PEASANT ARISTOCRACY 



the talk about the peasant exodus, one might 

 imagine that hardly a cottage could be pointed to as 

 the dwelling-place of two successive generations of 

 peasant folk. Villages half-filled by a shrunk and 

 shifting population : this picture of English country 

 life is so often drawn. Granted it is truthful in 

 many cases, the exceptions are well worth notice. 

 In a district whose ancient manor house, hall, and 

 farm have housed stranger after stranger within, 

 say, the last quarter of a century, there is often a 

 thatched and timbered cottage where folk of the 

 same name and family have lived for a hundred 

 years and more. Even without special inquiry, we 

 find tenancies by two or three generations which 

 easily cover a century. There is a cottage in the 

 ash tree hamlet through which I pass a good many 

 times each year where the same family has un- 

 doubtedly lived for well over a century indeed it 

 must be nearer a century and a half. The head of 

 the family died lately at eighty-six years ; he was 

 born in the cottage, never left it for any length of 

 time, and died in it. His father, aged eighty-two, 

 lived and died there. 



So far the family history is quite clear ; the oral 

 testimony is positive. I believe there was also a 

 great-grandfather of the present occupant eighty or 

 thereabouts who actually founded the fortunes of 

 -the family in the hamlet, and drove the coach of 

 " the good squire," a little gentleman in wig and 

 scarlet coat, my ancestor ; but I am not quite so 

 clear about this third octogenarian. Father and son, 



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