One Poor Man
Shut Up His House And Went Away With His Wife And Family, And Not Being
Heard Of
For a little while these backbiters told each other that he had
not paid his rent, that his furniture was
Only on loan, and not a single
instalment had been met; he owed the butcher half a crown, the baker
discovered there was one and twopence on his book, the tavern could show
a score, everybody knew the wretch was a drunkard and beat his wife, and
many knew his wife was no better than she should be. Nothing was too base
to be laid to the charge of the scoundrel who had run away. At the end of
a few weeks the wretch and his family returned, looking very healthy and
well supplied with money, having been picking in a distant hop-garden. It
was common for people to shut their houses and do this at that season of
the year, but their blind malice was too eager to remember this. Another
person by continually dunning a poor debtor to pay him half a sovereign
had driven him to commit suicide! So ran their bitter tongues. Backbiting
is the curse of village life, and seems to keep people by its effects
upon the mind far more effectually in the grip of poverty than the
lowness of wages. They become so saturated with littleness that they
cannot attempt anything, and have no enterprise. To transplant them to
the freer atmosphere of a great city, or of the Far West, is the only
means of cure.
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