HAPPY ULLAGE 5 



It would not be true to suggest that the countryman 

 harbours any abstract faith. A good old man who had 

 lived a labourer s life wandered in his mind during his 

 last days ; and waking from a coma as a visitor entered, 

 looked round his mean cottage room, and spoke medita 

 tively to himself, &quot; If this is Hell, it s not so bad, and if 

 it s Heaven it s not so much to talk about ! &quot; He was 

 nothing if not literal, was more literal than Pope s poor 

 Indian who saw God in trees and heard him in the wind. 

 His belief was scarcely touched with poetry or mysticism ; 

 but perhaps the religion of a man grounded on elemental 

 things has a deeper foundation than appears, or is ex 

 pressible in common words. Such utter simplicity of 

 belief is already a thing of the past ; but the fundamental 

 quality of rural character is not dead and I hope never 

 will be. It is apparent in almost all that the labourer does 

 or thinks. One may say that the villager is a true product 

 of his village, as well fitted to his home as the grey stone 

 roofs to Cots wold cottages. He seems earthborn, as if 

 he too had come from the local quarries. Doubtless he 

 has changed and is changing. A new (and not a worse) 

 type is emerging ; but the portrait of the old villager, of 

 Old George for example, is worth preserving. I saw 

 him share in the cutting of one of the last fields of wheat 

 levelled in the traditional manner. There were four 

 reapers, ranged in echelon. Old George being the lightest 

 and least famous mower of the team came fourth. He 

 was very spare and the crop was heavy. Four quarters to 

 the acre was common on the &quot; bean and wheat land &quot; of 

 that clayey country. He was spare but incredibly tough. 

 As he mowed his arms became or so I seem to remem 

 ber thinner, hairier, more wiry with each day of 

 wrestle in the summer sun. He had his village pride and 

 would have dropped dead of exhaustion rather than not 



