“Why,” said Letty, “that is that wretched old miser, Timothy Squance.”
“Yes, it’s Tim Squance, sure enough,” said George. “Notice him well, Thorsby.”
As they drew near, they saw an old man standing leaning his hands on the gate which led into his farm-yard. He was in a dingy, dirty-looking suit of coarse, grey cloth, with black worsted stockings and strong laced ankle-boots. He had on an old, slouching, weather-beaten hat, and looked with a still, half-imbecile look at the advancing young equestrians. He made no movement of recognition.
“Good day, Mr. Squance,” said George Woodburn; “fine weather for the corn.”
“Ay, Master George, and for the hay too. I reckon you’ve gotten yourn in.”
“We have,” said George, as they continued to ride on. “But Squance has not got his in; and won’t for this next ten days, because he won’t pay for the necessary men. There are his two great strong sons, and an old carter working at it, that is all. Look at his house, his yard, his hedges, his everything. The thatch on the house is old and rotten; his yard doors are tumbling down—some have fairly fallen to pieces, and he stops the doorway with hurdles. Look at the dirt in his yard. Look at these hedges of his, spreading out on all sides, covering acres of ground. Look at these great bramble-bushes, and furze-bushes, standing here and there in his grass lands. And see what rushes and blue wiry grass are growing all over his fields of pasture. Not a penny will that man pay to stub and drain his fields,—they are growing wild. He cannot see that labour well employed is more profitable than the sparing of it. His sordid, narrow soul cannot comprehend such an idea. In winter his farm is drowned and starved with water. His house is unapproachable for deep mire. In summer his corn-fields are smothered with weeds and thistles and couch-grass. He quotes Sir Roger Rockville in defence of letting things alone—of bad roads and a filthy farm-yard. He won’t put his money in a bank or out at interest lest he should lose it; and years ago he had his house broken into by some canal-cutters, and had himself and his wife tied to the bed-posts whilst they ransacked the house, but the thieves found nothing. It is believed that he has buried a great deal of money on his farm, or in the copses; and it is doubted whether his two equally sordid sons even know where it is, or will ever find it. Avarice has reduced his soul to the most wretched condition of poverty and littleness possible for it to reach and be a soul at all. He formerly had a brother still more keenly penurious than himself. He was so stupid that when any one in the house—for the brothers lived together—offended him, he would threaten to cut his throat and go to America.
“Oh,” said Thorsby, who could never let a jest escape him, “no doubt he thought he had to cross the Red Sea to America.”
“Those two sons of Squance’s,” continued George, “never had an atom of education but what they picked up in winter from Howell Crusoe; and he said that endeavouring to teach them was like trying to fetch water out of an empty well. I once went to the house about some sheep of his that had got out of his fields—for the fences were full of wide gaps—and were in a furzy hollow, called the Dales, and were sticking fast by their fleeces to the furze and briars. You should have seen the place! There sat old Squance, just as you now saw him, filthy in the extreme; his face did not appear to have had any acquaintance with water for years; his grizzly beard was coarsely clipped with scissors, and looked like a rough stubble. The house was half filled with faggots, and he sat on a bench on one side with a billhook cutting them into fire-wood. His wife, not much cleaner or decenter, was cooking at the wide black fire-place; and the walls were all round black with smoke, stained with grease, and completely covered with smoked hams and flitches of bacon. The ceiling was partly occupied with the like, and with paper bags of seeds, and bunches of herbs, camomile, horehound, sage, and mint, hanging from it.”
“But remember, George,” said Letty, with much merriment, “remember what a funeral they made for that silly brother, who used to talk of going such an odd way to America.”
“Oh, to be sure,” said George. “The coffin was put into the great waggon, and the old man, his wife, and the two sons, sat round it. They had managed to display black for mourning, but it is believed to have been hired at a pawnbroker’s, for it has never been seen since. The waggon was drawn by six great farm-horses, with all their bells on their collars ringing and jingling as they went.”