difficult to convey an idea of the value of these two extra
sovereigns to a man of such frugal habits and in that position. None but
those who have mixed with the agricultural poor can understand it. Now the
wages that will hardly, by the most careful management, allow of the
gradual purchase of an annuity, will readily permit such savings as these.
It is simply a question of the money-box. When the child's money-box is at
hand the penny is dropped in, and the amount accumulates; if there is no
box handy it is spent in sweets. The same holds true of young and old
alike. If, then, the annuity cannot be arranged, let the money-box, at all
events, be brought nearer. And the money-box in which the poor man all
over the country has the most faith is the Post-office.

CHAPTER XXVIII

HODGE'S LAST MASTERS. CONCLUSION

After all the ploughing and the sowing, the hoeing and the harvest, comes
the miserable end. Strong as the labourer may be, thick-set and capable of
immense endurance; by slow degrees that strength must wear away. The limbs
totter, the back is bowed, the dimmed sight can no longer guide the plough
in a straight furrow, nor the weak hands wield the reaping-hook, Hodge,
who, Atlas-like, supported upon his shoulders the agricultural world,
comes in his old age under the dominion of his last masters at the
workhouse. There, indeed, he finds almost the whole array of his rulers
assembled. Tenant farmers sit as the guardians of the poor for their
respective parishes; the clergyman and the squire by virtue of their
office as magistrates; and the tradesman as guardian for the market town.
Here are representatives of almost all his masters, and it may seem to him
a little strange that it should require so many to govern such feeble
folk.

The board-room at the workhouse is a large and apparently comfortable
apartment. The fire is piled with glowing coals, the red light from which
gleams on the polished fender. A vast table occupies the centre, and
around it are arranged seats, for each of the guardians. The chairman is,
perhaps, a clergyman (and magistrate), who for years has maintained
something like peace between discordant elements. For the board-room is
often a battle-field where political or sectarian animosities exhibit
themselves in a rugged way. The clergyman, by force of character, has at
all events succeeded in moderating the personal asperity of the contending
parties. Many of the stout, elderl