200 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



and it did not cost so much to live as it used to. He had a 

 cottage in the village; the landlord, Sir Watkins Wyn, was 

 an excellent man, and his agent was very kind to poor people. 

 He did not see any need of grumbling, and, for his part, 

 thought the world a pretty fair world. 



After a good breakfast in a room adorned with sporting 

 pictures and a likeness of Sir Watkins Wyn, I returned to 

 talk with him. When he had work, his wages were six dollars 

 a week, but just now he was out of work. The rent of his 

 cottage and four roods of land was one hundred and twenty 

 dollars, and Sir Watkins paid the poor-rates. Sir Watkins 

 was not very generally liked by his tenants, because he was 

 not so liberal with them as his father ; but his father had been 

 extravagant, and run the estate deeply in debt, and he had 

 need to be more particular : and he was sure he was always very 

 easy with poor folks. He had had a deduction made on his 

 rent more than once when the times were hard with him, and 

 this year the farmers all were allowed ten per cent, of their 

 rents because corn is so low. 



I had told him I was from America, and he was asking me 

 some questions about it, when he suddenly stopped, fidgeted 

 about a moment, and then, looking at a woman coming across 

 the street, said, with a laughing, swaggering air, &quot; There s my 

 wife coming ; now you ll see a specimen of a Welsh girl !&quot; 

 His wife, a stout, hard-looking \voman, walked briskly in, 

 stood up straight before him, folded her arms, and, in a deep, 

 quiet, determined way, gave him a regular Caudliny. He 

 tried for a while to make a joke of it, and to appease her. 

 &quot; Come now, missus, don t be hard upon un ; sit ye down now, 

 and take a pint ; these gentlemen be from Ameriky, and I 

 talks with um about going there. Come now, how d thee 

 like to go to Ameriky ?&quot; As we were thus introduced, she 

 glanced fiercely at us, and we retreated at once without the 



