The fact speaks well for the rural population; it speaks very badly for such characters as the one that has been described.  If he will not turn into the path of honest labour, that is his own fault.  The injury he does is this, that he encourages others to be idle.  Labouring men quit the field under the influence of temporary thirst, or that desire for a few minutes’ change which is not in itself blameworthy.  They enter the low ‘public,’ call for their quart, and intend to leave again immediately.  But the lazy fellow in the corner opens conversation, is asked to drink, more is called for, there is a toss-up to decide who shall pay, in which the idle adept, of course, escapes, and so the thing goes on.  Such a man becomes a cause of idleness, and a nuisance to the farmers.

Another individual is a huge, raw-boned, double-jointed giant of a man, whose muscular strength must be enormous, but whose weakness is beer.  He is a good workman, and of a civil, obliging disposition.  He will commence, for instance, making drains for a farmer with the greatest energy, and in the best of tempers.  A drain requires some little skill.  The farmer visits the work day by day, and notes with approval that it is being done well.  But about the third or fourth day the clever workman, whose immense strength makes the employment mere child’s play to him, civilly asks for a small advance of money.  Now the farmer has no objection to that, but hands it to him with some misgiving.  Next morning no labourer is to be seen.  The day passes, and the next.  Then a lad brings the intelligence that his parent is just recovering from a heavy drinking bout and will be back soon.  There is the history of forty years!

The same incident is repeated once or twice a month all the year round.  Now it is a drain, now hedge-cutting, now hoeing, now haymaking, and now reaping.  Three or four days’ work excellently performed; then a bed in a ditch and empty pockets.  The man’s really vast strength carries him through the prostration, and the knocks and bangs and tumbles received in a helpless state.  But what a life!  The worst of it is the man is not a reprobate—­not a hang-dog, lounging rascal, but perfectly honest, willing to oblige, harmless and inoffensive even when intoxicated, and skilful at his labour.  What is to be done with him?  What is the farmer to do who has only such men to rely on—­perhaps in many cases—­without this fellow’s honesty and good temper—­qualities which constantly give him a lift?  It is simply an epitome of the difficulties too commonly met with in the field—­bright sunshine, good weather, ripe crops, and men half unconscious, or quite, snoring under a hedge!  There is no encouragement to the tenant to pay high wages in experiences like this.