some distance ahead three railway navvies were approaching, just off
their night's work, and carrying their picks and shovels. I had left the
cart behind, and was near these three, when suddenly they burst into a
laugh, exclaiming to one another, "Look at that old 'oss!" I turned.
There sat the horse on his tail between the shafts, pawing with his
forefeet at the road, but unable to get a grip at its slippery surface.
It was impossible not to smile; he had such an absurd look. The navvies,
however, did more than smile. They broke into a run; they saw
immediately what to do. In thirty seconds they were shovelling earth out
from the hedgerow under the horse's feet, and in two minutes more he had
scrambled up, unhurt.

In such behaviour, I say, we have a clue to the labouring-man's temper.
The courage, the carelessness of discomfort, the swiftness to see what
should be done, and to do it, are not inspired by any tradition of
chivalry, any consciously elaborated cult. It is habitual with these men
to be ready, and those fine actions which win our admiration are but
chance disclosures in public of a self-reliance constantly practised by
the people amongst themselves--by the women quite as much as by the
men--under stress of necessity, one would say at first sight. Take
another example of the same willing efficiency applied in rather a
different way. In a cottage near to where I am writing a young labourer
died last summer--a young unmarried man, whose mother was living with
him, and had long depended on his support. Eighteen months earlier he
had been disabled for a week or two by the kick of a horse, and a
heart-disease of long standing was so aggravated by the accident that he
was never again able to do much work. There came months of unemployment,
and as a consequence he was in extreme poverty when he died. His mother
was already reduced to parish relief; it was only by the help of his two
sisters--young women out at service, who managed to pay for a coffin for
him--that a pauper's funeral was avoided. A labourer's wife, the mother
of four or five young children, took upon herself the duty of washing
and laying out the corpse, but there remained still the funeral to be
managed. An undertaker to conduct it could not be engaged; there was no
money to pay him. Then, however, neighbours took the matter up, not as
an unwonted thing, I may say--it is usual with them to help bury a
"mate"--only, as a rule, there is the undertak