WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS. 145 



slow, no attitudes, no drawing-room grace, no Christmas 

 card glossiness ; somewhat stiff of limb, with a distinct 

 flavour of hay and straw about them, and no enamel. In 

 the villages cottagers have no ideas of tastefully disposing 

 their mantles about their shoulders, or of dressing for the 

 occasion. I do not know how to describe the form of a 

 middle-aged cottage woman on a stormy day with a 

 large, greenish umbrella, a round bonnet, huge and en- 

 closing all the head, back, and sides, like the vast helm 

 of the knights, a sort of circular cloak, stout ankles well 

 visible, and sometimes pattens ; the wearer inside all this 

 decidedly bulky, and the whole apparatus coming along 

 through mud and rain with great deliberation. Inside 

 the round bonnet a ruddy, apple-checked face, just such 

 a one as used to go to mass in Sir John the priest's time, 

 before the images were knocked out of the rood-loft at the 

 church there. The boys and girls play in the ditches 

 till they go to school, and they play in the hedges and 

 ditches every hour they can get out of school, and the 

 moment their time is up they go to work among the 

 hedges and ditches, and though they may have had to read 

 standard authors at school, no sooner do they get among 

 the furrows than they talk hedge and ditch language. 

 They do not talk Pope, or Milton, or Addison ; they 

 'knaaws,' 'they be a-gwoin thur,' it's a 'gcat,' and a ' vield, 1 

 and a ' vurrow.' These are the old faces you see, the same 

 old powers are at work to fashion them. Heavy, blind 

 blows of the Wind, the Rain, Frost, and Heat, have 

 beaten up their faces in rude repoussj work. They have 

 nails in their boots, but new hats on their heads ; he who 

 paints them aright should paint the old nailed boots, but 

 also the new hats and the Waltham watches. Why do 

 they not read ? All have been taught, and curious as 

 the inconsistency may seem, they all value the privilege 



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