ere very discontented
at this, and they lost a good deal of time going to complain to
him about it, and they had high words with him.

"The men said the beer wasn't fit for pigs, and the farmer said
it was quite good enough 'for such as they,' and if they didn't
like his beer they might buy their own. In the evening, too, he
came down and complained that the mowing was bad, and then there
were more high words, for the men are very jealous about their
work. However they went to work as usual the next morning, and
all might have gone off quietly, but in the day Farmer Tester
found two pigs in his turnip field which adjoins the common, and
had them put in the pound. One of these pigs belonged to Betty
Winburn's son, and the other to one of the men who was mowing
with him; so, when they came home at night, they found what had
happened.

"The constable is our pound-keeper, the little man who amused you
so much; he plays the bass-viol in church. When he puts any
beasts into the pound he cuts a stick in two, and gives one piece
to the person who brings the beasts, and keeps the other himself,
and the owner of the beasts has to bring the other end of the
stick to him before he can let them out. Therefore, the owner,
you see, must go to the person who has pounded his beasts, and
make a bargain with him for payment of the damage which has been
done, and so get back the other end of the stick, which they call
the 'tally,' to produce to the pound-keeper.

"Well, the men went off to the constable's when they heard their
pigs were pounded, to find who had the 'tally,' and, when they
found it was Farmer Tester, they went in a body to his house to
remonstrate with him, and learn what he set the damages at. The
farmer used dreadful language to them, I hear, and said they
weren't fit to have pigs, and must pay half a crown for each pig,
before they could have the 'tally;' and the men irritated him by
telling him that his fences were a shame to the parish, because
he was too stingy to have them mended, and that the pigs couldn't
have found half a crown's worth of turnips in the whole field,
for he never put any manure on it except what he could get off
the road, which ought to belong to the poor. At last the farmer
drove them away saying he should stop the money out of the price
he was to pay for their mowing.

"Then there was very near being a riot in the parish; for some of
the men are very reckless people, and they went in the e