern, a very distinguished old lady and most popular, but perhaps a little alarming.

On the day of the two concerts I was detailed with a troop of young men, relatives of the patrons, to conduct the people to their seats, and an elaborate plan of the large Assembly Room was given me, with minute particulars of the lettered rows and numbered seats, presenting the appearance, somewhat, of a labyrinth. I was studying it at the doors, and arranging with the young stewards as to their individual functions, when I heard an alarmed exclamation from one of them: "Look out! here comes Lady Emily Foley!" In an instant the whole crowd took to their heels and disappeared down the corridor. With some little difficulty I succeeded in finding the seats of Lady Emily Foley's party, but I could see that she regarded me as a rather feeble cicerone.

She was, however, exceedingly gracious after my wife's first solo, which pleased her so much that we had to make an exception in this case, and allow an encore by her special request, though it had been arranged, owing to the length of the programme, that no encores were to be given. Lady Alwyne Compton, wife of the Dean of Worcester, very kindly assisted as a performer, my wife having frequently sung at charity concerts and entertainments for her in Worcester and the neighbourhood, among them a recital by Mr. Brandram of A Midsummer-Night's Dream, when she undertook the soprano solos occurring in the play, at the Worcester Guildhall. Lady Alwyne Compton was very musical, and rehearsals were held in the stone-vaulted crypt beneath the Deanery, a place of splendid acoustic properties, which intensified the sound without coarsening it, and brought the voice back to the singer in a way unknown on the usual platform, decorated with screens, curtains, and flags, and obstructed by floral impedimenta.

Among the performers at the Malvern concerts some professionals had been engaged from London, including Miss Margaret Wild, a well-known pianist. I had given my men a holiday for the occasion and was anxious to hear their opinion of the performances. They considered the music rather too high class for them, but they thoroughly appreciated the nimble fingers of Miss Margaret Wild; one of them adding enthusiastically: "My word, her did make 'im (the piano) rottle!" Our old parish clerk too, at the time over eighty years of age, who walked three miles to Evesham Station in the morning, ascended the Worcestershire Beacon—nearly 1,500 feet—and finally walked back from Evesham to Badsey at night, was much struck by the recitations of Miss Isabel Bateman at the concert. The dear old man was somewhat deaf, and told me that, sitting towards the back of the room, "I couldn't hear nothing, but I could see as the gesters [gestures] was all right."

This old clerk was prominently devout in the church responses, and had some original pronunciations of unusual words; in the Nicene Creed he generally followed a few bars, so to speak, behind the Vicar, but one never failed to catch the words "apost'lick church" towards the end. He was very scornful of ghosts, and told me that he had been about the churchyard very often at night for fifty years without seeing anything like an apparition. But the whole village was alarmed, including the clerk, one Sunday when, about midnight, the tenor bell was heard solemnly tolling. The clerk, with some supporters and a lantern, unlocked the door, and found the village idiot—silly C.—in the tower ringing the bell. It appeared that, after service, the clerk had extinguished the lights and locked up for the night about eight o'clock. C., who had gone to sleep in the gallery with his head upon his arms before him on the desk, slumbered on until he woke in alarm some four hours later, to find himself alone and the church in total darkness, but he was intelligent enough to remember the bell and get his release.

C. had a hand-to-hand fight in the church tower with Aldington's special imbecile. After service the clerk invited me to the scene of the battle, pointing out some crimson traces on the stone pavement. I called upon our imbecile's parents on my way home, and the old father was greatly shocked. "Here he be, sir," he said; "I hope you'll give him a jolly good hiding." I told him I could hardly undertake the role of executioner on a Sunday, in cold blood, and contented myself with a severe reprimand.

I was handing the collecting-bag one morning after service, and finding it did not return from the end of the row of chairs as quickly as usual, I discovered this same individual with his hand in the bag. I signed to him impatiently to pass it back. After service he came to the vestry and said that he had contributed a florin in mistake for a penny, and was trying to retrieve it. I could generally estimate pretty accurately the amount of the collection, as I handed the bag, knowing the extent of each person's usual gift, and sure enough, there was an extra florin among the coins, with which I sent him away happy.