ng this lass's praise
Wi' famous glee.
Tho' rude an' rough sud be mi lays
Sho'st lass for me.

As to the repast itself--well I enjoyed that with much warmth, as we
sometimes say. Then I resumed the work which had been set out for me, and
finished by five o'clock in the afternoon. There I left off until next
morning. I had obtained in advance a few shillings to tide me over the
night.

CHAPTER V

"T'OTHER LODGER!"

I went in search of lodgings about the village. In the end I came across
an old lady, and, after I had had a consultation with her on the
above-mentioned subject, she said she could take me in as a lodger if I
cared to sleep with another lodger she had--a young butcher: if I was in
by eleven o'clock, she assured me, I should be all right. I accepted her
offer. Sometime before eleven o'clock, the "other lodger" came home. He
was not by any means what Keighley teetotallers would term a "temperate,
upright, law-abiding citizen," for he was as drunk as a pig. When he
heard that I was to be his bed-fellow, oh! there was a "shine," and no
mistake. He vehemently declared that he'd never "lig" with me; and, under
the circumstances, I sustained his objection, and we parted. Tired and
weary as I was I felt that I could well spare all I possessed if only I
could get the use of a bed:--

Oh! bed, on thee I first began
To be that curious creature--man,
To travel thro' this life's short span,
By fate's decree,
Till ah fulfill great Nature's plan,
An' cease ta be.
When worn wi' labour, or wi' pain,
Hah of'en ah am glad an' fain
To seek thi downy rest again.
Yet heaves mi' breast
For wretches in the pelting rain
'At hev no rest.

AMONG THE IRISH

However, the butcher and I parted company. I went back to the tavern I
had been resting at, and explained matters to the landlady and her good
master. He did not receive me very acceptably, and told me that he "could
sleep on a clothes-line this weather." I didn't like to contradict him.
His wife rather pitied me, and said there were half-a-dozen harvesters in
the taproom and I might arrange to spend the night with them. Acting on
the principle that half-a-loaf is better than no bread, I allowed the
landlord to introduce me to the company in the taproom. The company
consisted of half-a-dozen Irish harvesters "on the spree." "Can you take
this man as a lodger?" asks the landlord. "Oh, yes, if he behaves
hims