From the smallness of the
holdings, the farmhouses are dotted about as thickly, and at such varying
distances from the roads, as to look like inferior 'villas,' falling out of
rank; most of them have a half-smart, half-seedy sort of look.
The rustics who cultivate them, or rather look after them, are neither
exactly town nor country. They have the clownish dress and boorish gait of
the regular 'chaws,' with a good deal of the quick, suspicious, sour
sauciness of the low London resident. If you can get an answer from them at
all, it is generally delivered in such a way as to show that the answerer
thinks you are what they call 'chaffing them,' asking them what you know.
These farms serve the double purpose of purveyors to the London stables,
and hospitals for sick, overworked, or unsaleable horses. All the great
job-masters and horse-dealers have these retreats in the country, and the
smaller ones pretend to have, from whence, in due course, they can draw any
sort of an animal a customer may want, just as little cellarless
wine-merchants can get you any sort of wine from real establishments--if
you only give them time.
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