122 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



system of enlightened feudalism — a despotism 

 without a despot. 



On a poor sandy soil, the largest part of 

 which is still heather-clad, with a clay subsoil, 

 and as open to the winds as a Yorkshire moor, 

 scented by the resinous pines of the New 

 Forest and the wild thyme of the common, 

 live a race of small holders, tilling holdings 

 varying from one to twenty acres. The older 

 tenants are living in mud cottages made of 

 the clay subsoil which lay under their feet — 

 cottages built by them on land which is not 

 theif's. JNIany of them are yearly tenants of 

 houses which their fathers built, and are legally 

 liable to eviction. In fact, the practice which 

 has gone on for generations is much like what 

 we have had in Ireland, but Verwood is unlike 

 Ireland in that the tenants do not seem to be 

 troubled about building their houses on sand. 

 Here it is the landlord, the squire of Verwood, 

 who is troubled about the insubstantial, un- 

 economic footing of his own tenants. 



He is the lord of the manor of some 2000 

 acres, and his family in past days have by 

 degrees permitted parishioners to cultivate 

 with the spade the rough heather-clad moor- 

 land over which the family exercise manorial 



