“Ay, ay, for more reasons than one.” “Not only for the sake of Mary Kay, but because the mischief that he wanted to set right is over. It cannot be said now that our people hereabouts want bread; and so the sooner all ill-will is forgotten, the better. Hoy, oy! how does your dame get you such a wedge of cold meat as that? She must be a thriftier body than mine.” “No thrift in the world served to get me cold meat six months ago; but times have changed since; and, as my wife says, it is mortal hard work I have to do here.” “Mortal hard work,—swinging your heels, and looking at people going to the fair! Mine is as toilsome as yours, neighbour; and yet I have only a lump of hard cheese with my bread, while droves and droves of bullocks and sheep are passing within sight to the fair, making one think of mottled beef and juicy mutton. I wonder when the day will come for the working man to have his fill of meat, like him that does not work.” “Chatham will tell you the very day;—whenever this vale, and all our other vales, are portioned out for the purposes they are most fit for,— the choice parts for corn, and the meadows for pasture, and the heights for sheep-walks, and so on; instead of our insisting on growing wheat at all costs, and so preventing our having as much meat and cheese and butter and milk as we should like. If we could get our corn where we please, we should soon find other food growing more plentiful.” “And a few things besides food. I suppose the Leeds men would take off all the wool we could grow?” “Yes; and without bating an ounce of what they get already from abroad; for where we get corn, there we must carry cloth, among other things.” “And then we must get more houses run up for our new weavers. By the way, if our landlords let more land to be built upon, that would fully make up for any difference from the fields being turned back into sheep-walks.” “And with a much better chance of the rents being paid regularly for ten years together;—which is no small consideration to such men as Fergusson just now. There’s Chatham walking away without speaking to one of us. Call him; your voice is loudest. Well done! You make the very cows turn and low at us. He won’t come. How he points towards his work, as much as to tell us we ought to be going to ours! All in good time, friend Chatham. We have not been shut up for months, with our hands before us, like you.” “Nor yet been much busier than he, for that matter. ’Tis a pity this fair did not fall on our idle time. There go the folks in a train, while we are dawdling here——” “Then don’t let us dawdle. Off with you, children! We are going to lop the branches, and you may chance to get an ugly cut if you don’t keep clear of the hatchet. Come, neighbour.”