Many in the hamlet who attended neither church nor chapel and said they had no use for religion, guided their lives by the light of a few homely precepts, such as “Pay your way and fear nobody;” “Right’s right and wrong’s no man’s right;” “Tell the truth and shame the devil,” and “Honesty is the best policy.”

Strict honesty was the policy of most of them; although there were a few who were said to “find anything before ‘tis lost” and to whom findings were keepings. Children were taught to “Know it’s a sin to steal a pin,” and when they brought home some doubtful finding, saying they did not think it belonged to anybody, their mothers would say severely, “You knowed it didn’t belong to you, and what don’t belong to you belongs to somebody else. So go and put it back where you found it, before I gets the stick to you.”

Liars were more detested than thieves. “A liar did ought to have a good memory,” they would say, or, more witheringly, “You can lock up from a thief, but you can’t from a liar.” Any statement which departed in the least degree from plain fact was a lie; any one who ate a plum from an overhanging bough belonging to a neighbour’s tree was a thief. It was a stark code in which black was black and white was white; there were no intermediate shades.

For the afflicted or bereaved there was ready sympathy. Had the custom of sending wreaths to funerals been general then, as it is today, they would certainly have subscribed their last halfpenny for the purpose. But, at that time, the coffins of the country poor went flowerless to the grave, and all they could do to mark their respect was to gather outside the house of mourning and watch the clean-scrubbed farm wagon which served as a hearse set out on its slow journey up the long, straight road, with the mourners following on foot behind. At such times the tears of the women spectators flowed freely, little children howled aloud in sympathy, and any man who happened to be near broke into extravagant praise of the departed. “Never speak ill of the dead” was one of their maxims and they carried it to excess.

In illness or trouble they were ready to help and to give, to the small extent possible. Men who had been working all day would give up their night’s rest to sit up with the ill or dying, and women would carry big bundles of bed-linen home to wash with their own.