get half his rents, and zome o’ his tenants went to the workhouse, and others ran away, because o’ the poor-rates, and everything went to zixes and zevens, and I used to meet the Squire in his walks, and think to myzelf it was very hard that he who could not bear to zee a zorrowful feace should have zuch a zorrowful one of his own; and he used to zay to me whenever I met un: “All this comes o’ peaper-money, Measter Hawthorn.” Zo the upshot was, he could not afford any longer to live in his own great house, where his vorevathers had lived out o’ memory of man, and went to zome outlandish place wi’ his vamily to live, as he said, in much zuch a box as that gimcrack thing on the hill.’ ‘You have told us a very melancholy story,’ said Mr. Forester; ‘but at present, I fear, a very common one, and one of which, if the present system continue, every succeeding year will multiply examples.’ ‘Ah, zur!’ said the old man, ‘there was them as vorezeed it long ago, and voretold it too, up in the great house in Lunnon, where they zettles the affairs o’ the nation: a pretty of zettling it be, to my thinking, to vill the country wi’ tax-gatherers and vundholders, and peaper-money men, that turns all the old families out o’ the country, and zends their tenants to the workhouse: but there was them as vorezeed and voretold it too, but nobody minded ’em then: they begins to mind ’em now.’ ‘But how do you manage in these times?’ said Mr. Forester. ‘I lives, measter,’ said the old man, ‘and pretty well too, vor myself. I had a little vreehold varm o’ my own, that has been in my vamily zeven hundred year, and we woan’t part wi’ it, I promise you, vor all the tax-collectors and vundholders in England. But my zon was never none o’ your gentleman varmers, none a’ your reacing and hunting bucks, that it’s a shame vor a honest varmer to be: he always zet his shoulder to the wheel—alway a-vield by peep o’ day: zo now I be old, I’ve given up the varm to him; and that I wouldn’t ha’ done to the best man in all the county bezide: but he’s my son, and I loves un. Zo I walks about the vields all day, and sits all the evening in the chimney-corner wi’ an old neighbour or zo, and a jug o’ ale, and talks over old times, when the Openhands, and zuch as they, could afford to live in the homes o’ their vorevathers. It be a bad state o’ things, my measters, and must come to a bad end, zooner or later; but it’ll last my time.’ ‘You are not in the last stage of a consumption, are you, honest friend?’ said Mr. Fax. ‘Lord love you, no, measter,’ said the old farmer, rather frightened; ‘do I look zo?’ ‘No,’ said Mr. Fax; ‘but you talked so.’ ‘Ah! thee beest a wag, I zee,’ said the farmer. ‘Things be in a conzumption zure enough, but they’ll last my time vor all that; and if they doan’t it’s no fault o’ mine; and I’se no money in the vunds, nor no sinecure pleace, zo I eats my beefsteak and drinks my ale, and lets the world slide.’