322 A Sketch of the Parish of Yateshury. 



Not quite so far behind in the news of the day, were the in- 

 habitants of our village a hundred years ago. And yet, with a post 

 which irregularly brought the letters — if there chanced to be any 

 for the parish — once or twice a week : without any newspaper, tor 

 such an article seldom came into the village; indeed, with very few 

 o£ the inhabitants able to read, for no sort of school had ever existed 

 there, it may be imagined that our parish was a little behindhand. 

 The farmers indeed cultivated the soil on the old-fashioned system, 

 and the labourers ploughed the land with their blow-paced oxen, 

 spent the livelong winter in the barns, laboriously threshing with 

 the flail, mowed the grass, and reaped the corn by hand, before 

 steam engines and reaping-machines were invented, and plodded on 

 in the slow old-world fashion now altogether out of date. So far, 

 however, they were pursuing the same course as others all around 

 them, and probably, from the excellent wheat-producing quality of 

 the land, secured at least as heavy crops as any of their neighbours. 

 But in carrying their corn to market, they had to contend against 

 a real dificulty : for how were the loaded waggons to be dragged 

 through the muddy lanes ? There is, however (says Sancho Panza), 

 " a remedy for every evil ; " and patience overcomes all difficulties ; 

 so the method pursued was to convey to the hard turnpike road, 

 through the mile-and-a-quarter of mud which intervened, first the 

 market- waggon, to be there loaded, and then — in not by any means 

 flying detachments — the sacks of corn which were to compose the 

 load ; and six or eight horses could haul through the deepest ruts 

 only a few sacks at a time. 



Here then we have a sample of the difficulties of transport between 

 our retired village and the outer world. Necessity being the mother of 

 invention, our village was doubtless in the main self-supporting- : wood 

 was universally burnt in the farmhouse and straw in the cottage,' for 



^ Even within [the last thirty years, straw tied into knots was often burnt on 

 the cottage hearths, and quite recently ovens were universally heated with it. 

 This was a remnant of the good old times, when the villagers were allowed to 

 take it home from the yards for these purposes ; in the days before straw began 

 to be appreciated as it now is, and when it was comparatively valueless in the 

 eyes of its owner. 



