The evidences of embarrassment began to disclose
themselves in many small points--inconsiderable, it is true, but not
the less significant. His house, in the progress of his declining
circumstances,ceased to be annually ornamented by a new coat of
whitewash; it soon assumed a faded and yellowish hue, and sparkled not
in the setting sun as in the days of Owen's prosperity. It had, in fact,
a wasted, unthriving look, like its master. The thatch became black
and rotten upon its roof; the chimneys sloped to opposite points; the
windows were less neat, and ultimately, when broken, were patched with a
couple of leaves from the children's blotted copy-books. His out-houses
also began to fail. The neatness of his little farm-yard, and the
cleanliness which marked so conspicuously the space fronting his
dwelling-house, disappeared in the course of time. Filth began to
accumulate where no filth had been; his garden was not now planted so
early, nor with such taste and neatness as before; his crops were later,
and less abundant; his haggarts neither so full nor so trim as they were
wont to be, nor his ditches and enclosures kept in such good repair. His
cars, ploughs, and other farming implements, instead of being put under
cover, were left exposed to the influence of wind and weather, where
they soon became crazy and useless.
Such, however, were only the slighter symptoms of his bootless struggle
against the general embarrassment into which the agricultural interests
were, year after year, so unhappily sinking.
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