] Neither
did one of these habitations boast the comfort of a glazed window, the
substitute being lattice, or chequer-work,--even in the house of the
franklin, which rose statelily above the rest, encompassed with barns
and outsheds. And yet greatly should we err did we conceive that these
deficiencies were an index to the general condition of the working
class. Far better off was the labourer when employed, than now. Wages
were enormously high, meat extremely low; [See Hallam: Middle Ages,
Chap. xx. Part II. So also Hollinsbed, Book XI., c. 12, comments on the
amazement of the Spaniards, in Queen Mary's time, when they saw "what
large diet was used in these so homelie cottages," and reports one of
the Spaniards to have said, "These English have their houses of sticks
and dirt, but they fare commonlie so well as the king!"] and our
motherland bountifully maintained her children.

On that greensward, before the village (now foul and reeking with the
squalid population whom commerce rears up,--the victims, as the movers,
of the modern world) were assembled youth and age; for it was a holiday
evening, and the stern Puritan had not yet risen to sour the face of
Mirth. Well clad in leathern jerkin, or even broadcloth, the young
peasants vied with each other in quoits and wrestling; while the merry
laughter of the girls, in their gay-coloured kirtles and ribboned
hair, rose oft and cheerily to the ears of the cavalcade. From a gentle
eminence beyond the village, and half veiled by trees, on which the
first verdure of spring was budding (where now, around the gin-shop,
gather the fierce and sickly children of toil and of discontent), rose
the venerable walls of a monastery, and the chime of its heavy bell
swung far and sweet over the pastoral landscape. To the right of the
road (where now stands the sober meeting-house) was one of those small
shrines so frequent in Italy, with an image of the Virgin gaudily
painted, and before it each cavalier in the procession halted an instant
to cross himself and mutter an ave. Beyond, still to the right, extended
vast chains of woodland, interspersed with strips of pasture, upon which
numerous flocks were grazing, with horses, as yet unbroken to bit and
selle, that neighed and snorted as they caught scent of their more
civilized brethren pacing up the road.

In front of the cavalcade rode two, evidently of superior rank to the
rest,--the one small and slight, with his long hair flowing ov