426 A FARMER'S YEAR 



present total of its occupants is only ninety-two, which means, of 

 course, that the district has to keep up a much more extensive 

 building than is necessary. When I was a guardian, I think that 

 we had a roll-call of about one hundred and thirty. 



It astonished me to-day to see how greatly the conditions of 

 existence atHeckingham have been improved of late years. Now 

 it resembles an infirmary for the aged poor, rather than the last 

 shelter to which the destitute are driven by necessity. In the old 

 days, indeed, it was a dreary place ; for instance, I remember the 

 sick ward, a cold and desolate room, where two children, to whom 

 I used to carry toys, a twin brother and sister, lay dreadfully ill of 

 some scrofulous disease, with no fire in the grate, and, so far as I 

 recollect, no trained nurse to wait upon them. To-day that ward is 

 bright and cheerful, with a good fire burning in it and a properly 

 certificated attendant to minister to the wants of its occupants. 

 By the way, this afternoon I heard the fate of those stricken 

 twins. The girl died almost immediately after I knew her, but 

 the boy recovered sufficiently to emigrate to America. 



The only people in the workhouse to-day who were there in 

 my time are the master, an inmate named Sam Reeder (who 

 used to put up my pony when I visited the place), and another 

 aged and imbecile man. All the rest have gone, a good many of 

 them underground, I suppose. Reeder I found laid up with asthma, 

 but he knew me again at once. With several intervals he has 

 inhabited this house for about a quarter of a century. In the 

 same room there was another old fellow lying in bed with a great 

 roll of flannel tied round his throat. I asked him what was the 

 matter with him, and he replied that he was suffering from ' poll- 

 sickness,' which, as he alleged, he had caught from a horse by 

 sleeping in a rug belonging to the said horse. Poll-sickness, it 

 seems, is a kind of sore or abscess which horses get from knock- 

 ing their heads against low doorways, and is commonly supposed 

 to be incurable. Therefore the old gentleman, whose name is 

 Lawes, assured me that, as he had taken it from a horse, his 

 ailment also was incurable. He told me too that he had cut up 



