Before ten o’clock on Thursday morning the home at the Hall Farm was a house of mourning for a misfortune felt to be worse than death.  The sense of family dishonour was too keen even in the kind-hearted Martin Poyser the younger to leave room for any compassion towards Hetty.  He and his father were simple-minded farmers, proud of their untarnished character, proud that they came of a family which had held up its head and paid its way as far back as its name was in the parish register; and Hetty had brought disgrace on them all—­disgrace that could never be wiped out.  That was the all-conquering feeling in the mind both of father and son—­the scorching sense of disgrace, which neutralised all other sensibility—­and Mr. Irwine was struck with surprise to observe that Mrs. Poyser was less severe than her husband.  We are often startled by the severity of mild people on exceptional occasions; the reason is, that mild people are most liable to be under the yoke of traditional impressions.

“I’m willing to pay any money as is wanted towards trying to bring her off,” said Martin the younger when Mr. Irwine was gone, while the old grandfather was crying in the opposite chair, “but I’ll not go nigh her, nor ever see her again, by my own will.  She’s made our bread bitter to us for all our lives to come, an’ we shall ne’er hold up our heads i’ this parish nor i’ any other.  The parson talks o’ folks pitying us:  it’s poor amends pity ’ull make us.”

“Pity?” said the grandfather, sharply.  “I ne’er wanted folks’s pity i’ my life afore...an’ I mun begin to be looked down on now, an’ me turned seventy-two last St. Thomas’s, an’ all th’ underbearers and pall-bearers as I’n picked for my funeral are i’ this parish and the next to ‘t....It’s o’ no use now...I mun be ta’en to the grave by strangers.”

“Don’t fret so, father,” said Mrs. Poyser, who had spoken very little, being almost overawed by her husband’s unusual hardness and decision.  “You’ll have your children wi’ you; an’ there’s the lads and the little un ‘ull grow up in a new parish as well as i’ th’ old un.”

“Ah, there’s no staying i’ this country for us now,” said Mr. Poyser, and the hard tears trickled slowly down his round cheeks.  “We thought it ’ud be bad luck if the old squire gave us notice this Lady day, but I must gi’ notice myself now, an’ see if there can anybody be got to come an’ take to the crops as I’n put i’ the ground; for I wonna stay upo’ that man’s land a day longer nor I’m forced to’t.  An’ me, as thought him such a good upright young man, as I should be glad when he come to be our landlord.  I’ll ne’er lift my hat to him again, nor sit i’ the same church wi’ him...a man as has brought shame on respectable folks...an’ pretended to be such a friend t’ everybody....Poor Adam there...a fine friend he’s been t’ Adam, making speeches an’ talking so fine, an’ all the while poisoning the lad’s life, as it’s much if he can stay i’ this country any more nor we can.”