EVE

CHAPTER III.

VILLAGE CHARACTERS.

"If there's a hole in a' your coats,

I rede ye tent it;

A chiel's amang ye takin' notes,

And, faith, he'll prent it."

R. BURNS.

VERY village seems to possess its share of quaint, curious people; but I cannot help thinking that our little hamlet has a more varied assortment of oddities than is usually to be met with in so small a place.

First of all there is the man whom nobody ever sees. Although he has lived in robust health for the past twenty years in the very centre of the hamlet,

his face is unknown to half the inhabitants.

Twice

only has the writer set eyes on him. When a political contest is procecding, he becomes comparatively bold; at such times he has even been met with in the bar of the village "public," where he has been known to sit discussing the chances of the candidates like any ordinary being. But an election is absolutely necessary if this strange individual is to be drawn out of his hiding-place. The only other occasion on which we have set eyes on him was on a lovely summer's evening, just after sunset: we observed him peeping at us over a hedge, for all the world like the "Spectator" when he was staying with Sir Roger de Coverley. He is supposed to come out at sunset, like the foxes and the bats, and has been seen in the distance on bright moonlight nights striding over the Cotswold uplands. If any one approach him, he hurries away in the opposite direction; yet he is not queer in the head, but strong and in the prime of life.

Then there is that very common character the village impostor." After having been turned away by half a dozen different farmers, because he never did a stroke of work, he manages to get on the sicklist at the "great house." Long after his ailment has been cured he will be seen daily going up to the manor house for his allowance of meat; somehow or other he "can't get a job nohow." The fact is, he has got the name of being an idle scoundrel, and no farmer will take him on. It is some time before you are able to find him out; for as he goes decidedly lame as he passes you in the village street, he generally

III.]

THE VILLAGE IMPOSTOR.

41

manages to persuade you that he is very ill. Like a fool, you take compassion on him, and give him an ounce of "baccy" and half a crown. For some months he hangs about where he thinks you will be passing, craving a pipe of tobacco; until one day, when you are having a talk with some other honest toiler, he will give you a hint that you are being imposed on.

When a loafer of this sort finds that he can get nothing more out of you, he moves his family and goods to some other part of the country; he then begins the old game with somebody else, borrowing a sovereign off you for the expense of moving. As for gratitude, he never thinks of it. The other day a man with a “game leg," who was, in spite of his lameness, a good example of "the village impostor," in taking his departure from our hamlet, gave out that there was no thanks due to the big 'ouse for the benefits he had received, for it was writ in the manor parchments as how he was to have meat three times a week and blankets at Christmas as long as he was out of work."

It is so difficult to discriminate between the good and the bad amongst the poor, and it is impossible not to feel pity for a man who has nothing but the workhouse to look forward to, even if he has come down in the world through his own folly. To those who are living in luxury the conditions under which the poorer classes earn their daily bread, and the wretched prospect which old age or ill health presents to them, must ever offer scope for deep reflection and compassion.

At the same time it must be remembered that in spite of "hard times" and "low prices," as affecting the farmers, the agricultural labourer is better off today than he has ever been in past times. Food is very much cheaper and wages are higher. The farmers seem to be more liberal in bad times than in good. It is the same in all kinds of business. Except injustice there is no more hardening influence in the affairs of life than success. It seems often to dry up the milk of human kindness in the breast, and make us selfish and grasping.

In the good times of farming there was doubtless much cause for discontent amongst the Cotswold labourers. The profits derived from farming were then quite large. The tendency of the age, however, was to treat the labouring man as a mere machine, instead of his being allowed to share in the general prosperity. ("Hinc illæ lacrymæ.") Now things are changed. Long-suffering farmers are in many cases paying wages out of their fast diminishing capital. Many of them would rather lose money than cut down the wages.

Then again agricultural labourers who are unable to find work go off to the coal mines and big towns; some go into the army; others emigrate. So that the distress is not so apparent in this district as the badness of the times would lead one to expect.

The Cotswold women obtain employment in the fields at certain seasons of the year; though poorly paid, they are usually more conscientious and hardworking than the men.

Most of the cottages are kept scrupulously clean;