st this fearfully
laborious process with the bustling, hurrying machine of to-day. And yet
with all this improvement the corn can scarcely be thrashed out at a
profit. So out of joint are the times and seasons that the foreigner is
allowed to cut out the home producer. Half the life of the country-side
has gone, and no man dare whisper "Protection."

Even in these bad times the man with a head on his shoulders above the
average of his neighbours comes forth to show what can be done with
energy and pluck. Twenty years ago a labouring man, who "by crook or by
hook" had saved a hundred pounds, bought a thrashing machine (probably
second-hand) He took it round to the various farms, and did the
thrashing at so much per day. By and by he had saved enough money to
take a farm. A few years later he had two thrashing machines travelling
the country, and in this poor district is now esteemed a wealthy man. I
always found him an excellent game-preserver and a most straightforward
fellow. Another farming neighbour of mine, however, was always talking
about his ignorance and lack of caste. All classes, from the peer to the
peasant, seem to resent a man's pushing his way from what they are
pleased to consider a lower station into their own.

In the autumn gipsies are to be seen travelling the roads, or sitting
round the camp fire, on their way to the various "feasts" or harvest
festivals. "Have you got the old gipsy blood in your veins?" I asked the
other day of a gang I met on their way to Quenington feast "Always
gipsies, ever since we can remember," was the reply. Fathers,
grandfathers were just the same,--always living in the open air, winter
and summer, and always moving about with the vans. In the winter hawking
is their occupation. "Oh no! they never felt the cold in winter; they
could light the fire in the van if they wanted it."

Although many of the farmers here have given up treating their men to a
spread after the harvest is gathered in, there is still a certain amount
of rejoicing. The villagers have a little money over from extra pay
during the harvest, so that the gipsies do not do badly by going the
round of the villages at this time. The village churches are decorated
in a very delightful manner for these feasts: such huge apples, carrots,
and turnips in the windows and strewn about in odd places; lots of
golden barley all round the pulpit and the font; and perhaps there will
be bunches of grapes, such as grow wild