table, and said that he had nearly reached home when he felt something
hard against his knee, inside his corduroys, where he found the
missing coin; there was a hole in his pocket, but the encircling
string which labourers tie below the knee had prevented its escape.




CHAPTER VI.



CHARACTERISTICS OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS AND VILLAGERS.

"My crown is in my heart, not on my head:
Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,"
--_3 Henry VI_.

The agricultural labourer, and the countryman generally, does not
recognize any form of property beyond land, houses, buildings, farm
stock, and visible chattels. A groom whom I questioned concerning a
new-comer, a wealthy man, in the neighbourhood, summed him up thus:
"Oh, not much account--only one hoss and a brougham!" A railway may
run through the parish, worth millions of invested capital, but the
labourer does not recognize it as such, and a farmer, employing a few
men and with two or three thousand pounds in farm stock, is a bigger
man in his eyes than a rich man whose capital is invisible.

The labourer in the days of which I am writing was inclined to be
suspicious of savings banks and deposit accounts at a banker's; his