"Well," thought Lancelot, "there's a glimpse of practical sense, at least." And a pedler who sat next him, a bold, black-whiskered bully from the Potteries, hazarded a joke-- "It's all along of this new sky-and-tough-it farming. They used to spread the money broad cast, but now they drills it all in one place, like bone-dust under their fancy plants, and we poor self-sown chaps gets none." This garland of fancies was received with great applause; whereat the pedler, emboldened, proceeded to observe, mysteriously, that "donkeys took a beating, but horses kicked at it; and that they'd found out that in Staffordshire long ago. You want a good Chartist lecturer down here, my covies, to show you donkeys of laboring men that you have got iron on your heels, if you only knowed how to use it...." Blackbird was by this time prevailed on to sing, and burst out as melodious as ever, while all heads were cocked on one side in delighted attention. "I zeed a vire o' Monday night, A vire both great and high; But I wool not tell you where, my boys, Nor wool not tell you why. The varmer he comes screeching out, To zave 'uns new brood mare; Zays I, 'You and your stock may roast, Vor aught us poor chaps care.' "Coorus, boys, coorus!" And the chorus burst out-- "Then here's a curse on varmers all As rob and grind the poor; To re'p the fruit of all their works In ---- for evermoor-r-r-r. "A blind owld dame come to the vire, Zo near as she could get; Zays, 'Here's a luck I warn't asleep, To lose this blessed hett. They robs us of our turfing rights Our bits of chips and sticks, Till poor folks now can't warm their hands, Except by varmers' ricks.' "Then, etc." And again the boy's delicate voice rang out the ferocious chorus, with something, Lancelot fancied, of fiendish exultation, and every worn face lighted up with a coarse laugh, that indicated no malice--but also no mercy.... Lancelot almost ran out into the night--into a triad of fights, two drunken men, two jealous wives, and a brute who struck a poor, thin, worn-out woman, for trying to coax him home. Lancelot rushed up to interfere, but a man seized his uplifted arm. "He'll only beat her all the more when he getteth home." "She has stood that every Saturday night for the last seven years, to my knowledge," said Tregarva; "and worse, too, at times." "Good God! is there no escape for her from her tyrant?" "No, sir. It's only you gentlefolks who can afford such luxuries; your poor man may be tied to a harlot, or your poor woman to a ruffian, but once done, done for ever." "Well," thought Lancelot, "we English have a characteristic way of proving the holiness of the marriage tie. The angel of Justice and Pity cannot sever it, only the stronger demon of Money." Alton Locke BY CHARLES KINGSLEY (See page 78)