The oldest Inhabitant 67 



strong, hale men, waiting till the loaves were placed upon 

 the broad slab, so that the living were fed literally over 

 the grave of the dead. 



The farmers met every now and then in the vestry and 

 arranged how many men each would find work for — or 

 rather partial work — so that the amount of relief might 

 be apportioned. Men coming from a distance, or even 

 from the next parish, were jealously excluded from settling, 

 lest there should be more mouths to feed ; if a family, on 

 the other hand, could by any possibility be got rid of, it 

 was exiled. There were more hands than work ; now the 

 case is precisely opposite. A grim witness, this old tomb, 

 to a traditionary fragment in that history of the people 

 which is now placed above a mere list of monarchs. 



The oldest person in the village was a woman — as is 

 often the case — reputed to be over a hundred : a tidy 

 cottager, well tended, feeble in body, but brisk of tongue. 

 She reckoned her own age by the thatch of the roof. It 

 had been completely new thatched five times since she 

 could recollect. The first time she was a great girl, grown 

 up : her father had it thatched twice afterwards ; her hus- 

 band had it done the fourth time, and the fifth was three 

 years ago. That made about a hundred years altogether. 



The straw had lasted better lately, because there were 

 now no great elm trees to drip, drip on it in wet weather. 

 Cottagers are frequently really squatters, building on the 

 waste land beside the highway close to the hedgerow, and 

 consequently under the trees. This dripping on the roof 

 is very bad for thatch. Straw is remarkably durable, even 

 when exposed to the weather, if good in the first place 

 and well laid on. It may be reckoned to last twenty 

 years on an average, perhaps more. Five thatchings, 

 then, made eighty years ; add three years since the last 



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