62 The Spinning-wheel. 



and fright. Cattle, on the other hand, love to stand 

 in water on a warm day. 



In rubbing together and struggling with the shep- 

 herds and their assistants a good deal of wool is torn 

 from the sheep and floats down the current. This 

 is caught by a net stretched across below, and finally 

 comes into the possession of one or two old women 

 of the village, who seem to have a prescriptive right 

 to it, on pa^^ment of a small toll for beer-money. 

 These women are also on the look-out dui'ing the 

 year for such stray scraps of wool as they can pick 

 up from the bushes beside the roads and lanes much 

 travelled by sheep — also from the tall thistles and 

 briars, where they have got through a gap. This 

 wool is more or less stained by the weather and by 

 particles of dust, but it answers the purpose, which 

 is the manufacture of mops. 



The old-fashioned wool mop is still a necessary 

 adjunct of the farmhouse, and especially the dairy, 

 which has to be constantly ' swilled ' out and mopped 

 clean. With the ancient spinning-wheel the}^ work 

 up the wool thus gathered ; and so, even at this late 

 day, in odd nooks and corners, the wheel may now 

 and then be found. The peculiar broad-headed nail 

 w^hich fastens the mop to the stout ashen ' steale,' or 

 handle, is also made in the village. I spell ' steale ' 

 by conjecture, and according to pronunciation. It is 

 used also of a rake : instead of a rake- handle they 

 say rake-steale. Having made the mops, the women 

 go round with them to the farmhouses of the district, 

 knowing their regular customers — who prefer to buy 

 of them, not only as a little help to the poor, but 

 because the mops are really very strongty made. 



