organized for the benefit of our church restoration fund, I gave all
my men a holiday, and sent them off by train at an early hour; they
were to climb the Worcestershire Beacon--the highest point of the
Malvern range--in the morning, and attend the concert in the
afternoon. It was a lovely day, and the programme was duly carried
out. Next morning I found Jarge and another man, who had been detailed
for the day's work to sow nitrate of soda on a distant wheat-field,
sitting peacefully under the hedge; they told me that the excitement
and the climb had completely tired them out, but that they would stop
and complete the job, no matter how late at night that might be. It
was the hill-climbing, I think, that had brought into play muscles not
generally used in our flat country. I sympathized, and left them
resting, but the work was honourably concluded before they left the
field.

When there was illness in Jarge's house and somebody told him that the
doctor had been seen leaving, he answered that he "Would sooner see
the butcher there any day"--not, perhaps, a very happy expression in
the circumstances, but intended to convey that a butcher's bill, for
good meat supplied, was more satisfactory than a doctor's account,
which represented nothing in the way of commissariat.

Among the annual trips to which I treated my men, I sent them for a
long summer day to London, and one of my pupils kindly volunteered to
act as conductor to the sights. They had a very successful day, and
the principal streets and shows were visited; among the latter the
Great Wheel, then very popular, was the one that seemed to interest
them most.

Next morning some of the travellers were hoeing beans in one of my