and putting aside the metaphysical analogy and the moral teaching which are presented by every tree and plant, he enjoys, I know, the simple beauty of the flower itself, the exhilarating freshness of the bright spring morning, the prodigality of the summer foliage, the ripe autumnal glow of the harvest-field, and the sparkling frost of a winter’s day.  But he very rarely expresses his enthusiasm in superlatives:  “a usefulish lot,” and “a smartish few,” meaning in Worcestershire “a very good lot,” and “a great many,” is about the limit to which he will commit himself.  His natural reticence in serious situations and calamity, and his reserve in the outlet of feeling by vocal expression, give a wrong impression of its real depth, and may even convey the impression of callousness to anyone not conversant with the working of his mind.

To a nephew of mine who was surprised to see his gardener’s little son leaving the garden, the man explained:  “That little fellow be come to tell I a middlinish bit of news; ’e come to say as his little sister be dead.”  Notice the “middlinish bit of news,” where a much stronger expression would have been justified, and note the restraint as to his loss, suggesting an unfeeling mind, though in reality very far from the grief he was shy of expressing.

An old woman in a parish adjoining mine, having lost a child, received the condolences of a visitor with, “Yes, mum; we seems to be regular unlucky, for only a few weeks ago we lost a pig.”

A lady well known to me, the daughter of the Vicar of a Cumberland parish, was calling on a woman whose husband had died a few days previously, and expressing her sympathy with the widow in her affliction, spoke of the sadness of the circumstances.  The widow thanked her visitor, and added:  “You know, miss, we was to have killed a pig that week, but there, we couldn’t ’ave ’em both about at the same time”!

All these incidents suggest callousness, but in reality they were plain statements of fact from persons with a limited vocabulary and unskilled in the niceties of polished language.

Another incident will illustrate how faulty expression may give an unintended impression.  A lady, calling at a cottage, exclaimed with appreciation at the fragrant odour of frying bacon which greeted her.  The cottager was busy with it at the fire.  “Yes, miss,” she said, “it is nice to ’ave a bit of bacon as you’ve waited on yourself”—­of course, referring to the fact that she knew the animal was always fed on really good food, an important and reassuring condition, though a tender heart might have regretted the sacrifice of an intimate creature which some would have regarded almost as a pet.

The cottager does not look upon his pig in that light; it is fed well and comfortably housed with a definite object, and very little love is lost between the pig and his master.  Children in some places in Worcestershire were formerly kept at home in order to be present on the great occasion of the pig’s obsequies.  A woman, asked why her children were absent from school, replied:  “Well, sir, you see, we killed our pig that day, and I kept the children at home for a treat; there’s no harm in that, sir, I’m sure, for pigs allus dies without malice!”