Three generations

ii 4 BREAD-WINNER AND HOUSE-MOTHER
willing but ignorant and inexperienced farm-servants
was also surmounted by her. She measured out and
sold supplies of milk, for which the children of the
colliers and all other working people who stayed in
the nearest village came early every morning.
Finally, a duty devolved at regular intervals upon
my mother because of my father's unacquaintance
with the details and distaste for them. This was to
overlook the dispensing of the quarter's instalment of
oatmeal and supply of potatoes to the bothie servants.
The oatmeal was kept stored away in the laundry in
a big wooden u press," or " girnel," in old days termed
" the ark."
My mother's peregrinations among the scattered
neighbours were hardly more frequent than her visits
to her kindred, unless some evil befell her neighbours
when she was eager to come forward and be of service.
My father had the same pitying impulse. He wrote
more "intimation cards" of deaths and "funeral
letters" (which were then written and sent from the
house of mourning, but are now consigned to a printer
and the post), and attended more funerals than any
other man far or near.
The dominant middle-class man in the parish was
not the priest, though he was a notable figure. He
was the banker in the one village, which contained a
bank, and also the office factor or agent of the principal
landowners of the district. The amount of power in
the hands of such a man, and the temptation to use
it tyrannically, are evident. The banker and factor in
question could count among his other advantages an
imposing presence and handsome face. The farmers
around, whose business was done through his bank,
over whose prospects he had by his recommendations