An old house at Badsey, once a hospitium or sanatorium for sick monks from Evesham Abbey in pre-Reformation days, was reported to be haunted, and people told tales of “the old fellows rattling about again” of a night.  Probably these beliefs had been encouraged in former times by the monks themselves, to prevent the villagers prying too closely into their occupations; and no doubt the scattered individuals of the same body originated the popular theory that the Abbey lands of which they were dispossessed would never, owing to a curse, pass by inheritance in the direct line from father to eldest son—­an event that in the course of nature often fails, though by no means invariably.

In recent years a startling story has been told, and even appeared in a local paper, of a ghostly adventure near the Aldington turning.  A young lady (not a native), riding her bicycle to Evesham from Badsey, passed, machine and all, right through an apparition which suddenly crossed her path, without any resulting fall.

In connection with the monk’s hospitium I lately made an interesting discovery as to the origin of a curious name of one of my fields, which had always puzzled me.  The field adjoined the hospitium, and was always known as “the Signhurst.”  Field-names are a very interesting study, they usually bear some significance to a peculiarity in the field itself, or its position with reference to its surroundings, and it has always been a hobby of mine to trace their derivations.  The word “Signhurst” presented no clue to its origin except the Anglo-Saxon “burst,” signifying a wood, but there was no appearance or tradition of any wood having ever occupied the spot, and the land was so good, and so well situated as to aspect, that it was unlikely to have been such a site, even in Anglo-Saxon days.  I stumbled upon a passage in May’s History of Evesham which mentioned the “Seyne House,” meaning “Sane House,” the equivalent of the modern word “sanatorium,” and I saw at once the origin of the corrupted word “Signhurst”—­the field near the Seyne House.

Wages are, of course, the crowning reward of the working-man’s week; throughout the whole of my time 15s. a week was the recognized pay for six full summer days—­“a very little to receive, but a good deal to pay away,” as a neighbour once said.  During harvest, and at piecework, more money was earned, and it always pleased me that I could pay much better prices for piece-work among the hops than for piece-work at wheat-hoeing or on similar unremunerative crops.  The reason is obvious:  the hoeing of an acre of wheat, a crop which might possibly return a matter of L10 per acre, takes no more manual effort than the hoeing of an acre of hops, where a gross return of L70 or L80 per acre is not unusual, and is sometimes considerably exceeded.