keep the goodman and his familie from the quacke, or pose, wherewith
as then very few were oft acquainted."] 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