Rustic Manners and Customs. 87 



four figures.^ As a class they had the goodwill of the com- 

 munity, and their rustic employment was regarded in the 

 eyes of the Law as freer from corruption and cheating than 

 any other industry in the country. Accordingly we find 

 them selected for the offices of constable and churchwarden, 

 privileged to serve on juries and record their votes in the 

 election of Parliamentary representatives, and in many other 

 ways enjoying immunities which legitimately belonged only 

 to their superiors in the social scale.^ The other farming class, 

 — viz., the holders of lands by copy of Court Roll^ — were now 

 also privileged to serve on juries, and were rapidly rising 

 above the dregs of the obsolete villeinage which, as tenant 

 farmers and hired labourers, were in their turn beginning to 

 take up those positions originally occupied by their immediate 

 superiors in social importance. Formerly it would have been 

 an unheard-of condescension for the squire to have met any 

 person of the farming class on terms of social equality. But 

 Sir Roger de Coverley, it will be remembered, was not above 

 a friendly chat with the honest yeoman of about one hundred 

 pounds a year whom he met on his ride to the assizes, though 

 the man was not the best of sporting neighbours on account 

 of his fondness for partridge-shooting. 



There is probably no truer touch in the whole sketch than 

 the tact with which this old squire retains his traditional 

 influence, conceals his want of education, and completely satis- 

 fies two disputants, difficult as they were to please, in the 

 judgment he pronounces on the polemical matters submitted 

 to him by Will Wimple and Tom Touchy. It was not 

 altogether feudal tradition that caused Sir Roger's inferiors 

 to look to him for advice and submit to his rebuke. The 

 good feeling shown him by the tenants was reciprocated. 

 The very discipline so ostentatiously exhibited by this ancient 

 squire during divine service proved his solicitude for his 

 dependants' morals, and the lane of bowed heads through 

 which he passed out of church was their way of showing 



1 Id. lUd., p. 228. 



2 27ie mw State of England, Part II. cb. sxi. p. 229. 

 » G and 7 Will. III. c. 4. 



