His outside is an ancient yeoman of England, though his inside may give
arms with the best gentleman and never see the herald. There is no truer
servant in the house than himself. Though he be master, he says not to
his servants, "Go to field," but "Let us go;" and with his own eye doth
both fatten his flock and set forward all manner of husbandry. He is
taught by nature to be contented with a little; his own fold yields him
both food and raiment; he is pleased with any nourishment God sends,
whilst curious gluttony ransacks, as it were, Noah's ark for food only
to feed the riot of one meal. He is never known to go to law;
understanding, to be law-bound among men is to be hide-bound among his
beasts; they thrive not under it, and that such men sleep as unquietly
as if their pillows were stuffed with lawyers' penknives. When he builds
no poor tenant's cottage hinders his prospect: they are indeed his
almshouses, though there be painted on them no such superscription. He
never sits up late but when he hunts the badger, the vowed foe of his
lambs; nor uses he any cruelty but when he hunts the hare; nor subtilty
but when he setteth snares for the snipe or pitfalls for the blackbird;
nor oppression but when, in the month of July, he goes to the next river
and shears his sheep. He allows of honest pastime, and thinks not the
bones of the dead anything bruised or the worse for it though the
country lasses dance in the churchyard after evensong. Rock Monday and
the wake in summer, Shrovings, the wakeful catches on Christmas Eve, the
hockey or seed-cake, these he yearly keeps, yet holds them no relics of
popery. He is not so inquisitive after news derived from the privy
closet, when the finding an eyry of hawks in his own ground, or the
foaling of a colt come of a good strain, are tidings more pleasant, more
profitable. He is lord paramount within himself, though he hold by never
so mean a tenure, and dies the more contentedly, though he leave his
heir young, in regard he leaves him not liable to a covetous garden.
Lastly, to end him, he cares not when his end comes; he needs not fear