They lived--indeed, harder than their own labourers, and it sometimes happened that the food they thought good enough was refused by a cottager.

When a strange carter, or shepherd, or other labourer came to the house from a distance, perhaps with a waggon for a load of produce or with some sheep, it was the custom to give them some lunch.

These men, unaccustomed even in their own cottages to such coarse food, often declined to eat it, and went away empty, but not before delivering their opinion of the fare, expressed in language of the rudest kind.
No economy was too small for old Hodson; in the house his wife did almost all the work.

Nowadays a farmer's house alone keeps the women of one, or even two, cottages fully employed.

The washing is sent out, and occupies one cottage woman the best part of her spare time.