the ever open window; but no one sat in it from week's end to week's end.
The whole life of the inmates passed in two back rooms--a sitting-room and
kitchen.

With some slight concessions to the times only, Farmer M---- led the life
his fathers led before him, and farmed his tenancy upon the same
principles. He did not, indeed, dine with the labourers, but he ate very
much the same food as they did. Some said he would eat what no labourer or
servant would touch; and, as he had stated, drank the same smallest of
small beer. His wife made a large quantity of home-made wine every year,
of which she partook in a moderate degree, and which was the liquor
usually set before visitors. They rose early, and at once went about their
work. He saw his men, and then got on his horse and rode round the farm.
He returned to luncheon, saw the men again, and again went out and took a
turn of work with them. He rode a horse because of the distance--the farm
being large--not for pleasure. Without it he could not have visited his
fields often enough to satisfy himself that the labourers were going on
with their work. He did not hunt, nor shoot--he had the right, but never
exercised it; though occasionally he was seen about the newly-sown fields
with a single-barrel gun, firing at the birds that congregated in crowds.
Neither would he allow his sons to shoot or hunt.

One worked with the labourers, acting as working bailiff--it was he who
drove the reaping machine, which, after long argument and much persuasion
the farmer bought, only to grumble at and abuse every day afterwards. The
other was apprenticed as a lad to a builder and carpenter of the market
town, and learned the trade exactly as the rest of the men did there. He
lodged in the town in the cheapest of houses, ate hard bread and cheese
with the carpenters and masons and bricklayers, and was glad when the
pittance he received was raised a shilling a week. Once now and then he