that a young cratur about the age o’ my own eldest lass suld think it needful to come and offer me her bit o’ brass.’

‘I suppose you were angry with me, William?’

‘I almost was, in a way; but I forgave ye varry soon. Ye meant well. Ay, I am proud, and so are ye; but your pride and mine is t’ raight mak’—what we call i’ Yorkshire clean pride—such as Mr. Malone and Mr. Donne knows nought about. Theirs is mucky pride. Now, I shall teach my lasses to be as proud as Miss Shirley there, and my lads to be as proud as myseln; but I dare ony o’ ’em to be like t’ curates. I’d lick little Michael if I seed him show any signs o’ that feeling.’

‘What is the difference, William?’

‘Ye know t’ difference weel enow, but ye want me to get a gate o’ talking. Mr. Malone and Mr. Donne is almost too proud to do aught for theirsel’n; we are almost too proud to let anybody do aught for us. T curates can hardly bide to speak a civil word to them they think beneath them; we can hardly bide to tak’ an uncivil word fro’ them that thinks themsel’n aboon us.’

‘Now, William, be humble enough to tell me truly how you are getting on in the world? Are you well off?’

‘Miss Shirley, I am varry well off. Since I got into t’ gardening line, wi’ Mr. Yorke’s help, and since Mr. Hall (another o’ t’ raight sort) helped my wife to set up a bit of a shop, I’ve nought to complain of. My family has plenty to eat and plenty to wear; my pride makes me find means to save an odd pound now and then against rainy days; for I think I’d die afore I’d come to t’ parish. And me and mine is content; but th’ neighbours is poor yet: I see a great deal of distress.’

‘And consequently there is still discontent, I suppose?’ inquired Miss Keeldar.

‘Consequently—ye say right—consequently. In course, starving folk cannot be satisfied or settled folk. The country’s not in a safe condition—I’ll say so mich!’

‘But what can be done? What more can I do, for instance?’

‘Do?—ye can do not mich, poor young lass! Ye’ve gi’en your brass; ye’ve done well. If ye could transport your tenant, Mr. Moore, to Botany Bay, ye’d happen do better. Folks hate him.’

‘William, for shame!’ exclaimed Caroline warmly. ‘If folks do hate him, it is to their disgrace, not his. Mr. Moore himself hates nobody. He only wants to do his duty and maintain his rights. You are wrong to talk so!’

‘I talk as I think. He has a cold, unfeeling heart, yond’ Moore.’

‘But,’ interposed Shirley, ‘supposing Moore was driven from the country, and his mill razed to the ground, would people have more work?’

‘They’d have less. I know that, and they know that; and there is many an honest lad driven desperate by the certainty that whichever way he turns, he cannot better himself, and there is dishonest men plenty to guide them to the devil: scoundrels that reckons to be the “people’s friends,” and that knows nought about the people, and is as insincere as Lucifer. I’ve lived aboon forty year in the world, and I believe that “the people” will never have any true friends but theirsel’n, and them two or three good folk i’ different stations, that is friends to all the world. Human natur’, taking it i’ th’ lump, is nought but selfishness. It is but excesive few, it is but just an exception here and there, now and then, sich as ye two young uns and me, that being in a different sphere, can understand t’ one t’ other, and be friends wi’out slavishness o’ one hand, or pride o’ t’ other. Them that reckons to be friends to a lower class than their own fro’ political motives is never to be trusted: they always try to make their inferiors tools. For my own part, I