geese and sheep, and a cow or so, even the
poorest proprietor with the assistance of
harvest work, managed to make a living, up
to the time of the last war. War prices made
land valuable, and the common was enclosed;
though a share went to the little freeholders,
and sons and daughters were hired, at good
wages, while the enclosure was going on, the
loss of the pasture for stock, and the fall of
prices at the peace, sealed their fate. John
Lobbit, our portly friend's father, succeeded to
his little estate, of twenty acres, by the death
of his elder brother, in the time of best war
prices, after he had passed some years as a
shopman in a great seaport. His first use of
it was to sell it, and set up a shop in Duxmoor,
to the great scandal of his farmer neighbours.
When John slept with his fathers, Joseph,
having succeeded to the shop and savings,
began to buy land and lend money. Between
shop credit to the five-acred and mortgages to
the forty-acred men, with a little luck in the
way of the useful sons of the freeholders being
constantly enlisted for soldiers, impressed for
sailors, or convicted for poaching offences, in
the course of years, Joseph Lobbit became
possessed, not only of his paternal freehold,
but, acre by acre, of all his neighbours' holdings,
to the extent of something like five
hundred acres. The original owners vanished;
the stout and young departed, and were seen
no more; the old and decrepit were received
and kindly housed in the workhouse. Of
course it could not have been part of Mr.
Lobbit's bargain to find them board and
lodging for the rest of their days at the parish
expense. A few are said to have drunk them
themselves to death; but this is improbable, for the
cider, in that part of the country, is extremely
sour, so that it is more likely they died of
colic.

There was, however, in the very centre of
the cluster of freeholds which the parochial
dignitary had so successfully acquired, a small
barren plot of five acres with a right of road
through the rest of the property. The
possessor of this was a sturdy fellow, John Bodger
by name, who was neither to be coaxed nor
bullied into parting with his patrimony.

John Bodger was an only son, a smart little
fellow, a capital thatcher, a good hand at
cobhouse building—in fact, a handy man.
Unfortunately, he was as fond of pleasure as
his betters. He sang a comic song, till
peoples' eyes ran over, and they rolled on
their seats; he handled a single-stick very
tidily; and, among the light weights, was not
to be despised as a wrestler. He always
knew where a hare was to be found; and,
when the fox-hounds were out, to hear his
view-halloo, did your heart good. These tastes
were expensive; so that when he came into
his little property, although he worked with
tolerable industry, and earned good wages,
for that part of the country, he never had a
shilling to the fore, as the Irish say. If he
had been a prudent man, he might have laid
by something very snug, and defied Mr. Lobbit
to the end of his days.

It would take too long to tell all Joseph
Lobbit's ingenious devices—after plain, plump
offers—to buy Bodger's acres had been refused.
John Bodger declined a loan to buy a cart and
horse: he refused to take credit for a new
hat, umbrella, and waistcoat, after losing his
money at Bidecot Fair. He went on steadily
slaving at his bit of land, doing all the best
thatching and building jobs in the neighbourhood,
spending his money, and enjoying himself
without getting into any scrapes; until
Mr. Joseph Lobbit, completely foiled, began
to look on John Bodger as a personal enemy.

Just when John and his neighbours were
rejoicing over the defeat of the last attempt of
the jolly parochial, an accident occurred which
upset all John's prudent calculations. He
fell in love. He might have married Dorothy
Paulson, the blacksmith's daughter an only
child, with better than two hundred pounds
in the Bank, and a good business—a
virtuous, good girl, too, except that she was as
thin as a hurdle, with a skin like nutmeg-
grater, and rather a bad temper. But instead
of that, to the surprise of every one, he
went and married Carry Hutchins, the daughter
of Widow Hutchins, one of the little
freeholders bought out by Mr. Lobbit, who
died, poor old soul, the day after she was
carried into the workhouse, leaving Carry and
her brother Tom destitute—that is to say,
destitute of goods, money, or credit, but not
of common sense, good health, good looks, and
power of earning wages.

Carry was nearly a head taller than John,
with a face like a ripe pear. He had to buy
her wedding gown, and everything else. He
bought them at Lobbit's shop. Tom Hutchins
—he was fifteen years old—a tall spry lad,
accepted five shillings from his brother-in-
law, hung a small bundle on his bird's-nesting
stick, and set off to walk to Bristol, to be a
sailor. He was never heard of any more at
Duxmoor.

At first all went well. John left off going
to wakes and fairs, except on business; stuck
to his trades; brought his garden into good
order, and worked early and late, when he
could spare time, at his two little fields, while
his wife helped him famously. If they had
had a few pounds in hand, they would have
had "land and beeves."

But the first year twins came—a boy and
girl; and the next another girl, and then
twins again, and so on. Before Mrs. Bodger
was thirty she had nine hearty, healthy
children, with a fair prospect of plenty more;
while John was a broken man, soured,
discontented, hopeless. No longer did he stride
forth eagerly to his work, after kissing mother
and babies; no longer did he hurry home to
put a finishing stroke to the potato patch, or
broadcast his oat crop; no longer did he sit
whistling and telling stories of bygone feats
at the fireside, while mending some wooden