“Why, ye see ’tis this way, Joseph,” said a large mild man, with an habitually puzzled expression of countenance; “we be pore folks, all on us; we’ve a many little mouths to feed, an’ not much to put in ’em. An’ what wi’ prices goin’ up an’ rent day a-comin’ round so often like, a man’s hand d’ seem to be always in his pocket, an’ it’s give, give, an’ pay, pay, ever an’ always, d’ye see? Now my taters,” he cast a calculating eye upon the half-filled sack at his feet, “they’ll not go so far to make up three ranks for ourselves, an’ three ranks is the least we can do wi’. Aye, wi’ a houseful of growin’ childern taters d’ last—well, I mid say they lasses next to no time.” His hearers drew a long breath of relief. If Ed’ard Boyt, who was well known to be a poor man with a long family, had been imprudently generous, what might not be expected of other folks who might be supposed better able to afford him assistance? “Aye, ’tis very true what Ed’ard says. Charity d’ begin at home. It ’ud seem a bit ’ard to go a-buyin’ for oneself along of helpin’ a neighbour,” said somebody. “Aye, I d’ ’low ’tis true,” agreed another. “True enough, sure!” chimed in a third. “We be sarry for ’ee,” summed up a fourth; “aye, we be very sarry for ’ee, Joseph, but ’tis the onfart’nate natur’ o’ things as pore folks d’ have to do the best they can.” Then, amid a general chorus of regretful approval, spades were plied, and backs were bent as before. Joe shambled back to the gate again, and stood for some time leaning over it and staring at the toilers. His face was very red, and his loose irregular under-lip trembled. A few furtive glances were cast in his direction, but no one spoke, and after a time he turned and went down the lane again, his bent form, clad in its shabby white coat, travelling slowly past gap after gap in the hedge until it drifted out of the range of vision of the workers. As he walked, however, his heart was hot within him with rage and disappointment and a bitter sense of injustice. “They’ll lave me to starve,” he said to himself; “an’ I’ve a-lived among ’em for seventy-five year.” His sense of injury deepened each time that he recalled this fact, and he shook his head vengefully. As he tottered on his resentment gradually suggested to him a startling plan of action. He thought of it all the way down the lane and across the road, and along by the tithe-barn and the church, and by the time he came to the horse-pond his mind was made up. “A man must live,” he said. “If other folks won’t help en he must help hisself.” There was a fine moon that night, and had any one been abroad an hour or so after midnight, he would have marked a white shape creeping slowly up the lane which led to the allotments, and presently entering in at the gate already described, and moving from one newly planted patch of ground to another.