74 Wild Life in a Southern County 



is only natural that to a man whose possessions are limited, 

 things like potatoes, logs of wood, chips, odds and ends 

 should assume a value beyond the appreciation of the 

 well-to-do. The point should be borne in mind by those 

 who are endeavouring to give the labouring class better 

 accommodation, 



A cottage attached to a farmstead, which has been 

 occupied by a steady man who has worked on the tenancy 

 for the best part of his life, and possibly by his father 

 before him, sometimes contains furniture of a superior kind. 

 This has been purchased piece by piece in the course of 

 years, some representing a little legacy — cottagers who 

 have a trifle of property are very proud of making wills — 

 and some perhaps the last remaining relics of former pro- 

 sperity. It is not at all uncommon to find men like this, 

 whose forefathers no great while since held farms, and even 

 owned them, but fell by degrees in the social scale, till at 

 last their grandchildren work in the fields for wages. An 

 old chair or cabinet which once stood in the farmhouse 

 generations ago is still preserved. 



Upon the shelf may be found a few books — a Bible, of 

 course ; hardly a cottager who can read is without his Bible 

 — and among the rest an ancient volume of polemical 

 theology, bound in leather ; it dates back to the days of 

 the fierce religious controversies which raged in the period 

 which produced Cromwell. There is a rude engraving of 

 the author for frontispiece, title in red letter, a tedious 

 preface, and the text is plentifully bestrewn with Latin 

 and Greek quotations. These add greatly to its value in 

 the cottager's eyes, for he still looks upon a knowledge of 

 Latin as the essential of a ' scholard.' This book has evi- 

 dently been handed down for many generations as a kind 

 of heirloom, for on the blank leaves may be seen the names. 



