"Jacque, il me faut troubler ton Somme; Dans le village, un gros huissier Rode et court, suivi du messier. C'est pour l'impot, las! mon pauvre homme. Leve-toi, Jacque, leve-toi: Voici venir I'huissier du roi." BERANGER. General terms for what we now usually call a farmer are preserved in the surnames Bond (Chapter XV), whence the compound Husband, used both for the goodman of the house and in the modern sense, and Tillman. The labouring man was Day, from the same root as Ger. Dienen, to serve. It persists in "dairy" and perhaps in the puzzling name Doubleday (? doing two men's work). A similar meaning is contained in the names Swain, Hind, for earlier Hine (Chapter III), Tasker, Mann. But a Wager was a mercenary soldier. The mower has given us the names Mather (cf. aftermath), and Mawer, while Fenner is sometimes for Old Fr. feneur, haymaker (Lat. foenum, hay). For mower we also find the latinized messor, whence Messer. Whether the Ridler and the Sivier made, or used, riddles and sieves can hardly be decided. [Footnote: Riddle is the usual word for sieve in the Midlands. Hence the phrase "riddled with holes, or wounds."] With the Wenman, who drove the wain, we may mention the Leader or Loader. The verbs "lead" and "load" are etymologically the same, and in the Midlands people talk of "leading," i.e. carting, coal. But these names could also come from residence near an artificial watercourse (Chapter XIII). Beecher has already been explained, and Shoveler is formed in the same way from dialect showl, a shovel-- " 'I,' said the owl, 'With my spade and showl.' " To the variants of the Miller (Chapter XXIII) may be added Mulliner, from Old French. Tedder means a man who teds, i.e. spreads, hay, the origin of the word being Scandinavian "I teede hey, I tourne it afore it is made in cockes, je fene." (Palsgrave.) But the greater number of surnames drawn from rural occupations are connected with the care of animals. We find names of this class in three forms, exemplified by Coltman, Goater, Shepherd, and it seems likely that the endings -er and -erd have sometimes been interchanged, e.g. that Goater may stand for goat-herd, Calver for calf-herd, and Nutter sometimes for northern nowt-herd, representing the dialect neat-herd. The compounds of herd include Bullard, Calvert, Coltard, Coward, for cow-herd, not of course to be confused with the common noun coward (Fr. couard, a derivative of Lat. cauda, tail), Evart, ewe-herd, but also a Norman spelling of Edward, Geldard, Goddard, sometimes for goat-herd, Hoggart, often confused with the local Hogarth (Chapter XIII), Seward, for sow-herd, or for the historic Siward, Stobart, dialect stob, a bull, Stodart, Mid. Eng. stot, meaning both a bullock and a nag. Chaucer tells us that-- "This reve sat upon a ful good stot" (A, 615 ).