72 IN THE WEALD 
really with their old employers and with past 
times. All things change, but the change from the 
old regime to the new is, in many instances, a violent 
one. When, from some cause or other, large 
estates have changed owners, things have not worked 
well. It could not be expected that they should. 
The farmer and his men fully appreciate and re- 
turn any act of courtesy. They are gentlemen by 
nature. I have in my lifetime had opportunities 
of studying a considerable amount of so-called 
society, some of it as high as was to be got, and 
some of it ' low ' so called because its members had 
not so much money, and I have known as much 
good-breeding in a woodman and his wife as could 
be seen elsewhere. Talk of field naturalists ! Such 
men are this in spite of themselves. Works on 
natural history, provided especially for the use of 
village libraries, are things to mock at. A lie, no 
matter how it is dressed up and some lies are very 
nicely dressed is a lie. Men who have the 
living creatures before their eyes, their means of 
living, and their various ways of procuring it, require 
no books, not even the scientific ones with their errors. 
Fifty years in the open air, in all weathers, will teach 
one much. Some of the men I know have passed 
eighty years, and they are yet well and hearty. 
