being extraparochial, was the prerogative of the king, with whom Peterson had nothing to do. A composition had been agreed upon for the tithes of other lands, for a certain number of years; but there still remained a large extent of ground on which the great tithes had either to be compounded for on a valuation, from year to year, or where the contribution to the parson was to be levied in kind. His own property by lease, the small tithes and hay which he rented from the vicar, he determined to levy in kind: and his first step was to study the precise extent to which they were due, and to levy them to the utmost. Of the prædial tithes,—those which arise merely and immediately from the ground, the grain and wood had to be valued in order to a composition.
The hay, being the vicar’s by special endowment, had to be levied in kind with the other prædial tithes which came under the denomination of small tithes; viz.: fruit, vegetables, and herbs. He had not only been the round of the hayfields, but was looking into all the gardens, and casting a calculating glance over the orchards, in anticipation of a tenth of their produce. Then the mixed tithes gave him much trouble; tithes of produce which arises not immediately from the ground, but from things immediately nourished by the ground, and which, according to the murmuring parishioners, paid tithe twice or three times over. When they had paid tithe of grass, they contended, it was hard to have it to pay again in the shape of a calf, and again in that of milk. In like manner, the grain on which their poultry fed paid tithe; and then the poultry; and also eggs. In like manner, the sheep pasture paid tithe; and then the tenth lamb must be given; and lastly, the wool. Endless disputes arose out of the lessee’s claims, and he was perpetually sent to his tithe gospel, as he called his law-book. There he found a provision by which he might annoy Byrne, and every parishioner in Byrne’s rank of life. There was another kind of tithe, besides the prædial and the mixed;—the personal tithe, which might be made, if possible, more offensive than the mixed. He knew that by a claim for this kind of tithe, at least, he could punish Byrne for his partisanship with Mr.
Mackintosh in the morning.
When he arrived at Byrne’s, both the labourer and his wife were occupied in helping Alice to feed her little birds, the twelve young partridges which bore testimony to the efficacy of flannel and fire in June. Byrne did not trouble himself to look up when his foe entered; but observed, while guiding an infant beak to the mess which was prepared, that Peterson need not flatter himself that he would be permitted to carry away any of Miss Alice’s birds. The little girl’s own father should not rob her of her pleasures. Peterson thought it a pity such a defiance should be wasted; but he really never thought of such a thing as tithing wild birds. Pheasants and partridges are decided by law to be _feræ naturæ_, and therefore not titheable. Though their wings be clipped, they would still fly away if they could; and if they should breed, their young, though imprisoned, are still wild, and therefore not bound to support the clergyman. Alice’s pleasures were safe.
“O, I am so glad!” cried Alice; “and now we need not be afraid about the bees either, I suppose.”
“Ay; your bees, Mrs. Byrne,” observed Peterson, smiling. “You need not twitch the young lady’s sleeve, Byrne; I thought of the bees before; and, in fact, they made part of my errand. I see you have a fine range of beehives at the south end of your garden; and that spreading jessamine, and the thyme bed, and the tall honeysuckle must yield plenty of wax and honey. You must keep my share for me, remember.”
“If partridges are wild, so are bees, I should think, Mr. Peterson.”
“So the law says: and I am of opinion the law is therein defective: since, though bees can fly away individually, they are stationary, as a swarm, when once fixed in a hive. I should recommend that every tenth swarm should be set apart for tithe: but the law does not so ordain. The wax and honey, however, do not fly away, and it is of them that I spoke when I said you must remember the vicar’s share.”
“The vicar would have been sure enough of his share,” said Mrs. Byrne, somewhat heated, “if you had let me alone to offer it. Miss Alice will tell you that every year she has had much more than a tenth of my honey; and so she would still, without your interfering to make that a debt which was much more precious as a grace.”
“Mr. Peterson shall not bring me my honey,” protested Alice. “I won’t take it, unless you let me carry it home myself, Jane.”
Peterson wondered what would become of religion, if it was to be left to be supported by free will, instead of by dues.
