the size of the farm, and consisted of a large living-room, ceiled with massive oak beams and oak boards, which were duly whitewashed, and looked as white as the sugar on a wedding cake. The fireplace was a huge space with seats on either side cut in the wall; while from one corner rose a rude ladder leading to a bacon loft. Dog-irons of at least a century old graced the brick hearth, while the chimney-back was adorned with a huge slab of iron wrought with divers quaint designs, and supposed to have been in some way or other connected with the Roman invasion, as it had been dug up somewhere in the neighbourhood, by whom or when no one ever knew. There was an inner chamber besides the one we are now in, which was used as a kitchen; while on the opposite side was a little parlour with red-tiled floor and a comparatively modern grate. This was the reception room, used chiefly when any of the ladies from “t’Squoire’s” did Mrs. Bumpkin the honour to call and taste her tea-cakes or her gooseberry wine. The thatched roof was gabled, and the four low-ceiled bedrooms had each of them a window in a gable. The house stood in a well-stocked garden, beyond which was a lovely green meadow sloping to the river side. In front was the little farm-yard, with its double-bayed barn, its lean-to cow-houses, its stables for five horses, and its cosy loft. Then there were the pigstyes and the henhouses: all forming together a very convenient and compact homestead. Adjoining the home meadow was a pretty orchard, full of apple, pear, cherry and plum trees; and if any one could imagine that Mr. and Mrs. Bumpkin had no eye or taste for the beautiful, I would have advised that ill-conditioned person to visit those good people of a Sunday morning after “brakfast” when
the orchard was in full blossom. This beautiful picture it was not only Mr. and Mrs. Bumpkin’s special joy to behold, but their great and proud delight to show; and if they had painted the blossoms themselves they could not have felt more intense enjoyment and satisfaction.
There was one other feature about the little farm which I must mention, because it is one of the grandest and most beautiful things in nature, and that is the magnificent “Old Oak” that stood in the corner of one of the home fields, and marked the boundary of the farm in that direction. If the measure of its girth would be interesting to the reader to know, it was just twenty-seven feet: not the largest in England certainly, notwithstanding which the tree was one of the grandest and most beautiful. It towered high into the air and spread its stalwart branches like giant trees in all directions. It was said to be a thousand years old, and to be inhabited by owls and ghosts. Whether the ghosts lived there or not I am unable to say, but from generation to generation the tradition was handed down and believed to be true. Such was Mr. Bumpkin’s home, in my dream: the home of Peace and Plenty, Happiness and Love.
The man who was contemplating Mr. Bumpkin’s pigs on this same Sunday morning was also a “self-made man,” whose name was Josiah Snooks. He was not made so well as Bumpkin, I should say, by a great deal, but nevertheless was a man who, as things go, was tolerably well put together. He was the village coal-merchant, not a Cockerell by any means, but a merchant who would have a couple of trucks of “Derby Brights” down at a time, and sell them round the village by the hundredweight. No doubt he was a very thrifty man, and to the extent, so some people said, of nipping the poor
in their weight. And once he nearly lost the contract for supplying the coal-gifts at Christmas on that account. But he made it a rule to attend church very regularly as the season came round, and so did Mrs. Josiah Snooks; and it will require a great deal of “nipping” to get over that in a country village, I promise you. I did not think Snooks a nice looking man, by any means; for he had a low forehead, a scowling brow, a nobbly fat nose, small eyes, one of which had a cast, a large mouth always awry and distorted with a sneer, straight hair that hung over his forehead, and a large scar on his right cheek. His teeth were large and yellow, and the top ones protruded more, I thought, than was at all necessary. Nor was he generally beliked. In fact, so unpopular was this man with the poor, that it was a common thing for mothers to say to their children when they could not get them in of a summer’s evening, “You, Betsy,” or “You, Jane, come in directly, or old Snooks will have you!” A warning which always produced the desired effect.
No one could actually tell whether Snooks had made money or merely pretended to possess it. Some said they knew he had, for he lived so niggardly; others said the coal trade was not what it was; and there were not wanting people who hinted that old Betty Bodger’s house and garden—which had been given to her years ago by the old squire, what for, nobody knew—had been first mortgaged to Josiah and then sold to him and “taken out in coals.” A very cunning man was Snooks; kept his own counsel—I don’t mean a barrister in wig and gown on his premises—but in the sense of never divulging what was in his sagacious mind. He was known as a universal buyer of everything that he could turn a penny out of; and he sold everybody whenever
he got the chance. Such was the character of old Snooks.
How then came our good guileless friend Bumpkin to be associated with such a man on this beautiful Sunday morning? I can only answer: there are things in this world which admit of no explanation. This, so far as I am concerned, was one.
“They be pooty pork,” said Mr. Bumpkin.
“Middlin’,” rejoined the artful Snooks.