32 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



James Jefferies always voted blue, but was a Radical in 

 many of his ideas. He was a Churchman : for some time 

 the Coate services were held at the back of his house ; and 

 it was as much out of his hatred of the Methodists as of love 

 for the Church that he offered to give the land and to 

 cart the stones for the chapel at Coate. 



Less is said of Elizabeth, his wife. She, too, was 

 generous, but irritable and queer, and there are hints that 

 a country life on a small, encumbered farm was not what 

 she desired. But she made admirable butter, as some 

 still remember, and a small cheese — about eight to the 

 hundredweight. 



She and her husband and John Brown — and after him, 

 Abner Webb — with extra hands at haymaking, managed 

 the little farm. In the year of Richard's birth gold was 

 discovered in California, and soon after in Australia. 

 Agriculture prospered. Meat, cheese, and butter were 

 at a high price ; rates were low ; more money was spent on 

 drainage and artificial manures ; great improvements were 

 made in agricultural machinery ; and Jefferies, writing to 

 Mrs. Harrild at the age of seven, shows how much he was 

 impressed by a threshing-machine which he had seen for 

 the first time at a large farm in the neighbourhood, and he 

 drew a picture of the machine. But Coate Farm was 

 only about forty acres in extent, and though the land was 

 very good and was given to James Jefferies on his mar- 

 riage, freehold, it never brought him much money, even 

 in the best days. 



The nearest market was at Swindon — at first a * gin- 

 and-water market,' where farmers, with samples of corn 

 in their pockets, sat about over a glass and a pipe, and 

 another glass and another pipe, till a dealer appeared. 

 This was followed by a couple of rows of movable posts 

 and rails in the Square every Monday (opposite the 

 bakery), with sacks of wheat leaning against them. In 

 1853 a market-house was built ; in 1866 the present Corn 

 Exchange was opened, There was a horse-fair all the 

 way up Short Edge or Devizes Road, and a monthly cattle- 



