yards have to be cleaned out--if not done before breakfast--the
manure thrown up into heaps, and the heaps wheeled outside. Or, perhaps,
the master has given him a job of piece-work to fill up the middle of
the day with--a hedge to cut and ditch. This means more slush, wet,
cold, and discomfort. About six or half-past he reaches home, thoroughly
saturated, worn-out, cross, and "dummel." I don't know how to spell that
word, nor what its etymology may be, but it well expresses the dumb,
sullen churlishness which such a life as this engenders. For all the
conditions and circumstances of such a life tend to one end only--the
blunting of all the finer feelings, the total erasure of sensitiveness.
The coarse, half-cooked cabbage, the small bit of fat and rafty bacon,
the dry bread and pint of weak tea, makes no very hearty supper after
such a day as this. The man grows insensible to the weather, so cold and
damp; his bodily frame becomes crusted over, case-hardened; and with
this indifference there rises up at the same time a corresponding
dulness as regards all moral and social matters.

Generally the best conditions of cottage life are to be found wherever
there are, say, three or four great, tall, strong, unmarried sons
lodging in the house with their aged parents. Each of these pays a small
sum weekly for his lodging, and often an additional sum for the bare
necessaries of life. In the aggregate this mounts up to a considerable
sum, and whatever is bought is equally shared by the parents. They live
exceedingly well. Such young men as these earn good wages, and now and
then make extra time, and come home with a pocketful of money. Even
after the inevitable alehouse has claimed its share, there still remains
enough to purchase fresh meat for supper; and it is not at all unusual
in such cottages to find the whole family supping at seven (it is, in
fact, dining) on a fairly good joint of mutton, with every species of
common vegetables. In one case that was brought under my notice three
brothers lived with their aged mother. They were all strong,
hard-working men, and tolerably steady. In that cottage there were no
less than four separate barrels of beer, and all on tap. Four barrels in
one cottage seems an extraordinary thing, yet it resolved itself very
simply. The cottage was the mother's; they gave her so much for lodging,
and she had her own barrel of beer, so that there should be no dispute.
The three brothers were mowers