Sometimes feuds, originating in such or similar causes, were maintained for years by neighbours living with only a 9-inch party wall between them, and daily meetings outside, to the extent of not even “passing the time of day.”  At last, however, in a day of distress to one, the heart of the unafflicted other would melt, and after an offer of help, or actual assistance, kind relations would be once more established.  Or a peace offering, in the shape of a dish of good pig-meat, sent over with a kind message, would restore more genial conditions, and they would return to happy and neighbourly familiarity.

I once employed an old Dorset labourer, a tall, slim, aristocratic figure, with an elegant, refined nose to match; he bore the well-known name of an ancient and distinguished Dorset family, and I have no doubt was well descended.  He was decidedly a canny, not to say crafty, man.  I gave him a holiday at Whitsuntide to visit his old home, but he overran the time agreed upon and returned some days late.  Before I could begin the rebuke I proposed to administer, he produced a charming photograph of a ruined abbey near his old locality, and handed it to me as a present.  “I thought upon you, master, while I was away, and knowing as you was fond of ancient things I’ve brought you this picture.”  I was completely disarmed, and the rebuke had to be postponed sine die.

As I was talking one day to my bailiff—­one of the men who lived a mile away standing near—­he said:  “Tom, here, is always the first man to arrive in the morning; I have never known him to be late.”  I congratulated Tom, and asked what time he went to bed:  “Oh, about seven o’clock!” He was, in fact, a lonely old bachelor, and, being “no scholard,” it saved lights and firing to be early to bed.

This man, like many villagers, had very vague ideas of geography.  To save the trouble of cooking, he lived largely on American tinned beef, and got chaffed about it by his fellow-workers.  “How be you getting on with the ’Merican biff?” Tom was asked.  “Oh,” said he, “never no more ’Merican biff for me.”  “How’s that, Tom?” “Why, the other day I found a trouser-button in it!” The point of this story lies in the fact that the Russo-Turkish war was proceeding at the time. Tempora mutantur, we were then encouraging Turkey against Russia, though the latter had declared war to avenge the atrocities in Bulgaria of which the Turks were guilty, while in the recent struggle the position was almost exactly reversed.

There was then a violent militant feeling here in Britain, and excited crowds were singing: 

“We don’t want to fight but, by Jingo, if we do, We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, We’ve got the money too.”

Hence the expression “Jingoism,” which we often hear to-day, though, perhaps, the origin is now almost forgotten.

It is not unusual to see villagers, as married couples, complete contrasts to each other in appearance and character—­one fat and jolly, the other thin and miserable; one happy and contented, the other grumbling and morose; one open-hearted and generous, the other close and parsimonious.  In matrimony people are said to choose their opposites, and possibly, as time goes on, the difference in their appearance and dispositions becomes still more definitely developed.