Page:The English Peasant.djvu/201

 wood fires; but the floors and seats are scrupulously clean. Although I saw some miserable dwellings, Sussex cottages may be described as, on the whole, roomy and comfortable. Sometimes they are old farmhouses converted into two or three different tenements. In many parts of the Weald are to be found picturesque examples of ancient farmhouses and cottages, laced and interlaced with great beams. Some have been restored, and are carefully preserved by their enlightened proprietors, but they cannot restore the stalwart yeomen who were once their inhabitants.

Most of the old cottages have a large open chimney, with a pedestal of bricks in the centre of the hearth, on which a log of wood or a few sticks burn daily. Suspended above by a chain hangs the kettle, or the pot-au-feu. In front you may often see the settle or bist, as it used to be called in Sussex, a grand old bit of furniture, telling of better days. In the wall at the back of the hearth is an iron plate with two handles. This is the cottager's oven, and here they bake their bread. Those who know best say it would be a good thing if they could brew their own beer, and then all the little beer-shops would be shut up, and a vast amount of misery prevented.

Not that the peasant of the Weald is a drunkard. He is far too poor for that. It is only on club-days, and occasionally on Saturday night, that he gives way. Habitual drinking in the country is the vice of a class in a superior social position.

The Wealden labourer is inclined to be suspicious, and will fence unnecessarily with a simple question. In some places he will exhibit a certain independence of spirit, which would probably be more common if life were a little easier with him.

The existence of these poor Wealden peasants is so hard that the humour characteristic of the Teutonic race rarely shows itself. But it comes out at last in times and places where you would least expect it. How many a touch of rustic humour may be found in the village churchyard! Here is a verse from a tombstone which I saw at Burwash to the memory of a mother and her two children:—