When it occurred to him that he had had as much violent physical
exercise as was good for his years, and that he had left his books in
disarray, and that his business demanded him, Edwin apologetically
announced that he must depart, and the child admitted that Aunt Janet
was probably waiting to give him his lessons.
"Are you going back the way you came? You'd better. It's always best,"
said Edwin.
"Is it?"
"Yes."
He lifted and pushed the writhing form on to the wall, dislodging a jar,
which crashed dully on the ground.
"Auntie Janet told me I could have them to do what I liked with. So I
break them," said George, "when they don't break themselves!"
"I bet she never told you to put them on this wall," said Edwin.
"No, she didn't. But it was the best place for aiming. And she told me
it didn't matter how many crocks I broke, because they make crocks here.
Do they, really?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because there's clay here," said Edwin glibly.
"Where?"
"Oh! Round about."
"White, like that?" exclaimed George eagerly, handling a teapot without
a spout. He looked at Edwin: "Will you take me to see it? I should
like to see white ground."
"Well," said Edwin, more cautiously, "the clay they get about here isn't
exactly white."
"Then do they make it white?"
"As a matter of fact the white clay comes from a long way off--Cornwall,
for instance."
"Then why do they make the things here?" George persisted; with the
annoying obstinacy of his years. He had turned the teapot upside down.
"This was made here. It's got `Bursley' on it. Auntie Janet showed
me."
Edwin was caught. He saw himself punished for that intellectual sloth
which leads adults to fob children off with any kind of a slipshod,
dishonestly simplified explanation of phenomena whose adequate
explanation presents difficulty. He remembered how nearly twenty years
earlier he had puzzled over the same question and for a long time had
not found the answer.
"I'll tell you how it is," he said, determined to be conscientious.
"It's like this--" He had to pause. Queer, how hard it was to state the
thing coherently! "It's like this. In the old days they used to make
crocks anyhow, very rough, out of any old clay. And crocks were first
made here because the people found common yellow clay, and the coal to
burn it with, lying close together in the ground. You see how handy it
was for them."
"Then the old crocks were yellow?"
"More or less. Then people got more particular, you see, and when white
clay was found somewhere else they had it brought here, because
everybody was used to making crocks here, and they had all the works and
the tools they wanted, and the coal too. Very important, the coal!
Much easier to bring the clay to the people and the works, than cart off
all the people--and their families, don't forget--and so on, to the
clay, and build fresh works into the bargain... That's why. Now are
you sure you see?"
George ignored the question. "I suppose they used up all the yellow
clay there was here, long ago?"
"Not much!" said Edwin. "And they never will! You don't know what a
sagger is, I reckon?"
"What is a sagger?"
"Well, I can't stop to tell you all that now. But I will some time.
They make saggers out of the yellow clay."
"Will you show me the yellow clay?"
"Yes, and some saggers too."
"When?"
"I don't know. As soon as I can."
"Will you to-morrow?"
To-morrow happened to be Thursday. It was not Edwin's free afternoon,
but it was an afternoon to which a sort of licence attached. He yielded
to the ruthless egotism of the child.
"All right!" he said.
"You won't forget?"
"You can rely on me. Ask your auntie if you may go, and if she says you
may, be ready for me to pull you up over the wall here, about three
o'clock."
"Auntie will have to let me go," said George, in a savage tone, as Edwin
helped him to slip down into the garden of the Orgreaves. Edwin went
off to business with a singular consciousness of virtue, and with pride
in his successful manner of taming wayward children, and with a very
strong new interest in the immediate future.