When such matters or principles are to be discussed there is certain to be a full gathering of the guardians and a trial of strength between the parties.  Those who habitually neglect to attend, leaving the hard labour of administration to be borne by their colleagues, now appear in numbers, and the board-room is crowded, many squires otherwise seldom seen coming in to give their votes.  It is as much as the chairman can do to assuage the storm and to maintain an approach to personal politeness.  Quiet as the country appears to the casual observer, there are, nevertheless, strong feelings under the surface, and at such gatherings the long-cherished animosities burst forth.

Nothing at all events is done in a corner; everything is openly discussed and investigated.  Every week the visiting committee go round the house, and enter every ward and store-room.  They taste and test the provisions, and the least shortcoming is certain to be severely brought home to those who are fulfilling the contracts.  They pass through the dormitories, and see that everything is clean; woe betide those responsible if a spot of dirt be visible!  There is the further check of casual and unexpected visits from the guardians or magistrates.  It is probable that not one crumb of bread consumed is otherwise than good, and that not one single crumb is wasted.  The waste is in the system—­and a gigantic waste it is, whether inevitable as some contend, or capable of being superseded by a different plan.

Of every hundred pounds paid by the ratepayers how much is absorbed in the maintenance of the institution and its ramifications, and how very little reaches poor deserving Hodge!  The undeserving and mean-spirited, of whom there are plenty in every village, who endeavour to live upon the parish, receive relief thrice as long and to thrice the amount as the hard-working, honest labourer, who keeps out to the very last moment.  It is not the fault of the guardians, but of the rigidity of the law.  Surely a larger amount of discretionary power might be vested in them with advantage!  Some exceptional consideration is the just due of men who have worked from the morn to the very eve of life.

The labourer whose decease was reported to the Board upon their assembling was born some seventy-eight or seventy-nine years ago.  The exact date is uncertain; many of the old men can only fix their age by events that happened when they were growing from boys into manhood.  That it must have been nearer eighty than seventy years since is known, however, to the elderly farmers, who recollect him as a man with a family when they were young.  The thatched cottage stood beside the road at one end of a long, narrow garden, enclosed from the highway by a hedge of elder.  At the back there was a ditch and mound with elm-trees, and green meadows beyond.  A few poles used to lean against the thatch, their tops rising above the ridge, and close by was a stack of thorn