Still puffing away. At last he said:

‘I know nought of your ways down South. I have heerd they’re a pack of spiritless, down-trodden men; welly clemmed to death; too much dazed wi’ clemming to know when they’re put upon. Now, it’s not so here. We known when we’re put upon; and we’en too much blood in us to stand it. We just take our hands fro’ our looms, and say, “Yo’ may clem us, but yo’ll not put upon us, my masters!” And be danged to ’em, they shan’t this time!’

‘I wish I lived down South,’ said Bessy.

‘There’s a deal to bear there,’ said Margaret. ‘There are sorrows to bear everywhere. There is very hard bodily labour to be gone through, with very little food to give strength.’

‘But it’s out of doors,’ said Bessy. ‘And away from the endless, endless noise, and sickening heat.’

‘It’s sometimes in heavy rain, and sometimes in bitter cold. A young person can stand it; but an old man gets racked with rheumatism, and bent and withered before his time; yet he must just work on the same, or else go to the workhouse.’

‘I thought yo’ were so taken wi’ the ways of the South country.’

‘So I am,’ said Margaret, smiling a little, as she found herself thus caught. ‘I only mean, Bessy, there’s good and bad in everything in this world; and as you felt the bad up here, I thought it was but fair you should know the bad down there.’

(Editor：library)