How little was he aware what was included in this question! How little was he aware with whom he identified himself while asking it! This has been the faithless question of all the perverters of the quenchless religious principle in man, from the beginning of time,—of all the priests of all the trinities that the world has known. This is the question asked by the wise man of the Egyptian temple, when he unveiled the hawk-headed Osiris, and the swaddled Orus, and the crocodile-shaped Typhon, and told the prostrate people what to pay for housing the triad of creators that they came to adore.—This is the question asked by the ancient Hindoo priest, when he finished his evening meal of rice in the echoing recesses of the rocky temple, and waited only for the departure of the last impoverished worshipper, to go and see how much wealth was deposited for Brahma, and how much for Vishnu, and how much for Siva, and how many bribes were offered for admission into each of the seven paradises of the seven seas. This is the question asked before the Greek altars, when goats and horses and black bulls were sacrificed there, to the gods of the earth, and the sea, and the infernal regions, and tithe was demanded to be yielded to the one on his ivory seat, and another in his car of sea-shell, and the third on his throne of sulphur. This is the question asked by the skin-clothed ministers of the Gothic deities, Odin, Vile, and Ve, when they called upon their barbarian brethren to offer the hides of wolves, and the flesh of boars, in homage to the three sons of the mysterious cow. This is the question asked by the Mexican priests of old, when they forbade the feathered and jewelled warrior companies to come empty-handed to the sanctuary of the father-sun, the brother-sun, and the son-sun; the trinity of unpronounceable names. This is the question asked by the monastic orders of the Catholic church, when they ordained, as penance, that the children’s inheritance should be made over to the church, to the glory of the Gnostic triad which they enthroned on the Seven Hills, and to which they dared to invite adoration in the name of Christ. This is the question now asked by our Episcopal preachers of the three-fold deity, the Avenger, the Propitiator, and the Sanctifier; and enforced for the support of their tri-partite form of religion, compounded of Heathenism, Judaism, and Christianity.—This is not the question asked by Jesus, when he sent forth the Seventy, bidding them have faith that they should be supported by free-will offerings better than by dues; or when he cleansed the temple from the defilements which but too soon returned to harbour there; or when he sat on the well in Samaria, and declared who it was that the Father sought to worship him; or when he strayed in the wilderness, despising the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and asking instead, the heart of man; or when he sat on the mountain-side, gazing on the temple towers which were bathed in the evening light, and telling of the time when the young pigeons should try their first flight from the summit of Moriah, instead of fluttering in death on the altar of sacrifice; and when the husbandman should plough up the foundations of the sanctuary, finding, through the gospel, that his own heart was a holier place.—What is included in this question,— whether religion can be supported by free will, and not by dues? To ask it is to doubt whether God has vivified the human heart with a principle of faith, and whether man be not really made to grovel with the beasts which perish, or, as the only alternative, to pursue shadows till the grave swallows him up like a pitfall in his path. It is to suppose that by mere accident alone has the northern barbarian been found watching for signs in the driving clouds; and the western Indian looking abroad over the blue Pacific; and the Persian hailing the sunrise from the mountain-top; and the Greek lawgiver waiting upon the voice of the oracle; and the Christian child praying at the knee of its parent. It is to question whether there be more in a sunrise than yellow light, or in a pestilence than so many dead, or in a political revolution than a change of actors in an isolated dramatic scene, or in the advent of a gospel than the issuing of a new and fugitive fiction. It is to deny that every man needs sympathy in his joys, and consolation for his sorrows; that he ever questions whence he came and whither he must go; that he ever feels the weight of his own being too vast to be sustained without reposing on Him who called it forth. It is to question whether there be faith on the earth, except within the pale of two or three churches; whether, for the rest of the world, the sea does not raise its everlasting voice, and the starry host hold on their untiring march in vain. It is to question whether the decrepid can truly worship in the aisles of our churches; or the lordly care for the things of the Spirit, unless those things are joined with worldly pomp. It is to pronounce the apostles profane in their fishing and tent-making, and foolish in their fully-justified reliance on the faith and charity of their disciples. It is to declare Jesus wrong in saying that to the poor the gospel is preached, and that his kingdom was not of the old world,—belonging to the formal Judaical dispensation. It is to put his gospel for correction into the hands of the prelates who legislate for its security, and who predict its permanence, if it be sustained by the means they prescribe,— by gifts and offerings wrung from the reluctant; by endowments, by bounties of first-fruits and tenths, by tithes and oblations. To question whether religion can be supported by free-will instead of by prescribed dues is to libel man, to doubt the gospel, and to stand with a sceptical spirit amidst the temple of God’s works.
