ioo Wild Life in a Southern County 



Then holding it across his knee, he cuts the point with a 

 couple of blows and casts the finished stake aside upon the 

 heap. 



A man of no little consequence is the thatcher, the 

 most important perhaps of the hamlet craftsmen. He 

 ornaments the wheat ricks with curious twisted tufts of 

 straw, standing up not unlike the fantastic ways in which 

 savages are represented doing their hair. But he does 

 not put the thatch on the wheat half so substantially as 

 formerly, because now only a few remain the winter — the 

 thatch is often hardly on before it is off again for the 

 thrashing-machine — for the ' sheening,' as they call it. 

 On the hayricks, which stand longer, he puts better work, 

 especially on the southern and western sides or angles, 

 binding it down with a crosswork of bonds to prevent the 

 gales which blow from those quarters unroofing the rick. 



It is said to be an ill wind that blows nobody any 

 good : now the wind never blew that was strong enough 

 to please the thatcher. If the hurricane roughs up the 

 straw on all the ricks in the parish, unroofs half-a-dozen 

 sheds, and does not spare the gables of the dwelling-houses, 

 why he has work for the next two months. He is attended 

 by a man to oarry up the ' yelms,' and two or three women 

 are busy ' yelming ; — i.e., 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 naturally 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 genealogy 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, 



