“Nay now, bide a bit; I want to speak to ye a minute, Jim. Lard! I’ve waited here nigh upon an hour.” “Oh, an’ did ye?” said the man called Jim, coming unwillingly back. “Aye. Ye see ’tis this way. Neighbour Cross, I haven’t touched a drap this three months, very near.” “Han’t ye? Well, I’m glad on’t. I’m teetottle myself, an’ ’tis the only way to get along, I do believe. I’m truly glad to hear ye han’t had no drunks lately, Joe. Now that ye say so I do call to mind noticin’ that ye’ve been a-walkin’ uncommon straight—aye, ’tis quite a while since you was found in a ditch, ’tis sure, and ye haven’t been run in not this year, I don’t think.” “Aye,” agreed Joseph, with modest pride. “Ye’re quite right, Jim; I haven’t been run in this year.” He paused, rubbing his hands slowly together, and eyeing the well-filled basket of “sets”. “We’re gettin’ help from the parish now,” he resumed, “else we couldn’t make out at all. My pore wife, ye see, she’s reg’lar crippled, an’ not able to do nothin’, an’ I’m not fit for much—I’m falterin’, neighbour, an’ farmers hereabouts has a bad opinion o’ me for some raison or another—I can scarcely ever get a day’s work.” “’Tis very onfart’nate for ’ee, Joe; ’tis that. But yer luck will change very like. We must ’ope it will. Well, I must be gettin’ along.” “Ye be goin’ to plant yer taters,” persisted Joseph; and stretching out his lean old hand he took hold of the basket. “Them be real fine taters, neighbour; chock-full of eyes. Lard! if I had but a few of these I’d soon plant my bit of garden.” “Haven’t ye got none this year?” inquired Jim, visibly stiffening. “Not a single one, an’ no cabbage neither. I’m terribly badly off this year—I don’t know however me an’ the poor body inside ’ll get on. Not a bit o’ green stuff, an’ not a set to put in the ground. Three-an’-six a week is every penny we have to look to, an’ ye may think it don’t go very far. Bread an’ tea, bread an’ tea, an’ not so much as a drop o’ milk to’t. My missus, she’s that cute along o’ me likin’ a drap now and then, she wouldn’t let the Union folk give it us in money—we jest hev an order for half a pound o’ tea once a week, an’ we takes out the rest in bread. Ah dear! a body has to be clever to live on it, I can tell ’ee.” He paused, leered insinuatingly in his neighbour’s face, and finally murmured, still fingering the basket: “If ye was to let me have a few of these now, neighbour, I could pay ye back i’ th’ autumn.” Jim dexterously twisted his property away from the trembling hand. “So that’s what ye’re at!” he cried. “Nay, nay, Joe; I’ve had enough o’ your payin’ back. I know what that manes. You an’ yer missus ’ud make yer dinner off ’em, if ye didn’t chop the lot for a drink straight off.”