ates were to be seen
there, and when they began to be introduced the old folk manifested
great opposition. They said slate would never last--the moss would eat
through it, and so cause holes; and, in fact, some of the slate that
was brought up did decay and become useless. But that was, of course,
an inferior kind, quite different to what is now employed. In so
comparatively short a period has everything--even the mode of
roofing--changed that the introduction of slates is still in many
places within the memory of man. Hilary had still a lingering
preference for thatch; and though he could not deny the utility of
slate, his inclination was obviously in favour of straw. He assured me
that good straw from a good harvest (for there was much difference in
it), well laid on by a good thatcher, had been known to keep out the
weather for forty-five years.

We looked into the garden at the Place, where Hilary particularly
called my attention to the kidney-beans; for, said he, if the
kidney-beans run up the sticks well, with a strong vine, then it would
be a capital hop-year. On the contrary, if they were weak and poor,
the hops would prove a failure. Thus the one plant was an index to the
other, though they might be growing a hundred miles apart, both being
particularly sensitive to the same atmospheric influences.

In a distant tree beyond the rickyard there was something hanging in
the branches that I could not quite make out: it was a limb of a dead
horse. A cart-horse belonging to a neighbouring farmer had met with an
accident and had to be killed, when, according to old custom, portions
were sent round to each adjacent farmstead for the dogs, which then
had a feast. Thus, said Hilary, according to the old saw, the death of
a horse is the life of a dog.

CHAPTER IX.

THE WATER-MILL. FIELD NAMES.

'Our time be a-most gone by,' said the miller looking up from his work
and laying aside the millpeck for a moment as he rubbed his eyes with
his white and greasy sleeve. From a window of the old mill by
Okebourne I was gazing over the plain green with rising wheat, where
the titlarks were singing joyously in the sunshine. A millstone had
been 'thrown off' on some full sacks--like cushions--and Tibbald, the
miller, was dexterously pecking the grooves afresh.

The millpeck is a little tool like a double adze, or perhaps rather
like two chisels set in the head of a mallet. Though age was stealing
upon him, Tibbald's