An Aged Man of Wisdom 105 



turns out to be all about 1001. Her grandmother after 

 marriage travelled home on horseback behind her husband; 

 there had been a sudden flood, and the newly-married 

 couple had to wait for several hours till the waters went 

 down before they could pass. Times are altered now. 



Since this family dwelt here, and well within what 

 may be called the household memory, the very races of 

 animals have changed or been supplanted. The cows in 

 the field used to be longhorns, much more hardy, and 

 remaining in the meadows all the winter, with no better 

 shelter than the hedges and bushes afforded. Now the 

 shorthorns have come, and the cattle are housed carefully. 

 The sheep were horned — up in the lumber-room two or 

 three horns are still to be found. The pigs were of a 

 different kind, and the dogs and poultry. If the race of 

 men have not changed they have altered their costume ; 

 the smock-frock lingered longest, but even that is going. 



Some of the old superstitions hung on till quite re- 

 cently. The value of horses made the arrival of foals an 

 important occasion, and then it was the custom to call in 

 the assistance of an aged man of wisdom — not exactly a 

 wizard, but something approaching it nearly in reputation. 

 Even within the last fifteen years the aid of an ancient 

 like this used to be regularly invoked in this neighbour- 

 hood; in some mysterious way his simple presence and 

 good- will — gained by plentiful liquor — was supposed to 

 be efficacious against accident and loss. The strangeness 

 of the business was in the facb that his patrons were not 

 altogether ignorant or even uneducated — they merely 

 carried on the old custom, not from faith in it, but just 

 because it was the custom. When the wizard at last died 

 nothing more was thought about it. Another ancient 

 used to come round once or twice in the year, with a 



