THE AFTERMATH OF THISTLES. 95 



place of Merrie England ; the only emotional excitement 

 seeming to lie in the direction of religious revivals. I 

 remember asking in a village what had become of 

 the sexton. The reply was he had gone to Pulborough in 

 Sussex, which was " altogether a livelier place because he 

 had had two funerals in a fortnight." 



There were no holidays except enforced ones on wet days 

 and such as a hiring fair or mop fair. The half-holiday, 

 in spite of Arch's efforts, had not yet been won by the organ- 

 ised workers. Plough Monday in Lincolnshire, when the 

 labourers carried round a coulter decorated with ribbons 

 and collected money for a supper was still in vogue, it is 

 true, and in corners of Lancashire country folk could still 

 be found merry enough to perform a mutilated Easter 

 Play, as a prelude for asking for the Pace or Paschal eggs 

 that once upon a time were sought ail over the county. 



But these isolated gatherings appeared more like ghosts 

 at a feast over a decaying rural England which in days gone 

 by, we are told, was merry. At any rate, we know that 

 once upon a time, as Walter de Henley says in his Dite de 

 Hosebonderie, " you know that there were in the year fifty- 

 two weeks. Now take away eight weeks for holidays and 

 other hindrances then are there forty-four working weeks 

 left," which points to the fact that in the feudal days the 

 English labourer had more holidays than when he became 

 a " free " man. 



It was not only the disappearance of the labourer 

 and the village tradesman which depleted rural life. The 

 ruined small yeoman farmer's homestead was vacated ; 

 his little farm as well as that of many a tenant farm was 

 engrossed. The bailiff began to occupy the better farm- 

 house whilst the inferior ones of the bankrupt farmer 

 were occupied by the teamster, shepherd, or cowman and 

 his family. 



No greater condemnation of the dullness of village life 

 could be made than that of a writer in 1891 : " The rustic 

 goes to town in part to revive his dying capacity for laugh- 

 ter." 1 



1 The Rural Exodus, by P. Anderson Graham 



