the rich villages between; this would remind him of
Malthus, that blasphemous monster who had dared to say that the increase
in food production did not keep pace with increase of population; then
a quieting down, a breathing-space, all about the turnip crop, the
price of eggs at Weyhill Fair, and the delights of hare coursing, until
politics would come round again and a fresh outburst from the glorious
demagogue in his tantrums.

At eight o'clock Cobbett would say good night and go to bed, and early
next morning write down what he had said to his friend, or some of it,
and send it off to be printed in his paper. That, I take it, is how
Rural Rides was written, and that is why it seems so fresh to us to this
day, and that to take it up after other books is like going out from a
luxurious room full of fine company into the open air to feel the wind
and rain on one's face and see the green grass. But I very much regret
that Cobbett tells us nothing of his farmer friend. Blount, I imagine,
must have been a man of a very fine character to have won the heart
and influenced such a person. Cobbett never loses an opportunity of
vilifying the parsons and expressing his hatred of the Established
Church; and yet, albeit a Protestant, he invariably softens down when he
refers to the Roman Catholic faith and appears quite capable of seeing
the good that is in it.

It was Blount, I think, who had soothed the savage breast of the man
in this matter. The only thing I could hear about Blount and his "queer
notions" regarding the land was his idea that the soil could be improved
by taking the flints out. "The soil to look upon," Cobbett truly says,
"appears to be more than half flint, but is a very good quality." Blount
thought to make it better, and for many years employed all the aged poor
villagers and the children in picking the flints from the ploughed land
and gathering them in vast heaps. It does not appear that he made his
land more productive, but his hobby was a good one for the poor of the
village; the stones, too, proved useful afterwards to the road-makers,
who have been using them these many years. A few heaps almost clothed
over with a turf which had formed on them in the course of eighty years
were still to be seen on the land when I was there.

The following day I took no ride. The weather was so beautiful it seemed
better to spend the time sitting or basking in the warmth and brightness
or strolling about. At all event