Would that the vicar had had sufficient faith in the gospel he preached to believe that it might be supported without exactions which it does not sanction! Would that he had been wiser than his tithe-gatherer, and had foreseen the consequences, as well as been aware of the guilt, of alienating the spirits which it was his express office to win! He looked very grave at his little daughter, when she loudly complained that Peterson wanted to take away some of Jane’s honey for him, when she knew he had much rather that Jane should give it him herself. He told her that she must not speak of matters that she did not understand:—a rebuke which astonished Alice more than all the rest, as she thought she had never heard of anything more easy to be understood.
There was little show of respect to the vicar, this evening. When he entered Byrne’s cottage, Peterson was traversing the garden, making notes of potatoes, turnips, and cabbages, of onions, parsley, and sage.
He counted the currant bushes, and looked up into the cherry-tree. Mrs.
Byrne attended, in terror lest there should be a quarrel. She tried to persuade her husband to go and make his bow to the vicar; but Byrne would do no such thing. He dogged the tithe-gatherer’s heels, disputing where he could, and threatening where he could not dispute. He did not mean to pay tithe these seven years, for the new bit of garden which he had just taken in. He would contest it to the death. He hoped the turnips would prove tough enough to choke the tithe-gatherer. He would not gather his cherries at all, if he must pay tithe of them. They should be left for the birds, and for any village children who might come to take them.
“That is all very fine talk,” replied Peterson: “but I can tell you this. If your fruit is taken by the birds, or other downright thieves, I must bear the loss with you: but if it be taken with your knowledge and consent, whether by school-children or anybody else, you must pay me the tithe of what was taken: and if left to drop from the tree, I must have the tenth of what so falls. Pray, are these peas and beans for sale, or for domestic use?”
Byrne could not tell till they were gathered; and his wife did not pretend to have made up her mind, any more than he.
“Well; if you won’t tell me, I must be on the watch to see whether your hog touches any of them, and how many find their way to other people’s tables. And then, you will have no right to call me prying, remember. I asked you the fair question, which you would not answer.”
Byrne thought he might as well live under Bonaparte, or any other tyrant, at once, as be liable to sow and tend and reap for another, in this way; and to be watched by a spy, as if this was not the free country it prided itself on being.
“What would you say if you were a farmer?” cried Peterson, with a smile.
“Here you have only to pay a little honey, and a few vegetables, and a little fruit, and—one thing more, for which I find the vicar has strangely omitted to charge you hitherto. See here,” producing his law-book. “By a constitution of Archbishop Winchelsea, and the statute, 2 and 3 Edward VI., c. 13., tithes are payable for profits arising from personal labour or merchandise. They are payable, you see, where the party hears divine service, and receives the sacraments; but only the tenth part of the clear gain, after all the charges are deducted. Now I find your wages are per week——” “Do you dare to want to strip my husband of his wages?” cried Mrs.
Byrne. “I will call the vicar to put an end to this.”
Peterson’s triumph was complete. The vicar was full of concern that anybody suffered pain or inconvenience about the matter: but it was not for him or his parishioners to alter the constitution of the church. His duty to his church and to his successor required that the ecclesiastical law should be obeyed in all its provisions. Two or three zealous clergymen had lately revived this claim, after it had lain dormant for very many years, throwing into gaol the labourers who opposed themselves; and he would support them through evil report and good report.
“Then you may throw me into gaol,” cried Byrne. “As for attending your services, neither I nor mine will ever do it more, Mr. Hellyer: and I never wish to see you within my gate again, sir.”
