A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. l8l 



" They've got the blight down in the village," says 

 Tomsett ; " it's pretty bad on the 'lotments." 



" It must have been good times before the blight 

 came into the country," I suggest. 



" Ah, it was that ! Why, they'd grow anyhow ! 

 I've knowed people get a crop from plantin' the 

 parin's with an eye or two in 'em. I rec'lect the 

 first time I ever seed the blight, too ; up at Racket 

 Gate on the Forest, it was ; there was a man had a 

 nice lot there, called Freeman Sayers cousin he was 

 to ol* Mis' Sayers as used to keep the Crocodile and 

 I was goin' by his place one day, jus' about as it 

 might be now, end o' July ; an' I says to him, I says, 

 ' Your taters be won'erful early ripe, Mas' Sayers ' 

 ('cause the halm was all died down like). *I don't 

 know what's come to 'em,' he says and that was 

 the first time I seed the blight. It was the year the 

 railway was opened, and people said as how it was 

 the smoke of the engines blighted the halm. I 

 can't say how that was ; but there's never been no 

 taters the same since then. Everythin' keeps on 

 gettin' worse, as you may say. Well, I must be 

 gettin' on ! " 



So with much trouble he got on to his feet, saluted 

 reverentially with that childlike deference which 

 always produces an uneasy compunction in me, and 



