represented his interests in the bargaining battle that was now waged with
deafening din and much apparent ferocity for three-quarters of an hour. The
little pedlar was used to this kind of thing, and was quite prepared for
the fray. When the lady offered him, after much depreciatory fingering of
the chosen material, two-thirds of what he asked for the stuff that was to
be made into a pair of winter trousers for the mayor, he spun round and
jumped like a peg-top just escaped from the string. Then he raged and
swore, said he was being mocked at, dabbed his hat on his head, and made a
pretence of gathering up his samples and rushing off. The mayor watched the
scene with a quiet smirk on his face: he knew that he would somehow get the
trousers. I have no doubt that he did have them, but I walked out instead
of waiting to see the end of the battle. When I returned, the haggling was
over, the hostess and the pedlar were on the most affable terms, and there
was not a sign of the recent storm.

Presently the pedlar, myself, and the innkeeper's son--a young man who had
received his education elsewhere, and had learnt much that did not chime
in with his present surroundings--were in a light cart, drawn by a lively
horse, speeding along the road over the moors. Here and there, near the
village, were small fields of buckwheat in the midst of the heather and
bracken. My companions explained that each commune was surrounded by a
considerable extent of moorland that belonged to it, and that any native of
the commune had the right of selecting a piece, which became his absolute
property after he had cleared it and brought it under cultivation; thus
anyone could have what land he wanted in reason for nothing. Quite an
Arcadian state of things this, were not the conditions of nature such as to
chill the ambition to acquire such freeholds. Three years of back-breaking
labour are needed before the land is fit to be put to some profitable
purpose. And then what does it yield? Buckwheat, and perhaps potatoes.
Although the peasants have the faculty of extending their landed property