66 The Village Church. 



their workshops from cities into the country, the rent 

 of premises being so much less, water to be got by 

 sinking a well, less rates, and wages a little cheaper. 

 They retain a shop and office in the cities, but have 

 the work done miles away. But even this is distinctly 

 associated with centralization. The workmen are 

 merely paid human machines ; they do not labor for 

 their own hands in their own little shops at home, 

 or as the rope-maker slowly walked backwards here, 

 twisting the hemp under the elms of the lane, after- 

 wards, doubtless, to take the manufactured article 

 himself to market and offer his wares for sale from a 

 stand in the street. 



The millwright used to be a busy man here and 

 there in the villages, but the railways take the wheat 

 to the steam mills of cities, and where the water-mills 

 yet run, ironwork has supplanted wood. In s5me few 

 places still the women and girls are emplo3'ed making 

 gloves of a coarse kind, doing the work at home in 

 their cottages ; but the occupation is now chiefly 

 carried on nearer to the great business centres than 

 this. Another extinct trade is that of the bell 

 foundry. One village situate in the hills hard by 

 was formerly celebrated for the church bells cast 

 there, many of which ma} r be found in far distant 

 towers ringing to this day. 



Near the edge of the hill, just above the washpool, 

 stands the village church. Old and gray as it is, yet 

 the usage of the pool by the shepherds dates from 

 still earlier days. Like some of the farmhouses 

 further up among the hills, the tower is built of flints 

 set in cement, which in the passage of time has be- 

 come almost as hard as the flint itself. The art of 



