, how would
the necessary drudgery of agricultural work be accomplished at all? In
spite, however, of this marked characteristic of inertness--hereditary
in the first place, and fostered by the humdrum round of daily toil on
the farm--there is sometimes to be found a sense of humour and a love of
merriment that is quite astonishing. A good deal of what is called
knowledge of the world, which one would have thought was only to be
acquired in towns, nowadays penetrates into remote districts, so that
country folk often have a good idea of "what's what" I once overheard
the following conversation:

"Who's your new master, Dick? He's a bart., ain't he?"

"Oh no," was the reply; "he's only a _jumped-up jubilee knight_!"

Sense of humour of a kind the Cotswold labourer certainly has, even
though he is quite unable to see a large number of apparently simple
jokes. The diverting history of John Gilpin, for instance, read at a
smoking concert, was received with scarce a smile.

Old Mr. Peregrine lately told me an instance of the extraordinary
secretiveness of the labourer. Two of his men worked together in his
barn day after day for several weeks. During that time they never spoke
to each other, save that one of them would always say the last thing at
night, "Be sure to shut the door."

Oddly enough they thoroughly appreciate the humour of the wonderful
things that went on fifty and a hundred years ago. The old farmer I have
just mentioned told me that he remembers when he used to go to church
fifty years ago, how, after they had all been waiting half an hour, the
clerk would pin a notice in the porch, "No church to-day; Parson C----
got the gout."

As with history so also with geography, the Cotswold labourer sometimes
gets "a bit mixed."

"'Ow be they a-gettin' on in Durbysher?" lately enquired a man at
Coln-St-Aldwyns.

To him replied a righteously indignant native of the same village, "I've
'eard as 'ow the English army 'ave killed ten thousand Durvishers
(Dervishes)."

"Bedad!" answered his friend, "there won't be many left in Durbysher if
they goes on a-killin' un much longer."

Another story lately told me in the same village was as follows:--

An old lady went to the stores to buy candles, and was astonished to
find that owing to the Spanish-American war "candles was riz."

"Get along!" she indignantly exclaimed. "_Don't tell me they fights by
candlelight_"

One of the cheeriest fellows that ever worked f