120 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



so perfect that the layers of feathers are traceable 

 by an imaginative eye. This, the old folk say, is the 

 wing of the Archangel Michael ; and it bodes no good 

 to the evil ones among the nations, for he is on his 

 way to execute a dread command. 



Herbs are still believed in implicitly by some. Not 

 long since I met a labourer, one of the better class too, 

 whom I had known previously, and now found deeply 

 depressed because of the death of a son. The poor 

 fellow had had every attention ; the clergyman had 

 exerted himself, and wine and nourishing luxuries 

 had not been spared, nor the best of medical advice. 

 That he admitted, but still regretted one thing. There 

 was a herb, which grew beside rivers, and was known 

 to but a few, that was a certain cure for the kind 

 of wasting disease which had baffled educated skill. 

 There was an old man living somewhere by a river 

 fifty miles away, who possessed the secret of this 

 herb, and by it had accomplished marvellous cures. 

 He had heard of him, but could not by any inquiry 

 ascertain his exact whereabouts ; and so his child died. 

 Everything possible had been done, but still he re- 

 gretted that this herb had not been applied. 



Nothing is done right now, according to the old men 

 of the hamlet ; even the hayricks are built badly and 

 " scamped.'' The " rickmaker " used to be an im- 

 portant person, generally a veteran, who had to be 

 conciliated with an extra drop of good liquor before 

 he could be got to set to work in earnest. Then he 

 spread the hay here, and worked it in there, and had 



