Once a year comes the labour of preparing the sheet almanac.  This useful publication is much valued by the tenants of the district, and may be found pinned against the wall for ready reference in most farmhouses.  Besides the calendar it contains a list of county and other officials, dates of quarter sessions and assizes, fair days and markets, records of the prices obtained at the annual sales of rams or shorthorns on leading farms, and similar agricultural information.

The editor has very likely been born in the district, and has thus grown up to understand the wants and the spirit of the farming class.  He is acquainted with the family history of the neighbourhood, a knowledge which is of much advantage in enabling him to avoid unnecessarily irritating personal susceptibilities.  His private library is not without interest.  It mainly consists of old books picked up at the farmhouse sales of thirty years.  At such disposals of household effects volumes sometimes come to light that have been buried for generations among lumber.  Many of these books are valuable and all worth examination.  A man of simple and retiring habits, his garden is perhaps his greatest solace, and next to that a drive or stroll through the green meadows around.  Incessant mental labour has forced him to wear glasses before his time, and it is a relief and pleasure to the eyes to dwell on green sward and leaf.  Such a man performs a worthy part in country life, and possesses the esteem of the country side.

CHAPTER XIX

THE VILLAGE FACTORY.  VILLAGE VISITORS.  WILLOW-WORK

In the daytime the centre of a certain village may be said to be the shop of the agricultural machinist.  The majority of the cottagers are away in the fields at work, and the place is elsewhere almost quiet.  A column of smoke and a distant din guide the visitor to the spot where the hammers are clattering on the anvils.

Twisted iron, rusty from exposure, lies in confusion on the blackened ground before the shed.  Coal-dust and the carbon deposited from volumes of thick smoke have darkened the earth, and coated everything with a black crust.  The windows of the shed are broken, probably by the accidental contact of long rods of iron carelessly cast aside, and some of the slates of the roof appear gone just above the furnace, as if removed for ventilation and the escape of the intense heat.  There is a creaking of stiff leather as the bellows rise and fall, and the roar of the blast as it is forced up through the glowing coals.

A ceaseless hum of wheels in motion comes from the rear, and the peculiar crackling sound of a band in rapid revolution round the drum of the engine and the shaft.  Then the grinding scrape of sharp steel on iron as the edge of the tool cuts shavings from the solid metal rotating swiftly in the lathe.  As blow follows blow the red-hot ‘scale,’ driven from the surface of the iron on the anvil by the heavy sledge, flies rattling against the window in a spray of fire.  The ring of metal, the clatter, the roaring, and hissing of steam, fill the air, and through it rises now and then the shrill quick calls of men in command.