w wur some mad! Iv aw'd been at th' back o' that chap,
aw could ha' punce't him, see yo!" "Well," said my friend, "there's
no work yet, Ruth, is there?" "Wark! naw; nor never will be no moor,
aw believe." "Hello, Ruth!" said the young woman, pointing through
the window, "dun yo know who yon is?" "Know? ay," replied the old
woman; "He's getten aboon porritch neaw, has yon. He walks by me
i'th street, as peart as a pynot, an' never cheeps. But, he's no
'casion. Aw know'd him when his yure stickt out at top ov his hat;
and his shurt would ha' hanged eawt beheend, too,--like a Wigan
lantron,--iv he'd had a shurt."

CHAPTER XII.

"Oh, reason not the deed; our basest beggars
Are in the poorest things superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's."
--King Lear.

A short fit of rain came on whilst we were in the cottage in Newton
Street, so we sat a little while with Ruth, listening to her quaint
tattle about the old man and his feathered pets; about the children,
the hard times, and her own personal ailments;--for, though I could
not help thinking her a very good-hearted, humorous old woman,
bravely disposed to fight it out with the troubles of her humble
lot, yet it was clear that she was inclined to ease her harassed
mind now and then by a little wholesome grumbling; and I dare say
that sometimes she might lose her balance so far as to think, like
"Natterin' Nan," "No livin' soul atop o't earth's bin tried as I've
bin tried: there's nob'dy but the Lord an' me that knows what I've
to bide."

Old age and infirmity, too, had found Ruth out, in her penurious
obscurity; and she was disposed to complain a little, like Nan,
sometimes, of "the ills that flesh is heir to:"-

"Fro' t' wind i't stomach, rheumatism,
Tengin pains i't gooms,
An' coughs, an' cowds, an' t' spine o't back,
I suffer martyrdom.

"Yet nob'dy pities mo, or thinks
I'm ailin' owt at all;
T' poor slave mun tug an' tew wi't wark,
Wolivver shoo can crawl."

Old Ruth was far from being as nattle and querulous as the famous
ill-natured grumbler so racily pictured by Benjamin Preston, of
Bradford; but, like most of the dwellers upon earth, she was a
little bit touched with the same complaint. When the rain was over,
we came away. I cannot say that the weather ever "cleared up" that
day; for, at the end of every shower, the dark, slow-moving clouds
always seemed to be mustering for another downfall. We came a