124 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
gables of the dwelling-houses, why he has work for 
the next two months. He is attended by a man to 
carry up the ‘yelms,’ and two or three women are 
busy ‘yelming "—z.¢, separating the straw, selecting 
the longest and laying it level and parallel, damping 
it with water, and preparing it for the yokes. These 
yokes must be cut from boughs that have grown na- 
turally in the shape wanted, else they are not tough 
enough. A tough old chap, too, is the thatcher, a 
man of infinite gossip, well acquainted with the ge- 
nealogy of every farmer, and, indeed, of everybody 
from Dan to Beersheba, of the parish. 
The memory of the smugglers is not yet quite 
extinct. The old men will point out the route they 
used to follow, and some of the places where they are 
said to have stored their contraband goods. Smug- 
gling suggests the sea, but the goods landed on the 
beach had afterwards to be conveyed inland for sale, 
so that the hamlet, though far distant from the shore, 
has its traditions of illicit trade. The route followed 
was a wild and unfrequented one, and the smugglers 
appear to have kept to the downs as much as possible. 
More than one family— well-to-do for the hamlet or 
village where a small capital goes a long way—are 
said to have originally derived their prosperity from 
assisting the storage or disposal of smuggled goods ; 
and the sympathies of the hamlet would be with the 
smugglers still. 
The old folk, too, talk of having the ague, and say 
