.
If in carrying game in their mouths they spied or winded a keeper, they
would in all probability contrive to hide themselves or make tracks for
the high road as quickly as possible, leaving their spoil in the thick
underwood, "to be left till called for."

But to return once more to the honest Cotswold labourer. Occasionally a
notice is put up in the village as follows:--

"There will be a dinner in the manor grounds on July--. Please bring
knives and forks."

These are great occasions in a Cotswold village. Knives and forks mean
meat; and a joint of mutton is not seen by the peasants more than "once
in a month of Sundays." Needless to say, there is not much opportunity
of studying the language of the country as long as the feast is
progressing. "Silence is golden" is the motto here whilst the viands are
being discussed; but afterwards, when the Homeric desire of eating and
drinking has been expelled, an adjournment to the club may lead to a
smoking concert, and, once started, there are very few Cotswold men who
cannot sing a song of at least eighteen verses. For three hours an
uninterrupted stream of music flows forth, not only solos, but
occasionally duets, harmoniously chanted in parts, and rendered with the
utmost pathos. It cannot be said that Gloucestershire folk are endowed
with a large amount of musical talent; neither their "ears" nor their
vocal chords are ever anything great, but what they lack in quality they
make up in quantity, and I have listened to as many as forty songs
during one evening--some of them most entertaining, others extremely
dull. The songs the labourer most delights in are those which are
typical of the employment in which he happens to be engaged. Some of the
old ballads, handed down from father to son by oral tradition, are very
excellent. The following is a very good instance of this kind of song;
when sung by the carter to a good rollicking tune, it goes with a rare
ring, in spite of the fact that it lasts about a quarter of an hour.
There would be about a dozen verses, and the chorus is always sung twice
at the end of each verse, first by the carter and then by the
whole company.

"Now then, gentlemen, don't delay harmony," Farmer Peregrine keeps
repeating in his old-fashioned, convivial way, and thus the ball is kept
a-rolling half the night.

JIM, THE CARTER LAD.

"My name is Jim, the carter lad--
A jolly cock am I;
I always am contented,