272 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



the woman said something in a sharp voice, and our guide shout- 

 ed in reply, without, however, turning his head, " Stop thy maw 

 am going to Ameriky, aw tell thee." It was his "missis," he 

 said. 



"Those were not your children that lay in the road?" 



"Yaas they be foive of 'em." 



So we fell into a talk with him about his condition and pros- 

 pects ; but before I describe it, let me relieve my page with a 

 glimpse of rustic character of another sort. It is one of the 

 pleasant memories of our later ramble on the Rhine that writing 

 of this incident recalls. A simple story, but illustrative in this 

 connection of the difference which the traveler commonly finds 

 between the English and the German poor people. 



We had been walking for some miles, late in a dusky evening, 

 upon a hilly road, with an old peasant woman, who was return- 

 ing from market, carrying a heavy basket upon her head and 

 two others in her hands. She had declined to let us assist her 

 in carrying them, and though she had walked seven miles in the 

 morning and now nearly that again at night, she had overtaken 

 us, and was going on at a pace that for any great distance we 

 should have found severe. At a turn of the road we saw the 

 figure of a person standing still upon a little rising ground before 

 us, indistinct in the dusk, but soon evidently a young woman. It 

 is my child, said the woman, hastily setting down her baskets 

 and running forward, so that they met and embraced each other 

 half way up the hill. The young woman then came down to us, 

 and, taking the great basket on her head, the two trudged on 

 with rapid and animated conversation, in kind tones asking and 

 telling of their experiences of the day, entirely absorbed with 

 each other, and apparently forgetting that we were with them, 

 until, a mile or two further on, we came near the village in 

 which they lived. 



