e_ to come and
help me, have ye? Well, you'll judge for yourself; but I don't hardly
fancy he'll suit." Or, again: "Well, we all knows how 'tis with
What's-his-name. I don't say but what he keeps on work right enough; but
he'll have to jump about smarter 'n what I've ever knowed 'n, if he's to
work 'long o' me." So, too often, and sometimes in crueller terms, I
have heard efficient labourers speak of their neighbours. Certainly it
is not all envy. An active man finds it penance to work with a slow one,
and worse than penance; for his own reputation may suffer, if his own
output of work should be diminished by the other's fault. That neighbour
of mine engaged at hop-drying doubtless had good grounds for
exasperation with the helper sent into the kiln, when he complained to
the master: "Call that a _man_ you sent me? If that's what you calls a
man, I'd sooner you let me send for my old woman! Blamed if she wouldn't
do better than that feller!" Detraction like this, no doubt, is often
justified; but when it becomes the rule, the only possible inference is
that an instinctive jealousy prompts men to it, in instinctive
self-preservation.

Yet there are depths of dishonour--depths not unknown amongst
employers--into which the village labourers will rarely condescend to
plunge, acute though the temptation may be. Not once have I met with an
instance of one man deliberately scheming to get another man's job away
from him. A labourer unable to keep up with his work will do almost
anything to avoid having a helper thrust upon him--he fears the
introduction of a possible rival into his preserve. But this is not the
same thing as pushing another man out; it has no resemblance to the
behaviour of the hustling capitalist, who opens his big business with
the definite intention of capturing trade away from little businesses.
That is a course to which my impoverished neighbours will not stoop. The
nearest thing to it which I have known was the case of those men
mentioned in an earlier chapter, who applied for Bettesworth's work
during his last illness. They came, however, believing the place to be
vacant; and one and all, with a sincerity I never doubted, deprecated
the idea of desiring to take it away from him. In fact, the application
was distasteful to them. Nothing, I believe, would have prevailed upon
them to make it, short of that hunger for constant employment which many
of the men feel now, under their new competitive thrift. Th