THE PEOPLE AND THE FARMS 109 



The voice is not musical, but in young people who 

 have not lost the quiet low manner of speaking ac- 

 quired at school and gone back to the original noisy 

 gabble, it often sounds pleasant. There is an intona- 

 tion, or sing-song, which varies slightly in different 

 localities : some fine ears can tell you to which village 

 or " church-town," as they say, a man belongs by his 

 intonation. As a rule it is a slight raising of the 

 voice at the last, and dwelling on it, and on any word 

 in the sentence on which the emphasis naturally falls, 

 and is like singing. When you get young people 

 with fresh, clear voices talking together with anima- 

 tion, the speech falls into a kind of recitative and has 

 a rather pleasing effect. But the voice appears to 

 harden and grow harsh with years, and acquires a dis- 

 agreeable metallic quality. A good singer is, I 

 imagine, a great rarity. The loud and hearty sing- 

 ing in the chapels is rather distressing. In a Bible 

 Christian place of worship, when Baring Gould's hymn 

 " Onward, Christian soldiers," was being sung, I was 

 almost deafened by the way in which the congrega- 

 tion bellowed out the lines 



Hell's foundations tremble 

 At our shout of praise. 



And small wonder, I thought, if any sense of harmony 

 survives down there ! 



Of speaking and singing I heard more than enough 

 during my first winter (1905-6), as it was a time of 

 political agitation. The excitement was, however, 

 mostly in the towns. Fishermen and miners were 



