128 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
though the sinewy vigour of the residents disdained 
artificial ease. 
In the oaken cupboards—not black, but a deep 
tawny colour with age and frequent polishing—may 
be found a few pieces of old china, and on the table 
at tea-time, perhaps, other pieces, which a connoisseur 
would tremble to see in use, lest a clumsy arm 
should shatter their fragile antiquity. Though appar- 
ently so little valued, you shall not be able to buy 
these things for money—not so much because their 
artistic beauty is appreciated, but because of the 
instinctive clinging to everything old, characteristic of 
the place and people. These have been there of old 
time: they shall remain still. Somewhere in the 
cupboards, too, is a curiously carved piece of iron, to 
fit into the hand, with a front of steel before the 
fingers, like a skeleton rapier guard ; it is the ancient 
steel with which, and a flint, the tinder and the 
sulphur match were ignited. 
Up in the lumber-room are carved oaken bed- 
steads of unknown age; linen-presses of black oak 
with carved panels, and a drawer at the side for the 
lavender-bags ; a rusty rapier, the point broken off; 
a flintlock pistol, the barrel of portentous length, and 
the butt weighted with a mace-like knob of metal, 
wherewith to knock the enemy onthe head. An old 
yeomanry sabre lies about somewhere, which the 
good man of the time wore when he rode in the troop 
against the rioters in the days of machine-burning— 