“O, John!” cried the terrified wife.
“I am not going to be angry,” said the vicar to her, with his usual air of quiet complacency. “I have long feared that the infidel who has come among us would corrupt your husband, and I see he has done so completely. Nay: do not cry so, Jane. All our hearts are in the hand of God: and you should trust, as I do, that he will sustain his church under the attacks of the unbelieving.”
“Not if such as you have the management of it,” cried Byrne. “You talk of Mr. Mackintosh: but I tell you that nothing that I ever heard him say turned my heart from you and your religion as you yourself have done to-day; and I rather think that Mr. Mackintosh owes to you much of such power as he has. We shall soon see that. Send the labourers of this parish to gaol for their tithe of wages, break gates, and pry into gardens, and you will see what a congregation Mr. Mackintosh will have on his lawn, to hear what he has to say about a religion that teaches such oppression.—Be pleased to hold your tongue, sir, and walk out of my garden.—Hush, Jane!” he cried to his weeping wife. “There is nothing in their tithe-law that prevents my saying that.—Go, go, and milk the cow.”
And he turned over the pail, which still stood with milk in it, as in the morning. He declared that he knew something of tithe-law as well as Peterson, and therefore claimed the liberty of spilling the milk which had not been removed, after due notice, so as to restore the pail in time for the afternoon milking. Peterson could not deny the correctness of Byrne’s law.
“Well; but, why not come to church?” mildly inquired the vicar.
“To hear you thank God that you are no extortioner, I suppose. I am sick enough of that.”
“But, John,—do listen, John!—He can’t help it: it is no fault of his: he only asks what the law gives him.”
“Then let the law leave off making a man contradict in the pulpit on Sunday all he has been doing during the week. ’Tis a hypocrisy that I am sick of, and I’ll never enter the church door till there is an end of it. You see the gate, sir. You are welcome to go away as soon as you choose.”
There was nothing for the vicar to do but to walk away, however Mrs.
Byrne wished to detain him till her husband had cooled. Peterson had found his way over the fence, rather than cross the path of the angry man. Byrne saw this, and shouted after the vicar, loud enough for Peterson to hear, “You are mightily afraid of a deist, Mr. Hellyer: but if you care for your church, look to your tithe-gatherer.”
“Run after your papa, my dear,” said Mrs. Byrne to Alice, who was contemplating the spilled milk: “never mind your birds; I will put them under a coop till you come again.”
“Papa looks so odd!”
“The more reason you should go. Run after him, and talk about every thing you can think of.”
Alice hopped and skipped down the road, while Jane wept as if her heart would break. Her grief could scarcely have been greater if she had known the truth that time revealed,—that from this hour, her husband hated the vicar with an intense hatred.
CHAPTER V.
EXTORTION.
Before two years were over, the experiment of a close exaction of tithes was considered by good judges to have been fairly tried, and to have produced consequences as apparent as could be expected to arise in any given case.
First. There were three law-suits.—The vicar was plaintiff in a cause where his late friend, Sir William Hood, was defendant. He claimed tithe for the produce of a portion of the Abbey Farm; (or suffered under the imputation of doing so, from still keeping the secret of having let his rights to Peterson.)
The Lamberts were not a little astonished at such a claim being made on their tithe-free farm: but the vicar alleged that the exemption ceased when the land was turned to other uses than those which prevailed when the exemption was granted. The prescription was at an end, he contended, when, as in this case, land which was in a state of tillage when exempted was converted into pasture land. Much trouble was given to the Lamberts, at the same time, by their being called upon to show the requisites for the exemptions which had never been disputed;—that the lands they held had been really abbey lands, and that they had been immemorially discharged of tithes. Another suit was instituted against Mr. Parker, to set aside a modus with which all parties had hitherto been pretty well satisfied. By this modus,—or composition whereby the layman is discharged from rendering his tithes, on his paying in lieu thereof what immemorial custom, or the custom of the place, directs,—Mr.
