PART I.

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THE TOILERS OF THE FIELD

BY

RICHARD JEFFERIES

AUTHOR OF "THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," ETC. ETC.

[Illustration: THE SILVER LIBRARY]

_NEW IMPRESSION_

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

NEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1898

_All rights reserved_

[Illustration: RICHARD JEFFERIES.

_From the bust by Miss Margaret Thomas, in Salisbury Cathedral._

_Photographed by Mr. Owen, Salisbury._]

_BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE._

_First Edition, October 1892._

_Reprinted, November 1892 and January 1893._

_Issued in Silver Library, November 1893._

_Reprinted, June 1898._

PREFACE.

The first and larger part of this volume, from which it takes its name,

consists of papers which will be new to the large majority of readers of

Richard Jefferies' works. The five entitled, "The Farmer at Home," "The

Labourer's Daily Life," "Field-faring Women," "An English Homestead,"

and "John Smith's Shanty," appeared in _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1874, long

before Jefferies had gained any portion of that fame which was so long

in coming, and came in full measure too late. Of the three letters to

the _Times_, written in 1872, one was republished, with the permission

of Mrs. Jefferies, in an appendix to Mr. Walter Besant's "Eulogy of

Richard Jefferies." It finds its natural place in this volume with the

other papers, which give so clear a picture of the life of all classes

of the cultivators of the soil in the early seventies. The "True Tale of

the Wiltshire Labourer" has never previously been published, and is

included in this volume by the kind permission of Mr. G. H. Harmer of

the _Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard_, for which paper it was written

when Jefferies was on its staff, but for some reason was never used.

All the papers in Part II. have appeared in _Longman's Magazine_, since

Jefferies' death, and though they are with one exception very slight,

yet they are all characteristic specimens of his work. From internal

evidence it appears certain that the longest of them, entitled "The

Coming of Summer," was written on June 1, 1881, and the subsequent days.

It contains one or two points of resemblance with the famous "Pageant of

Summer," which appeared in _Longman's Magazine_ for June 1883. It was

perhaps the first study of which that paper is the finished picture.

The frontispiece is reproduced by kind permission of Mr. J. Owen of

Salisbury, from a photograph taken by him of Miss Thomas' bust of

Jefferies in Salisbury Cathedral.

C. J. LONGMAN.

CONTENTS.

_PART I._

PAGE

THE FARMER AT HOME 3

THE LABOURER'S DAILY LIFE 60

FIELD-FARING WOMEN 111

AN ENGLISH HOMESTEAD 151

JOHN SMITH'S SHANTY 175

WILTSHIRE LABOURERS (LETTERS TO THE "TIMES") 211

A TRUE TALE OF THE WILTSHIRE LABOURER 259

_PART II._

THE COMING OF SUMMER 289

THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN 313

AN EXTINCT RACE 315

ORCHIS MASCULA 319

THE LIONS IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE 321

PART I.

_THE FARMER AT HOME._

The new towns, or suburbs which spring up every year in the

neighbourhood of London, are all built upon much the same plan. Whole

streets of houses present exact duplicates of each other, even to the

number of steps up to the front door and the position of the scraper. In

the country, where a new farmhouse is erected about once in twenty

years, the styles of architecture are as varied and as irregular as in

town they are prim and uniform. The great mass of farmhouses are old,

and some are very picturesque. There was a farmhouse I knew which was

almost entitled to be taken as the type of an English rural homestead.

It was built at a spot where the open wild down suddenly fell away into

rich meadow land. Here there was a narrow steep-sided valley, or

"combe"--and at the mouth of this, well sheltered on three sides from

the north, the east, and north-eastern winds, stood the homestead. A

spring arose some way behind, and close to the house widened into a pool

which was still further enlarged by means of a dam, forming a small lake

of the clearest water. This lake fed a mill-race lower down. The

farmyard and rick-barton were a little way up the narrow valley, on one

side of which there was a rookery. The house itself was built in the

pure Elizabethan style; with mullioned windows, and innumerable gables

roofed with tiles. Nor was it wanting in the traditions of the olden

time. This fine old place was the homestead of a large farm comprising

some of the best land of the district, both down and meadow. Another

farmhouse, still used for that purpose, stands upon the wildest part of

the down, and is built of flint and concrete. It was erected nearly

three hundred years ago, and is of unusual size. The woodwork is all

solid black oak, good enough for an earl's mansion.

These are specimens of the highest class of farmhouse. Immediately

beneath them come the houses built in the early part of the present

century. They vary in almost every architectural detail, and the

materials differ in each county; but the general arrangement is the

same. They consist as it were of two distinct houses under one roof. The

front is the dwelling-house proper, usually containing a kitchen,

sitting-room, and parlour. The back contains the wood-house (coal-house

now), the brewhouse--where the beer was brewed, which frequently also

had an oven--and, most important of all, the dairy. All this part of the

place is paved with stone flags, and the dairy is usually furnished with

lattice-work in front of the windows, so that they can be left open to

admit the cool air and not thieves. Coolness is the great requisite in a

dairy, and some gentlemen who make farming a science go to the length of

having a fountain of water constantly playing in it. These houses,

however, were built before scientific agriculture was thought of. The

wood-house contained the wood used for cooking and domestic purposes;

for at that date wood was universally used in the country, and coal

rarely seen. The wood was of course grown on the farm, for which purpose

those wide double mound hedges, now rapidly disappearing, were made. It

was considered a good arrangement to devote half-an-acre in some

outlying portion of the farm entirely to wood, not only for the fire,

but for poles, to make posts and rails, gates, ladders, &c. The coal

could not in those days be conveyed so cheaply as it now is by railways.

Such as was used had to be brought by the slow barges on the canals, or

else was fetched by the farmers' waggons direct from the pit-mouth. The

teams were not unfrequently absent two days and a night on the journey.

In the outlying districts this difficulty in obtaining coal practically

restricted the available fuel to wood. Now the wood-house is used as

much for coal as wood. Of course the great stacks of wood--the piles of

faggots and logs--were kept outside, generally in the same enclosure as

the ricks, only a sufficient number for immediate use being kept under

cover. The brewhouse was an important feature when all farmers brewed

their own beer and baked their own bread. At present the great majority

purchase their beer from the brewers, although some still brew large

quantities for the labourers' drinking in harvest time. At a period when

comparatively little ready money passed between employer and employed,

and the payment for work was made in kind, beer was a matter which

required a great deal of the attention of the farmer, and absorbed no

little of his time. At this day it is a disputed matter which is

cheapest, to buy or to brew beer: at that time there was no question

about it. It was indisputably economical to brew. The brewhouse was not

necessarily confined to that use; when no brewing was in progress it was

often made a kind of second dairy. Over these offices was the

cheese-room. This was and still is a long, large, and lofty room in

which the cheese after being made is taken to dry and harden. It is

furnished with a number of shelves upon which the cheeses are arranged,

and as no two can be placed one on the other in the early stage of their

maturing, much space is required. It is the duty of the dairymaid and

her assistant to turn these cheeses every morning--a work requiring some

strength. In this part of the house are the servants' rooms. In front of

the dairy and brewhouse is a paved court enclosed with a wall, and in

this court it was not uncommon to find a well, or hog-tub, for the

refuse of the dairy. Sometimes, but not often now, the pig-stye is just

outside the wall which surrounds the court. In this court, too, the

butter is generally churned, under a "skilling" which covers half of it.

Here also the buckets are washed, and other similar duties performed.

The labourers come here to receive their daily allowance of beer.

Most farmhouses in large arable farms were originally built so as to

have a small dairy at the back; though there was a time when the arable

farmer never thought of keeping a cow, and butter and cheese were

unknown, except as luxuries, in his establishment. This was during the

continuance of the Corn Laws, when everything was sacrificed to the one

great object of growing wheat. It was not impossible in those days to

find a whole parish (I know of one myself) in which there was not a

single cow. Now the great object is meat, then it was corn. But at the

time when most of the farmhouses were erected, the system of agriculture

pursued was a judicious mixture of the dairy and the cornfield, so that

very few old farmhouses exist which have not some form of dairy

attached. In the corn-growing times, most of the verdant meadows now

employed to graze cattle, or for producing hay, were ploughed up. This

may be seen by the regular furrows, unmistakable evidences of the

plough. When corn declined in price through the influx of foreign

produce, the land was again laid down in grass, and most of it continues

so till this hour. It might be roughly estimated that England now

contains a third more meadow land than in the early part of the present

century, notwithstanding the attempt to plough up the downs.

We now come to the third class of farmsteads--low thatched buildings,

little better than large cottages, and indeed frequently converted into

dwellings for labourers. These are generally found on small farms, and

in districts where there are a number of small landed proprietors. These

freeholders built houses according to their means. In process of time

they were bought up by the great landowners, and the farms thrown

together, when the houses were used for other purposes. Some may still

be found, especially in dairy districts. In these the principal part of

the house is usually the dairy, which absorbs at least half of the

ground floor, and opens on the kitchen, in which the family sit, and in

which their food is often cooked. The eaves of the house are low, and

there are scarcely any appliances for comfort. The yeomen who originally

lived in these places in all respects resembled the labourers with whom

they ate and drank and held the most familiar intercourse. Their

labourers even slept in the same bedrooms as the family. But these men,

though they mingled so freely with the labourer, were his worst enemy.

The little profit they made was entirely accumulated by careful economy.

