He had a cheery word for all who were working steadily, and a semi-sarcastic remark for the careless and unmethodical; a keen eye for hops wasted and trodden into the ground, or for poles of undersized hops, unwelcome to the pickers and hidden beneath those from which the hops had been picked.  He acted as buffer between capital and labour, smoothing troubles over, telling me of the pickers’ difficulties, and explaining my side to the pickers when the quality was poor and prices discouraging, so that the work went with a swing and with happy faces and good-humoured chaff.

I was always pleased to hear the pickers singing, for I knew then that all was well.  Sometimes, after a trying day, when Jarge had been called upon to expostulate, or “to talk” more than usual, the corners of his mouth would take a downward turn, and he complained, perhaps, of gipsies or tramps whom I was obliged to employ when the crop was heavy, though they were kept in a gang apart from the villagers; but he always came up happy again next morning, the mouth corners tending upwards, and his broad and beaming smile with a radiance like the rising sun on a midsummer morning.

Jarge was a man of discrimination.  When we were forced to inaugurate a School Board on account of the growing difficulty, owing to the bad times, of collecting voluntary subscriptions, all the old school managers, including my second Vicar—­I served under three Vicars as church-warden—­refused to join the Board.  Jarge, who was much exercised in his mind as to the possibility of future bad management, came to me, and referring to a proposal to place working-men on the Board, said:  “We wants men like you, sir, for members; what’s the good of sending we dunderyeads there?”

Going round the farm on his daughter’s wedding-day, I was surprised to find him at work; and when I asked him why he was not at the ceremony, “Well,” he replied, “I don’t think much of weddings—­the fittel (victuals) ain’t good enough; give me a jolly good fu-ner-ral!”

Jarge wore a brown velveteen coat on high-days and holidays by virtue of his sporting reputation, and looked exceedingly smart with special corduroy breeches and gaiters and a wide-awake felt hat.  He was much annoyed in Birmingham, whither I had sent all the men to an agricultural show, at hearing a man say to a companion, “There’s another of them Country Johnnies.”  When I told him what a swell he looked, he replied somewhat ruefully, “No! that’s what I never could be,” as though he felt that his appearance was disappointingly rustic.

Though a most industrious man, he had dreams of the enjoyment of complete leisure; he told me that if ever he possessed as much as fifty pounds he would never do another day’s work as long as he lived.  I answered that when that ideal was reached he would postpone his projected ease until he had made it a hundred, and so on ad infinitum; and this proved a correct forecast, for in time, by the aid of a well-managed allotment and regular wages, he saved a good bit of money.  When I sold my fruit crops by auction, on the trees, for the buyers to pick, just before I gave up my land, as I should not be present to harvest the late apples and cider fruit after Michaelmas, he came forward with a bid of one hundred pounds for one of the orchards, though it was sold eventually for a higher price.