art II. have appeared in _Longman's Magazine_, since
Jefferies' death, and though they are with one exception very slight,
yet they are all characteristic specimens of his work. From internal
evidence it appears certain that the longest of them, entitled "The
Coming of Summer," was written on June 1, 1881, and the subsequent days.
It contains one or two points of resemblance with the famous "Pageant of
Summer," which appeared in _Longman's Magazine_ for June 1883. It was
perhaps the first study of which that paper is the finished picture.

The frontispiece is reproduced by kind permission of Mr. J. Owen of
Salisbury, from a photograph taken by him of Miss Thomas' bust of
Jefferies in Salisbury Cathedral.

C. J. LONGMAN.

CONTENTS.

_PART I._

PAGE

THE FARMER AT HOME 3

THE LABOURER'S DAILY LIFE 60

FIELD-FARING WOMEN 111

AN ENGLISH HOMESTEAD 151

JOHN SMITH'S SHANTY 175

WILTSHIRE LABOURERS (LETTERS TO THE "TIMES") 211

A TRUE TALE OF THE WILTSHIRE LABOURER 259

_PART II._

THE COMING OF SUMMER 289

THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN 313

AN EXTINCT RACE 315

ORCHIS MASCULA 319

THE LIONS IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE 321

PART I.

_THE FARMER AT HOME._

The new towns, or suburbs which spring up every year in the
neighbourhood of London, are all built upon much the same plan. Whole
streets of houses present exact duplicates of each other, even to the
number of steps up to the front door and the position of the scraper. In
the country, where a new farmhouse is erected about once in twenty
years, the styles of architecture are as varied and as irregular as in
town they are prim and uniform. The great mass of farmhouses are old,
and some are very picturesque. There was a farmhouse I knew which was
almost entitled to be taken as the type of an English rural homestead.
It was built at a spot where the open wild down suddenly fell away into
rich meadow land. Here there was a narrow steep-sided valley, or
"combe"--and at the mouth of this, well sheltered on three sides from
the north, the east, and north-eastern winds, stood the homestead. A
spring arose some way behind