and where you must perforce come in contact constantly with persons you have known for years, it is a very annoying process indeed. There are no streets of shops to give a choice of butchers and bakers, no competition of tea merchants and cheesemongers, so that if one man shows a dislike to serving you, you can go on to the next and get better attention. 'Take it or go without it' is village law; no such thing as independence; you must walk or drive into the nearest town, five miles away perhaps, if you wish to avoid a sour face on the other side of the counter. No one will volunteer the smallest service for the excommunicant of the chapel; nothing could more vividly illustrate the command to 'love one another.' No one can imagine the isolation of a house in a country place interdicted like this. If the other inhabitants could find any possible excuse for not doing anything they were asked they would not do it--not for money: they were out of what was wanted, or they had promised it, or they couldn't find it, or they were too busy, and so all through the whole course of daily life. Now the most remarkable part of this bitter persecution was the fact that the elder had lent money to almost all the principal members of the congregation. The bold speculator had never been appealed to in vain by any one in difficulty. Some had had a hundred, some fifty, some twenty, some ten--farmers whose corn had been a loss instead of a profit, whose hops had sold for less than the cost of picking them, little tradesmen who had a bill to meet, handicraft men who could not pay the men who worked side by side with them, cottagers who needed an outhouse built, and others who lacked the means to pay for a funeral. There seemed no one to whom he had not lent money for some purpose, besides the use of his name as security. Fortune had given to him, and he had given as freely to others, so that it was indeed a bitter trial to the heart:-- Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude. Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. In his stern pride he did not condescend to put in motion any revenge against these petty poltroons, but went on his way with absolute indifference to all outward seeming. His family, who were perhaps more nearly touched in the affairs of daily life than he was, consoled themselves with the old country proverb, 'Ah, well, we shall live till we die, if the pigs don't eat us, and then we shall go acorning'--a clear survival of the belief in transmigration, for he who is eaten by a pig becomes a pig, and goeth forth with swine to eat acorns.