d out in the summertime
they were, with loss of garden crops--found refuge in a hovel which
stood right against a public pathway. And, although it was an
encroachment, within a week a twelve-inch strip of the pathway was dug
up under the cottage eaves, and fenced in with a low fencing of sticks
roughly nailed together. Within this narrow space were planted
chrysanthemums rescued from the previous home; and when the fence gave
way--as it did before the chrysanthemums flowered--big stones and
brickbats were laid in its place. Considered as decoration, the result
was a failure; it was the product of an hour's work in which despair and
bitterness had all but killed the people's hope; but that it was done at
all is almost enough to prove my point. For further illustration I may
refer again to that other man mentioned above, who is now under notice
to leave his cottage. Last year he was happy in tending four or five
rose-trees which he had been allowed to bring home from the rubbish-heap
of his employer's garden. I remember that when he showed them to me,
gloating over them, he tried to excuse himself to me for neglecting his
potatoes in their favour, and I did my best to encourage him and puff
him up with pride. But it was of no use. This summer he is neglecting
his roses, and is wondering if his potatoes will be ripe enough for
digging before he is obliged to move.

With such things going on, it is not wonderful that the people live
shabbily, meanly, out at elbows. Tastes so handicapped as theirs make no
headway, and, though not dying, sink into disuse. The average cottager
learns to despise pleasantness and to concentrate upon usefulness. His
chief pride now is in his food-crops, which, if not eaten, can be turned
into money. Of course, these have their beauty--not undiscerned by the
labourer--but they are not grown for that end, and the thriftier the
man, the less time to the consideration of beauty will he give. It is,
besides, an imprudence to make a cottage look comely, now that covetous
eyes are upon the valley and the people's position there has grown
insecure.

Does it seem a slight thing? Whatever the practical importance of it,
the extent of change involved in this hopeless attitude of the
villagers towards their home-places must not be under-rated; for if it
could be viewed in sharp perspective it would appear considerable
enough. Let us note the transitions. First the straying squatters
settled here, to cult