Produced by Malcolm Farmer, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE TOILERS OF THE FIELD BY RICHARD JEFFERIES AUTHOR OF "THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," ETC. ETC. [Illustration: THE SILVER LIBRARY] _NEW IMPRESSION_ LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1898 _All rights reserved_ [Illustration: RICHARD JEFFERIES. _From the bust by Miss Margaret Thomas, in Salisbury Cathedral._ _Photographed by Mr. Owen, Salisbury._] _BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE._ _First Edition, October 1892._ _Reprinted, November 1892 and January 1893._ _Issued in Silver Library, November 1893._ _Reprinted, June 1898._ PREFACE. The first and larger part of this volume, from which it takes its name, consists of papers which will be new to the large majority of readers of Richard Jefferies' works. The five entitled, "The Farmer at Home," "The Labourer's Daily Life," "Field-faring Women," "An English Homestead," and "John Smith's Shanty," appeared in _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1874, long before Jefferies had gained any portion of that fame which was so long in coming, and came in full measure too late. Of the three letters to the _Times_, written in 1872, one was republished, with the permission of Mrs. Jefferies, in an appendix to Mr. Walter Besant's "Eulogy of Richard Jefferies." It finds its natural place in this volume with the other papers, which give so clear a picture of the life of all classes of the cultivators of the soil in the early seventies. The "True Tale of the Wiltshire Labourer" has never previously been published, and is included in this volume by the kind permission of Mr. G. H. Harmer of the _Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard_, for which paper it was written when Jefferies was on its staff, but for some reason was never used. All the papers in Part II. have appeared in _Longman's Magazine_, since Jefferies' death, and though they are with one exception very slight, yet they are all characteristic specimens of his work. From internal evidence it appears certain that the longest of them, entitled "The Coming of Summer," was written on June 1, 1881, and the subsequent days. It contains one or two points of resemblance with the famous "Pageant of Summer," which appeared in _Longman's Magazine_ for June 1883. It was perhaps the first study of which that paper is the finished picture. The frontispiece is reproduced by kind permission of Mr. J. Owen of Salisbury, from a photograph taken by him of Miss Thomas' bust of Jefferies in Salisbury Cathedral. C. J. LONGMAN. CONTENTS. _PART I._ PAGE THE FARMER AT HOME 3 THE LABOURER'S DAILY LIFE 60 FIELD-FARING WOMEN 111 AN ENGLISH HOMESTEAD 151 JOHN SMITH'S SHANTY 175 WILTSHIRE LABOURERS (LETTERS TO THE "TIMES") 211