SEED-TIME FOR REVOLT. 15 



Commissioner ; The English Peasant, by Richard Heath ; 



77/6' English Peasantry, by Francis George Heath ; Atcady, 

 by Dr. Jessopp, or the works of Richard Jefferies, not 

 to prolong the list, we find that the characters por- 

 trayed by our novelists, though true perhaps individually, 

 become a little out of perspective when placed cheek by 

 jowl with the entire race of farm workers. 



There were stern and just farmers, no doubt ; there were 

 generous and hospitable farmers ; there were stupid and 

 ignorant labourers ; there were labourers who consumed a 

 good deal of bacon and ale or cider ; and there is no doubt 

 that the hired men who boarded with farmers lived well. 

 One or two of the declining race of old labourers who still 

 wear the smockfrock have told me of their experiences of 

 living in the farmhouse in the 'sixties and 'seventies. 



' There is nuthin' like a bit o' fat pork," remarked one 

 of these, an Old- Age Pensioner, to me one day, " but it must 

 be in brine twelve months, mind you. Nowadays a boo- 

 tiful piece of pork is left in brine for a month, and out it 

 come, ruined ! Ah, I minds the day when I were a boy at 

 Cutluck Farm and the missus usen to gie me a fat lump o' 

 pork to souse in the bread and milk, and a pint o' ale to 

 drink. No washy tea, mind yer. We never touched 

 butter in those days ; and we had pork agen inside the 

 apple dumplin' for dinner. Ah, them was the days o' good 

 fcedin' for the likes o' we. They made good hard cheeses 

 at the farm then. I mind once we pegged the clasp o' a 

 Held gate with a stick o' cheese as hard as a bar of iron." 



Thus I, too, have met the Andrew Hedgers. But very 

 few Andrew Hedgers who were married men living in cot- 

 tages would have the opportunity of eating " hog for a 

 solid hower " if it had to be purchased out of wages ranging 

 from 95. to I2S. a week. There was something lacking in 

 the novelist's pictures of perennial harvest homes ; of farm 

 kitchens groaning under the weight of gargantuan dump- 

 lings and pitchers of beer ; of patriarchal friendly relation- 

 ships between master and man seated at the same board 

 together. To get the right perspective we should have to 

 open the cupboard of the farm labourer's wife and figure 



