1 88 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



they say, are ' slubby ' enough in November, and those 

 who try to go through get ' slubbed ' up to their knees. 

 This expresses a soft, plastic, and adhesive condition of 

 the mud which comes on after it has been ' raining hop- 

 poles ' for a week. The labourer has little else to do but 

 to chop up disused hop-poles into long fagots with a 

 hand-bill — in other counties a bill-hook. All his class 

 bitterly resent the lowering of wages which takes place 

 in winter ; it is a shame, they say, and they evidently 

 think that the farmers ought to be forced to pay them 

 more — they are starvation wages. On the other hand, 

 the farmer, racked in every direction, and unable to sell 

 his produce, finds the labour bill the most difficult to 

 meet, because it comes with unfailing regularity every 

 Saturday. A middle-aged couple of cottagers left their 

 home, and the wife told us how they had walked and 

 walked day after day, but the farmers said they were too 

 poor to give them a job. So at last the man, as they 

 went grumbling on the highway, lost his temper, and hit 

 her a ' clod ' in the head, ' and I never spoke to him for 

 an hour afterwards ; no, that I didn't ; not for an hour.' 

 A clod is a heavy, lumping blow. Their home was 

 1 broad ' of Hurst — that is, in the Hurst district, but at 

 some little distance. 



' There a' sets ' is a constant expression for there it 

 lies. A dish on the table, a cat on the hearth, a plough 

 in the field, ' there a' sets,' there it is. ' No bounds ' is 

 another. It may rain all day long, ' there's no bounds ; ' 

 that is, no knowing. ' I may go to fair, no bounds,' it is 

 uncertain, I have not made up my mind. A folk so 

 vague in their ideas are very fond of this ■ no bounds ; ' it 

 is like the ' Quien sabe ? ' of the Mexicans, who knows ? 

 and accompanies every remark. An avaricious person 

 is very ' having ; ' wants to have everything. What are 



