"I wonder to hear you say that," said Nanny, who was naturally disposed to be in good humour with the magistrates, who had just granted a licence to her husband; "I wonder to hear you say that, for as I was going out of the room, I fell in with two or three overseers, who were saying just the contrary. They were complaining that the justices were ready to hear all the idle stories of the poor about wanting relief, and that they were much too apt to order some little addition. In fact, they said, that they were all in favour of the poor; and the farmers could not stand it."
"If the poor complain that they were in favour of the farmers, and the farmers that they favoured the poor," said an old man sitting in the chimney corner, "I dare say they pretty nearly did the thing that was right between both parties."
"Well," said Hannah, "if I was a justice, I could'nt bear that the poor should think me ill-natured. Be it how it would, I'd take care to have their good word, even if I did now and then order a trifle more than was quite right."
"What should you say, Hannah," said the same old man, "of a justice who acted contrary to law for the sake of a sum of money?"
"What! a bribe! Why I'd have him turned out before he was a day older."
"And is not acting contrary to law for the sake of any one's good will, or good word, pretty much the same as doing so for a bribe? A magistrate is sworn to do justice, according to law, to the best of his knowledge."
All the women, however, consoled themselves with the near approach of the time, when the poor would have to apply for their weekly allowances to Farmer Barton instead of Farmer Oldacre; it being the custom of the parish that the overseers should divide the year between them, each taking the trouble of the office for six months.
"Yes, indeed," said Hannah Bolt, "it will be a happy day for us poor creatures, when Mr. Barton takes the books;—Farmer Oldacre was always a hard man to the poor."
"Farmer Oldacre a hard man to the poor!" said old John Truman, who came in at the moment from the sick man's room—"Farmer Oldacre a hard man to the poor! I'm sure you're an ungrateful woman for saying so; as I should be an ungrateful man, if I allowed you to say it without taking you to task.—I've worked for him now these seventeen years, and a better or a kinder master cannot be. Did'nt I see you, Hannah, day after day, when your little boy was ill, going to his house, sometimes for a little milk, sometimes for a little made wine, and did he ever refuse you? did he ever refuse any poor person, who was really in want, any thing that he was able to give?"
"I can't say but that he's ready enough to help a poor body with any thing he has himself; but then if one asks him for a little more parish relief, he's so terrible particular, and asks so many questions, that it's quite unpleasant, and perhaps we can get nothing after all."