This mixture of words, generally bearing some relation to each other, was not infrequently carried still further by making one word of two.  With some of the villagers “conservatory” stood for conservative and tory, and “containment” for concert and entertainment.  A messenger who was asked to bring Daniel Deronda from the Evesham library returned with the announcement that “Dannel Deronomy” was not available; this appeared to be a confusion between the books of Daniel and Deuteronomy.  A cook (not a Worcestershire person) was asked if the papers had come.  “Yes; the Standard has arrived, but not the Condy’s fluid (Connoisseur) “!  The regatta at Evesham was always “the regretta.”  An old sexton working in a churchyard, from whom I inquired if there was a bridge over the river, replied:  “Only a temperance bridge (temporary bridge).”

Tricker, as a very typical representative of the agricultural labourer in old age, was engaged as model for a figure in a picture by Mr. Chevalier Taylor, then staying in Badsey.  He sat in this capacity when work was not very pressing, and day by day used to repair to the artist’s lodgings with his tools on his shoulder.  His remuneration was half a crown a day—­ordinary day wages for an able-bodied man—­but he told me that the inaction was very trying, and that a day as model was much more exacting than a day’s work on the farm.

When the old man could no longer complete even a short day’s work, and suffered from the cold in winter, he decided to go to the workhouse for a time, but he was out again before the cuckoo was singing, and we found him light jobs “by the piece,” so that he could work for as long or as short a time as suited him.  He was most grateful for any assistance, and told me that “A little help is worth a deal of sympathy.”  Eventually he became a permanent inmate of the workhouse, much to my grief; but it is, of course, impossible to run a farm on which heavy poor-rate has to be paid, as a philanthropic institution.  The difficulty with aged and infirm persons is not so much food and maintenance as the necessity for nursing and supervision, which are expensive and difficult to arrange.  Tricker told me that he could live on sixpence a day, and if it had been a question of food only, and our village could have cut itself adrift from the Union and the rates it entailed, we could easily have more than kept the poor old man to the end of his days in comfort.  For years he was the only parishioner receiving any help from the immense sum the parish annually paid in rates.  I have heard it said that out of every shilling of the ratepayer’s contributions the poor people only get twopence or its equivalent, the officials and administration expenses absorbing the remaining tenpence.