Random roaming and other Papers

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. ...this one that lies before me. It will be seen that this unique document furnishes us with a great deal of very curious and minute information regarding the rector's way of life, habits, social status, and other matters, as could only be gleaned from such a source as this. If we have now and then to read between the lines and draw our inferences from slight indications, this is only what we are always compelled to do in studying the past For the past must be studied, or it can never be known. I hesitated at first where I should begin--but after consideration it seems to me best to say a word about the house in which this worthy clergyman lived, and to show my readers what sort of a house it was. In that part of Norfolk where Harpley is situated stone is scarce and dear; the making of bricks was an art which had almost perished among us, and even if it had existed hereabouts, brick earth, such as our ancestors would have thought it worth their while to bake into bricks, was not to be found. Moreover, the rights of the homagers of every manor to "turbary" and collecting of furze, and lopping and topping of trees growing in certain parts of the manor--that is, the right of providing themselves with fuel in one form or another--was very jealously watched, and whereas in Harpley there were two or three manors whose territories overlapped or ran into one another, the attempt to appropriate any large portion of the common stock of fuel for the purpose of burning brick would have been resented with great indignation, and something like a rebellion; certainly a succession of ugly riots would have been the inevitable result of such an invasion of the common rights of the inhabitants. On the other hand, there was a great deal more timber... Read more