Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/141

Rh barely wide enough for one vehicle; so, I was told, that if a farmer proposes to take a cart down one of these roads, he advertises the fact amongst his neighbours a week beforehand, to lessen the possibility of his meeting another cart halfway, in which case the farmer with the least moral or physical backbone might have to back his horse for miles, and that would mean inconvenience and loss of time to both sides, and possibly break up an old and convenient borrowing-and-lending friendship.

It is a very pretty place, and I only saw one blot on the scenery round here. It stands at the top of a slope in the background of as pretty a piece of rural scenery as you could imagine, and it is a big black board on which, painted in staring white letters, are the words:—

The population of the village is aristocratic, "well-to-do," "better-class" shopkeeping, mechanic and bucolic. The village is what we might call a "tourist town" in Australia. "Better-class" and "well-to-do" people take houses and bring their families down here for the summer. Some stay all the year round, but I don't know whether these are of the well-to-do or of the better-class people. I've heard of a "middle-class" in England, but not down here—perhaps the term "middle-class" is too vulgar for this village. Some do not even stay all the summer, but go away quietly towards the middle or the end of the quarter. I've heard shopkeepers refer to these as swindlers. There's a