A quart of threepenny ale for breakfast, with a hunch of bread and cheese, then out to work again in the weather, let it be what it may. The cowyards have to be cleaned out--if not done before breakfast--the manure thrown up into heaps, and the heaps wheeled outside. Or, perhaps, the master has given him a job of piece-work to fill up the middle of the day with--a hedge to cut and ditch. This means more slush, wet, cold, and discomfort. About six or half-past he reaches home, thoroughly saturated, worn-out, cross, and "dummel." I don't know how to spell that word, nor what its etymology may be, but it well expresses the dumb, sullen churlishness which such a life as this engenders. For all the conditions and circumstances of such a life tend to one end only--the blunting of all the finer feelings, the total erasure of sensitiveness. The coarse, half-cooked cabbage, the small bit of fat and rafty bacon, the dry bread and pint of weak tea, makes no very hearty supper after such a day as this. The man grows insensible to the weather, so cold and damp; his bodily frame becomes crusted over, case-hardened; and with this indifference there rises up at the same time a corresponding dulness as regards all moral and social matters. Generally the best conditions of cottage life are to be found wherever there are, say, three or four great, tall, strong, unmarried sons lodging in the house with their aged parents. Each of these pays a small sum weekly for his lodging, and often an additional sum for the bare necessaries of life. In the aggregate this mounts up to a considerable sum, and whatever is bought is equally shared by the parents. They live exceedingly well. Such young men as these earn good wages, and now and then make extra time, and come home with a pocketful of money. Even after the inevitable alehouse has claimed its share, there still remains enough to purchase fresh meat for supper; and it is not at all unusual in such cottages to find the whole family supping at seven (it is, in fact, dining) on a fairly good joint of mutton, with every species of common vegetables. In one case that was brought under my notice three brothers lived with their aged mother. They were all strong, hard-working men, and tolerably steady. In that cottage there were no less than four separate barrels of beer, and all on tap. Four barrels in one cottage seems an extraordinary thing, yet it resolved itself very simply. The cottage was the mother's; they gave her so much for lodging, and she had her own barrel of beer, so that there should be no dispute. The three brothers were mowers--mowers drink enormous quantities of liquor--and with the same view to prevent dispute each had his own especial barrel. Families like this live fairly well, and have many little comforts. Still, at the best, in winter it is a rough and uncomfortable existence.