The difficulty was to get the weight up, lifting it fairly from the ground; you could lift it very well half-way, but it was just when the arm was bent that the tug came to get it past the hip, after which it would go up comparatively easily.
Now this great strength was not the result of long and special training, or, indeed, of any training at all; it came naturally from outdoor life, outdoor work, plain living (chiefly bacon), and good bread baked at home.

At the present time men ate the finest and whitest of bread, but there was no good in it.

Folk grew tall and big--taller than they used to be, he thought--and they could run quick, and so forth; but there was no stamina, no power of endurance, of withstanding exposure like there was formerly.

The mere measure of a man, he was certain, had nothing to do with his strength; and he could never understand how it was that the army folk would have men precisely so high and so many inches round.

Just then he was called away to a carter who had brought up his team and waggon at the door, and as he was gone some time I went up under the roof, whence there was a beautiful view down over the plain.
The swifts, which had but just arrived, were rushing through the sky in their headlong way; they would build presently in the roof.