Parker paid fourteen pounds for produce which, paid in kind, would have yielded twenty. He had often thought himself unlucky in his bargain in comparison with some who had a good bargain of their modus, paying two-pence an acre, as their ancestors had done; or a fowl instead of the year’s tithe of eggs: but he had little expected that the vicar would lodge a complaint in a court of law of the modus being too large. It accorded with six out of seven of the rules which constitute a good and sufficient modus; but it violated one. It was certain and invariable: it benefited the tithe-taker only: it was different from the thing compounded for: it did not discharge from the payment of any other species of tithe: it was, in its nature, as durable as the tithes discharged by it: and it was immemorial without interruption; that is, it had existed from the beginning of the reign of Richard the First, which is the period fixed by the law as “the time of memory.”
All this was indisputable; but the seventh condition was, that the modus should not be too large;—that it should not be a rank modus. If Mr.
Parker had been paying four shillings, instead of fourteen pounds, the modus might have been held a good one; but this was so doubtful as to be supposed worth contesting, according to the decision, “the doctrine of rankness in a modus is a question of fact to be submitted to a jury, unless the grossness is obvious.”
The third suit was of more consequence than either of the other two. It had always been believed in the parish that the glebe land, which was now annexed to the vicarage, had been once upon a time offered and accepted as a substitute for the lesser tithes of a farm at present occupied by one of the most respectable of the parishioners. Now, however, for the first time, Mr. Pratt was called upon, either to show evidence of such a bargain having taken place under all due formality of circumstance, or to pay full tithe. Mr. Pratt was indignant when he ceased to be astonished, and refused to pay the tithe unless he had the glebe land back again. This was refused; and the law, as of course, was made the arbitrator between the parties.
Every body in the parish who paid a composition, now began to hunt up the evidence of the ordinary having consented to it; of its being old enough; and of its not having run on for a longer term than twenty-one years, or the lives of three parsons.
These proceedings did not improve the influence of the clergyman in the parish. One after another of his flock wandered away to the Friends’ Meeting house. There was talk of encouraging the methodists to build a chapel, though an attempt to do so had failed three years before.
Subscriptions were withdrawn from the parochial library which the vicar had set up: and in proportion as the law-suits were discussed, did the respect with which he was once regarded change into rudeness. Few heads were uncovered before him. Men turned their backs at his approach, and the women did not look up from their work when the children gave notice that he was passing by. He bore this, as he said, very patiently; praying to God to turn the hearts of the flock once more to true religion and reverence for the church. He declared himself resigned to having fallen on evil days, and could wait till his parishioners should repent of their treatment of him. He heroically adhered to his habits, amidst the change of times; taking his walk past the houses which were chalked with maledictions on him, and over the green where every one put on a solemn look as soon as he came in sight. Alice could never prevail on him to go round by the back lanes, though is was evident that she suffered much pain, if not absolute terror, whenever she was his companion amongst his alienated people.
Those who suffered most, next to the vicar and his daughter, were perhaps the Lamberts. Through the exterior of calmness which they considered it a religious duty to preserve, it might be discerned that their lightness of heart was gone. No lads could well be merrier than Charles and Joseph used to be; and their mother’s influence was formerly more frequently exerted in mildly chastening their mirth than in any other way. When they had masqueraded, under pretence of amusing Alice, or from singing a ‘ditty’ in the farm-house parlour had advanced to some high thoughts about the cultivation of music, she had told tales of the sobriety observed in her young days. Now, her endeavour was to cheer them when they came in dispirited from their farm. She now asked for ‘a ditty,’ and taught them two or three which their father used to sing to her before they were born. She encouraged Joseph to use his pretty talent for drawing, and was always ready to be read to when Charles seemed disposed to take up his book in the evenings. It was the least she could do, she thought, to keep up their spirits as well as her own, since she had sanctioned their taking the Quarry Wood farm, which seemed likely to run away with the gains they had made on the Abbey Farm; and with more besides, if this season should turn out one of as great scarcity as was apprehended. It was the least a mother could do, while discouraging Charles from marrying Henrietta Gregg till his prospects should clear, to make his home as little irksome as possible, and occupy his thoughts with other things besides his love and his disappointments.
