for a wonder in this village,
stood in a row; and amongst scraps of her talk which were repeated to me
I heard how her little brother--only five years old, but strong at
throwing stones--threw at a girl playmate and knocked out one of her
eyes. That happened in the springtime. In the autumn of the same year a
mishap, if possible more shocking at the moment, befell another child in
that row of cottages. A man there one evening was trimming a low hedge.
His tool was a fag-hook--well sharpened, for he was one of the ablest
men in the village. And near by where he worked his children were at
play, the youngest of them being between three and four years old.

As he reached over the hedge, to chop downwards at the farther side,
this little one suddenly came running dangerously near. "Take care,
ducky!" he cried. "Don't come so close, 'r else perhaps father'll cut
ye."

He gave three more strokes, and again the child ran in. The hook fell,
right across the neck. I had these particulars from a neighbour. "If 't
had bin another half inch round, the doctor said, 'twould have bin
instant death.... The man was covered with blood, and all the ground,
too. I was at work when I heared of it, but I couldn't go on after that,
it upset me so.... And all this mornin' I can't get it out o' my mind.
There's a shiver all up that row. They be all talkin' of it. The poor
little thing en't dead this mornin', and that's all's you can say. They
bin up all night. Ne'er a one of 'em didn't go to bed."

So far the neighbour. Later the little maidservant, who had gone home
that evening, told me: "We was passin' by at the time--me and my older
sister.... She run in and wrapped a towel round its neck."

"Where, then, was the mother?"

"She was with its father. He'd fainted. So we went in. We thought p'raps
we could run for the doctor. But she went herself, jest as she was,"
carrying the child down to the town.

As for the girl's sister, who had behaved with some aplomb, "It made her
feel rather bad afterwards. She felt sick. All the floor was covered
with blood." The little maidservant had a curious look, half horror,
half importance, as she said this. She herself was not more than fifteen
at the time.

But sickness is commoner by far than accident, and owing to the
necessity the cottagers are under of doing everything for themselves
they often get into dire straits. Of some of the things that go on one
cannot hear with equanimity. The people a