126 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



about a man with a flute, a woman with a hurdy-gurdy, and three 

 little children singing what we guessed must be Welsh songs 

 regular wails. The youngest was a boy, not appearing to be over 

 five years old, and was all but naked. 



In front of our inn a man held in his arms a fine, well-dressed 

 little boy, and cried in a high, loud, measured, monotonous drawl, 

 continuously over and over " His mother died in Carlisle we 

 have traveled twenty-seven miles to-day I have no money she 

 left this boy yesterday he walked eighteen miles I have no supper 

 he is five years old I have walked two hundred miles this is no 

 deception I have seen better days friends his feet are lacerated I 

 am in search of work I am young and strong he cannot walk his 

 mother died in Carlisle help me in my lamentations I have but 

 sixpence for myself and boy friends I am compelled to beg I am 

 young and strong his mother died in Carlisle I am in search of 

 work his feet are lacerated" and so on. "We watched him from 

 the rows perhaps two minutes, and saw seven persons drop cop- 

 pel's into his hat : two little girls whom a man was leading, a boy, 

 a German lace-peddler, a woman with a basket of linen on her 

 head, another woman, and a well-dressed man. 



The rest of the evening we sat round a bright coal fire, in what 

 had been the great fireplace of the long back parlor. We are the 

 only inmates of the inn except Mrs. Jones, the landlady, and her 

 maid. About eleven o'clock we were disturbed by some riotous 

 men in the tap-room, which is the other side of the big chimney. 

 Mrs. Jones seemed trying to prevail on them to leave the house, 

 which they refused to do, singing, " We won't go home till morn- 

 ing." Mrs. Jones is a little, quiet, meek, soft-spoken woman, and 

 we were apprehensive for her safety. I was about to go to her 

 assistance, when the maid entered and said, " If you please, sir, 

 my mistress would like to see you." I went hastily round into 

 the tap-room, and found two stout, dirty, drunken men, swinging 