They were avaricious and penurious to the last degree, and grudged every

halfpenny to the labouring man. They were, and the remnant of them still

are, the determined opponent of all progress. The interior of some of

these cottage-farmsteads, which still exist, is almost Dutch-like in

simplicity and homeliness. The fireplace is of a vast size, fitted with

antique iron dogs for burning wood, and on it swing the irons to sustain

the great pot. On each side, right under the chimney, are seats, the

ingle-nook of olden times. The chimney itself is very large, being

specially built for the purpose of curing sides of bacon by smoking. The

chimneypiece is ornamented with a few odd figures in crockery-ware,

half-a-dozen old brass candlesticks, and perhaps a snuff-box or tobacco

dish. The floor is composed of stone flags--apt to get slimy and damp

when the weather is about to change--and the wide chinks between them

are filled with hardened dirt. In the centre there is a piece of carpet

on which the table stands, but the rest of the room is bare of

carpeting, except the hearth-rug. The low window has a seat let into the

wall under it. The furniture of the apartment is utilitarian in the

strictest sense. There is nothing there for ornament or luxury, or even

for ease; only what is absolutely necessary. Generally there is a

dresser, above which, on shelves, the dishes and plates are arranged. A

tall upright eight-day clock, with a brazen face, and an inscription

which tells that it was manufactured in a neighbouring village, stands

in one corner, and solemnly ticks in its coffin-like panelled case. On

each side of the fireplace there is an arm-chair, often cushioned with

a fox or badger skin, and a great brazen warming-pan hangs near the

door. There is no ceiling properly so called. These old houses were

always built with a huge beam, and you can see the boards of the floor

above, which are merely whitewashed. A fowling-piece, once a flint-lock,

now converted to the percussion cap system, hangs against the beam, and

sometimes dried herbs may be seen there too. The use of herbs is,

however, going out of date. In the evening when the great logs of wood

smoulder upon the enormous hearth and cast flickering shadows on the

walls, revealing the cat slumbering in the ingle-nook, and the dog

blinking on the rug--when the farmer slowly smokes his long clay pipe

with his jug of ale beside him, such an interior might furnish a good

subject for a painter. Let the artist who wishes to secure such a scene

from oblivion set to work speedily, for these things are fast fading

away.

All these three classes of farmhouse are usually well supplied with

vegetables from the garden attached. The garden in fact was, and still

is, an object of considerable importance to the farmer, quite as much

as the allotment to the labourer. He reckons to receive from it his

whole supply of potatoes, cabbages, beans, peas, and other varieties of

table vegetables, and salads. These constitute an important item when

there is a large family. I do not speak now of the great farmers,

although even these set some store by such produce, but the middle

class. It is usual in these gardens to grow immense quantities of

cabbage of a coarse kind, and also of lettuce, onions, and radishes, all

of which are freely given to the men and women working on the place

during the harvest. They are, in fact, grown especially for them. At the

dinner-hour one or more men of the number, deputed by the rest, come up

to the house. One carries the wooden bottles, or small barrels of ale,

which are handed out from the dairy. The other repairs to the garden,

and pulls up a reasonable quantity of lettuce, onions, or radishes, as

the case may be, from the patches indicated to him by the employer.

These are then washed in the court by the dairy, where there is almost

always a pump, and are then taken out to the men and shared amongst

them. These salads make an agreeable addition to the dry bread and

cheese, or bacon. The custom is an old one, and much to be commended. It

costs the employer next to nothing, and is an element in that goodwill

which should exist between him and the labourer.

On some farms large quantities of fruit are grown--such as gooseberries,

currants, plums, and damsons. Most have enough for their own use; some

sell a considerable amount. Outside the garden is the orchard. Some of

these orchards are very extensive, even in districts where cider is not

the ordinary beverage, and in a good apple year the sale of the apples

forms an important item in the peculiar emoluments of the farmer's wife.

There are, of course, many districts in which the soil is not adapted to

the apple, but as a rule the orchard is an adjunct of the garden. Some

of the real old English farmsteads possess the crowning delight of a

filbert walk, but these are rare now. In fact the introduction of

machinery and steam, and the general revolution which has been going on

in agriculture, has gone far to sweep away these more pleasant and

home-like features of the farm. It becomes daily more and more like a

mere official residence, so to speak. The peculiar home-like aspect of a

farmhouse is gradually disappearing.

The daily life of the middle-class dairy farmer begins at five in the

morning. Rising about that hour, his first duty is to see that the men

have all appeared, and that they are engaged in milking the cows. He

breakfasts at six, or half-past, and the whole family have finished

breakfast before seven. By this time the day-labourers have come (the

milkers are usually hired by the year), and the master has to go out and

put them on to their jobs. Meantime the dairy is a scene of work and

bustle; cheesemaking being in full swing. This is at least

superintended, if not partly performed, by the mistress of the house. At

larger farms it is the bailiff who rises early and sees that the

labourers are properly employed; and the cheesemaking is entrusted to a

dairymaid hired at high wages, who often combines with that duty the

office of general housekeeper. It was once the practice to rise even

earlier than five, but there are not many farmers who do so now. On the

arable farm, which is generally much larger, the master has almost

always got a bailiff, or head-carter, whom he can trust to see the men

set to work. The master is therefore not obliged to come down so soon,

except at important seasons. But the ordinary dairy-farm is not large

enough to support a bailiff, and the master has to rise himself. The

fresh morning air and the exercise give the farmer a tremendous appetite

for breakfast. The usual staple food consists of thick rashers of bacon

only just "done," so as to retain most of the fat, the surplus of which

is carefully caught on slices of bread. The town rasher is crisp,

curled, and brown, without a symptom of fat or grease. The farmer's

early rasher is to a town eye but half-done, bubbling with grease, and

laid on thick slices of bread, also saturated with the gravy. Sometimes

cold bacon is preferred, but it is almost always very fat. With this he

drinks a pint or so of fairly strong beer, and afterwards has a hunch of

bread and butter and a cup or two of tea. He is then well fortified for

the labour of the morning. This is the common breakfast of the

working-farmer, who is as much a labouring man as any cottager on his

farm, and requires a quantity of solid food. Some, however, who are

pretty well off, and have a better idea of the luxuries of the table,

regale themselves on collared head, or rolled beef, or ham at breakfast.

These hams are usually preserved after a family receipt, and some of

them are exquisite. After breakfast the farmer walks round the place,

watches the men at work for a few minutes, and gives them instructions,

and then settles himself down to some job that requires his immediate

superintendence. If it is hay-time he takes a rake and works about the

field, knowing full well all the difference that his presence makes.

The agricultural labourers, both men and women, are a slow set, never in

a hurry; there is none of that bustle characteristic of the town people,

even of the lowest class. They take every opportunity of leaning upon

the prong-handle, or standing in the shade--they seem to have no idea of

time. Women are a sore trial to the patience of the agriculturist in a

busy time. If you want to understand why, go and ensconce yourself

behind a hedge, out of sight but in view of a field in which ten or

twelve women are hoeing. By and by a pedlar or a van comes slowly along

the turnpike road which runs past the field. At the first sound of

footsteps or wheels all the bent backs are straight in an instant, and

all the work is at a standstill. They stand staring at the van or tramp

for five or six minutes, till the object of attention has passed out of

sight. Then there is a little hoeing for three or four consecutive

minutes. By that time one of them has remembered some little bit of

gossip, and stops to tell her nearest fellow-workwoman, and the rest at

once pause to listen. After a while they go on again. Now another

vehicle passes along the road, and the same process of staring has to be

gone through once more. If a lady or gentleman pass, the staring is

something terrific, and it takes quite ten minutes to discuss all the

probabilities as to who they were, and where they were going. This sort

of thing goes on all day, so that, in point of fact, they only do half a

day's work. The men are not so bad as this; but they never let slip an

opportunity for pausing in their work, and even when at work they do it

in a slow, dawdling, lack-energy way that is positively irritating to

watch. The agriculturist has in consequence plenty to do to keep his

eye on them, and in the course of the day he walks over his farm

half-a-dozen times at least. Very few ordinary working farmers walk much

less than ten miles a day on the average, backwards and forwards over

the fields.

Half-past eleven used to be luncheon time, but now it is about twelve,

except in harvest, when, as work begins earlier, it is at eleven. This

luncheon hour is another source of constant irritation to the

agriculturist. He does not wish to bind his men down to an exact minute,

and if a man has some distance to walk to his cottage, will readily make

all allowance. He does not stint the beer carried out either then or in

the field. But do what he likes, be as considerate as he will, and let

the season be never so pressing, it is impossible to get the labourers

out to their work when the hour is up. Most of them go to sleep, and

have to be waked up, after which they are as stupid as owls for a

quarter of an hour. One or two, it will be found, have strolled down to

the adjacent ale-house, and are missing. These will come on the field

about an hour later. Then one man has a rake too heavy for him, and

another a prong too light. There is always some difficulty in starting

to work; the agriculturist must therefore be himself present if he

wishes to get the labourers out to the field in anything like a moderate

time.

The nuisance of mowers must be gone through to be appreciated. They come

and work very well for the first week. They slash down acre after acre,

and stick to it almost day and night. In consequence the farmer puts on

every man who applies for work, everything goes on first-rate, and there

is a prospect of getting the crop in speedily. At the end of the week

the mowers draw their money, quite a lump for them, and away they go to

the ale-house. Saturday night sees them as drunk as men can be. They lie

about the fields under the hedges all day Sunday, drinking when the

public-house is open. Monday morning they go on to work for

half-an-hour, but the fever engendered by so much liquor, and the

disordered state of the stomach, cause a burning thirst. They fling the

scythes down, and go off to the barrel. During all this week perhaps

between them they manage to cut half an acre. What is the result? The

haymakers have made all the grass that was cut the first week into hay,

and are standing about idle, unable to proceed, but still drawing their

wages from the unfortunate agriculturist. The hot sun is burning

on--better weather for haymaking could not be--but there is not a rood

of grass cut for them to work on. After a while the mowers come back,

thoroughly tired and exhausted with their debauch, and go on feebly to

work. There is hope again. But our climate is notoriously changeable. A

fortnight of warm, close heat is pretty sure to breed a thunderstorm.

Accordingly, just as the scythes begin to lay the tall grass prostrate

again, there is a growl in the sky, and down comes the rain. A

thunderstorm unsettles the weather, and here is perhaps another week

lost. The farmer dares not discharge his haymakers, because he does not

know but that he may require them any day. They are put to turn

dung-heaps, clean out the yards, pick up the weeds in the garden, and

such like little jobs, over which they can dawdle as much as they like.

