less from our point of view, but from the
peasant point of view thrifty enough, good-tempered too, generous to a
fault, indifferent to discomforts, as a rule very hard-working, yet
apparently quite unacquainted with fatigue.

He gets his living now as a labourer; but, unlike his neighbours, he
seems by no means careful to secure constant employment. The regularity
of it would hardly suit his temper; he is too keenly desirous of being
his own master. And his own master he manages to be, in a certain
degree. From those who employ him he obtains some latitude of choice,
not alone as to the hours of the day when he shall serve them, but even
as to the days of the week. I have heard him protest: "Monday you says
for me to come. Well, I dunno about _Monday_--if Tuesday'd suit ye as
well? I wants to do so-and-so o' Monday, if 'tis fine. You see, there's
Mr. S---- I bin so busy I en't bin anear him this week for fear _he_
should want me up _there_. I _knows_ his grass wants cuttin'. But I
'xpects I shall ha' to satisfy 'n Monday, or else p'raps he won't like
it." Sometimes he takes a day for his own affairs, carting home hop-bine
in his donkey-cart, or getting heath for some thatching job that has
been offered to him. On these terms, while he finds plenty to do in
working intermittently for four or five people in the parish, he
preserves a freedom of action which probably no other labourer in the
village enjoys. Few others could command it. But Turner's manner is so
ingratiating that people have a personal liking for him, and it is
certain that his strength and all-round handiness make of him an
extremely useful man. Especially does his versatility commend him.
Others in the village are as strong as he and as active and willing, but
there are not now many others who can do such a number of different
kinds of work as he can, with so much experienced readiness.

Among his clients (for that is a more fitting word for them than
"employers") there are two or three residents with villa gardens, and
also two of those "small-holders" who, more fortunate than himself
(though not more happy, I fancy), have managed to cling to the little
properties which their fathers owned. Turner, therefore, comes in for a
number of jobs extraordinarily diverse. Thus, during last summer I knew
him to be tending two gardens, where his work ranged from lawn-cutting
(sometimes with a scythe) to sowing seeds, taking care of the vegetable
crops, and trimmin