indulge poetic licence; but the poor man who lived under the protection of the Hall and the Rectory did not depend for six months' encouragement on a single revel. He knew he had friends within reach who were ever willing to help him. Baskets were brought from the great house in time of sickness, and the cottage was cheered by the Lady Bountiful herself, or by the bright and sympathising faces of her daughters. In the absence of the squire the rector was on the spot, and the rector was ready at all times with spiritual consolations. The cottage itself might be a model of cleanliness and coquettish comfort, with its lozenged windows, framed in flowering creepers, its beehives, and the gay flower-beds before the door. Those lucky labourers had little reason to complain, and they hoped that their children might be still better off. For the children nowadays were sent regularly to a good village school, and delighted their admiring parents by the prizes they brought home and their wonderful forwardness in " book-learning." And the well-grown though loose-jointed hobbledehoys who were already "fending for themselves" were kept away from the temptations of the beer-house of a summer evening. The squire was the paying patron of the village cricket-club, and the players and spectators, setting wet weather at defiance, met every evening

on the green. Their energy was stimulated by challenges from neighbouring associations, and these contests were as keenly looked forward to and as eagerly contested as the more scientific matches at Lord's. There was one great advantage in this friendly overlooking of the poor, inasmuch as it bound them, from motives of selfinterest, to straight courses and steady behaviour. Of course there will be black sheep in every flock, and there are graceless lads who will go to the mischief notwithstanding all persuasion to the contrary. But in those well-regulated rural parishes the lines of demarcation between the sheep and the goats were so sharply drawn that it was impossible to slip over them unconsciously. The tone of good village society was as arbitrary as in the strictest circles of fashionable London; while, as everybody lived under the public eye, a constant supervision was exercised on its members. Nevertheless, opinion was not too hard upon human nature, and certain distractions were not only tolerated, but considered commendable. Station had its privileges as well as its duties. The bright little inn, with its tiled roofs and its quaint gables, was a venerated institution, and the resort of all the local respectability. The squire's arms were emblazoned on the swinging sign, and the house was kept by an old family servant.

He was

66

hand-in-glove with all the notables, and could do them a good turn on occasion. The farmers came to smoke their pipes of an evening in the parlour; the bailiff, the veterinary surgeon, the general shopkeeper, who was people's churchwarden as well, were regular attendants; even the doctor condescended to drop in now and again. George Eliot has given an inimitable description of one of these meetings in her 'Silas Marner.' We could fancy the novelist had been among them taking notes," hidden under the heavy oaken table. The customers or the landlord knew well how much liquor each man could carry comfortably, and excess was seldom permitted. The decent labourers repaired to a room of their own, unless they preferred to be served standing at the bar. When a man betook himself to ways of wickedness, or when an idle lad had kicked over the traces, he resorted to the pothouse. Pot-houses were put down in certain parishes, where a single landlord owned everything, and made his imperious will beneficently felt. As a rule, however, they were suffered as inevitable nuisances by the easy good-nature of the justices, and partly perhaps as convenient rat-traps where the rural constable could

collar his game. Any one interfering with them would have made himself extremely unpopular. They were to some extent supported

by labourers of fair character, who loved the tap of thick and loaded ale on which they could stupefy themselves cheaply. But it was in them that all the disreputables of the neighbourhood had their meetings, where they knocked up nocturnal parties for snaring the ground game, for netting the partridges, or raiding upon the pheasant coverts. The host was, in fact, a "fence" and receiver; he bought the stolen game at his own price, and sent it away in his blackguardly spring-cart to be sold at a handsome profit. He induced his thirsty clients to pilfer their masters, and set off against the long scores chalked up behind his door their trusses of hay and their bushels of corn. all his sneaking accomplices were remorselessly bullied by their tyrant, for the terrors of exposure and conviction were kept continually before them. Romantic fancies of rural felicity, even under the most favourable conditions, would have been rudely dissipated by a glimpse behind the scenes at the "Cat and Shovel" at the cross-roads.

And

CHAPTER XIII.

COUNTRY CHANGES.

ON

the whole, notwithstanding the decline in rents and depression in agriculture, the condition of the country has changed for the better. The landlords have been impoverished; the old tenants have too often been coming to grief, but it is in great degree due to the fact of a more general diffusion of comfort. Labourers have been drifting into the cities; consequently those who remain get higher wages, although they may be less regularly employed. It is certain that they are better housed and clothed, and that their habits of living are almost luxurious, compared to those of their grandfathers. They cannot say that they are forgotten or neglected, now that it is impossible to hush up parochial scandals. Generous philanthropical gentlemen, in love with notoriety, are always ready to expose the poor man's grievances in the papers, and to call attention to