Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer

rd frost. The snow was not unexpected. Saturday-a day of white haze suffused with sunlight-had provided a warning of it in the shape of frozen rime, clinging like serried rows of penknife blades to

on top of that, and by Tuesday i

ly he rather liked the touch of winter. At any rate, it

uch, but they keeps your legs dry. And I do think that

ck me before. But then, I had never had the experience which had

s soppin' wet all round the bottoms, and then it have

ier employment, he could look back with amusement to the hardships he had lived through. One of a similar kind w

"Bin an' chucked up his job, and 's goin' back to Alder

t ten miles. Then suddenly he left, and now for six months had been working as bricklayer's labourer, at a job about an equal distance away in another direction, to whi

? Fifty-four! Four and a half miles there, and four and a half back. Fifty-four mi

s two miles of it-on Mardon's way to his now abandoned jo

did use to have some games with 'n, no mistake. He'd go tip-toein' an' skippin' to get over the mud; an' then, jest as we was passin' a puddle, we'd plump one of our feet down into 't, an' send the mud all over 'n. An' with his tip-toein' an' skippin' he got it wuss than we did, without that. An' when we come to the Royal Oak, 'cause we gen'ly used to

o have some games with 'n. If there was any job wanted doin' out o' doors, they'd send for he sooner 'n one o' t'others, jest to see how he'd go on. And handlin' the dirty timber, an

had some pantomimes with he too. He'd git the handles of his tools all over dirt, for he to take hold of when he come to use 'em. Oldish man he was-ol

iniscences. They are like the snows of the past-like the snow

urneys, if they had admitted that anyone had the least right to be distressed. Among labourers there is such peril in effeminacy that to yield to it is a kind