undays, are dressed with a
neatness and good taste that are simply astonishing when one recalls the
income of a labourer on the Cotswolds--seldom, alas! averaging more than
fourteen shillings a week. A boy of twelve years of age is able to keep
himself, earning about five shillings per week. Cheerful and manly
little chaps they are. To watch a boy of fourteen years managing a
couple of great strong cart-horses, either at the plough or with the
waggons, is a sight to gladden the heart of man.

It is unfortunate that there are not more orchards attached to the
gardens on the Cotswolds. The reader will doubtless remember Dr.
Johnson's advice to his friends, always to have a good orchard attached
to their houses. "For," said he, "I once knew a clergyman of small
income who brought up a family very reputably, which he chiefly fed on
_apple dumplings_."

Talking of clergymen, I am reminded of some stories a neighbour of
ours--an excellent fellow--lately told me about his parishioners on the
Cotswolds. One old man being asked why he liked the vicar, made answer
as follows: "Why, 'cos he be so _scratchy after souls_." The same man
lately said to the parson, "Sir, you be an hinstrument"; and being asked
what he meant, he added, "An hinstrument of good in this place."

This old-fashioned Cotswold man was very fond of reciting long passages
out of the Psalms: indeed, he knew half the Prayer-book by heart; and
one day the hearer, being rather wearied, exclaimed, "I must go now, for
it's my dinner-time." To whom replied the old man, "Oh! be off with
thee, then; thee thinks more of thee belly than thee God."

An old bedridden woman was visited by the parson, and the following
dialogue took place:--

"Well, Annie, how are you to-day?"

"O sir, I be so bad! My inside be that comical I don't know what to do
with he; he be all on the ebb and flow."

The same clergyman knew an old Cotswold labourer who wished to get rid
of the evil influence of the devil. So Hodge wrote a polite, though
firm, epistle, telling his Satanic Majesty he would have no more to do
with him. On being asked where he posted his letter, he replied: "A' dug
a hole i' the ground, and popped un in there. He got it right enough,
for he's left me alone from that day to this."

The Cotswold people are, like their country, healthy, bright, clean, and
old-fashioned; and the more educated and refined a man may happen to be,
the more in touch he will be with them--not