between thumb and finger. After a month or two of this process people at
last begin to accept it as a reality, like cattle or trees--something
substantial, and not mere words.

The carter, with his waggon, if he be an elderly man, cries 'Whoa!' and,
standing close to the wall, points to each letter with the top of his
whip--where it bends--and so spells out 'Sale by Auction.' If he be a
young man he looks up at it as the heavy waggon rumbles by, turns his
back, and goes on with utter indifference.

The old men, working so many years on a single farm, and whose minds were
formed in days when a change of tenancy happened once in half a century,
have so identified themselves with the order of things in the parish that
it seems to personally affect them when a farmer leaves his place. But
young Hodge cares nothing about his master, or his fellow's master.
Whether they go or stay, prosperous or decaying, it matters nothing to
him. He takes good wages, and can jingle some small silver in his pocket
when he comes to the tavern a mile or so ahead; so 'gee-up' and let us get
there as rapidly as possible.

An hour later a farmer passes on horseback; his horse all too broad for
his short legs that stick out at the side and show some inches of stocking
between the bottom of his trousers and his boots. A sturdy, thick-set man,
with a wide face, brickdust colour, fringed with close-cut red whiskers,
and a chest so broad he seems compelled to wear his coat unbuttoned. He
pulls off his hat and wipes his partly bald head with a coloured
handkerchief, stares at the poster a few minutes, and walks his horse
away, evidently in deep thought. Two boys--cottagers' children--come home
from school; they look round to see that no one observes, and then throw
flints at the paper till the sound of footsteps alarms them.