Round About a Great Estate

d greasy sleeve. From a window of the old mill by Okebourne I was gazing over the plain green with rising wheat, where the titlarks were singing joyously

s stealing upon him, Tibbald's eye and hand were still true, and his rude sculpture was executed with curious precision. The gr

ild and takes the peck well.' Ponderous as the millstones appear, they are capable of being set so that their surfaces shall grind with extreme accuracy. The nethe

nes must not grind too close, or they 'kill' the wheat, which should be only just cracked, so as to skin well. To attain this end, first, the surfaces of the stones must be level, and the grooves must be exactly right;

be too fur away up in these here Downs. There! Listen to he!' A faint hollow whistle came up over the plain, and I saw a

the most of the work; and this here foreign wheat, as comes over in the steamers, puts the market down, so as we yent got a chance to buy up a lot and keep it till the price gets better. I seed in the

one, turned it about on its shorter axis: where the ruddle left its red mark more pecking would be required. There was but one small spot, and this he quickly put right. Even the seasoned oak, however, is not always true, and to be certain

e edge will take off a row of fingers as clean as the guillotine. Tibbald, of course, had his joke about that part of the machinery which is called the 'damsel.' He was a righteous

w they used flanges, ironwork having almost destroyed the business of the ancient millwright. Of all manual workers, probably the old style of millwright employed the greatest variety of tools, and was the cleverest in handling them. There seemed no end to the number of his chisels and augers; some of the augers of immense size. In winter time t

ut they were too hard for the delicate grinding necessary to make the fine flour needed for good bread. They answered best for barley meal. Now, the French burr was not only hard but mild, and seemed to feel the corn as it crushed it. A sack of wheat lost 4 lb. in grinding. I asked about the toll: he showed me the old measure, reckoned at the tenth of a sack; it was a square box. When the lord's tenants in the olden t

d the fat man, moreover, held a 56 lb. weight in each hand. He himself remembered when Hilary used to be the strongest man in the place; when the young men met together they contended who should lift the heaviest weight, and he had seen Hilary raise 5 cwt., fair lifting, with the hands only, and without any mechanical appliance. Hilary, too, used to write his name with a ca

n it. Folk grew tall and big-taller than they used to be, he thought-and they could run quick, and so forth; but there was no stamina, no power of endurance, of withstanding exposure like there was formerly. The mere measure of a man, he was certain, had nothing to do with his strength; and he could nev

the hills. At the upper end of the coombe the spring issued, and at the lower was the millpond. There is something peculiarly human in a mill-something that carries the mind backwards into the past, the days of crossbow and lance and armour. Possibly there was truth in Tibbald's idea that men grow larger in the pr

flour as possible at home. But the flour was so bad as to be uneatable. As I parted with Tibbald that morning he whispered to me, as he leaned over the hatch, to say a good word for him with Hilary about the throw of oak that was going on in one part of the Chace. 'If you was to speak to he, he could s

e, nor were there any passing allusions in old papers to fix the date. There was no tradition of it among the oldest people; all they knew was that the rooks had always been there, and they seemed to indicate a belief that there the rooks would always remain. It seemed to me, however, that the site of

se times history is concerned only with great cities or strategical positions of world-wide renown; interest is concentrated on a siege of Paris or a march towards Constantinople. In days of yore battles were often fought in or near what seem to us mere villages; little pla

and some years before he had had the curiosity to open a hole, and soon came upon a hidden wall. He did not excavate farther, but the old folk, when they heard of it, remembered a tradition of a village having on

emere, several Hams, Haddons, and Weddingtons, Slades, and so on, and a Truelocks. These were quickly put down; scores of still more singular names might be collected in every parish. It is the meadows and pastures which usually bear these designations; the ploughed fie

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ilary believed there was an old book-a history of Overboro' town-which might perhaps contain some information, but where it could be found he did not know. After some consideration, however, he thought there might be a copy at the Crown, on

s within seemed to equally occupy the passage, fetching the dust-coats and walking-sticks and flourishing coat-brushes. Seeing a door marked 'Coffee-room,' I took refuge, and having ordered luncheon began to consider how I should open my subject with the landlord, who was clearly as much up to the requirements of modern life as if his house h

he place without mentioning it, but, fortunately looking round the room while the lunch was prepared, I found it in the bookcase, where there was a

ssil shells, indeed, that had been dug up furnished him with conclusive proof that the Deluge had not left the site uncovered, since no how else could they have got there: an argument commonly accepted in his day. Thus he commenced, like the monks themselves, with th

ad and ale, and so forth. Finally, there was a list of the mayors, which some one had carried on in manuscript on a fly-leaf to within ten years of date. There was an air of precision in the exact sentences, and the w

ay, read dry and formal-curious, and yet not interesting. Had he described the squires and yeomen, the townspe

old gentleman. This person had nothing whatever to do with the property, but lived retired and ruled his neighbours with a rod of iron. The old knocker was quite worn out, but the new one had scarcely been fastened on when the unfortunate owner was summoned to the presence of the irate old gentleman, who demanded with great wrath what on earth he mean