CHAPTER XI 



OLD COUNTRY FOLK THEIR WAYS OF SPEECH 



It is sad to think that, within a few years, death will 

 have claimed the few yet living of the old people who 

 retain the speech and manner of the earlier part of the 

 nineteenth century. Born and brought up in remote and 

 quiet country villages and hamlets, many of them can 

 neither read nor write, and I have met with some who 

 have never been ten miles away from their birthplace. 

 But they are by no means among the dull ones of the 

 earth ; indeed, their simple wisdom and shrewdness are in 

 many ways quite equal to those of their brethren in the 

 wider world. 



Their lives have been perhaps all the happier in that 

 they have been concerned with few wants and few 

 responsibilities ; and if their thoughts are mainly of hay- 

 time and harvest, and root-crops, and the care of sheep 

 and cattle, shall we presume to think that these interests 

 are of less account than our own ; for, after all, what can 

 be of greater need or of more supreme importance ? 



They are good to have to do with, these kindly old 

 people. Bright and cheerful of face, pleasant and ready of 

 speech, courteous of manner, they are a precious remnant 

 of those older days when men's lives were simpler and 

 quieter ; free from the stress and strain and restless move- 

 ment, and endless hurry and struggle against time, and 

 from all the petty worrying distractions that fret the daily 



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