The Argosy — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Edina. 3 wants that he had none to spare for other people. The ready money he came into had chiefly gone in paying his own back debts: until these debts stared him in the face in black and white, he had not believed he owed a tithe of them. Which is a very common experience. So the new dwellings were summarily stopped, and remained as so many skeletons: and the tumble-down pigsties, lacking proper space, and drainage, and whitewash, and everything else that could render them decent and healthy, grew worse day by day, and were an eyesore to spectators and the talk of the neighbourhood, Not only did ¢Hey suffer from the Major's lack of money and fore- sight ; there were many other crying wants: these are but given as a specimen. Above all, he was doing no good to the land, spending nothing to enrich it, and sparing necessary and ordinary labour. Perhaps had Major Raynor understood the cultivation and the needs of land, he might have made an effort to nourish his own better: as it was, it could but deteriorate day by day. This state of things had caused a kind of antagonism to set in between Eagles’ Nest and its poor dependents. The labourers and their families grumbled ; the Major, conscious of the state of affairs, and feeling some inward shame in consequence, but knowing at the same time that he was powerless to remedy it, shunned them. When complaints were brought to the house he would very rarely see the complainers. Mrs. Raynor and the elder children, understanding matters but very imperfectly, naturally espoused the Major’s cause, and looked upon the small tenants as a most barbarous, insubordinate set of wretches, next kin to insurgents. When the poor wives or children fell sick, no succour was sent to them from Eagles’ Nest. With this estrangement reigning, Mrs. Raynor did not attempt to help: not from coldness of heart, but that she considered they did not deserve to be helped, and moreover thought it would be flung back on her if she did attempt it. Zsere was where the shoe pinched. The evil dwellings they were used to ; though indeed with every winter and every summer they grew more evil than ever ; but they were not accustomed to neglect in times of need. Mrs. Atkinson had been always a generous mistress : when sickness or sorrow or distress at slack times of work set in, her hand and purse were ever ready. Coals in the severe weather, _Christmas cheer, warm garments for the scantily clad ; she had furnished all: and it was the entire lack of this aid that was so much felt now. The winter was unusually severe ; it frequently is so after a very hot | summer; labour was scarce, food dear; and a great deal of sickness prevailed. So that you perceive all things were not so flourishing in and about Eagles’ Nest as they might have been, and Major Raynor's bed was not entirely one of rose leaves. But, things unpleasant that are out of sight, are, it is said, mostly) out of mind—Mr. Blase Pellet told us so much a chapter or two ‘Back— comichooks.cona +