Any remark about
unusual weather made in his hearing was at once put out of court by
his recollections of "eiteen-eiteen" (1818), which seems to have been
a very remarkable year for maxima and minima of meteorology. He could
remember the high price of wheat during the war which ended at
Waterloo, and how his old master, the grandfather of the tenant of the
farm in my time, would stand by the men in the barn as they measured
up the wheat, bushel by bushel, to fill the sacks, and exclaim as each
bushel was poured in, "There goes another guinea, boys!" This would
make the price 168s. a quarter; I find the average recorded for 1812
was 126s. 6d., so that it is quite possible that for a time in that
year in places 168s. was realized; which leaves us little to grumble
at in the price of 80s. during the greatest war in history.
His horizon must have been considerably widened by his brief visit to
London; previous to that event it might have been nearly as extensive
as that of the hero of a recent story of Pwllheli. Meeting a crony in
the town, he remarked that the streets of London would be pretty
crowded that day. "How's that?" said his friend. "Why, there's a trip
train gone up to-day with fourteen people from Pwllheli!"
Bredon Hill, in the Vale of Evesham, is the direction in which many
people look for hints of coming changes of weather.
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