But I very much regret that Cobbett tells us nothing of his
farmer friend. Blount, I imagine, must have been a man of a
very fine character to have won the heart and influenced such
a person. Cobbett never loses an opportunity of vilifying the
parsons and expressing his hatred of the Established Church;
and yet, albeit a Protestant, he invariably softens down when
he refers to the Roman Catholic faith and appears quite
capable of seeing the good that is in it.
It was Blount, I think, who had soothed the savage breast of
the man in this matter. The only thing I could hear about
Blount and his "queer notions" regarding the land was his idea
that the soil could be improved by taking the flints out.
"The soil to look upon," Cobbett truly says, "appears to be
more than half flint, but is a very good quality." Blount
thought to make it better, and for many years employed all the
aged poor villagers and the children in picking the flints
from the ploughed land and gathering them in vast heaps. It
does not appear that he made his land more productive, but his
hobby was a good one for the poor of the village; the stones,
too, proved useful afterwards to the road-makers, who have
been using them these many years. A few heaps almost clothed
over with a turf which had formed on them in the course of
eighty years were still to be seen on the land when I was
there.
The following day I took no ride.
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