AUGUST IN SROADLAND. 77 



Behold us in the afternoon of a hot August day jog-trotting along upon a 

 tough old vehicle that has rattled backwards and forwards these many years; the 

 painter has not seen it since it first left his hands. A towy-headed rustic, with a 

 broad-brimmed felt hat, turned down in the orthodox fashion, has the reins, and 

 old 'Nelson,' whose pace, in spite of threats and persuasions, has not altered one 

 whit since we started, is shambling doggedly along. The good man's ' missus ' is 

 sitting on our right. Between two such substantial mortals we feel quite small. 

 We may not describe her habiliments they are more than half a century behind 

 the city fashions. 



Our driver takes great pains to point out with his lashless whip-stalk every 

 thing that he imagines of interest to us, from the churches and parsonages which 

 peer out from between crowding trees, to the barley in the harvest-field that is 

 ready for the carting. His talk is of all that is rural, and of not a little that isn't. 



' 'Bor,' he says, ' farmin' ain't what it wor when I was a youngster. Theer's a 

 heap of things as have altered since 'the good old days long ago,' when gleaners 

 picked up the stray ears, and harvest hoam wor one o' the sights an' most pleasant 

 doin's o' the country. Law ! the powetry's all knocked out of it, what wi' the 

 bringin' in of machinery, and the buyin' up of corn from them furriners, the hull 

 (whole) thing's got transmorgorified. Time was when the sickle an' the scythe 

 cud du what wor required; but folks ha' got a sight too go-a-head nowadays, and 

 now yow must hev a heap o' machines a cuttin' out labour, and doin' the thing so 

 grandly. But sorry times ha' dawned on us, for all that 'ere, and ain't likely tu 

 bettern while them 'Mericans an' Eooshens send theer ships with many a ton, and 

 du it cheaper, tu. 



1 The willages ha' got behindhand tu, for many a lab'rer leaves 'em for the 

 towns; but theer, 'bor, yow know as much about that, and the evil days we've lived 

 tu see, as I ken tell yer of 'em.' 



'(rood arternune! Mrs. Gammut,' is the salute he treats an old lady to, who 

 is alternately whacking and jerking the reins of a scraggy and ancient donkey, 

 that is slowly trundling the aged soul along. Mrs. Gammut has been to the town 

 for her 'washings,' as the baskets of linen piled up in her little cart bear witness. 

 It was early morning when the obstinate ' dicky ' left his stable, in which he 

 hopes to munch his supper by nightfall. The surviving folk of an almost obsolete 

 generation take things easier than the present, and live the longer for their unam- 

 bitious jog-trot, doubtless. Mrs. Gammut bids us ' Arternune,' and amidst her 

 heaps of linen essays a little curtsey. 



