Ruth trembled, and her hand swept to and fro with the graceful motions of a circling eagle over the child's frock she was ironing. "You make me feel real mean," she said. He kept a sturdy back to her. "Then A make you feel just same gate as A feel maself." There was a pause. "You ought to marry, Joe--a man like you with all that nature in you." "Never--only if so be A can get the woman A want." She said with a gulp, "And I thart you was Ern's friend!" He looked up at the ceiling. "So A am--trying to be." There was another silence. Then the woman spoke again, this time with the hushed curiosity of a child. "Are all men like that?" "The main of em, A reck'n." Her hand swooped rhythmically; and there was the gentle accompanying thud of the iron taking the table and circling smoothly about its work. "My Ern isn't." "Your Ern's got what he wants--and what A want too." Boots brushing themselves on the mat outside made themselves heard. Then the door opened. Joe did not turn. "Coom in, Ern," he said. "Just right. Keep t' peace atween us. She and me gettin across each other as usual." CHAPTER XVIII A SKIRMISH A few days later Ernie came home immediately after work instead of repairing to the _Star_. As he entered the room Ruth saw there was something up. He was sober--terribly so. "I done it, Ruth, old lass," he said. She knew at once. "Got the sack?" she asked. He nodded. "I've no one to blame only meself," he said, disarming her, as he disarmed everyone by his Christian quality. Ruth did not reproach him: that was not her way. Nor did she sit down and cry: she had expected the catastrophe too long. She took the boy from the cradle and opened her bodice. "You shan't suffer anyways," she said, half to herself, half to the child, and stared out of the window, babe at breast, rocking gently and with tapping foot. Ern slouched out; and Ruth was left alone, to face as best she could the spectre that haunts through life the path of the immense majority of the human race. She had watched its slinking approach for years. Now with a patter of hushed feet, dreadful in the fury of its assault, it was on her. Remorseless in attack as in pursuit it was hounding her and hers slowly down a dreary slope to a lingering death, of body and spirit alike, in that hungry morass, the name of which is Unemployment. Two days later when Joe entered the cottage he found Ruth for once sitting, listless. All the children were in bed, even little Alice. He saw at once why. There was no fire, though it was January. "Where's Ern, then?" he asked. "Lookin for work," Ruth answered. Joe stared, aghast. "Is he out?" he asked. Ruth rose and turned her shoulder to him. "Yes. They've stood him off. And I don't blame em." "What for?" Joe was genuinely concerned. "He didn't say. Bad time, I reckon. Only don't tell anyone, Joe, for dear's sake, else they'll stop my credit at the shop--and I'll be done."