It is another question whether the poor old bodies, whose number was now limited to eight, and whose taste could hardly be supposed to have reached the stage at which that unlucky forefather of the Squire’s had committed his solecism, did not feel far from home, aggrieved, and made mountebanks of in their new quarters. The arrangements, which included endless draughty corners, and troublesome, perilous steps up and steps down, were purely perplexing and affronting to the occupants of the almshouses. These pensioners were taken out of ugly houses on a level with their capacities, and therefore more to their minds. The old men and women, too old to learn, were elected according to the reigning Squire and his wife’s will and pleasure, and somewhat with reference to the worn out labourers’ venerable beards and their wives’ smooth silver braids of hair, or to the couples’ reasonable disposition to avail themselves of blackthorn sticks and silver-rimmed spectacles, as well as to their general good behaviour, and what might be reckoned upon in the matter of their punctual and decorous attendance at the chaplain’s daily services. Naturally, perhaps, the recipients of the Squire’s bounty were not particularly grateful for the manner of its bestowal. They were too practical and hard pressed to refuse a refuge which after all was far before the poor-house. But old Mrs. Scud expressed boldly the secret sentiments of six out of the eight women when she declared she ‘wished Squire’s lady would try a day’s washing herself, and see if she would like it, in a nasty cold common wash-house which anybody might halve and quarter, and who wanted that imperent, pushing Mrs. Webb, or sly Anne Sole, to come in and take a invitory of their old men’s wussen shirts, and their own darnedest stockings, when they had been accustomed to wash nice and comfortable in private on their own warm hearth-stone where nobody could come and spy, without the missus of the house’s leave? Ah! she were missus of her house in them days, and not bound to say her prayers at the gentlefolks’ pleasure. What good could that do to her poor old soul, she would like to know? It “might lend a lift” to her betters’ souls, since they were always in luck, but forced prayers never did no good to them as said them, that she would take her Bible oath on.’