The Rickmaker. 101 



thing. There was a herb, which grew beside rivers, 

 and was known to bnt a few, that was a certain cure for 

 the kind of wasting disease which had battled educated 

 skill. There was an old man living somewhere by a 

 river fifty miles away, who possessed the secret of 

 this herb, and by it had accomplished marvellous 

 cures. He had heard of him, but could not by any 

 inquiry ascertain his exact whereabouts ; and so his 

 child died. Ever}^ thing possible had been done, 

 but still he regretted that this herb had not been ap- 

 plied. 



Nothing is done right now, according to the old 

 men of the hamlet ; even the hayricks are built badly 

 and •• scamped.' The *■ rickmaker' used to be an im- 

 portant person, generally a veteran, who had to 1)6 

 conciliated with an extra drop of good liquor before 

 he could be got to set to work in earnest. Then he 

 spread tlie hay here, and worked it in there, and 

 had it trodden down at the edge, and then in the 

 middle, and, like the centurion, sent men hither and 

 thither. His rick, when complete, did not rise per- 

 pendicularly, but each face or square side sloped a 

 little outwards — including the ends — a method that 

 certainl}' does give the rick a very shapely look. 



But now the new-fangled ' elevator ' carries up the 

 hay by machinery from the wagon to the top, and 

 two ricks are run up while the^' would formerly have 

 just been carefully laying the foundation for one of 

 fagots to keep off the damp. The poles put up to 

 support the rick-cloth interfere with the mathemati- 

 cally correct outward slope at tlie ends, upon which 

 the old fellow prided himself ; so they are carried up 

 straight like the end wall of a cottage, and are a 



