January came, and the Quarter Sessions. Both parties wished to have the indictment tried at once, and came prepared--the prosecutor with witnesses to prove that the road was very bad and unsafe--and Barton with several _good-natured_ men, who were ready to swear, that it was as good a road as they wished to travel. The parish, however, was beat; and it being proved that frequent representations had been made of the bad state of the road in question, Inglewood was sentenced to pay a fine of fifty pounds, together with all costs, which amounted to forty more. Farmer Barton hardly knew which was most _ill-natured_, the prosecutor, the jury, or the bench of magistrates. Perhaps he was most out of humour with the _jury_; for consisting, as it did principally, of farmers, they might, he thought, have put their oaths and their consciences a little on one side, where brother farmers were concerned. However, there was no help for it, and the money was to be found before the Easter Sessions. He returned to Inglewood to console himself with the popularity, which he acquired in the exercise of the office of overseer. His _good-nature_ led him to accede to almost every application, but his _good-nature_ arose rather from his "fear of offending the importunate, than his desire of making the deserving happy[k]." The industrious and the modest remained contented with their former pittance; but the forward, and the impudent, and the clamorous, were continually urging their claims for more relief, and seldom urged them in vain. [Footnote k: Goldsmith.] "I hope, Farmer Barton," said one woman, "you will give me a little more allowance: when bread, and candles, and soap are paid for, there's hardly any thing left for tea and sugar." "Why I suppose then I must give you a trifle more--the parish can't miss it." One petitioner he manfully refused, and told her she must be content with what she had. "And how am I to buy snuff out of that[l]?" The overseer relented: he loved a pinch of snuff himself. Farmer Oldacre would gladly have filled a deserving old woman's snuff box at his own expense, but not at the expense of the parish. [Footnote l: Fact.] The liberal allowances granted by Barton, of course, required frequent rates, which it was not very convenient to the farmers to pay. Those, however, who happened to have money by them, paid, and allowed themselves the satisfaction of grumbling. Those who had it not, begged for time, and kept their grumbling to themselves. Barton's _good-nature_ did not permit him to be very pressing. The consequence was, that, as he was neither disposed, nor perhaps able, to advance the money from his own pocket, fresh rates became necessary, and those who _could_ pay made up for the deficiencies of those who could not.