Harvest-work and farm-work in general in the Fens is in some ways peculiar to this part of the country, for farm-holdings are large and farmsteads far between. The practice, under these conditions, arose of the work being done by gangs; the hands assembling at break of day in the farmyard and being despatched in parties to their distant day's work in hoeing, weeding, or picking in the flat and almost boundless fields; returning only when the day's labour is ended. Men, women, and children gathered thus in the raw morning make a picture--and in some ways a pitiful picture--of farming and rustic life, worthy of a Millet. But our Millet has not yet come; and the gangs grow fewer. If he does not hasten, they will be quite gone, and something characteristic in Fenland-life quite lost. A Fenland farm-lass may wear petticoats, or she may not. Sometimes she acts as carter, and it is precisely in such cases that she sheds her feminine skirts and dons the odd costume that astonishes the inquisitive stranger new to these parts, who sees, with doubt as to whether he sees aright, a creature with the boots and trousers of a man, a nondescript garment, half bodice and half coat with skirts, considerably above the knees, and a sun-bonnet on her head, working in the rick-yards, or squashing heavily through the farmyard muck. Skirts are out of place in farmyards and in cattle-byres, and the milkmaid, too, of these parts is dressed in like guise. If you were to show a milkmaid in the Fens a picture illustrating "Where are you going to, my pretty maid?" in the conventional fashion, she would criticise very severely, as quite incorrect, the skirted figure of a poet's dream usually presented. She saves her skirts and her flower-trimmed hat for Sundays. XXXII AND now we must come from the general to the especial; from Fens and Fen-folk in the mass to a bright particular star.