Let us imagine that there is a village called Wendlestone, and that it lies a distance of a mile and a half, from a large wood. There is a common on the confines of this wood, and here the dwellings of squatters, as they are called, may be seen. This means, that a man building his own hut, and driving some humble trade, such as knife-grinder or tin-waresman, might live here free of rent. One of these dwellings is the little house you see in the picture by Nasmyth, and here in the year 1545 an old woman lived. She had a tiny patch of garden, and a donkey which she drove to market with some small load of vegetables and eggs. Or more often some medicines that she compounded from herbs, with which she administered to the ailments of the country people. She was reticent, quiet, and of a stern cast of countenance, and had lived here for many years. Her people had not belonged to Wendlestone, and no one knew her origin; perhaps this first led people to look on her with distrust. [Illustration: _Nasmyth_ THE COTTAGE BY THE WOOD] She had herself put to rights the little tumble-down house, which let the weather in when first she appropriated it. And she had, by her industry and thrift, managed to make a comfortable living, cutting the rushes from the riverside, and thatching her own roof. Often you might see her, crouched low and bent by rheumatism, a straw hat tied beneath her nut-cracker chin, and her red cloak battling with the weather, while she gathered sticks from the woodlands, or took her donkey laden to the town. “There com’ Granny Gather-stick,” the children would cry. “Some say as she d’ fly by night.” And they would scamper into their cottages, and peer back from their mothers’ apron-folds. You have only to live in a village for a year without going away from it, to understand how busy people can be manufacturing stories about each other. Given plenty of time, and every one knowing every one else, there is sufficient irresponsible mischief in the average human heart to bring about the same result as deliberate malice. How many of our friends are there, I wonder, who have not at various times given utterance to some thorny thrust, or spiky supposition, at our expense, loving us, nevertheless, quite warmly all the while? It is a valuable training to be early taught the eleventh commandment: “Thy neighbour shalt thou not discuss.” Detraction, defamation and dislike may be grouped under the comfortable word “Gossip.” We often flatter ourselves it is the human interest that we feel. And so it came about that on Granny Gatherstick centred the gossip of the village. She was first looked on with suspicion, because they did not understand her, and, with ordinary minds, to fail to understand generally means to dislike. Passive dislike grew to fear, and from fear of her grew lies and wicked charges, of which the unfortunate woman was wholly innocent.