WORKSHOP PLUS LAND. 231 



necessity to go direct from the holding to the 

 bench. According to the weather, the season 

 of the year and the briskness of trade, a day 

 or two, or even a week perhaps, might be 

 spent continuously on the land, and then a 

 week or two perhaps in the workshop. 



One of these craftsmen, a silversmith, has 

 become a farmer of 40 acres. He has married 

 into yeoman stock, and it is quite refreshing 

 to observe the difference between the furniture 

 inside the stone farmhouse of the newly married 

 yeoman - craftsman, and compare it with the 

 early Victorian furniture, the oleographs, and 

 the terrible portraits seen in the farmhouses 

 round about. So much do the craftsmen 

 value the work of their fellow- craftsmen that 

 they pay one another handsomely for simple 

 but beautiful pieces of furniture ; and I have 

 seen one or two engagement and wedding 

 rings beautifully wrought in gold on the 

 fingers of this community of craftsmen. 



It is said by many that the townsman, 

 especially the born cockney, never settles down 

 contentedly in the country. At Campden 

 there is a craftsman, a French-polisher by trade, 

 who has lived all but the last few years of his life 

 in the })urlieus of Bethnal Green, and 1 doubt 



