at th' furst; an' they geet it into their
yeds at Shorrock were to blame. Shorrock's th' paymaister, under th'
Guardians, But, then, he nobbut went accordin' to orders, yo known.
At last, th' Board sattle't that they mut be paid for weet and dry,-
-an' there's bin quietness sin'. They wortchen fro eight till five;
an', sometimes, when they'n done, they drilln o' together i'th road
yon--just like sodiurs--an' then they walken away i' procession. But
stop a bit;--just go in yon, an' aw'll come to yo in a two-thre
minutes." He returned, accompanied by the paymaster, who offered to
conduct me through the other delphs. Running over his pay-book, he
showed me, by figures opposite each man's name, that, with not more
than a dozen exceptions, they had all families of children, ranging
in number from two to nine. He then pointed out the way over a
knoll, to the next quarry, which is called "Hacking's Gillies'
Delph," saying that he would follow me thither. I walked on,
stopping for him on the nearest edge of the quarry, which commanded
a full view of the men below. They seemed to be waiting very hard
for something just then, and they stared at me, as the rest had
done; but in a few minutes, just as I began to hear the paymaster's
footsteps behind me, the man at the nearest end of the quarry called
"Shorrock!" and a sudden activity woke up along the line. Shorrock
then pointed to a corner of the delph where two of these poor
fellows had been killed the week before, by stones thrown out from a
fall of earth. We went down through the delph, and up the slope, by
the place where the older men were at work in the poorhouse grounds.
Crossing the Darwen road, we passed the other delphs, where the
scene was much the same as in the rest, except that more men were
employed there. As we went on, one poor fellow was trolling a snatch
of song, as he hammered away at the stones. "Thir't merry, owd mon,"
said I, in passing. "Well," replied he, "cryin' 'll do nought,
wilt?" And then, as I walked away, he shouted after me, with a sort
of sad smile, "It's a poor heart at never rejoices, maister."
Leaving the quarries, we waited below, until the men had struck work
for the day, and the whole six hundred came trooping down the road,
looking hard at me as they went by, and stopping here and there, in
whispering groups. The paymaster told me that one-half of the men's
wages was paid to them in tickets for bread--in each case given to
the shopkeeper t