Sir Moses’s property went rapidly back, and soon became a sort of last refuge for the destitute, whither the ejected of all other estates congregated prior to scattering their stock, on failing to get farms in more favoured localities. As they never meant to pay, of course they all offered high rents, and then having got possession the Henerey Brown scene was enacted—the farm was “far o’er dear”—they could “make nout on’t at that rent!” nor could they have made aught on them if they had had them for nothing, seeing that their capital consisted solely of their intense stupidity. Then if Sir Moses wouldn’t reduce the rent, he might just do his “warst,” meanwhile they pillaged the land both by day and by night. The cropping of course corresponded with the tenure, and may be described as just anything they could get off the land. White crop succeeded white crop, if the weeds didn’t smother the seeds, or if any of the slovens did “try for a few turnips,” as they called it, they were sown on dry spots selected here and there, with an implement resembling a dog’s-meat man’s wheelbarrow—drawn by one ass and steered by another. Meanwhile Mr. Teaser’s labours increased considerably, what with the constant lettings and leavings and watchings for “slopings.” There was always some one or other of the worthies on the wing, and the more paper and words Mr. Teaser employed to bind them, the more inefficient and futile he found the attempt. It soon became a regular system to do the new landlord, in furtherance of which the tenants formed themselves into a sort of mutual aid association. Then when a seizure was effected, they combined not to buy, so that the sufferer got his wretched stock back at little or no loss. Wretched indeed, was the spectacle of a sale; worn out horses, innocent of corn; cows, on whose hips one could hang one’s hat; implements that had been “fettled oop” and “fettled oop,” until not a particle of the parent stock remained; carts and trappings that seemed ready for a bonfire; pigs, that looked as if they wanted food themselves instead of being likely to feed any one else; and poultry that all seemed troubled with the pip. The very bailiff’s followers were shocked at the emptiness of the larders. A shank bone of salt meat dangling from the ceiling, a few eggs on a shelf, a loaf of bread in a bowl, a pound of butter in a pie-dish,—the whole thing looking as unlike the plentiful profusion of a farm-house as could well be imagined.