io FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



him to lose his self-respect and liberty. He would 

 rather risk his life in the snowdrift. Nature, earth, and 

 the gods did not help him ; sun and stars, where were 

 they ? He knocked at the doors of the farms and 

 found good in man only — not in Law or Order, but in 

 individual man alone. 



The bitter north wind drives even the wild fieldfare 

 to the berries in the garden hedge ; so it drives stray 

 human creatures to the door. A third came — an old 

 gipsy woman — still stout and hearty, with green fresh 

 brooms to sell. We bought some brooms — one of them 

 was left on the kitchen floor, and the tame rabbit nibbled 

 it ; it proved to be heather. The true broom is as green 

 and succulent in appearance in January as June. She 

 would see the ' missis.' ' Bless you, my good lady, it be 

 weather, bean't it ? I hopes you'll never know what it be 

 to want, my good lady. Ah, well, you looks good- 

 tempered if you don't want to buy nothing. Do you 

 see if you can't find me an old body, now, for my girl — 

 now do'ee try ; she's confined in a tent on the common 

 — nothing but one of our tents, my good lady — that's 

 true — and she's doing jest about well ' (with briskness 

 and an air of triumph), 'that she is! She's got twins, 

 you see, my lady, but she's all right, and as well as can 

 be. She wants to get up ; and she says to me, " Mother, 

 do'ee try and get me a body ; 'tis hard to lie here abed 

 and be well enough to get up, and be obliged to stay 

 here because I've got nothing but a bedgown." For you 

 see, my good lady, we managed pretty well with the 

 first baby ; but the second bothered us, and we cut up 

 all the bits of things we could find, and there she ain't 

 got nothing to put on. Do'ee see if 'ee can't find her an 

 old body.' The common is an open piece of furze and 

 heath at the verge of the forest ; and here, in a tent just 



