Grain and Chaff from an English Manor

and a wrong way to do

ral chooses

OM

had, as the saying is, forgotten more about horses than most

p of men was standing round at the time, and I asked him how his somewhat unusual name was spelt. Seeing that he was puzzled, I hazarded a guess myself, repeating the six letters in order slowly. He was greatly surprised and pl

one day brought me a nice salmon-trout, by no means common in these streams. In thanking him, I made him a standing offer of a shilling a pound for any more he could catch, b

s lively ray

treams, and rouse

cheerful, to t

e western breez

ether bear the

ount, this day,

rbling round, tr

ue their rocky

river, in wh

aiads love to

ious point, whe

mbling stream, o

ne, or from th

ays in undu

ice-judging, t

ad it round i

tive mark the

ove the surfac

se, or urged b

gentle twitch,

tossing to th

ving shore slow

nd proportion'd

oung, and ea

y scarce bends

his youth and

d the vital l

e, and back i

ptive throw. Bu

aunt, beneath t

es, the monarc

hen to ply yo

llowing cautiou

pts to seize

ter speaks his

e haply yet t

he desperate t

unge. At once

runs out all th

urthest ooze, th

bank, his old

, and flounces

he guile. With

still, yet to h

, now retiring

ream, exhaust

road upon his b

te abandon'd,

g your unresi

mina of the English horse; and they would always wait for the Englishman to start a heavy standing load before throwing their weight into the collar. Jim told me that they were "desperate ongain" (very awkward), and, as foreigners, well they

or two among the horses, I warned my valuer beforehand. We entered the stable, and my valuer, thinking to catch Jim off his guard, asked casually which they were. Ji

s had wrought a miracle, and put a ten-pound note at least on the value. We had an ancient and otherwise doubtful mare, "Bonny," ready for Pershore Fair, and the previous day Jim wanted to know if I intended to be present. I told him, "No! I should have to tell too many lies." "Oh!" said he, "I'll do all that, sir!" He sold the mare to a big dealer for all she was worth, I think, though

ed to be present; she was very anxious to find out the date in order that we might attend. Jim was shy, not wishing it to be generally known, and nothing could be got out of

out his mother he said, "I don't take so much notice of she, for her be regular weared out"-not unkindly or undutifully intended, but just

ater he said, "When you lose a horse I reckon it's a double loss, for you haven't got the horse or the money." My mind being dominated by the unanswerable accuracy of

because in wet weather, if tried on this almost stoneless land, the wheels become so clogged with mud and refuse, such as stubble from the previous crop, that they will not revolve, sliding helplessly involved along the ground. Even the mould-board is wood, generally pear-tree, to which the mud does not

or a moment to its own inclination. This entails strict attention and much muscular effort, and, of course, the latter comes into play also in turning at each end of the field. The result is very effective; the flat mould-board offers the least possible re

n Hampshire would not, if possible, employ a boy unless he could whistle-of course the ability and degree of excellence is a gu

utumn day, when the stubble is covered with gossamers gleaming with iridescent colours in the sunshine. The upturned earth is fragrant, the fresh soil looks r

g carefully all round he could see nothing to find fault with, until he glanced upward at the floor over the manger, where he discovered a protruding cork. He remembered that a heap of oats was stored in the loft, from which the bailiff gave out the rations for their teams to each man weekly. Getting the key of the loft, he found that the cork was nicely adjusted to a hole bene

ion to himself; he would extol its efficacy, and would tell how, when the pain attacked his shoulder, th

od of maintaining the full capacity of horse-power on the farm was to breed, or buy at six months old, two colts, and sell off two of the oldest horses every year. As two colts could be bought for fort

nfair and dangerous competition of American wheat. When we discussed the subject and foretold the straits to which the country would be reduced in the event of war with a great European Power, h

House, and many repairs were necessary. There were, too, very many gates, repairs to fences, hurdle-making, and odd jobs, to keep a man employed for months at a time. The building of three hop-kilns, with the necessary storeroom

y the drink habit, for he freely admitted that he was entirely mastered by it in his younger days. He told me, and it proves what a kindly word will sometimes do, that the Squire of his village, who also employed him largely, said to him, after praising some of his work, "There's only one thing the matter with you, Tom, and that's the drink." "I went home," said Tom, "and I thought to myself, i

iew a carpenter about some small household job. His name was Snewin-I am not sure of the spelling, for I was only about eight years old at the time-and we found him in his workshop vigorously using a long plane on some red deal boards, his feet buried in beautifully curled shavings, and the whole place redolent of the

aw, with no apparent effort, raced from end to end of a board or across the grain of a piece of "quartering," and his chisels and plane irons were ground to the correct concave bevel that relieves the parting of a chip or shaving, and gives what he called "sweetness" to the cutting action. He was a strong Conservative, good at an argument, and

f mine that there was "earn (corn) in Egypt"; and when he had a written contract with me for a special piece of work, and wished to suggest that as time went on we might think of some i

is inclined, both with weights and measures, to be inaccurate, "reckoning it's near enough." I found soon after I came to Aldington that the weighing machine which had been in use throughout the whole of my predecessor's time, and had weighed up h

r fine weather!" But the best epigram I ever heard from him was, "There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and folks most in general chooses the wrong un!" I sho

kiln sufficient for the first 6 acres planted; it was necessary, with the gradual extinction of British corn-growing, to find something to supersede it, and to compensate for the falling off in farm receipts. I had seen something of hops as a pupil on a larg

rpenter's work, and with an excellent stonemason or bricklayer for that belonging to his department. They both entered with enthusiasm upon the job, and we had many interesting discussions as to improvement, as it proceeded. Tom G. was a man of great resource, and could always find

ze and rough as to surface, and in part with ordinary blue slates. The latter lie much more closely on the laths, the stone slates allowing the passage of more air between them, and it was interesting to find that while the ancient laths under the stone slates were fair

used again they were incorporated with the new work. He never cut sound old or new pieces of timbe

he handle works was so worn on one side that the bolt which carries the handle had given way, owing to the man, who had used it for years, not keeping it running truly in the centre.

same lines. They would probably have been annually in use in the picking season up to the present time had it not been that th

ooms have been of great service during the war for drying medicinal herbs, c