hardened mud. With a few short sticks and a broken piece of earthenware
for toys, they were happy in their way. Whatever their food might have
been, they showed no traces of hard usage. Their red "puddy" fists were
fat, and their naked legs round and plump enough. Their faces were full
and rosy, and their voices clear and anything but querulous. The eager
passions of childhood come out fierce and unrestrained, and blows were
freely interchanged, without, however, either cries or apparent hatred.
Their naked knees were on the stone-flags, and the wind, creeping in a
draught under the ill-fitting door, blew their ragged clothes about.

"Thee med well look at 'em, John," said the woman, seeing Smith cast a
sideway glance at the children; and rapidly manipulating the clothing,
her thin nervous lips poured forth a torrent of words upon the silent
man. They had had nothing but bread that day, and nothing but bread and
lard the day before, and now the lard was gone, and the baker would not
trust any more. There were no potatoes because the disease had destroyed
them, and the cabbages were sold for that bit of coal; and as for the
swede, she took it out of Mr. ----'s field, and he was a cross-grained
man, and who knew but what they might have the constable on them before
morning? Jane W. and Sarah Y. went to prison for seven days for stealing
swedes. All along of that cursed drink. If she were the squire she'd
shut up all the pothouses in the county. The men went there, and drank
the very shirts off their backs, and the clothes off their children, ay,
and the shoes off their feet; and what was the use of their having more
money when it only went into the publican's pocket? There they sat, and
drank the bread out of the babies' mouths. As for the women, the most of
them, poor things, never tasted beer from one year's end to another. Old
Carter handed her a pint that day, and when she tasted it she did not
know what it was. He might smile, but it was true though: no more did
Jane W. and Sally Y.: they did not know what it tasted like. And yet
they had to be out in the fields at work at eight o'clock, and their
washing to do before that, and perhaps a baby in their arms, and the tea
as weak as water, and no sugar. Milk, they could not get milk for
money--he knew that very well; all the milk went to London. A precious
lot of good the higher wages had done them. The farmers would not let
them have a drop of milk or a scrap of victual