up for that, they do not work on Sundays.  Now, the fogger must feed his cows, the carter his horse, the shepherd look to his sheep every day; consequently their extra wages are thoroughly well earned.  The young labourer—­who is simply a labourer, and professes no special branch—­is, therefore, in a certain sense, the best off.  He is rarely hired by the year—­he prefers to be free, so that when harvest comes he may go where wages chance to be highest.  He is an independent person, and full of youth, strength, and with little experience of life, is apt to be rough in his manners and not overcivil.  His wages too often go in liquor, but if such a young man keeps steady (and there are a few that do keep steady) he does very well indeed, having no family to maintain.

A set of men who work very hard are those who go with the steam-ploughing tackle.  Their pay is so arranged as to depend in a measure on the number of acres they plough.  They get the steam up as early as possible in the morning, and continue as late as they can at night.  Just after the harvest, when the days are long, and, indeed, it is still summer, they work for extremely long hours.  Their great difficulty lies in getting water.  This must be continually fetched in carts, and, of course, requires a horse and man.  These are not always forthcoming in the early morning, but they begin as soon as they can get water for the boiler, and do not stop till the field be finished or it is dark.

The women do not find much work in the fields during the winter.  Now and then comes a day’s employment with the threshing-machine when the farmer wants a rick of corn threshed out.  In pasture or dairy districts some of them go out into the meadows and spread the manure.  They wear gaiters, and sometimes a kind of hood for the head.  If done carefully, it is hard work for the arms—­knocking the manure into small pieces by striking it with a fork swung to and fro smartly.

In the spring, when the great heaps of roots are opened—­having been protected all the winter by a layer of straw and earth—­it is necessary to trim them before they are used.  This is often done by a woman.  She has a stool or log of wood to sit on, and arranges a couple of sacks or something of the kind, so as to form a screen and keep off the bitter winds which are then so common—­colder than those of the winter proper.  With a screen one side, the heap of roots the other, and the hedge on the third, she is in some sense sheltered, and, taking her food with her, may stay there the whole day long, quite alone in the solitude of the broad, open, arable fields.