common in the north-west of the county. I had trudged for miles along a solitary but almost straight road, hemmed in by lines of pines and other trees on either side. Not a sound was to be heard, except the distant shouting of a crow-boy. The only sign of life were the enormous ants, which kept up a perpetual motion over the sandbanks that enclosed the woods. At last I heard a cart coming along, and, begging a lift, found myself seated beside a little jolly, apple-cheeked man, who was carrying bread from a neighbouring town to the very common to which I was bound. He had commenced work as an agricultural labourer at eight years of age, and had, since he had been a man, worked at 14s. a week. Now, however, he lived on the common, and sold beer and grocery. As we passed along he remarked that, had he known what he did now, he would have had a bit of land.
"How?"
"Built on it," he replied, "asked no one."
"Couldn't the waste not yet enclosed be turned to account?"
"Not for wheat, but," quoth he, "if I were the parish of C—— I know what I'd do with it. I'd enclose it, and take all these 'ere paupers, that are doing nothing, and make 'em plant trees upon it, and then work in tending 'em."
He was evidently well-to-do, and spoke with a sort of contemptuous pity of those who inhabited the miserable cots we saw, huddled together in little groups on various parts of the common.
He realized the expression "As merry as a sand-boy," giving me with much humour the notes of the birds which frequent the common. Thus he described the yellow hammer's as asking for "a little bit of bread and no cheese," the chaffinch for "some bread and no beer," while the wood-pigeon cried moodily, "you old foo', you old foo'."
Upon another common I met with a still more singular character. Over the door of a cottage, standing in a large garden on the side of a common, was this sign-board
"——— ———
Worm Doctor.
Professor of Medical Botany.
Herb Medicines prepared for every complaint.
Advice Gratis."
