“’E broke ’er ’eart, ’e did, the young scoundrel,” growled Mary Ann, as she hitched the bundle of brushwood forward on to her back. “And I’m sure I ’ope he’ll break his own neck.”
“Oh, come, don’t say that,” murmured the gentler spirit reprovingly. “I dare say ’e’s lonesome enough anyways.”
“Lonesome!” sneered the incensed relative. “Much use ’e made of ’er company when ’e’d got it! Out on the roads, or what not, from night till morn and more! Didn’t ye ’ear ’im say precious little ’e cared for the women’s jaw? Precious little ’e did. Precious little ’e cared for aught about ’er, pore soul. Why, ’e was dead drunk the very day of ’er funeral!”
Mary Ann trudged forward as she spoke, hurling the words out against the wind under the penthouse of her burthen, and the sympathetic neighbour, standing behind her with her hands in her hips, shook her head sadly.
“That was bad,” she murmured, “that was bad, sure enough.”
Then she too turned to take up her load.
The potatoes were heavy; she failed to raise them on to her back at the first effort.
Just then the gate on to the railway line slammed to, and a girl coming down on to the bridge hurried forward and gave her a lift with them.
“Thank ye, thank ye,” said the woman. And when she had settled her burthen comfortably, glancing up to see who had helped her, she added again: “Oh, thank ye. Ye’re a stranger in the parish, ain’t ye?”
The girl blushed. She was pretty enough, but she was thin and pale, not to say wan, and her cotton dress was poor covering for the wintry day, and her ill-fitting black jacket and shabby straw hat betokened an even greater poverty than was usual in the village.