too lavish a use of smiles, too much kindness--most likely a jealous tale
only--aroused their righteous ire. With shawm and timbrel and ram's-horn
trumpet--_i.e._ with cow's horns, poker and tongs, and tea-trays--the
indignant and high-toned population collected night after night by the
tavern, and made such fearful uproar that the poor girl, really quite
innocent, had to leave her situation. Nothing could be more charitable,
more truly righteous, after the model of the Man who would not even so
much as _say_ a harsh word to the woman taken in adultery. One poor man
shut up his house and went away with his wife and family, and not being
heard of for a little while these backbiters told each other that he had
not paid his rent, that his furniture was only on loan, and not a single
instalment had been met; he owed the butcher half a crown, the baker
discovered there was one and twopence on his book, the tavern could show
a score, everybody knew the wretch was a drunkard and beat his wife, and
many knew his wife was no better than she should be. Nothing was too base
to be laid to the charge of the scoundrel who had run away. At the end of
a few weeks the wretch and his family returned, looking very healthy and
well supplied with money, having been picking in a distant hop-garden. It
was common for people to shut their houses and do this at that season of
the year, but their blind malice was too eager to remember this. Another
person by continually dunning a poor debtor to pay him half a sovereign
had driven him to commit suicide! So ran their bitter tongues. Backbiting
is the curse of village life, and seems to keep people by its effects
upon the mind far more effectually in the grip of poverty than the
lowness of wages. They become so saturated with littleness that they
cannot attempt anything, and have no enterprise. To transplant them to
the freer atmosphere of a great city, or of the Far West, is the only
means of cure. At this particular village they were exceptionally given
to backbiting, perhaps because everybody was more than usually related to
everybody; they hated each other and vilified each other with pre-eminent