All the while they are on full pay. Now, what manufacturer could endure

such conduct as this? Is it not enough to drive a saint out of his

patience? Of course the larger farmers who can afford it have the

resource of the mowing-machine, but there are hundreds and thousands of

farms upon which its sharp rattle has not yet been heard. There is still

a great divergence of opinion as to its merits, many maintaining that it

does not cut so close to the ground, and therefore wastes a large

percentage of the crop, and others that the action of the scissor-like

knives bruises the grass, and prevents it growing up into a good

after-math. Therefore many farmers who could afford it will not admit

the mowing-machine into their fields, and the mowers may still be seen

at work over miles and miles of meadow, and are still the plague of the

agriculturist. The arable farmer has just the same difficulty to keep

his labourers at their work, and unless he is constantly on the watch

valuable time is lost daily. In the harvest, however, he has an

advantage. The corn is reaped by piece-work, and the labourers therefore

strain every nerve to do as much as they can. But then he must be on the

lookout to see that they do not "scamp" it.

The traditional bacon and greens dinner is passing away, though still

the usual fare in the small farmhouses. Most of the fairly well-to-do

farmers have a joint twice or three times a week, well supported with

every kind of vegetable. There is no attempt at refinement in cooking,

but there is plenty of good substantial food.

The hill farmer, whose staple is sheep and wool, has generally a great

deal of walking or riding to get over in the day. The down farms are

sometimes very large, running perhaps in long narrow strips of land for

two or three miles. Although he employs a head-shepherd, and even a

bailiff, he finds it necessary, if he would succeed in making a profit,

to be pretty well ubiquitous. They all want looking after sharply. Not

that there is much actual dishonesty; but would any manufacturer endure

to have his men sitting doing nothing on their benches for fifteen

minutes out of every hour of the working day, just because his back was

turned? The hill farmer has, perhaps, a preferable life in some respects

to the agriculturist in the vale. He has not so much actual manual

labour to get through. On the other hand, he is at a great distance

from any town, or even large village; he sees no one during the day, and

he has to run great risks. Wool may fall, so may the price of mutton,

either of which would derange his calculations; or the fly may destroy

his turnips, or the season may be exceptionally dry and unfavourable.

His house is lonely, perched on the side of a hill, and exposed to the

bitter blasts of winter which sweep over the downs with resistless fury,

and which no doors nor windows can exclude. If there should be snow, it

is sure to fall in greater quantities on the hills, and, driving before

the wind, fills up the hollows, till the roads are impassable for weeks.

Taking all the year round, the work of the agriculturist begins and ends

with the rising and setting of the sun. There is an exception, because

the cows must be milked and foddered nearly as early in the winter, when

the sun rises very late, as at other seasons; but then, to make up for

that, work ends earlier in the afternoon. In the spring, as the evenings

draw out, there is almost always something to be done even after the

labourers have left. In harvest time, the superintendence of work

continues till late, and in the autumn labour is not unfrequently

prolonged into the moonlight, in order to carry the corn. It is a life,

on the whole, of hard work.

In all this I speak of the ordinary middle-class farmer. The life of the

higher class of agriculturists, who possess large capital, and employ

bailiffs and all kinds of machinery, is of course not by any means so

onerous. It is in general character pretty much that of an independent

gentleman, with the addition of the sporting element, and a certain

freedom from drawing-room trammels.

To get at the physique of the agriculturists, the best plan is to pay a

visit to the market-town. Here almost every farmer in the neighbourhood,

no matter of what class--highest, middle, or lowest--is nearly sure to

be seen on market-days. The upper class come in in their smart

waggonettes, or dog-carts, drawn by thoroughly good and stylish horses,

which are little, if at all, inferior to those of the gentry. Some of

these keep their groom and coachman, who dress in livery of a quiet and

subdued kind, but still unmistakably a livery. The middle-class come in

in traps, or old-fashioned four-wheelers, generally bringing their wives

and daughters, to do the shopping of the week. The market-day is, in

fact, the event of the week, and the streets of the market-town are the

Rotten Row of the neighbourhood. The wives and daughters come in their

best dresses, and promenade up and down, and many a flirtation goes on

with the young bucks of the district. The lower class of farmers jog in

on their mares, rough as cart-horses, and the rider generally so manages

to seat himself as to show three or four inches of stocking between his

trousers and boots. After the market is over, and the dealing done, the

farmers resort to the various inns, and dine at the market ordinary. A

very good dinner is usually provided at a low charge on these days. Soup

is not usual, the dinner generally beginning with fish, followed by

joints, and fowl of various kinds. Wine "whips" are formed, and the

sherry circulates freely. There is a regular chairman, always a man of

property and influence, and an old frequenter of the place. After

dinner they sit an hour or two discussing, not only the price of sheep

and wool or mutton, but the political and other events of the day. The

Chambers of Agriculture are generally so arranged as to meet on

market-days, about an hour after the ordinary finishes, and not

unfrequently in the same room. The market-towns derive great benefit

from this habit of congregating on the market-day. It is the day, too,

for paying visits by the ladies. Gay costumes pass through the streets,

and bright eyes look out of the windows of the hotels upon the crowd of

farmers. The yards of the various hostelries are made almost impassable

by the innumerable variety of vehicles. The young farmers take the

opportunity of playing a game at billiards, which they rarely do on

other days. The news of the whole countryside is exchanged, and spreads

from mouth to mouth, and is carried home and sent farther on its way.

One great characteristic is the general good-humour that prevails. The

laugh and the joke are frequently heard--it is a kind of moderate

gala-day. The fishmonger's shop is emptied, and the contents carried

home, this being the only day in the week when fish is bought by the

majority of agriculturists. Some towns have only what is called a

"gin-and-water" market: that is, the "deal" is begun and concluded from

small samples carried in the pocket and examined at an inn over a glass

of spirits and water. But in the great market-towns there is now almost

always a large room, or hall, set aside for this special purpose. The

market begins and concludes at a fixed time, indicated by the ringing of

a bell. In this hall the dealers have stands, furnished with desks, at

which they may always be found, and here sacks of samples are pitched.

There is a clerk of the market, and the current prices are posted up,

and afterwards sent to all the local newspapers. The cattle-market used

to be carried on entirely in the streets, each farmer selling his own

beasts or sheep by private treaty with the dealers. The streets were

then often filled with cattle from one end to the other, and were almost

impassable for vehicles, and at times not a little dangerous for

foot-passengers. Now the practice of selling by auction has become very

general, and the cattle are either put into the auctioneer's private

yard, or in an enclosure provided by the town authorities. The

corn-dealers are a most energetic class of men, well educated, and often

employing large capital in their business. They are perpetually

travelling, and often attend two markets a day. Having struck a bargain,

the farmer and the purchaser adjourn to the hotel, and have a glass of

spirits, without which no transaction seems complete. The use of beer

has very much declined among the fairly well-to-do agriculturists. They

drink it at dinner and lunch, but whenever a glass is taken with a

friend, or in calling at an inn, it is almost invariably spirits. Whisky

has been most extensively drunk of late years.

No other class of men employing so much capital and so many labourers

are so simple in their habits as the agriculturists. In dress they

adhere to the plainest colours and shapes; there is no attempt to keep

pace with the fashion. The materials of the coat and vest are good, and

even expensive, but the cut is old and out of date, and the whole effect

quite plain. There is no shirt front, no studs, no rings, no kid gloves.

The boots are strong and thick, substantial, but not ornamental. A man

with his ten or fifteen thousand perhaps will walk down the street

buttoned up in an ungainly greatcoat and an old hat, not half so smartly

dressed as a well-paid mechanic, and far behind the drapers' assistants

in style. There is a species of contempt among them for the meretricious

and showy; they believe in the solid. This very fact makes them good

friends to shopkeepers, who have no better customers. They carry this

leading idea too far, for they admire an article in precisely a

corresponding ratio to the money it costs, totally oblivious of all

considerations of art or ornament. The first question invariably is, if

they are asked to admire anything, "What did it cost?" This results in a

heavy and cumbrous style of furniture even in the best farmsteads.

Everything must be massive, costly, and strong. Artistic tendencies they

have none. They want something durable, and they get it. But on the

whole they make marvellously little show for their money. Hundreds of

the most substantial agriculturists, whose cheques would be honoured for

thousands of pounds, seem absolutely to make no show at all. At the

same time it is quite true that some of the rising generation, who have

very little to do it on, make a great display with hunters and plated

harness, and so forth. But they are not the rule. The generality go just

the other way, and live below their income, and take a lower station in

society than they might reasonably claim.

Farmers are decidedly a marrying class of men. The farm is a business in

which a wife is of material service, and can really be a helpmate. The

lower class of farmers usually marry quite as much or more for that

reason than any others. The higher classes of agriculturists feel that

they have a right to marry because they too can show a home in which to

keep a wife. Though they may not have any large amount of capital, still

they possess a good house and sufficient provision. They are, therefore,

a marrying class of men, but do not commonly contract matrimonial

alliances very early in life. The great object of an agriculturist who

has sons is to get them settled in farms, and it is astonishing to what

an extent this is carried by men who do not seem to have much capital to

start their children with. Instances are common in which a man has

three or four sons all in farms, and doing fairly well. One of the

greatest difficulties he has to contend against is the necessity of

providing education. Where is a farmer, living perhaps two or three

miles, often enough four and six miles, from a town, to send his boys to

school? The upper class of agriculturists can, of course, afford to have

a proper governess at home till they are old enough, and then send them

to one of the so-called middle-class schools. The lower class, on the

other hand, who do not aspire very high, and whose ideas are little more

ambitious than those of their labourers, are contented with the school

in the neighbouring village. Till recently these village schools were

very poor affairs, something a little better than the old dame school,

but not much. But since the new Education Act the lower class of farmers

are in a better position with respect to education than those who

possess much higher claims to social distinction. Where there is not a

school board, the clergyman and the landowners have combined, and built

first-rate schools, up to all the requirements of the Act, and attended

by properly certified teachers. The lower class farmer, who is troubled

with no scruples about the association of his boys with the labourers'

children, can send them to this school at a very low charge indeed, and

they will there receive a good foundation. But the middle-class

farmer--the man who is neither an independent gentleman, nor obliged to

live on bacon and greens--is unprovided for, and yet this class is the

most numerous. They have better views for their sons than to confine

those early impressions upon which so much depends to the narrow and

rude, if not coarse manners of the labourers' children. They look higher

than that, and they are fully justified in doing so. They do not,

therefore, at all relish the idea of sending their boys to the national

school of the parish, let it be never so well supplied with teachers.

