COUNTRY PLACES. 183 



was recovering they would take a fancy to it and buy it 

 at their own valuation, for of course the humble labourer 

 was obliged to regard such a wish as a command. The 

 workhouse system puts the labourer completely under 

 the thumb of the clergyman and the doctor. It was in 

 this way that many good old pieces of work gradually 

 found their destination in great London collections. 

 Once now and then, however, the eager collector would 

 come across some one independent, and meet with a 

 sharp refusal to part with the old china bowl. The wife 

 of a small farmer naively remarked about the tithes, 

 ' You know it is such a lot to pay, and we never go there 

 to church ; you know it is too far to walk.' It was not 

 the doctrine to which she objected it was the paying 

 for nothing ; paying and never having anything. The 

 farmers, staunch upholders of Church and State, are 

 always grumbling because the clergy arc constantly 

 begging. One man took a deep oath that if the clergy- 

 man ever came to his house without asking for money 

 he would cut a deep notch with his knife in the oaken 

 doorpost. Ten years went by, still more years, and still 

 no notch was cut. Odd things happen in odd places. 

 There is a story of an old mansion where a powerful 

 modern stove was put in an ancient hearth under a 

 mantelpiece supported by carved oak figures of knights. 

 The unwonted heat roasted the toes of these martyrs 

 till their feet fell off. Another story relates how in our 

 grandfathers' days a great man invited his friends to 

 dinner, promising them a new dish that had never before 

 been set upon the table. The fillet came in on the 

 shoulders of several men, and when the cover was re- 

 moved, lo an actress in a state of nature ! One farmer 

 lent his friend his dogcart. Time went on, and the dog- 

 cart was not returned ; a year went by, still no cart. 



