lichen; standing amid their little gardens, bright with the fairest flowers of the season— the streaked gilliflower, the blue hepatica, and the purple polythanus; while the lanes, the fields, the copses, are flowered over with "the violet dim, pale primroses, cowslips wan," and the delicate wood-anemone, blue and white. For the soil is of the richest, well watered by the gently flowing Avon. The farms are large, varying from 50 to 300 acres, mainly arable, but with a good proportion of the land laid down in grass. But however, it is not considered a dairy county, and probably there are not many Warwickshire farmers who could now say—
"At my farm
I have a hundred milch kine to the pail,
Six score fat oxen standing in my stalls,
And all things answerable to this portion."
My first companions on the road were a couple of boys driving a dung-cart. They were little fellows, yet one said he was twelve years old. He had commenced work four years before, having left school entirely at eight years of age. He worked from six to six o'clock, sometimes getting up at half-past four. They always went out in couples, as the horse sometimes ran away, and it was impossible for one alone to manage him. Accidents often occur from allowing children thus early to act the carter, while the long hours and insufficient food are very injurious to their constitutions. Indeed, the lad spoke pitifully of the length of time they had to go without food. Young as he was, he had learnt how a little stimulant would still the cravings of an empty stomach, and asked me for something to drink; but just as he did so we were met by an old man who sent them back and took charge of the horse himself.
Ere long I came upon Barford, a neat village mainly built of red brick, the cottages fronting the street. I saw some very large buildings, evidently old homesteads, one of which was going to decay. At the end of the village I found Mr Arch's dwelling-place, an unpretending modern cottage. It is his own, however, and so is the piece of land upon which it is built.
Unfortunately, he had just set out on a tour, in order that he might meet night after night great gatherings of his fellow-labourers
