OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN 



are purchased by the local grocer or butcher : and up goes 

 the rent that had been three and six or four shillings a week 

 to seven and six and ten shillings. Here, where we live, there 

 are practically no important landowners, and what is the 

 result ? Not the most miserable cottage to be had under 

 seven and six a week, a rent liable to be raised at a 

 moment's notice. The butcher, the baker, these are the 

 " landlords/' and the rent they exact is exactly what they 

 know they can extract out of the unfortunate tenant, in 

 the present state of cottage scarcity. We ourselves have 

 spent weeks in striving to secure a roof for a wretched 

 woman with three little children, whose husband had 

 attempted to murder her and after her escape had danced 

 upon all her furniture, and burnt the remnants. We had 

 to engage a cottage three months in advance, and then 

 the rent was eight and six a week! She was a stupid 

 poor goose of a woman, who couldn't do anything for 

 her living except an occasional day's charing or rough 

 washing. Of course we ought to have let her go to the 

 workhouse/ but we didn't. We guaranteed the rent in- 

 stead and took in the eldest boy as an unneeded garden 

 assistant. <He is rather like a 

 garden slug, so we thought he 



154 



ought to be at home 

 in the borders) ! The 

 other day a local 

 tradesman raised the 

 rent of a cottage 



