CHAPTER IX 

 THE PEOPLE AND THE FARMS 



A primitive type Unintelligible speech The little dark man The 

 prevailing type blonde The Dawn in Britain Cornish speech and 

 " naughty English " Two modes of speaking Voice and intona- 

 tion Chapel singing The farmer's politics Preachers and 

 people Life on a farm Furze as fuel Food Healthy and 

 happy children Children in procession The power of the child. 



ONE afternoon I watched the gambols and mock 

 fights of three ravens among the big boulder 

 stones at a spot a little way back from the 

 cliff, and seeing a man occupied in pulling up swedes 

 in a field not very far off, I thought I would go and 

 speak to him about the birds, as they haunted the 

 spot regularly and he would perhaps be able to tell 

 me if they ever bred in the neighbouring cliffs. I 

 knew the man by sight, also that he was a native of 

 the place and never in his fifty odd years had been 

 further than about ten miles away from it. He called 

 himself a " farmer," being the tenant of a small hold- 

 ing of about a dozen or fifteen acres and a small 



102 



