Change in the Village

all sorts of anomalies in the village, and explains not only why other people do not understand the position of its inhabitants to-day, but why they themselves largely fail to understand

l the momentum derived from a

y, it explains many of those peculiarities I have described in earlier chapters; but, inasmuch as it is a decayed and all but useless outlook, we shall see in its decay the significance of those changes in the vill

en code to which, though we forget it, England owes much. It seems singular to think of now; but the very labourer might reasonably hope for some satisfaction in life, nor trouble about "raising" himself into some other class, so long as he could live on peasant lines. And it is in the virtual disappearance of this civilization that the main change in the village consists. Other changes are comparatively immaterial. The valley might have been invaded by the leisured classes; its old appearance might have been altered; all sorts of new-fangled things might have been introduced into it; and still under the surface it would have retained the essential

s they used, and their well-being depended on their knowledge of its resources. Amongst themselves they would number a few special craftsmen-a smith, a carpenter or wheelwright, a shoemaker, a pair of sawyers, and so on; yet the trades of these specialists were only ancillary to the general handiness of the people, who with their own hands raised and harvested their crops, made their clothes, did much of the building of their homes, attended to their cattle, thatched their ricks, cut their firing, made their bread and wine or cider, pruned their fruit-trees and vines,

a truly comforting one too. Look once more at the conditions. The small owners of the parish might occupy more land than the labourers, and have the command of horses and waggons, and ploughs and barns, and so on; but they ate the same sort of food and wore the same sort of clothes as the poorer folk, an

village of Surrey and Hampshire and Sussex has ample proofs that at least the artisans of old time went about their work placidly, unhurriedly, taking time to make their products comely. And probably the same peaceful conditions extended to the labouring folk. Of course, their ploughing and harvesting have left no traces; but there is much suggestiveness in some little things one may note, such as the friendly behaviour of carter-men to their horses, and the accomplished finish given to the thatch of ricks, and the endearing names which people in out-of-the-way places still bestow upon their cows. Quietly, but convincingly, such things tell their tale of tranquillity, for they cannot have originated amongst a people h

lves to him; the coppices and woods, the water-meadows and the windy heaths, the local chalk and clay and stone, all had a place in his regard-reminded him of the crafts of his people, spoke to him of the economies of his own cottage life; so that the turfs or the faggots or the timber he handled when at home called his fancy, while he was handling them, to the landscape they came from. Of the intimacy of this knowledge, in minute details, it is impossible to give an idea. I am assured of its existence because I have come across surviving examples of it, but I may not begin to describe it. One may, however, imagine dimly what the cumulative effect of it must have been on the peasant's outlook; how attached he must have grown-I mean how closely linked-to h

crops: to be too late, to neglect the well-known signs which hinted at what should be done, was more than bad economy; it was dereliction of peasant duty. And thus the succession of recurring tasks, each one of which seemed to the villager almost characteristic of his own people in their native home, kept constantly alive a feeling that satisfied him and a usage that helped him. The feeling was that he belonged to a set of people rather apart from the rest of the world-a people necessarily different from others in their manners, and perhaps poorer and ruder than most, but yet fully entitled to respect and consideration. The usage was just the whole series or body of customs to which his own people conformed; or, more exactly, the accepted idea in the village of what ought to be done in any contingency, and of the proper way to do it. In short, it was that unwritten code I spoke of just now-a sort of savoir vivre-which became part of the rural labourer's ou

on to support them-a poor thing, perhaps, a poor kind of civilization, but their own, and entirely within the reach of them all. I have no hesitation in affirming all this; because, though I never saw the system in its completeness, I came here soon enough to find a few old people still partially living by it. These old people, fortunate in the possession of their own cottages and a little land, were keepers of pigs and donkeys, and even a few cows. They kept bees, too; they made wine; they often paid in kind for any services that neighbours did for them; and with the food they could grow, and the firing they could still obtain from the woods and heath, their living was half provided for. The one of them I knew best was not the most typical. Shrewd old man that he was, he had adapted himself so far as suited him to a more commercial economy, and had grown suspicious and avaricious; yet if he could have been translated suddenly back into the eightee

alf a century ago. The direct light has gone out of the people's life-the light, the meaning, the guidance. They have no longer a civilization, but only some derelict habits left from that which has gone. And it is no wonder if some of those habits seem n