OCCUPYING OWNERSHIP 199 



no doubt are naturally roused on reading the painful 

 details of personal sufferings of this class — the landed 

 nobility. But their sudden change of fortune and all 

 their trials were brought about by the complete break- 

 down of a wicked system which they had relentlessly 

 upheld by the most cruel means and which they looked 

 upon as permanent. Hence it is necessary that the 

 other side of the picture should be shown, so that our 

 sympathies may be properly balanced and — what is 

 more important — the character of the peasantry vindi- 

 cated. 



Carlyle describes the "general overturn" in lurid 

 terms: "The Traveller," he says, "walking up hill, 

 bridle in hand, overtakes a poor woman ; the image, as 

 such commonly are, of drudgery and scarcity ; looking 

 sixty years of age though she is not yet twenty-eight. 

 They have seven children, her poor drudge and she : 

 a farm, with one cow, which helps to make the 

 children soup ; also one little horse, or garron. They 

 have rents and quit-rents ; hens to pay to this 

 Seigneur ; oat-sacks to that ; King's taxes. Statute 

 labour. Church taxes, taxes enough ; — and think the 

 times inexpressible. She has heard that somewhere, 

 in some manner, something is to be done for the poor: 

 * God send it soon ; for the dues and taxes crush us 

 down. . . .' Five full-grown millions of such gaunt 

 figures, with their haggard faces ; in woollen jupes, 

 with copper-studded leather girths and high sabots, 

 starting up to ask, as in forest-warnings, their washed 

 Upper classes, after long unreviewed centuries, virtually 

 this question : How have ye treated ; how have you 

 taught us, fed us and led us, while we toiled for you ? 

 The answer can be read in flames over the nightly 

 summer-sky. This is the feeding and leading we 



