While the ploughmen were in charge of the teams, other men went singly, or in twos or threes, to hoe, harrow, or spread manure in other fields; others cleared ditches and saw to drains, or sawed wood or cut chaff or did other odd jobs about the farmstead. Two or three highly skilled middle-aged men were sometimes put upon piecework, hedging and ditching, sheep-shearing, thatching, or mowing, according to the season. The carter, shepherd, stockman, and blacksmith had each his own specialized job. Important men, these, with two shillings a week extra on their wages and a cottage rent free near the farmstead.

When the ploughmen shouted to each other across the furrows, they did not call Miller or Gaskins or Tuffrey or even Bill, Tom, or Dick, for they all had nicknames and answered more readily to Bishie or Pumpkin or Boamer. The origin of many of these names was forgotten, even by the bearers; but a few were traceable to personal peculiarities. Cockie or Cock-eye had a slight cast; Old Stut stuttered, while Bavour was so called because when he fancied a snack between meals he would say “I must just have my mouthful of bavour,” using the old name for a snack, which was rapidly becoming modernized into lunch or luncheon.

When a few years later, Edmund worked in the fields for a time, the carter, having asked him some question and being struck with the aptness of his reply, exclaimed: “Why, boo-oy, you be as wise as Solomon, an’ Solomon I shall call ‘ee!” and Solomon he was until he left the hamlet. A younger brother was called Fisher; but the origin of this name was a mystery. His mother, who was fonder of boys than girls, used to call him her kingfisher.

Sometimes afield, instead of the friendly shout, a low hissing whistle would pass between the ploughs. It was a warning-note and meant that Old Monday, the farm bailiff, had been sighted. He would come riding across the furrows on his little long-tailed grey pony, himself so tall and his steed so dumpy that his feet almost touched the ground, a rosy, shrivelled, nutcracker-faced old fellow, swishing his ash stick and shouting, “Hi, men! Ho, men! What do you reckon you’re doing!”

He questioned them sharply and found fault here and there, but was in the main fairly just in his dealings with them. He had one great fault in their eyes, however; he was always in a hurry himself and he tried to hurry them, and that was a thing they detested.