each year.  They were then well furnished with long and heavy poles, which were severed close to the head of the pollard with a sharp axe.  When on the ground, the brushwood was cut off and tied into “kids” (faggots) for fire-lighting, the poles being made into hurdles or sold to the crate-makers in the potteries for crates in which to pack earthenware goods of all descriptions.  The men employed at the lopping had to stand on the heads of the pollards, and it was sometimes quite an acrobatic feat to maintain their balance on a small swaying tree, or on one which overhung the water.

There was a local saying that “the withy tree would buy the horse, while the oak would only buy the halter,” and I believe it to be perfectly true; for the uses of the withy are innumerable, and throughout its seven years’ growth from one lopping to another there is always something useful to be had from it, with its final harvest of full-grown poles.  One year after lopping the superfluous shoots are cut out and used or sold for “bonds” for tying up “kids” or the mouths of corn sacks.  As the shoots grow stronger more can be taken—­with ultimate benefit to the development of the full-grown poles—­for use as rick pegs and “buckles” in thatching.  The buckles are the wooden pins made of a small strip of withy, twisted at the centre so that it can be doubled in half like a hairpin, and used to fix the rods which secure the thatch by pressing the buckles firmly into it.  In Hampshire these are called “spars,” and they are sold in bundles containing a fixed number.

I heard an amusing story about these spars.  A certain thatcher, we may call him Joe, was engaged upon the roof of a cottage, when the parson of the parish chanced to pass that way.  Joe had of late neglected his attendance at church, and the vicar saw his way to a word of advice.  After “passing the time of day” he took Joe to task for his neglected attendance and waxing warm expressed his fears that Joe had forgotten all his Sunday-school lessons; he was doubtful even, he said, if Joe could tell him the number of the Commandments.  Joe confessed his ignorance.  “Dear me,” said the vicar, “to think that in this nineteenth century any man could be found so ignorant as not to know the number of the Commandments!” Joe bided his time until the vicar’s attention had been called to the spars, when Joe asked him how many a bundle contained.  It was a problem that the vicar could not solve.  “Dear me,” said Joe, “to think that in this ’ere nineteenth century any man could be found so ignorant as not to know the number of spars in a bundle!” Joe always added when telling the story, “But there,” I says, “every beggar,” I says, “to his trade,” I says.

Sometimes a picturesque gipsy would come to the Manor House with clothes-pegs for sale, and she generally negotiated a deal, for everybody has a sneaking regard for the gipsies and their romantic life sub Jove.  Walking round the farm shortly afterwards I would come upon the remains of their fire and deserted camp by the roadside close to the brook, the ground strewn with the peel and refuse from the materials with which they had supplied themselves gratis, and I recognized that we had been buying goods made from my own withies.  Even so we did not complain, for no real harm was done to the trees.