"You ask me why the poor complain,
And these have answered thee."
_Southey_.
"Hullo, Molly Hewlett, who'd ha' thought of seeing you out here?"
It was in a wet turnip field, and a row of women were stooping over it,
picking out the weeds. The one that was best off had great boots, a
huge weight to carry in themselves; but most had them sadly torn and
broken. Their skirts, of no particular colour, were tucked up, and they
had either a very old man's coat, or a smock-frock cut short, or a small
old woollen shawl, which last left the blue and red arms bare; on their
heads were the oldest of bonnets, or here and there a sun-bonnet, which
looked more decent. One or two babies were waiting in the hedgeside in
the charge of little girls.
"Molly Hewlett," exclaimed another of the set, straightening herself up.
"Why, I thought your Dan was working with Master Hewlett, for they
Gobblealls," (which was what Uphill made of Carbonel).
"So he be; but what is a poor woman to do when more than half his wage
goes to the `Fox and Hounds,' and she has five children to keep and my
poor sister, not able to do a turn? There's George Hewlett, grumbling
and growling at him too, and no one knows how long he'll keep him on."
"What! George, his cousin, as was bound to keep him on?"
"I don't know; George is that particular himself, and them new folks,
Gobbleall as they call them, are right down mean, and come down on you
if they misses one little mossle of parkisit; and there's my poor sister
to keep--as is afflicted, and can't do nothing!"
"But she pays you handsome," said Betsy Seddon, "and looks after the
children besides."
"Pays, indeed! Not half enough to keep her, with all the trouble of
helping her about! Not that I grudges it, but she wants things extry,
you see, and Dan he don't like it. But no doubt the ladies will take
notice of her."
"I thought the lady kind enough," interposed another woman. "She
noticed how lame our granny was with the rheumatics, and told me to send
up for broth."
"We wants somewhat bad enough," returned another thin woman, with her
hand to her side. "Nobody never does nothing for no one here!"
"Nor we don't want no one to come worriting and terrifying," cried the
last of the group, with fierce black eyes and rusty black hair sticking
out beyond her man's beaver hat, tied on with a yellow handkerchief.
"Always at one about church and school, and meddling with everything--
the ribbon on one's bonnet and to the very pots on the fire. I knows
what they be like in Tydeby! And what do you get by it, but old cast
clothes and broth made of dish-washings?" She enforced all this with
more than one word not to be written.
"I know, I'd be thankful for that!" murmured the thin woman, who looked
as if she had barely a petticoat on, and could have had scarcely a
breakfast.
"Oh, we all know's Bessy Mole is all for what she can get!" said the
independent woman, tossing her head.
"And had need to be," returned Molly Hewlett, in a scornful tone, which
made the poor woman in question stoop all the lower, and pull her
groundsel more diligently.
"The broth ain't bad," ventured she who had tried it.
"I shall see what I can get out of them," added another. "I bain't
proud; and my poor children's shoes is a shame to see."
"You'll not get much," said Molly Hewlett, with a sniff. "The captain,
as they calls him, come down on my Jem, as was taking home a little bit
of a chip for the fire, and made him put it down, as cross as could be."
"How now, you lazy, trolloping, gossiping women! What are you after?"
Farmer Goodenough was upon them; and the words he showered on them were
not by any means "good enough" to be repeated here. He stormed at them
for their idleness so furiously as to set off the babies in the hedge
screaming and yelling. Tirzah Todd, the gipsy-looking woman whom he
especially abused, tossed her head and marched off in the midst,
growling fiercely, to quiet her child; and he, sending a parting
imprecation after her, directed his violence upon poor Bessy Mole,
though all this time she had been creeping on, shaking, trembling, and
crying, under the pelting of the storm; but, unluckily, in her
nervousness and blindness from tears, she pulled up a young turnip, and
the farmer fell on her and rated her hotly for not being worth half her
wage, and doing him more harm than good with her carelessness. She had
not a word to say for herself, and went on shivering and trying to check
her sobs while he shouted out that he only employed her from charity,
and she had better look out, or he should turn her off at once.
"Oh, sir, don't!" then came out with a burst of tears. "My poor
children--"
"Don't go whining about your children, but let me see you do your work."
However, this last sentence was in a milder tone, as if the fit of
passion had exhausted itself; and Mr Goodenough found his way back to
the path that crossed the fields, and went on. Tirzah Todd set her
teeth, clenched her fist and shook it after him, while the other women,
as soon as he was out of sight, began to console Bessy Mole, who was
crying bitterly and saying, "what would become of her poor children, and
her own poor father."
"Never you mind, Bessy," said Molly Hewlett, "every one knows as how old
Goodenough's bark is worse than his bite."
"He runs out and it's over," put in Betsy Seddon.
"I'm sure I can hardly keep about any way," sobbed the widow. "My
inside is all of a quake. I can't abide words."
"Ten to one he don't give you another sixpence a week, after all," added
Nanny Barton.
"He ain't no call to run out at one," said Tirzah, standing upright and
flourishing her baby.
"I'd like to give him as good as he gave, an old foul-mouthed brute!"
"Look there! There's the ladies coming," exclaimed Nanny Barton.
"I thought there was some reason why he stopped his jaw so soon,"
exclaimed Molly, stooping down and pulling up weeds (including turnips)
with undiscerning energy, in which all the others followed her example,
except Tirzah, who sulkily retreated under the hedge with her baby,
while Jem Hewlett and Lizzie Seddon ran forward for better convenience
of staring. It was a large field, and the party were still a good way
off; but as it sloped downwards behind the women, the farmer must have
seen them a good deal before the weeders had done so.
These, be it remembered, were days when both farmers and their labourers
were a great deal rougher in their habits than we, their grandchildren,
can remember them; and there was, besides, the Old Poor Law, which left
the amount of relief and of need to be fixed at the vestry meetings by
the ratepayers themselves of each parish alone so that the poor were
entirely dependent on the goodwill or judgment of their employers, whose
minds were divided between keeping down the wages and the rates, and who
had little of real principle or knowledge to guide them. It was
possible to have recourse to the magistrates at the Petty Sessions, who
could give an order which would override the vestry; but it was apt to
be only the boldest, and often the least deserving, who could make out
the best apparent cases for themselves, that ventured on such a measure.
The two ladies stopped and spoke to Molly Hewlett and Nanny Barton, whom
they had seen at their doors, and who curtsied low; and Nanny, as she
saw Mrs Carbonel's eyes fall on her boots, put in--
"Yes, ma'am, 'tis bitter hard work this cold, damp weather, and wears
out one's shoes ter'ble. These be an old pair of my man's, and hurts my
poor feet dreadful, all over broken chilblains as they be; and my
fingers, too," she added, spreading out some fingers the colour of
beetroot, with dirty rags rolled round two of them.