is too
late." With regard to her present circumstances--she "didn't mind saying
it to me--sometimes she didn't hardly know how they was goin' on," for
she hadn't a penny except what her son could earn. And "people seemed to
think it didn't matter for a single chap to be out o' work. They didn't
think he might have a mother to keep, or, if he was in lodgin's, he
couldn't live there for nothin'.... Sometimes we seems to be gettin' on
a little, and then you has bad luck, and there you are again where you
was before. It's like gettin' part way up a hill and fallin' down to the
bottom again, and you got it all to begin over again."

I said something--some platitude--turning to go away. Then she managed
to smile--a shining-eyed smile--saying: "Well, 'tis only for life. If
'twas for longer than that I don't know if we should hardly be able to
bear it."

This was but one old woman. Yet, if you have an ear for a folk-saying,
you will recognize one there in that "only for life" of hers. Be sure
that a by-word so compact as that was not one old woman's invention. To
acquire such brevity and smoothness, it must have been wandering about
the parish for years; and when it reached me at last it had been
polished by the despair of hundreds of other people, as a coin is
polished by passing through hundreds of hands.

V

DRINK

It will be understood, from what was said on the subject in the first
chapter, that the village population has its rough element, and that
drunkenness, or at any rate excessive drinking, is very common. It is
true that there are very few habitual drunkards in the parish--there are
not even many men, perhaps, who frequently take too much; but, on the
other hand, the majority are beer-drinkers, and every now and then one
or another of them, normally sober, oversteps the limit. Thus, possibly
every other family has had its passing experience of what drunkenness
means in the temporary lapse of father, or son, or brother. A rainy Bank
Holiday invariably leads to much mischief in this way, and so does a
sudden coming of hot weather in the summer. The men have too much to do
to spare time for the public-house in the ordinary weekdays, but on
Saturday and Sunday nights, when the strain is relaxed, they are apt to
give way too far.

The evils of drunkenness, however, are well enough known, and I do not
propose to dwell on that side of the matter. But there is another
aspect of it which must be considered, i