There is another objection to it. It has a faint suspicion of the

pauper. Now if there is anything a downright English yeoman abominates

more than all the rest it is any approach to the "parish." This is a

"parish" school. It is not a paupers' school--that is admitted--but it

is a "parish" school, to which the children of men who have often

received relief are sent. The yeoman's instinct revolts at it. Attempts

have been made to get over this niceness of feeling by erecting a

special class-room for farmers' sons, and patriotic baronets have even

gone so far as to send their own boys so as to set the example. But it

is in vain. The middle-class farmer is above all men exclusive in his

ideas. He detests the slightest flavour of communism. He likes to be

completely and fully independent. He will not patronise the "parish"

school. What then is he to do? At this present moment most farmers' sons

are sent into the neighbouring towns to the middle-class schools which

are to be found there. If the farmer is within two or three miles the

boys walk or ride on ponies every morning. If it is farther than that

they go as weekly boarders, and return home every Saturday. The fault in

this system is simply and solely in the character of the school. Too

often it is a school in name only, where the boys learn next to nothing

at all, except mischief. Very few schools exist in these small country

towns which afford a good education at a moderate price. It is almost

impossible that they should exist without an endowment, as the scholars

can never be numerous enough to make the profits exceed the expenditure.

The result is that the middle-class farmer cannot give his boys a good

education unless he sends them to what is called a middle-class school

in some town at a great distance, and this he cannot afford. The sum

demanded by these so-called middle-class schools is beyond his reach. He

may, perhaps, if he has only one son, indulge in the expensive luxury of

a sound and thorough education for him. But if there are several the

thing is out of the question. With the girls it is even worse--where can

he send them? They cannot very well walk or ride to and fro like the

boys to the school in the nearest town, and if they are boarded at such

schools, the education given is paltry and meagre in the extreme. A good

girls' school is one of the rarest things in the country. The result is

that a governess is kept while the girls are young. This governess is

underpaid, and has consequently herself been only partially educated.

Then as the girls grow older they are sent for a year or two, to

"finish" them, to some young ladies' academy, and the ultimate product

is a smattering of French and music, and crude ideas of fashion and

refinement, which make them dissatisfied with their home and unfit for

an agricultural life as the wife of a farmer.

The nonsense talked and published of farmers having pianos, and their

daughters strumming all day long instead of attending to the dairy, is

perfectly absurd. It is quite true that in hundreds of farmhouses, just

at the time when the dairy is in full work in the morning, a piano may

be heard going. This is the governess instructing the girls when the

farmer is not sufficiently rich to send them to a school. But when once

these girls are grown up, and have finished their education, poor as it

is, and return home to take a part in the household duties, then the

piano is never heard in the morning when work is about. The farmer's

wife sees to that sharp enough. In the evening it may be heard--and why

not? If the agricultural labourer is to be polished up and refined, why

on earth should not his employer take a step in advance? It must be

remembered that there is very little society in the country; scarcely

any one even passing along the road. There are none of those cheap

sights and amusements so readily accessible to the poorest in a great

city. The wives and daughters of the mechanics and workmen in London can

once a week at least afford to enjoy themselves at some theatre or place

of amusement. They are far better off in this respect than the daughters

of agriculturists who may be worth thousands. These have nothing

whatever to amuse themselves with during the long evenings; they cannot

even take a stroll out and look at the shop windows. They are surely

entitled to the simple and inexpensive amusement of a piano. It is in

fact their only resource. There was a statement in the newspapers of

farmers taking their daughters to Paris. It is possible that some of the

upper class of farmers, who are in fact independent gentlemen, may have

done so; but as for the ordinary middle-class farmers, such a thing is

utterly unheard of. It is very few of them who even take their wives to

London or the seaside for a week. But even if they did, it is nothing

more than they are entitled to do. Half the tradesmen who do such things

do not possess anything like the income of the farmers. The fact is,

that the agriculturists are a singularly stay-at-home race of men. The

great majority never leave their farms to go farther than the

market-town from one year's end to the other. Above all classes they are

attached to their homes, and slow to go away even temporarily. To such a

length is this feeling carried that men have been known to go partially

insane for a while at the prospect of having to quit a farm through a

landlord's decease, even though no appreciable pecuniary loss was

involved.

The agriculturists are a remarkably observant race, and as a rule

peculiarly well-informed. This is contrary to the popular belief, which

represents the farmer as rude and ignorant, a pot-bellied beer-drinker,

and nothing more. But the popular belief is a delusion. I do not say

that they are literary or scientific in their tastes and private

pursuits. There are no great names among them in geology, or astronomy,

or anthropology, or any other science. They are not artists in any

sense. But they are singularly well-informed. They possess more general

knowledge than any other class, and can converse on subjects with which

townsmen seem unacquainted. Many of them have very fair libraries, not

extensive, but containing books of sterling excellence. Farming is

necessarily an isolated business--there is little society. Except on

market-days, there is scarcely any interchange of conversation. There

is, too, at certain seasons of the year a good deal of leisure. What

books they own, therefore, are well read, and the contents reflected

upon. It is that habit of thinking over what is read that makes all the

difference. It is impossible to avoid being struck with the immense

amount of general information possessed by some agriculturists, and the

wide field over which their knowledge ranges. Yet with all this

knowledge and power of reflection they still remain attached to the

old-world system of politics, religion, and social relations.

The habits of intemperance which were at one time a just and standing

reproach against the agriculturist have almost entirely disappeared. A

drunken farmer is now unknown. They are as fond as ever of offering

hospitality to a friend, and as ready to take a social glass--no total

abstainers amongst them; but the steady hard-drinking sot has passed

away. The old dodge of filling the bottle with gin instead of water,

and so pouring out pure spirit, instead of spirit and water, when the

guests were partially intoxicated, in order to complete the process, is

no more known. They do not drink more than the inhabitants of towns.

It is a singular fact that with so many streams and ponds scattered

about the country within easy reach, the farmers do not care for

fishing. A farmer engaged in fishing is a rarity indeed. They are

eagerly fond of fox-hunting, coursing, and shooting, but fishing is a

dead letter. A party will sometimes go out and net a pond, but as for

fishing proper, with rod and line, it is almost unknown. Every chance of

shooting is eagerly snatched at. In May the young rooks are shot, after

which the gun is put aside for a while. At the end of July some of the

young rabbits are ready, and are occasionally knocked over. Very few

tenant farmers shoot game even when they could do so, leaving that for

some neighbouring gentleman with whom they are friendly, and this too

without any remuneration, the fact being that winged game does little

damage. But they wage unceasing war on the rabbits, with dog and gun

and ferret. All the winter long they are hunted in every possible way.

This is, of course, on farms where the tenant has permission to kill the

rabbits. Whist and post and pair are the staple indoor amusements.

Of all businesses that of agriculture is peculiarly adapted to descend

from father to son. In point of fact, farms so frequently pass from the

father to the son as to be looked upon almost as a certain inheritance.

In agriculture, then, it must be expected that the effects of inherited

instincts and ideas should be very plainly shown. From this cause arises

the persistent and unreasoning Conservatism of the mass of

agriculturists. Out of a list of one hundred farmers, I find that one

resides upon a farm which has been in the occupation of members of the

same family for three hundred years. He possessed a series of documents,

receipts, special agreements, and so on, proving that descent beyond all

cavil; but with the usual want of proper appreciation for antiquities,

most of these papers have been committed to the flames; still there is

no question of the fact, which can still be shown from the landlord's

family archives. Nominally that farm has been in the occupation of one

family for ten generations, reckoning by the ordinary calculation of

thirty years to each. But this average is not fairly applicable to the

agricultural life, which is generally long, and occasionally extends

into extreme old age. There were probably about eight successors if the

line was unbroken; if not, there may of course have been treble that

number. A man may be excused some amount of pride when he thinks of such

a continuance as this in one spot, for it means not only an exceptional

vitality of race, but an exceptional perseverance in the paths of

honesty and straightforwardness. But with this pride it also engenders a

stubborn unchangeableness, a dislike and hatred of all things new and

unfamiliar, a nervous dread of reform. Faithful to the logic of their

class, such men as these may in resisting innovations go to lengths

which may appear foolish and wrong to others who live in a widely

different social atmosphere. To some extent the bitter opposition to

change in the position of the labourer, which is thrown in the teeth of

the tenant farmer, is the outcome of these very centuries of steady

adherence to all that they believed upright and manly.

