72 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



probably the hens laid in some corner, but the 

 cups were always spotless and everything brass 

 in the kitchen was polished to shining point, and 

 no bread baked in a big oven is ever like the loaves 

 which come out of the " bastible " with its sods 

 of turf above and below. 



** Sickness is the will of God. If you are to go 

 you are to go and there is an end of it." As the 

 coachman's wife said when someone admired her 

 twins, ** If the Lord happened to take a fancy to 

 one of them she would not say agin Him, for she 

 only had clothes for the one." 



A tremendous change has come upon the Irish 

 peasants ever since I was a child. The spirit of the 

 luxurious age has descended upon the country. 

 When I was very small all the women who could 

 worked at the harvest, small children thinned 

 turnips and did light work. The women wore no 

 hats and stout homespun skirts. Now these same 

 women, wives of poor labourers or farmers, must 

 have smart coats and hats and skirts and would 

 never dream of turning out to work, the children 

 ** get more schooling," as the saying goes, and 

 then probably emigrate while still quite young. 

 Consequently double the wages they got then 

 barely suffices, and for these wages they live no 

 better. It goes on the respectability which they 

 must present to the world. 



In the middle of the busy harvest times now, 

 the women are all in the towns on market days 



