154 Autumn 



THE HARDEST LABOUR 



ONE of the shrewdest landowners in England, and 

 a farmer to boot, asked of me once upon a time, ' Why 

 torment yourself to account for Hodge's migration ? 

 Here,' he continued, ' is the secret in two words : it 

 is hard work.' Pressed to explain, he said, as one 

 uttering a truth there's no gainsaying, that no toil 

 makes such trial of the muscles as the toil of agricul- 

 ture, and that men who had been to school would not 

 endure it The statement impressed me, and I pro- 

 ceeded to make my oracle particularise. If agricul- 

 tural work be the hardest there is, then what is the 

 hardest agricultural work ? At first he was inclined 

 to give the palm to milking. ' But,' you object, ' is 

 milking not the task of Phyllis, and Rose, and Tess of 

 the D'Urbervilles ? Does not the proposition involve 

 the absurd contention that the average dairymaid is 

 stronger than a coal-porter ? ' These flouts are pre- 

 mature. No one is going to contend that the maid 

 that ' singeth blythe,' the be-hymned of Herrick and 

 the beloved of Burns, is a Hercules in petticoats. But 

 she would need to be that, or something like it, to fill 

 the place of milker on a modern dairy-farm. It is 

 nothing to look after Daisy and Queenie and Blossom, 

 in the intervals of creaming, and churning, and baking, 

 and the rest. It is otherwise when there is a whole 



