An Old English Home

an old bacon box in a fallen cottage, whose condition

hatched roof had given way in places; but the proprietress obtained shelter for her head by stuffing up the chimney of the b

stairs, exposed to rain, rotted, and she was compe

le the ladd

took up her abode on the ground floor-kitchen, and

be," said she, when the roof fell in b

em, and also on the beam ends sustaining the floor, and th

the old woman; "now the

rs-that the old lady has had to do without a fire for certainly three winters, amongst others that bitter one of 1893-4, and her o

NE'S C

ead by the mouldering thatch that covers

refuge in an old chest, and

ble cosy,"

long interview. As we left, he turned to me with a look of dismay and said, "Good heavens! in the wildes

aid, "Now, tell me why you wi

rietors must hold on to our houses a

is-in speaking of acres, as I believe the said

were similar little

quat

st enough for a cottage and a garden, and none said him Nay. There was still plenty for all, and so, in time, it became his own, and was lost to the rest of the parishioners. Little by little the commons were thus encroached upon.

s annexation of ground on the side of the highway, and he and the parishioners generally agreed to let be. It might save the man coming on the rates if he had a garden and house-no harm was done. There wa

ppropriator. During my tenure of the rectory, the last representatives left, in fact abandoned the tenements. The Rector was lord of the manor. Accordingly these cottages, in very bad repair, fell to me, and I suddenly found myself responsible for them. Should I leave I could be come upon for dilapidations,

ters, or rather descendants of squatters, who held a piece of land and occupied a ruinous

young and old, and some almost naked, with pitchforks and sticks, and that they had to continue on their way with haste. I do not know from what cause, but I think on account of some leniency he had showed them as a magistrate on one occasion, they had not as inimical a feeling towards my husband as towards the other landowners. One evening, on his return home from hunting, he told me he had heard a sad story of the head of the family, I suppose a man of thirty-eight or forty, having wounded himself badly in the foot, when shooting or poaching, and that he stoutly refused to see or have any help from clergyman or any other person; that the doctor declared it was necessary the foot should be amputated, but that the man had prote

GE OF THE

---- had asked me to bring these comforts to the sick man, and that I was come to offer him my services in his illness. They were instantly pacified and pleased, and begged me to come to what they called the farm-a place with half a roof and thr

ying on two settles or sets of stools, with, I think, a blanket and

was in many places bare earth, and that the grass grew on it. The family were all pleasant enough-rough but grateful-and I found that though the doctor had thought amputation necessary, he now believed it might be avoided-that the man had decided against it, but allowed the d

her convalescence. She was a big powerful woman, who had on one occasion knocked down a policeman who was taking her brother to Exeter gaol, and her mother, the old woman, told me with pride that they had had to send a cart and three men to take her away. She afterwards married a labourer. The rest

he collar of his horse that he was driving with horrible entrails of a sh

or of Nymet, but I fancy, according to any usually received ideas, that was the one ma

a child. The curate of the parish incurred their resentment because he endeavoured to interfere with their primitive ways. One night, as he was riding up a lane in the dark, he thought he observed a shadow move in the darkness and steal into the hedge. Suspicious of evil, as he was near the habitation of the Cheritons, he dismounted and led his

acres, but in a barrel littered with straw, chained to a post in an outh

o makes the acquaintanceship of a local lawyer, and this acquaintance leads to a loan of a little money, when the holder of the land is

ough in themselves to support a family. But these are instances in small of the manner in which the manors were formed in

ancient family of the same name, the Penfounds of Penfoun

hood has been modernized and vulgarized distressingly, but as yet this dear old house has not been trodden out of existence. It remains on the verge of ruin, with its old hall, old garden, and stately granite doorway into the latter. A sad record belongs to this venerable manor. The family pedigree goes back to before the Wars of the Roses. The Penfounds mated with th

ef. He claimed and was given right to free maintenance by the tribesmen, and he distributed the land among the householders of the tribe. These ho

ght another tribe and wrested from it the land and drove it away or exterminated it, with complete indifference to

uin. The history of the Welsh, the Irish, the Highlanders, is just the same as that of the Gauls, one of internecine fe

all in common, subject to allotment by the chief, and among the tribal chiefs there was no link; each coveted the lands of the

n this that they had not other than the most elementary notions of house building. Timber and wattle sufficed for them, but the Saxon, and afterwards the Norman, had a higher conception of the home, and he began at

the members of the community whom he converted into serfs. They tilled the land, kept flocks and herds, and supplied him with what meat, wool, yarn, and grain he required; they met under his presidency in t

red to favourites of William the Conqueror. But the old Saxon chiefs in each manor were probably very rarely turned out neck and cr

ity still continued to exercise its right to grant tracts to be enclosed, but usually the manorial lord claimed and exercised this right. At the present time, in my own county, this is being done in a certain parish that possessed a vast tract of common land on the confines of Dartmoor

n age when freedom was the exceptional condition, the ownership of land was the mark of a free man, and ample territory the inseparable appanage of rank. No amount of gold or chattel property conferred the franchise: land alone was recognized as th

ons, two sides to this. I do not deny for a moment that much is to be said in favour of equal partition of land among all the children, and of the multiplication of peasant proprietors. But I venture to think that the system that has preva

spend his money most unselfishly on the land, for the family advantage. But if he thinks that it

ught to spend from ￡150 to ￡200 in planting this autumn. Shall I do it, or run up to

for, and cares for the family, as a whole-the generations unborn, as well as his own children-and builds, p

the interminable break-up of power and of property at the death of every prince. The kinglet of Glamorgan had ten sons-one became a monk, and the rest parcelled up his lands and his authority over men. A great prince like Howel Dda was able to consolidate the nation, but

rything will be divided at his death, and he must hoard his money for division among those children who do not take the farm. So one gets a tumble-down tenement, and the rest the money that might make it habitable.

and she lives under the ruins. The second took a farm and lives with the paysan and paysanne. The third took the family plate and china and family portraits, and lives over a modiste in small lodgings, and is

acres hold him, he cannot do justice to them, he has not the means. He does not like to part with them, and he spends his life bowed over them. Worse than this, unable to avert the further dismemberment of his estate on his death, he resolves in compact with his wife to have no more than one, or at the most two children. Now, with us, the younger son of

ver the world; but, then, it is the conservative element, the holding to the paternal acres, that has made of dear old Englan