38 IDLEHURST : 



goes in a circle like, and everything comes back 

 some day just where it was. If the young chaps 

 could see what it was like when I was a boy, they 

 wouldn't talk like they does. Good times, they was, 

 and no mistake." 



At this point came in Widda Packham, a sort of 

 far-off relation of Tomsett's, a cheery, tublike little 

 woman who looks after him at spare moments, and I 

 think amends his tea with small extras of her own. 

 After an easy curtsey to me, she turned to Tomsett 

 almost as to a child 



" There you be again with that pipe o' yourn, Mars' 

 Tomsett ! And you know as chewin's a sight better 

 for your lights ! " Then, as her sleeves were already 

 up to her hard red elbows, and a comprehensive 

 " clean-up " was evidently in view, I retired. 



Thinking much of Tomsett's "old times" on my 

 way home, I hardly noticed how the colour had gone 

 from sky and land and a grey evening was shrouding 

 the world, with promise of a night of rain. Easy 

 enough to say that so the colour dies out of life 

 towards the close ; but in converse with the old 

 people I gain a clear impression that they judge very 

 largely things on their own merits ; and that for the 

 farm labourer the former days were really better than 

 these. And among our hymns to Progress, advancing 



