38 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



instance many cases of applicants who had 

 become tired of applying, and were now footing 

 it with those who make up that army of 

 workers who have their faces set steadily for 

 the towns. 



The next village entered after Pewsey is 

 that of Upavon. This is the place that the 

 Wiltshire schoolgirl mentioned when her 

 teacher spoke about Elijah going up to heaven. 

 " Ah, yes," said the child, " I knows where 

 Upeaven is. Granfer took a ram there once." 

 It cannot have changed much since Cobbett's 

 time, though our population has grown three 

 times as great. In 1821 it numbered 464 

 souls ; to-day it has only 430. It is of the 

 type of the picturesque, semi-urban backwater, 

 where the retired colonel likes to dwell, and 

 possibly keep a nag on half-pay stabled at the 

 old coaching hm with its ghostly empty 

 chambers. Modernity once tried to conquer 

 the place by putting up an aggressive shop- 

 front which clamoured for notice as it pointedly 

 obtruded itself into the main street. But soon 

 shutters had to cover its brazen effrontery. 

 It seemed wrong and quite disturbing to find a 

 motor car being washed by a whistling 'Enery 

 Straker on the banks of the silvery Avon. 



