A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. I/ 1 



After four helps or so of fat, underdone meat, we 

 come to currant tarts and jellies, the beer jugs still 

 irrigating the Court. With the cheese and a fresh 

 relay of beer comes a pause, and we can conveniently 

 observe the Court as it sits before us, now fairly loose 

 from any severer reserve. Some sixty or seventy in 

 number, the men are mostly well-to-do, the majority 

 aged something between thirty and forty. There are 

 several lads, and a few grey old fellows. Among them 

 all there is hardly a single farm-labourer ; they are 

 chiefly from the village street and its suburbs, 

 gardeners, grooms, the brewery hands, the shoe- 

 maker's men, a one-eyed gamekeeper, a miller's 

 loader, Jenner the higgler, and the contingent from 

 Mr. Blaber's yard, builders' labourers, plasterers, and 

 carpenters. In the main the faces, in long perspective 

 of profiles, are hopelessly heavy and animal in ex- 

 pression ; the aggregate of thick noses, elephantine 

 ears, and shapeless mouths is depressing. The 

 Rector's serene brows and seeing eyes, Gervase 

 French's square bronzed face and straight nose, seem 

 to belong to another race. There are exceptions to 

 the general deformity ; one or two ruddy and curly- 

 haired, a black-eyed gipsyish fellow ; but these only 

 serve to mark the common character. 



The rain is over, and the garden looks very cool and 



