Page:The English Peasant.djvu/179

 able-bodied man in these parts could earn thirteen shillings a week, a carter or a ploughman fourteen shillings, with his rent free into the bargain. On this he thought they might do well if they did not visit the public-house. Said he, "My wife and me, we scratches together about eight shilling a week, and we do pretty comfortable." Then he made a little money by selling manure, which he collected off the roads, and for which he got three shillings a cart-load. But he had children doing well, and perhaps they helped him a bit. One son had been on a man-of-war five-and-twenty years, and now had a pension of twelve shillings a week; another daughter was married to a pensioner who kept a beer-shop, and was doing a good trade; so that, if it was not for the "rheumatics," the old man would have been quite happy, and contented with his lot.

I asked him about the church, which was very picturesque, and evidently well cared for in every detail. He said, "Our parson do love the church, he do." Thinking this suggested ritualism, I asked him if the rector was a High Churchman. "Oh, dear no," he replied, "he be very low; you can't hear him at all unless maybe you sit close by."

Pass through one of these villages on a summer's afternoon, and "all around is silence;" but return at evening, and at each cottage door groups are standing, while on every road one meets the labourer homeward bound. But Saturday is the evening to see the village wide awake; then all the world is out. It was on one such evening I was returning from Angmering across the meadows, when I passed an old man, blear-eyed, and clad in blue smock. He was seventy-five years of age. Early in life he wished to emigrate; but his father would not let him, lest people should say that he had wanted to get rid of him. He worked as a hedger in winter, at half-a-crown a day; and in summer by the piece, at odd jobs, making about the same. Sometimes he made only four days' work. He did not think much of benefit clubs, because the parish took advantage of them to lessen a man's allowance when he was sick. He greatly objected to steam ploughs and mowing machines, because they lessened men work. We passed a field where the clover was all tossed about by the rain, and the old man said, *' Perhaps it's my poor foolish