Some people thought (and they declared the vicar to be on their side) that the ill success of the Lamberts on the Quarry Wood farm was no more than might have been expected from their having any thing to do with such an infidel as Mr. Mackintosh; and they had little pity, in some quarters, for their failure: but they thought the whole might be sufficiently accounted for without supposing that a special judgment had overtaken them. Thus much, at least, was true: that no disasters had befallen them in their management of the abbey farm, though Mr.
Mackintosh was their landlord; and that the Quarry Wood farm might have been made to answer if it had been tithe-free. The natural conclusion was that the tithes of the church were to blame, and not the infidelity of Mr. Mackintosh.
The rent of the Quarry Wood farm was low; and this had been the chief temptation to the Lamberts to take it. They were aware that it required much improvement, and were prepared to lay out a good deal of capital upon it. The composition for tithe which had been formerly paid was very moderate, and every body had supposed that it would, as a matter of course, be continued. But the new tenants had not been in possession half a year, before Peterson found means to set aside the composition, and gave notice that he should demand tithe in kind. They hoped that, at least, their improvements would remain exempt for seven years, according to the statute:—a vain hope; as it was proved that the land, though long left in wild condition, was not what the law would call barren. The tithe seized the first year swallowed up so much of the returns as to leave by far too little to pay for the enclosures. There was, indeed, so much capital thus locked up that the young men declared they should have let the land alone if they had known how they were to be taken in about the tithes. The same was the case with an extent of woodland which they had stubbed and grubbed, and made fit for the plough. As it had borne wood, it was not ‘barren’ land, and it came under the tax. Of course, the improvements were put a stop to presently, amidst many regrets that the money had not been employed on some far inferior land on the tithe-free farm. It had better have lain idle in their iron chest than have been thus expended to a loss. If they had known more than they did of the history of tithes, they would have been better aware of the policy of idleness under such a system;—that idleness, both of labour and capital, on which tithes offer a direct premium. They would have known that the cultivation of flax and hemp in Ireland was suspended till a low modus was fixed by law, under which it has flourished ever since. They would have known that the production of madder was long confined to the United Provinces, which, being Presbyterian, offered no ecclesiastical tax on its cultivation; and that its growth in England began from the time when, by a special provision, 5_s._ per acre were to be taken in lieu of tithe of madder. They would have known that the reason why Edward VI. exempted barren land from tithe for seven years was, because, without this provision, the land would never have yielded at all, either to the public or to the church. They would have known how tremendous is the waste, to the public, to the farmer, to the landlord, and eventually to the church, by a method of taxation which causes worse land to be cultivated while the better lies waste—by a method of taxation which reaches land untouched by rent, and which, by absorbing a larger and a larger share of profits which are perpetually decreasing, raises prices to a degree quite inconsistent with the prosperity of all the parties concerned. If the Lamberts had duly studied the tithe question, they would have foreseen the disasters which must arise, instead of being taught by bitter experience. Their case was just this;— and it is a fair specimen of what is taking place wherever the tithe system is adopted.
The best land on their two farms yielded an equal produce. As the Quarry Wood land paid tithe, they would have been obliged to raise the price of their corn so high as to cover the cost of the impropriator’s share, as well as the expences of cultivation, if this had not been already done by the body of tithe-paying corn growers. Corn was already dearer in the market, by the parson’s share, than it would have been if the parsons had had no share. The produce of the abbey farm brought in a larger profit through this elevation of prices; but this circumstance had been considered in fixing the rent; and the surplus profit went, not to the Lamberts, but to their landlord, in the shape of higher rent. Thus far, they neither lost nor gained. The consumers of corn lost, and Mr.
Mackintosh gained. The same took place on a few inferior kinds of land.
