hbourhood,
covered as it is with fir-woods now; and at that he suddenly fired up.
Pointing to the woods, which could be seen beyond the valley, he said
spitefully, while his eyes blazed: "I can remember when all that was
open common, and you could go where you mind to. Now 'tis all fenced in,
and if you looks over the fence they'll lock ye up. And they en't got no
more _right_ to it, Mr. Bourne, than you and me have! I should _like_
to see they woods all go up in flames!"

That was years ago. The woods are flourishing; the old man is past doing
any mischief; but I remember his indignation. And it was the sole case I
have met with in the parish, of animosity harboured not so much against
persons as against the existing position of things. This one man was
alive to the injustice of a social arrangement; and in that respect he
differed from the rest of my neighbours, unless I am much deceived in
them. Of course there may be more of envious feeling abroad in the
village than I know about. It is the sort of thing that would keep
itself secret; and perhaps this old man's contemporaries, who shared his
recollections, silently shared his bitterness too. But if so, I do not
believe that they have passed the feeling on to their children. The
impression is strong in me that the people have never learnt to look
upon the distribution of property, which has left them so impoverished,
as anything other than an inevitable dispensation of Providence. If they
thought otherwise, at any rate if the contrary view were at all
prevalent amongst them, they must be most gifted hypocrites, to go about
with the good temper in their eyes and the cheerfulness in their voices
that I have been describing.

To what should it be attributed--this power of facing poverty with
contentment? To some extent doubtless it rests on Christian teaching,
although perhaps not much on the Christian teaching of the present day.
Present-day religion, indeed, must often seem to the cottagers a
tiresome hobby reserved to the well-to-do; but from distant generations
there seems to have come down, in many a cottage family, a rather lofty
religious sentiment which fosters honesty, patience, resignation,
courage. Much of the gravity, much of the tranquillity of soul of the
more sedate villagers must be ascribed to this traditional influence,
whose effects are attractive enough, in the character and outlook of
many an old cottage man and woman.

Yet there is much more in