78 A KENTISH PARISH 



ranged barn upon barn, with the rows of cattle-stalls 

 and the stables ; and the whole is backed up by the 

 inevitable oast-house. 



It would be hard to find a fairer or more refreshing 

 scene, whatever be the season you view it in. Whether 

 in spring, when the foliage is fresh and green, and the 

 trees in the orchard are flecked with the white and pink 

 blossoms. Or in summer, when the fruit has been 

 setting and swelling, and the canopies of leaves cast 

 cooling shadows. Or in autumn, when the barns and 

 stackyards have been filled, and the waggons are 

 rumbling homeward with their load of hops. Or 

 even in winter, when the glare of the fires within casts 

 its cheerful reflection on the panes in the casements, 

 and the still fat though frozen-out fowls are huddling 

 together under the lee of the house, beneath eaves that 

 are fringed with their draperies of icicles. 



The Kentish farmer is of many a class. The sub- 

 stantial small proprietor still survives, half thane half 

 yeoman, sitting snugly on the soil transmitted to him 

 by his ancestors, and proud, as Lord Lytton says in 

 " Harold," of his five hydes of land : the yeoman who, 

 according to the old local rhyme, could buy out with 

 his yearly rent the citizen of Cales, the gentleman of 

 Wales, and the knight or the north countree : the 

 yeoman who figured as the immortal Mr. Warden 

 of the Manor Farm in the pages of the " Pickwick 

 Papers." Although in these days, when everybody is 

 scrambling upwards, the Kentish yeoman has been 

 changing into the squire, and consequently the race is 