But there was soil which would have paid profits of stock as well as rent, if there had been no tithe, but which should have been left uncultivated (because tithe would swallow up the profits) if the Lamberts had been aware of the claim which would be advanced by the parson. On this soil their labour was lost: landlord and parson being paid, nothing remained for them. This land, therefore, was to be let out of cultivation; and the capital and labour employed upon it were transferred to an inferior kind of land on the tithe-free farm, which required a much larger expenditure to produce an equal return. In this case, the Lamberts lost by their unprofitable expenditure of labour and capital; and nobody gained. A yet lower quality of soil was next taken into cultivation, requiring a yet larger proportionate outlay of capital and labour, and yielding a sufficient return to the cultivator only because it was exempt from rent as well as tithe. The rise of price, caused by the relinquishment of the better land for the sake of cultivating the worse, was injurious to all the three parties, and particularly to those—viz., the Lamberts—who had to pay the most wages.
It would have answered incalculably better to have paid over to the church the capital which was arbitrarily buried in the lower soils, than that portion of produce which caused it to be so buried. Rent would have been equalised between the two estates; prices would have kept their natural elevation; the better soil would have been tilled, and the worst let alone; the parson would have had as much gain and cheaper bread; the landlord would also have had cheaper bread, and a larger rent for the one estate, as well as a smaller for the other; and the Lamberts would not have lost on the one hand by being deprived of their profits, and on the other by the rise of wages. The only persons anywhere who had ground for unmixed rejoicing in this state of things were the landlords of none but tithe-free estates. By the rise of rent, they gained, and they alone: and their gain was by no means in proportion to the collective loss of the other parties. But it was a curious fact that, while the church was complained of (and justly) on all hands, for the tremendous injury occasioned by its tithe system, the benefits of it went into the pockets of landowners amidst the hills and dales of Scotland, where a commutation long ago placed them beyond the hazards of the desperate game; and of all who could take their stand on abbey lands, or on some lucky ancient modus, or equally happy modern composition.
From the circumstances of the case, the Lamberts suffered all the injustice which must accrue upon the first institution of this most pernicious tax. When it has been long enough paid to become calculable, it is allowed for in the rent, and falls next, like other land taxes, on the landowner—the person most able, from the perpetual tendency of rent to rise, to bear the burden. But it is not long a burden to him, except as a consumer; for, as it operates in increasing the expense of cultivation, it raises prices; and the consumer ultimately pays. The hardship of a new institution, or, as in this case, of a revival of tithe, is very great upon the tenant, and is a sufficient exponent of the pernicious nature of the impost. The lease of the Quarry Wood farm had not many years to run; but the experience of the first two years, and the opening of the third, left the prospect of the young farmers anything but bright. The present spring had been most unfavourable to the crops. The doubt was whether so much rain was not rotting the vegetation in the ground. The view from the summer-house was dreary,—of sodden fields, and lanes lying under water. The very wall-flowers languished for want of sun, Mrs. Lambert found when she one day climbed the hill: but they did not droop like her poor son Charles, whom she found there, looking out of the window, with his head leaning on his hand, and listening to the patter of rain-drops which again began to fall, and to drop from the broad thatch into the little dell over which the summer-house projected. It was a dispiriting thing to wander over the lands of Quarry Wood farm, and see enclosures deserted when half finished, and fields from which golden harvests had been anticipated, grown over with briars and thistles. It was in such a place that Mrs.
Lambert met Joseph, one April afternoon, when the twilight was settling down.
“What hast thou got there, mother?” said he: “A heavy load for thee to carry.”
“Not so heavy as large. These stringy, branchy roots make a fine blaze to drink tea by; and I thought it a pity this one should lie and rot yonder. But thou hast thy hands full, seemingly. Where art thou taking that poor thing to?”
It was a ewe, very near its time of yeaning. Joseph explained that Peterson’s eagerness about where the ewes couched and fed had put into his brother’s head and his own a device which it was very well to have thought of. In the next parish, tithes were only half the amount that they were in this; and Charles and he had prepared the bit of land they had in that parish for their ewes. The animals were now being transferred thither, gradually and quietly, lest Peterson should set up a plea of fraudulent removal. The lambs would remain there till the tithing was over: and it was much to be wished that there was room for