he pen which favoureth a plain man treading sturdily the
winding paths and rough places of his native tongue. Notwithstanding
I take no small encouragement from this, that whereas of those that
have made to my knowledge the bravest boasting and the loudest puffing
(though of this I am loth to speak, never having had a stomach for
the work), the writings often perish neglectfully and nothing said,
some, writing afar in quiet places removed from the busy rabblement
of towns, not seldom steer their course to fame and riches, whereof,
thanks be to Heaven, I never yet had covetousness, deeming theirs the
happier lot to whom a dry crust with haply a slice of our good country
cheese and a draught of the foaming cider bring contentment. Each to
his own fashion, say I, and the fashion of the TIDDLERS hath always
been in a manner plain and unvarnished, like to the large oak press
wherein mother stores her Sunday gown and other woman's finery such
as the mind of man, being at best but a coarse week-day creature, hath
never fairly conceived. But lo! I am tarrying on my way, losing myself
in a maze of cheap fancies, while the reader perchance yawns and
stretches his limbs as though for bed. All I know is paper and ink are
cheaper than when I began to write.

CHAPTER II.

Now it fell on a Summer morning, I being then but newly come home
from the Farmers' College, in the ancient town of Cambridge, that our
whole household was gathered together in our parlour. Mother sat by
the head of the great table, ladling out a savoury mess of porridge,
not rashly, as the custom of some is, but carefully, like a prudent
housewife, guarding her own. And by her side sat MOLLY and BETTY, her
daughters, and next to them the maids, and they that pertained to the
work of the house. First came old POLLY THISTLEDEW, gaunt of face, and
parched of skin, the wrinkles running athwart her face, and over her
hooked nose, like to the rivers drawn with much labour of meandering
pen in the schoolboys' maps, though for such my marks were always low,
I being better skilled in the giving of raps with the closed fist than
in the making of maps with inky fingers--a bootless toil, as it always
hath seemed to me. Next to her sat SALLY, the little milkmaid, casting
coy glances at mother, who would have none of them, but with undue
sternness, as I thought then, and still think, tossed them back to the
shame-faced SALLY. Lower down sat JOHN TOOKER, "GIRT JAN DOUBLEFACE"
h