Another name on my list has been known at one spot for fully two hundred

years. These men attained a position beyond that of yeoman, but they

never sank beneath it. The rise of many of the great county families

really dates from the success of some ancestor, or the collective

success of a series of ancestors, in agriculture. They perhaps claim

some knight or nobleman as the founder of the race, although he may have

really done nothing for the practical advantage of the family; the true

founders being merely proprietors of land, dignified as J.P.'s, and

sometimes sheriffs, throwing off branches into the clerical and legal

professions. The real ancestor was the sturdy yeoman who accumulated the

money to purchase the farm he tilled, and whose successors had the good

sense to go on adding acre to acre till they finally expanded into the

wide domains of the modern squire. Not the knight whose effigy in brass

paves the aisle of the parish church laid the corner-stone of the wealth

and power of to-day, but the shrewd and close-fisted producer and dealer

in wool and corn. Their true claim to aristocratic privileges and

importance is the sense of centuries of independence. These others of

whom we have spoken, the yeoman who never aspired beyond the yeoman's

position, are as ancient and as "worshipful"--to use an old and disused

term--as they. I do not instance these descents of three and two hundred

years as extraordinary, because I believe that they could be paralleled

and even extended by inquiry, but because they came under my own

observation. There are others on the list ranging from one hundred and

sixty down to sixty and eighty years of continued occupation. But not to

go into details, I reckon on an average that thirty names out of a

hundred have been the occupiers for three generations; forty for two

generations; twenty for one hundred and fifty years; and ten are new

comers. But a still more curious and instructive fact is the permanence

of certain names over a wide section of country; so much so that in

places it is a common saying that one has only to be an A, or a B, or a

T, to be certain of getting a farm. Whole parishes seem related, and not

very distantly related either; and yet there is not the remotest

class-feeling or _esprit de corps_. The isolation and independence of a

farm life are powerful agents in preventing anything like cohesion. Any

one who will take the trouble to look down the parish register in a

strictly agricultural district will be forcibly struck with the

permanence of certain names. Page after page contains nothing but

records of the marriages, intermarriages, burials, baptisms, and so on

of two or three generic names. The population appears to have been

stationary for scores upon scores of years. Say what you will, ridicule

it as you like, there is a charm clinging round that which time has

hallowed; and even the man of the hour, the successful speculator,

yields to this. It is his most eager desire to become a landed

proprietor, and if possible he buys a place where he can exercise

manorial rights.

Taking these things into consideration, it is only reasonable to admit

that agriculture is a profession in which a man may, above all others,

be excused if he manifests a certain amount of irritability at the

prospect of change. The slow round of uneventful years, the long

continuance of manual labour, the perpetual iteration of a few ideas, in

time produce in the mind of the most powerfully intellectual men a

species of unconscious creed; and this creed is religiously handed down

from generation to generation. Setting aside those who have gone into

agriculture as a science, and adapt everything to commercial

principles--and they are as yet not very numerous--the great mass of

farmers believe nearly the same now as they did two centuries ago.

Looking through a farmer's calendar published in the first few years of

this century, and containing a complete _resume_ of the system of

agriculture practised then, I was struck by the remarkable fact that in

all main features it was the same as that in use now. We have heard so

much of the rapid progress of agriculture, of the important changes

introduced, and of the complete revolution which has taken place, that

this statement may appear incredible. It is nevertheless the fact that

that book might be put with advantage into the hands of any young man

about to enter upon a farm. With the exception of those operations which

are now performed by steam, and making an allowance for the altered

conditions introduced by the abolition of the Corn Laws, the

instructions given there are useful down to this very day. Here is the

knowledge of the peculiarities and requirements of stock slowly

accumulated during ages of agriculture, and at last written down and

printed for easy reference. However much the aspect of politics may

change, or however much the means of locomotion and communication may be

facilitated by the introduction of steam, Nature still remains

unaltered. The cows and sheep retain their instincts and their internal

economy; their modes of feeding, times of rest, and seasons of increase,

never vary. The earth too has not changed. The corn is sown at the same

time; Nature goes on her way as before, heedless of the railway rattle.

So it is that the details of management in this book are as useful now

as then, more than two generations since. It is the same with the

unwritten faith of the men who labour and live among these things. Go

out among them, and collect from the majority their views and

sentiments, and in this age of progress they will be found to correspond

almost exactly with those of their forefathers, as recorded by history.

They know that such is the fact themselves; they know too that it would

subject them to sharp criticism and reproof if they published their real

opinions. Therefore they remain silent, and it is only among themselves

that these ideas are earnestly insisted on.

In the earliest days of agriculture, when Abraham drove his flocks and

herds to and fro under the Syrian sun, the father of the family was at

once the procreator, the law-giver, the judge, the leader in battle, the

priest, and the king. He was absolute master under Heaven of all things

visible around him. The Pope claims to be infallible now, and to be the

vicegerent of Heaven, but the patriarch of old actually possessed those

powers upon his own domain. His sons were under his complete control--he

could sacrifice them alive to his God if he chose, or banish them from

their native land. His daughters were still more completely in his hand,

to be done with as he thought fit. His servants, his slaves, were as

much his as the wooden pole of his tent, or the very sandals he walked

in. They were as dust before him. There was no coming of age in those

days; no escape after the twenty-first year. The tie lasted till his

death. At forty his sons and daughters were as much his own as they were

at ten years old. They tell us that this system, to some extent, still

survives in China. In all fundamental points such is the creed of the

agricultural race of our own day. Circumstances have, no doubt, had

something to do with the production and elaboration of such a faith. In

no other profession do the sons and the daughters remain so long, and so

naturally, under the parental roof. The growth of half-a-dozen strong

sons was a matter of self-congratulation, for each as he came to man's

estate took the place of a labourer, and so reduced the

money-expenditure. The daughters worked in the dairy, and did not

hesitate to milk occasionally, or, at least, to labour in the hayfield.

They spun, too, the home-made stuffs in which all the family were

clothed. A man's children were his servants. They could not stir a step

without his permission. Obedience and reverence to the parent was the

first and greatest of all virtues. Its influence was to extend through

life, and through the whole social system. They were to choose the wife

or the husband approved of at home. At thirty, perhaps, the more

fortunate of the sons were placed on farms of their own nominally, but

still really under the father's control. They dared not plough or sow

except in the way that he approved. Their expenditure was strictly

regulated by his orders. This lasted till his death, which might not

take place for another twenty years. At the present moment I could point

out ten or twelve such cases, where men of thirty or forty are in farms,

and to all appearance perfectly free and independent, and yet as

completely under the parental thumb as they were at ten years old. Why

do they not throw off the burden? Because they have imbibed the same

creed, and intend to carry it out in their own persons. These men, if

they think thus of their own offspring, cannot be expected to be more

tender towards the lower class around them. They did at one time, and

some still wish to, extend the same system to the labouring population.

As there was in those days little or no work for a man but upon a farm,

and as the cottages were chiefly in the hands of the farmers, there was

plenty of opportunity for carrying out these ideas. The old method of

poor relief gave another handle. They did not want only to indulge in

tyranny; what they did was to rule the labouring poor in the same way as

they did their own children--nothing more nor less. These labouring men,

like his own children, must do as the farmer thought best. They must

live here or there, marry so and so, or forfeit favour--in short, obey

the parental head. Each farmer was king in his own domain; the united

farmers of a parish were kings of the whole place. They did not use the

power circumstances gave them harshly; but they paid very little regard

to the liberty of the subject. To this very day something of the same

sort goes on. It is wonderful with what eager zeal many of the old-style

farmers enter into the details of a labourer's life, and carefully

ascertain his birth, his parentage, his marriage, his wife's parentage,

and the very minutest matters. These facts thus accumulated are talked

over in the boardroom when an applicant comes to the union for relief.

Very often such special knowledge possessed by a guardian of the

antecedents of the applicant is most useful and beneficial in enabling

the Board to extend assistance to a deserving man. What I wish to show

is the all-permeating influence of the parental system in the mind of

the typical agriculturist.

In religion it is, or lately was, the same. It was not a matter with the

farmer of the Athanasian creed, or the doctrine of salvation by faith,

or any other theological dogma. To him the parish church was the centre

of the social system of the parish. It was the keystone of that parental

plan of government that he believed in. The very first doctrine preached

from the pulpit was that of obedience. "Honour thy father and mother"

was inculcated there every seventh day. His father went to church, he

went to church himself, and everybody else ought to go. It was as much a

social gathering as the dinner at the market ordinary, or the annual

audit dinner of their common landlord. The dissenter, who declined to

pay church-rates, was an unsocial person. He had left the circle. It was

not the theology that they cared about, it was the social nonconformity.

In a spiritual sense, too, the clergyman was the father of the parish,

the shepherd of the flock--it was a part of the great system. To go a

step farther, in political affairs the one leading idea still threaded

itself through all. The proper parliamentary representative--the natural

law-giver--was the landlord of the district. He was born amongst them,

walked about amongst them, had been in their houses many a time. He knew

their wants, their ideas, their views. His own interest was identical

with theirs. Therefore he was the man. The logic is indisputable. What

is more, they acted up to it. In agricultural districts it is not

uncommon even now to find men of diametrically opposite political views

to the candidate at an election voting for and supporting him, simply

and solely because he is the local man. It is natural and right that he

should represent them. That one word "right" is the key to the whole

ethical system of the agriculturists. They cherish and maintain their

belief in right, and in their "rights"--by which they understand much

the same thing--even when unaccompanied by any gain or advantage. In

brief outline, such is the creed of the agriculturists as a body. It is

neither written nor spoken, but it is a living faith which influences

every hour of their lives.

This faith must ever be borne in mind by those who wish to understand

the movements of the agricultural world. Without making a proper

allowance for it, the farmers will be easily misjudged.

The labouring class are imbued to a great extent with the very same

ideas. They stick to their rights. They will not give up an old pathway

that their fathers used, not if one twice as convenient be offered in

lieu of it. They have a right to go that way, and go that way they will.

They are brutally tyrannical over their children. I use those words

deliberately. He who spares the rod spoils the child, is the practical

rule of their conduct. They seem to look upon their offspring as merely

slaves. They are fond of them in their way, no doubt, but the law of

implicit obedience is maintained by dint of blows and stripes. The

children are kicked, punched, and thrashed perpetually. A good

ground-ash stick is the gospel of the labouring man. They carry the same

plan into their work. How many carters have been severely fined and

imprisoned for whipping, and sometimes even maiming, the boys under

their commands? And yet the old practice still continues, only a little

checked by wholesome terror of the law.

Despite of all the teaching of the Radical papers, all the whispers of

the Methodist itinerant preachers, despite the hatred which the

Labourers' Union agents endeavour to sow between the labourer and the

farmer, still the great mass of labourers at the last election,[1]

wherever they had a vote, supported the local candidate--the man who

represented the soil--and declined to do more than listen to the

brilliant promises held out by the party of change. So strong above all

things is the force of tradition and custom.

