OLD FARM-HOUSECOTTAGES. 89 



with the weather-boarding stripped off and all the timber exposed. 

 Fill up the intervals with brick, and plaster them over even with 

 the outer surface of the beams ; then whitewash this plastered 

 surface and blacken the timber, and you have the walls of the 

 house. A New England house, however, would have three times 

 as many windows. The roof is mostly of very small old slates, 

 set with mortar, and capped (ridged) with thick quarried stones. 

 It is repaired with large new slates in several places, and an 

 addition that has been made since the main part was erected, 

 which is entirely of brick in the walls, with no timber, is heavily 

 thatched with straw, as are also all the out-buildings. 



The rear of the farm-house probably contains the dairy, and is 

 covered with thatch to secure a more equable temperature. 



All the other buildings in the hamlet were similarly built 

 timber and whitewashed walls, and thatch roofs. While I was 

 sketching, the farmer, a stout old man, and the first we have seen 

 in top-boots, came out and entered into conversation with us. He 

 was much amused that I should think his house worth sketching, 

 and told us it had been long [rented] in his family. He had no 

 idea how old it was. He described the cottages, which were 

 certainly very pretty to look at, as exceedingly uncomfortable 

 and unhealthy the floors, which were of clay, being generally 

 lower than the road and the surrounding land, and often wet, and 

 always damp, while the roofs and walls were old and leaky, and 

 full of vermin. The walls of these cottages are all made by in- 

 terlacing twigs (called wattles) between the timbers, and then 

 plashing these with mud (noggin), inside and out, one layer over 

 another as they dried, until it is as thick as is desired ; then the 

 surface is made smooth with a trowel, and whitewashed. 



A few miles further on we came to a large, park-like pasture, 

 bounded by a neatly trimmed hedge, and entered by a simple 

 gate, from which a private road ran curving among a few clumps 



