"Bide your time, Ben, and I'll be with you," he cried. "Good company makes short miles. I've a little errand o' my own to see to on Paddock Brow. Will ta come as far as th' Nag's Head and drink a glass and tarry there for me, or will ta company me to th' Brow? I'st noan be long, for it's not exactly a wedding I'm bahn to." "Oh, I'll go with you," I said, willingly enough, for Jack was always well met. "It's Tom Sykes I'm bahn to see. Yo' dunnot know him belike, a decent body but shiftless, and a ailing wife and a long family. There's a sight o' truth in what young Booth was reading to us th' other neet from a great writer, a Mr. Malthus, 'at a man who is born into a world already possessed, or if society does not want his labour, has no claim or right to the smallest portion of food; and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At nature's mighty feast there is no cover for him. That's what you call pheelosophy. I'm bahn to comfort Tom Sykes wi' a bit o' pheelosophy." "And is that philosophy you'n got i' your poke, Jack?" I asked "It seems weighty matter." "Noa, this is a few crumbs o' arrant nonsense, fra' th' kitchen o' th' Cherry Tree. Th' cook there's a reight good sort, an' some day or other, aw don't say but I might--you know. But it's ill puttin' all yo'r eggs i' one basket. An' gi'ein' a shillin' to th' parson to tie you is a tighter job nor takin' th' king's shillin'. Yo' can't hop out o' th' holy estate as aw did aat o' th' army--on a gamey leg. But here we are at Tom's." It was a low stone thatched house on the Lower Brow, and overlooked the river. Jack lifted the latch, and we walked into the living-room. It was bare of all furniture, save a round deal-topped table, three-legged, a low rocking chair by an empty fire-grate, a cradle and another, cane-bottomed chair, on which sat a man in his shirt sleeves, hushing a wailing child. The man was shock-headed. He had not been shaved for a week or more. His cheek bones stood out above shrunken cheeks. His eyes burned with an unnatural fire, and he had a hollow, hacking cough. He was trying to quiet the child, clumsily but patiently putting sips of a bluish fluid, milk and water, to its lips, with a crooked broken spoon. Another child, about seven years old, I judged, with neither clogs nor socks, all her covering a smock and a short frock scarce to her knees, was stretched on its face in a corner of the chimney, over a litter of sacks. And under the sacks lay--a something. We could see the straight outlines of a figure--I felt what it was, and my heart stood still. But Jack's eyes were not so young as mine. "Where's yo'r missus, Tom?" he asked, swinging his bundle on to the ricketty table. "Th' cook at th' Cherry Tree has sent her a summat. See here's th' makin's o' a rare brew o' tea, screwed up i' this papper. Aw carried it i' my weskit pocket, for fear o' accidents. An' there's broken bread an' moat an'--but what's ta starin' at? Where is 'oo aw say?"