bouring folk, toiling hard day by day at "the trivial round,
the common task," just earning enough to scrape up a livelihood, but
enjoying few of the amenities of life. The village parsons--good, pious
men--share in the quiet, uneventful life of their flock. And who shall
contemn their lot? As Horace tells us:

"Vivitur parvo bene, cui paternum
Splendet in mensa tenui salinum
Nec leves somnos timor aut cupido
Sordidus aufert."

These four villages were all built two centuries or more ago, when the
Cotswolds were the centre of much life and activity and the days of
agricultural depression were not known. When we look down on their old,
grey houses nestling among the great trees which thrive by the banks of
the fertilising stream, we cannot but speculate on their future fate.
Gradually the population diminishes, as work gets scarcer and scarcer.
Unless there is an unexpected revival in prices through some measure of
"protection" being granted by law, or the medium of a great European
war, or some such far-reaching dispensation of Providence, terrible to
think of for those who live to see it, but with all its possibilities of
"good arising out of evil" for future generations, these old villages
will contain scarcely a single inhabitant in a hundred year's time. This
part of the Cotswold country will once more become a huge open plain,
retaining only long rows of tumbled-down stone walls as evidences of its
former enclosed state; no longer on Sundays will the notes of the
beautiful bells call the toilers to prayer and thanksgiving, and all
will be desolation. If only the capitalist or wealthy man of business
would take up his abode in these places, all might be well. But, alas!
the peace and quiet of such out-of-the-way spots, with all their
fascinating contrast to the smoke and din of a manufacturing town, have
little attraction for those who are unused to them. And yet there is
much happiness and content in these rural villages. The lot of those who
are able to get work is a thousand times more supportable than that of
the toiling millions in our great cities. There is less drinking and
less vice among these villagers than there is in any part of this world
that we are acquainted with; consequently you find them cheerful,
good-humoured, and, if they only knew it, happy. Grumble they must, or
they would not be mortal. Ah! if they could but realise the blessings of
the elixir of life--pure air, and