ow his sons to shoot or hunt.

One worked with the labourers, acting as working bailiff--it was he who
drove the reaping machine, which, after long argument and much persuasion
the farmer bought, only to grumble at and abuse every day afterwards. The
other was apprenticed as a lad to a builder and carpenter of the market
town, and learned the trade exactly as the rest of the men did there. He
lodged in the town in the cheapest of houses, ate hard bread and cheese
with the carpenters and masons and bricklayers, and was glad when the
pittance he received was raised a shilling a week. Once now and then he
walked over to the farm on Sundays or holidays--he was not allowed to come
too often. They did not even send him in a basket of apples from the great
orchard; all the apples were carefully gathered and sold.

These two sons were now grown men, strong and robust, and better educated
than would have been imagined--thanks to their own industry and good
sense, and not to any schooling they received. Two finer specimens of
physical manhood it would have been difficult to find, yet their wages
were no more than those of ordinary labourers and workmen. The bailiff,
the eldest, had a pound a week, out of which he had to purchase every
necessary, and from which five shillings were deducted for lodgings. It
may be that he helped himself to various little perquisites, but his
income from every source was not equal to that of a junior clerk. The
other nominally received more, being now a skilled workman; but as he had
to pay for his lodgings and food in town, he was really hardly so well
off. Neither of these young men had the least chance of marrying till
their father should die; nothing on earth would induce him to part with
the money required to set the one in business up or the other in a
separate farm. He had worked all his time under his father, and it seemed
to him perfectly natural that his sons should work all their time under
him.

There was one daughter, and she, too, was out at work. She was housekeeper
to an infirm old farmer; that is to say, she superintended the dairy and
the kitchen, and received hardly as much as a cook in a London
establishment. Like the sons, she was finely developed physically, and had
more of the manners of a lady than seemed possible under the
circumstances.

Her father's principles of farming were much the same as his plan of
housekeeping and family government. It consisted of never spending