His wife helped to get him to bed, though not without reproaching him with some asperity for staying so long at the Red Lion after he had sent her home. Having taken as much care of him, as in her opinion he deserved, she hastened down stairs to comfort herself with some tea, of which two or three of her neighbours, who had been brought to the house by the tidings of the accident, were invited to partake. The condolences and lamentations were soon over, and they fell into the usual train of village gossip. The hardness of the times, of course, was one of the topics of conversation. "Well, Hannah," said one of the party, "and what did you get from the justices?" "Oh! there's no use in a poor person's going to them," said Hannah, "they're all for the farmers?" "I wonder to hear you say that," said Nanny, who was naturally disposed to be in good humour with the magistrates, who had just granted a licence to her husband; "I wonder to hear you say that, for as I was going out of the room, I fell in with two or three overseers, who were saying just the contrary. They were complaining that the justices were ready to hear all the idle stories of the poor about wanting relief, and that they were much too apt to order some little addition. In fact, they said, that they were all in favour of the poor; and the farmers could not stand it." "If the poor complain that they were in favour of the farmers, and the farmers that they favoured the poor," said an old man sitting in the chimney corner, "I dare say they pretty nearly did the thing that was right between both parties." "Well," said Hannah, "if I was a justice, I could'nt bear that the poor should think me _ill-natured_. Be it how it would, I'd take care to have _their_ good word, even if I did now and then order a trifle more than was quite right." "What should you say, Hannah," said the same old man, "of a justice who acted contrary to law for the sake of a sum of money?" "What! a bribe! Why I'd have him turned out before he was a day older." "And is not acting contrary to law for the sake of any one's good will, or good word, pretty much the same as doing so for a bribe? A magistrate is sworn to do justice, according to law, to the best of his knowledge." All the women, however, consoled themselves with the near approach of the time, when the poor would have to apply for their weekly allowances to Farmer Barton instead of Farmer Oldacre; it being the custom of the parish that the overseers should divide the year between them, each taking the trouble of the office for six months. "Yes, indeed," said Hannah Bolt, "it will be a happy day for us poor creatures, when Mr. Barton takes the books;--Farmer Oldacre was always a hard man to the poor."