He was not well versed in finance, however, for when the owner of his cottage offered, at his request, to build a new pigsty if he would pay a rent of 5 per cent, annually on the cost—­a very fair proposal—­Jarge declined with scorn, being, I think, under the impression that the owner was demanding the complete sum of five pounds annually, and I found it impossible to disabuse his mind of the idea.  He felt aggrieved also by the fact that, having paid rent for twenty-five or thirty years, he was no nearer ownership of his cottage than when he began.  His argument was that, as he had paid more than the value of the cottage, it should be his property; the details of interest on capital and all rates and repairs paid by the owner did not appeal to him.

On the occasion of a concert at Malvern, which my wife and her sister organized for the benefit of our church restoration fund, I gave all my men a holiday, and sent them off by train at an early hour; they were to climb the Worcestershire Beacon—­the highest point of the Malvern range—­in the morning, and attend the concert in the afternoon.  It was a lovely day, and the programme was duly carried out.  Next morning I found Jarge and another man, who had been detailed for the day’s work to sow nitrate of soda on a distant wheat-field, sitting peacefully under the hedge; they told me that the excitement and the climb had completely tired them out, but that they would stop and complete the job, no matter how late at night that might be.  It was the hill-climbing, I think, that had brought into play muscles not generally used in our flat country.  I sympathized, and left them resting, but the work was honourably concluded before they left the field.

When there was illness in Jarge’s house and somebody told him that the doctor had been seen leaving, he answered that he “Would sooner see the butcher there any day”—­not, perhaps, a very happy expression in the circumstances, but intended to convey that a butcher’s bill, for good meat supplied, was more satisfactory than a doctor’s account, which represented nothing in the way of commissariat.

Among the annual trips to which I treated my men, I sent them for a long summer day to London, and one of my pupils kindly volunteered to act as conductor to the sights.  They had a very successful day, and the principal streets and shows were visited; among the latter the Great Wheel, then very popular, was the one that seemed to interest them most.

Next morning some of the travellers were hoeing beans in one of my fields; I interviewed them on my round, and inquired what they thought of London.  They had much enjoyed the day, and were greatly struck by the fact that the barmaid, at the place where they had eaten the lunch they took with them, had recognized them as “Oostershire men”; they had demanded their beer in three or four quart jugs, which could be handed round so that each man could take a pull in turn, instead of the usual fashion of separate