We were speaking of the nicknames so common in all villages, and of the men whose easy-going acquiescence allows them sometimes to drop their own names in favour of those popularly chosen for them.

Amongst these, Bettesworth mentioned one Bill Harding, who, he said, “used to live just down the valley here. I bin 'arvestin' with 'n many's a time. They used to call he Tom Ridley; and when he was in Sussex they always called 'n Fat. He was a fat, thick-set feller. Then there was old Tiddler too, what spent all his life at Culverley. Seventy year he worked there. He begun as a boy, drivin' rooks from a field o' corn—they had a crop o' wheat that year down there in Sandy Field—an' he went rook-scarin' at eighteen-pence a week. That was his start, an' he bid there seventy years: all through Squire Sanderson's time, an' then when Lucases come they kep' 'n on. He might ha' give up if he 'd ha' liked; there 'd ha' been he's money jest the same. But no; he kep' on. Used to goo down 't last, after they told 'n he no call to, an' sweep the paths an' so on. And the young ladies, they used to come out an' joke with 'n. Rare jokin' ol' chap he was. But we never knowed 'n by any other name than Tiddler.