WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS. 148 
slow, no attitudes, no drawing-room grace, no Christmas 
card glossiness ; somewhat stiff of limb, with a distinct 
flavour of hay and straw about them, and no enamel. In 
the villages cottagers have no ideas of tastefully disposing 
their mantles about their shoulders, or of dressing for the 
occasion. I do not know how to describe the form of a 
middle-aged cottage woman on a stormy day with a 
large, greenish umbrella, a round bonnet, huge and en- 
closing all the head, back, and sides, like the vast helm 
of the knights, a sort of circular cloak, stout ankles well 
visible, and sometimes pattens ; the wearer inside all this 
decidedly bulky, and the whole apparatus coming along 
through mud and rain with great deliberation. Inside 
the round bonnet a ruddy, apple-cheeked face, just such 
a one as used to go to mass in Sir John the priest’s time, 
before the images were knocked out of the rood-loft at the 
church there. The boys and girls play in the ditches 
till they go to school, and they play in the hedges and 
ditches every hour they can get out of school, and the 
moment their time is up they go to work among the 
hedges and ditches, and though they may have had to read 
standard authors at school, no sooner do they get among 
the furrows than they talk hedge and ditch language. 
They do not talk Pope, or Milton, or Addison; they 
‘knaaws,’ ‘they be a-gwoin thur, it’s a ‘geat,’ and a ‘vield,’ 
and a‘vurrow.’ These are the old faces you see, the same 
old powers are at work to fashion them. Heavy, blind 
blows of the Wind, the Rain, Frost, and Heat, have 
beaten up their faces in rude repoussé work. They have 
nails in their boots, but new hats on their heads ; he who 
paints them aright should paint the old nailed boots, but 
also the new hats and the Waltham watches. Why do 
they not read? All have been taught, and curious as 
the inconsistency may seem, they all value the privilege 
L 