The agriculturists are firmly and earnestly wedded to that unwritten

creed which has grown up among them out of the past. Why, then, should

they be so hardly dealt with, more than others, for adhering to this

faith? Argue with them, educate them up to your standard if you

like--but is it fair, is it just, is it in accordance with that spirit

of liberalism and tolerance which their opponents profess, to taunt,

abuse, and bully to the full length that words will permit? They are not

facile at expression, these same men of the soil. The flow of language

seems denied to them. They are naturally a silent race--preferring deeds

to speech. They live much with inarticulate nature. It may be, after

all, they have learnt some useful and abiding lessons from that

intercourse. The old shepherds on the plains of Chaldea, under the

starry skies of the East, watched the motions of those shining bodies

till they slowly built up a religion, which, mixed with much dross,

nevertheless contained some truths which educated men profess to this

hour. These English farmers also observe the changes of the seasons, and

watch the face of heaven. Their deepest convictions are not to be

lightly set aside. There are men amongst them of great powers of

thought. I remember one at this moment whose grand old head would have

been a study for an artist. A large head he had, well-balanced, broad

and high at the forehead, deep-set eyes, straight nose, and firm

chin--every outward sign of the giant brain within. But the man was

dumb. The thoughts that came to him he could communicate roughly to his

friends, but the pen failed him. The horny hand which results from

manual labour is too stiff to wield the swiftly-gliding quill. But there

is another species of handwriting which is called Work--a handwriting

which will endure when the scribblings of the hour are utterly

forgotten. This writing he laboured at earnestly and eagerly, not for

his own good either, for it absorbed his own fortune, no small one, in

the attempt to realise his conception of machinery which would double

the yield of food. It has been done since his time, other men stepping

over the bridge of experience which he had built. Now this man, who, on

the principles of the opponents of the agriculturists, was a benefactor

to his species, and a pioneer of true progress, was, nevertheless, one

of the firmest, staunchest, most uncompromising supporters of that creed

which they are endeavouring to destroy, and which may be stated thus: "I

believe in the Sovereign, the Church, and the Land: the Sovereign being

the father of the people in a temporal sense; the Church in a spiritual

sense; and the Land being the only substantial and enduring means of

subsistence. Cotton, coal, and iron cannot be eaten, but the land gives

us corn and beef; therefore, the land stands first and foremost, and the

agriculturist, as the tiller of land, possesses an inalienable right

which it is his duty to maintain, and in so doing he is acting for the

good of the community. I believe that the son and the daughter should

obey their parents, and show regard to their wishes even when legally

independent. Also that the servant should obey his employer. The

connection between employer and employed does not cease with the payment

of wages. It is the duty of the servant to show consideration for the

advice of the master; and the master is not free from responsibility as

to the education and the comfort of the man. The master is bound by all

laws, human and divine, to pay a fair amount of wages for a day's work.

If he does not do so he robs the workman as much as if he stole the

money from his pocket. The workman is equally bound to do his work

properly, and in neglecting to do so he robs his employer. To demand

more wages than has been earned is an attempt at robbery. Both master

and man should respect authority, and abide by its decisions."

Such is a slight outline of the home-life and the faith of the farmer.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Feb. 1874.

_THE LABOURER'S DAILY LIFE._

Many labourers can trace their descent from farmers or well-to-do

people, and it is not uncommon to find here and there a man who believes

that he is entitled to a large property in Chancery, or elsewhere, as

the heir. They are very fond of talking of these things, and naturally

take a pride in feeling themselves a little superior in point of

ancestry to the mass of labourers.

How this descent from a farmer to a labourer is managed there are at

this moment living examples going about the country. I knew a man who

for years made it the business of his life to go round from farm to farm

soliciting charity, and telling a pitiful tale of how he had once been a

farmer himself. This tale was quite true, and as no class likes to see

their order degraded, he got a great deal of relief from the

agriculturists where he was known. He was said to have been wild in his

youth, and now in his old age was become a living representative of the

farmer reduced to a labourer.

This reduction is, however, usually a slow process, and takes two

generations to effect--not two generations of thirty years each, but at

least two successors in a farm.

Perhaps the decline of a farming family began in an accession of

unwonted prosperity. The wheat or the wool went up to a high price, and

the farmer happened to be fortunate and possessed a large quantity of

those materials. Or he had a legacy left him, or in some way or other

made money by good fortune rather than hard work. This elated his heart,

and thinking to rise still higher in life, he took another, or perhaps

two more large farms. But to stock these required more money than he

could produce, and he had to borrow a thousand or so. Then the

difficulty of attending to so large an acreage, much of it distant from

his home, made it impossible to farm in the best and most profitable

manner. By degrees the interest on the loan ate up all the profit on the

new farms. Then he attempted to restore the balance by violent high

farming. He bought manures to an unprecedented extent, invested in

costly machinery--anything to produce a double crop. All this would have

been very well if he had had time to wait till the grass grew; but

meantime the steed starved. He had to relinquish the additional farms,

and confine himself to the original one with a considerable loss both of

money and prestige. He had no energy to rise again; he relapsed into

slow, dawdling ways, perpetually regretting and dwelling on the past,

yet making no effort to retrieve it.

This is a singular and strongly marked characteristic of the

agricultural class, taken generally. They work and live and have their

being in grooves. So long as they can continue in that groove, and go

steadily forward, without much thought or trouble beyond that of

patience and perseverance, all goes well; but if any sudden jolt should

throw them out of this rut, they seem incapable of regaining it. They

say, "I have lost my way; I shall never get it again." They sit down and

regret the past, granting all their errors with the greatest candour;

but the efforts they make to regain their position are feeble in the

extreme.

So our typical unfortunate farmer folds his hands, and in point of fact

slumbers away the rest of his existence, content with the fireside and a

roof over his head, and a jug of beer to drink. He does not know French,

he has never heard of Metternich, but he puts the famous maxim in

practice, and, satisfied with to-day, says in his heart, _Apres nous le

Deluge_. No one disturbs him; his landlord has a certain respect and

pity for him--respect, perhaps, for an old family that has tilled his

land for a century, but which he now sees is slowly but irretrievably

passing away. So the decayed farmer dozes out his existence.

Meantime his sons are coming on, and it too often happens that the brief

period of sunshine and prosperity has done its evil work with them too.

They have imbibed ideas of gentility and desire for excitement utterly

foreign to the quiet, peaceful life of an agriculturist. They have

gambled on the turf and become involved. Notwithstanding the fall of

their father from his good position, they still retain the belief that

in the end they shall find enough money to put all to rights; but when

the end comes there is a deficiency. Among them there is perhaps one

more plodding than the rest. He takes the farm, and keeps a house for

the younger children. In ten years he becomes a bankrupt, and the family

are scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. The plodding one

becomes a bailiff, and lives respectably all his life; but his sons are

never educated, and he saves no money; there is nothing for them but to

go out to work as farm labourers.

Such is something like the usual way in which the decline and fall of a

farming family takes place, though it may of course arise from

unforeseen circumstances, quite out of the control of the agriculturist.

In any case the children graduate downwards till they become labourers.

Nowadays many of them emigrate, but in the long time that has gone

before, when emigration was not so easy, many hundreds of families have

thus become reduced to the level of the labourers they once employed. So

it is that many of the labourers of to-day bear names which less than

two generations ago were well known and highly respected over a wide

tract of country. It is natural for them to look back with a certain

degree of pleasure upon that past, and some may even have been incited

to attempt a return to the old position.

But the great majority, the mass, of the agricultural labourers have

been labourers time out of mind. Their fathers were labourers, their

grandfathers and their great-grandfathers have all worked upon the

farms, and very often almost continuously during that long period of

time upon the farms in one parish. All their relations have been, and

still are, labourers, varied by one here who has become a tinker, or one

there who keeps a small roadside beerhouse. When this is the case, when

a man and all his ancestors for generations have been hewers of wood and

drawers of water, it naturally follows that the present representative

of the family holds strongly to the traditions, the instincts, acquired

during the slow process of time. What those instincts are will be better

gathered from a faithful picture of his daily life.

Most of the agricultural labourers are born in a thatched cottage by the

roadside, or in some narrow lane. This cottage is usually an

encroachment. In the olden time, when land was cheap, and the

competition for it dull, there were many strips and scraps which were

never taken any notice of, and of which at this hour no record exists

either in the parochial papers or the Imperial archives. Probably this

arose from the character of the country in the past, when the greater

part was open, or, as it was called, champaign land, without hedge, or

ditch, or landmark. Near towns a certain portion was enclosed generally

by the great landowners, or for the use of the tradesmen. There was also

a large enclosure called the common land, on which all burgesses or

citizens had a right to feed so many cattle, sheep, or horses. As a rule

the common land was not enclosed by hedges in fields, though instances

do occur in which it was. There were very few towns in the reign of

Charles II. that had not got their commons attached to them; but outside

and beyond these patches of cultivation round the towns the country was

open, unenclosed, and the boundaries ill-defined. The king's highway ran

from one point to another, but its course was very wide. Roads were not

then macadamised and strictly confined to one line. The want of

metalling, and the consequent fearful ruts and sloughs, drove vehicles

and travellers further and further from what was the original line,

till they formed a track perhaps a score or two of yards wide. When

fields became more generally enclosed it was still only in patches, and

these strips and spaces of green sward were left utterly uncared for and

unnoticed. These were encamped upon by the gipsies and travelling folk,

and their unmolested occupation no doubt suggested to the agricultural

labourer that he might raise a cottage upon such places, or cultivate it

for his garden.

I know of one spot at this present moment which was enclosed by an

agricultural labourer fully sixty years ago. It is an oval piece of

ground of considerable size, situated almost exactly in the centre of a

very valuable estate. He and his descendants continued to crop this

garden of theirs entirely unmolested for the whole of that time, paying

no rent whatever. It soon, however, became necessary to enlarge the size

of the fields, which were small, in order to meet the requirements of

the modern style of agriculture. This oval piece was surrounded by

hedges of enormous growth, and the cultivator was requested to remove to

another piece more out of the way. He refused to do so, and when the

proprietors of the surrounding estate came to inquire into the

circumstances they found that they could do nothing. He had enjoyed

undisturbed possession for sixty years; he had paid no rent--no quit

rent or manor dues of any kind. But still further, when they came to

examine the maps and old documents, no mention whatever appeared of this

particular patch of ground. It was utterly unnoticed; it was not

recorded as any man's property. The labourer therefore retained

possession. This was an extraordinary case, because the encroachment

took place in the middle of a cultivated estate, where one would have

thought the tenants would have seen to it.

