passes through groups of them in the market-place. As he goes by they look
after him, and perhaps audibly wonder how long he will last. These people
all knew him from a lad, and can trace every inch of his descent. The
labourers in the field know it, and by their manner show that they know
it.

His wife--his wife who worked so hard for so many, many years--is made to
know it too. She is conspicuously omitted from the social gatherings that
occur from time to time. The neighbours' wives do not call; their
well-dressed daughters, as they rattle by to the town in basket-carriage
or dog-cart, look askance at the shabby figure walking slowly on the path
beside the road. They criticise the shabby shawl; they sneer at the slow
step which is the inevitable result of hard work, the cares of maternity,
and of age. So they flaunt past with an odour of perfume, and leave the
'old lady' to plod unrecognised.

The end came at last. All this blind work of his was of no avail against
the ocean steamer and her cargo of wheat and meat from the teeming regions
of the West. Nor was it of avail against the fall of prices, and the
decreased yield consequent upon a succession of bad seasons. The general
lack of confidence pressed heavily upon a man who did not even attempt to
take his natural place among his fellow-men. The loan from the bank had
gradually grown from five to seven or eight hundred by thirties, and
forties, and fifties added to it by degrees; and the bank--informed,
perhaps, by the same busybodies who had discovered that he drank--declined
further assistance, and notified that part, at least, of the principal
must be repaid. The landlord had long been well aware of the state of
affairs, but refrained from action out of a feeling for the old family.
But the land, from the farmer's utter lack of capital, was now going from
bad to worse. The bank having declined to advance further, the rent began