198 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



could not. He was comparatively well-to-do, yet he 

 was not above an extra shilling. 



This is one of the most curious traits in the character 

 of cottage folk — they do not care for small sums ; they 

 do not care to pick up sixpences. They seem to be 

 afraid of obliging people — as if to do so, even to their 

 own advantage, would be against their personal honour 

 and dignity. In London the least trifle is snapped up 

 immediately, and there is a great crush and press for 

 permission to earn a penny, and that not in very digni- 

 fied ways. In the country it is quite different. Large 

 fortunes have been made out of matches ; now your true 

 country cottager would despise such a miserable fraction 

 of a penny as is represented by a match. I heard a 

 little girl singing — 



Little drops of water, little grains of sand. 



It is these that make oceans and mountains ; it is 

 pennies that make millionaires. But this the country- 

 man cannot see. Not him alone either ; the dislike to 

 little profits is a national characteristic, well marked in 

 the farmer, and indeed in all classes. I, too, must be 

 humble, and acknowledge that I have frequently detected 

 the same folly in myself, so let it not be supposed for 

 an instant that I set up as a censor ; I do but delineate. 

 Work for the cottager must be work to please him ; and 

 to please him it must be the regular sort to which he is 

 accustomed, which he did beside his father as a boy, 

 which his father did, and Jiis father before him ; the 

 same old plough or grub-axe, the same milking, the 

 same identical mowing, if possible in the same field. 

 He does not care for any new-fangled jobs : he does not 

 recognise them, they have no locus standi — they are not 

 established. Yet he is most anxious for work, and 



