I 9 8 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



could not. He was comparatively well-to-do, yet he 

 was not above an extra shilling. 



This is one of the most curious traits in the character 

 of cottage folk they do not care for small sums ; they 

 do not care to pick up sixpences. They seem to be 

 afraid of obliging people as if to do so, even to their 

 own advantage, would be against their personal honour 

 and dignity. In London the least trifle is snapped up 

 immediately, and there is a great crush and press for 

 permission to earn a penny, and that not in very digni- 

 fied ways. In the country it is quite different. Large 

 fortunes have been made out of matches ; now your true 

 country cottager would despise such a miserable fraction 

 of a penny .as is represented by a match. I heard a 

 little girl singing 



Little drops of water, little grains of sand. 



It is these that make oceans and mountains ; it is 

 pennies that make millionaires. But this the country- 

 man cannot sec. Not him alone cither ; the dislike to 

 little profits is a national characteristic, well marked in 

 the farmer, and indeed in all classes. I, too, must be 

 humble, and acknowledge that I have frequently detected 

 the same folly in myself, so let it not be supposed for 

 an instant that I set up as a censor ; I do but delineate. 

 Work for the cottager must be work to please him ; and 

 to please him it must be the regular sort to which he is 

 accustomed, which he did beside his father as a boy, 

 which Jiis father did, and Ids father before him ; the 

 same old plough or grub-axe, the same milking, the 

 same identical mowing, if possible in the same field. 

 He does not care for any new-fangled jobs : he does not 

 recognise them, they have no locus standi they are not 

 established. Yet he is most anxious for work, and 



