Her estimate, too, of the relative values of the virtues and of the relative sinfulness of sins was original, and the rector therefore told all his parishioners that she was little better than a heathen. The common failings in that part of the country amongst the poor were Saturday-night drunkenness and looseness in the relations between the young men and young women. Mrs Caffyn’s indignation never rose to the correct boiling point against these crimes. The rector once ventured to say, as the case was next door to her,—
‘It is very sad, is it not, Mrs Caffyn, that Polesden should be so addicted to drink. I hope he did not disturb you last Saturday night. I have given the constable directions to look after the street more closely on Saturday evening, and if Polesden again offends he must be taken up.’
Mrs Caffyn was behind her own counter. She had just served a customer with two ounces of Dutch cheese, and she sat down on her stool. Being rather a heavy woman she always sat down when she was not busy, and she never rose merely to talk.
‘Yes, it is sad, sir, and Polesden isn’t no particular friend of mine, but I tell you what’s sad too, sir, and that’s the way them people are mucked up in that cottage. Why, their living room opens straight on the road, and the wind comes in fit to blow your head off, and when he goes home o’ nights, there’s them children a-squalling, and he can’t bide there and do nothing.’
‘I am afraid, though, Mrs Caffyn, there must be something radically wrong with that family. I suppose you know all about the eldest daughter?’
‘Yes, sir, I _have_ heard it: it wouldn’t be Great Oakhurst if I hadn’t, but p’r’aps, sir, you’ve never been upstairs in that house, and yet a house it isn’t. There’s just two sleeping-rooms, that’s all; it’s shameful, it isn’t decent. Well, that gal, she goes away to service. Maybe, sir, them premises at the farm are also unbeknown to you. In the back kitchen there’s a broadish sort of shelf as Jim climbs into o’ nights, and it has a rail round it to keep you from a-falling out, and there’s a ladder as they draws up in the day as goes straight up from that kitchen to the gal’s bedroom door. It’s downright disgraceful, and I don’t believe the Lord A’mighty would be marciful to neither of _us_ if we was tried like that.’
