lO 



FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



him to lose his self-respect and liberty. He would 

 rather risk his life in the snowdrift. Nature, earth, and 

 the gods did not help him ; sun and stars, where were 

 they? He knocked at the doors of the farms and 

 found good in man only — not in Law or Order, but in 

 individual man alone. 



The bitter north wind drives even the wild fieldfare 

 to the berries in the garden hedge ; so it drives stra}- 

 human creatures to the door. A third came — an old 

 gip.sy woman — still stout and hearty, with green fresh 

 brooms to sell. We bought some brooms — one of them 

 was left on the kitchen floor, and the tame rabbit nibbled 

 it ; it proved to be heather. The true broom is as green 

 and succulent in appearance in January as June. She 

 would see the ' missis.' ' Bless you, my good lady, it be 

 weather, bean't it ? I hopes you'll never know what it be 

 to want, my good lady. Ah, well, you looks good- 

 tempered if you don't want to buy nothing. Do you 

 see if you can't find me an old body, now, for my girl — 

 now do'ee try ; she's confined in a tent on the common 

 — nothing but one of our tents, my good lady — that's 

 true — and she's doing jest about well ' (with briskness 

 and an air of triumph), ' that she is ! She's got twins, 

 you see, my lady, but she's all right, and as well as can 

 be. She wants to get up ; and she says to me, " Mother, 

 do'ee try and get me a body ; 'tis hard to lie here abed 

 and be well enough to get up, and be obliged to stay 

 here because I've got nothing but a bedgown." For you 

 see, my good lady, we managed pretty well with the 

 first baby ; but the second bothered us, and we cut ui 

 all the bits of things we could find, and there she ain| 

 got nothing to put on. Do'ee see if 'ee can't find her 

 old body.* The common is an open piece of furze anj 

 licath at the verge of the forest ; and here, in 51 tent jus 



