Page:The English Peasant.djvu/159

 out a cow or a few sheep, some geese or clucks, and watch their property all day long with their own eyes.

It is these people who appear to be, and, as a matter of fact are, the real commoners now; although, when the question comes to be legally dealt with, and an enclosure takes place, they are as' completely put out of court as any stranger would be.

For few of them can produce, as one boasted to me she could, "papers," proving their title to the holding. In the majority of cases they were originally squatters with about as much "legal" right to the land as the gipsy who settles for a night on the village green. It was a notion held among the peasantry in olden times, that he who could in one night erect a "Mushroom Hall" or a "now-or-never," without hindrance from the officials of the manor, had obtained a copyhold right to the land. Thus frequently it happened that labourers, and sometimes travelling tinkers, or basket-makers, would set up a few hurdles in a night and enclose a piece of land. If no interference ensued, a wall soon took the place of the hurdles, ere long it was roofed in, and thus arose many of those wretched little hovels, in which it is grievous to think any English family should be reared. A hedge or trench was then thrown up a few yards from the cot; year by year it was removed a few feet further, fruit-trees were planted, and the ground stocked with vegetables. Thus many a little plot of cultivated land came into existence, the origin of which was as complete a myth in a generation or two as if it had arisen in pre-historic ages.

The sort of building put up on these encroachments was about equal to an ordinary tool-house in a gentleman's garden. One I saw and sketched on Epsom common contained two apartments? and I was informed by the man residing there that the old lady to whom it belonged brought up twelve children in it. He himself lived there with eight children. His case was an illustration of the numerous accidents to which the agricultural labourer is liable. Twelve years ago he had had his foot crushed in a wheel-rut, rheumatism had seized the leg, and had at last taken possession of his whole body, so that he had never been able to do a day's work since. His wife set to work bravely, sometimes leaving home at live in the morning to stand at the wash-tub all day. The baby, five months old, had already become so resigned to its hard life,