times than
these, because the farmers for their own sake were forced to find the
fellows something to do; but now they did not care, and it was a hard
thing to find work, especially when a man grew old, and stiff about the
joints. Now the Boards of Guardians would not give any relief unless the
applicants were ill, or not able-bodied, and even then they were often
required to break stones, and he was very much inclined to throw his
spade in that old pond and go to the Union with the "missis" and all the
lot for good. He had the rheumatism bad enough. It would serve them
right. He had worked "nigh handy" sixty years; and all he had got by it
he could put in his eye. They ought to keep him now. It was not half so
good as the old times for all the talk; then the children could bring
home a bit of wood out of the hedges to boil the pot with, but now they
must not touch a stick, or there was the law on them in a minute. And
then coal at the price it was. Why didn't his sons keep him? Where were
they? One was a soldier, and another had gone to America, and the third
was married and had a hard job to keep himself, and the fourth was gone
nobody knew where. As for the wenches, they were no good in that way. So
he and his "missis" muddled on at home with three of the youngest. And
they could not let them alone even in that. He did go into the Union
workhouse for a bit, a while ago, when the rheumatism was extraordinary
bad, but some of the guardians smelt out that he had a cottage of his
own, and it was against the law to relieve anybody that had property; so
he must pay back the relief as a loan or sell the cottage. He was
offered L25 for the place and garden, and he meant to have taken it, but
when they came to look into the writings it was not clear that he could
sell it. It was quit-rent land, and although the landlord had not taken
the rent for twenty years, yet he had entered it in his book as paid
(out of good nature), and the lawyers said it could not be done. But as
they would not let him sell it, he would not turn out, not he. There he
would stop--just to spite them. He knew that nook of his was wanted for
cattle stalls on the new principle, and very handy it would be with all
that water close at hand, but he had worked for sixty years, and had had
nineteen children there, and he would not turn out. Not he. The parson's
"missis" and the squire's "missis" came the other day about that
youngest boy of his. They wanted to g