44 ENGLISH SAGA

At harvist we cut wi' a sickle." At times the same witness spoke
in the language of poetry of his feeling for the land.

" Some people think they can git summut out a nauthing—
but they can't, and nivver wull All me life I a noaticed that
land wi' no dress gis very poour craps—short straa, little
eeurs, and little kurnuls; but land well dressed always gis
good craps—long straa, long eeurs, and big fturnuls: and I
niwer yit sin big eeurs wi' fat kurnuls an thin short straa,
and nobody else nivver did. When earn is sold by weight,
ant it beeter to taiak a peck out a the sack, than put a peck
in? That's the difference atween good and bad farmin'. You
must a cleean land, plenty a dress, and plenty a laiabour to
git th' increeas and when ye a got these, the increeas comes."1

Such a man when his time to die came could look round on an
entire countryside which he had helped to cultivate.

A rough, simple, pastoral people, of great staying power,
invincible good humour and delicate natural justice, such were
the labourers of rural England. "Here lies," runs a Gloucester-
shire epitaph,

"JOHN HIGGS

A famous man for killing pigs,
- For killing pigs was his delight
Both morning, afternoon and night."

Set against the background of their industry, their homely
pleasures assume an almost epic dignity. One loves to think of
them in the taproom of the thatched ale house in the evening
over their modest pint of mild when their day's work was done—
the high settles in the chimney corner, the bacon rack on the oaken
beam, the sanded floor, the old brightly-worn furniture gleamyig
in the flickering firelight.

Higher in the economic scale than the labourer was the small-
holder. He still represented a substantial element in the rural
community. With the village craftsman—a numerous class—he
constituted the social and moral backbone of the parish. In 1831
one countryman in three possessed a stake in the land. One in
seven worked his own land without hiring labour. Such a

^Ef. Harmon, Buckinghamshire Diakct, JJO-JJT.