Commonly the squatters pitched on a piece of land--a long unused

strip--running parallel to the highway or lane. This was no one's

property; it was the property of the nation, which had no immediate

representative to look after its interests. The surrounding farmers did

not care to interfere; it was no business of theirs. The highway board,

unless the instance was very glaring, and some actual obstruction of the

road was caused, winked at the trespass. Most of them were farmers, and

did not wish to interfere with a poor man, who they knew had no other

way of getting a house of his own. By-and-by, when the cottage was

built, the labourer was summoned to the court-leet of the manor, and was

assessed in quit rent, a mere nominal sum, perhaps fourpence or a

shilling a year. He had no objection to this, because it gave him a

title. As long as the quit rent was duly paid, and he could produce the

receipt, he was safe in the occupation of his cottage, and no one could

turn him out. To be assessed by the court-leet in fact established his

title. Some of these court-leets or manor courts are only held at

intervals of three years, or even more, and are generally composed of

farmers, presided over by the legal agent of the lord of the manor. The

tenants of the manor attend to pay their quit rent for the preceding

years, and it often happens that if the cottager has been ill, or is

weak and infirm, the farmers composing the court subscribe and pay the

quit rent for him.

The first step when a labourer intends to become a squatter is to

enclose the strip of land which he has chosen. This he does by raising a

low bank of earth round it, on which he plants elder bushes, as that

shrub grows quickest, and in the course of two seasons will form a

respectable fence. Then he makes a small sparred gate which he can

fasten with a padlock, and the garden is complete. To build the cottage

is quite another matter. That is an affair of the greatest importance,

requiring some months of thought and preparation. The first thing is to

get the materials. If it is a clay country, of course bricks must be

chosen; but in stone countries there are often quarries on the farm on

which he works. His employer will let him have a considerable quantity

of stone for nothing, and the rest at a nominal charge, and will lend

him a horse and cart at a leisure season; so that in a very short time

he can transport enough stone for his purpose. If he has no such friend,

there is almost sure to be in every parish a labouring man who keeps a

wretched horse or two, fed on the grass by the roadside, and gains his

living by hauling. Our architect engages this man at a low price to haul

his materials for him. The lime to make mortar he must buy. In the

parish there is nearly sure to be at least one native mason, who works

for the farmers, putting up pig-styes, mending walls, and doing small

jobs of that kind. This is the builder who engages to come on Saturday

afternoons or in the evenings, while the would-be householder himself is

the hod-bearer and mixes the mortar. Nine times out of ten the site for

the cottage is chosen so as to have a ditch at the back. This ditch acts

at once as the cesspool and the sewer, and, unless it happens to have a

good fall, speedily becomes a nuisance to the neighbourhood. A certain

quantity of wood is of course required in building even this humble

edifice. This is either given by the farmers or is purchased at a

nominal rate.

The ground plan is extremely simple. It consists of two rooms, oblong,

and generally of the same size--one to live in, the other to sleep

in--for the great majority of the squatters' hovels have no upstair

rooms. At one end there is a small shed for odds and ends. This shed

used to be built with an oven, but now scarcely any labourers bake their

own bread, but buy of the baker. The walls of the cottage having been

carried up some six feet, or six feet six--just a little higher than a

man's head--the next process is to construct the roof, which is a very

simple process. The roof is then thatched, sometimes with flags cut from

the brooks, but more usually with straw, and practically the cottage is

now built, for there are no indoor fittings to speak of. The chimney is

placed at the end of the room set apart for day use. There is no

ceiling, nothing between the floor and the thatch and rafters, except

perhaps at one end, where there is a kind of loft. The floor consists

simply of the earth itself rammed down hard, or sometimes of rough

pitching-stones, with large interstices between them. The furniture of

this room is of the simplest description. A few chairs, a deal table,

three or four shelves, and a cupboard, with a box or two in the corners,

constitute the whole. The domestic utensils are equally few, and

strictly utilitarian. A great pot, a kettle, a saucepan, a few plates,

dishes and knives, half-a-dozen spoons, and that is about all. But on

the mantelpiece there is nearly sure to be a few ornaments in crockery,

bought from some itinerant trader. The walls are whitewashed. The

bedroom is plainly and rudely furnished. Some cottages do not even

attain to this degree of comfort. They consist of four posts set in the

ground which support the cross-beam and the roof, and the walls are made

of wattle and daub, _i.e._, of small split willow sticks, put upright

and daubed over with coarse plaster. The roofs of these cottages are

often half hidden with rank grass, moss, and sillgreen, a vegetation

perhaps encouraged by the drippings from a tree overhanging the roof;

and the situation of the cottage is itself in many cases low and damp.

But there is a class of squatters, who possess habitations more fit for

human beings. These were originally built by men who had saved a little

money, had showed, perhaps, a certain talent for hedge carpentering or

thatching, become tinkers, or even blacksmiths. In such capacities a man

may save a little money--not much, perhaps L30 or L40 at furthest. With

the aid of this he manages to build a very tidy cottage, in the face of

the statement made by architects and builders that a good cottage cannot

be erected under L120. Their dwellings do not, indeed, compete with the

neat, prim, and business-like work of the professional builder; but

still they are roomy and substantial cottages. The secret of cheapness

lies in the fact that they work themselves at the erection, and do not

entrust some one else with a contract. Moreover, they make shifts and

put up with drawbacks as no business-man could possibly do. The

materials they purchase are cheap and of second-class condition, but

good enough to hold together and to last some time. Their rude beams and

rafters would not satisfy the eye of a landed proprietor, but they hold

up the roof-tree equally well. Every pound they spend goes its full

length, and not a penny is wasted. After a while a substantial-looking

cottage rises up, whitewashed and thatched. It has an upper storey with

two rooms, and two, at least, downstairs, with the inevitable lean-to or

shed, without which no labourer's cottage is complete. This is more like

a house, the residence of a man, than that of the poorer squatter. The

floor is composed of flag-stones, in this case always carefully washed

and holystoned. There are the same chairs and deal table as in the

poorer cottage, but there are many more domestic utensils, and the

chimney-piece is ornamented with more crockery figures. A few coarse

prints hang against the walls. Some of these old prints are great

curiosities in their way--hardly valuable enough for a collection, but

very amusing. A favourite set of prints is the ride of Dick Turpin to

York on Black Bess, representing every scene in that famous gallop. The

upstair rooms are better furnished, and the beds often really good.

Some of these cottages in summer-time really approach something of that

Arcadian beauty which is supposed to prevail in the country. Everything,

of course, depends upon the character of the inmates. The dull tint of

the thatch is relieved here and there by great patches of sillgreen,

which is religiously preserved as a good herb, though the exact ailments

for which it is "good" are often forgotten. One end of the cottage is

often completely hidden with ivy, and woodbine grows in thickest

profusion over the porch. Near the door there are almost always a few

cabbage-rose trees, and under the windows grow wall-flowers and

hollyhocks, sweet peas, columbine, and sometimes the graceful lilies of

the valley. The garden stretches in a long strip from the door, one

mass of green. It is enclosed by thick hedges, over which the dog-rose

grows, and the wild convolvulus will blossom in the autumn. Trees fill

up every available space and corner--apple trees, pear trees, damsons,

plums, bullaces--all varieties. The cottagers seem to like to have at

least one tree of every sort. These trees look very nice in the spring

when the apple blossom is out, and again in the autumn when the fruit is

ripe. Under the trees are gooseberry bushes, raspberries, and numbers of

currants. The patches are divided into strips producing potatoes,

cabbage, lettuce, onions, radishes, parsnips; in this kitchen produce,

as with the fruit, they like to possess a few of all kinds. There is

generally a great bunch of rhubarb. In odd corners there are sure to be

a few specimens of southernwood, mugwort, and other herbs; not for use,

but from adherence to the old customs. The "old people" thought much of

these "yherbs," so they must have some too, as well as a little mint and

similar potherbs. In the windows you may see two or three geraniums, and

over the porch a wicker cage, in which the "ousel cock, with

orange-tawny bill," pours out his rich melodious notes. There is hardly

a cottage without its captive bird, or tame rabbit, or mongrel cur,

which seems as much attached to his master as more high-bred dogs to

their owners.

These better cottages are extremely pleasing to look upon. There is an

old English, homely look about them. I know a man now whose cottage is

ornamented much in the way I have described, a man of sixty, who can

neither read nor write, and is rude and uncouth in speech, yet

everything about him seems pleasant and happy. To my eye the thatch and

gables, and picturesque irregularity of this class of cottages, are more

pleasing than the modern glaring red brick and prim slate of dwellings

built to order, where everything is cut with a precise uniformity. If a

man can be encouraged to build his own house, depend upon it it is

better for him and his neighbours than that he should live in one which

is not his own. The sense of ownership engenders a pride in the place,

and all his better feelings are called into play. Some of these

cottagers, living in such houses as these, are the very best labourers

to be had. They stay on one farm a lifetime, and never leave it--an

invaluable aid to a farmer. They frequently possess some little special

knowledge of carpentering or blacksmith's work, which renders them

extremely useful, and at the same time increases their earnings. These

men are the real true peasantry, quiet and peaceful, yet strong and

courageous. These are the class that should be encouraged by every

possible means; a man who keeps his little habitation in the state I

have described, who ornaments it within, and fills his garden with fruit

and flowers, though he may be totally unable to read or to speak

correctly, is nevertheless a good and useful citizen, and an addition to

the stability of the State.

Though these cottages are worth the smallest sums comparatively, it is

interesting to note with what pride and satisfaction the possessors

contemplate leaving them to their children. Of course this very feeling,

where there are quarrelsome relations, often leads to bickerings and

strife. It is astonishing with what tenacity a man who thinks he has a

claim to a part of such a small estate will cling to his cause, and will

not hesitate to spend to maintain his claim all his little earnings on

the third-class lawyers whom the agricultural poor mostly patronise.

