ar 44 tenementes and never a plough but one, the resydue be artifycers, laborers and vitellers, and lyve in effect by the said house.... And the towne and nonnery standith in a harde soile and barren ground, and to our estymacions, yf the nonnery be suppressed the towne will shortely after falle to ruyne and dekaye, and the people therin, to the nombre of six or seven score persones, are nott unlike to wander and to seke their lyvyng as our Lorde Gode best knowith[440]. So also at St Mary's, Winchester, whose household we have described: the seid Monastery ... standith nigh the Middell of the Citye, of a great and large Compasse, envyroned with many poore housholdes which haue theyr oonly lyuynge of the seid Monastery, And have no demaynes whereby they may make any prouysion, butt lyue oonly by theyr landes, making theyr prouysion in the markettes[441]. The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and a livelihood fulfils itself in many ways; yet many labouring folk as well as gentlemen must have felt like the commissioners at Polesworth and St Mary's, Winchester, when the busy monastic housewives were dispersed and the grain and cattle sold out of barn and byre. There is no-one so conservative as your bread-winner, and for the best of reasons. CHAPTER V FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen, nineteen, six; result, happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds, ought and six; result, misery. _Mr Micawber._