The more credulous of the labourers were excited and unsettled by the alluring prospect of independence thus held out to them, and it was reported that some went so far as to survey the fields around their villages and select the plots they proposed to cultivate, and that others took baskets to the poll in which to bring home the all-powerful magic of the mysterious vote!  Among the new voters in a neighbouring village, a man of very decided views found it puzzling to decide by which candidate they were most nearly represented, and, determined to make no mistake at the poll, he consulted a fellow-labourer, inquiring:  “Which way be the big uns a-going, because I be agin they?”

The Squire of an adjoining parish met an old villager with whom he had always been on good terms; after mutual greetings, the man sympathised:  “I be sorry for you, Squire.”  “Why?” was the rejoinder.  “Yes, I be regular sorry for you, Squire, that I be..”  “What’s the matter?” asked the Squire.  “Ay! about this here land; ’tis to be divided amongst we working men.”  “Indeed,” said the Squire; “but look here, after a bit, some of you won’t want to cultivate it any longer, and some, with improvident habits, will sell their plots to others, so that soon it will be all back again into the hands of a few; what will you do then?” The man looked puzzled, scratched his head, and cogitated deeply, until a simple solution presented itself:  “Then, Squire,” said he, “we shall divide again!”

Sir Richard Temple was undoubtedly an able man, but he was a complete stranger to the local conditions of the constituency.  The villagers of Badsey especially, as well as of other adjoining parishes, were just beginning to retrieve their position, threatened by the collapse of corn-growing and consequent unemployment, by the adoption of market-gardening and fruit-growing.  The land, run down and full of weeds and rubbish, had been cut up into allotments and offered to them as tenants, their only choice lying between years of hard work in redeeming its condition or emigration.  Many young men chose the latter, and did well in the States of America; but where there was a wife and young children that course was scarcely possible, and the man became an allotment tenant.  Passing one of these on a plot full of “squitch,” which he was laboriously breaking up with a fork to expose it in big clods to a baking sun, I asked if he had taken it.  “Well,” said he, “I don’t know whether I’ve taken it or it’s taken me!”

These men, by unceasing labour and self-denial, were just beginning to turn the corner; they had cleaned the land, ameliorated its mechanical condition by application of soot and by deep digging with their beloved forks, and, having discovered how wonderfully asparagus nourished on this deep, rich soil, had planted large areas, as well as plum-trees and other market-garden crops, and the well-merited return was coming in increasingly year by year.