Even after every shadow of legal chance is gone, he still loudly

declares his right; and there is more squabbling about the inheritance

of these places than over the succession to great domains.

Another class of labourers' cottages is found chiefly in the villages.

These were not originally erected for the purpose to which they are now

applied; they were farmhouses in the days when small farms were the

rule, or they were built for tradesmen who have long since departed.

These buildings are divided into two, three, or more habitations, each

with its family; and many makeshifts have to be resorted to to render

them decent and comfortable. This class of cottage is to be avoided if

possible, because the close and forced intercourse which must take place

between the families generally leads to quarrels. Perhaps there is one

pump for the entire building, and one wants to use it just at the moment

that another requires water; or there is only one gateway to the court,

and the passage is obstructed by the wheelbarrow of the other party. It

is from these places that the greater part of the malcontents go up to

the magistrates in petty sessions. It is rare, indeed, that the cottager

living more or less isolated by the side of the road appears in a court

of law. Of course, in these villages there are cottages which have been

built expressly for the use of labouring men, and these, like those in

the open country, may be divided into three classes--the hovel, the

cottage proper, and the model modern cottage.

In the villages there is almost sure to be one or more cottages which

carries one's idea of Lilliputian dwellings to the extreme. These are

generally sheds or outhouses which have been converted into cottages. I

entered one not long since which consisted of two rooms, one above and

one below, and each of these rooms could not have measured, at a guess,

more than six feet six across. I had heard of this place, and expected

to find it a perfect den of misery and wretchedness. No such thing. To

my surprise the woman who opened the door was neatly clad, clean, and

bright. The floor of the cottage was of ordinary flag-stones, but there

was a ceiling whitewashed and clean. A good fire was burning in the

grate--it was the middle of winter--and the room felt warm and

comfortable. The walls were completely covered with engravings from the

_Illustrated London News_. The furniture was equal to the furniture of

the best cottages, and everything was extremely clean. The woman said

they were quite comfortable; and although they could have had a larger

cottage many times since, they never wished to change, as they had no

children. That of course made a great difference. I never should have

thought it possible for two human beings to have existed, much less been

comfortable, in such a diminutive place. Another cottage I know contains

but one room altogether, which is about eight feet square; it is

inhabited by a solitary old woman, and looks like a toy-house. One or

two such places as these may be found in most villages, but it does not

by any means follow that because they are small the inhabitants are

badly off. The condition they are found in depends entirely upon the

disposition of the inmates. If they are slatternly and dirty, the

largest cottages would not improve them.

In some rural villages a great many cottages may be observed sadly out

of repair--the thatch coming off and in holes, the windows broken, and

other signs of dilapidation. This is usually set down to the landlord's

fault, but if the circumstances are inquired into, it will often be

found that the fault lies with the inmates themselves. These cottages

are let to labourers at a merely nominal rent, and with them a large

piece of allotment ground. But although they thus get a house and garden

almost free, they refuse to do the slightest or simplest repairs. If the

window gets broken--"Oh, let it stop; the landlord can do that." If a

piece of thatch comes off--"Oh, 'tisn't my house; let the landlord do it

up." So it goes on till the cottage is ready to tumble to pieces. What

is the landlord to do? In his heart he would like to raze the whole

village to the ground and rebuild it afresh. But there are not many who

can afford such an expense. Then, if it were done, the old women and old

men, and infirm persons who find a home in these places, would be driven

forth. If the landlord puts up two hundred new cottages, he finds it

absolutely necessary to get some kind of return for the capital

invested. He does not want more than two and a half per cent.; but to

ask that means a rise of perhaps a shilling a week. That is enough; the

labourer seeks another tumbledown place where he can live for tenpence a

week, and the poor and infirm have to go to the workhouse. So, rather

than be annoyed with the endless complaints and troubles, to say nothing

of the inevitable loss of money, the landlord allows things to go on as

they are.

Among our English cottages in out-of-the-way places may be found curious

materials for the study of character in humble life. In one cottage you

may find an upright, stern-featured man, a great student of the Bible,

and fond of using its language whenever opportunity offers, who is the

representative of the old Puritan, though the denomination to which he

may belong is technically known as the Methodist. He is stern, hard,

uncompromising--one who sets duty above affection. His children are not

spoiled because the rod is spared. He stands aloof from his fellows, and

is never seen at the cottage alehouse, or lingering in groups at the

cross-roads. He is certain to be at the "anniversary," _i.e._, the

commemoration of the foundation of the Methodist chapel of the parish.

The very next cottage may contain the antithesis of this man. This is a

genius in his way. He has some idea of art, as you may gather from the

fanciful patches into which his garden is divided. He has a considerable

talent for construction, and though he has never been an apprentice he

can do something towards mending a cart or a door. He makes stands with

wires to put flowers in for the farmers' parlours, and strings the dry

oak-apples on wire, which he twists into baskets, to hold

knicknackeries. He is witty, and has his jest for everybody. He can do

something of everything--turn his hand any way--a perfect treasure on

the farm. In the old days there was another character in most villages;

this was the rhymer. He was commonly the fiddler too, and sang his own

verses to tunes played by himself. Since the printing-press has come in,

and flooded the country with cheap literature, this character has

disappeared, though many of the verses these men made still linger in

the countryside.

The ordinary adult farm labourer commonly rises at from four to five

o'clock; if he is a milker, and has to walk some little distance to his

work, even as early as half-past three. Four was the general rule, but

of late years the hour has grown later. He milks till five or half-past,

carries the yokes to the dairy, and draws water for the dairymaid, or

perhaps chops up some wood for her fire to scald the milk. At six he

goes to breakfast, which consists of a hunch of bread and cheese as the

rule, with now and then a piece of bacon, and as a milker he receives

his quart of beer. At breakfast there is no hurry for half-an-hour or

so; but some time before seven he is on at the ordinary work of the day.

If a milker and very early riser, he is not usually put at the heavy

jobs, but allowances are made for the work he has already done. The

other men on the farm arrive at six. At eleven, or half-past, comes

luncheon, which lasts a full hour, often an hour and a quarter. About

three o'clock the task of milking again commences; the buckets are got

out with a good deal of rattling and noise, the yokes fitted to the

shoulders, and away he goes for an hour or hour and a half of milking.

That done, he has to clean up the court and help the dairymaid put the

heavier articles in place; then another quart of beer, and away home.

The time of leaving off work varies from half-past five to half-past

six. At ordinary seasons the other men leave at six, but in haymaking or

harvest time they are expected to remain till the job in hand that day

is finished, often till eight or half-past. This is compensated for by a

hearty supper and almost unlimited beer. The women employed in field

labour generally leave at four, and hasten home to prepare the evening

meal. The evening meal is the great event of the day. Like the

independent gentleman in this one thing, the labourer dines late in the

day. His midday meal, which is the farmer's dinner, is his luncheon. The

labourer's dinner is taken at half-past six to seven in the evening,

after he has got home, unlaced his heavy and cumbrous boots, combed his

hair, and washed himself. His table is always well supplied with

vegetables, potatoes, and particularly greens, of which he is peculiarly

fond. The staple dish is, of course, a piece of bacon, and large

quantities of bread are eaten. It is a common thing now, once or twice

in the week, for a labourer to have a small joint of mutton, not a

prime joint, of course, but still good and wholesome meat. Many of them

live in a style, so far as eating and drinking is concerned, quite equal

to the small farmers, and far superior to what these small farmers were

used to. Instead of beer, the agricultural labourer frequently drinks

tea with his dinner--weak tea in large quantities. After the more solid

parts comes a salad of onions or lettuce. These men eat quantities which

would half kill many townspeople. After dinner, if it is the season of

the year, they go out to the allotment and do a little work for

themselves, and then, unless the alehouse offers irresistible

attractions, to bed. The genuine agricultural labourer goes early to

bed. It is necessary for him, after the long toil of the day, on account

of the hour at which he has to rise in the morning.

Men employed on arable farms, as carters, for instance, have to rise

even earlier than dairymen. They often begin to bait their horses at

half-past three, or rather they used to. This operation of baiting is a

most serious and important one to the carter. On it depends the

appearance of his team--with him a matter of honest and laudable

ambition. If he wishes his horses to look fat and well, with smooth

shiny coats, he must take the greatest care with their food, not to give

them too much or too little, and to vary it properly. He must begin

feeding a long time before his horses start to plough. It is, therefore,

an object with him to get to rest early. In the winter time especially

the labouring poor go to bed very soon, to save the expense of candles.

By the bye, the cottagers have a curious habit, which deserves to be

recorded even for its singularity. When the good woman of the cottage

goes out for half-an-hour to fetch a pail of water, or to gossip with a

neighbour, she always leaves the door-key in the keyhole _outside_. The

house is, in fact, at the mercy of any one who chooses to turn the key

and enter. This practice of locking the door and leaving the key in it

is very prevalent. The presence of the key is to intimate that the

inmate has gone out, but will shortly return; and it is so understood by

the neighbours. If a cottager goes out for the day, he or she locks the

door, and takes the key with them; but if the key is left in the door,

it is a sign that the cottager will be back in ten minutes or so.

The alehouse is the terrible bane of the labourer. If he can keep clear

of that, he is clean, tidy, and respectable; but if he once falls into

drinking habits, good-bye to all hopes of his rising in his occupation.

Where he is born there will he remain, and his children after him.

Some of the cottagers who show a little talent for music combine under

the leadership of the parish clerk and the patronage of the clergyman,

and form a small brass band which parades the village at the head of the

Oddfellows or other benefit club once a year. In the early summer,

before the earnest work of harvest begins, and while the evenings begin

to grow long, it is not unusual to see a number of the younger men at

play at cricket in the meadow with the more active of the farmers. Most

populous villages have their cricket club, which even the richest

farmers do not disdain to join, and their sons stand at the wicket.